Bagnold rapped her knuckles on the desk.
"All right, that settles France. Lin Ze, go back and get ready. You leave tomorrow."
"Yes, Minister."
Lin Ze nodded in agreement.
"One more thing." Bagnold's tone suddenly grew grave. She took a document bearing a red stamp from her drawer and set it on the desk.
"The Wizengamot forwarded an appeal this morning."
"An appeal?" Moody's magical eye spun toward her.
"Someone's appealing already? Rookwood only just got locked up. Who?"
"It's not Rookwood's." Bagnold pushed the document toward Moody.
"It's Bodo Crabbe's."
Ben was the first to leap up. "Crabbe? He framed a colleague, colluded with Death Eaters, and leaked Auror Office operations. Any one of those would be enough to keep him in Azkaban until his hair turned white. Who filed an appeal for him?"
"The Wizengamot members approved it by a majority vote."
Bagnold leaned back in her chair. "The appeal states that the Special Operations Team failed to produce an official arrest warrant or inform Crabbe of his legal rights when arresting him, constituting a breach of law enforcement procedure."
"Bullshit!"
Moody slammed his palm onto the desk, making the lid of Bagnold's teacup rattle.
"Moody, calm down." Bagnold raised a hand in a calming gesture.
"I know you had conclusive evidence when you caught Crabbe, but you did arrest him without a warrant. They've seized on a procedural flaw."
Lin Ze leaned back in his chair, his expression largely unchanged.
"Minister, I admit there was indeed a procedural flaw concerning Crabbe's arrest warrant."
He paused, then changed tack. "But I'm rather curious. Which Wizengamot members voted in favor of the appeal?"
Bagnold glanced at him, took another document from her drawer, and slid it across the desk.
"See for yourself."
Lin Ze took the document, opened it, and scanned it.
He recognized the first name on the list.
Lucius Malfoy.
The remaining names were familiar too, all members of old pure-blood families who had previously maintained close ties with Malfoy.
"So it was him." Lin Ze closed the document, sounding as though he were commenting that the canteen's mashed potatoes were too salty again.
"Amelia put the little bastard in his place at yesterday's meeting, and he went straight home and started playing games."
Ben could no longer sit still. "Minister, we uncovered solid evidence against Crabbe. Surely we can't let him go just because of an appeal?"
"Who said I was releasing him?" Bagnold raised her eyebrows.
"An appeal is an appeal, and a trial is a trial. They're two separate matters. The Wizengamot approving the appeal only means they'll review the arrest procedure. It doesn't mean the charges against Crabbe are invalid."
"But what if they refuse to let the procedural issue go..." Ben still looked worried.
"Then they'll have to get past me first." Bagnold's tone turned cold.
"The evidence that Crabbe colluded with Death Eaters is conclusive. Anyone hoping to overturn his case over procedure had better consider whether their own hands are clean first."
Lin Ze couldn't help giving Bagnold another look.
The new Minister's approach was tougher than he had imagined.
"All right, you needn't worry too much about this. I'll have the Department of Magical Law Enforcement fill in the date on the arrest warrant. The procedural flaw will soon be remedied. However..."
Bagnold swept her gaze around the office. "You'll have to be more careful in the future. Don't give anyone another little handle like this. There are plenty of people just waiting for you to make a mistake."
"Understood." Lin Ze nodded.
Moody gave a snort beside him.
After they left the Minister's Office, Ben kept cursing Malfoy without pause.
Lin Ze didn't join this scholarly discussion of Malfoy's entire family.
He returned to the office converted from a storage room, opened a drawer in his uneven-legged desk, and dug out a kraft-paper envelope.
Inside were the records of Malfoy's private vault that Grot had delivered last time, a thick stack that weighed heavily in his hand.
The goblins had no authority to look into the Malfoy family's vault, but Grot could still offer some help with a vault opened under an individual's name.
He spread the records across his desk and began going through them page by page.
Malfoy's finances looked utterly flawless.
Every source of income was traceable, and every expenditure had a legitimate purpose.
Expansion funds for St. Mungo's, renovation funds for the Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch, the Ministry of Magic's Floo Powder maintenance fund...
Together, these donations amounted to well over a hundred thousand Galleons at the very least. Every payment had a receipt, and every receipt bore an official seal.
"Too clean," Lin Ze murmured to himself.
Kingsley came over and glanced at the documents from behind him. "Something wrong?"
"The problem is that it's too clean."
Lin Ze tapped the thick stack of financial records on the desk.
"All of Malfoy's expenditures are too scrupulously documented. Every donation has a receipt, every receipt has an official seal, and even the cost of the bricks for the St. Mungo's expansion is clearly itemized. It's practically a report card prepared specifically for other people to see."
Kingsley frowned. "You mean he prepared all this in advance?"
"Not in advance. He's been preparing all along." Lin Ze turned to a page and pointed at an expenditure of five thousand Galleons.
"Look at this one. A donation last March to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes' Accident Victims Relief Fund. A receipt, an official seal, even thank-you letters from the beneficiaries attached at the back. And the date... March seventeenth last year."
Kingsley's gaze flickered. "The Death Eaters attacked a secret Ministry archive in Manchester in the middle of last March."
"Exactly." Lin Ze closed the folder.
"Two days before the attack, Malfoy just happened to donate some money to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. The day after the attack, he made another donation to the Auror Office's Bereaved Families Compensation Fund. Every time the Death Eaters cause trouble, he starts throwing money around, as though he's afraid people won't know he's doing good deeds."
Kingsley was silent for a moment. "But that can't serve as evidence."
"Of course it can't."
Lin Ze leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head. "Doing good deeds isn't a crime, and neither is coincidental timing. But the question is, why does he need to be so deliberate about doing good deeds?"
"Because he has a guilty conscience." Amelia's voice came from the doorway.
She had just returned from outside, a newly arrived document in her hand and raindrops still clinging to her coat. She walked over to Lin Ze's desk and set the document down.
"I've just come back from the Wizengamot archives. I obtained records of the trials Malfoy attended as an observer over the past ten years."
Lin Ze picked up the document and leafed through it, then gave a meaningful smile.
"He really is a public-spirited citizen. He observed forty-three trials in ten years, thirty-two of them involving suspected Death Eaters."
"Thirty-two?" Kingsley took the document and quickly scanned it. "And the verdicts in these thirty-eight trials were remarkably consistent. Either they were released in court for lack of evidence, or they were convicted but given conspicuously lenient sentences."
"Because the presiding judges were either old friends of his or owed him favors." Amelia sat down nearby and tapped several names that appeared repeatedly in the document.
"All three now hold senior positions in the Wizengamot, and all three voted to support Crabbe's appeal."
"Hiss..."
Lin Ze stared at the names. They were indeed all prominent figures in the Wizengamot.
This Malfoy, with his immense influence and extensive connections, truly was... terrifying indeed...