Barty Crouch Sr. was dead.

The man who had once gotten respect and fear throughout the wizarding world now lay motionless upon the cold ground of Little Hangleton’s graveyard.

His career, first as the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures then the Department of International Magical Cooperation had earned him recognition that might very well have propelled him to the highest office in magical Britain as the Minister of Magic.

But now, all those ambitions, all that accumulated power and influence, lay as lifeless as the man himself upon the damp, moss-covered ground between the headstones.

The critical wound across his throat had stopped its blood flow—every drop of his life’s blood had already seeped into the hungry ground beneath him. Yet somehow, impossibly, a faint trace of consciousness still flickered behind his glassy, eyes like the last embers in a dying hearth filled with guilt and regret, but that too quickly faded. His life, his half-ruined existence, had completely vanished from this world.

Even Voldemort’s Death Eaters could not remain unmoved by such a man’s departure from the mortal realm. They stood around him, watching Barty Crouch’s now-still form, their silence seeming like a moment of mourning.

Bang!

Barty Crouch Jr. also collapsed to the ground beside his father’s corpse.

The wild madness that had burned in his eyes had receded somewhat. But the hatred—oh, the hatred had not disappeared. If anything, it had grown thicker, more concentrated, like poison distilled to its most lethal essence.

“Cowardly man,” He gasped, his voice raw and broken. “How dare you… how…”

Barty Jr.’s chest heaved as he struggled to draw breath into lungs.

“How dare you die like this? You don’t deserve such an easy death! You… I’ll kill you! Thirteen years… thirteen long years you kept me locked away like some animal, and you… you were the tyrant who destroyed everything I ever loved, everything I ever believed in! How…”

“Nagini!”

Voldemort’s harsh command rang out, and the coiled Nagini immediately slithered forward. She circled around the father and son, then stopped before Barty Jr. Harry was certain he could see cruelty and malice in the snake’s vertical pupils.

What Nagini intended to do was obvious. A flicker of hesitation crossed Barty Jr.’s pale face, and this hesitation made Nagini’s slit-like pupils contract, her serpentine eyes gleaming with dangerous light.

“Eat him!”

But in an instant, as if some internal switch had been thrown, Barty Jr.’s frenzied energy returned in full force and he spat.

“That’s all he deserves!”

Nagini flicked her tongue, coiling her serpentine body. She twisted around, her fearsome maw engulfing Barty Crouch Sr.’s head, neck, and upper torso.

Crack, crack—it was perhaps the sound of ribs being crushed.

Barty Crouch Jr. scrambled up from the ground, crawling and rolling to prostrate himself at Voldemort’s feet. He knew with the intuition of someone who had spent years learning to read his master’s moods that he had made another mistake. The knowledge filled him with terror that seemed to hollow out his very bones, leaving him nothing but a shell of skin and trembling nerves.

“Master…”

“Crucio!”

Voldemort raised his wand without the slightest hesitation.

Barty Crouch Jr. immediately screamed, writhing and rolling at Voldemort’s feet. Harry didn’t understand, but he felt no sympathy for him—in fact, his heart swelled with an inexplicable satisfaction. To let such a person remain alive in this world was the greatest insult to the word “human.”

Harry thought this sincerely. Then he heard a sound of suppressed sobbing—it was Winky! She covered her ears, her thin body was tense. She dared neither listen nor watch what was happening behind her, though she understood everything clearly.

How cruel!

Harry seemed to rediscover his emotions, and his heart was overflowing with sorrow.

Harry knew very well how much Winky loved her master. Back in the school kitchens, she couldn’t bear to hear them speak a single bad word about Barty Crouch Sr., even though she had been cast out by him.

And now, Barty Crouch Sr. had committed suicide before her eyes, while her young master felt no remorse—instead, he regretted not being able to kill his father with his own hands. Her young master was now suffering torture, and a humble house-elf could do nothing.

“I am truly disappointed, Barty—”

Voldemort seemed to have vented enough anger. He stopped torturing his loyal follower, merely looking coldly at Barty Jr., who had once again pressed his face into the dirt. He gave no thought to how this Death Eater had endured thirteen years of imprisonment for him, cared for him devotedly, and sacrificed an arm for his resurrection.

“I built you a stage, invited an audience for you, and how do you repay me? With such a pathetic performance…”

Barty Jr. responded to this criticism by pressing his face even deeper into the earth, his entire body prostrating itself in desperate submission. His voice, when he managed to speak, was muffled by dirt and broken by sobs.

“Master, please, I beg your forgiveness… I will do better, I swear it on my magic, on my very soul…”

‘So worthless!’ Harry thought, his heart burning with indignation, Winky’s pure devotion was rewarded with heartbreak, all so that this sniveling, broken creature could grovel in the dirt before a monster.

It wasn’t worth it, none of it was worth it.

He looked toward Winky, but was surprised to discover that Winky was looking at him with tear-filled eyes!

In that instant of eye contact, Harry understood what Winky intended to do—she was going to save him, rescue him from under the Dark Lord’s very nose!

Warmth flowed through his cold heart, but after a brief hesitation, Harry glared at Winky.

“I have no face to live on, Winky!”

Harry knew very well who was responsible for all the deaths tonight.

He had to atone for this! The debt of blood and suffering had to be paid, and who else could pay it but the one who had incurred it?

But Harry’s glare didn’t frighten Winky. Full of grief and fear, she prostrated herself on the ground, carefully crawling toward Harry.

This was the last task Late Master Barty had given Winky. She had to complete it, had to honor his final wish even if it cost her everything she had left to give. There would be only one chance for success; once the Dark Lord discovered her intentions, her magic would be useless against his power, and any hope of rescue would die with her.

She had to protect Harry Potter! The thought burned in her mind like a sacred flame, giving her strength she didn’t know she possessed.

For her master, whose final act had been one of redemption rather than despair. For the wizarding world, which would surely fall to darkness without its prophesied savior. Only the Boy Who Lived possessed the power to defeat the Dark Lord—he was the destined nemesis.

Perhaps no one in that cursed graveyard would ever imagine that at this darkest moment in wizarding history, when the most dangerous Dark wizard in Modern magical history had returned to terrorize magical Britain, the one attempting to save their people’s bleak future would be a house-elf.

A creature who had always been considered humble as dust, invisible as air, worthy of nothing more than enslavement and scorn.

But here she was, crawling across the broken ground toward almost certain death, driven by a love purer and more selfless than anything the humans around her had ever displayed.

Harry’s eyes that had seen far too much for one so young today, even showed pleading now. He didn’t want Winky to approach, didn’t want her to risk herself for his sake. Too many had died because of him tonight—he couldn’t bear the thought of adding an innocent elf’s life to that terrible count.

Meanwhile, several yards away, Barty Jr. was slowly, painfully moving himself from the dirt. His master’s torture had achieved its intended effect—the lesson had been learned, the hierarchy was reestablished, and the price of failure was made abundantly clear.

Voldemort, with calculating pragmatism, had ultimately decided to forgive his servant.

After all, he had returned to the world of the living with ambitions that stretched far beyond this small graveyard in Little Hangleton. His goal was the conquest of everything including death itself and such grand designs required loyal followers who understood both the rewards of service and the consequences of failure.

But his power was still rebuilding itself after thirteen years of near-obliteration. Experienced and Loyal Death Eaters like Barty Jr., despite their flaws and occasional lapses in judgment, were still precious resources, valuable examples of the kind of absolute devotion he demanded from his followers.

So, tonight’s main event was about to begin.

Voldemort slowly turned around, looking toward Harry Potter’s direction, but then—

BOOM!

A sudden thunderous roar and tremor left everyone in the graveyard bewildered. Even Winky stopped her movements due to this unexpected change, instinctively looking toward the source of the sound.

In the gloomy cemetery, a verdant torrent shot up from the ground, shattering the dark clouds and letting thin sunlight pour down upon the earth.

The vigorous breath of life diluted the aura of death that permeated the graveyard. In that brilliant and soul-soothing radiance, a gray, old altar rose from the ground, floating in mid-air.

Voldemort’s red vertical pupils suddenly contracted to their limit, his face paler than a skull filled with fury, his slit-like nostrils were flaring.

The Death Eaters stared in shock at the altar floating in mid-air, both awed by that ocean-like magnificent power and utterly confused about what was happening.

“Another act of defiance against Voldemort’s orders?”

Voldemort said coldly.

Suddenly, the ancient aura emanating from the altar swept forth like a verdant tide. The earth and trees touched by its edge immediately burgeoned with incomparable vitality—withered grass seeds in the dust and scorched spruce trees sprouted new growth.

The Death Eaters stirred uneasily, unanimously moving closer to Voldemort. The altar flickering with ancient runes was deeply unsettling—if it came for them, only the Dark Lord could protect them.

Under Voldemort’s grim gaze, the glowing altar suddenly projected several verdant beams of light toward the earth, beams that enveloped several people. Gabrielle, Hermione, Ron, Karkaroff… and Harry!

In silence, the magical ropes binding Harry, conjured by Barty Jr., dissolved. Like those who had already died, Harry began to float slowly from the ground, his form gradually becoming translucent!

At this moment, Voldemort’s expression was not anger but fury!

“Never learning your lesson! Planning another little trick? But you don’t understand Voldemort’s power!”

Voldemort roared. He suddenly raised his wand, his gaunt form shedding human shape in a burst of ghostly light, transforming into black mist. Within the rolling black mist, only two floating points of crimson flickered.

CRACK!

As the black mist expanded, fierce lightning descended from the darkened clouds, surging toward the altar with the rolling black fog!

The magic of death rapidly corroded the green light. The air suddenly became viscous, and the figures that had been gradually entering the void were forced back out again.

ROAR!

A shriek echoed from within the black mist. The malicious red light blazed intensely, and the black fog covering the entire graveyard formed a tornado that tightly wrapped around the departing altar. Continuous lightning scattered the altar’s green light and relentlessly bombarded the altar itself.

After struggling left and right for some time, seeming to finally realize it could not escape, the altar completely ceased struggling. Its verdant light faded, and with a thunderous crash, it slammed into the ground and fell silent!

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