The Crouch/Moody enigma is getting very tightly packed. Winky informs us that she is not only doing homework for her master, but also secret stuff. And Harry meets Crouch in the forest. I cannot quite make out what ``You are not his means (is he referring to Karkaroff? Voldemort?), but the rest of the scene is riddled with very strong clues in retrospect. He keeps mentioning his son and wife. And Moody shows up at the scene in very short time with a dubious explanation of Snape telling him.

And finally there is the pensive (which will play quite a major part in later books), with not only Karkaroff's testimony (Snape is confirmed as a former death eater, and that part of the enigmas in this book at least is resolved), but also Bagman's (revealing what Rita knew about him, and indicating that he may not be just the cheerful sports guy that he presents himself as -- the trial is shown as being the worst case celebrity trial). I love how Crouch says ``the day Ludo Bagman joins us will be a very sad day for the Ministry''. And of course, the main bit, the trial of Crouch's son where we get the first glimpse of the Lestranges and the explanation for Neville's reaction to the cruciatus curse. And of course the main baddie, who does not seem like one at all.

The Bagman enigma also gets a major hint when we are told Leprechaun gold disappears. At this point is it should actually be possible to work out the twins/bagman plot, I think.

The Rita Skeeter plot picks up some steam, with Hermione promising to ``get her back'' and the idea that she might be ``bugging'' them. That is another of Rowling's finer moments. I like her play with words.

The twins are painted as potentially gone to the bad. I never really bought it, and I think this is one of the reasons I have issues with this book.

The theme of bigotry shows up again in Fudge's suggestion that Madame Maxime has done away with (eaten?) Crouch. Dumbledore's dismissal of it is quite lovely, but it paints quite a strong image of mainstream wizard ideas when the minister for magic can say something like that (of course, it doesn't help when the minister is a moron).

Nifflers are introduced. They play some part in the next book. Of course, there is no way of telling whether this is a planned introduction or rather Rowling reaching back to earlier material to build on it. But that is true for most of the bookspanning pre-introductions.

We also get the first use of the patronus to alert someone when Dumbledore calls for Hagrid.

A question, however: right at the end, was Dumbledore going to say something else? He only wishes him good luck, but I cannot shake the feeling that the pause is significant.