Hearing Snape speak of his opinion of Vizet Lovegood, Barty Crouch Jr. could not help feeling surprised.
Previously, he had been ordered to have Snape present himself before the Dark Lord, which counted as his first formal meeting with Snape, and he had even experienced Snape's true strength firsthand.
Combined with what he had learned about Snape from other Death Eaters more than a decade ago, as well as the information he had obtained from interrogating Igor Karkaroff, he now understood Snape even better.
It was precisely because he understood him that he truly had not expected Snape to give Vizet Lovegood such a high evaluation.
Aside from his surprise, several traces of indignation welled up in his heart.
To him, Snape elevating a treacherous, shortsighted person like Vizet Lovegood to such a degree was simply contempt for the Dark Lord.
The Dark Lord was the truly brilliant, resourceful, decisive great Wizard, yet Snape actually dared to use all sorts of complimentary terms to describe Vizet in front of the Dark Lord. It was practically an offense!
Barty Crouch Jr.'s father was a director at the Ministry of Magic. He had seen plenty of similar things—putting someone with no real ability out in front while the truly capable person operated from behind the scenes.
In his view, Vizet Lovegood was playing exactly that role, nothing more than a puppet Dumbledore had placed on the stage, while the one truly operating from the rear was that equally cunning and shortsighted Dumbledore.
That was precisely why the overwhelming reports about Vizet Lovegood some time ago had died down in such a short period.
"Master, everything I can think of..." Snape said in a hoarse voice, "has already been said."
If this were after the start of term, every time he said something