Lin Ze leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers lightly on the desk as his gaze swept over every face.
Ben held up both hands, looking aggrieved.
Kingsley folded his arms, his brows slightly furrowed.
Amelia leafed through the case files without expression.
Everett pushed up his glasses, his Adam's apple bobbing.
Reed... well, Reed was staring at Lin Ze, but that gaze was a little more than Lin Ze could take...
"Actually, I don't think the problem necessarily lies among us. Everyone assigned here underwent a thorough background check before joining," Lin Ze said suddenly.
Everyone turned to look at him.
"Perhaps... someone let something slip in the break room, or had too much to drink at the Leaky Cauldron and started boasting..."
As he spoke, Everett suddenly shrank back a little.
The reaction immediately caught Lin Ze's attention.
"Banks, you seem to have something to say?" Rather than questioning him sternly, Lin Ze sounded as though he were making small talk.
"I... I only mentioned it to my wife at home last night..." Everett's face flushed crimson.
"She works at the Floo Network Management Office in the Department of Magical Transportation, but... but all I told her was that we'd been investigating someone important lately..."
Silence filled the office.
Then Ben slammed his hand on the desk. "Banks, you fucking-"
"Actually, I regretted it as soon as I said it, and my wife promised afterward that she wouldn't tell anyone!"
"This is a crucial time in our crackdown on the Death Eaters. How could you..."
Everett opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Kingsley stood, walked over to Everett, and looked down at him. "We'll know whether your wife leaked it once we look into it."
He turned to Lin Ze. "I'll go to the Floo Network Management Office."
"All right." Lin Ze nodded.
Kingsley strode out of the office.
The door closed behind him.
The office fell silent again.
Everett lowered his head, clutching his knees so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
Time ticked by, and no one in the office made another sound.
Then, after roughly half an hour away, Kingsley pushed open the door and returned.
Everyone turned toward the doorway.
"I went to speak with Mrs. Banks." Kingsley got straight to the point as he entered, knowing they must be anxious by now.
"Judging by her reaction, she clearly had nothing to do with this. Besides, even if she had leaked it, she would only have had last night to do so, and she was with Everett the whole time."
"So there's very little chance she leaked it, unless..." Kingsley's eyes drifted instinctively toward Everett.
Unless Everett had said that deliberately, and the couple had put on an act together.
But no one present had any evidence, so they ruled Everett out for the time being.
"Then who could it be?"
Ben scratched his head, his features scrunching together in confusion.
"Director Scrimgeour and Mr. Crouch couldn't have told anyone, and the rest of us have been cleared. Surely the Minister himself couldn't..."
"Has a Doxy bitten your brain?" Amelia cut him off coldly.
Ben ducked his head and fell silent.
Lin Ze leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers lightly on the desk.
His gaze swept over every face in the office before settling on the newly repaired magical chandelier in the corner.
Yesterday, it had still been flickering on and off. Today, its light was quite steady.
"The House-elf. The Ministry's House-elf," Lin Ze said suddenly.
Everyone in the office turned toward him.
"Yesterday afternoon, while we were discussing the case, a House-elf came in to clean and fixed that light while he was here." Lin Ze pointed at the ceiling.
"What were we discussing then?"
Kingsley frowned, quickly recalling. "We were discussing the flow of Malfoy's funds, and Parkinson's alterations to the trial records."
"In other words, that House-elf overheard our conversation." Lin Ze's fingers stopped on the desk.
Ben slammed his fist onto the desk. "How did I not think of that!"
"You were too busy boasting," Amelia said.
Ben opened his mouth, but at the sight of Amelia's cool gaze, he wisely shut it again.
"If that House-elf really did pass the information on, things are even more troublesome."
Kingsley leaned against the desk, his arms folded in thought.
"There are at least a hundred House-elves in the Ministry. They move between departments every day, cleaning, delivering documents, and serving tea and water. No one pays attention to them, and no one guards against them."
"Even if we find that House-elf, we won't be able to determine who's behind him," Amelia added.
"House-elves are absolutely loyal to their masters. They won't betray them. Besides, if his master is a wizard of Malfoy's standing, we won't even have the authority to question the House-elf."
Lin Ze drew a circle in his notebook and wrote "House-elf" inside it, then drew several lines from the circle to "Malfoy," "Parkinson," and several other names.
"Let's set that question aside for now." He closed the notebook.
"We can't pursue the House-elf lead any further for now, but we still have other avenues to investigate. Those altered records Parkinson left behind are solid evidence. Let's do what we can first and take our time with the rest."
Kingsley nodded and returned to his seat.
Just then, the office door was suddenly pushed open.
It struck the wall with a loud bang, startling everyone.
A solidly built man stood in the doorway.
He wore dark brown Auror robes, their hem flecked with mud and their cuffs frayed. He looked as though he had just crawled out of some mass grave.
His hair was cropped extremely short, and his face had hard lines and a great many scars.
Most striking of all was his left eye.
It was a magical eye, its vivid blue eyeball spinning wildly in its socket, now looking left, now sweeping right, now rolling backward.
"Ha!" he said gruffly, his magical eye sweeping rapidly around the room.
"Good. Six people, not one missing, all still alive. Very good."
Ben instinctively shrank back, somewhat afraid of the man before him.
"M-Moody?"
Alastor Moody.
A legend of the Auror Office, and the Death Eaters' nightmare.
He was someone every Death Eater wanted gone for good, while among Aurors, he was a living legend.
Of course, he also had a more widely known nickname-"Mad-Eye."
One only had to look at his wildly swiveling magical eye and hear his mad way of speaking to understand where that nickname came from.
Lin Ze, however, was not surprised by Moody's arrival.
According to what Scrimgeour had said earlier, the Special Operations Team had seven members in total, and Lin Ze himself was its deputy leader. That meant this last member, who had yet to appear, had to be the person in overall charge.
Across the entire Ministry of Magic, aside from the late Dorcas Meadowes, the only person capable of filling that position was Moody, who stood before him.
"Alastor, you're three whole days late." Amelia seemed quite familiar with Moody.
"Had work to do. A lead to follow." Moody strode into the office, pulling the door closed behind him.
At this point, he did not yet have a prosthetic leg. Both his legs were intact.
"A Death Eater remnant was fencing stolen goods in Knockturn Alley. I staked the place out for five days and finally caught him."
"And after you caught him?" Lin Ze asked.
"Azkaban, of course." Moody grinned, revealing two rows of rather uneven teeth.
"Just sent him in this morning. The bastard was still mouthing off at me on the way, saying his master would return sooner or later. Hmph! Ridiculous!"
He walked over to the empty desk beside Kingsley, pulled out the chair, and sat down.
The chair gave a piercing creak.
"Scrimgeour told me to lead this team." Moody propped his legs on the desk, a dead leaf from who knew where still stuck to his boot.
"But I hear you got off to a winning start and put that idiot Crabbe away on your very first day. Well done."