Moody, Crouch and the impact of the truth

"Maybe someone's hoping Potter is going to die for it... It was a skilled witch or wizard who put the boy's name in that Goblet... they hoodwinked a very powerful magical object. It would have needed an exceptionally strong Confundus Charm to bamboozle that Goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete in the Tournament... I'm guessing they submitted Potter's name under a fourth school, to make sure he was the only one in his category..."

These are the words of a person who is held out to be Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody in the wake of the Goblet of Fire's dramatic declaration that there would be, in fact, four students competing in the Tri-Wizard Tournament in Book Four.

And these words demonstrate, in my humble opinion, just how great a writer J.K. Rowling really is.

Just think about the first time you read that passage. What did you think? You thought, of course, that Moody was on the side of angels, that he was, as he later declares, trained to think as dark wizards do, and that he is probably absolutely right about how Harry's name ended up in the Goblet in the first place.

And now, when you read it again, knowing what you know about this particular version of Moody -- that he is, in fact, Barty Crouch Jr., impersonating the ex-Auror using the Polyjuice Potion and neck deep in implementing Lord Voldemort's intricate plot to transport Harry via portkey to the graveyard in Little Hangleton at the end of the Tournament -- what do you think of the passage?

Is there one false note in it?

It's brilliant. Crouch, as Moody, stands in front of all the people who might wish to stop him from succeeding in implementing Voldemort's evil plan, and tells them, point for point, exactly how he managed to get Harry's name into the Goblet and why he did it.

He behaves exactly as Moody would and should had he been there. He exposes his own plot.

And no one calls him on it. No one even remotely suspects him. Because he is, in fact, an ex-Auror with a reputation for paranoia, they in fact dismiss his explanation entirely. Absolutely brilliant.