Crabbe felt he had never been so humiliated in his life.
After returning to his desk, his face was so dark and thunderous that it looked as though ink could be wrung from it.
Goyle cautiously sat back down beside him. After hesitating for ages, he finally couldn't help saying, "Actually... the ice cream reviews in that notebook were pretty interesting. Last time I went to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, I ordered the chocolate and nut one too. It really was good..."
"Shut up!" Crabbe slammed a hand on the desk, making the ink bottle jump.
Goyle immediately shut his mouth and hunched into his chair, ducking his head.
Crabbe panted, his chest heaving.
Only one thought filled his mind now.
How to get even.
That kid had humiliated him in front of the entire office. If he didn't avenge this, how was he, Bodo Crabbe, supposed to show his face in the Auror Office again?
But the question was, how?
Attack him?
No.
That kid had taken down three Death Eaters single-handedly just yesterday. His combat ability spoke for itself. Crabbe didn't think he stood the slightest chance in a head-on fight.
Trip him up behind the scenes?
That didn't seem workable either.
Scrimgeour was clearly protecting that kid now. If the head caught him out, he would be the one in serious trouble.
"Fuck..." The more Crabbe thought about it, the more frustrated he became, clenching his fists until his knuckles cracked.
He felt as though he had swallowed a toad that he could neither spit out nor swallow down. It was stuck in his throat, making him sick.
Just then, Goyle leaned over again and cautiously offered, "How about... we find a way to ambush him on his way home after work? We could put our hoods up, and he wouldn't know who we were..."
Crabbe whipped his head around and stared at Goyle as though he were an idiot.
"Are you stupid? He's Crouch's golden boy now. He just caught three Death Eaters, and the whole Ministry of Magic is watching him. You want to ambush him now? Have you got tired of being an Auror and decided to try life in Azkaban?"
Goyle seriously considered the possibility, then shuddered. "Forget it, then. I hear the food in Azkaban is awful."
"..."
Crabbe took a deep breath and decided not to discuss anything requiring intelligence with Goyle again.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, turning the matter over and over in his mind.
If he couldn't do it openly or secretly, what else could he do?
He needed an opportunity.
An opportunity to humiliate that kid without leaving anything that could be traced back to him.
Meanwhile, Lin Ze was sitting at his desk with his legs crossed, reading today's Daily Prophet.
The front-page headline was still about the Dark Lord.
This had practically become a tradition, as though the Daily Prophet's front page didn't meet standards unless it carried a headline related to the Dark Lord.
But Lin Ze's gaze didn't linger on the front page.
He turned to page eight.
It was an inconspicuous little corner, usually used for unimportant classified advertisements and obituary notices.
But Lin Ze had discovered that, in an age when everyone feared for their own safety, the more inconspicuous a corner was, the more likely it was to hide the information he needed.
And today, a bold lost-property notice in the bottom-right corner of page eight caught Lin Ze's attention.
[Reward for lost property: I lost a black leather suitcase near Diagon Alley containing important documents. Anyone who finds it should contact the office of Barty Crouch at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Reward: fifty Galleons.]
Lin Ze's eyebrows rose slightly.
Fifty Galleons.
Just to find a suitcase?
His current weekly pay was only twelve Galleons. Fifty Galleons was nearly a month's wages.
He put down the newspaper and tapped his fingers lightly on the desk.
Fifty Galleons was neither a huge sum nor a small one.
Was he short of money?
Of course he was.
Even after his pay rise next month, his weekly wage would only be twelve Galleons. After everyday expenses, he could count the Galleons he saved each month on one hand.
If he could pick up those fifty Galleons, at least he wouldn't have to scrape by for the next few months.
More importantly, if he could use this opportunity to farm some favor with Crouch, its value would be far beyond a mere fifty Galleons.
Although Crouch would later lose his chance to compete for the position of Minister because of his son during the reckoning with the Death Eaters, that didn't change the fact that he was currently at the height of his power.
Lin Ze tapped his fingers on the desk, already making plans.
The lost-property notice said near Diagon Alley, but Diagon Alley covered a considerable area.
Diagon Alley itself twisted and turned. Add the neighboring Knockturn Alley and all the winding little lanes around them, and finding a suitcase would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
But Lin Ze wasn't in a hurry. He had plenty of time to search slowly.
His daily work was patrolling anyway. No one could find fault with him for adjusting his patrol route a little.
That afternoon, under the pretext of "stepping up patrols in key areas," Lin Ze walked the entire length of Diagon Alley four or five times.
He found nothing.
"Fair enough. If it were that easy to find, there wouldn't be a fifty-Galleon reward." Undiscouraged, Lin Ze went to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour to buy a strawberry ice cream and continued wandering as he ate.
For the next three days, Lin Ze searched Diagon Alley every day.
He even began trying some less conventional search methods.
For instance, he used the Summoning Charm, calling "black leather suitcase" into thin air. What came flying over would often be a battered leather shoe, half a moldy Pumpkin Pasty, or a sleeping garden gnome.
It was worth mentioning that when the spell forcibly dragged that gnome into Lin Ze's hands, it stared at him with eyes as big as light bulbs, wearing an expression that said, What the fuck is wrong with you?
Lin Ze silently put the gnome back on the ground and gave it a biscuit as compensation for its emotional distress.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Lin Ze's persistence finally brought a breakthrough.
He was crouching in the back alley behind Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, examining a pile of discarded packing boxes.
He had already checked this alley twice, so by rights, he was unlikely to find anything. But he kept feeling that back alleys were just the sort of place where things could easily be hidden. Another search couldn't hurt.
As it turned out, his intuition was right.
Among a pile of moldy cardboard boxes and several empty wine bottles, Lin Ze found a black suitcase covered by half a torn tarpaulin.
The suitcase was small and made of leather, its surface coated in dust and mud spatters. Its corners were worn pale, and it had clearly been left here for some time.
"Finally found it." Lin Ze picked up the suitcase and hefted it.
It wasn't particularly heavy, but there was indeed something inside. When he shook it, he could hear papers rustling.
He brushed the dust off the suitcase and was about to open it to see what was inside when he suddenly stopped.
No.
Something wasn't quite right about this suitcase being here.
The tarpaulin covering it looked a little too deliberate.
Lin Ze narrowed his eyes, set the suitcase on the ground, took a step back, and drew his wand.
He gently touched the tip of his wand to the suitcase's clasp.
There was no magical reaction.
He cast another detection spell. A wisp of pale blue smoke emerged from his wand tip, circled the suitcase, then dissipated.
There were no traces of Dark Magic.
At least on the surface, it looked clean.
Only then did Lin Ze breathe a sigh of relief, crouch down, and open the suitcase.