Part One
The Rise and Rise of Pius Thicknesse
Things had always been difficult for Pius Thicknesse, to look at him you would think exactly the opposite. After all, Pius had been born into a rich wizarding family of bright academics. His father; Yariel Thicknesse had served for many years with distinction as Professor of Ancient Runes at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. While the subject had a modicum of interest amongst the cleverer students; it had been an obsession for his father. When he had taken the Hogwarts job in 1958, Pius had been just a boy of eight. The Thicknesses' country residence had been a long way from Hogwarts and the strain of it took a noticeable effect on his mother. Erista Thicknesse had been a gifted witch who briefly had worked as an Auror for the Ministry of Magic, three years including training hadn't been a long career. Yariel's wish to carry on the Thicknesse bloodline meant she had been forced into becoming a stay at home mother, despite the fact that the family could afford to keep au pairs and a large household staff. Yariel's family had ever resented Erista; his mother, Marion describing her as someone with ideas above their station and for the fact that she was a Hufflepuff while the Thicknesses' had always been either Slytherin or Ravenclaw.
So while his father was away pursuing his dream of studying and teaching Ancient Runes, his mother was stuck at home sitting on her dream of being an Auror, forced to accept her in-laws at their estate on a near daily basis. Erista cared greatly for young Pius, Pius was the middle child of three. His elder brother Celestine was the apple of his father's eye, a talented member of Slytherin advancing brilliantly through Hogwarts while his younger sister Miranda reveled in being the only daughter of her generation, her brothers and cousins being all male. This left Pius as the other one, the forgettable child, similar to his forgettable mother.
Pius' time came in the summer of 1961, his acceptance letter into Hogwarts arrived as expected and his time was spent in admiration, awe and excitement. For perhaps the first time attention was lavished on Pius by his grandmother, Marion Thicknesse. Marion was a well known author and socialite, friend to those in power and her connections kept the Thicknesses' in the loop of power. Of course she had never really cared much for Pius; Celestine was the rising star and the one who could go the whole way, be Minister for Magic or even Headmaster of Hogwarts should he follow in his father's footsteps and teach Ancient Runes. Pius knew this was unlikely; he'd overheard Celestine saying less than regarded things about the subject his father was obsessed with. No, Pius knew that Celestine held ambition for the Defence Against the Dark Arts post, the post had been jinxed for some time and privately Pius would revel if his brother lost the job after just a year, still for the short time he had his grandmother's attention, Pius played to her needs and pretended he was dedicated to supporting his brother. One of the muggle-born servants of the Thicknesse family likened Pius to the Muggle American politician Robert Kennedy and that of Celestine to the US President John F. Kennedy; in some ways the two families were similar. Both had children being pushed to the top and private warring between siblings.
At Hogwarts, Pius was sorted into Ravenclaw. He'd always been a bright, intelligent child and developed creative tendencies. He excelled at Potions where Professor Slughorn made him a member of the Slug Club and also at Charms. Pius enjoyed his school career where he could genuinely feel appreciated and liked, despite having a father as a teacher. In his third year, Pius saw his father, Professor Thicknesse at work. Yariel was a textbook teacher, more interested in academics than discipline. At the end of his third year, Pius returned home to tragedy. With Miranda in her first year, Erista Thicknesse had spent most of the year in isolation with only her in-laws for company. Marion's hardship along was unbearable and so on the 16th of July 1964, Erista Thicknesse took her own life by an overdose of sleeping pills. Pius was devastated as was Miranda. Yariel, Celestine and Marion were fairly indifferent, though his father seemed more hollow and depressed in the summer. In the summer of 1964, Pius resolved to himself to avenge his mother and win against the establishment, so wholeheartedly represented by the elder Thicknesses.
This began at the start of his fourth year; Celestine was now in his final year and had just been appointed Head Boy. Pius concocted a most ingenious plan to discredit his brother. Using his talent for potions, Pius perfectly brewed a strong love potion and mixed it with one of Celestine's hidden bottles of scotch that he used in the Slytherin common room in the company of the girls in his year. As such, Celestine and a girl named Callista Malfoy ended up being caught in Celestine's bed chamber by Professor Slughorn in a very compromising position. The Malfoy's were a pure-blood family that went back generations and when Abraxas Malfoy found out, he went berserk and demanded that Professor Dumbledore strip Celestine of his position as Head Boy.
To make matters worse, Celestine had neglected to use protection and as such Callista ended up pregnant. The scandal rocked through the school; with his position and status gone, Celestine was a recluse for the rest of his final year. Professor Yariel Thicknesse was removed from his position after Abraxas, Chairman of the School Governors demanded it. Marion Thicknesse panicked and abandoned her favoured child and grandchild, lavishing attention on Pius. Needless to say, when Celestine left Hogwarts, he began a low-level job in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry but soon realized he could never achieve his dream of power and left. He ended up running a shop specializing in broomstick and broom repair in Hogsmeade. Yariel meanwhile spent the rest of his days at the Thicknesse estate writing books attempting to salvage his career.
At one point he said to Pius "Do you miss your mother?"
"Of course I do, more than you ever will, your more interested in those runes" Pius had never made an outburst like that before. His father was shocked, they rarely spoke again after that.
Pius excelled throughout the rest of his school life and graduated Hogwarts with distinction; he never became Head Boy but Pius put that down to it being too soon after his brother's disgrace for a Thicknesse to hold the position. Pius worked in academia for a while, studying and working with some of the great potion masters. He spent some time working in Flourish and Blotts before he joined the Ministry in 1973. Working in the Portkey Office within the Department of Magical Transportation was suited to Pius; he enjoyed the menial, similar work and he earned a reputation as a do-er, someone who could be relied upon. He was promoted to head the office in 1977. Still however, it wasn't enough. Being Head of the Portkey Office represented the first step; the resentment and ignorance he had experienced from his family, save his mother had touched Pius. The flame of anger, ambition and hunger for power was in him, the sorting hat had considered him for Slytherin but at the time Pius had been young, naïve and his intelligence had won over his ambition and so Ravenclaw it had been.
By this time, Marion Thicknesse had died. Pius had never really received her, in fact he'd jinxed the gates around the Thicknesse estate so she couldn't enter. His father was too depressed and ignorant to care and both Celestine and Miranda had stopped living there for a long time. His father soon followed in death, Pius was indifferent to that just as his father had been to the death of his mother. The emptiness of the estate though reminded Pius that in order to succeed, he needed to be seen as a family man. He was wealthy, his father blamed Celestine's idiocy for the loss of his career and cut him out of his will, leaving Pius with half of it, ironic considering Pius had engineered both their downfalls and his grandmother had been too frail in the end to change hers and so Pius received a third of her considerable fortune. Eventually he married a half-blood witch from his old school year, her name was Ffion Hardaker and she'd been a Hufflepuff. A quiet thought beautiful girl, she had displayed talent for Quidditch and worked as a physiotherapist for Puddlemere United. Their marriage was loving and they produced two children, Bronwen and Neal. So by the start of 1980, Pius was rising in the Ministry and a husband and a father. All was going well for him.
Throughout his time at the Ministry, the First Wizarding War had been going on. Working in the Portkey Office, Pius was responsible in part for helping the Ministry keep safe the Muggle-born wizards that Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters wanted to kill. Pius did that, but was not adverse to selling information to the Death Eaters secretly; he was placing his bets both ways to prepare for either side winning. In 1980, Millicent Bagnold came to power as the new Minister for Magic. She promoted Pius from his old job to become Head of the International Magical Trading Standards Body within the Department of International Magical Co-operation.
He remembered the exchange, Bagnold saying "I think you shall be most useful, we need someone good at paperwork monitoring this area"
"Of course Minister" he replied
"And you can be trusted, your family is reliably non-elitist" Bagnold was known for her blunt remarks and as a Gryffindor half-born she loathed Slytherin
"I thank you Minister" he'd said, Bagnold gave a short smirk at his complicity and sent him away to his new post.
It was boring work, making sure that everything sold to other countries was proper and correct. However, the Death Eaters saw differently and placed Pius under the control of the Imperius Curse as a spy for them despite Pius willingly selling them information earlier on; it seemed they were not taking any chances. In his new role he was able to smuggle items for them in and out of the country. Of course, it didn't last long.
On Halloween Night 1981, James and Lily Potter died protecting their son Harry, who famously defied Lord Voldemort's killing curse, destroying the Dark Lord. The Death Eaters soon collapsed and the Order of the Phoenix and the Ministry were the victors, Pius was freed from the Imperius Curse and no-one was any the wiser about his activities. In fact, he was even promoted at the start of 1982 to become Head of the Department of Magical Transportation. Here Pius excelled, becoming known as an effective civil servant and administrator. Some said he could be Minister when Bagnold retired, but people such as Cornelius Fudge, Amelia Bones and Bartemius Crouch Senior, higher up than Pius had their eye on the post.
In the year 1988, Bronwen started at Hogwarts and was sorted into Hufflepuff like her mother; the following year Neal started and became a Ravenclaw like his father. Pius was almost glad, as much as he loved his children it was hard to be a father that was there all the time and them being at Hogwarts was easier for Pius and his career. A year after Neal started in 1990, Millicent Bagnold announced her retirement after a decade as Minister. Pius was briefly considered as a candidate to succeed her but in the end, Amelia Bones said she wasn't interested as did Albus Dumbledore, a scandal saw that Bartemius Crouch Senior didn't get it and so the compromise candidate was Cornelius Fudge. He saw Pius as a valuable asset; Pius had done well to hide his ambition. Fudge saw fit to trust Pius with being Head of the Department of Mysteries where all sorts of intricate magic lay.
It was at this time that Pius Thicknesse first experimented with dark magic on Level 9, some of the Death Eaters weaponry had been left in the Department. Pius likened the role to being like a spymaster, keeping his work and taste for dark magic confidential. The most exciting flick of news came in the Summer of 1992, at the end of Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts. Rumour had it that Voldemort had returned and that a Hogwarts Professor named Quirrell had tried to kill Potter on his orders. Fudge, panicking had the whole affair hushed up and only Ministry heads were privy to what happened. Once Pius knew about the possibility of a Voldemort return, he began contacting those who'd been with Voldemort and avoided imprisonment. Lucius Malfoy, Victor Crabbe, Ethan Yaxley and Marcus Goyle amongst others were interested to hear but refused Pius' hints that they should seek to resurrect the Dark Lord.
Malfoy had said to him "You may have been useful when he was here, but now your simply a politician"
"That I may be Lucius, but I'm a damn powerful one" he'd replied. Malfoy said nothing.
So, for the next few years, Pius binded his time, Fudge was proving himself as a great politician, not as a leader. He had the skills to remain Minister but not to be a great one; paranoia set fast in the Ministry amid constant rumours of Voldemort's return. Finally, after the death of Cedric Diggory at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament it was confirmed, Voldemort had returned. Fudge was petrified by this, he feared for himself and his position. Though Bartemius Crouch Senior, one of his main rivals had been killed by his son during the tournament, Albus Dumbledore still remained a threat to Fudge and he set about again as he had done years earlier, covering up the return. Now, the Death Eaters such as Malfoy and Yaxley began to be interested in how Pius could help them. Using his position as Head of the Department of Mysteries, Pius smuggled out equipment and magical objects that could be useful to them. In return for his loyalty, Lord Voldemort hunted down and killed Amelia Bones in the summer of 1996, a formidable Hufflepuff witch, Pius had heard that the duel was long and Bones had put up a good fight. In the end, she'd been brutally killed. Pius perhaps felt an ounce of remorse.
With Bones dead just days after Voldemort had been seen at the Ministry, dueling Albus Dumbledore and the invasion by Death Eaters, Minister Fudge was in panic mode. He quickly promoted Pius to Head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement to replace Bones. However, just a week later in late June 1996 after intense pressure where the wizarding community called on him whole-heartedly to resign, he was forced out to be replaced by Rufus Scrimgeour, the strong willed and capable Auror. Scrimgeour kept Pius on in his new role; little did the new Minister know that Pius Thicknesse was now the highest ranked Death Eater agent in the Ministry of Magic. At times, Yaxley who'd been assigned to keep watch on Pius placed him under the Imperius Curse but for a majority of the time, Pius; silently and diligently carried out Voldemort's bidding, making sure the Ministry was infiltrated so as to bring Scrimgeour down. He attended Death Eater meetings, not as one himself but a sometimes willing accomplice, he was rarely asked to speak.
At the final meeting before the takeover, he was. Yaxley and Snape had been arguing about when Harry Potter was going to be moved. Voldemort looked to Pius, at the opposite end of the table and said "What say you, Pius?"
Pius gulped and out of the corner of his eye could see the snake Nagini watching him, the snake had likely been place there to remind him to stay loyal. He gave a quick reply
"One hears many things, my lord. Whether they are true is another matter"
Voldemort snorted and said "Spoken like a true politician"
Some smiles glittered round the table, clearly they didn't view Pius Thicknesse as worthy. That was until Voldemort continued by saying "You shall prove to be most useful I think"
Pius showed no emotion, just a weak smile at this.
On the 1st of August 1997; the first day of the marriage of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour was the last day of Rufus Scrimgeour's tenure as Minister for Magic; Pius led a swift and silent coup by assassinating any senior official close to Scrimgeour or the order. That day also saw Lord Voldemort duel Minister Scrimgeour in the Ministry, like Amelia Bones, Scrimgeour was a powerful wizard and was only overpowered when backup from the Carrow's, Bellatrix Lestrange and Yaxley arrived. Scrimgeour refused to give up Harry Potter's location amid intense torture and so was killed, at that moment Lord Voldemort turned to Pius and said,
"Yes, you will prove most useful, Minister…"