Pink in the Night.

Chapter Fourteen.

"Prior Incantato!" roared Amos.
Harry heard Hermione gasp, horrified, as a gigantic serpent-tongued skull erupted from the point where the two wands met, but it was a mere shadow of the green skull high above them; it looked as though it were made of thick grey smoke: the ghost of a spell.
"Deletrius!" Amos shouted, and the smoky skull vanished in a wisp of smoke.
"So," said Amos with a kind of savage triumph, looking down upon Winky, who was still shaking convulsively.

"I is not doing it!" she squealed, her eyes rolling in terror. "I is not, I is not, I is not knowing how! I is a good elf, I isn't using wands, I isn't knowing how!"

"You've been caught red-handed, elf!" Amos roared. "Caught with the guilty wand in your hand!"

"Amos," said Arthur loudly, "think about it... precious few wizards know how to do that spell... Where would she have learned it?"

"Perhaps Amos is suggesting," said Mr. Crouch, cold anger in every syllable, "that I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?"

There was a deeply unpleasant silence. Amos Diggory looked horrified. "Mr. Crouch... not... not at all..."

"You have now come very close to accusing the two people in this clearing who are least likely to conjure that Mark!" barked Mr. Crouch. "Harry Potter— and myself! I suppose you are familiar with the boy's story, Amos?"

"Of course— everyone knows—" muttered Amos, looking highly discomforted.

"And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long career, that I despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them?" Mr. Crouch shouted, his eyes bulging.

"Mr. Crouch, I— I never suggested you had anything to do with it!" Amos Diggory muttered again, now reddening behind his scrubby brown beard.

"If you accuse my elf, you accuse me, Diggory!" shouted Mr. Crouch. "Where else would she have learned to conjure it?"

"She— she might've picked it up anywhere—"

"Precisely, Amos," said Arthur. "She might have picked it up anywhere... Winky?" he said kindly, turning to the elf, but she flinched as though he too was shouting at her. "Where exactly did you find Harry's wand?"

Winky was twisting the hem of her tea towel so violently that it was fraying beneath her fingers.
"I— I is finding it... finding it there, sir..." she whispered, "there... in the trees, sir..."

"You see, Amos?" said Arthur. "Whoever conjured the Mark could have Disapparated right after they'd done it, leaving Harry's wand behind. A clever thing to do, not using their own wand, which would have betrayed them. And Winky here had the misfortune to come across the wand moments later and pick it up."

"But then, she'd have been only a few feet away from the real culprit!" said Amos impatiently. "Elf? Did you see anyone?"

Winky began to tremble worse than ever. Her giant eyes flickered from Amos, to Ludo Bagman, and onto Mr. Crouch. Then she gulped and said, "I is seeing no one, sir... no one..."

"Amos," said Mr. Crouch curtly, "I am fully aware that, in the ordinary course of events, you would want to take Winky into your department for questioning. I ask you, however, to allow me to deal with her."
Amos looked as though he didn't think much of this suggestion at all, but it was clear to Harry that Mr. Crouch was such an important member of the Ministry that he did not dare refuse him.
"You may rest assured that she will be punished," Mr. Crouch added coldly.

"M-m-master..." Winky stammered, looking up at Mr. Crouch, her eyes brimming with tears. "M-m-master, p-p-please..."
Mr. Crouch stared back, his face somehow sharpened, each line upon it more deeply etched. There was no pit in his gaze.