"The World Cup is a week away!" Fudge shrieked, waving a copy of the Daily Prophet around. One sheet from the paper came out, drifting down to land on his assistant's head, who flinched. "We cannot be having stories like this coming out right now!"
"Cornelius, perhaps if you sat down—" Dumbledore tried.
"No, Albus. This is madness. Who gave them this information anyway?" Fudge demanded, glaring around the Wizengamot room.
"I mean, probably my department did?" Ludo Bagman ventured. "But they asked a question, and we answered. We didn't know they'd take what we told them to a professional Arithmancer."
Fudge was red and practically vibrating with anger. Hermione was doing her best to keep a low profile and not draw anyone's notice, as well as hide her smile, amused as she was.
After getting the Ministry's official statement on the full moon safety plan for the World Cup, instead of just taking the Ministry at their word, the Prophet had done as she'd asked and gone one step further – they'd consulted with recent Hogwarts graduate Tomoko Kajiwara, who had set up shop as a professional Arithmancy consultant practically the moment after graduating. Tomoko had been happy to run the numbers and equations for the paper and give them the odds of werewolf attack in a few different situations and configurations of the Ministry's security precautions – all of which had resulted in chances above 80%.
"Well, if their figures are correct, shouldn't we be glad that they pointed this out?" one of the regional representatives offered. "Now we know we need more security after all."
"Not when it causes people to lose faith in the Ministry," Fudge seethed.
Phaedra Lestrange shrugged carelessly. "Then maybe the Ministry shouldn't do things that make people lose faith in it."
There was a lot of bickering as people argued and shot accusations across the room about how best to handle the mess. Hermione ignored most of it, only listening with one ear as she doodled on a piece of parchment she had to take notes on. She felt like most of this should be handled internally inside the Ministry – the government's legislature was hardly responsible for the execution of the security of an event, in her opinion. But too many regional representatives had complaints from constituents, and too many of the Sacred 28 had opinions they wanted to give, she supposed with a sigh.
By the time the arguing had settled, there was a new plan in place: the Department of Mysteries would come out and help implement a new experimental warding structure, and the Ministry would tell the Prophet that the wards at the World Cup were being looked over and strengthened, while leaking to the Prophet that pretty much all the Ministry's Hit Wizards and Aurors would be secretly guarding the grounds, looking to catch werewolves. They would even leak that Lockhart had come out of retirement just for the chance to catch Fenrir Greyback, scourge of society, and finally lock him up once and for all. They were still bickering about whether or not they actually wanted to send all the people to guard the grounds, or just say they were going to, but it was leaning heavily towards actually sending the Ministry to guard the place overnight.
"If Greyback decides to call your bluff, it will be carnage," Sirius Black spat at Fudge, who was distressed over the cost of all the overtime that would need to be authorized. "It would change wizarding Britain forever. And all those people bitten that night – thousands, possibly – they would all blame you."
"Forget Greyback – the Prophet will figure out if we don't actually plan to follow through," a regional representative pointed out. "It's not like it would take a genius to ask a Hit Wizard what their upcoming schedule looks like."
It was decided the night of the full moon would be all-hands-on-deck regarding the werewolves. With that final settled, Dumbledore moved them on to the next matter.
"There has been a complaint issued against Durmstrang regarding the Triwizard Tournament," Dumbledore said, withdrawing a piece of parchment.
"Already?" Ludo Bagman said, his voice a groan.
"Yes," Barty Crouch snapped. "They sent it through their ICW representative to ours, to make sure it didn't get lost."
"The complaint is from a current student, against the Headmaster, Igor Karkaroff," Dumbledore said. "The complaint alleges that he only intends to bring twelve chosen students with him to try and compete, not everyone of age."
"Is that a problem?" Ludo said, baffled. "I mean, Hogwarts isn't about to require everyone of age to offer up their names to compete—"
"It is more that Karkaroff is playing favorites," Dumbledore said with a sigh. "He is well-known for encouraging an atmosphere of fear and intimidation within his school to promote strength. There may well be more than twelve students who would like to compete but who are being denied the chance."
"Madame Maxime has confirmed that not only is she intending to bring anyone who wishes to enter the tournament, but any of her students of age who want to support their champion," Crouch said shortly. "Compared to the size of the entire Hogwarts school and what is likely to be two full years of Beauxbatons students, a dozen from Durmstrang will be dwarfed."
"What we must decide," Dumbledore said firmly, "is if this is a school issue, or an international issue. If it is a school issue, then we must abide by Durmstrang's own judgement on the matter. If it is an issue of international relations, then the Wizengamot must decide if it wants to put down additional stipulations around entering the tournament."
"What, like 'any student who wants to can enter the tournament'?" said Ludo Bagman. "That seems easy enough."
"Anyone of age," Barty hissed. "And it's not that easy, as you would well know if you paid attention to any of your duties."
"I have an assistant for that!" Ludo objected. "She's just on holiday right now, so some things slip by—"
"He lost his assistant," Era Hornbeam whispered to Hermione. She nodded towards Bagman, and Hermione's eyes widened.
"Lost her?" Hermione repeated.
"Well, she's gone missing at the least," Era said, her voice low. "Rumor is she was supposed to be back at the beginning of July. She's been missing almost two months, now. Bagman keeps dismissing it, insisting she's always been forgetful and that she'll just turn up one day."
Hermione's jaw dropped. "That's awful!"
"Right?" Era seemed grim. "Bertha's been a bit of an airhead these past few years, but not that much. I hope nothing horrible's happened to her."
The Wizengamot bickered for a while about how to handle the Durmstrang issue. To Hermione's surprise, the conclusion they came to was that while it was not an international issue, it could fast become one if they did not intervene.
"The Prophet has been a lot more investigative lately," Muse Booth pointed out. "They're undoubtedly going to cover the tournament. Once they find out that Durmstrang's only brought twelve people, compared to nearly sixty from Beauxbatons, they're going to want to know why."
"You think they would investigate Durmstrang?" Fudge said, baffled. "Even though they're a foreign school?"
"While they're in Scotland, they'd be a topic of interest," Muse said again. "If digging into Karkaroff's reign and their historical scandals sells papers, I have no doubt of it."
Dumbledore looked worried. "Those scandals will exist whether or not Durmstrang brings more students."
"No, I'm following Muse's point," Bagman said, nodding. "The only way to handle it is to not give them a reason to investigate in the first place. If there's nothing weird, they'll probably just do bios of the three champions."
It was decided that Crouch and Dumbledore would speak directly to Karkaoff and the ICW representative who had passed along the letter. Crouch looked like he had swallowed a bitter pill at the end of it, while Dumbledore looked mildly relieved.
"Does anyone have any other concerns to be discussed before the Wizengamot today?" Dumbledore asked. "No one? In that case, we are dismissed."