Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: This piece is concerned with Cornelius Fudge and is set in the same universe as my 'Saint Potter?' story. The universe is an alternate one which was impacted by Simon Templar ('The Saint'), and some characters, events, and situations have diverged considerably from those of their canon counterparts. Sophie Theresa Potter is 'The-Girl-Who-Lived' in this universe. This story is rated 'T'.

Further Note: During this universe's 'Wizarding War' (equivalent to canon's 'First Wizarding War') pitched battles took place one day during the summer of 1980 at both the British Ministry of Magic's main premises in London and at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland (the date was during Hogwarts' summer holidays so there were no pupils on-site at the latter battle). Due to difficulties that Voldemort had not anticipated at Hogwarts, the Death Eaters and their allies were beaten in both battles. Voldemort caused substantial damage at the Ministry, however, to cover the retreat of his surviving forces there. After the war Bartemius Crouch was Minister for Magic in this universe for much of the 1980's, finally stepping down from office at the end of 1990, to be succeeded by Cornelius Fudge.

Monday, September 2nd, 1991

Last night at Hogwarts had been a brief escape for Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, from the day-to-day drudgery of trying to keep the Ministry above the financial waterline, the Wizengamot happy, and the grumblings of the rest of Britain's witches and wizards – most of whom had little appreciation of what was going on in the wider world – to a minimum. Today it was back to the desk, and the in-tray full of polite reminders from muggle creditors, crazy legislative proposals from Ministry employees/Wizengamot members who ought to know better by now, and letters complaining about the fact that yet another quidditch world cup was going to be held abroad, in three years' time, instead of 'in Britain, the country where quidditch was invented'.

Cornelius Fudge's predecessor as minister, Bartemius Crouch, had gained the post at the end of 1981 by politically deposing Millicent 'let us party like there is no tomorrow' Bagnold. And, upon entering and taking possession of the (then makeshift and temporary) quarters that constituted the actual physical office of the Minister for Magic, Cornelius' predecessor had taken one look at the reports coming out of the interrogations of captured Death Eaters, and had concluded that – for far too long – the British Ministry had relied far too much upon a combination of magic and of public acquiescence to certain traditions and standards, to get by. Lord Voldemort had revolutionised magical warfare; he had by all accounts been about to embark upon an equally revolutionised campaign of bloody-handed terror when he had so fortuitously run afoul of the Potters and been stopped dead in his tracks – and, on a nearly-as-important side-note, brought up short in a fashion that had accounted for some of his most loyal and dangerous followers too (most of whom had never been under any kind of previous suspicion of such allegiance and rank).

And with reminders all around him of just how much the previous arrangements had been found 'wanting', Bartemius Crouch had decided that in the interests of security, any rebuilding work was going to be done 'properly' – which, in the case of the literal physical seat of the Ministry of Magic, meant highly expensive excavations of new quarters at a number of sites, dispersed around the British Isles.

Before Voldemort and the 'Battle of the Ministry' of 1980, the Minister for Magic's office had been what amounted to a windowless box in an expanded space, somewhere underneath London. Today, Cornelius Fudge occupied an office every inch of which had been chipped out of solid granite, and which came with a view of Caernarfon Bay, completely non-magical in origin, out through a broad armoured-glass window. The office, and the complex of which it was a part, had come at a high financial cost however – and construction work still wasn't yet complete on some parts of this particular complex. The debts which had been run up to build it were likely going to take several generations to pay off, and that was based on assumptions that levels of exports of suitable products to the muggles, such as firewhisky and lumber, continued on at least current levels, too. Without those exports bringing money back the other way, the Ministry would inevitably either have to default on its debts (seldom a good idea for a government, even when the money was owed to muggle lenders) or tax the citizenry to the point where either the masses revolted and/or the rich decided a Ministry coup was the best way to protect their interests.

Cornelius could probably save a few tens of thousands of galleons by pulling the plug on all remaining construction work here and now, but given the reports that were coming in from around the world these days…

Something was up. Cornelius didn't need the British Ministry's spies in the ICW to tell him that for Albus Dumbledore to have had quite such a falling-out with the Greek centaurs – as neither Albus nor the centaurs were currently admitting had happened in July – something major must be in the wind.

And, closer to home, Cornelius' dear wife, Adeline, was starting to get very worried about the political state of her homeland. Sufficiently so that she'd started using what diplomatic privileges her role as the British Minister's wife afforded her to move as many assets as discreetly possible out of France.

And then there was the internal betting pool that the auror office assumed that nobody else knew about, because to be frank its existence and some of the wagers being made could cause both diplomatic embarrassment and public panic in one or more magical nations… Well, Cornelius knew about the pool, and he also knew how much the odds on some rather disturbing scenarios had been shortening, recently.

No. Now was not the time to be cutting spending on matters relating to security: no matter how much the public might complain about a lack of British quidditch world cups (the size of the bribes the organising committee members expected to even consider a country as a host were patently ridiculous, and the costs of hosting the whole circus were still more eye-watering); no matter how hair-raising the minutiae of the budget might otherwise get at times.

In another lifetime, if there hadn't already been so much of the work already done and so many debts already amassed, Cornelius Fudge might well have simply crossed his fingers, and gone with whatever offered the chance of being seen as a nice, popular, guy – in the hope that disaster never struck. But in this one Cornelius Fudge was not going to go down in the history books as the man who had casually changed course from the increasingly prudent-looking policies of his predecessor, for a bit of short-term political gain and superficial popularity.

Author Notes:

My thanks to the fanfiction member 'Duj' for thoughts on the likely nature and construction methods employed in the Ministry of Magic's London headquarters.

'Security Issues' is a brief snapshot of the scene from the British Minister for Magic's office, on the day in 1991 after the pupils arrived at Hogwarts for the new school year (Cornelius Fudge attended the sorting as a guest of the headmaster).

Harry Potter wiki (at the time of writing of this note in July, 2014) has a quote from canon Millicent Bagnold (then Minister for Magic), spoken on the 1st November, 1981: 'I assert our inalienable right to party'. Millicent said that about the multiple breaches of the International State of Wizarding Secrecy then going on right across Britain. In the Saint Potter universe, that quote and the attitude it expressed, cost her her position as Minister to Bartemius Crouch.

In this universe, Voldemort all-but-demolished the canon Ministry of Magic headquarters, in 1980, when extracting his forces from The Battle of the Ministry. To cover his retreat, he undid several of the space-expanding charms that the Ministry premises had been constructed with liberal use of; it set off a chain reaction of unravelling magic whose effectiveness surprised even him. (The then Ministry premises, having been constructed under muggle central London on a scale similar to that of canon, was reliant on the use of a lot of space-expanding charms and the like, given all the underground lines, sewers, and other muggle constructions that it would otherwise have had to compete with.) It took Ministry employees several days to get the runaway magical disaster completely under control, and for the rest of the war the Ministry operated out of a series of temporary or makeshift headquarters dotted around the country.

After the war, Bartemius Crouch decided that Ministry premises not reliant upon magic for even their mere existence were necessary, and to minimise the potential for any future runaway magical disasters to cause disruption (and so that none of the 'home nations' felt left out), he split the departments and the facilities up between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Furthermore all the new sites were/are for the most part subterranean, excavated into large masses of granite. (For the purposes of this universe, I assume that granite, due to its structure of thousands of tightly interlocking crystals of varying mineralogical compositions is naturally highly resistant to all transfigurations and to most other forms of magic.) The new (physical) office of the Minister for Magic, several departments oft-used by the public, and the new quarters for the Wizengamot (although at the time of this chapter the latter is not yet complete) are all based at the Welsh site. In the meantime, whilst construction work is ongoing, the Wizengamot meets (usually at night) in one or another of various 'borrowed' muggle buildings, including such venues as Westminster Hall in London, and the Assembly Rooms in Bath.

Bartemius' administration borrowed heavily from muggle lenders to finance their building projects. (The alternatives of owing the goblins or one or more rich magical families were considered politically unacceptable, given the strings that would likely come attached.) This caused some unexpected headaches down the line, though, and it soon became apparent that unless the Ministry obliviated the muggles that they'd borrowed from of the fact (which was probably illegal, even by wizarding standards, and almost certainly immoral) wizarding Britain was going to have to start exporting to muggle Britain to avoid sinking into a financial quagmire. With some hurried law changes, and much bending of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, exports to muggle Britain of not-obviously-magical-or-magically-produced goods have duly got going in recent years.

The mention in this chapter of Albus Dumbledore and centaurs, is a reference to the events of the first couple of chapters of 'The Politics of Beasts and Men', which took place during a centaur gathering to observe an eclipse in July of 1991. In the months between then and this chapter, both Albus and the centaurs have been doing their best to pretend that it's 'business as usual', and that nothing worth mentioning happened — although the fact that several centaurs attending the July 1991 gathering were left 'stranded' having missed their timed 'return' portkeys and that no further gatherings to observe eclipses have been arranged is something of a giveaway that something clearly changed or happened.

In this universe Cornelius Fudge married a French witch, Adeline (née Adeline Fitzroy). As of September 1991, they have two daughters, the elder of whom is at Hogwarts and in Hufflepuff.

The auror office's betting pool is about things such as which country is most likely to have its current government overthrown by a coup or other disturbance, or where the next major 'dark lord' or 'dark lady' is likely to arise.

On a final note, for now, it seemed to me not improbable that in the magical world a fair degree of corruption would likely be involved in the awarding of the status of host nation of a major international sporting event, such as the quidditch world cup. And in the Saint Potter universe, (due to the costs of rebuilding after the Wizarding War) the British Ministry of Magic simply doesn't have the money spare to bribe all the officials involved. Thus although there is going to be a quidditch world cup in 1994, it's heading to a different European country from canon...