"Well?" Fudge blustered loudly, his face white with fear and frustration. "Do you have any competence in finding out who has done this?"
The Unspeakable flicked her wand back up her sleeve, inhaling deeply as she watched the blue magical glow of a negative test surround Umbridge's body. "Minister, the tests for potioning and poison have come back negative. I suspect the simplest answer would be to question Rita Skeeter.." Before she could say another word Fudge dismissed with a wave.
"Well we can't, Skeeter has been transferred to St Mungo's drained of magic and from what that Mediwitch said she might not gain consciousness for days, if ever." That scared him, Rita turned into a Muggle by goodness knows what. Was this an opening shot from Dumbledore and his grab for power? "If you can't do better I will drag Algernon up here and see what he can do."
"If you could give me a moment Minister while I check for more evidence." Her eyes scanned Umbridge's office as Fudge sighed at her reply. Her eyes dancing round the room, what else was there to tell her what had happened. Behind the desk, sat in her chair, the dead body of Umbridge slumped back with her glassy eyes staring at the ceiling. On the desk two cups of stone cold tea, the passion pink lipstick of Skeeter adorning the edge of a kitten embossed porcelain cup. On the floor Rita's overturned chair left where it had fallen, to it's sight a ghastly green quill and her notebook.
Rita's nasty notebook. Wandlessly the Unspeakable levitated the notebook from it's resting place and pulled it in front of her, floating it in the air, not touching it so she could scan it for residual trace magic without contaminating it with her own. Pulling an ebony rod from her belt, she waved the rod across it's face as she read the neat output of the Quick Quotes Quill. The top of the page read 'The boy who lied.' Her eyes unfocussed as she received the results of the scan, the magical signatures of those who had touched the pad. The first was Skeeters, something unusual about it but it was hers, second was the acidic feel of the Quills magical signature and the third she knew well.
The third she knew from it's intensity and it's age. It was that damned artefact, from that damned Triwizard tournament. She knew it was packed away from prying eyes deep in the department of Mysteries special item store, she'd put it there herself two days ago. Never mind how time she had spent scanning over the blasted cup this past year at the request of Dumbledore and Crouch, trying to find what had put Potter into the tournament. It was definitely the Goblet of Fire. Gasping at the implications she read down the page of green script that had spelled out the death of Umbridge.
"What, what is it, what have you found?" Fudge spluttered
With a wave of her hand, the notebook settled back on the expensive antique desk. "Minister, do you remember last Halloween when the Goblet of Fire forced Potter to compete because of a magical contract?"
Fudge's pale face was screwed up in confusion. "What has Potter and that infernal mess of a competition got to do with my Undersecretary being killed." His gaze shifted to Delores' greying face and swallowed hard at her fate. How was he going to get Cuffe to spin this positively without his best aide's advice? Perhaps Luscious might have an idea.
The Unspeakable paused as tried to frame the bad news to a level she thought Fudge could understand. "Well Minister, contracts can have clauses that are beneficial or detrimental to either party."
Fudge's second chin rose in concentration as he tried to work out what she meant. "I'm sorry, sometimes Unspeakable explanations assume you know everything." He stated, trying to not lose face. "Contracts, are you saying this was a contract killing?"
"Sort of, lets try a different approach Minister, do you remember the prize for the Triwizard tournament?" she asked patiently.
"A thousand galleons. Wait are you saying Potter paid for Dolores to be assassinated." It was starting to add up. Potter, Dumbledore, take out Skeeter and Dolores in an attempt to flush him from office. His pale face started to gain colour as he worked through the consequences.
"No the other part of the prize, not a physical thing but written into the contract."
"What, no. I gave him the prize when laid in bed spouting the Voldemort's back nonsense." Fudge spluttered.
"And the eternal glory?" she asked. A faint grin crossing her lips as she nudged Fudge's thought process along.
"That was just a thing surely, Eternal glory was just as a result of winning and being the best. In the history books and what not?"
She passed the rod over Dolores' corpse and nodded as she found the Goblet's signature on it. "No, I don't think so. As much as Potter was forced to compete or lose his magic, I think the cup is holding up the contract where the victor wins galleons and glory." She used the rod to point at the last words that the Quick Quotes Quill had written. "The last thing written: An unnamed ministry spokesperson told me that the words of Potter are just lies and that the return of the late Lord Voldermort is just ludicrous."
"But, but, are you saying that the cup killed her because of what she told Skeeter?" If that was true then what did that mean? Potter was telling the truth?
"I will pull the Goblet out of the archive and check it but the evidence we have is that the Goblet will endeavour to ensure that Mr Potter has Eternal Glory and eliminate any that try to libel or slander him." She hid her smirk, she needed to start a betting pool on how long Fudge would survive this, politically or physically.
"What, what am I going to do?" His brain seemed to have stalled. He walked backward out of the office, trying to distance himself from his Undersecretary.
"It would be unprofessional of me to comment on that Minister but I will inform the Aurors of my preliminary conclusions and that they can take over now." She stowed the rod and stepped out the office. "It's a hypothesis at the moment but I suspect the proximity of the event to the Goblet may have had an effect on it's severity but you might want to put something in place to stop those likely to spout their mouths off from Potter wiping out their magic." She left whistling to herself off tune.
Fudge took a deep breath as he pulled himself together. Swallowing hard, he set off in the opposite direction. "WEATHERBY! Can someone bring the chap to my office immediately and, oh, make sure there is a bottle of firewhisky available in my cabinet." What the hell was he going to do about this latest mess and who would pay him to sort it?
