Bill Weasley felt like a third-rate actor who had just fought a vicious battle in the mud, only to have to change straight into formal wear for a royal ball.
He had just personally "tutored" that self-important Death Eater, Barty Crouch Jr., in the Demon-Suppression Tower, in a manner that bordered on humiliating.
When he had been forced to strike that soul-shaking pose and recite the "Hogwarts Young Wizards' Glorious Declaration" with more heartfelt feeling than he had ever put into his voice before, he had already cursed Douglas Holmes a thousand times in his mind.
He swore that when Douglas returned from Germany, he would replace every drop of the elf fruit wine in his prized collection with bogey-flavoured Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.
"All right. Time to wrap things up."
Standing in the shadows outside the Demon-Suppression Tower, Bill spoke to himself.
He drew a deep breath of cold night air, forcing himself to temporarily seal away that humiliating memory.
He took stock of the spoils he had looted from Barty Crouch Jr.: an exquisitely carved wooden box, a clumsy artificial leg, and a magical eye that was no longer spinning wildly.
"What a haul."
He gave a self-mocking smile.
First, he carefully opened the wooden box. An ancient, elegant diadem lay quietly inside, giving off faint yet utterly evil fluctuations of magic.
Ravenclaw's Diadem, one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
"That bastard Douglas always manages to find the most troublesome jobs."
Muttering under his breath, he took another small box from inside his robes, this one made of anti-magic stone.
Douglas had solemnly entrusted it to him before the plan began, specifically to isolate the Horcrux's damned evil magic, which could silently influence people's minds.
He quickly transferred the diadem into the stone box. The instant he closed the