Chapter 66

Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, was sitting at his desk riffling through some paperwork. It was a little later than he usually liked to stay in the office, but paperwork doesn't fill itself out. Well, not all of it, even with magic.

He often wondered what would happen if everyone in the world, both wizard and muggle alike, one day just decided to stop filling out the paperwork and just get on with the tasks at hand.

Chaos probably.

But, by Merlin, it was boring work, all this paperwork!

The words on the page before him were blurring before his eyes. The hour was late, and the subject matter was so abysmally dull that his eyes were failing to focus on the scrawling handwriting.

He set the piece of parchment down and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes wearily. To be honest, he did not see why he even had to look over this proposal. Why anyone thought that he needed to look over a proposal to increase the standard thickness of the bases of pewter cauldrons from seven inches to eight was beyond him. This sort of thing should have been sent no further up the ranks than the writer's Department Head.

And anyway, increasing the standard thickness of the bases of pewter cauldrons was not how a Minister went down in the history books! To do that, you needed to aim high. You needed to either win a war (preferably being the protector rather than being the belligerent) or you made a revolution in your society.

Fudge intended to use the revolution method, and his targeted area to revolutionise was the field of education. For years, perhaps even decades, the standard of magical education in the UK had declined dramatically, and the Wizarding Examinations Authority had the results to prove it. Hogwarts could once accurately boast that it was the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in Europe, and one of the top magical schools in the world.

It could not boast that now. Oh, the boast was still bandied about from time to time, but others knew better.

So that became Fudge's target. Initially he had targeted the standards at Hogwarts in order to get back and Dumbledore and to gain a few points with the press, who had been taking repeated jibes at him ever since Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban two years previously.

However, after realised the true enormity of the scale of the decline in education quality at Hogwarts, Fudge had realised that this could be his way to be remembered – the man who lead the government that revolutionised magical education in the UK, and restored Hogwarts to the number one spot.

Things really were progressing nicely along that front too. He had the full support of both the Wizarding Examinations Authority and the Hogwarts Board of Governors. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was ready to go if they were required to investigate any serious wrongdoings, and Dolores Umbridge was now positioned inside Hogwarts, providing inside information and biding her time until she could take on a larger role. According to the Daily Prophet, his approval ratings were climbing ever higher and would soon overtake the peak that they had previously reached shortly before the Quidditch World Cup final was hosted in the country.

Yes, things were quickly shaping up just the way Cornelius Fudge wanted them.

A knock on his office door drew him out of his thoughts and, after collecting himself, he called out "Enter."

His recently appointed secretary, Gemma Farley he believed her name was, stepped into the room and said "Sir, Lucius Malfoy and his wife are here. They're demanding to speak with you."

The Minister felt his stomach clench a little. He had been informed about Draco Malfoy losing his prefect badge due to the higher standards being applied to the prefects, and had been warned to expect a confrontation with the Malfoys who, doubtlessly, would want overrule the authority of those who confiscated Draco's badge.

Of course, Lucius was an old friend of Fudge's, but one whom the Minister had been slowly distancing himself from lately. Everyone else was being strong on the issue, now it was his turn.

"Send them in," he told Gemma, who gave a nod before leaving.

Not a moment later, the door to the room swung open forcefully and Lucius Malfoy strode in as if he owned the place. He had done this before, but this was the first time that the Minister had taken especial notice of it, and he found that he did not like it. Not one bit.

Lucius's wife, Narcissa, followed her husband in at a more sedate pace.

"Minister, I think you need to have a word with some of your staff from the Wizarding Examinations Authority," said Lucius, not even extending a greeting.

Fudge bristled at this. Now that he had been prepared for it, he saw Lucius's tactic for what it was as clear as day. "Oh, really?" he replied "And why is that?"

"Those imbeciles have gotten it into their heads that they can strip my son of his prefect position at Hogwarts," replied Lucius, either not noticing or not caring that his demeanour annoyed Fudge "Obviously somebody is attempting to overstep their mark."

"Well," said Fudge as he began to rummage through a stack of parchments "it just so happens that I was sent a list of the transgressions that led to the decision to demote your son from the role of prefect. Aha, here it is!"

He pulled out a sheaf of parchment and began to read aloud "Well, it seems that his first offence was bullying several other students on board the Hogwarts Express as it made its way to the school."

"Preposterous," said Narcissa "my son is no bully."

"It says here that he was caught red handed by another prefect and the student advisor, leading a gang of his fellow Slytherin students in intimidating behaviour towards three girls, two in their school year and one two years their junior."

"Ridiculous," scoffed Lucius.

Fudge moved on to the second offence "Refusal to co-operate with an investigation into alleged misconduct by a Hogwarts Professor."

"My son had the right to request a parent be present," argued Narcissa.

"I'm afraid not," said Fudge "if the questioning was about your son then he would, of course, have been allowed to have one of you present. However the questions were about events within the school and prefects are required as a part of their role to assist in any investigations into misdeeds within the castle, whether the investigation is done internally or by an external body."

He moved on "The third, and final offence, a combination of things, actually. Back-chatting to government officials and school governors, lack of respect for authority, neglecting to perform basic prefect duties, refusal to co-operate with the student advisor and failure to learn from past mistakes."

He set the parchment down and looked at the two parents sitting across from him "The behaviour of your son should not be tolerated from any student at Hogwarts School, and from a prefect even less so. I fail to see what you could possibly complain about here. Your son was in the wrong, and now he is paying the price for it.

The Malfoy's shared a look, and the Minister knew exactly what it meant. They were about to try their second tactic.

Lucius cleared his throat and attempted to appear humble as he tried to subtly slip his hand inside his cloak.

"Minister," he began, leaning forwards over the desk in an almost conspiratorial manner "while I admit that my son's behaviour has been a little out of line, this whole thing could prove rather embarrassing to me. If you could perhaps see to it that this whole this is kept quiet and sweep it all under the rug, I would be very grateful."

He leaned back into his seat and the Minister saw it there, a small, black pouch sitting on the edge of his desk. He knew from past experience that this small, non-descript looking pouch was actually charmed to be much larger on the inside and would therefore contain a good number of galleons.

Fudge felt sick on the inside. How many times had he, to his shame, fallen to this little trick in the past? Well, not this time!

With an expression of calm on his face, he drew his wand and levitated the pouch off of the desk and directed it back into Lucius's lap.

"You can keep your gold, Lucius," he said "Your boy is in the wrong and will be punished accordingly. End of story."

Lucius was seething. He stood up abruptly, not noticing that he had knocked the pouch of gold to the ground, and place both hands firmly upon the Minister's desk as he snarled "Now see here Fudge-"

But the Minister wasn't in the mood for backing down "No, you see, Lucius! Your son is in the wrong. He will be punished. Nothing, I repeat, nothing will get this decision reversed. I appreciate that you are both here out of concern for your son and family, but if you continue to behave like this then I am afraid that I will be forced to call for the Aurors, either to arrest you or forcibly remove you from the building. And believe me, either of those options would do more to damage the Malfoy family name your son losing his prefect's badge!"

Lucius Malfoy's mouth worked furiously, but no sound came out. Finally he turned around and marched out of the office. Narcissa followed him.

As the door shut behind her, Fudge realised for the first time that he was standing. He took a deep breath and then sat back down in his chair. He then realised that he was actually shaking, and not out of fear but anger.

He reached for the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a glass and a bottle of brandy. He poured himself a shot and held it up in front of him.

"Well done, old boy." he congratulated himself before downing the contents of the glass.

His secretary poked her head around the door and asked "Everything alright, Minister? I thought I hear shouting."

"Everything's fine, my dear," replied the Minister. He got up again and walked around the table. In doing so, his foot connected with the small black pouch that had fallen to the floor earlier. He bent down to pick it up, and then stood up again with a smile on his face.

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