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Cornelius wiped his forehead with a handkerchief pulled from his robe’s pocket. The final battle had taken place at Hogwarts several months ago. Though the war had been won, the Ministry’s work was far from finished. Kingsley Shacklebolt - a once - competent Auror with impeccable morals - had been sworn in as temporary Minister, and Cornelius suspected the position would become permanent once the dust settled.

Once Lord Voldemort had been defeated, they had celebrated briefly.

Cornelius hadn’t been at Hogwarts at the time. He’d been one of the few who had remained behind at the Ministry.

The former Minister knew he was no Auror. Before becoming Minister for Magic, he’d served in the Obliviation Squad, always arriving after the fighting was over, part of the clean-up crew, effectively.

Defence had never been his strength. He could barely cast a corporeal Patronus. Sometimes, he thought he glimpsed the outline of a sheep in the wisps his wand produced, but it never fully took form.

He turned his attention back to the trial of the Malfoys before him, his jaw tightening.

Harry Potter, the Man - Who - Conquered, had insisted that all Death Eaters be granted fair trials, citing his deceased godfather as an example of injustice. Cornelius understood the principle. He truly did. But understanding did little to quell the bitter, restless anger curling in his gut as he stared at Lucius Malfoy.

Lucius looked nothing like the man Cornelius remembered.

Gone was the effortless confidence, the silk-smooth composure with which he had once glided through the Ministry as though it belonged to him. His hair, once immaculate, hung limp and dull against his shoulders. His robes sat poorly on him, as if he’d lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose. He stood stiffly, shoulders hunched, fingers twitching at his sides, like a man unused to being watched and judged rather than indulged.

When Lucius spoke, his voice lacked its former polish. It wavered, just slightly, as he listed his crimes: bribery, extortion, torture, kidnapping. Ministry officials who had vanished without a trace. Goblins who had refused to bow to Death Eater demands. Fortescue’s death. The cursed diary - the object that had unleashed terror at Hogwarts in ’92.

Blackmailing officials to kick Dumbledore out of Hogwarts, persuading Cornelius to arrest an innocent man.

Each confession landed heavily, clumsily, stripped of the smug certainty Cornelius had once mistaken for confidence. Lucius swallowed often, his pale face tight with strain, eyes flicking toward the Wizengamot benches as though searching for someone, anyone, to save him.

And yet.

And yet he was still standing there. Still breathing. Still not in chains.

Cornelius felt the familiar burn of shame crawl up his spine.

This broken, trembling man was the same wizard who had once leaned across Cornelius’s desk, voice low and persuasive, feeding him reassurances he’d been desperate to hear. The same wizard who had smiled indulgently while undermining Dumbledore, who had planted doubts like seeds and watched them grow.

Narcissa stood beside him, rigid and silent, her face drawn and bloodless. Her crime was complicity - standing by, watching, choosing loyalty over conscience.

Draco’s confession followed. Attempted murder. Unforgivables. His failed attempts on Dumbledore’s life. His mission was to kill the Headmaster at the Dark Lord’s command, punishment for Lucius’s failures and for losing the cursed diary in the first place.

Lucius flinched at that. Actually flinched.

The sight sent a sharp, ugly satisfaction through Cornelius - and immediately after, a surge of anger. Lucius Malfoy, reduced to this: frightened, diminished, exposed. And still it wasn’t enough.

It surprised Cornelius to see Potter vouch for them.

The boy spoke calmly, earnestly, as though mercy were a reflex rather than a choice. Cornelius watched Lucius’s reaction closely - the way his shoulders sagged with something like relief, the way his head dipped, just barely.

Disgust churned in Cornelius’s stomach.

The Malfoys had always survived. Bent, perhaps, but never broken in the ways that mattered.

Last time, Lucius had claimed Imperius with flawless conviction, weaving lies so smoothly that Cornelius had accepted them without question. He remembered the embarrassment of it now with brutal clarity - how eager he’d been to believe that everything was fine, that the danger had passed, that his world was still intact.

And when Voldemort had returned, Lucius hadn’t hesitated. Hadn’t struggled. Hadn’t resisted.

He had chosen.

Heat flooded Cornelius’s face as the memory resurfaced. Lucius had preyed on his fears with surgical precision - fear of losing his office, of being replaced, of being exposed as inadequate. Cornelius had been so desperate to remain Minister that he’d let himself be guided, flattered, manipulated.

A fool. A coward.

Lucius Malfoy now stood before him, stripped of power, his confidence in tatters, his legacy crumbling - and still, Cornelius knew with a sick certainty that the punishment would not match the crimes.

Five years of house arrest.

The words tasted foul.

Lucius would pace the halls of his ancestral home, not rot in a cell. He would sleep in a bed, not on stone. He would suffer inconvenience, not despair.

Cornelius’s hands curled into fists beneath the bench.

It wasn’t justice. It was mercy masquerading as consequence.

And once again, Lucius Malfoy had escaped with far less than he deserved.

Draco was drafted into the rebuilding efforts at the damaged school.

Across Britain, witches and wizards had volunteered their wands to restore Hogwarts as quickly as possible. Minerva McGonagall had been appointed Headmistress and was eager to reopen the school, hoping routine might bring some sense of normalcy.

The seventh - year students who had missed their education under Snape’s Headship were invited back for an eighth year to complete their studies.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were the only survivors of that year to join the Aurors immediately. Hermione Granger, their Muggleborn friend, had chosen to return to Hogwarts to complete her NEWTs. Cornelius suspected the young witch would go far.

The Malfoys should have received harsher punishments, but Cornelius was relieved they hadn’t escaped consequences entirely.

He knew he had been complicit in many things, but never malicious. His crime was wanting the comfort and security that came with the Minister’s office. He had known himself to be a coward in wartime. He hadn’t wanted to believe Voldemort was back, because he knew he would fail. Worse, he hadn’t even tried.

Instead, he had chosen to discredit Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore. It had worked - until it hadn’t.

He had clung desperately to his position until he was finally forced out, replaced by Rufus Scrimgeour. The role should have gone to Amelia Bones - she would have been a far better wartime Minister, Cornelius could admit that now. An experienced Auror who had risen through the ranks on merit rather than recommendation or nepotism.

That was why she had been one of Voldemort’s first targets. He had personally gone to eliminate her. Amelia Bones would never have fallen in line with the Dark Lord’s agenda.

Cornelius could admit that Rufus had been a strong successor in wartime, though he had inherited the burden of Cornelius’s failures. It had been Cornelius himself who advised Rufus to use Harry Potter’s image to rally public confidence and project control.

Potter had seen through the ploy. And frustrating as the boy’s refusal had been, Cornelius couldn’t blame him - after all, Cornelius had marshalled the full force of the Ministry to smear a teenager for telling the truth.

Even now, Potter didn’t trust the Ministry. He had joined the Aurors, but insisted on attending every trial, every funeral, and helping rebuild Hogwarts whenever possible, all while completing his training.

The Ministry had lost many of its people - those who had joined the Death Eaters, and those who had died by their hands.

And Cornelius still heard the whispers from his former colleagues, blaming him for the deaths of their families.

“Fudge should have believed Potter about the return of You-Know Who,” they’d murmured within earshot.

“You-Know Who got a whole year to prepare in silence because Fudge cared more about his position than he did about our safety,” someone else had said.

“Too busy taking bribes,” said another Ministry worker.

“Bones always argued for more galleons for the defence budget,” and Auror complained bitterly. “Fudge was more concerned about padding out his own office.”

Cornelius knew no one respected him after his fall from grace. It had been even more humiliating to realise that no one had respected him before You-Know Who’s resurrection.

“It was easy for You-Know Who to take over,” a Ministry worker from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures said. “Fudge and Umbridge practically handed them the werewolves and the Giants.”

Dolores Umbridge’s restrictions on creatures had seemed a good idea at the time. It had been a way to curb what they thought had been dangerous beasts. They all had their prejudices against magical creatures, but Dolores had been in a league of her own.

Cornelius didn’t need to attend Dolores’s trial to know she deserved every bit of punishment. It mortified him to know that he’d once supported Dolores Umbridge. However, she’d been nothing more than a viper waiting to strike. It didn’t take her long at all to betray the Ministry to You-Know Who and the Death Eaters.

It had been Dolores’s betrayal that enabled the Death Eaters to take over the Ministry as quickly and as thoroughly as they had.

Even after You-Know Who’s first public appearance in the Ministry, Cornelius had protected Dolores from any reprimand. She’d lost her Undersecretary position as well as her High Inquisitor position, but she was still a part of the Ministry, though hidden away.

Cornelius knew she wasn’t happy about it, but given how they’d spent a year raking Potter and Dumbledore in the mud for what they thought were lies, the former Minister had no choice at the time to withdraw his support of Dolores until the dust settled. He’d been trying desperately to do damage control to keep his own position, never mind Dolores’s.

The next day, Cornelius wanted to sink into the floor as he listened to Dolores’s unrepentant confessions. The more she talked, the more she confessed to her sins, the further he wanted to disappear.

She simultaneously made him sound complicit in her transgressions while also taking advantage of his gullibility. The looks of scorn he received had him avoiding eye contact out of mortification. 

When Dolores confessed to her use of the Black Quill during her time at Hogwarts, he knew he was done for. Ignorance was no excuse. He had unquestioningly signed everything Dolores asked of him. He’d unknowingly given her permission to torture students, and she hadn’t hesitated to use the Black Quill on students who crossed her. Harry Potter, purebloods like the Weasleys who’d supported Potter, and muggleborns who had no rights in the wizarding world. Blackmailed Pureblood and Halfblood children whose parents worked in the Ministry.

They’d been afraid their parents would be sacked from the Ministry, and they’d been silenced into compliance, or tortured into obedience.

Cornelius couldn’t hide from the angry and disgusted looks sent his way. No one trusted him. Everywhere he went, he was met only with contempt.

It didn’t matter to them when Dolores confessed that she had helped kidnap his family to make him comply after Lord Voldemort had taken over the Ministry. Cornelius had looked out for himself only, showing his cowardice; he had no sympathy coming his way.

By the time all the trials ended, Cornelius was lucky to be working at all. Working in the Minister’s office was out of the question. Shacklebolt didn’t even make a token effort to make Cornelius feel useful as an advisor. Not that Cornelius expected it, but perhaps a part of him hoped Shacklebolt would reach out, make use of Cornelius in some way. Give Cornelius a chance to atone.

The Obliviation Squad made excuses not to take him back, even though he had been good at his job there before he’d become Minister.

Even those departments that had been considered dead ends, like the Centaur Liaison office, wouldn’t take him.

He did find a role within the Ministry, but it was a step above house-elf work.

He had no choice but to take it. He’d basically become a caretaker, not unlike the squib, Argus Filch from Hogwarts. Except he was given less respect than the squib in question.

Whenever he felt resentful, he only had to look at the wall erected in the name of the fallen.

It loomed over the corridor - polished stone, immaculate lettering, merciless in its permanence.

People who had died fighting Voldemort and his Death Eaters. People who had vanished without a trace, their bodies never found, their last moments never known.

His own family were traumatised, yes. His wife still woke gasping in the night, and his children, his grown children, who had children of their own, clung to him whenever shadows stretched too long. But they were alive.

Alive - unlike the names carved into the stone.

Rufus Scrimgeour. Amelia Bones. Nymphadora Tonks.

It wasn’t only Ministry workers.

Remus Lupin. Ted Tonks.

Names of students and staff he didn’t recognise - children who should have grown old enough for their names to mean something to him.

Lavender Brown. Colin Creevey. Charity Burbage.

And, of course, the names he knew all too well.

Albus Dumbledore. Cedric Diggory. Severus Snape.

Cornelius couldn’t look at the wall for long. Each name pressed against his chest, heavy and suffocating, as though the stone itself remembered his failures.

No one saw his regret. No one saw his shame.

They saw only the wall - and the man whose cowardice had helped fill it.

He walked past it now, eyes fixed ahead, the names trailing after him like ghosts as he descended deeper into the bowels of the Ministry.

“Come on, Fudge,” Haxton called as Cornelius stepped out of the lift. “Been waiting ages for you.”

Haxton didn’t look at him when he spoke. He never did anymore.

He only spoke to Cornelius when the job required it - clipped, impersonal, efficient. Not like the others, who sneered or whispered. Haxton didn’t bother.

Somehow, that was worse.

“What’s the job today?” Cornelius asked.

“Department of Mysteries clean-up,” Haxton replied. No explanation. No elaboration. “Without magic.”

“Why?” Cornelius asked.

“Why, Minister?” Lambert cut in with a mocking lilt. “Because it reacts badly with magic. According to old Croaker, this lot got smashed when Potter and his mates broke into the Ministry.”

Haxton said nothing.

Lambert smirked. Encouraged.

“That was the year Potter lost his godfather, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t wait for Cornelius to answer. Haxton didn’t interrupt him.

“Died right here in the Ministry. Fighting You-Know Who. No trial. No justice.” Lambert glanced at Cornelius. “While you were busy pretending everything was under control.”

Cornelius swallowed. “I regret it all,” he said quietly, not for the first time. Not for the last.

Haxton’s expression didn’t change.

Lambert laughed, sharp and ugly. “Your regret means nothing to me.”

He stepped closer. Haxton still didn’t move.

“My wife was tortured by that bitch you sent to Hogwarts. Accused of stealing magic from Purebloods. Then Kissed by Dementors.”

Cornelius flinched. He looked instinctively to Haxton.

And found no help there.

Haxton stared straight ahead, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the corridor as if Cornelius wasn’t even present. As if this wasn’t his responsibility to stop.

“You still have your family,” Lambert went on, voice low and venomous. “That’s the part that makes me sick. You lost a title. I lost my wife. My children lost their mother.”

Silence.

Haxton could have spoken then. Could have ended it.

He didn’t.

“That Potter lad,” Lambert continued, gesturing sharply, “he broke into the Ministry to save us. A child did what you wouldn’t.”

Lambert’s voice faltered - just for a moment. “I’m only free because of him.”

“Shouldn’t have been up to a boy,” Haxton said at last.

The words were quiet. Flat.

And somehow, they cut deeper than anything Lambert had said.

Lambert nodded once, satisfied. “Aye.”

He gave Cornelius a final look - not angry now. Just empty.

“If you’d done your job,” he said softly, “none of us would be here.”

He walked away.

Haxton followed without looking back.

Cornelius followed distantly, the silence between them heavier than any insult.

A hooded figure greeted them, his face obscured, as was the case for all Unspeakables.
“We’ve already sorted through most of it,” he said.

He pointed to a shelf stacked with broken glass and twisted metal, and they moved towards it, preparing to fill their Muggle wheelbarrows, untouched by magic. Everything had to be carried to the incinerator by hand. The Unspeakables didn’t want even the simplest spell interacting with whatever unstable, experimental magic had once been woven into the trinkets.

Cornelius suspected that was only half the truth.

It was slow, tedious work, done under the Unspeakable’s supervision. Haxton, as usual, didn’t speak to Cornelius. On the plus side, neither did Lambert.

That didn’t mean Lambert’s words had stopped echoing in his head.

The Unspeakable eventually left them to their task, his retreating footsteps swallowed by the cavernous silence of the Department. Cornelius and his colleagues filled their wheelbarrows in strained quiet. Haxton and Lambert worked efficiently together, a practised rhythm between them, filling their barrows before Cornelius had even managed to half-fill his own.

Cornelius had never felt so alone.

They worked for hours. The Unspeakable drifted in and out at irregular intervals, appearing without warning, observing without comment, then vanishing again. With every passing minute, a heavy moroseness settled over Cornelius, pressing into his chest.

The Department of Mysteries had once answered to him.

Now, he was being ordered about like a house-elf, worse, perhaps. House-elves were at least useful.

By the time Cornelius finally filled his wheelbarrow, Haxton and Lambert had already returned with theirs, emptied and ready to be filled again, speaking together in low, almost companionable tones. Cornelius pretended not to notice.

When lunchtime came, he ate alone.

No one joined him. No one even glanced his way. He sat with his back to the wall, chewing without tasting, listening to the distant hum of the Ministry and wondering - not for the first time - how thoroughly he’d managed to ruin his own life.

After lunch, nothing changed.

Cornelius reached carefully for the next broken object, his fingers numb from repetition. He didn’t see the tiny shard until his finger slipped over it.

He hissed sharply, yanking his hand back as bright droplets of blood welled from the cut.

“What have you done?” Haxton asked, alerted by the sound despite himself.

“Just cut my finger,” Cornelius muttered. Typical. He examined the wound and pulled out a handkerchief to dab at it.

That was when he noticed the faint sparkle.

At first, he assumed it was ground glass - powdered fragments clinging to his skin. But the particles seemed to cling, catching the light at the wrong angles, shimmering with an unpleasant insistence.

The sting began almost immediately.

Cornelius frowned as the sensation deepened, sharp and persistent, and he realised the glittering dust was caught at the edge of the wound, embedded in the blood. Unease crept up his spine. Pulling out his wand, he was about to heal it when Lambert snapped, “No magic in here, Fudge!”

“I’m only healing my finger,” Cornelius protested weakly. “I’m not using magic on the items.”

They stared at him, openly suspicious, as though he’d already proven himself incapable of following the simplest instruction.

He swallowed and put his wand away.

They already thought he was an idiot. A liability. A joke. He didn’t need to confirm it.

The stinging worsened, spreading through his fingertip, pulsing faintly. The cut continued to bleed, though sluggishly, as if his body itself were reluctant to cooperate.

The sensation crept into his hand.

Cornelius tried to ignore it. He told himself it was nothing - another minor indignity, another reminder of how far he’d fallen. Pain was hardly unfamiliar these days.

When Haxton and Lambert became absorbed in their conversation once more, Cornelius cautiously drew his wand. He cast one last glance at their turned backs before whispering a quiet healing charm, barely audible even to himself.

He needed the pain to stop.

It did.

For a moment, relief washed through him.

Then the sting flared again - sharper this time, deeper, as though something beneath his skin objected to being disturbed.

Cornelius stared at his finger, unease pooling in his gut.

Unknown to Cornelius Fudge, he had cut his finger on a broken time turner. A simple cut in itself. However, the shiny particles he’d mistakenly thought of as fine dust of broken glass were, in fact, time turner dust. He hadn’t even bothered cleaning his wound. He’d sealed the time turner dust in his finger, whereby it mixed with his blood.

His finger throbbed faintly, but the skin was already sealed, smooth beneath his touch. Whatever had caused the sting was clearly inconsequential. A simple cut. Nothing more.

He refused to dwell on it.

There were far more important things demanding his attention than a momentary lapse and a bit of dust from the shelves. Healing charms worked; they always had. He pushed the incident firmly from his mind, straightened his robes, and turned his focus back to the task at hand.

By the time the Unspeakable returned, Cornelius had already convinced himself the matter was finished.

As he left the Ministry that night, as he did every night, he glanced at the wall of the fallen and read through the various names, always stopping on Albus Dumbledore’s name.

As he slipped into bed, his mind kept thinking, at first, about Albus Dumbledore.

That night never left him.

It followed Cornelius Fudge into every quiet moment, every sleepless stretch of darkness when there was nothing to distract him from his own thoughts. No matter how much time passed, no matter how often he told himself that regret was pointless, his mind always returned to the same image: Albus Dumbledore, standing before him, calm and unwavering, telling him - warning him - that Lord Voldemort had returned.

He could still hear the certainty in Dumbledore’s voice. Not panic. Not hysteria. Just truth.

Cornelius had dismissed it. Worse, he had fought it. He had clung to fear and denial because acknowledging the truth would have meant acknowledging his own inadequacy. That night - the night Cedric Diggory died, the night Harry Potter returned from the graveyard with blood on his hands and terror in his eyes - had been the fulcrum upon which the entire future tipped.

Everything had gone wrong because Cornelius Fudge had been too afraid to listen.

The weight of that realisation pressed down on him now, heavier than ever, as he lay beside his wife in the dark. His thoughts chased themselves in endless circles: If only I’d believed him. If only I’d acted. If only I’d trusted the boy.

His body ached in a way that felt wrong, deep and intrusive, as though something foreign had worked its way beneath his skin. A faint, persistent heat pulsed through him, radiating outward from his hand, crawling up his arm and into his chest. His heart raced, not from exertion, but from a rising, instinctive dread he couldn’t name.

Beside him, his wife stirred.

“Cornelius?” she murmured sleepily, shifting closer - then freezing.

His skin was hot. Too hot.

“Cornelius,” she said again, sharper now, sitting up as she realised the heat was coming from him. A dim, unnatural glow seeped through the fabric of his nightshirt, faint but unmistakable. “Cornelius, wake up!”

He didn’t hear her.

The glow brightened.

Cornelius’s breath hitched as pain bloomed suddenly, violently, spreading through him in waves. It was as if time itself were tearing at him, pulling him backwards and forward all at once. His muscles locked; his vision swam. He felt himself falling, distantly aware of hands trying to steady him, of his wife’s voice rising into panic.

“Cornelius!” she cried, fear raw and unrestrained now. “Someone help me - he’s burning - Cornelius!”

He never felt himself hit the floor.

His last coherent thought, as the light consumed him and the pain peaked, was bitter and devastating in its simplicity.

I should have listened.

There were voices everywhere.

Sharp, overlapping, urgent, too many to make sense of. Cornelius became aware of cold stone beneath him and the unpleasant realisation that he was lying on it.

“Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

The question seemed very far away, as though shouted down a long corridor. Cornelius blinked, his vision swimming. Faces hovered above him, blurred and indistinct, melting into one another.

Hands gripped his arms. Someone hauled him upright. The world tilted violently.

A glass appeared in front of his face -  no, it was conjured, wasn’t it? - and water sloshed over his fingers before he realised he was meant to drink it. He did, choking slightly, the coolness doing nothing to calm the frantic pounding in his chest.

His heart was racing, far too fast, as though trying to escape his ribcage.

His finger pulsed.

A sharp, insistent twinge shot through it, followed by a strange warmth. Cornelius stared at his hand, mesmerised, as the faint glow faded away, leaving behind nothing but a thin, pale scar.

That shouldn’t be there. He’d healed it.

“Cornelius,” someone said, closer now. “Are you well? Should I summon Madam Pomfrey?”

Cornelius dragged his gaze upward.

The face that swam into focus stole the breath from his lungs.

“Dumbledore?” he gasped.

Panic surged. He lurched to his feet, barely aware of hands steadying him, his mind scrambling desperately for logic. “But - you’re dead,” he blurted. “You’re dead. Am I dreaming? Where am I?”

The reaction around him was immediate and unsettling - murmurs, exchanged looks, sudden urgency. Someone took him firmly by the arm, steering him away before he could protest.

The next thing he knew, he was inside a tent.

A medical tent.

Outside, unmistakably, lay the Quidditch pitch.

None of it made sense.

“I must leave him in your capable hands, Poppy,” Dumbledore said briskly. “We are about to begin. I must meet with the other judges.”

Judges?

“Judges?” Cornelius echoed weakly.

Dumbledore was already gone.

A cannon blast boomed somewhere beyond the canvas walls, followed by thunderous cheers. Cornelius jumped violently, his pulse spiking anew.

“Are you quite all right, Minister?” an Auror asked from the tent entrance.

Minister.

Cornelius turned in a slow, bewildered circle, half - expecting to see Kingsley Shacklebolt somewhere behind him. There was only the Auror - and Pomfrey.

“Minister?” Cornelius repeated faintly, the word feeling foreign on his tongue.

The Auror and the medi-witch exchanged another of those looks. The sort  people gave when something was very wrong.

Pomfrey waved her wand over him despite his protests. “No sign of a Confundus Charm,” she muttered. “No head injury either. But your blood pressure is climbing.”

Was this a dream?

Had he died?

The thought latched on and refused to let go. He stared down at his finger again. The scar was still there - real, solid. Impossible. He knew he’d healed that cut. He remembered doing it. Illicitly, perhaps. Carelessly.

Had that been enough to kill him?

The last thing he remembered clearly was going to bed.

He frowned, his thoughts slipping sideways. If this was death, why was it so… administrative? Why medical tents and Aurors and Dumbledore issuing instructions like nothing had changed?

His head began to throb, a pressure building behind his eyes, but it vanished the moment Pomfrey shoved a potion into his hand and ordered him to drink.

Eventually – somehow  - she let him go.

The confusion did not leave with her permission.

He stepped out into the crowd, flanked by the Auror, the noise and colour crashing over him all at once. Banners. Students. Teachers. Cheers that felt entirely wrong.

The Auror said something. Cornelius nodded automatically, trying to recall his name.

Robbins?

No.

Rabish?

No.

Robards.

Yes. Robards.

The realisation brought no comfort.

It took him far too long - an embarrassingly long time - to understand where he was.

When he did, the truth landed like a physical blow.

The Third Task.

The very night he had been thinking about as he fell asleep.

Cornelius swallowed hard, his stomach twisting.

If this were a dream, it was far too detailed.

If it was the afterlife… it was cruel.

And if it wasn’t either of those things…

He didn’t finish the thought.

He wasn’t sure he dared.

The Triwizard Tournament was meant to herald a new beginning. An international revival that would have spanned generations. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were only the beginning – proof that old alliances could be reforged, that cooperation might yet define the future. Other schools would have followed. Other countries would have hosted.

If only it had worked.

The Ministry had invested heavily in the venture, seduced by promises of prestige and profit. Cornelius had signed off on every decision, every budget increase, reassuring himself that it would all be worth it. That the risk was acceptable. That safety had been considered.

All of it had collapsed with the death of Cedric Diggory. No, not Diggory. The first crack appeared when Harry Potter’s name had emerged from the Goblet of Fire.

If Cornelius were dead, then whatever deity was punishing him had chosen the night with exquisite cruelty. This had been the worst night of his life - not because of what he had lost, but because of what he had allowed to happen.

It had been the beginning of the end.

The end of peace.

The end of prosperity.

The end of Cornelius Fudge’s political career.

Almost sullen, he followed Robards through the crowd. Cheers rang out around him, bright and unknowing, each one twisting deeper into his chest. They celebrated a spectacle he had authorised. They trusted a system he had overseen.

Students from this very school would die defending themselves one day. Children he had meant to protect.

Cornelius turned toward the castle. Lights glittered in the distance, Hogwarts standing proud and beautiful in the fading evening light. It looked eternal. Safe. The illusion made his stomach churn.

He flushed as he spotted Amos Diggory a few seats away.

So proud. So happy.

Cornelius knew -  had always known -  that joy like that was fragile. And still, he had done nothing.

The former Minister fixed his gaze on the hedge maze, dread coiling tighter with every passing second.

The first sparks burst into the air.

Beauxbatons’ champion, Fleur Delacour, was carried from the maze on a stretcher, unconscious.

A ripple of concern passed through the stands, but it was muted - quickly smothered by reassurances, by the belief that danger was expected, controlled. Cornelius felt only a distant unease, as though he were watching events through a pane of glass. Fleur had been injured before in the tournament. This was merely another variation of a memory he knew too well.

Not long after, Viktor Krum - the Durmstrang champion and celebrated Bulgarian Seeker, was brought out on a stretcher as well. He, too, lay unconscious.

Two champions down.

And still, it did not occur to Cornelius to stop the tournament.

If this were truly happening again, if this were real, surely something would have felt different. Surely there would have been a sign. Instead, everything unfolded exactly as it always had, every moment slotting neatly into place, unchanged and inevitable. That sameness convinced him more than anything else that this could not be the past.

This was a dream.

Or a punishment.

Or some elaborate trick of the afterlife.

He remained seated, hands clasped tightly in his lap, heart pounding but mind stubbornly detached. Ending the tournament never crossed his mind. Not after Fleur. Not after Krum. Those moments had always led here. They were fixed points.

Only Potter and Diggory remained.

Cedric Diggory was still in there. Still breathing, for all Cornelius knew. Still only a few hedges and a single decision away from safety.

Back then, Cornelius had wanted a Hogwarts victory. Quietly – selfishly - he had hoped Diggory would take the Cup. The son of a Ministry worker winning such a dangerous tournament would have reflected well on the British Ministry. On his leadership.

Potter was famous enough already. Cornelius had believed Rita Skeeter, the Daily Prophet, had found comfort in the idea that the boy was an attention - seeking, delusional brat. It excused his own inaction.

So he sat. And watched.

It never occurred to him - not once - that he could stand up. That he could call a halt. That Fleur’s stretcher might have been the moment where everything could have diverged.

Perhaps if he had truly believed this was the past - if he had believed, even for a second, that his choices still mattered - he would have ended it then.

Time dragged on, heavy and unyielding, even for what felt like a horrific dream.

The crowd began to get restless. Dumbledore shifted beside him, almost craning out of his seat.

Looking up, Cornelius followed the Headmaster’s gaze across the field to Alastor Moody.

Except it wasn’t Moody.

The realisation hit him with a sickening clarity. It was the escaped convict - Barty Crouch Junior - wearing another man’s face.

Fake Moody shook his head, his magical eye fixed on the centre of the maze. He was signalling that no one was near the Cup.

A lie.

Had they already taken the portkey and left? Were the boys still in the maze?

Amos was smiling as though the night had already ended well. And for one reckless instant, Cornelius wanted to believe it might.

Cornelius’s heart began to pound, the sound roaring in his ears. How long now? Minutes? Seconds?

How long before Potter reappeared with Diggory’s body?

It was late. Too late. It was happening again - just as it always did.

In his nightmares, this was the moment everything froze. The moment where dread coiled around his chest and stole his voice. Where he watched, helpless, knowing exactly what was coming and being unable to stop it.

His breath hitched.

This is it, he thought dimly. The part where I fail again.

His throat tightened, but instead of the familiar paralysis, something else rose up beneath it - sharp, almost painful.

Anger.

Not at Voldemort. Not even at the boy destined to suffer. But at himself. At the endless repetition of regret. At a nightmare that delighted in reminding him of every wrong choice while denying him the chance to make a different one.

If this is a dream, a treacherous thought whispered, then why does it still hurt?

His breath caught. He gasped.

“Cornelius?” Albus asked, concern threading his voice.

“That’s not Moody,” Cornelius rasped - and startled himself by the sound of his own words.

Albus blinked. “Pardon?”

“Not Moody,” Cornelius said again, louder now, desperation bleeding through. He clutched at the Headmaster’s sleeve as though grounding himself. “Dumbledore - that’s not Moody.”

Albus frowned, puzzled, and thankfully, Moody was too far away to hear them.

Cornelius’s pulse thundered. His gaze darted wildly until it landed on Robards.

“Robards,” he said, the word tearing free of him, “arrest him.”

Robards stared. “Who, sir?”

“Moody!” Cornelius snapped, fear giving way to urgency. “Arrest Moody.”

“Cornelius,” Albus began, uncertainty creeping into his tone.

“Albus,” Cornelius interrupted, voice shaking but resolute, “that is not the real Moody. We must capture him.”

The words hung between them.

Cornelius expected the world to shudder. Expected the dream to unravel, to punish him for deviating from the script.

Nothing happened.

The sky did not split. The crowd did not fade. Cedric Diggory did not yet lie dead at Potter’s feet.

For the first time, it occurred to him that perhaps this nightmare was different.

Perhaps it was not showing him what had happened.

Perhaps it was asking him what he would do now.

Albus hesitated - then his gaze snapped back to Moody in the distance. Whatever he saw there made his expression harden.

Cornelius wiped his brow, heart racing, and swallowed.

“Go with him,” he stammered to Robards, then, seized by a sudden clarity, added, “Ask him something only the real Moody would know.”

Robards hesitated - and then moved, following Dumbledore down the stands.

Cornelius remained where he was, surrounded by murmuring teachers and the roar of the crowd.

His hands trembled.

Even in a dream, he thought, stunned, I can choose.

And for the first time in years, that knowledge felt like hope.

McGonagall caught his eye as she made her way down the rows to meet Cornelius.
His breath caught painfully in his throat.

The lines she had earned over the war - the sleepless nights, the buried students, the battles fought without the Ministry’s support - were gone. She looked as she had before everything fell apart. Before he had failed them all.

His dreams had never been this cruelly precise.

Usually, she existed in his nightmares only as a sharp voice and a blur of disappointment, snapping at him from the edges of his conscience. Now she was whole. Solid. Untouched by the suffering he had helped enable.

The sight filled him with a hollow, reverent ache.

Perhaps this was the afterlife after all - a punishment tailored just for him. A world where everyone he had let down stood restored, while he alone carried the weight of memory.

The thought made his skin prickle. He had the unmistakable sense of being tested, of standing at the centre of something that looked like mercy but might yet turn into judgement.

It took Dumbledore, Robards, and Diggory together to subdue the fake Moody.

“Make sure you have him tightly bound,” Cornelius stammered, approaching the captured, still - polyjuiced Auror with visible reluctance. His heart thundered in his chest.

“M - m - make sure you search him,” he added, keeping his distance.

His gaze darted about the grounds, half - expecting a Dementor to descend at any moment. There was always a Dementor. He had brought one himself to administer the Kiss to Barty Crouch Junior - an instinctive decision, made without hesitation.

After Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban and then his second escape from custody at Hogwarts, Cornelius needed to prove that he still had control. That the Ministry was not weak. That he was not weak.

He had wanted the public to trust him. He had wanted to keep his position.

Black’s innocence had been impossible to believe. Cornelius had been furious with Potter for helping him escape, and he had trusted Severus Snape when the man insisted the teenagers must have been Confunded. Black had blown apart a street, killed twelve Muggles and a wizard with a single spell. It wasn’t unreasonable to believe a fourteen-year-old could have been overpowered - especially not by someone capable of escaping an unescapable prison.

Then came the revelation that another prisoner had slipped through Azkaban’s fingers.

The public needed certainty. They needed reassurance. They needed consequences.

Having Crouch Junior Kissed had seemed obvious. Necessary.

Looking back, Cornelius knew it for what it was: yet another nail in the coffin of his career. One of many.

Hope flared, bright and foolish, only to die the moment he saw Harry clutching Cedric’s body.

Leaving the still-polyjuiced Moody under Robards’s watch, Cornelius and Albus hurried toward the boy, Amos Diggory close on their heels. Amos’s wife, Camilla, remained frozen in her seat.

Cornelius let out a strangled groan.

Amos cried out in disbelief, collapsing to his knees and crawling the last few feet to his son. Dumbledore knelt beside Harry, his movements gentle and deliberate as he carefully turned the boy onto his back.

Harry let go of the cup, but he clutched Cedric to him even more tightly. He raised his free hand and seized Dumbledore’s wrist, while Dumbledore’s face swam in and out of focus. “He’s back,” Harry whispered. “He’s back. Voldemort.”

“He wanted me to bring him back,” Harry muttered - it seemed important to explain this. “He wanted me to bring him back to his parents. . . .” “That’s right, Harry . . . just let go now. . . .” Dumbledore bent down, and with extraordinary strength for a man so old and thin, raised Harry from the ground and set him on his feet. Harry swayed. His head was pounding. His injured leg would no longer support his weight. The crowd around them jostled, fighting to get closer, pressing darkly in on him - “What’s happened?” “What’s wrong with him?” “Diggory’s dead!”

Amos’s cries finally drew his wife’s attention. She came running down through the stands, shoving people aside with little care.

“Take the boys to the Hospital Wing,” Cornelius said quietly to Minerva, who was already forcing her way through the crowd.

As if summoned, Poppy Pomfrey appeared moments later and immediately began running her diagnostics. With a desolate expression, she conjured a stretcher and carefully transferred Cedric’s body onto it, drawing a sheet over him with a practised flick of her wand.

The crowd surged forward, jostling and craning for a glimpse of the dead schoolboy before he was concealed.

The sight of the Diggorys weeping over their son was so familiar from Cornelius’s nightmares that, for a moment, he was convinced he was dreaming again.

He swallowed hard as he listened to their grief. Their marriage had not survived the loss - Cedric’s death had torn them apart.

“Snape,” Cornelius called, startling the man. “Fetch me Veritaserum. Minerva, use Albus’s Floo and summon Amelia Bones and Rufus Scrimgeour at once. We have a prisoner to question.”

He ignored their astonished looks and left them to carry out his orders.

“Robards,” Cornelius said, striding toward the Auror guarding the bound impostor. The fake Moody still hadn’t reverted to his true form; he must have taken Polyjuice just before his capture. It wouldn’t be long now before the disguise wore off. “Take… Moody  - take him to his classroom. Make sure he doesn’t escape.”

Barty Crouch Junior - Cornelius knew from the future - was truly unhinged.

Dumbledore, quietly overriding Cornelius’s orders, redirected Minerva to Moody’s classroom instead. He gave the former Minister a long, searching look as he did so, explaining only that he would summon the Aurors. Cornelius didn’t argue, only insisting that Amelia and Rufus be brought here.

“There’s a Death Eater at Hogwarts! There’s a Death Eater here - they put my name in the Goblet of Fire, they made sure I got through to the end  - ” Harry yelled suddenly, coming to life.

Cornelius insisted on escorting the boys, one alive and traumatised and one dead, his death traumatising, to the Hospital Wing himself, away from the prying eyes and the murmuring crowd.

“We have him, Harry,” Cornelius said quickly. “We have him.”

The boy gave him an uncertain look, but he nodded and fell quiet.

Cornelius stayed with Harry and the Diggorys all the way to the Hospital Wing, only leaving once they were in the capable hands of Poppy Pomfrey, who was already working on Harry, and Pomona Sprout, who had thankfully followed them up.

“Do not let anyone enter until we return with Aurors,” Cornelius said, his voice unsteady.

He stepped away then, drawing in a deep breath and releasing it slowly.

This still felt like a nightmare.

But perhaps - just perhaps - he could turn things around.

He could change the future.

He could save lives.

He could hold the wizarding world together when it mattered most.

He could even keep his position as Minister.

The thought made his chest tighten.

His treacherous heart whispered that this was no dream at all - that he might, impossibly, be in the past.

He strode rapidly in the direction of Moody’s office, where Robards and Minerva were already waiting, fake Moody trussed up in a chair, still looking puzzled.

“Did you search him?” Cornelius all but demanded as he entered the office.

“Yes, sir,” Robards answered. He pointed to the desk where he’d placed Moody’s wand, out of reach despite being bound, his hip flask and a set of keys.

He grabbed the hip flask and keys, just as Snape entered with the Truth potion.

Cornelius thrust the hip flask at Snape.

“Is this Polyjuice?” he challenged.

Snape carefully took the flask, but Cornelius already turned away with the keyring and headed towards the trunk with seven locks.

“What is happening, Minister?” Amelia Bones demanded to know as she entered the classroom with Albus and Rufus in tow, looking incredulously between Cornelius and the bound Moody.

Testing each key, he opened each compartment in turn; he ignored her. This was where they’d found the real Moody.

Minerva gasped as he threw open the final compartment to reveal, “Alastor!”

Albus, Minerva and Amelia rushed over.

Dumbledore climbed into the trunk, lowered himself, and fell lightly onto the floor beside the sleeping Moody. He bent over him. “Stunned - controlled by the Imperius Curse - very weak,” he said. “Of course, they would have needed to keep him alive…”

Cornelius shrugged out of his cloak with trembling hands and let it fall to the floor of the trunk. Dumbledore picked it up and laid it carefully over the unconscious - but real - Alastor Moody, as though performing a benediction Cornelius did not deserve to witness.

“Polyjuice Potion,” Snape confirmed behind them.

The words struck Cornelius like a blow. Not because he hadn’t known - it was because he had. He had known too many things too late and ignored too many truths when they had mattered.

“Do you have the Veritaserum?” Cornelius asked, his voice tight, brittle with urgency.

Amelia Bones immediately objected, insisting that the interrogation be delayed until they returned to the Ministry, where there would be proper procedure and proper oversight. Cornelius barely heard her. The memory of another night - another delay, another refusal to act - pressed in on him until his chest ached.

“No,” he said sharply. “We do this now.”

She opened her mouth again, but Cornelius cut her off, shame and resolve tangling in his gut.

“We have plenty of witnesses here with integrity,” he said.

Minutes later, the Polyjuice Potion wore off.

The transformation was subtle and horrifying all the same - bones shifting, features collapsing inward, the borrowed face melting away to reveal Barty Crouch Junior. Cornelius felt no shock at the sight. Only a cold, hollow certainty. This, at least, he had finally gotten right.

Dumbledore led the interrogation.

Under the Veritaserum, Crouch spoke.

He spoke eagerly.

He told them how his parents had broken him out of Azkaban, how his mother had taken his place and gone willingly to her death while his father watched and did nothing to stop it. Cornelius felt his stomach twist.

Crouch described how his father, ashamed and terrified of scandal, had placed him under the Imperius Curse - how he had lived trapped inside his own mind, aware but helpless, rotting in obscurity. Left in the care of a House Elf like an unwanted object. Forgotten.

Cornelius swallowed hard.

Crouch went on, his voice steady, almost fond, as he explained how his father had Memory Charmed Bertha Jorkins. How careless cruelty had left her vulnerable. How chance alone had put her in Pettigrew’s path. Another name that would one day belong on a wall of the dead.

He spoke of learning to fight the Imperius Curse inch by agonising inch. Of the night his Lord found him - and chose not to free him. Not yet. Of how Voldemort had waited, allowing hatred to ferment until patricide became inevitable.

Crouch smiled as he confessed to casting the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup. A declaration of loyalty. A promise. Proof that he had never wavered when others had fled in terror.

He outlined the plan to replace Moody at Hogwarts with the pride of a craftsman, describing his finest work. The stolen Polyjuice ingredients, filched slowly from Snape’s stores over the course of a year. The deception maintained day after day, lesson after lesson.

Then, casually, he admitted to placing Harry Potter’s name in the Goblet of Fire.

Forcing a child to compete.

Cornelius closed his eyes. He had called that boy a liar. A delusional attention seeker. He had unleashed the press on him, sanctioned cruelty in the name of order. He’d told himself fear was responsibility, he thought bitterly. He’d told himself silence was stability.

And still Crouch spoke.

He described killing his father without hesitation. Transfiguring the body into a bone. Burying it in the Forbidden Forest like refuse.

Robards turned a sickly shade of green. Cornelius felt bile rise in his throat, sharp and acrid. Albus and Snape exchanged a look so grim it felt like a verdict.

“What was the ultimate plan?” Amelia asked, her voice shaking despite herself. “What happened tonight?”

Crouch Junior’s answer came too quickly. Too eagerly.

They had used Harry Potter’s blood.

To resurrect the Dark Lord.

“Is he back?” Rufus Scrimgeour demanded hoarsely. “Is You Know Who truly back?”

Cornelius did not answer at once. He was thinking of every warning he had dismissed. Every report he had buried. Every moment he had chosen comfort over courage.

“We need to speak to Harry Potter,” he said at last, his voice bleak and heavy with certainty.

Because this time, he would not pretend not to know the truth.

He saw Snape’s hand reach for his left arm, where Cornelius knew the Dark Mark was branded into his flesh. The memory surfaced unbidden - Snape thrusting that tattooed arm into his face, desperate to make him see something Cornelius had not been ready to hear.

“Make sure he’s secure,” Cornelius said, his voice trembling despite his effort to steady it. “And transport him to - ” He broke off, the word Azkaban hovering unspoken. Crouch Junior had already escaped that prison once. “ - the Ministry holding cells. No visitors. He cannot be allowed to escape and return to You-Know Who. No one outside this room knows he is there.”

Scrimgeour and Robards nodded and took the prisoner away.

Albus and Minerva carefully lifted the real Moody from the trunk, laying him on a conjured stretcher, and together they moved with purpose toward the Hospital Wing, where the Weasley family and Potter’s friends waited anxiously. Minerva took charge at once, guiding them aside with quiet authority so the others could pass. Albus paused only long enough to murmur further instructions, which she accepted without question.

A privacy screen surrounded the Diggorys. Cornelius doubted the Muffling charm did much to contain the grief on the other side.

Harry had been healed of his injuries. From the half - empty goblet at his bedside, Cornelius guessed it held some kind of sleeping draught. Either it had worn off, or the boy had refused the full dose; Harry stirred as they approached.

Albus hurried to his side, helping him sit up.

“We know you’ve been through an ordeal,” Cornelius said softly, seeing him clearly for the first time. Even healed, the boy was pale and shaking, bruises still fading, his clothes stiff with dried blood that Poppy had not yet replaced. “But we need you to tell us what happened tonight.”

Poppy came over at once, protesting the disturbance they were causing her patient. At a reassuring look from Albus, Harry overrode her objections. She huffed but remained close, arms folded, watching him like a hawk.

They listened in horrified silence as Harry recounted what had happened: the confusion when the cup became a Portkey; Pettigrew’s spell that killed Cedric Diggory - the spare - and the ritual that followed, where Harry’s blood was forcibly taken to resurrect the most terrible Dark Lord in living memory.

Cornelius felt each word land like a blow.

Harry spoke of the Cruciatus Curse - more than once - of resisting an Imperius Curse cast by Voldemort himself, of being forced into a grotesque parody of a duel while Death Eaters watched and laughed.

A year, Cornelius thought numbly.

A whole year.

The words echoed in his mind, heavy and damning. A phenomenon so rare it was almost unheard of - and yet Voldemort had known. Voldemort had planned.

Cornelius’s thoughts leapt to prophecy, to the whispers he had dismissed, the warnings he had waved away as panic and exaggeration. Voldemort had been hiding, gathering strength, laying his foundations - and Cornelius had given him the time to do it.

A year bought with denial, bought with the smears and silence.

A year paid for with a boy’s life.

He listened in mounting horror as Harry described Priori Incantem - a spell Aurors used to trace a wand’s recent magic.

Brother wands.

They shared wand cores.

He didn’t know the prophecy’s exact wording, but its meaning was suddenly, horrifyingly clear: Harry Potter stood as Voldemort’s equal in some fundamental way.

And Cornelius Fudge had stood between that truth and the world - until it was far too late.

Albus took control of the conversation.

“Voldemort has returned,” Dumbledore said. “If you accept that fact straightaway, Fudge, and take the necessary measures, we may still be able to save the situation. The first and most essential step is to remove Azkaban from the control of the dementors  - …

“They will not remain loyal to you, … Voldemort can offer them much more scope for their powers and their pleasures than you can! With the dementors behind him, and his old supporters returned to him, you will be hard - pressed to stop him regaining the sort of power he had thirteen years ago!

“The second step you must take - and at once,” Dumbledore pressed on, “is to send envoys to the giants…

“Extend them the hand of friendship, now, before it is too late,” said Dumbledore, “or Voldemort will persuade them, as he did before, that he alone among wizards will give them their rights and their freedom!”

Last time, Cornelius had rejected every one of the Headmaster’s suggestions out of hand. He hadn’t argued them on their merits - he’d dismissed them because they were inconvenient. Because they were frightening. Because they threatened the careful fiction that he was still in control. Removing the Dementors from Azkaban. Speaking to the Giants. Even considering such things had felt unthinkable then, not because they were impossible, but because they would have required courage he did not possess.

He had worried about headlines. About public confidence. About how thin his authority already was, and how quickly it might crumble if he admitted fear. He had clung to his title as if it were proof of competence, as if occupying the office absolved him of the responsibility to act.

And he had been wrong. About all of it.

Was this a nightmare, dredged up by guilt and regret?

Was he already dead, condemned to relive the moment he failed most?

Or was this something far crueller - a second chance, offered to a man who had already proven he did not deserve one?

He didn’t know.

He did nothing.

He ignored Albus’s imploring look, even now hesitating, even now letting silence stretch where a decision should have been, while the older wizard waited for him to speak - as he always had.

Cornelius’s gaze drifted instead to Harry Potter.

A boy who, at fourteen, had faced Voldemort and lived - who had returned clutching the body of a dead classmate so that his parents could bury their son with dignity.

A boy who, at fifteen, had fought Death Eaters in defence of a Ministry that had spent a year smearing him as a liar and a fraud.

At sixteen, he had continued to fight - not only Voldemort’s followers, but the Ministry itself, a Ministry he no longer trusted.

Because of Cornelius Fudge.

At seventeen, the boy had walked willingly to his own death, had taken yet another Killing Curse meant to end him, and still stood up again to finish what the adults around him had failed to do.

Harry Potter had acted, fought and given his life.

Cornelius had watched.

And now, standing here with the weight of that knowledge pressing down on him, Cornelius wondered whether anything had truly changed at all - or whether this, too, was just another moment where history waited for him to act… and he proved once again that he could not.

Cornelius didn’t answer, frozen, the silence stretching on.

He overlooked the silent Snape paling in the background as Harry, as if trying to persuade him to listen to Dumbledore, desperately described the ghosts of his parents tearing free from the joined wands. Cornelius barely registered it; his attention was fixed on the boy’s next words, on the names, on the proof.

His heart began to thunder as Harry spoke of the Death Eaters answering the Dark Mark’s call - of them coming willingly, eagerly, as though summoned by instinct rather than fear. They had tried to stop him. Tried to prevent him from bringing Diggory’s body home.

Something hot and vicious curled in Cornelius’s chest.

“Name them,” Cornelius snapped, the command cutting through the room like a curse. His voice shook - not with uncertainty, but with rage. “I want every name. Everyone who was there.”

Wide - eyed, Harry obeyed at once.

Crabbe. Goyle. MacNair.

Each name struck like a blow, reopening old wounds Cornelius had tried - failed - to bury. Then -

Lucius Malfoy.

Cornelius’s jaw clenched so hard it ached. The smug smiles. The whispered reassurances. The convenient Imperius claims Cornelius had accepted because they were easier than confrontation. Easier than admitting he had been played for a fool.

Never again.

He would not be blinded by money or influence or the hollow trappings of respectability. Malfoy had stood at Voldemort’s side when it mattered. That was all the proof Cornelius needed.

He would see Lucius Malfoy punished - not protected, not negotiated with, not quietly excused. And if his family had followed him into the Dark Lord’s service, then they would answer for it too.

“I want them all arrested,” Cornelius said, his voice low and iron - hard as he turned to Amelia, who had not stopped writing. “Every single one of them.”

Amelia hesitated. “All of them?”

He turned to Amelia Bones and remembered how she had been personally killed by Voldemort - a woman who should have succeeded him after his disgrace, and who would have led far better than he ever had.

Amelia Bones should have been Minister. Instead, she was dead - killed by Voldemort because Cornelius Fudge had been too weak to hold the office when it mattered. Scrimgeour had followed her, another casualty of Cornelius’s mistakes. The truth settled bitterly in his chest: more competent people had paid with their lives for his cowardice.

He looked to Snape - seemingly loyal to the end - the man who had killed Albus Dumbledore, the same man who had risked life and limb for years to spy for the Light. A man Potter had fought tooth and nail to see honoured, because the wizarding world had been all too willing to forget sacrifices made in silence.

And then there was Dumbledore.

A wizard who could have taken power at any time.

The thought settled in Cornelius’s chest like a stone. Dumbledore had never lacked the strength, the influence, or the loyalty of others. He could have been Minister with a word. He could have ruled outright if he had wanted to. The wizarding world would have followed him without hesitation - and Cornelius had been too small-minded, too afraid, too stupid to see it.

Instead, Albus Dumbledore had chosen a school.

Children.

Cornelius swallowed, shame burning hot behind his eyes. He had mistaken refusal for weakness, humility for irrelevance. He had never once considered that Dumbledore’s lack of ambition was not an inability, but a restraint. Power, freely offered and deliberately declined.

This was the man Cornelius had tried to undermine. The man he had publicly doubted, smeared, and accused of spreading lies - all because Cornelius could not bear the idea that someone else might be right where he had been wrong.

Dumbledore had given up every title, every seat of influence, rather than bend the truth for comfort. He had stood firm while Cornelius lashed out, terrified of losing what little authority he possessed. And still, Dumbledore had defended the children. Always the children. Right up until his last breath.

Even his death had been an act of protection - carefully orchestrated to spare Draco Malfoy, to shield Severus Snape, to preserve a future Cornelius had been too blind to imagine.

The power had always been there.

Dumbledore had simply never wanted it.

And Cornelius, faced with that truth far too late, could no longer pretend his failure had been anything but his own.

“Yes,” Cornelius said sharply, anger flaring hot and unforgiving. “They answered the Dark Mark’s call. Last time they hid behind Imperius and we let them. We swallowed their lies because it was convenient.” His hands curled into fists. “If they were innocent, they wouldn’t have run to Voldemort’s side the moment he summoned them.”

He leaned forward, eyes blazing.

“I want every Death Eater named tonight arrested, interrogated, and stripped of every protection their gold ever bought them. No deals. No mercy. Not this time.”

Cornelius took a shuddering breath.

The Giants and the Dementors had joined Voldemort without hesitation, and he had broken his loyal Death Eaters out of what should have been an impenetrable prison. Every failure rose up at once, heavy and suffocating.

He swallowed hard, sweat beading at his brow.

This was his chance to make things right.

Wasn’t it?

Turning back to Dumbledore,  Cornelius said, his voice rough, as though the words had scraped their way out of him, “You’re right, Albus.”

The Headmaster turned to him in clear surprise, as if braced for defiance and finding none.

“You’re right,” Cornelius repeated, more firmly this time. “We should remove the Dementors from Azkaban.”

Amelia rose abruptly from her chair, shock plain on her face as she protested. She had never liked the creatures, but they had guarded the prison for centuries; removing them was unthinkable.

Cornelius barely heard her. He dragged a hand over his face and looked toward the Diggorys, still hidden behind the privacy screen - grief he could never undo, no matter what he chose now.

“Last time,” he said quietly - meaning the future, but knowing they thought he was talking of the past - “they didn’t hesitate to join You-Know Who. The Giants either. Perhaps they will never stand with us… but perhaps we can ask for neutrality. Perhaps we can deny him allies.”

For a long moment, Albus Dumbledore simply studied him. Then the tension in the old wizard’s posture eased, just slightly - not triumph, not vindication, but something gentler.

Relief.

Not for being proven right, but for no longer standing alone.

Dumbledore smiled.

Familiar words washed over him. Words he’d heard in every dream.

“I tell you now - take the steps I have suggested, and you will be remembered, in office or out, as one of the bravest and greatest Ministers of Magic we have ever known.”

The rest of the speech…

“Fail to act - and history will remember you as the man who stepped aside and allowed Voldemort a second chance to destroy the world we have tried to rebuild!”

Repeated too often in his nightmares, never came.

Something in Cornelius relaxed.

“We’ll fight this together. Won’t we?” Cornelius asked.

“United we stand, divided we fall,” Albus assured him.

Cornelius nodded, comforted - and cautiously convinced - that he might somehow be standing on the edge of a second chance to right his wrongs. Whether this was reality, a dream, or some cruel afterlife designed to torment him, he did not know. But if it was real - if there was even the smallest possibility that he could change what was to come - then he owed it to the future to try to be courageous.

His gaze drifted toward the Diggorys. In every nightmare that had haunted him, it was always this night when he had made the most mistakes. Not because Voldemort returned, but because Cornelius Fudge had refused to listen when Dumbledore warned him. Because he had dismissed the truth simply because he was afraid of it.

This night was always the beginning of the end for him. 

The night he let fear rule his heart.

Yet now, for the first time, as he began to consider that this might truly be a chance to change the future, regret twisted into something sharper. If he had been remorseful sooner - if he had not spent the evening convincing himself he was dreaming or already dead - perhaps he could have stopped the tournament. Perhaps he could have halted Voldemort’s rise entirely. Perhaps the boys would never have taken the Cup to their deaths, and the Diggorys would not be mourning their only child.

Cornelius took a fortifying breath. He had once foolishly turned away from Dumbledore’s guidance, resenting the man’s certainty and his habit of acting according to plans he did not fully share. He knew that Albus Dumbledore always had his own agenda - one aimed relentlessly at Voldemort’s defeat. And this time, Cornelius would not stand in his way. This time, he would listen, even if the truth frightened him.

Turning, he faced Amelia Bones.

“Let us go, Amelia,” he said to the woman who should have been Minister for Magic, “we have work to do.”

Amelia nodded unwaveringly. “Let us go, Minister.”

They parted ways. 

For now.

They would each prepare for war in their own way.

As Cornelius and Amelia exited the Hospital Wing, the Minister heard Dumbledore’s voice behind him.

“Severus,” said Albus, turning to Snape, “you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready… if you are prepared…”

“I am,” said Snape.

Cornelius walked on. He would prepare too - whatever this place was, whatever awaited him next. He would try to be brave. He would fight for a future worth saving. He had let fear govern him once. He would not let it make a crying shame of his life again.