The Short Version
This is book four of seven, and it is a mystery with the answer sitting on the page from the very first chapters.
Fair warning, this video spoils the whole book. Near the end I will also flag payoffs from later books, so if you haven’t finished the series, skip that last section. Here is the short version. A flask, a map, a missing witch, a house elf in a stadium seat, and a very stiff Ministry official all lead to one man, and Rowling hides every one of them in plain sight.
Moody’s Flask
Let’s start with the flask. At the opening feast, Mad-Eye Moody ignores the pumpkin juice, pulls a hip flask from his cloak, and takes a long drink. It is a perfect piece of character detail, and nobody thinks twice about it.
But watch how often it returns. He takes a swig as he sits at his desk, and another long draught while answering Harry’s questions about Mr Crouch. Dumbledore explains at the end that Moody never drinks from anything else, so the flask was the perfect cover. It held Polyjuice Potion, which has to be taken again and again.
Moody’s Behavior
Now the rest of his behavior. In his first class, Moody shows the three Unforgivable Curses on spiders. When Neville names one of them, Moody looks closely and asks, your name’s Longbottom? He then lends Neville a book. Later, Dumbledore shows us why that name mattered, because Neville’s parents were tortured by Crouch’s son and his friends.
He also seems a little too interested in Harry’s success. He tells Harry to play to his strengths, which leads straight to the dragon solution, and he says cheating is a traditional part of the Tournament. He catches Harry under the Invisibility Cloak, and covers for him with Snape. And he points at his trunk, saying that’s when I open my trunk. That trunk has seven keyholes, and the real Moody is inside it.
The Map And The Name
Now the Marauder’s Map. On the night Harry works out the egg’s secret, he sees a dot in Snape’s office. It isn’t labelled Snape. It says Bartemius Crouch.
Harry assumes it is Mr Crouch, who is supposed to be ill. Moody takes the map, looks alarmed, and asks, you’re sure? Then he asks to borrow it, calling it exactly what he has been looking for.
The trick is the name. Father and son share the same name, so Harry assumes it is the father. The dot was really the son, who was disguised as the man standing next to him. Moody pockets the one object that could expose him. Later, when Mr Crouch vanishes, Moody says he checked the map and found nothing.
Barty Crouch Senior
Crouch senior is a clue too, but in a sad way. At the World Cup, he is cold and formal, calls Percy by the wrong name, Weatherby, and announces that he is organising Portkeys. Bagman mentions that Crouch keeps asking for someone to look for missing Bertha Jorkins.
When the Dark Mark appears, he loudly claims he despises the Dark Arts. Then, when Winky is found, he searches the bushes himself, as if looking for someone else.
And when he turns up in the Forest, half mad, he mumbles about his son, Bertha Jorkins, and the Dark Lord getting stronger. Percy keeps saying Crouch’s letters are fine. But the Ministry later wonders whether they were really written by him, and that is because of an Imperius Curse.
Winky And The Empty Seat
Now Winky, my favorite hidden clue. In the Top Box, she saves a seat for her master, and she covers her face. She is afraid of heights, and she keeps glancing at the empty space beside her.
Harry’s wand then goes missing. When the Dark Mark appears, Winky bursts out of the bushes, moving as though someone invisible is holding her back. Someone invisible really was, and it was Barty Crouch Junior, hidden under a cloak.
And when she is questioned, she looks at Crouch, and says she saw no one. Even later, drunk in the kitchens, she says she keeps her master’s secrets. She was protecting the biggest secret in the book.
The Pensieve
Next, the Pensieve. Harry falls into Dumbledore’s memories and watches three trials. The first is Karkaroff naming names, the second is Bagman escaping punishment, and the third is the one that matters.
A boy with straw colored hair and a freckled, milk white face is dragged away by Dementors, screaming, I’m your son. Mr Crouch answers, I have no son.
Harry asks whether the boy was involved, and Dumbledore says he has no idea. The reader doesn’t know it, but that boy is the man who opened the office door a few minutes earlier and said, come in. And note that the real Moody is in those memories too, with two normal eyes.
Frank Bryce
Now go all the way back to chapter one. Frank Bryce, an old gardener, overhears two men plotting in the Riddle House. He hears about the World Cup, about Bertha Jorkins, and about a faithful servant at Hogwarts.
That is nearly the whole plan, delivered in the very first chapter. Then Frank is killed. Dumbledore, who reads Muggle newspapers, later links his disappearance to Bertha’s and Crouch’s.
And in the graveyard, when the old man’s ghost steps out of Voldemort’s wand, he says, he was a real wizard, then? A callback to a man who didn’t believe in magic. It is a quiet, perfect payoff.
The Cup And The Portkey
Finally, the Cup. Early in the book, Harry travels to the World Cup by Portkey, an old boot held by Amos Diggory, with Cedric standing beside him. The sensation is a hook jerked behind the navel. At the end, Cedric and Harry feel the same jerk.
Rowling also tells us who organises Portkeys, Mr Crouch. And at the World Cup, Amos Diggory uses Prior Incantato on Harry’s wand, and a ghostly skull rises from the tips. That is the spell echo the book uses again in the graveyard duel.
Clues For The Rest Of The Series
Now a series spoiler warning. This part is for readers who have finished all seven books.
First, the Pensieve returns in books five, six and seven, and those memories carry some of the series’ biggest reveals. Second, the woman with the hooded eyes who boasts in that trial is Bellatrix Lestrange, and Neville faces her in book five.
Third, Fudge’s refusal to believe Dumbledore leads straight into the smear campaign of book five. Fourth, the real Moody joins the Order, and he dies in book seven.
Fifth, Winky is still drinking in the kitchens in book five, and Dobby returns with a heartbreaking fate. And sixth, Voldemort’s brother wand and his use of Harry’s blood come back in book seven.
Your Turn
So that is how Rowling hides a murderer in a flask. Did you notice any of these on your first read, or only after Barty Crouch Junior was revealed?
Tell me in the comments which clue surprised you most. And if you haven’t seen it yet, my ending explained video walks through the whole graveyard. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.
