Disclaimer: I still do not own Harry Potter.
Author's Note: Hey everyone, and thanks so much for all the awesome reviews. You guys are amazing.
Yes, I absolutely love Amelia. She is definitely one spunky, wonderful woman. It really sucked that she was killed off during Half-Blood Prince. I thought she had a lot of potential.
I have been thinking about even more subplots for this story. This is going to be an extreeeeeeemely long fic, and it will end after the final battle in seventh year. I also warn you, some of the subplots are going to be very, very dark. And I mean VERY, VERY DARK. Probably the darkest stuff I've ever written, going deep into how the human psyche works and operates. Some of you might despise me by the time I'm done here, if you choose to continue reading. There will be character death, grief, suffering ... but also hope and joy. After all, this fic is called "Keep Holding On" for a reason.
The major dark stuff is going to be in sixth year. I know things look pretty bleak now, but ya ain't seen nothing yet. I honestly hope you guys stick with me through all of it, but I'll understand if you decide to bow out. Darkness is not some people's cup of pumpkin juice, and I completely understand that.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. This is from the point of view of a character I loathe, but he's still a human being with a point of view. The only way I ever like this character is ... well ... if it's inanimate and chocolate-flavored. You'll see what I mean soon enough.
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Cornelius Oswald Fudge, the Minister of Magic, was in an exceedingly foul mood as he stormed through the halls of the huge building. The Ministry was comprised of many floors, with what seemed like an endless amount of departments and offices.
When he'd become Minister, it took him a great amount of time to believe he had been granted the power to fix things for the wizarding world. The previous Minister, Millicent Bagnold, was not someone he had admired; she, after all, had done a terrible job keeping things under control during You-Know-Who's reign of terror. Witches, wizards, Squibs, and Muggles were being killed off at a rapid pace - many a time, families were ambushed in the middle of the night, only corpses remaining when the birds began their morning chorus. Those had truly been horrific years, and Fudge hoped that nothing like them would ever happen again.
Once the war was over, it wasn't long before he ascended to power. Many in the wizarding world no longer had confidence in Bagnold; she had let the war drag on for far too many years. There needed to be a new approach to how the government worked in the wizarding world. When he won the position of Minister, he knew this was his chance to set things right once and for all.
The name and legend of Harry Potter was constantly praised and cherished during the years that followed, and Fudge, even though he was amazed that a fifteen-month-old boy was the one who ended You-Know-Who's attacks when none of Bagnold's Aurors, or Dumbledore's Order members, or the great man himself, was able to achieve it, Fudge couldn't help the envy he felt towards the boy. He, as Minister, was supposed to be the one to receive the accolades and admiration. He was supposed to be the one that the wizarding world turned to in times of strife and struggle. Not a little boy who, after going to live with Muggles, probably had no idea of the shockwaves he had created throughout the wizarding world. The Minister of Magic was supposed to be the one counted on, not a simple child who most people had not even met yet.
When the boy finally made his entrance four years ago, the rumors Fudge heard put him instantly on edge. He seemed to be exactly the hero he had always been renowned as, and he was worshiped all the more.
Fudge's reservations concerning the boy had grown over the years, only to culminate in this unfortunate incident. It had shocked him to his core to see Barty Crouch, Jr. in the flesh, and dread had seized him, clutching him in its stranglehold. The boy ... surely he couldn't be telling the truth. The Dark Lord couldn't possibly be back. The tyrant was as dead as a doornail - no wizard, not even one as powerful as You-Know-Who, was immune from death. It was the great equalizer - once you were dead, that was it. You were gone. That was the way the world worked.
Before he'd seen Barty Crouch, the other thing that had frightened him beyond belief was the sight of Cedric Diggory's lifeless body. That wide-eyed, glazed stare, the pure terror on the handsome face, the limp, cold hands, the unnatural stillness ... how many Avada Kedavra victims had he seen over the years of Lord Voldemort's reign? Way, way too many. The memories tortured him.
Lena, dear, sweet Lena, who he had loved. His beautiful girlfriend, who'd been slain at the hands of the Death Eaters. True, he had only ever seen one Avada Kedavra victim before ... but it was one too many. And after that, he might as well have seen them all. The expression she had worn in her last moments haunted him every single day, even though he told himself it was ridiculous to focus on the past. After all, it hadn't exactly been sunshine and roses between them, had it?
Their final night together, the last time he'd seen her vibrant and alive ... her face had been red with anger and frustration. "For Merlin's sake, Cornelius. If you think you can handle the war better than Minister Bagnold, then go right ahead and prove it. I'm sick and tired of listening to you go on and on about it. Can't we spend one night with each other without the Ministry making its way into our conversation?"
He'd left her that night, furious and hurt, and in the morning he'd found the Dark Mark over her house, her lifeless body lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling with that same look on her that he'd seen on Cedric Diggory.
But now, for all intents and purposes, he'd moved on. He was now Minister of Magic, and no, he was not one of those emotional saps that changed his whole life for love. Yes, he'd loved her, but the instant he'd seen her dead body he'd hated her as well. If she'd bothered to take him seriously, then maybe she would have been safe. If she hadn't had so much trust in old, incompetent Bagnold, maybe then she wouldn't be another lifeless body, nothing more than a statistic, an unfortunate casualty of war.
If he really thought about it, maybe he'd ended up as Minister because she'd driven him to it, but of course it wasn't the entire reason. To think so, you'd have to be as deluded as ... well ... Harry bloody Potter.
The boy's delusions had truly begun exactly a year ago; this was when Fudge had started becoming extremely paranoid when he was mentioned. Sirius Black, innocent? Peter Pettigrew, alive? Preposterous. After all, he'd been there that day, hadn't he? He'd seen the look of unbridled madness on Sirius's face, watched as he stared unblinkingly at a pile of dead bodies while the laughter coming out of him was something you could only imagine in a horror novel. To laugh in the face of all that carnage ... this was another day in the life of Cornelius Fudge that would never leave him.
And now, the day of the third and final task of the 1995 Triwizard Tournament would forever live in infamy. As Fudge had seen Mr. and Mrs. Diggory collapse by their son's side, as he'd seen Cedric's loved ones screaming, sobbing, clinging to him in denial, as he'd heard Harry Potter's screams proclaiming the Dark Lord was back, his instinctive reaction was to hide away from all of it. "We need to move the body. There're too many people!" His desperate, whispered words, the hope that if no one else saw Cedric's body, it simply wasn't true ... Lena would have told him he was good at deluding himself.
But Lena was wrong. She was dead because she'd been wrong. And now, Diggory was dead because fools like Dumbledore thought Potter was harmless. Really? A fifteen-month-old boy who could defeat a Dark Lord, harmless? No wonder he was spouting all that jibberish a year ago about Black's innocence. And the man's escape from Hogwarts was also very, very strange. There were connections, patterns to this whole debacle that Cornelius had to work out.
Maybe Barty Crouch, Jr. had been part of all of this too. Honestly, Fudge had absolutely not asked that Dementor he'd brought with him for security reasons to destroy Crouch the way it had. If the man had been able to confess, then he could have helped solve this whole mystery.
But the fact of the matter was that now, Crouch was no more useful than a lump of wood. He was now nothing more than a hunk of flesh whose chest rose and fell with his breaths, but could no longer be thought of as a real person. The only things he could do on his own now were breathe and blink. Everything that had made him Barty Crouch, Jr. had been devoured by the Dementor, lost forevermore.
But it didn't matter, Fudge reasoned. Potter was guilty, and so was Dumbledore by association. Of course the old dunce would put himself in the line of fire for his beloved protege. But Fudge had him where he wanted him now - he was in the bowels of the Ministry, being questioned by his Aurors. And currently, Fudge was making his way to one of the interrogation rooms to observe the situation. As he got closer, he wondered how Amelia was faring at Hogwarts. The staff were probably being as uncooperative as possible, the Minister thought with a sneer. Somewhere along the way, he'd lost control of that school and let Dumbledore run things the way he wanted to. Who in their right mind would hire a werewolf? A werewolf! The whole thing was ludicrous beyond belief.
Fudge knocked loudly on the large wooden door that stood before him now. "Who's there?" a gruff voice demanded, and Fudge recognized it as Auror Williamson's.
"It is Cornelius Fudge, the ..."
Before he could finish his title, the door swung open, and the two Aurors in the room stepped aside to allow him entrance. "Good morning, Minister," Williamson said. "How are you, sir?"
"Fine, thank you," Fudge said curtly. "Have you found out the whereabouts of Potter? What progress have you made?"
Sam Reynolds, the other Auror in the room, snorted. "No, and none," he snarled. "We have administered Veritaserum, but so far the old bastard has had nothing useful to tell us. He just keeps saying that Potter had nothing to do with Diggory's death, that You-Know-Who is back, and that he has no idea where Potter is."
"He is back." Dumbledore sounded strong and resilient, even though he was tied with magical rope to a hard-backed chair in the middle of the room.
Reynolds glared at the Headmaster. "Bullshit," he spat at him.
"What should we do, Minister?" demanded Williamson. "The crafty old codger must be immune to Veritaserum."
Fudge studied Dumbledore closely. It definitely seemed as though there was no immunity there; the potion was working perfectly. He held a glazed look - people questioned under Veritaserum were certainly known to have that particular sheen over their eyes. Terror stole over Fudge as the room remained eerily silent for several long, painful seconds.
"Get several mind Healers in here." Fudge's voice was quiet in a way it had never been before, and he valiantly attempted to stop the trembling that was seizing him, because now he knew the truth.
Albus Dumbledore, a man who he had once had the deepest respect for, a man he had once asked the advice of, was really and truly mad. No, of course it wasn't true that the Dark Lord was back. But Dumbledore really, truly thought he was.
And Fudge should have known it all along. Any man who thought werewolves could be good teachers, any man who was convinced Black was innocent after what Fudge had witnessed on that terrible morning of November 1, 1981 ... the Headmaster of Hogwarts had gone mad. Well and truly mad. His delusions had taken over his mind. Because in the old man's head, he honestly didn't think he was lying. Veritaserum, after all, would still allow a person to speak their own truth, even if it wasn't actually the facts of the situation.
And Fudge knew what must be done. St. Mungo's had excellent mind Healers, didn't it? They would certainly rid the Headmaster of his delusions.
As the two Aurors hastened to obey the Minister and seek out a Floo connection to St. Mungo's, Fudge smiled. He would not allow Albus Dumbledore to bring the wizarding world to its knees. No fourteen-year-old murderer would be protected on his watch. There was going to be no second war.
Because Cornelius Fudge was the Minister of Magic, not Albus Dumbledore or Harry Potter.