I did get the impression she was conflicted in her acquiesance, but I will push back in the "she's not evil bit". Erasing someone from existence such that they might as well not have ever existed, even to their loved ones, is in my opinion an unequivocally evil act. Amelia even knowing such a program exists without fighting it, much less agreeing to it's use, already puts her pretty damn near the irredeemable line in my book. Straight up having Petunia executed would be less evil in my book. This is like the dementor's kiss, which is already bad, except instead of everyone seeing a soulless husk, the victim is still around to be aware of and suffer from her basically no longer extant position
I mean this is straight up nightmare fuel if you think about it for more than 10 minutes, and I've been stewing on this for a few hours now.
There's nothing wrong with it featuring in a story, and I think you are doing a great job, but I do think that Amelia is in fact evil for being able to sign off on this.
Oh, absolutely, I'm not defending Amelia’s choices. What’s happening is monstrous. You’re right that it’s nightmare fuel, not just for Petunia being erased, but for everyone who almost notices and looks away.
But from Amelia's side of the desk? It’s the Voldemort threat hanging overhead, factions in the Ministry cracking, and someone in black robes from Level 9 muttering that this is the “only viable containment option.” Petunia was deemed dangerous, unpredictable, and worse, truthful. That tends to make you disappear, especially when gag orders are already on the table for Ministry workers that don't sign the papers. It’s the kind of thing she justified with phrases like “operational necessity” and “national security,” and then she found herself signing off on it because the alternative is—what? Civil collapse? Voldemort going after her family? A Daily Prophet headline on suspicious Ministry workers and potential espionage?
Amelia is hesitating, she’s signing a form labeled Non-Disclosure Re: Magical Security Compromise, probably while telling herself it’s not as bad as the Dementor’s Kiss, or that it’ll get reversed once things settle. And here’s the thing, even she doesn’t even know the full extent of the erasure. She thinks it’s controlled. Fudge does. He designed it, and he knows exactly how deep it goes.
And that’s kind of the point: everyone here thinks they’re doing the “least-worst” thing. But Petunia's about to remind them all (including Amelia) that compliance with evil doesn’t make you neutral, it makes you a collaborator.
Unless I'm missing something, the ministry didn't even know about Voldemort's return yet, so that shouldn't be a factor. The only way I can think of that they would know is from a interrogation of Barty Crouch Jr., which is only an option because of Petunia and Harry anyway. And if she did know, she then going after someone who is acting solely to protect one of Voldemort's major problems is completely braindead. At that point, Petunia and Amelia's goals should completely align, because if Voldemort is truly back, than the number 1 priority should be getting the ministry to shape up and be as functional and efficient as possible. Petunia should be an ally then. Even beyond that point, she absolutely shouldn't be listening to anything Fudge suggests, because he's still VISIBLY allying with Malfoy, who Amelia should still be suspicious of, if not outright knowing he's a death eater.
So while I can see why the Ministry as a whole wants this done, it doesn't make sense to me how this course of action in any way seems like the right play for someone who is seriously worried about Voldemort.
And while I can see Amelia not considering herself evil, I am real curious as to why you said that she wasn't from an outsider perspective. Because right now I think she's about half a step down from canon Umbridge. Probably not actively a death eater, but willing to collude with their goals for the stability of the ministry. The half step down is because Umbridge was almost certainly a DE sympathiser, which Amelia is not.
You're totally right if this were canon, but the key divergence here in my AU is the Ministry does know Voldemort is back. That was the entire point of the graveyard scene last chapter. Voldemort didn’t just return, he revealed that key figures in the Ministry, including Fudge, Dawlish, and even Bones, had knowingly allowed it. Not because they’re Death Eaters but because Voldemort himself said "they (the bureaucrats) were easy to bribe." They signed off on his return, quietly and cowardly, because acknowledging Petunia’s warning, and the implications of their own failure was more dangerous to them politically than Voldemort himself.
They collaborated with Voldemort, out of fear, pride, political inertia. Petunia had been making so much noise, stirring up uncomfortable truths, that letting Voldemort return quietly became the path of least resistance. “Let him kill the boy, silence the woman, and we’ll pretend we never got the memo.” The point was that Petunia was a bigger existential threat to the Ministry's illusion of control than Voldemort was.
So, from Amelia's perspective, it wasn't a choice between "evil" or "stability", it was damage control at that point. It's “how do I keep the Ministry from fracturing completely now that we’ve already let the devil back in the door?” That’s why she’s behaving like a cynical wartime politician. That said, I totally hear your concerns about Amelia’s characterization, and I’m really grateful you brought them up. I should’ve made it clearer in the fic that Amelia knows Voldemort is back, and that her choices are shaped by that horrible reality. Thank you for pointing that out. I also should have clarified my original comment, because I never meant that she wasn't evil from an outside perspective (although I see I wrote that). I meant to say she wouldn't consider HERSELF evil because of these mental justifications.
And you’re right in another timeline, Petunia and Amelia should be allies. But Petunia believes in burning the rotten thing down, and this fic's version of Amelia’s trying to keep it from collapsing entirely. That’s the tragedy between them.
Wait, so Petunia was somehow the motivation to not only allow but to facilitate Voldemort's return for some of these people? I understand that they are politically motivated spineless cowards, but if you're going to lose your power either way, either due to unpopularity or because of the rise of a tyrannical dark Lord, surely most of them would rather live powerless in a world without a cruel megalomaniac than powerless with one. Especially those like Amelia, who aren't even elected officials, and therefore have much less to lose from being merely unpopular. I think the main bit that wasn't clear in the other chapter, was that Voldemort wasn't manipulating things behind the scenes, he is openly acting to have the ministry do it. I thought this was being presented to Amelia through about 3 layers of intermediaries or something.
You mentioned earlier that Amelia is thinking that they'll reverse it later, when it's over. I'm really curious how she imagines that's meant to happen, given that not only is it not supposed to be over at any point since she's on Voldemort's side, but also, how is anyone even going to remember to reverse it once she's forgotten by everyone, including the people who put her there in the first place. I would really like a more detailed explanation of how this thing is supposed to work anyway, since this feature is essentially a super powered fidelius, presumably in potion form, since it has a potion antidote and it falls within Snape's knowledge as well, but that doesn't make that much sense since this is affecting everyone else, where potions generally only affect the infested, which the vast majority of the world very much is not. Frankly, this is the single widest reaching piece of magic I think I've ever heard of, and when I first read it my brain broke a little because of the extent to which it shattered the established power scaling.
All of this has moved very far away from your original statement that Amelia isn't really evil. You haven't really answered any of my questions about that, so if you want me to stop bringing that up you can just tell me and I'll stop, but I'm a little hung up on that idea given that apparently it was all part of the plan to have her be on Voldemort's side from the beginning. How anyone feels less threatened by the literal magical boogerman than an waspish muggle I don't understand, but that seems to be a trend.
This got quite a bit longer than I was expecting, so sorry for that, and thank you for answering my questions.
No worries! This was a fantastic comment, and I really appreciate the thought and clarity you’re bringing to it. I think you’ve put your finger on a few key pressure points in the worldbuilding that I can expand on here.
First off, Petunia wasn’t the reason the Ministry capitulated to Voldemort, she was the excuse. Voldemort returned with proof of Ministry incompetence, proof they’d ignored Muggle warnings, and a paper trail leading straight to people like Fudge and Bones. If they'd acknowledged any of it, they'd be implicating themselves. Supporting his quiet reinstatement wasn’t about loyalty to Voldemort, it was about survival and plausible deniability (in their eyes at least). Voldemort didn’t need to Imperius them, he offered them a deal: protect your legacy and let me clean up the mess you already made. And it was easier for them to fold than face their own failures.
You’re right to press on Amelia, though, and I appreciate it. I don’t think you’re missing something, I think I’ve under-explained how the spell itself works and what her logic is in using it. It’s not that she thinks Fudge will let it be reversed. It’s that she doesn’t believe the spell is permanent because it isn’t. It’s magically self-destructive. The spell is a kind of memory redaction protocol that decays with time or disruption (the opposite of its potion-based counteragent). It isn’t a true Fidelius, and it can’t hold under enough contradiction. But Bones is gambling that by the time the cracks show, Voldemort will be either dead or institutionalized within a “stabilized” Ministry, and she can quietly reappear as the Ministry worker who “had to make hard choices.” It’s cowardice masquerading as long-game strategy.
You're also spot on that this is an absurdly powerful magical mechanism, and yes, that’s intentional. It’s a high-level experimental tool originally meant for state witness protection (think magical obscuration of identity), but Voldemort has subverted it for memory warfare. It shouldn’t be in play at this scale. But that it is? A sign of how far institutions have fallen. It’s also why Snape is one of the only people trained to reverse it, as he was in the inner circle during his Death Eater Days and was taught by Voldemort himself how to.
Finally, on the question of Amelia’s moral alignment: you're absolutely right to stay on it. And I’ll say this, she’s not “evil” in the Death Eater or Umbridge sense, but she is the embodiment of systemic rot. She doesn’t crave power for cruelty’s sake, but she’ll justify cruelty to preserve the system that made her powerful. If Voldemort wants to reinstate “order,” and she can survive that transition while keeping her seat? That’s a deal she’ll shake on. And she doesn't have the same morals or quite the same level of discernment as canon Amelia.
I think I am now at the point where I'm clear on most of the answers to my questions, so thank you so much for your patience in providing me with those, the main thing that remains is what is the spell doing to the actual victim, given the "therapist" said it would make her more "compliant", and also how exactly Amelia imagines Voldemort is going to be dead or institutionalized, given that the only person who has managed to approach that is currently very dead, and no one in the current ministry has the spine to sacrifice themselves to try and repeat that feat.
I want to reiterate that I think you are going for something very interesting and cool here, and I'm not trying to knock you for deviating from the fanon portrayal of Amelia or anyone else.
That being said, I have been thinking about this too much today, including laying awake for the last four hours in bed with my thoughts spiralling on the subject, completely unable to sleep, and I am now desperately reaching for a much calmer fic that will help me shut off the death spiral of existential horror my thoughts are in right now. Ironically enough, I found this fic because was trying to find some thing light-hearted to offset the amount of darker media I've been consuming recently, and I recognized the concept from a prompt on Reddit or something and thought that this would fit the bill. Apparently I am on a roll for finding books, fics, shows and webcomics that mess with my head right now.
I look forward to Harry going nuclear on the ministry, a lot of fics where it should happen fail to do so to a significant degree, or do so in an unsatisfying way, but given the track record so far, I have high hopes for this one.
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