Chapter 15
Dumbledore Down
Summer was a busy time of year for the International Portkey Terminal. Families of all sizes came and went in pursuit of various vacations. One would think there would also be a lot of business travelers, but Britain was too economically isolated from the global magical community for that to be the case. And there were also the odder cases, with more unusual sources, destinations and reasons, which was why they were here today.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was returning from Geneva today.
Amelia Bones had handled most of the investigation personally due to the high-level nature of the criminal. And yes, she now thought of him as a hardened criminal. Even just the crimes she had evidence for were horrendous, and she honestly doubted that she'd even scratched the surface.
It was just good that Hermione Granger was safely out of the country, because she was apparently his number one accomplice at Hogwarts. Or patsy, as Amelia referred to her. She would certainly have paid the price.
Severus Snape had been arrested, and was now cooling his heels awaiting trial — and she was throwing the book at him. Not only did she plan to nail him for a seemingly infinite number of counts of child abuse — her Aurors were collecting that evidence — but also for his time as a Death Eater. Her quick research showed that he was never even tried for it, even though he had been arrested.
He had walked on Dumbledore's word alone, and that was unacceptable.
She was hoping to get lucky and use a public Veritaserum questioning to implicate the supposedly reformed Death Eaters. If she could catch them in the same snare, then the aftermath of all of this wouldn't be as bad as she feared. If she couldn't, then she herself might have to take her niece and flee the country for more progressive — and far safer — pastures.
Minerva McGonagall had also been arrested unfortunately. She had no way of preventing it. It was unlikely that she would face any prison time, but she would likely never work in education again. She had horribly neglected the children she was responsible for, and that had led to the disappearance of a prominent pureblood daughter.
Not that Amelia thought it a bad thing, but that didn't excuse it.
Outside of petty theft, Ronald Weasley hadn't done anything bad enough to be charged for, so she was leaving him to his family. The same applied to Ginevra's pair of minders, though she suspected they would be having a hard time of it. Their parents had been appalled when they found out what was going on.
Amelia suspected that there were other co-conspirators out there, but so far she hadn't been able to find any other than Arabella Figg. In her case, though, she had done nothing wrong, per se. She hadn't had any real contact with Harry outside of the occasional babysitting job, and had reported her findings to Albus, whom she thought was his legal guardian.
Amusingly, not only was that not true, but Harry Potter apparently did not have a legal guardian, barring Sirius Black — who had been and still was ineligible. Nobody had filed the paperwork granting the Dursleys custody. The Durlseys themselves had been foolish enough that they hadn't done anything about it either. That made their custody of Mr. Potter akin to kidnapping and illegal imprisonment; they were in a great deal of trouble, even before you got to the extensive abuse.
Between the information provided by Mr. Potter's letter and the resulting investigations, and coupled with the presence of Dumbledore's special lemon drops found on the scene, she had more than enough evidence to arrest him. Much more importantly, as he was considered extremely magically dangerous, and this involved a prominent Head of Family no matter how young, she had tremendous leeway in how she handled it. She didn't have to be nice.
And she didn't intend to be; she didn't want Dumbledore to escape.
To that end, she had gone to his office at Hogwarts and had a talk with the resident phoenix there. The bird's reactions immediately concerned her; he seemed mournful, but also like he was trapped. And so she checked, and found that he had a dark binding on him that was undoubtedly tied to Dumbledore.
That was easy enough to fix; with his permission, she hit him with an Incendio, thus effectively killing him, and burning away any bindings on him in the process. Those types of bindings had to be renewed with each burning while the phoenix was still a chick. She was horrified that Dumbledore had done such a thing, but now there was a tiny baby phoenix in residence at her home.
Albus would have no help from Fawkes.
It was only minutes from the arrival time, and she quickly assessed their readiness. There were Aurors all over the place, but that was not uncommon. Today, however, they were aware that they might have to back her up against a very, very powerful wizard. Bill Weasley was hiding in a corner just in case; he was her ace in the hole if everything went pear-shaped, but she doubted it would be necessary.
Nymphadora Tonks would be the key player. She was blending in, dressed as a male attendant. And unsurprisingly, she was not acting the slightest bit clumsy. Amelia was one of the few people aware of the fact that her supposed clumsiness was an affectation to make people underestimate her, making them subconsciously believe that they would recognize her even were she morphed.
Even Albus didn't know, and she was counting on that, not that he would ever even see her if everything went according to plan.
She watched and waited, eyeing the various innocents flowing in and out of the terminal. She wished she could have closed it off, but that would have made it much more dangerous for them. They would just have to minimize collateral damage.
And finally, at noon on the dot, the portkey arrived bearing Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, in all of his arrogant faux-humble glory.
He looked around himself, his absent smile offset by his calculating eyes. That was one thing that Albus had never been able to hide well, and while most missed it, Amelia was not most people. She had never fully trusted Dumbledore, and now she knew why.
He was a hardened criminal, with a sense of entitlement a mile wide.
"Ah, Amelia," he smiled in greeting, strolling over to her.
"Albus," she nodded. "Any trouble?"
She didn't truly want to make conversation with the man, but she had to stall him just long enough for Tonks to get into the proper position. There was no easy way to determine exactly where an international portkey would arrive, and he had arrived much too far away from their preferred location.
"The ICW is refusing to believe that Voldemort has returned," he sighed heavily. "This is going to be a problem when he begins attacking again. We are not ready."
"I'm not surprised," she said honestly. "We have little evidence, Albus, and what there is looks like the ritual may not have even taken place."
"It took place," said Dumbledore firmly. "I'm sure of it. Tom would never–"
And then he fell unconscious to the floor, revealing Tonks holding her wand on him from behind where he'd been standing, even as she morphed back to her usual self. Amelia's mouth turned up in a rare smile; that had gone better than she'd hoped. Now they had him, and all they had to do was keep him.
Aurors fell upon him like a rabid pack of wolves, and Amelia just watched until they finally had him trussed up, including a pair of heavy magic-suppressing manacles.
"Take him to a cell," she ordered sternly. "Strip him, remove any magical items, up to and including his glasses if they're bespelled, and put him in prison garb. Check his beard and his hair thoroughly to make sure there's nothing hidden in there. And see if he has any false teeth, and if so, remove them. Go."
The families present at the time were staring in high astonishment. Normally Amelia would ignore that, but this was different. She had just stunned and arrested one of the most well-respected wizards in the world, and there was going to be outrage no matter what she did.
She could try to mitigate it, however.
"May I have your attention please," she called. "Yes, Mr. Dumbledore is being arrested, and is considered an extreme flight risk, hence the treatment. We have evidence that he is complicit in multiple heinous crimes against Harry James Potter, and that he may well be complicit in Mr. Potter's disappearance. That evidence will be presented at trial. We won't be covering it up. Thank you for your attention."
And with that, Amelia stepped over to Tonks, and they departed for the DMLE, leaving a crowd of shocked onlookers behind.
Only time would tell what the fallout would be.
===[~]===
Amelia walked with confidence into the Minister's office. She wasn't worried; even if this case wasn't the slam dunk that it was, Fudge wouldn't dare cross her right now. She had far too much dirt on him.
If he crossed her she would suddenly be the Minister, however temporarily, and he knew it.
He looked up and scowled slightly. He had never liked her, simply because she couldn't be coerced to his point of view when the evidence said otherwise. It was too bad really that Malfoy had never screwed up enough to give her evidence.
"What is it, Amelia?" he asked, not bothering to hide his irritation.
Amelia took her time and settled into a chair in front of his desk. She wasn't really being deliberately antagonistic; this was just going to take a while. And maybe it was a little fun to annoy him.
"Dumbledore," she finally said.
Cornelius narrowed his at her. "What about him?" he frowned. "Is he after my job again?"
Amelia snorted in honest contempt. "He never was, Cornelius," she told him bluntly. "He's a lot of things, but after the Minister's office was never one of them. But that doesn't mean you should trust him."
The way Fudge blinked at her was amusing. She had always been deliberately neutral toward Albus — he held too much power for it to be otherwise — but now she was subtly coming out against him. Little did Fudge know…
He finally sat back and waved a hand at her. "Go on," he frowned.
"Albus Dumbledore is currently in a holding cell," she told him flatly. "He is being brought up on multiple charges, including many, many counts of child abuse involving, among others, Harry Potter. And that's just the least of the charges."
Fudge's eyes widened dramatically. "Is that a good idea?" he asked. "He has a lot of support in the Wizengamot as you well know. On top of which, we have Lord Thingy out there somewhere, and Dumbledore is the only one he ever feared."
She rolled her eyes at his euphemism. "I really don't think we need to worry about Riddle," she said bluntly.
"Riddle?" he frowned.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle," she explained. "Voldemort's real name. And while I think that was the aim, the evidence leans heavily toward the idea that the ritual preparation was interrupted, and it never took place, regardless of what Albus says."
Fudge practically jumped at her use of Riddle's chosen epithet, which morbidly amused her. It amazed her how afraid people were of a mere name. But she certainly had his attention now, as she knew she would. It didn't matter if it was true or not; Fudge wanted Voldemort not to be back, and would grasp any straw to that end.
Never let it be said that she didn't know how to play their current Minister like a fiddle.
His eyes narrowed to a laser-like focus on her — not that he knew what a laser was. "How certain are you?" he asked.
"Very," she said directly. "Nothing about the scene made any sense for that scenario, Cornelius. There was too much evidence left, there was no evidence of there ever having been a fire under the cauldron, Pettigrew left in the cauldron still alive… If that ritual had come off, I doubt the ingredients would have survived, and we would never have known it happened at all. Riddle is or was not that stupid."
"Is or was?" he frowned.
"Nobody knows what happened to him," she shrugged. "He might be dead or he might be alive. But I don't think he's any closer to a return than he was before the Tournament."
Cornelius Fudge, for all that he was an idiot most days, was not completely stupid. She had figured that out early on; a small amount of it was affectation, but most was more his fear or greed overriding his common sense. When he actually thought things through, he could be fairly smart.
He proved it a moment later. "Then how do you explain Potter's death?" he asked.
"I don't," she said simply. "Not enough evidence. A vanishing charm? That can't happen, even if he was dead. No wizard could do that, not even Dumbledore or Riddle. Maybe Potter is dead, or maybe he's somewhere out there. We're still looking into it. I say we leave him dead in the public eye, though, at least for now."
Fudge slowly nodded. "Why? Not that I disagree you understand."
Amelia chuckled. He was just trying to ensure he could cover his arse. "If Potter absconded he had very good reason, Cornelius, and it was a very smart move. The evidence we have against Albus is truly extensive. I would not want to live like Potter had to. If he's still out there somewhere, he deserves some peace."
Fudge's brow furrowed as he puzzled that out. "What did Dumbledore do? As far as anyone knows, Potter lived like a king."
"And that's the problem," sighed Amelia, leaning back in her chair. "Potter is an abused child. I have his childhood abusers in custody, and we'll deal with them through the muggle courts. And I'm certain that Albus set it up deliberately.
"And then he perpetuated it at Hogwarts. Partly through abuse by Severus Snape, partly through agents that he put in place to play at being Potter's friends, and partly through setting up deadly situations he could force Potter into during the school year. The Triwizard is just the latest example. The others are currently unknown to the public at large, but that's about to change."
"Albus vouched for Snape," frowned Fudge.
"Snape has been terribly abusive toward, among others, my niece," growled Amelia, unable to fully contain her anger on that point. "The only reason I didn't know about it was because Albus had a geas on her so she couldn't talk about what was happening at the school. Once it was removed, she had a hell of a lot to say."
Now that got the Minister's attention. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates. He knew as well as she did that tampering with the family of a Ministry employee was a very bad idea. And it was a thousand times worse when it was the family member of an agent of the DMLE, let alone the Director's own niece.
Albus was going down hard, in so many ways…
"How solid is your case?" asked Cornelius finally.
"Extremely," she said. "We've already done the preliminary questioning under Veritaserum. Albus is a piece of work, and he's going to be lucky not to get the veil. The only reason I'm not going into detail is because it's going to be explosive, and you have too much on your plate to have a meltdown right now."
The Minister finally nodded. "You'll have my support then," he said, unusually seriously for him.
"Thank you," she nodded. "And a free piece of advice, Cornelius? You might want to keep Malfoy away from the proceedings. And make sure you have a bit of political distance between the two of you. I don't know for certain, but I have a feeling that something is going to pop there as well."
"Surely not the Death Eater thing again?" sighed Fudge. "You know he was under Imperius."
Amelia shook her head — while he could be smart, he also often really was an idiot. She leaned forward and speared him with a deadly serious look. She didn't like the Minister, but having him in place had its uses. Having him crash and burn over this was not to her advantage.
"I know that he said he was," she said quietly. "I do not actually believe it for even a moment, especially considering other information I now have available. And if I'm right, it may well come out in this trial. This is going to be explosive, and you need to protect yourself."
Fudge frowned deeply at that, but was smart enough this time not to press.
"And don't warn him," she told him bluntly. "You're the only other person who knows that he might take a hit, and that will put you in the hot seat for aiding and abetting. Do the smart thing Cornelius, and if I'm wrong then I'm wrong and no harm done. But if I'm right, you want to be as far away from that fallout as you can get."
===[~]===
A/N: And Amelia goes on offense and drags Dumbledore off to her evil lair… mwwahahahaha!
Seems that not everyone liked that last one, but I guess you can't win them all. I hope this one will make you happier!
Xaax: To be fair, I did note that it's a bondfic in the original A/N. That said, I encourage you to keep reading. This story could easily be written without such things, but I happen to be on the other side of the equation, and like the concept. =)
Thanks again for the reviews, folks!
