Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out the way I wanted.
Harry and Fleur changed their tails back when they got close to the surface. They only had to wait five minutes or so for the effects of the gillyweed to wear off for Terence, Viktor and Gemma so that they could breath above water again, but they passed Hannah up while they were waiting and Harry saw her father quickly moving to cast something over her when she was laid on the deck. He soon worked out what that had been for because he caught Abbott's smirk when Gemma collapsed after she was pulled from the water and tried to stand, so he leapt from the water, grabbing Abbott by the front of his robes. As Abbott stared at him in terror Harry hit him with a vicious legilimency attack, throwing him at one of the Aurors on the deck and barking "Arrest him for attempted murder!" when he was done before turning to Gemma to cast the proper counter to the stasis charm that included the curse which was draining her energy away.
After the Matriarch Bondings and other gains, Hermione and Gabrielle probably had twenty to thirty times Gemma's energy reserves, so they could safely wait a little to have the curse removed, but an ordinary witch wouldn't have survived more than half an hour past the expected finish time for the task and Gemma had been losing energy faster than she would have if she had remained under stasis, especially as she'd swum all the way back from the bottom of the lake. Fudge, Abbott and the other Ministry officials were all demanding that Harry be arrested for attacking Abbott like that but Amelia silenced them and requested an explanation from Harry, so he told her about how Hermione and Gabrielle were being stabbed with tridents when he and Fleur arrived in the Mer village, how Gemma, Hermione and Gabrielle had all been set up to drown at the bottom of the lake because they woke up at their rescuer's touch, and that the girls would have drowned if they hadn't all been carrying extra gillyweed in case the task took longer than expected.
He also explained what he had seen when they got back to the dock, how Abbott had urgently cast something over his daughter the moment she came out of the lake and how he'd smirked when Gemma collapsed, so he obviously knew exactly what was going on. That was what moved him to use Legilimency on Abbott to discover just what had been cast on the girls and how to counter it, and he pointed out that they could confirm that the curse which was part of the stasis charms cast on the girls without permission was draining their energy fast enough to kill anyone like Gemma who had normal reserves within the next half an hour or so by questioning Abbott under Veritaserum, so the minimum charge for that alone should be four counts of attempted murder, taking the intended victims' status, the fact that extra steps had been taken to make three of them drown at the bottom of the lake and have two of them killed by the Mers as well into account. Amelia nodded, as she was well aware of the titles and relationships shared between him, Hermione, Fleur and Gabrielle and the fact that the house of Fawley was officially recorded as being vassals under the protectorate of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter, so the extra steps intended to kill them specifically meant that this would not be a simple case.
Knowing that the people behind this would try to find a way to shut Abbott up before they could officially question him, Amelia called for Veritaserum and questioned him then and there in front of plenty of witnesses. Fudge and the others tried to stop her of course but she was a woman on a mission, and half of the Ministry officials were arrested before they could escape, others who had come along to gloat but tried to leave when they heard about what was coming out were informally detained to 'give their version of what they saw' until they finished getting the names out of Abbott and the others arrested. Once again, it was only the fact that no-one had trusted Fudge to keep secrets that saved him because he wasn't involved enough to be caught in the net that was cast. Strangely enough, Bagman wasn't part of it either, but Rosier was of course, especially after crewmen appeared from the Black Lady, carrying the ones that they'd captured while they were trying to finish off Gabrielle and Hermione down in the Mer Village and cover up the evidence. They also brought Hermione, Gabrielle and Gemma's robes, which they'd summoned to the Lady as they left the village, and Amelia's blood ran cold when she saw all the holes in Gabrielle and Hermione's robes from being stabbed with the Mermen's tridents, which the DMLE healers' reports showed matched up to many of the bruises forming on the girls' bodies after they removed their dragonskin armour so that they could be examined. When Gemma removed her armour, they confirmed that she had been spared that treatment, as had Hannah Abbott, but they had no difficulty in examining her because she was naked under her robes, apparently she had been planning to…. reward her rescuer once they were out of the lake.
When the Mer Chieftain came up, demanding justice and reparation for the half dozen Mermen that Harry, Fleur and Hermione had killed, the situation got rather tense until he finally admitted that some of his people had taken bribes to make sure that two of the humans and the two birdwomen died. He tried to argue that the terms of the age old feud between the Merpeople and the birdwomen meant that the lives of any of them who came into his people's domain were forfeit anyway, but he was adamant that they had been specifically ordered to make sure Fleur and Gabrielle died.
While there was no-one else around who understood Mermish, Harry told the Chieftain that the human female and the two birdwomen they were trying to kill were his bonded mates, so if the Mers didn't give up all the details relating to the ones who had set the Mers to kill them, he would bring the ship which had helped them down there to their Mer village and wipe out every last one of his people so that his clan would cease to exist, and word of their shame would be spread among the people. The Mer Chieftain recognised that this wizard knew the ways of the people and was a warrior who could and would do exactly as he said for attacking his bonded mates, and that he would be within his rights to do so, so he quickly had everyone who'd had any dealings with the humans brought up to answer his questions. As luck would have it, the goblin versions of pensieves had wider tolerances than the wizarding ones, so they managed to get clear memories of nearly everything said by just about everyone who'd given the Mers any instructions about what to do to them, including the ones who had bribed the Mermen to kill him, Hermione, Fleur and Gabrielle. What came out of that was proof that everyone who'd dealt with the Mers had been trying to set them up to die down there, not one of them had given any instructions to spare them. As Amelia was being told what was said, she was getting grimmer and grimmer by the minute, the only good thing that came out of what they were seeing and hearing was that they had clear images of everyone who had talked to the Mers, so they didn't have to rely on the Mers identifying them and Amelia was sending Aurors off to pick them up as soon as someone put a name to the image.
It wasn't ordinary Aurors she was using for this, as nearly everyone she had at Hogwarts was an ex-werewolf who'd been hired since she got the Wizengamot authorisation to hire whoever she needed, and she trusted them implicitly. She chuckled to herself about that, because she was one of the few who knew that, as good as the wolf Aurors she hired were, the best of the ex-werewolves were going into either the family's Corvus companies, or Her Majesty's Special Security Service. For over a year now she'd been secretly working with select members of the Muggle intelligence and security services who'd been read into the secret of the Magical world, feeding them information about risks coming from the Magical world and in return getting information that only their technology could provide, which helped her people track down the ones that they couldn't find on their own. That was how they located Fenrir Greyback and his rabid followers, and the Special Security Service had provided an elite squad made up of Muggleborn Witches and Wizards, Magical and Non-Magical ex-werewolves and battle hardened Non-Magical warriors (many of them Squibs) to help take Greyback and his followers down.
The ex-werewolves hired by the Corvus companies were mainly Magical, but that was because most of them had Magical 'day jobs'. Many of them worked in the apothecaries that brewed the 'improved Wolfsbane' among other things, but they had all sorts of other companies covering things like ward creation, curse breaking, schools and the like. Fred and George's 'joke shop' was one of these because many of the brilliant things they thought up were more useful than funny. As many of the ex-werewolves had had little or no Magical Education, especially if they had been turned as children, they were getting that education in the Corvus schools, but Magical and Non-Magical combat training got equal time to the Corvus people's other education because the family knew that they were heading into another war, even if it was more undercover than the war with Riddle and his Death Eaters had been. The ones who did have a Magical education were going through the combat training, but many of them were also taking the opportunity to extend their education, getting their NEWTS and and Masteries. Much of Harry and the others' defence and combat training was done with the Corvus people, because the harsher methods used there made them tougher, faster and more effective fighters. They were all developing effective skills much faster than they would have through conventional training, and that was why Amelia's wolf Aurors and better prospects were training with them to get the Auror Office up to speed faster.
The British and French Aurors were quite busy for the next couple of days, rounding up everyone who had been named in the questioning. When the trials started, the French authorities couldn't work out how the famous Harry Potter appeared when required in their trials, as they knew that he was involved in British trials at the same time, but he was somehow there whenever his presence was required. As a result of the trials over the actions of the British and French Ministry officials and their accomplices over the next couple of months, several were executed, many more more were sentenced to life imprisonment or shorter prison terms, and nearly a score of British and French families (over half of them quite rich and powerful) were permanently eradicated with their titles, holdings and everything else belonging to them being claimed by the families of their intended victims. In some cases the guilty parties' magic was taken along with their family magic in Britain. Harry thought it poetic justice to take Tony Abbott's magic and give it to Gemma (especially when the family she was marrying into were involved in running the core businesses that had been taken from the Abbotts, as the secret processes only Abbott knew about were quite helpful in that).
One of the British titles they claimed was used to reinstate the House of Farley's Noble and Ancient status (Gemma's father was truly grateful for their house being raised to its former status again, all the more so because it wasn't expected, and this sealed the House of Farley's votes and support for the Wizards Council Alliance, the House of Higgs as well because when Terence married Gemma and they took over from their fathers as Heads of their Houses, the Higgs family would be elevated to Noble). The titles, holdings and fortunes of a number of other Noble and Ancient families were used to elevate the remainder of Harry and Hermione's Most Ancient Druid Houses to Noble and Most Ancient Houses, because being Noble Houses multiplied their voting power in the Wizengamot. As Consort to the Head of the Most Ancient Druid House of Cathbad, Harry also used the primary title of the Noble and Ancient House of Macmillan to elevate the Most Ancient Druid House of Cathbad to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Cathbad and give Luna the title of Countess Cathbad in her own right.
These titles and holdings could only be allocated to the houses of those directly involved in the proceedings, and they made sure to wring the maximum political advantage from the reallocations, but Harry was happy to be able to use Gemma's position as Heiress to the House of Farley to allocate a title to her family and reinstate the House of Farley's Noble and Ancient status, and also that he could use his position as Consort to the Head of the Most Ancient Druid House of Cathbad to use Earl Macmillan's title to elevate Luna's house to Noble and Most Ancient and Luna to Countess Cathbad….. Part of the reason for doing this was that as Luna's father held the sole Barony of the House of Lovegood and the House of Cathbad was a Druid House, Luna hadn't held any titles in her own right before that and Harry wanted her to be on a more equal standing with Hermione and the other girls. It wasn't an issue within the family of course, but when their plural relationship became public knowledge down the track, he wanted to stop others using that to imply that Luna was anything less than the rest of them. He couldn't do this for Daphne or Astoria yet because he wasn't currently married into their houses, but when house politics did give them the opportunity to legitimately allocate titles to the Houses of Yowann and Greengrass, they would be doing that so that Astoria and Daphne would also hold titles in their own rights as Heiresses to their parents' houses.
Meanwhile, the wealth, titles and holdings of five French Noblesse families and three other wealthy families were forfeited to the French Noblesse Ancienne families of Delacour, Dubois and Flamel, claiming Comte Rosier's title for the Heiress to the House of Delacour, Comte Lestrange's title for the Heir to the House of Flamel and Comtesse Bordeaux's title for the Heiress to the House of Dubois meant that Fleur was elevated to Comtesse Delacour-Flamel as Heiress to the Noblesse Ancienne House of Delacour and Consort of the Heir to the French Noblesse Ancienne House of Flamel, while Gabrielle became Countess Flamel-Dubois as Consort to the Head of the British Noble and Ancient House of Flamel and Heiress to the Noblesse Ancienne House of Dubois (Fleur and Harry would most likely remain Heiress and Heir to the Houses of Delacour and Flamel for quite some time, so once again this put Fleur on a more equal footing with the other girls). In Magical Britain, the Wizards Council Alliance now had a strong majority if they voted together (which of course they did on important matters), but acquiring the titles, holdings and votes of half a dozen of the most powerful houses opposing them in Magical France gave the Delacour/Flamel Alliance enough weight to start getting changes made.
While Magical France was officially a Republic as there was no King, the French Noblesse Ancienne Houses held enough power that the scandal arising from the plot to undermine Jean-Pierre and end his line by murdering his daughters and heirs was sufficient cause to topple the President of Magical France, especially when the Heir to the French Noblesse Ancienne House of Flamel was also being targeted. The rest of the government of Magical France scrabbled to gain favour with the winning side when they saw that, so Jean-Pierre was elected as the new President without opposition. This gave Jean-Pierre the opportunity to ensure that those who replaced the French Ministry officials who had been executed, imprisoned or fired over the affair were not in any way affiliated with the group who had been behind the plot against his family.
Across the channel, they managed to block most of the attempts of the people behind Fudge to replace those who had been executed, imprisoned or fired with their people, and with Abbott being sent to Azkaban for fifty years as one of the key members of the plot against Harry and the others, influence applied by the ICW helped them get the Department of International Magical Cooperation disbanded and its functions incorporated into Arthur's renamed Department of Foreign and Domestic Liaisons. The ICW's influence also got Madam Marchbanks instated as the Director of Magical Education, because the Wizarding Examination Authority performed the vast majority of the functions in this Department and the previous Director of Magical Education had been fired for abusing his authority by trying to force Hogwarts to give in to the demands of the tournament organisers.
These changes were of course a major blow to the plans of the people behind Fudge because they no longer controlled anything of any importance in the Ministry, Fudge was no more than a figurehead and his new Senior Undersecretary nothing but a stooge. The fact that Fudge had in fact been ordered to take Diggory on as his new Undersecretary for that very reason did nothing to reduce their anger at Fudge for letting this happen, all the idiot had to do was maintain the status quo until the time was right but he couldn't even do that!
With Abbott and Rosier in prison, the plans for the third task of the tournament were ripped apart and most of the elements were discarded. The Bulgarians had no complaints about this, because they saw that there had been nothing in the original plans to keep their prized quidditch star safe as they had been assured he would be. Jones and Bagman fought the changes (one because he was under orders and wanted revenge, the other because he still stupidly believed that he could recoup his losses betting on this tournament because some of the champions were bound to die in the planned task), but with Arthur replacing Abbott and someone with integrity now representing the French, they were overruled, and compulsions were placed on them to ensure that they didn't remember or tell anyone else about the changes once they left the meetings.
The third task was redesigned to be challenging rather than lethal, and as such all of the XXXXX creatures and most of the XXXX ones were removed, but the pair of illegally purchased sphinxes (only one was planned for the task but they had a spare in case one died before the task, they were both to be killed and sold for potions ingredients etc after the task to recoup some of the costs) who were currently being smuggled into Britain were left in, as they would actually make good challenges, and Harry wanted to offer them a home at Potter Manor or one of their other estates (even if Britain proved too cold for them, many of their estates in the south of France or Spain, around the Mediterranean, in Africa, India, the East Indies, Australia, the Americas or Isla Negra should be warm enough). If they wished to return to Egypt they would of course take them back, but sphinxes were obviously no longer given the respect they were due in Egypt if the government there was willing to sell them off to be stunned, locked in boxes and secretly shipped off to Britain to be used in a tournament and then slaughtered once they'd served their purpose. Harry was confident that the sphinxes would choose to stay with the family when they saw the proof of the negotiations and their intended fate. They also replaced most of the lethal traps with challenges which would test the contestants' skill and intellect. Harry and Fleur were kept out of the planning for these challenges to make it a fairer test, because they didn't mind competing now that it actually was a contest, rather than an assassination attempt.
Of course they didn't tell the Bulgarians about the portkey that was being placed on the cup to take the 'winner' (which Harry was still being set up to be) off to another location to be slaughtered in a fake ritual which the Death Eaters would be blamed for. Harry was sick of this shite, he and Hermione (with Luna's help) had engineered and brought about the final demise of Riddle and his key Death Eaters within a couple of months of their arrival in this timeline, but he was still being made to go through all the same shite as he had in the other timeline…. That was apparently his lot in life, same shite, just a slightly different flavour!
They knew that Jones had been tasked with setting up the portkey on the cup, but he didn't know where that portkey would take whoever grabbed the cup, so their plan was to switch the cup for a safe facsimile as soon as Jones left the maze and then extract the portkey destination from it. They would send the Black Lady to that location with a team of picked Corvus, Auror and Special Security Service people (the Black Lady's crew was made up of the best warriors the family had, while they had 'day jobs' with the Corvus companies, most of them were Magical ex-werewolves who were constantly working to further hone their combat skills), and when she was close enough to engage the location, a separate team of Amelia's wolf Aurors would portkey into the location and engage them on the ground to distract them. The plan was to use the Lady's schlag-ruthes to stun as many of the ones waiting as possible before they could escape, so that they could try and extract as much information about the ones behind this as possible.
The biggest problem they had with this new threat was the fact that the ones pulling the strings this time were much more clever than Riddle or anyone else they'd faced before. When they tried to extract information from the ones captured at the Quidditch World Cup, they discovered that anyone who actually knew anything important had been made to take oaths which killed them if they tried to tell what they knew. The traps had been cunningly laid to silence them before they could reveal anything critical, so the only thing of any real potential import that they managed to get out of them before they died was a reference to 'The Minister' being in charge. Even that was of questionable value though, because while there was no way that 'The Minister' referred to Fudge (he couldn't organise a screw in a two sickle brothel), they couldn't work out who in the seven hells it did refer to.
It was hard not to laugh at Jones struggling to break the compulsions against remembering or letting anyone else discover the changes to the third task. Bagman on the other hand had such a weak mind that he forgot all about the changes as soon as he left the meeting, he just went on his merry way, dreaming of how this tournament was going to make him rich. This was so reminiscent of the Ron Weasley from the other timeline that Harry and Hermione began to wonder whether Bagman was yet another one of Fudge's children.
Once the trials of the ones who'd tried to have them killed in the second task finished, Harry, Hermione and the others concentrated on their studies, because they had had a lot of distractions over the previous months. Harry, Hermione and Fleur were all set to finish their NEWTs that year, and the others would have most of them done too, so it should be mainly their masteries that were being worked on the following year.
Of course, they were still involved in the family's plans outside of Hogwarts, and it was Luna who came up with the perfect candidate to replace Fudge. "You've been the Minister in at least two possible futures Uncle Frank, and you've done quite well. Auntie Ami, Uncle Arthur, Uncle Saul and Auntie Gris can do more good where they are, because Auntie Ami and Uncle Arthur are controlling most of the Ministry from their current positions….." She stopped and looked at Amelia and Arthur at that point. "But I do think that it would be best if you two held off on getting married until after we get Uncle Frank elected as Minister, because your wedding is going to become the centre of attention and that may give the other side a chance to try to slip something through while people are distracted."
Amelia blushed at that, but chided herself for not expecting it, because while she and Arthur had tried to be discreet you couldn't hide things from a seer of Luna's calibre, so she just nodded and Luna went on.
"I know that some people will try and use the fact that Uncle Frank and Auntie Alice were in Saint Mungo's for ten years, but Uncle Frank has made himself quite a reputation with what he's achieved in the Investigations office over the last year and they can't argue that the Longbottoms have a reputation for integrity and they're one of the richest and most powerful families in Magical Britain, so he won't be open to bribes or corruption like Minister Fudge is. The other times he was Minister, Uncle Frank was more respected than Minister Bagnold….."
She stopped at that because Hermione had just made a critical connection and was staring at her in shock, but she let Hermione tell the others what she'd realised.
"That's who 'The Minister' is! Millicent Bagnold! She was a Ravenclaw and everyone said she was brilliant… That must have been why she stepped down in Ninety, to get some patsy like Fudge to take the fall for the mess Magical Britain had gotten itself into. That way, as soon as things started to improve she could step back in to 'lead Magical Britain into a new golden age', while all the dirt would stick to the idiot who jumped at the chance to be Minister after she stepped down. Maybe she got out when she did because Dumbledore warned her about what was coming, he's certainly in her pocket in this timeline so he may have been in the other timeline as well…. Harry hasn't seen any of this in Jones' head so she probably made him take the magical oaths to hide the key information too. She hadn't taken over again by the time Harry and I were killed in the other timeline, but Riddle and his Death Eaters decimated us and Dumbledore had just started nudging Britain towards recovery at that point, so she may have been waiting until it looked more promising before she took over to avoid being associated with the state it was in at the time…." She shook her head with a laugh. "She probably didn't know whether to curse us or hug us when we came back and wiped out Riddle and his Death Eaters, because her plans depended on having them as bogeymen to make the people rally to her, that must have been why she created the fake Death Eaters…. to keep her plans moving forward, but I'll bet she wants to curse us for using the Most Ancient House Laws the way we did to wipe out so many of the houses forming her support base. That must have been why she brought the tournament forward two years, she couldn't get past our controls to get rid of Harry, so she needed the tournament to kill him at least off. If we didn't have the full Wizards Council, getting rid of Harry could have been enough to prevent the Most Ancient House Laws being enacted, and I and then Luna would have probably been targeted next, because we control the most houses after him…." She stopped to think for a moment and frowned.
"I don't know whether she's keeping track of what's happening, but we have to presume that at a minimum, Bagnold is aware of most of the Houses that we control, and possibly how many votes we control and our marriages too, and therefore is trying to eliminate the threat that we represent. Getting rid of Harry and me would not only prevent the Most Ancient House Laws being enacted, it would also stop our alliance having the controlling vote in the Wizengamot, and if she can get rid of us before we have Heirs, she and the people working with her will be free to take over Magical Britain at their convenience."
The rest of them were staring at her in horror, because it all made terrible sense when she laid it out like that.
Amelia shook her head despairingly. "What was that phrase you used Hermione? Don't know whether to curse you or hug you? I think that applies here too. I think it's safe to say that you've right about who we're up against, but we were under Bagnold as the Minister for ten years and as you said, she's brilliant so beating her at her own game when she's had years to set this up will be one hell of a job…."
The other adults nodded grimly, looking despondent, so Luna tried to get the attention off Hermione by going back to the previous topic. "So I think that we can get Uncle Frank accepted as Minister, but he will need an Undersecretary who is reliable and bright enough to support him and help him deal with issues that come up… people would attack Auntie Alice if it was her so I think that Dirk Cresswell is the one we need for Uncle Frank's Undersecretary, but perhaps we should get him to give an oath to ensure his loyalty while he holds that role."
Harry and Hermione thanked her for that diversion over their link as they thought about her suggestion, and Harry spoke up because he'd heard more about Cresswell from Slughorn in the other timeline. "I remember the name, he became Head of the Goblin Liaison Office sometime in the next few years. Slughorn regarded him as a bit of a potions prodigy and sort of compared him to Mum, which was high praise from Slughorn. He's a Muggleborn but he tried to create fake documents for himself and his family to show that they were Purebloods when the Death Eaters were in control because they started sending all Muggleborns off to concentration camps…. I didn't know him personally but he was obviously bright and I don't remember anything about him selling anyone out..." He looked a question at Hermione but she shook her head. "I don't remember much about him, but he certainly sounds like someone who's worth looking into as Uncle Frank's Undersecretary…. So, leaving the Bagnold situation aside for now, what do you think about being Minister Uncle Frank? I have to admit that I rather like the sound of that."
Frank was shaking his head doubtfully but when he looked at Alice she was nodding thoughtfully. Alice caught his eye and spoke up. "I know that you don't want this any more than Harry wants his role in all of this Love, but you have to admit that Luna's making a lot of sense. The Longbottom name, and you in particular, are well respected. As Luna said, we can hold up your integrity and the fact that the Longbottom fortune means that you aren't likely to be bribed as a challenge, knowing that no-one can match you. While we fell into Dumbledore's trap before, we've made it quite clear that we won't make that mistake again and what we've achieved as part of the alliance is a matter of record. The other side will try to use the fact that we were being potioned to keep us in Saint Mungo's for ten years, but once again, as Luna said, you've made quite a reputation for yourself in the last year and any argument that you've lost your touch can be shot down easily enough. I don't know anything about this Cresswell….?" She look at the others but Amelia shook her head, looking in turn at Arthur who responded.
"I have to say that I like the idea of you being Minister too Frank, and yes, I have worked with Dirk before. I didn't realise that he was Muggleborn, he's certainly hidden that well, but as Harry said, he's quite clever and I don't remember him ever trying to use anyone else to get ahead, so I'd say that he could serve well as your Undersecretary."
They went around the group and the consensus was that everyone liked the idea of Minister Longbottom and that Arthur would feel out Dirk, getting an oath to keep the matter quiet until it was resolved one way or the other. Frank reluctantly agreed to stand for Minister, but didn't like the idea of Alice working in the field without him (between what had happened to them, and James and Lily, they'd become all to aware of the dangers out there). This led to Amelia bringing up something which had been on her mind since her and Arthur's Departments had been expanded to absorb the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes and Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. With all the extra groups and functions in her department she was struggling to keep on top of the workload, and she needed someone she could trust to cover any functions she handed off, so she proposed creating a Deputy Director role for the DMLE and having Alice fill it. The role would be diverse enough to keep it interesting, and she'd very rarely be out in the field alone because she'd generally be overseeing operations. Alice agreed to think about it and in turn suggested a couple of the wolf Aurors for consideration to replace her and Frank as they'd worked with them on investigations before and their special talents and thought processes had proven very useful, they also seemed to find the investigation side more interesting than general Auror work, Amelia nodded thoughtfully as she noted down the names.
They got back to the elephant in the room after that, Bagnold. Unfortunately they all had to admit that Hermione was almost certainly correct, because Bagnold was a formidable opponent. The fact that they'd only managed to work out that it was her with clues from the future was proof of that, but they also had to admit that knowing who they were up against was a significant advantage, because they could now use their resources to keep an eye on her and see who she was dealing with.
This was quite enough to keep them all busy until the third task came around, but being forewarned meant that they were better prepared than they would have been otherwise. They agreed that it was most likely that the fake ritual would take place in a graveyard like the real one did, and Harry burst out laughing when he saw Little Hangleton on the list of graveyards that Bagnold's people were scouting. When he explained that that was where the ritual was held in the other timeline because Riddle's father's grave was there, they all agreed that Dumbledore (or Jones, depending on when it came up) must have told Bagnold about Riddle's past and that she would most likely decide to use Riddle's home town to build credibility for the idea that it was actually Riddle and his Death Eaters doing this. They kept an eye on all of the graveyards via the satellite imagery that Amelia was being fed by the Special Security Service, but had extra cameras on Little Hangleton and the activity there made it almost certain that that was the spot. This in turn improved their prospects because the less time they wasted confirming the location and getting the Black Lady in place, the more likely they were to capture everyone at the site.
On the day of the third task, a Confundus on Jones was enough to prevent him noting that the creatures and traps in the maze weren't the original death traps when he was placing the cup with the corrupted port key inside the maze. As planned, they switched out the cup as soon as he left the maze and quickly confirmed that it was set to take whoever picked it up to the graveyard in Little Hangleton. As soon as the Black Lady was in position, the wolf Aurors activated the portkey, and the thirty or so thugs waiting in the graveyard in Death Eater cloaks and masks got a nasty shock when the portkey activated early, and instead of one confused schoolboy they were facing a dozen of the DMLE's best wolf Aurors, fully alert, wands out and covered from head to toe in dragonhide armour. On top of that, massively overpowered spells were raining down on the from above too. None of them had a chance to drop the anti-apparation wards before they were stunned so none of them got away.
Back at Hogwarts, Harry and the others were having fun in the third task, because the family, half of the staff of Hogwarts, Madame Maxime and Professor Branimir had thought up challenges for the maze that really tested them. One fun trick was the fact that the two Sphinxes were being portkeyed around the maze, so that they had to get past them multiple times. In the end, it was Viktor who stumbled into the centre of the maze first and took the cup to win the tournament after forty minutes or so, which meant that the Bulgarian government got what it wanted.
It was only when the triumphant Bulgarian seeker was portkeyed back to the starting point for the maze with the cup that the watchers for other side realised that it hadn't gone as they planned, but they got another surprise when they tried to run out to report this, because Amelia had disillusioned Aurors stationed around the stands, waiting for exactly that type of behaviour, so they were all stunned, secured and portkeyed back to the DMLE's holding cells to be asked a few questions.
Unfortunately, they didn't have enough evidence to grab Bagnold yet, but they were watching her estate and recording the comings and goings of her panicking minions. One thing they found promising was that Bagnold appeared to be supremely confident that no-one could break the controls she used to ensure that her minions couldn't name her or identify their operation, so the operation kept on as it was.
Another thing that worked out well for them was the fact that, while Fudge's loyal minions may have kept his name out of everything to protect him, the only name that Bagnold was worried about keeping hidden was her own, so they got enough evidence on Fudge to put him on trial for his part in the plots to use the Triwizard Tournament to assassinate Duke Potter among others.
Fudge got a nasty shock in court when he was reminded that the immunity from prosecution for the sitting Minister and Chief Warlock had in fact been revoked nearly two years before by the incoming Chief Warlock and Chief Witch. He'd blindly trusted the ones who told him what to do, so when they said that they would put everything back the way it was when they got back into power, he missed the all important line there 'when we get back into power'. Looking at the faces smirking at him from the Wizengamot benches (no-one had ever liked the idiot, it had always been taken as a given that he was just keeping the seat warm until someone better came along, they were only surprised that it took this long), he had a rare moment of clarity, because he suddenly realised that he was over a barrel and was about to get screwed something awful. Quite a few people in Magical Britain would have been shocked to hear that he had actually managed to work that out.
By the end of his trial, the House of Fudge had been eradicated, nearly everything they owned was forfeited to the House of Potter and Cornelius Burke was headed for fifteen years in Azkaban's minimum security cells (he'd reverted to his mother's maiden name when the name of Fudge was eradicated). Harry made arrangements for Millicent Burke's tuition at Hogwarts to be paid until she finished her education, with enough of a stipend for her to live with her mother in modest but comfortable circumstances. Similar arrangements were made for Cornelius' wife, with the proviso that she continued to look after Cornelius' son Ronald. She wasn't at all happy with that idea, but she was obviously the bright one in the family because she understood that if she refused, she would lose both the stipend and modest cottage allocated to her.
As soon as Cornelius was sentenced, Cyrus Greengrass nominated Frank for interim Minister for Magic, with Alastor Moody immediately seconding the motion. Even though they could have voted him in without outside assistance, it was interesting to note that the vote was almost unanimous. Amos Diggory's anger at the fact that he hadn't even been nominated (because as the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, he'd been expecting that the interim Minister's role would be his) wasn't missed by those in the chamber.
As they decided that after two years, they'd gotten everything of use from Albus Jones, Jones was tried for his crimes over that period as well. He was sentenced to fifteen years in Azkaban's medium security cells, but while he'd already lost all of his possessions and his prized Order of Merlin First Class (that had been stripped from him after the truth came out about what really happened with Grindelwald), Harry didn't believe that he'd atoned for all of the pain, suffering and death he'd been responsible for over the last century, so he stripped him of the rest of his magic before he left the court room. He found it impossible to dredge up even a shred of remorse when he heard that Jones hadn't lasted a week in Azkaban.
Voting in the new Minister for Magic had to be postponed until after all the trials finished, because Bagnold's faction screamed bias whenever the Chief Warlock and Chief Witch rejected nominations for anyone currently awaiting trial. In the end, the Bagnold camp had to settle for Elphias Doge as their candidate for Minister, because they didn't have enough control of the Ministry for Bagnold to show her hand yet and after all their other nominations had been tried, the majority of them had been incarcerated in Azkaban and stripped of their titles, fortunes, houses and names.
While Amos Diggory had escaped being charged with anything and still had his job as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister at the Ministry of Magic, he was probably the only one who didn't already know that he would be losing that job as soon as the new Minister was elected, and more to the point he had absolutely no credibility so Bagnold wasn't about to waste a nomination on him. After losing out to a man who had been written off as being largely ineffectual and a joke for over a century, the sensible thing for Diggory to do would have been to bow out gracefully with what dignity he had left, but Amos Diggory wasn't likely to be accused of being sensible, so it was little surprise when he nominated himself as a candidate for Minister and someone seconded him for a laugh.
The remnants of the Dark Houses nominated Phineas Burke of Borgin and Burkes as their candidate, so the election came down to Earl Francis Longbottom, Elphias Doge, Amos Diggory and Phineas Burke.
It was no surprise to most people when Frank got well over three quarters of the votes, the only surprise was that Diggory and Doge were stupid enough to demand that the vote count be read out. Diggory stormed out in a rage when laughter erupted at the announcement of "Amos Diggory, one vote!", but Elphias Doge looked stricken when his votes were read out, because it was obvious that he hadn't even gotten two thirds of what votes remained with Bagnold's faction. Phineas Burke looked pleased though, because it appeared that he must have gotten a few of the votes that Doge had lost.
Once they'd gone through the formality of swearing Frank in as Minister for Magic, he nominated and had Dirk Cresswell formally accepted as his new Senior Undersecretary and they closed the session.
Frank was dreading what was going to happen next, because Dirk needed to move into his office and get to work so they packed up Diggory's personal effects and sent them to his home. As Diggory had gone straight home without a word to anyone, they included the letter thanking him for his service to the Ministry, but advising him that as the Minister had selected his own Undersecretary there were no longer any suitable positions available for him at the Ministry and therefore his employment with the Ministry had been terminated (there was no such thing as tenure in the Ministry, Purebloods were generally guaranteed their positions by the old boys network, but they could be tossed out at any time with nothing if they crossed the wrong people). Harry and Sirius actually donated the money to give Diggory a generous severance package, but they knew that this wasn't going to go well.
Sure enough, Diggory was in Frank's office within half an hour, screaming, ranting and raving about the fact that he was the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister and he wasn't going to give up his position! (Strangely enough, he didn't say one word in this diatribe about returning any of the rather large severance payment that had been made into the Diggory vaults, so he presumably regarded that as what was due to him.) Frank just stepped aside to avoid the curse Diggory tried to hit him with when he ran out of things to say, then quickly drew his own wand and stunned him, calling for the DMLE to come and take him to the holding cells. The penalties for an unprovoked attempt to curse the Minister for Magic (who also happened to be the Head of a Noble and Most Ancient House) in front of witnesses in the Minister's own office would have taken all of that severance package they gave him and more, but Frank didn't want to penalise the Diggory family any more than necessary for Amos' stupidity, so he called his wife Harriet in to try and work something out.
When Harriet heard what her stupid husband had done she burst into tears. Frank had never been any good with crying women, so Alice came in and settled her down so that they could try and work out a solution to the problem. They agreed that the severance package would be moved from the Diggory vault to another vault under Harriet's sole control so that she could try and ensure that the family could survive long enough to get back on their feet again, and at her request what was left of her dowry money was also moved to the same vault so she could use that to pay the family's bills too. She burst into tears again, saying that she couldn't let them do that when they told her that Cedric's tuition at Hogwarts would be paid through to when he finished there so she didn't need to worry about that, but Alice said that Cedric was a young man with great potential so it was in Britain's interests to ensure that he had a chance to realise that potential. Harriet agreed that setting the wards of the Ministry building to prevent Amos returning again would be a sensible precaution, as would snapping his wand and not letting him get another wand until he'd calmed down. They brought Cedric in from Hogwarts to explain the situation to him, and while she called him to task for the language he used when he was told what his father had done, Harriet couldn't disagree with the sentiment.
After they'd written up the terms of the agreed conditions to waive the hefty fines and prison sentence due for attacking the Minister for Magic and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom, Harriet and Cedric signed the agreement for the Diggory family, apologised again for Amos' behaviour and Cedric returned to Hogwarts. Amos and Harriet were escorted back to Diggory House by two DMLE Patrolmen, who made him formally confirm that he understood the conditions that applied to the Diggory family being spared the penalties for his actions, snapping and incinerating his wand in front of him and warning him that if they heard even a hint that he'd tried to take any of this out on Mrs Diggory, he'd be back in a cell faster than he could spit, and that they'd be testifying that he resisted arrest to explain the state he arrived in. With that they reminded Harriet how to contact them if she needed any help and left.
Amos Diggory was not a happy wizard! In his mind he had been kicked out of the Ministry without cause, his wife and son had betrayed him and everyone else he called to try and get help to fight this just laughed at him, calling him an idiot. He did calm down after a week or two, strangely enough it took his son swearing at him and telling him that he'd almost destroyed their family with his stupidity to make him see that it was him who was to blame here, not Harriet or Cedric. His temper flared up again when he tried to find a job though, because he was told categorically that he would never be allowed back into the Ministry, and he was laughed at whenever he applied for jobs at a suitable level for his seniority. It was quite a shock to realise that, without being able to get back into the one place where being a Pureblood had always guaranteed him a job no matter what, the best job he could hope to get was working in a pub or a store, because he didn't really have the skills to qualify for any better jobs. That was how he ended up working as the barman at the pub in Ottery St Catchpole.
A/N: In case it didn't show, I never really liked the Amos Diggory character, Cedric was OK but Amos was a tool. ;^)