Chapter 21
Changes
Just as Madam Bones predicted, the trial of Albus Dumbledore sent shockwaves through their society. For so long he had been held up as the pinnacle of the Light, but now they were finding that he had not only severely abused their most beloved hero, he had also set out to see him dead. The man should have been hugely relieved to be in prison; the public would not have been nearly so kind as the dementors.
His entire justification was predicated on one particular reading of a Prophecy that was now squirreled away within the bowels of the Department of Mysteries. "Neither can live while the other survives" was the key line for his defense. He had somehow twisted that around in his head to equate to "Neither can die unless the other dies."
Many were asking if the man had some form of dementia, but St. Mungo's had certified him as sane.
Many more were asking if he had bribed the healers at St. Mungo's.
The list of transgressions was long and horrible, beginning with the sealing of the Potters' Last Will. Harry had been forbidden from being placed with the Dursleys. He wasn't even supposed to go to Black unless there was no other option. There was a whole list of people specified, many of whom were still around.
Then there was the inheritance that Dumbledore had hidden from him. Harry knew nothing of his wealth growing up. Instead he was left to live in squalor while the abusive muggles who hosted him lived high on the hog on the significant funds that Dumbledore was providing for his care, direct from the Potter estate.
And then came Hogwarts, where things swerved from horrifying all the way to outright insane.
Dumbledore had, on repeated occasion, endangered every single student at Hogwarts, and oftentimes that danger was potentially lethal. Even when he hadn't engineered a situation, he still tried to use it to kill Harry, endangering everyone else in the process. Perhaps the worst example of this was the fact that he knew of the basilisk and didn't even bother to take any precautions.
That could have killed Harry, himself, every student at Hogwarts, and a whole lot of others besides. Basilisks were considered the weapons of mass destruction of the magical world.
And those were just some of the highlights.
Due to the Veritaserum questioning, it came out that he had placed a compulsion on Black to force him to go after Pettigrew. And it was his efforts that led to Black never receiving a trial. He wanted total control of the Potter Heir, and did anything he had to do, no matter how illegal or immoral, to make that happen, regardless of who else got hurt.
He also knew of the abuse in the Dursley household, and certainly did not ignore it. No, he actually encouraged it. He had, on many occasions, tampered with everyone from the teachers at Harry's school, to the social services agents, to the police. Every single time that something was reported — no matter how horrendous — he made it go away.
And then there were his "agents" at Hogwarts.
Hermione Granger had come to Hogwarts as a lonely little girl with a few slightly concerning personality traits. In a proper environment, these would have been smoothed over and corrected. Dumbledore, however, deliberately inflamed them, using magic. He turned Hermione into who she became, just so he could use her as a weapon against Harry Potter.
Ron Weasley was in a similar boat, though in the reverse. He was already well on his way to functional insanity, and Dumbledore endeavored to stave that off just enough to use him against Harry. That backfired around the time of the Tournament drawing, when Ronald's mind finally snapped completely.
Had Ron had a competent Mind Healer, he might be a normal young man today.
And then there was Ginevra.
Albus was playing the long game with her. He set her up with minders, wanting her completely and utterly isolated so she would have no friends. Fortunately, things went off the rails before he could execute on his plans any further. He intended to mold her — using magic if necessary — as the perfect boat anchor around the neck of Harry Potter.
He wanted someone who would keep Harry's self esteem down. Someone who would keep him away from other people. And someone who would then be used to break his heart so thoroughly that he would want nothing more than to die. That was when Dumbledore planned to send him after Voldemort, presuming the man returned, which Dumbledore always expected.
Luckily, none of that would come to pass.
But even considering all that, there was something even nastier that utterly damned him in the eyes of the magical public.
Not only did Dumbledore know that Voldemort was still alive, he also knew exactly how that was accomplished. He had determined that the man had created Horcruxes. And then he had tracked every single one of them down.
And that accomplished, he had done absolutely nothing else.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, the man who claimed to have defeated the Dark Lord Grindelwald, had purposely allowed Tom Riddle to live, when he had the perfect opportunity to ensure that such would not come to pass. Had he destroyed the Horcruxes, the wraith would have been released to the hereafter, and that would have been that.
He endangered the entire world, just so he could slavishly follow a Prophecy that he hadn't even interpreted correctly.
It was no wonder he also had to use dark bindings to capture and enslave a phoenix.
All of these things coming to light had a massive negative impact on his reputation. Much more importantly, though, it galvanized the magical public. They started to see that his man had, deliberately or otherwise, been holding back their society from progressing into the modern era. With the rose colored glasses removed, they now saw the previous entreaties he made to prevent change in their society as what they actually were.
And then there was the other bombshell.
It turned out that Albus had not only supported letting the Death Eaters off on claims of Imperius, he had also actually invented the defense. He filtered it into the Death Eaters through Severus Snape, and then ensured that the defense would be accepted. He completely suppressed the fact that the Dark Mark would not take on an unwilling recipient.
Dumbledore wanted another war, just so that Harry Potter could go get killed in it, and then ol' Albus thought he could take down Tom and be hailed as the hero as a nice bonus prize.
All of this coming out at his trial resulted in the arrests of every "pardoned" Death Eater. Many complained that they could not be tried again, but that argument failed: they deliberately lied in order to get those pardons, which invalidated them under British Magical law. Every single Death Eater, from Lucius Malfoy on down, suddenly found themselves in Azkaban on a lifetime sentence.
Fudge was rather glad that he'd taken Amelia's advice.
For all of three weeks, until he got the bright idea of going after the Potter fortune.
Amelia was required to accompany him to Gringotts, which she was not thrilled about. She had warned him thoroughly against that course of action, but his greed was overtaking his common sense. He wanted that money quite badly.
He also failed to understand how the public would react if he succeeded, but that was neither here nor there.
He stomped into Gringotts and demanded the immediate release of the Potter assets to the Ministry. The goblins balked, of course; no proof of death had been provided, and there was also the fact that Harry Potter had a Will on file. They argued back and forth for nearly an hour while Amelia stood in the background, unable to look away from the train wreck in progress.
She eventually made a side bet with one of the goblins. He thought Fudge would find a way to pull it off; she bet that even if he did, he would end up with almost nothing.
She won rather big that day, much to the amusement of the other goblins who witnessed the bet, and Percy Weasley, who had been standing right next to her when she made it.
Soon Cornelius signed a death certificate for Potter — something she immediately reminded him he did not have the authority to do, not that he paid attention. That was after he tried to force her to do it, since she did have that authority, but she refused as there was no proof (not to mention that she knew he was still alive, but nobody else there needed to know that). And then they brought out the newest Potter Will.
It was a fairly short document, and had only a handful of paragraphs after the standard boilerplate:
To Gringotts Wizard Bank, I leave the sum of one hundred thousand Galleons, and a suggestion to change the name to Gringotts Goblin Bank, seeing as you run it. The funds are for two purposes: one, as thanks for caring for my assets, and two, as meagre compensation for the hassle the Ministry is undoubtedly putting you through as they try so hard to illegally steal my money. Oh, and please publish this Will verbatim in the Daily Prophet, will you?
Hello there, Cornelius!
To Ginevra Molly Weasley, or however she may now be named if she has married or otherwise changed her family affiliation, I leave the remainder of my material wealth. This is not to be made available to the rest of the Weasley family unless she should, of her own free will and without external magical or non-magical influence, decree such. Any previous, current, or future effort to disown Ginevra from the Weasley family, successful or otherwise, shall not invalidate this bequest in any way, shape, or form. Thank you, Ginevra, for being the one and only light in the darkness that is my life. Perhaps we could have been good together someday, but now I guess we'll never know. The best revenge is to live well. So live well!
Should Ginevra predecease me, I leave the remainder of my material wealth to the Hope Foundation children's home. The goblins may take the requisite fees to change Galleons, artifacts, properties, or other items into an appropriate currency that the Foundation can use.
To everyone else who wants to pick my carcass clean, I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to sod right the hell off!
Yes, Albus, this means you. You ruined my life enough, and if I'm dead, then we can be almost certain that it's ultimately your fault. Didn't think I knew you were trying to kill me, did you? Oops!
And yes, Lucius, he's actually more my enemy than you are, surprising though that is. You might want to wipe that nasty smudge off your arm, though. Why you wanted to be branded as someone else's slave in the first place is still a mystery to me. Muggle laser surgery might do the trick.
Ciao, folks!
P.S.: Should this Will be read in error, the Goblins may nevertheless keep their bequest. They've earned it in dealing with you Ministry twits!
Cornelius was so red in the face by the time they finished reading it — out loud, at that — that Amelia thought he might have a stroke. And then he turned right around and promptly signed a death certificate for one Ginevra Molly Weasley, making Amelia regret ever having told him that she was missing. Then he wrote and signed a decree that no muggle could receive the proceeds from a magical estate, as the Hope Foundation was a muggle charity.
All highly illegal, of course.
Amelia had a pretty shrewd suspicion of what was about to happen, so she did nothing just yet. The goblin she'd wagered with was looking fairly satisfied, but she thought she would have the last laugh. And she was not disappointed.
They all piled into carts, and quickly descended into the bowels of the bank. They first stopped at his trust vault, which they opened — only to find that it was completely empty. There was not a single knut left in the vault.
Her soon-to-be goblin benefactor lost a bit of his smile at that.
Then they proceeded to the family vault. Harry wasn't supposed to have access until he was seventeen, but she had a sneaking suspicion he had a way around that. And sure enough…
They opened the vault, only to find it almost empty.
There was a stack of Galleons in one corner, with a sign above it that identified it as being destined for Gringotts. Amelia had no doubt that it would turn out to be exactly one hundred thousand, and sure enough, when they checked, it did.
The only other items in the vault were thirty silver sickles, stacked neatly on top of an envelope. On the front of the envelope was written:
A goblin should read this aloud.
Fudge was beside himself with anger, but the goblins ignored him, even as a number of them counted out their hundred thousand. Since it was written first in the document, they got priority by law, and one did not mess with Gringotts' money. The lead goblin — who Amelia identified as Ragnok, overall Director of Gringotts Bank, ignored what was going on, and promptly did as the envelope suggested.
It was a very simple message:
What, did you think I would actually leave the distribution of my assets to those thieves at the Ministry? They probably declared Ginny dead illegally just so they could take it. Hell, they probably declared me dead illegally! Has anyone actually seen my body? You might want to ask around about that. Merlin knows they've wanted my money for a loooong time now.
Hellloooooo Cornelius!
HJP
Goblin laughter rang in that chamber for a very long time after that, and her goblin benefactor handed over her winnings rather promptly. He was trying very hard to stop laughing at the time, but that was neither here nor there.
Of course, that wasn't quite the end of it. Cornelius demanded to be taken back to the surface immediately. She could practically taste his desire to have Potter arrested for this affront — which was a problem for him, since he was supposedly dead. But Fudge's day was only going to get worse.
She signaled to Ragnok to travel with them, and managed to get him to agree. She whispered to him a polite request to conduct important DMLE business in the lobby of Gringotts. Grinning, he agreed.
Cornelius stormed through the lobby, his Auror guard struggling to keep up, until he was brought up short by her call.
"Minister!" she called. "Hold up, you forgot something very important!"
Fudge stopped, of course, and turned to her with an angry expression on his face. "What do you want, Amelia?" he snapped.
"You do remember that I advised against your efforts here today, correct?" she reminded him.
"Stuff it!" he groused. "Now what do you want?"
"Well, if you had told me what you were planning on doing beyond just asking the goblins for the Potter Estate," she told him slowly, "I would have also informed you that it was patently illegal."
"What's your point, Amelia," he growled, unwittingly confirming everything to the many patrons in the lobby.
"My point is this," she replied. "Cornelius Oswald Fudge," she called, the words ringing throughout the lobby. "You are under arrest on charges including but not limited to, illegal interference with the disposition of the Potter Estate by forcing an illegal Will reading; attempted line theft and falsification of a death certificate in the name of Harry James Potter; falsification of a death certificate in the name of Ginevra Molly Weasley, leading to an attempt to illegally confiscate assets left to her by the Potter Will; and fraud and theft in the signing of an illegal executive order in an attempt to redirect the assets of the Potter Estate to your own chosen destination."
The silence in the lobby was absolute. It was as though even the birds outside were listening. And Ragnok was standing there next to her, grinning ear to ear. He was having a blast!
"You can't do that!" Cornelius blustered. "I'm the Minister of Magic!"
"I very much can do that, especially with the number of witnesses to your crimes," she said with a trace of condescension. "You were the Minister of Magic. Now you are under arrest. And I'm the Minister of Magic until such time as the Wizengamot says otherwise, which I don't expect will take long. Committing blatantly illegal acts in the presence of the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is a level of stupidity that I did not think even you could stoop to."
What was really quite startling, not just for Fudge, but also for Amelia, was the massive round of applause she received for the action.
Amelia thought she would be back to her usual job within the week.
She was very, very wrong.
===[~]===
A/N: This one still feels a bit rough, but I finally gave up on trying to smooth it out. As with Champions, a long form trial just wasn't in the offing. I will also note that what the DMLE knows about Dumbledore's motives is only what they inquired about under Veritaserum.
Dumbledore doubtless had other motives, they just didn't find that out. I will leave what they were to the reader's imagination.
LtKettch: Thanks!
Guest: Good catch! Will fix that at some point. Yes, they were second years. :)
erbkaiser: There's a few areas of canon like that. Actually, the muggleborn as a whole are a very nasty security issue waiting to happen. How many of them are there? How much extended family do they have? And how inevitable is it that the extended family is eventually going to find out? There's no way they could have really kept that secret short of a geas, IMO.
I Just Won A Free Toaster Oven: I thought about making her M, but decided not to define it. Let your imagination flow. =)
To everyone else who reviewed, thanks for your support! I've very much enjoyed reading what you have to say. See you tomorrow!
