Crouch Sr. as a Bone

[cynthiaanncoe at home.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 26327

In GoF, Crouch/Moody kills Crouch Sr., carries the body into the 
forest, covers it with his invisibility cloak, talks to Dumbledore, 
then goes back to the body in the forest, transfigured it into a 
bone, and then wore the invisibility cloak to bury the bone in the 
freshly dug earth near Hagrid's hut that Hagrid intends to use to 
demonstrate nifflers.

Whew!  I wonder if there is any reason why JKR makes this tiny part 
of the plot so involved.  Moody could have just transfigured Crouch 
Sr. into a rock or tree and walked away.  He also could have just 
slipped the bone into his pocket and hid it in the trunk with the 
real Moody.  That would have allowed her to skip the entire niffler 
scene.  Ron could have realized that his leprechaun gold vanished in 
some other way, like the discussion with F and G on the train when 
they discuss Bagman.

Does this mean nifflers will be important in future books?