Notes: For the Mood Ring Competition.
Character: Cornelius Fudge.
Colour: Dark red.
"The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity."
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca
If there's one thing Cornelius Fudge hates, it's being made to look like a fool. And yet, when the Dark Lord decides to make his overly triumphant appearance at the Ministry of Magic, no less, complete with dramatic, flamboyant showdown with Dumbledore and the bloody Boy Who Lived, it is Cornelius who is mocked on the front page of the Daily Prophet. It is Cornelius who witches and wizards point to, who murmur in hushed voices that he was wrong. That he had known that You Know Who was back, and had chosen to stifle that knowledge from the general public.
The fact that they are right doesn't make it grate any less.
And he has no one to blame but himself, is the even stickier bit. Oh, Lucius contributed (then again, Lucius was picked up at the Ministry, Death Eater mask flashing silver in his hand, so perhaps he is not the best wizard to trust when it comes to Volde-bloody-mort), but for the most part, it was all Cornelius. He didn't want to admit that it was true. How could anyone? The darkest days of the wizarding world, turning up like an old, bad penny? He was supposed to be gone, he was supposed to be dead. Even the bogeyman can't rise from the dead in nursery tales, and yet this one has.
It infuriates him at the same time it terrifies him, and while his staff struggle and do their best at damage control, he must shore up his pride, take a deep breath, and admit that this time, he was wrong.
No matter what the cost.