After the second task ended, Hogwarts temporarily entered a quiet period.
There was no holiday like Christmas, nor anything else. Overall, it seemed they had returned to a normal school year.
The students threw themselves back into their studies.
The Triwizard Tournament was the Triwizard Tournament; exams were exams.
Did they think having a competition meant they did not have to take exams?
How naive...
Soon afterward, news somewhat related to the Triwizard Tournament reached Hogwarts and sparked a round of discussion.
"Barty Crouch has gone missing?"
Hermione looked at the report in the Daily Prophet as she spoke.
"How could that be? He's a big shot at the Ministry of Magic, right? I heard he's on the same level as Fudge."
Ron was also rather shocked.
"Other than the fact that no one knows why he kept targeting Xu Yue and giving him low scores, he should actually be a decent person, shouldn't he?"
Harry was puzzled as well. Barty Crouch had shown him goodwill several times, and his scores for Harry had always been high.
If not for the fact that the man kept targeting his friend and giving Xu Yue low scores, Harry would have had a fairly good impression of him.
Still, no matter what, he was someone they had barely interacted with. They discussed it, but no one truly cared.
It was more just a topic of idle conversation.
That was until one night, when Harry opened the Marauder's Map and saw Crouch's name appear on it. Then he abruptly woke up.
That missing man had appeared at Hogwarts?
And the location where he had appeared was...
Snape's office?
He seemed to be constantly pacing around, as though searching for something.
There was a conspiracy!
Even though he had already participated in the Triwizard Tournament,