"Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Wizengamot trial archives, time: 1981… uh, just to be safe, include 1982 as well. Presiding official: Barty Crouch. Priority search keywords: Death Eaters, Ludo Bagman…"
The pitch-black room was silent, with only the occasional streaks of magical fluorescence illuminating bits of the interior, allowing one to vaguely make out the dark silhouettes of enormous bookshelves standing row after row, each shelf crammed almost to bursting with file folders.
And among those densely packed bookshelves, there actually stood a shadowy figure cloaked in black. The magical glow faintly lit the chin exposed to the air, while everything else was hidden tightly beneath a robe. His hands moved rapidly, as though carrying out some precise operation, while he continuously muttered keywords under his breath, looking like a hacker who had physically broken into a server room and was now professionally cracking computer data…
In reality, though, all those actions were just Avada adding dramatic flair for himself.
He simply thought it looked cool.
There was no computer in front of him where he could directly search keywords. What lay before him instead was a mountain of paperwork that had to be flipped through page by page.
That was right.
He had directly infiltrated the Ministry of Magic archives.
More precisely, the archives of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
A day earlier, after Miranda Goshawk had told him that Bagman and Crouch had a history between them, he had hesitated for a while over which people might know the inside details and who he should ask about it…
But after turning it over in his head for half a day, he realized he could simply stroll straight into the archives and look up the records himself as if entering his own home.
After all, Leach University, having taken in two former Ministers for Magic, possessed a detailed map of the Ministry. With a little checking, he could locate the archives, then directly use the Near-yet-Far Spell to slip inside. And as for the surrounding detection and alarm magic, it was basically meaningless against him…
'Still, the Ministry guards its records way too loosely.'
As he rapidly searched through the files in front of him with the Hand of Glory, he silently complained to himself.
'A place as important as the archives doesn't even have a single guard… I'm starting to understand how Voldemort managed to infiltrate the Department of Mysteries so easily back then.'
"Trial records of Death Eaters after the end of the First Wizarding War… ha, it was in 1982 after all. Good thing I played it safe."
"Let me see… Lucius, Bellatrix, Barty Jr., Yaxley, Avery… found it, Ludo Bagman's trial records!"
"The presiding official was Barty Crouch, and the charge was… suspected collusion with Death Eaters, providing intelligence to Death Eaters. The specific Death Eater involved was named… Augustus Rookwood."
"Testimony and evidence… according to Bagman's own statement, he did not know Rookwood was a Death Eater. In fact, Rookwood was a friend of Bagman's father. He persuaded Bagman to give him some information, and in return he would help Bagman secure a job at the Ministry…"
"During the trial, Barty Crouch tried his hardest to convict Bagman and send him to Azkaban, but failed because the evidence was far too insufficient, and many witches and wizards on the jury strongly protested… at the time, he had probably already gone blood-red with killing intent, wanting to throw anyone who appeared in the dock into Azkaban the moment he saw them…"
"In the end, the charges against Ludo Bagman were dropped."
"In fact, one of the reasons those charges were dropped was that he was a very famous Quidditch player at the time. During the trial, one witch on the jury even stood up and congratulated Bagman on his excellent performance in a recent match… ridiculous."
Avada rubbed his forehead, gaining an even deeper understanding of just how chaotic the post-war trials had been back then, then continued reading through the files.
"At first glance, this looks like a roughly normal trial. Ludo Bagman might have held some resentment toward Crouch over it, but not enough for it to lead to murder… is there any other useful information here?"
"Right! The Death Eater involved, Augustus Rookwood… if this murder case is still part of an extremist pure-blood conspiracy, then there's an eighty percent chance it can't be separated from Death Eater members!"
Following the directions in the footnotes, Avada quickly dug out the trial records of the Death Eater named Augustus Rookwood.
"Former employee of the Ministry's Department of Mysteries, but secretly recruited into the Death Eaters by Voldemort. Charges: leaking large quantities of Ministry secrets to the Death Eaters. Sentenced in the end to life imprisonment in Azkaban. Presiding official was again Barty Crouch… nothing particularly special here either?"
"Let me dig a little deeper and see whether I can find more information related to this Rookwood… hopefully it's all here, otherwise I may have to make a trip to the Auror Office archives too…"
"Mm, found it—'File on the Arrest Process of Augustus Rookwood'…"
After another round of searching, Avada finally pulled out yet another document from amid a thick stack of parchment. It recorded the entire process from the moment Rookwood came under suspicion to the point when he was apprehended by the Aurors, including the Auror team's precise operations at the time, Rookwood's reactions, and the complete dialogue and actions that took place then…
"Based on intelligence provided by Mr. Igor Karkaroff, Director of Magical Law Enforcement Barty Crouch decided to list Department of Mysteries employee Augustus Rookwood as a Death Eater suspect, and approved the Aurors to arrest him immediately…"
"Wait, Igor Karkaroff?!"
Avada had only skimmed the very first line, but his whole body felt as if it had been struck by lightning. He nearly dropped the document to the floor on the spot.
"Rookwood's identity was exposed by Karkaroff?!"
"That's right, I remember now—Karkaroff himself had originally also been a Death Eater, and he'd been caught by Crouch almost immediately… and the reason he was ultimately able to walk away completely unscathed was because he provided Barty Crouch with the identities of many infiltrated Death Eaters, in exchange for the Ministry showing him leniency… and among them was Bagman's friend Rookwood?!"
"Bagman, Crouch, Karkaroff… the three judges of the Triwizard Tournament are all connected together through this one line involving Rookwood!"
Even though he was currently using a wooden body, Avada still could not help feeling his heart pound wildly in his chest.
He had a premonition that the truth behind Ludo Bagman's death was hidden somewhere along this thread named "Rookwood"!
"Don't panic. Check Karkaroff's old trial records first. There might still be some crucial information hiding there…"
He instinctively took a deep breath, then suppressed his excitement and began searching through the archives with utmost seriousness and calm, carefully watching for the name "Igor Karkaroff" anywhere, hoping to uncover something useful again.
And yet, after going through three meticulous and thorough searches in a row…
"…Nothing?!"
Avada fell into a daze for a moment.
"There are no arrest or trial records for Karkaroff?!"
"In other words, according to the Ministry's records, a person named Karkaroff never had any contact with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement or the Aurors at all?! Then what was that business about him being caught by Crouch? What about him coughing up all those Death Eater names?!"
"This isn't me making wild guesses out of nowhere. It's plainly written in the original story—Karkaroff was originally a captured Death Eater, but avoided prison by trading the information in his hands to Crouch!"
"And now… there isn't even a trace of Karkaroff's name in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement archives?!"
(End of Chapter)