Harry Potter And The Betrayal

"There was no proof." Fudge told her. "The boy was a well-known troublemaker at the school and according to sources a parselmouth as well. It is a well-known fact that Parselmouth's are Dark and so his claim that Lord Thingy was back wasn't even worth consideration. He was just trying to disrupt the peace that we in the magical world had been enjoying for the last thirteen years, by spreading vicious rumours to get more attention for himself."

Bones couldn't believe it. "You honestly thought a fourteen year old boy could lie well enough to fool Albus Dumbledore?"

"Dumbledore has been claiming for years that the Dark Lord would be back. Of course he wouldn't look too deeply into the story since it was what he wanted to hear." Fudge sounded confident.

"Fudge," Lord Altren couldn't help sounding disgusted as he said the man's name. "Did it cross your tiny little mind at any time after you were told that the Dark Lord was back that Lord Potter might be telling the truth?"

"Yes," Fudge admitted. "But after discussing the matter with someone in the Department of Mysteries, I was certain it wasn't possible."

"Madame Bones, when you have time, would you speak to Mr. Croaker who heads the Department of Mysteries and find out who the person Minister Fudge spoke with was." Lord Altren requested. "Tell him a High Councillor wishes to know and if he won't tell you have him send this individual to me please, assuming of course that they are still alive."

"Fudge, I will say this much for you, while you are an idiot, you are undoubtedly a very lucky idiot, given that you managed to stay in power after the Dark Lord's return was revealed." Longrim commented. "It is a well-known fact that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named studied the Dark Arts far more in depth than even Grindelwald did. In fact he is known to have performed a number of rituals upon himself with the intent of gaining more power. It doesn't require a great leap of imagination to suppose that he might have performed a ritual on himself in attempt to gain immortality. After all some of his followers had the largest and oldest collections of Dark Arts books in the world, and what they didn't have they could locate for him. And intelligent man would have realised the possibility that at some point in the past some Dark Lord or potential Dark Lord had researched a way to come back from the dead, whether they used it or not."

Fudge's face reddened, but there was nothing he could say to that.

"Fudge," Lord Kieran spoke up next. "Even if you didn't believe Potter or Dumbledore about the Dark Lord's return, why did you encourage the Daily Prophet among others to print slander abut them in an attempt to ruin their reputation?"

"I did no such thing." Fudge disagreed.

"Oh, then this isn't your signature on this letter to the owner of the Daily Prophet assuring him that no matter what he printed about Harry Potter and Headmaster Dumbledore, they would not be called to account for it, because the Minister's office would stand behind them?" Lord Kieran held up a document.

Taking the letter, Lord Perrivor read it over. "If I were the owner of a paper, I would assume from this document, you were giving me carte blanche to say whatever I wanted to about them, even the wildest most unsubstantiated rumour and that I would never have to face any consequences. Why would you be that foolish, Fudge?"

"It wasn't foolish." Fudge defended his actions. "Minister's before me have used the same tactic, even the muggle Prime Minister has been known to use the press to discredit someone so they aren't a threat to the security of the nation."

"But they have never given the press carte blanche to print lies before." Altren countered. "Previous Minister's both magical and muggle would have the press print facts slanted a certain way but they were still true facts. The Daily Prophet printed things that couldn't be proven, in other words they printed lies… at your instigation. Why would you condone this?"

"For the good of the magical world." Fudge said pompously. "At the time I thought they were spreading their lies about He-Who-Must-Not Be-Named being back. Dumbledore told the students at the leaving feast, even though I had ordered him not to. They had to be stopped before they threw the wizarding world into a panic."

"But you soon realised they weren't spreading lies didn't you? You had Ministry personnel covering up magical attacks on the families of muggle-born students and the disappearances of some witches and wizards." Longrim pointed out. "Tell me Fudge are you familiar with the Compact of 1137, one of the few magically binding documents signed by a muggle ruler King Stephen of England and the High Council of the Magical Britain? A compact so secret, not even his brother Henry of Blois the Papal Legate and Archbishop of Canterbury was ever told about it."

"Of course, it's one of the documents that I as Minister had to swear to uphold." Fudge couldn't see the point in the question.

"Did you ever read the Compact, Fudge? Or did you just swear to uphold it and not bother to find out the contents?" Longrim was beginning to suspect the idiot had no idea he'd violated a magically binding contract.

"Of course I know what it says," Fudge bristled. "King Stephen in return for the neutrality of the magical community of Britain in the civil war between him and his cousin the Empress Maud, ceded permanent control over certain areas of Britain where the magical community was living to us to govern over and rule."

"You are only partially right," Longrim corrected him looking as grim as his name. "It stated that in return for the neutrality of witches and wizards, in the civil war between himself and Empress Maud, that he would set aside certain areas as wholly magical territory that we would govern and rule over, but only so long as we kept the muggle world safe from our kind and alerted the muggle government which was declared in the Compact to be the Monarch or their chosen Deputy to any potential dangers so they could get their people out of the way. You failed to alert the muggle government. I know for a fact through my sources in the muggle government that neither Queen Elizabeth or Prime Minister Tony Blair who would've been considered her Deputy according to the Compact were notified by the Ministry of Magic as to the threat the Dark Lord posed to the muggle world… even after you finally admitted he was back. You as Minister broke the magically binding contract you swore to uphold."

Fudge's face went ash white as he realised what Lord Longrim was implying. If the Queen of muggle Britain or the Prime Minister became aware that the Compact had been broken, then they could demand all the areas that now belonged to magical citizens be returned to them and the Ministry would have no choice but to comply. He would be lucky if he could make it out of Britain alive and he would definitely have a price on his head.

Finally he asked, "Do they know about the Compact? And that it's been breached?"

"Don't you mean broken, Fudge?" Longrim countered icily. "It is unknown if the current muggle Monarch or Prime Minister are aware of the Compact or the fact that it has been broken. Blair and the Queen certainly know about the magical world since up until you took office, they had regular briefings from the Minister of Magic."

"But that was during the war with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." Fudge protested. "They needed to know then. Once he was gone there was no need for them to be apprised of the goings on in the magical world."

"During the reign of the muggle Queen, Victoria, the Minister of Magic provided the Queen with regular briefings on the state of magical Britain." Altren told him. "The Queen wished to be kept apprised of every corner of her kingdom, even those parts she would never see. The Minister of Magic at that time agreed with her reasoning and in turn had asked that information on the state of muggle Britain be provided to the Ministry of Magic as well. The exchange of information was so useful it was maintained through your predecessor's term in office, at least it was until he turned the task over to you since he was trying to deal with the situation the Dark Lord was creating."

After a moment's pause where every one could see he was trying to get himself back under control, Altren continued. "Thanks to your arrogance not to mention your wilful blindness we have no way of knowing what the muggle world is now capable of doing to us. We have lost the opportunity to learn about and possibly stop any potential threats to the magical world."

The silencing ward went up again, but came back down fairly quickly.

"It has been decided by unanimous vote, that the Queen and Prime Minister must be notified of the breach in the Compact." Dantes stated. "If the people of magical Britain are lucky they will not wish to declare the Compact null and void. We the Lords of the High Council have decided to let them decide your fate, Fudge, regarding the breaching of the Compact. If you are lucky, they may let us impose sentence on you, if not, and they wish to impose their own, your magic will be bound before you are turned over to them. Once this hearing is over, you will be held at Azkaban until they decide. Now there are two more charges to get through, before this hearing is over."

Fudge stared at them aghast. They were going to turn him over to muggle justice?

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