"Is that all, Lord Olario?" Amelia asked.
"Yes," Antonio replied, to which Amelia gave a curt nod.
"Recorded by Amelia Bones, junior Auror, DMLE," she muttered as the Dicta Quill came to a stop.
The whole affair of recording his statement had rather been a simplistic affair. There had nothing been complex about it.
After Antonio had narrated the entire incident, Amelia had asked a few technical questions, just routine questions related to her investigation and that had been the end of it. He had been very specific and had explained everything in detail starting from the moment the first spell had landed on his inn to the last moment when he had severed the arms of one of the death eaters.
"Thank you, Miss Bones," Antonio said, wondering if he was now free to leave, or if Alastor would soon come to discuss whatever it was, he had mentioned earlier. He was also really to curios to know what had been the issue between Barty and Moody.
"I was only doing my duty, Lord Olario," she replied. She could clearly sense what Antonio was thinking.
"Are you not interested in the identities of the two wizards you killed, Lord Olario?" she asked, a hint of hesitation in her voice.
"Not really," Antonio said with a smile. "But if you do not mind revealing them, I would be quite pleased to satisfy my slight curiosity."
Amelia nodded and said, "It goes without saying that both were pure bloods, but one of them had a rather special identity."
"The man you impaled on the drills, his name was Amcus Marius."
Marius. A pure blood family. Not a top tier house, but still a fairly prominent one. Certainly not powerful enough for Antonio to care much. But to Amelia specifically mention his name, there must be something about him. Barty Crouch, the name appeared in his mind.
"Now, the Marius family is not particularly influential," she continued, almost reading his thoughts. Compared to the Bones family, they hardly mattered. "At best they are categorised as mid tier family and do not wield any substantial power or influence."
"But they do have certain connections that could make things complicated for you."
Amelia seemed about to explain further when the door opened once more and Alastor Moody strode in.
"Done recording the statement, Bones?" he asked, his tone gruff and cold.
Amelia nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Good," Moody said as he dropped heavily into the last empty chair. "Because there's something important, I need to discuss with Lord Olario."
Antonio was now all ears.
"Mr. Moody," he greeted the auror.
"Do you know the identity of the two people whom you have killed?" Moody asked.
"I just informed him about Amcus Marius," Amelia chimed in from the side.
"Just the name," she added further.
Moody gave a nod and began speaking. "Amcus Marius is the son of the current lord of Marius family, Alicus Marius."
"Now, Alicus is neither a particularly powerful nor brilliant wizard, nor is he especially influential. But he is friends with someone who wields considerable power and immense influence in the Ministry and who will carry that same weight in the Wizengamot hearing as well."
"Barty Crouch Sr.," Antonio muttered. He did not need to be a genius to figure it out. The earlier confrontation between Barty and Alastor had made it clear.
Alastor was momentarily surprised by this, but then his eyes drifted to the small window looking out into the DMLE, and he understood what had happened.
He nodded. "Yes. Barty Crouch Sr. and Alicus Marius have been close friends since their school days."
"And as soon as the identity of the two deceased death eaters were confirmed, one of our aurors," Alastor said with a visible disgust on his face, "recognising Amcus Marius and knowing that enjoyed a good relation with Barty Crouch Sr. made no delay in informing the DMLE head of the fate of the dead man."
"And Barty is furious," Alastor added. "I imagine you saw what happened out there."
"He came here ready to demand you be thrown straight into Azkaban, rushed through a quick hearing, given the Kiss, and be done with it. He had no intention of letting you simply walk out of the Ministry after merely recording your statement. He wanted instant punishment, revenge if I may say."
"It was only after I made it clear that if anything like that happened, it would be a stain on my own reputation, that my word to you would lose all meaning, and I would be the one disgraced. I even told him that if it came to that, I would resign immediately."
"That is the only reason Barty finally relented," Moody added.
Alastor sighed as he continued, "But this is the maximum I can do for you, Lord Olario. Without his intervention, I would have simply dragged the case along, let it pass through the routine queue of hearings without making any fuss. I would have pushed for arguments which were in favour and the case against would have been dismissed without any issue."
"But we do not have that option now. Barty Crouch has taken over the entire case," Alastor added. "He will be the one conducting the investigation now and trust me apart from your own statement, there is hardly anything positive which would be written in the report of the case. He will go all out and will strive hard so that a dementor's kiss could be administered to you."
"As the head of the DMLE, he will essentially be arguing against you in the Wizengamot hearing. Not only this, he is very close with our current minister of magic and thus he will have the entire control in the Wizengamot hearing."
"His involvement has made things difficult for you," Alastor said, "very difficult, if I may say so."
"Mr. Moody," Antonio said. "If I may ask something?"
Moody nodded and gave a go ahead.
"Why has this entire investigation, this entire case taken such a turn that it now looks as if I have committed some heinous crime?" he asked.
"As if I did not act purely in self-defense? As if the ruined building of my inn was nothing more than a joke?"
"It should be clear that I am the innocent one here," he added. "But somehow I have been turned into the criminal, while there is no talk at all of the group who carried out the attack."
"If I were a Muggle-born or a mudblood as they call it then perhaps, I might understand. But my blood is as pure as any of them. So why this dubious treatment?"
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