Barty Crouch Jr (David Tennant) puts Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) in the tournament while disguised as Alastor Moody (Brendan Gleeson). He then helps Harry reach the Triwizard Cup, which takes him straight to Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). The year’s most helpful teacher has been preparing Harry for a kidnapping.
Crouch tells the staff what the trick would take
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Moody points at Harry as Dumbledore looks on. Warner Bros. Pictures
After Harry’s name comes out of the Goblet, Moody tells the staff what it would have taken: “Only an exceptionally powerful Confundus Charm could’ve hoodwinked it. Magic way beyond the talents of a fourth year.” That rules Harry out and points everyone at an expert nobody can name.
The expert is standing in the room.
How the name went in is never shown. Crouch gets to sound like the most useful man in the room while steering suspicion away from himself.
Crouch helps Harry survive the tournament
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Crouch needs Harry to reach the cup alive, so his help is real at every task. He takes Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) for a cup of tea and gives him a book, Magical Water Plants of the Highland Lochs. “Moody gave it to me,” Neville explains. “That day we had tea.”
When the second task needs Harry to breathe underwater, Neville is the one with the answer: gillyweed.
Crouch turns the prize into a kidnapping
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Pettigrew takes Harry's blood in the graveyard. Warner Bros. Pictures
Harry and Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson) take the cup together and land in a graveyard. “It’s a Portkey,” Cedric realises. Voldemort’s order for Cedric is three words, “Kill the spare,” and Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall) kills him, then takes Harry’s blood for Voldemort’s new body, “forcibly taken”.
Crouch has made winning the tournament part of the attack. Cedric is killed only because he touched the cup at the same moment.
Crouch gives himself away
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Moody leads Harry away after his return. Warner Bros. Pictures
Back at the castle, Moody hurries Harry to his office, and Harry tells him, “The cup was a Portkey. Someone had bewitched it.” He has no idea he is talking to the man who did it.
Then Moody asks one question too many: “Were there others? In the graveyard, were there others?” Harry: “I don’t think I said anything about a graveyard, Professor.”
Crouch takes the credit for Harry’s whole year
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Barty Crouch Jr, out of his disguise, shows the mark on his forearm. Warner Bros. Pictures
Crouch drops the act. Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), “that miserable oaf”, only led Harry to the dragons because Moody suggested it. Cedric’s advice about the egg came the same way, “if I hadn’t told him first myself”, and Neville, “the witless wonder”, only had the gillyweed because of Moody’s book.
“You won because I made it so, Potter.”
Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) blasts the door in before Crouch can finish the job, and the real Moody turns up inside a trunk in the same room.
Crouch’s real identity turns a year of good teaching into preparation for the graveyard. It is also a strange way to kidnap someone. Crouch has Harry in his classroom all year and still builds the plan around three deadly tasks and a trophy, and the reason is never given.
