"KINGSLEY, you really shouldn't have."

"And yet I do. Every Friday morning. Your questions regarding the conduct of this administration are becoming tiresome, Minister."

Fudge was sitting in bed, a very old, very large one in the Minister's Suite. But even by the palatial standards of his surroundings, he could hardly help but be impressed at the bounty spread before him. Not merely the cascading pile of the morning papers piled on the sheets (The Prophet, the Quibbler, The Quidditch Post, unsurprisingly, but also The Times, Post, Guardian, the FT, and the Independent) or the smiling and pleasing form of one Kingsley Shacklebolt, but at the ample tray of edibles before him. Among his many talents, Fudge felt, Kingsley was unfairly denied his share of glory in the arcane and difficult arts of breakfast preparation.

"These are a new king of eggs, Kings."

"Hm. Try them, if you like. They're getting cold, you know. And I make this all by hand, I should remind you." Kings was sitting in his usual position on his side of the bed, reading glasses on; half-moon spectacles of the kind that Albus Dumbledore had made popular back in the sixties resting evenly on his long, straight nose. Light blue silk pajamas, top and bottom. One leg up to support the Muggle yellow legal pads he was so fond of. He was scribbling with a red pencil that he would occasionally turn the other end to. Well, more than occasionally. He was a perfectionist, and it showed. And had this habit of chewing on his eraser that Fudge gave him a lot of hell for. It was adorable, to be honest, but wizards, particularly English wizards who are brought up to be proper gentlemen to their male lovers, were supposed to call such things "striking" and such, so Fudge did -- wanting, after all, to be the avatar of politeness. Kings still got upset by it, but that was part of their routine.

He had been working on his book for Obscurus for the better part of two months, during which time the floor of their bedroom had become swamped with crushed and rolled-up spores of yellow lined paper, shot off at random intervals. Once, Fudge had interceded: "Kings. You could, you know, use a dictation quill. Everyone in the profession, does." Kings, at this point, would turn and remind "Oz" (he was the only one, besides Fudge's mother, who ever got to call him by his middle name) that he wasn't everyone -- and seeing as how Oz was given over so often to raving about his love's singularity, wouldn't that be a tad hypocritical? And moreover, how was he supposed to write Life as an Auror: The Kingsley Shacklebolt Story, espousing the values of discipline, diligence, etc. and so on, while not being willing to put nose-to-grindstone? And on top of that...

Then, Fudge smiled wryly. "Say what you will about your vaunted hard work, I'm not the one shagging the Minister, am I?" Kingsley stuck out his tongue and kept writing, and the Minister for Magic had almost been forced to sleep at Mad-Eye Moody's couch for the next week. Constant vigilance indeed.

He thought about this while poking at his eggs, and barely audible, muttered to himself, "Gryffindors, boggle, they think they're so good in bed..."

Kings, scribbling away, an eyebrow elevated but not even bothering to look up, said, sweetly, "What was that, love?"

"I said," replied Fudge, his mouth suddenly full of the strange omlette Kingsley had procured for him out of nowhere, "thish egg ish fantisshtak, *ahem* wherever did you find it?"

"That's what I thought."

Kingsley really did outdo himself on Fridays, though. Usually, Thursdays were date night, so Fudge often bought dinner or cooked, and the Auror did the turn come sunrise. Bacon, perfectly crisp. Eggs, always...interesting. Fudge liked to drink his coffee in intermittent sips, saving the last big gulp for the end of the meal, when the flavored richness could balance out the orange juice that he also would sip from time to time, usually bracketed by the pastries. The coffee today was had more of a mocha taste for it, from those beans the Turkish ambassador had brought last time. Kings' special touch was to include that new fruit that tasted like strawberries and peaches interbred; the boffins down at Herbology told him they'd discovered last month.

"Kings," said he, "that was perfect." He sat aside the tray on the night stand and pushed the covers off his legs in preparation for the ninety-degree rotation to rotate lower body into hanging-off-bed position, which would in turn be succeeded by the cruical donning-of-slippers portion of the day's activities.

"Merlin knows, I try for you...hey, look you, where are you going? You know the rules." He had the prepare-for-tackle stare Fudge instinctively understood to be a species of the intimidating body language Kings put on for dark wizards and occasionally Stan Shunpike. "Well, the rules and force of habit," Shacklebolt continued. "You never get out of bed before 11 on Friday mornings anyway."

"Can't be helped," muttered Fudge. "You forget today's that day."

"And what day would that be," cooed Kingsley, in his famous deep, rich baritone (he was donning his best passive-agressive look; an odd sort of face for a man who hunted other human beings for a living), "where I am left in to recuperate from last night, in traction almost, alone. Alone. Not cool, Oz. Not cool." This was concluded by what can only be described as a tough guy's unsuccessful attempt to pout.

Fudge glanced over his shoulder. "Right. I see I'm being visited by the Acid Queen, then."

Kingsley's eyes were theoretically attached back to his pad. "All I said was not cool."

"'Not cool.' Not cool, eh? You children." Fudge was now fully slippered and walking over to the bathroom door along the east end of the ministerial bedroom. The walls were wood paneled, and along the south one a clear ray of soft pale morning sunlight, dust-illuminating. Its otherwise translucent beam landed in a small pool on a big blue leather armchair. Finishing the last of his coffee and placing it back on the saucer he held in his left hand, Fudge droned on. "In breach of the 'cool'. Ptolemy forbid. I suppose. Look how out of sync I am. Does your..." Fudge smiled sharply and pursed his lips for a moment to make a point, savoring the pause as Kings looked on apparently unimpressed with this latest rendition of a long-running theme, being a kind of harping that Kinglsey Shacklebolt was neither unfamiliar with nor particularly enchanted by. Kings' eyes now appropriately rolled upwards and arms fully at crossed position, Fudge felt free to continue: "*ahem*, hip now bear the brunt of my depradations?"

Still beaming, now sweetly, he searched through the perpetually creaky armoire in the corner of the room. "Or might your beloved 'Oz' have a deeper link to the fashionable than you think?" He opened the doors wide, turned, and gave a showman-like sweep of the hand, as if showing off what he thought to be a fairly impressive wardrobe to a new guest.

"Yeah, turn of the century fashion."

"Pardon?"

"You heard me, you lecherous old bastard."

Most of the times Cornelius Fudge looked at Kingsley, he felt like he was doing so for the first time. He liked to imagine how they looked together; a round, portly, pale, increasingly wrinkly balding middle-aged burgher next to the sleek, powerful, dark brown build of the clean-headed youth next to him. Well, maybe not a youth, but young for the Wizarding World. Kingsley, whatever his age, had a way of being annoyingly beautiful. In clothes or out. Not that, Fudge smirked inwardly, he could tell him that. He then suddenly felt a klunk! to the head and realized something that felt a lot like the shoe of Kingsley Shacklebolt, Auror, had been lobbed at him. He looked down, and, indeed, his suspiscions were confirmed.

"I'm talking to you, Oz. Look; why the hell can't you stay in today? It's right well horrible outside."

Sun still shining.

Kingsley was nonchalant. "Well, it might be one of those days that gets bad later."

"First of all, my heart, in response to your question earlier, today is the day for the Minister's Lecture at Hogwarts. In order to make it to said lecture, I'm forced to go through today's paperwork earlier than I would usually. Second, relating to your paranoia concerning outside weather patterns -- if I recall, I do remember recently having been assigned a Ministry bodyguard, you know, that's supposed hold the umbrella for me if it rains, although someone apparently forgot his job required CONSTANT VIGILANCE of his principal's whim and need."

Kingsley, eyes still reading his latest: "Of course, but that's because a certain someone decided buggering the help was a great idea."

"Sometimes CONSTANT VIGILIANCE means satisfying odd needs. Like getting me a cranberry muffin, you know."

Kingsley looked up from his writing, pushed up his glasses, and said, with a sardonic smile, "I've been giving you cranberry muffins every day, your Highness. Not really my fault if age...dulls the appetite, now is it?" White teeth now fully engaged.

"Psssh. This administration's butter knife is as able as ever." Fudge took out a dark navy-colored suit and robe with light blue stripes from back in the armoire and laid it on the chair. He began to take off the burgundy-colored dressing gown he'd just put on with his slippers.

Watching surely what, to his mind, had to be the most awkward strip-show going on in the world at that moment, Kingsley's eyebrows went up when Fudge got down to his boxers. "Really, now, Cornelius. Again, uncool. Please don't do that when I've just had breakfast -- if you're really intent on walking the Muggle streets sometime today, we'll see plenty of fatty, pale English flesh. Ampleloads."

"I hate you."

"I know."

ABOUT FIFTEEN minutes later, Fudge was walking down the checkerboard black-and-white floor that led from the elevators to the Minister's Complex. Kingsley, having finally been risen Lazarus-like from bed and bitchy as always, was going to meet him in the Main Lobby in half an hour. From there they would leave for the school. But first, essential paperworks had to be completed. Prodigies of expression had to be spilled out onto parchment.

Ministers of Magic have traditionally two offices. One public, one private. Again, Fudge was no different in this regard. When he was free, he preferred to work in his cozy personal study, the one that contained the Washington Portkey door. To get to that one, you had to go through the official dining room. But official paperwork was always done in the Minister's Office, which was unironically and colloquially known as the Big Office, or the Big Room.

There'd be a pile of stuff waiting for him, even on this Friday. He just knew. He suddenly had a headache. Tired, for some reason.

He nodded to Basil, temporarily on loan from Transportation, who was sitting, bored, behind the secretary's desk in the foyer of the Minister's Lobby. He walked across the polished tiles and poured himself a cup of hot chocolate from the talking bronze kettle on the pastry table.

"Isn't it a marvelous day?" said the horribly cheerful kettle as Fudge poured out its steaming brown fluid innards into a mug.

"Fantastic," he replied, muttering under his breath.

"Tip me over and pour me out!" it squeaked helpfully.

Fudge grumbled some more.

He took a sip. Ugh. What the -- ah, but of course. Basil was new. The cardinal rule of preparing hot drinks on Fudge's floor was never to use the Gilderoy Lockhart's Sunrise-With-A-Smile Mix. The Ministry got sacks of that wretched stuff as a courtesy gift every year.

Fudge had tried to stop Lockhart from sending it, but the man himself had strangely disappeared from public view a few years back, and he couldn't get a hold of any of his friends. The Ministry sent as much of it to Durmstrangs as possible (apparently, they really liked it), but a few bags always ended up being left behind. It tasted just awful -- plus, it made inanimate objects annoyingly cheerful. Fudge dumped several lumps of sugar into his cup and soldiered on.

"The first thing to learn about a medieval bureaucracy," he'd told Weasley once, "is, really, how much paper there is." And how much writing it took. Fudge put so much stock in the use of dictation-taking quills precisely because he so rarely got to use them himself.

Regardless of what Scribbulus Everchanging Inks told you, an experienced eye could always tell you if it'd been a real hand writing the word. So that meant every private letter, every kindly reminder or missive of sympathy, every remonstrance of policy or epistolary gesture, every condolence to the wife or husband of a deceased Auror, had to be done by hand. There were always a lot of those. And the Cabinet, the Department Heads, they got upset and felt snubbed if they got a note and you hadn't gotten ink on your fingers, so that had to be scrawled personally. And that wasn't even to mention all the memos that were, well, off the books, so to say.

And. The secret stuff had to be scrivened out too. Because even a magic quil that heeds only its master's voice will yield surprising information when the right spell is pressed upon it. Several Ministers had learned that the hard way. Fudge often thought of his predecessors as he walked down the hallway to the Big Office with the strange purple desk. It was hard not to; their portraits, along with the portraits of sundry high muckamucks from the Ministry's history, lined the wood-paneled walls that ran the length of the very long passage from the lobby of the Minister's floor. They were spaced inches apart and, like at Hogwarts, covered every inch of available horizontal space.

They tapered off near the door to the Ministerial sanctum, but a few traditionally were allowed to seep into the office; Ministers had customarily been given the choice of hanging the paintings they liked the most; or whichever ones they thought would give the best advice. Fudge had never been entirely clear on that. Regardless, like hirearchies in life, there are hierarchies in its simulacra; the more important you were, generally the closer you got to the Official Door. Depending on who was in power, naturally, common wisdom could change, and some portraits couldn't technically be removed; but more or less the status quo found a constant chorus of whinging portraits near the beginning of the hallway and the pompous grandees (the High Lords and Ladies of the Academy, the Ministry, and the Quidditch Pitch) near the large, round mahogny door at the end.

And like the pictures in the Headmaster's Office, they were not shy about giving their opinion. Fudge, having visited both the World Cup and the Wizengamot, had a relatively high tolerance for inane chatter -- but the Peanut Gallery, as he called them, still got on his nerves. Yet, collectively, they always seemed to know more than you did -- and knew it before you did, too. It did more than draw attention to them; it insured them immortality and a refuge from some dusty storage cell down in the Crypts. They talked among themselves constantly, it seemed. Nobody had ever figured out how they moved from place to place; how, if some eminent personage had a portrait at both Hogwarts and the Ministry, they could be connected. They just were. Yet another one for the Unspeakables and the Brain Tub. Odd thing, a network of loudmouth spies. But for all their artificiality and repetitive burblings, when they claimed to know something, they really knew. For this reason, every Minister had kept them on the walls, even when they wouldn't shut up. Fudge knew that one day he'd be up there too.

And what a collection they were. A plenitude of faces! Wise old warlocks in stretched brown wigs, shrewd-eyed witches with ancient faces and telling looks; Famous Beaters, Chasers, Keepers and Seekers, in an entire rainbow of team liveries; a young Professors of Potions, an aged Maester of Transfiguration there. Within the scope of fame, there are the greats and smalls still; Nicholas Flamel, Agrippa, and Paracelsus shared wall space with Furmage, Alderton and Pennfold. With the exception of priority given through proximity, like much in the wizarding world the portraits had been hung up with no rhyme or reason. Famous Healer lodged next to Animagus, who hung next to wand-maker and hex-breaker. Important wizards who had had rumors of dark wizardry attached to their names during and after death leered at paintings of tough-looking Aurors from their perch in the world of oil and canvas. There was a Malfoy, a Lestrange, and several Blacks, all of whom were in a constant state preternatural of grumpiness. And in a tiny, dirty cramped frame near the floor was a soot-covered painting that of a scary-looking Elizabethan. That was the Gaunt family's only portrait. He only spoke in Parseltongue. Hearing its hiss underneath the babble of the rest was deeply unsettling for Fudge. Like seeing a dementor lurking in the background of your family portrait. There it was, softly; like air being let out of a balloon. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

As Fudge's steps took him closer to his stack of preordained papers, the aspects depicted became more recognizable. Here was Mirabella Plunkett, in full haddock form; a strangely calming depiction of Wendelin the Weird being burned for the 44th time, Marjoribanks with his gillyweed, Sawbridge, Beamish, Uric and the Jellyfish, Newt Scamander, a double portrait of Mungo Bonham and Gunhilda of Gorsemoor, Hengist, Cliodne, Wenlock and Platt, a curious portrait of the Golden Snitch from the World Cup of 1473 -- and one, of course, of Sir Elton John. How you managed to fool them, I'll never know, thought Fudge, as he gave a friendly wave to the one the Muggles aptly knew as "Pinball Wizard".

Appropriately enough, ahove the door was a lovely picture of Daisy Dodderidge. Fudge apparently still had a scowl on his face, for she chimed to him, "That Lockhart mix again, Minister?"

"Yes, Daisy."

"Rotten stuff, I hear. Shame you never drank in the Cauldron when *I* was there." She winked and laughed.

Fudge smiled in spite of himself. "A shame indeed, madam."

He slammed the door and left the chatter of the hallway behind him, only to wake up the several still-dozing portraits he'd elected years ago to hang in the Big Office.

"Oh, there he goes again. So high and mighty!" said a painting of an old, grandmotherly-looking witch in an electric pink wig.

"Hello Artemisia," mumbled Fudge, weary-sounding.

Lufkin turned to the stout looking, middle-aged wizard in the frame to her left "He's been eating heavy again! My, Grogan! The size of him!"

"Leave the boy alone," replied a pleasant-looking man with two chins and bright eyes. "He's obviously found the Ministry Wine Cellar again."

"There isn't a Ministry Wine Cellar," replied a thin-faced woman in a ruff collar. She had a sharp, correctional tone. "There's only a Room of Requirement, Grogan."

"Then I fancy it filled its name rather well," replied the bright-eyed man. "Ten years! Ho! Ha! It never was anything but a wine cellar to me! Hahaha!" A nearby painting of a man with a Van Dyke beard and an accordion began to laugh and hoot. Elfrida Clagg and Quong Po joined in too.

"Not in the mood!" roared the Minister. The chorus quieted themselves abruptly. As he walked away from them, they began to whisper among themselves.

Fudge took a step or two, and looked up. Closest to him now was a picture of a round-faced, happy couple together in painting, laughing and smiling at some private joke.

Normally you didn't get depicted unless you were dead. Fudge, however, had made a special request for this one.

Fudge took a moment to gaze at them.

Frank.

Alice.

I miss you.

He passed them, and Barty Crouch Sr.'s painting, in silence.

Crouch never said anything.

~~~~~~~~~~

Walking into the Big Office is an striking affair for a newcomer. Like many structures set up in a bastard style -- the Medieval lust for overwhelming force combined with the style of the Palladian Era, in this case -- it was designed to intimidate and stagger. And indeed it did. Fudge's preferred place of lodging, the Minister's Study, was intimate, easy. A desk, carpets, lamps, bookshelves, comfy armchairs, all within reach. Not so here.

What did the Minister's Office look like? Like Inigo Jones had designed it. It had the feel of a banqueting hall set up for one man, the Chiswick House air. To a cricket, it'd be a cathedral. To Fudge's eyes, at least today, it was just a big rectangular room, done with more paneling of dark wood (when the light hit it, it looked cherry); a fifteen-foot ceiling with a twenty-foot miniature dome centered right above the Ministerial desk. The cupola, like the ceiling of the Great Hall at Hogwarts, was enchanted. It too depicted a sky; but rather than show the one outside, the little dome showed the weather within. That is, it changed its appearance according to how the occupant of the office was feeling. Some days it would be sunny, others cloudy, rarely stormy. God help us when a manic-depressive sits in this chair, Fudge thought. The quickly alternating sounds of birds chirping followed by great rolls of thunder was unsettling enough. Obviously, such a magical mural could be politically problematic if your job in life was to glad-hand and pour oil over troubled waters. Yet nobody had ever really figured how to be rid of it -- the confessional canopy had caused no shortage of embarassment during tense negotiations in the past. For this reason, most diplomacy happened in the State Room. Around the lip of the dome -- still in wood paneling -- lay an architrave, ostensibly supported by two wooden columns, same color as the walls. The pillars stood about five feet on both sides from Fudge's desk.

The rest of the surrounding walls, done in the same ubiqituous dark wood paneling, saw a row of eight-foot tall windows (in what Fudge thought of as the "Monticello" style) with balustrades running along the outdoor side. There was about three feet of spacing between each span of glass, which were taken up by a wood pilasters from ceiling to bottom.

While most of the Ministry is underground, it had always been the Minister's pleasure to have a source of ample, and natural, light. Like the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron, Muggle eyes just tended to skip over the building with the large windows; if they did manage to pay attention to it, they were rewarded with the sight of what was to all appearances a very old, and very closed, barbershop -- albeit one with vermiculated stone in the bugnato rustico vein. When the sun went down, inside the office, floating glass orbs set in horizontal concave hollows in various positions on the walls would self-light -- and float over to the desk, if summoned. This generally wasn't necessary, as the fine elvish torchieres standing around his desk did most of the job.

The entire design of the room lent to the paradoxical piano nobile feel of the Big Office -- although the large onyx fireplace on the back wall eight feet beind the desk was an odd choice, he thought. As was the magnificent, ever-changing Persian carpet that covered the floor. It was very much alive -- with its labyrinthine patterns changing day to day, its long serpentine lines shaping their endlessly daedal convolutions anew each morning. Why shouldn't it? The carpet, though priceless, was still a flying carpet, after all. And though it was, of course, beautiful to behold, every few years it began to regain consciousness and move around furniture, and the appropriate carpet custodial "drugging" spell was looked up so to get the monster rug back to sleep. In essence, it had to be Imperio'd every couple of years.

The first time Fudge had been told this, he had shrugged. Furniture was like that. Doubtless this carpet, like the bear-skin rug in the White House, had a very high opinion of its own person, and repeated this to itself frequently.

There was a mullioned bay window, jutting out oriel-like, in the far back left-hand corner of the room, and right next to that was a faux-woven bamboo window, like the one in the Joan tea house in the Urakuen garden of Inuyama. That had been Fudge's innovation -- he had brought back the idea when he had visited Nippon five years ago, for the meeting of the International Federation of Warlocks. Fudge's addition, beautiful as it was, was not alone in claiming an aesthetic place of honor in the Big Room. There were touches of brilliance dispersed throughout the chamber. Over the revivalist base of the room there was a veneer of redecoration in the Art Nouveau style: the two sitting chairs, couch, and coffee table near the front of the room, a clock with fine traceries -- and ruling over this, a truly sublime frieze of the same fin-de-siècle school, the sort of free-flowing burst of poetry that's usually seen wrought in iron, not rock. It was positioned over the fireplace and had the virtues of being panoramic without being massive, impressive without being heavy, eye-catching but not distracting -- powerful, but not overpowering.

The piece itself? It was composed of organic curves and sinuous shapes, dynamic undulations expressing the form of beauty in a syncopated medley played out by an orchestra of Pre-Raphealite parabolas and hyperbolas -- now warring, now in harmony. It was as if a growing of plant forms had been summoned forth from stone to weave and coil for their own delight. There was a dreamlike quality to this work, to be sure; looking at rondure and whorl, at full-meniscus and half-moon, at curvature and crook; at every swerve, twist, turn, and veer -- gazing at them, it was like a school for the soul; a dream, a vision, at the edge of remembering, as if you had seen them long ago, in a yellow book, in a past far gone.

Lucius Malfoy hated it.

Fudge did not.

And concerning the desk in the middle of the room: amoeboid was the best description of its shape, but it bore a closer resemblance to a boomering, relaxed, and worn down, turn by turn, under the soft erosions of time, into a thing of of autumnal beauty.



Like most magical desks, the space for your legs conveniently moved to wherever the Minister's chair happened to be, usually with a sound very much like a baby's gurgle, which to Fudge was strangely comforting, even though he knew he ought to be creeped out by it. Its subtle whiplash extremities and curvilinear, foliate form -- all of this was deeply pleasing to him on an unconscious level.

True to his routine, Fudge walked over to an innocuous-looking panel in the wall. Upon his touch, the surface of it slid back and revealed a cabinet with two shelves above a marble counter with a small black cauldron resting on it. The entire space was crammed with bottles and sealed jars. Sitting on the far right on the lower shelf was a gray mortar and pestle.

He took it out and put it on the marble counter. He grabbed a once-clear glass jar that had turned a cloudy, dirty yellow. He unscrewed the lid, put his index thumb and thumb in too withdraw a large, dead scarab beatle. He sniffed it. Hm. Still good. He dropped that in the mortar and began to grind it. He found the best way to render the bug into the right consistency of residue was to begin gently and then gradually press harder, until you'd made the insect into an even, yellow paste.

Done. He grabbed a black bottle and popped its cork. Ugh. Armadillo bile never stopped smelling, or tasting, awful. He poured the foul liquid into the cauldron and then scrapped the beetle's remains in there too. Finally, he took another jar, this time of ginger root, and extracted a fat, knotty, buff-colored clump, which he then cut using a knife with a silver handle that he pulled from the top shelf.

The root fully chopped, he dumped that, too, into the cauldron and fastened and double-checked all of the jars he'd used. He pulled out his wand and began to stir the mixture of all three elements. When they had been fully mixed, he withdrew his wand from the solution, said a few words, and tapped the cauldron twice. That done, he raised the pot to his lips and drank what he'd just prepared.

Armadillo bile.
Ginger root.
Scarab beetle.
That was how you made it.

Every morning of every day of his entire adult life, Cornelius Fudge brewed and drank the Wit-Sharpening potion.

It was horrid-tasting, but it had to be done.

After swallowing the last drop, he whispered "Tergeo" to the cauldron and placed all the items in their usual spots, after wiping off his wand-end with a rag. He then closed the door and sat down, behind the desk, in a wide red chair.

Feeling better now, he leaned back and looked at his Very Ministerial Office. He had to admit: even if it wasn't as cushy to him as his preferred nook with its deep green walls, for all its hodgepodge and patchwork, his surroundings has a impressive, serene, majestic beauty. This was a room of power and history.

On his desk, as always, was a lime green bowler.

He put it on and got to work.

The stack wasn't as bad as he thought. He held up the first piece of parchment from his inbox. It was a folded letter, addressed to CORNFUDGE, MINN OF MAGIC. The wax seal securing had been pressed in by a ring whose emblem was a cat's paw. Stars and garters, not him again...

Dear Minnister,
Im' writing You Agan to Apply for the job of Owl Postmaster General for the Ministry. I beleve My Record speakes for itself, and Let me tell You...

"Oh, Filch," chuckled the Minister "I thinkthis makes five this year alone." Hmm, he thought. I thought I told them to just forward this downstairs. No luck. No use getting Dumbledore any more dyspeptic that he already is. I take Filch outside of Hogwarts and he'll start hanging around pet stores again, with that lustful stare -- just like last time. Besides, what would Mrs. Norris do around so many birds? Probably get pecked to death, that's what. Fudge began to guffaw loudly at this image, and did so for about half a minute. He then leaned over and began to write his response:

Dear Mr. Filch,
Impressive as your credentials are, I must humbly beg of you to forgive me. I would appoint you post-haste, my dear friend, but I have recently been told by Hecate Moonstone ("that'll do for a name") that, in point of fact, Hogwarts is already the centrepoint for all owl communications! That is, due to its importance, position, and populations, Hogwarts, in effect, already really is the Hub of all avian-based communiques in the United Kingdom, bypassing middling hubs like London and Ministry by leaps and bounds.
So, congratulations! In effect, by being Hogwarts Caretaker, you already ARE the Owl Postmaster General, and I would not for a moment to replace in a meager increase of salary for what you, sir, would lose in eminence by transferring here. To trade a few more Galleons for Gold just isn't the Argus Filch way!
I look forward to seeing you soon.
Give all my best to Madam Norris.
Yours,
Fudge! :)

In the dome above him, a glorious sun broke through the clouds.

He had finished cackling wickedly to nobody in particular when the realized the paintings were all whispering about something. "Gossip," he thought, and was reaching for the next letter when a man he knew burst in.

Croaker. An Unpseakable.

From the Department of Mysteries.

"Minister!" he wheezed. "Thank Merlin you're here! We were afraid you might've left for the school already." He was short of breath and panting heavily.

Fudge suddenly felt his hand begin to shake underneath the desk.

Something was wrong.

Fudge calmly stood up. "What's happened?"

Beads of sweat were on the man's brow. He'd run all the way up here. "The room. You know the one I'm talking about."

What? "I'm sorry, Croaker. I haven't the foggiest --."

The Unspeakable leaned against the wall.

Something was not right.

"Minister, it's moving again. We've got a small army of men down there. Specialists. Aurors. That Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher you put on your staff as a retainer --"

"Lupin."

"He's down there too. They can all testify to it. I've seen it with my own eyes...the air...the air's as still as a tomb down there, but you wouldn't know it."

Unspeakables do not become nervous easily. Croaker's eyes were staring past Fudge at the wall behind him; his pupils big, terrified. He spoke haltingly. "We've been seeing billows since last night. More violently than ever. And they're only getting worse."

Fudge felt a sinking feeling in his chest.

He was suddenly very scared.

"You mean..."

Croaker gasped for air. "The Veil, Minister."

"Something's coming back through."

"ALBUS ," said the Minister, "do calm down."
"Cornelius!" the aged wizard fumed vehemently, "I am very opposed to this. Extremely so. One does not go about..."

Fudge gazed away from him. Ptolemy...the old man had to be handled abruptly when necessary. But first: "Albus, please...we have...ah...guests."

He looked at Percy Weasley, standing chameleon-like in a corner. Fudge had discovered during his years as Minister, that there was a certain species of underling who would disappear, almost apparate, really, if you gave them the right stare. Especially if they had the same taint that had floated around Tom Riddle; ambition and its trailing vapors. Fudge, who was the keenest man to ever disguise himself as a buffoon, was not flattered by the attentions of such an artisan as Weasley. He remembered the first time he'd asked, "Why didn't the Sorting Hat put this one in Gryffindor?" Probably for the same reason they put that Pettigrew Boy into the house of McGonagall, replete as it was with tiresome Walter Scott-esque fancies of knight-errantry, of faux derring-do and sanctimonious blather about the Peaceful Warrior. All rubbish, Fudge thought.

He had looked into the Ministry History (none of that Hogwarts: A History propaganda rubbish) -- Gryffindor hadn't always been the house of brave and true. Most of the glory of St. Godric's corner had come from the Age of Victoria, when the Empire's most plumb civil servants -- who fancied themselves Richard Francis Burtons, all, and who nursed secret fantasies of sending "Peccavi" telegrams from the farthest reaches of the darkest continents, but who all pretty much had ended up at drab offices with desks whose wood stank from years of drawing up and soaking in sweat and occasionally blood, calculating the purity of silver and its traffic in the Greater Raj -- had been Gryffindors whose dreams of chivalry had been dashed upon the rocks of reality. Ravenclaw -- now *there* was a house. Fudge's own, after all. Let Gryffindor continue their centuries-old feud with the House of the Serpent, which was really nothing more, nothing scarier than a latter-day Eton for the sons of a long-ago-fallen aristocracy clutching like hungry falcons upon the last shred of privilege and perogative, like a cage of lizards tenterhooked into a chunk of meat. The knights and aristocrats could feud like the Unicorn and Lion on the royal crest for all they wanted. It was the mandarins and their toilers, he had decided long ago, who got most of the world's work done.

And so it...oh, damnation. Weasley was still there, while Fudge had entered in reverie. He did that often. With little impediment, the Minister slid into his most unctuously impressive grin and said, like a grandfather admonishing a prodigal, "Weasley, would you be so kind as to see your father? I want to see how our little project's coming along."

Weasley betrayed the slimmest flicker of disdain in his features, like he'd just had a particularly atrocious flavor of EveryFlavorbean.

"Couldn't we send Porthoy to do it, Minister? He's official liason to the --"

"Percy," said Fudge softly, "please go see your father."

Percy swallowed whatever he was going to say. He turned. Then, wordless, left.

Weasley hated his family, hated Arthur and his middling ways. Fudge knew this. Hated his red-haired, penniless, groveling, torn-clothes-then-mended-too-many-times brood. You could tell by his habits. He had all the manner of one who covers up an accent, who masks -- overcompensating, always -- humble origins. The little verbal tics. The passive-agressive steaming that can only come, Fudge knew himself, from a proud and passionate (and needless to say, overbearing) mother. His clothes, always too immaculately done up but reminding you it was one of only three suits. His gold-rimmed spectacles, ostentatious on purpose, meant to distract you from the fact that they had cost him a month's salary. A Malfoy, or even a middling family, like the Longbottoms, would never have displayed such abnormal, distractionary ostentation. The way, when Weasley came to the Ministry, he had on habit bought his first suit too large, as if several generations of Percies were expected to take up residence inside it in sequential order over the better part of a decade.

But the real giveaway was this:
He, Fudge, had picked Percy out of a crowd of applicants, so sure that he would bloom and benefit to profit, even without direct leadership from the Minister. He had seen Weasley rise up to work in proximity to him. He had given Weasley the chance to shine, and he had proved it. ButCornelis Oswald Fudge was nothing if not a wary man. Riddle's ascendancy and subsequent unveiling in the minds of the Wizarding world's head...it made you wary. Queasy. Of golden boys. So what Fudge had done, what he had done, after much deliberation, was to keep an eye over young Percival personally, and that meant an invitation to dine with Cornelius Fudge at the offices of the Ministry.

So Percy had arrived, and said the right thing, and drank enough Elf vintage to make him friendly and open, just on the verge of tipsy (Fudge was not drunk; from the beginning of his professional life, he had mastered the trick of transfiguring the red currant wine he was famous for into Muggle cranberry juice, a liquid of which he was most fond). After the Minister, in his surgeon's way, had had his chance to pepper the novice with questions during dinner, he suggested a walk. Weasley concurred, and found himself curiously following his companion through the other door of the Minister's official dining room, through the study of Cornelius Fudge, and through another door with a red velvet cover next to an old bookcase. Percy had felt his stomach jump and twist, and had the oddest sensation of a great wind. The wine, he thought?

"Minister," young Weasley had burbled, "I've had the oddest sensation...like I was just taken on a particularly smooth Portkey."

"Ah," said Fudge, smiling. "Well. You have."

It was then that Percival Weasley, he of the Burror, Hogwarts, and the Ministry of Magic, realized he was on top of the White House.

Fudge waved to a sitting Secret Service agent holding what appeared to be a high-powered sniper rifle. He agent smiled and waved back.

"Hello, Minister!"

"Hello, Charles. How are the children?"

Chuck readjusted his sitting position. "Oh, they're fine, Val thinks Jeannie's going to talk any day now." The agent put a cigarette in-mouth and clicked his lighter to no avail. "Uh, Minister, d'ya mind if I, uh, cop a light?"

Without waiting for him to finish, Fudge, had wanded him. Chuck smiled as the red ember lit and its light metronomed in the customary pattern known to all smokers and friends-of-smokers.

Fudge looked pleased; "Charles, is the Secretary in?"

Brow furrowed. "Uh, no, but his eagle's over in the aviary. It's a Federal, of course, so it'll find him wherever he is."

"Thanks, Charles. We're going to be using the Truman Balcony tonight. Best wishes to your family."

"And yours, too, sir."

Percy watching, Fudge walked over to an empty corner of the roof and knocked on something sightless that echoed and purred like a kitten. Fudge grabbed a fistful of invisible that, when pulled back, was a gilded cage. A very large bald eagle with a yellow medallion around his neck. Percy was gaping still, his golden spectacles catching the lights projected on Executive Mansion below.

Fudge interrupted him, before he could even form questions: "Weasley, word of advice. The Wizarding world is much more integrated than you think. And all American Bald Eagles sound like kittens, they just do the shrieking call for Muggle tourists and scientists. They're not endangered, nor ever have been. Some of them are Native American shamans who never wanted to change back. And when you leave your mouth open," said the older man with a sly relish, "you look like a right bollocks." The word "bollocks," a common touch -- unusual for him -- left Fudge's mouth with a pleasant o-shape formed in a pleasing crescendo.

Percy, trying to sputter: "But -- we -- Truman balcony...the Prime Minister wouldn't even let you -- what? Portkey? Door? Wha?"

Fudge pulled out of his pockets (Percy was constantly shocked by it -- how many pockets did Fudge have?) a delicate looking parchment-yellow message and attached it to the talon of the what Percy could only assume was a very important bird, or shaman in disguise, or whatever. Percy had a chance to see the calligraphy on the scroll reading

SECRETARY
DEPARTMENT OF MAGIC
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

before Fudge lifted his hand the great bird flew off into the night sky over the city of Washington.
"To answer your question, Percy," the Minister continued as the two of them walked through a door on top of the White House that lead down through the hallways of the President's House," or should I say questions, well, I'll explain now that we're to have some privacy -- look out here, we'll be passing some very nice rooms named for important and powerful Muggles, four of them were powerful wizards, admittedly, but they've done all right on their own, ah, I always get lost here..." Weasley and the Minister were in a bedroom with a picture of a tall, melancholy, bearded man on the wall. "Lincoln," said Fudge admiringly. "He's like the gamekeeper, Hagrid. His mother was a giantess too." On they went.

Percy noticed that -- Marines, he remembered, that's what they were called -- saluted to the Minister every time he walked through a room. There seemed to be a lot of them (rooms), and the Minister was walking through doors that weren't really there. And crossing hallways. Nobody who saw them (only a handful of Muggles, for the residence was deserted, it seemed) paid them the slightest mind.

"First, Percy," said Fudge, "Britian is unusual for being...well, unintegrationist, shall we say? In matters of magic."

Percy, who had apparently managed to stay awake during Professor Binns' class, cleared his throat in what Fudge expected to be the first of many annoying such throat-clearings (how right he was!), "Well, Minister...the European wizarding community has been e-specially strikingly tired with its Muggled counterpart for centuries, really, if I may..."

"True, Percy -- but you're being unfair, and you obviously don't know your Muggle history."

Percy gave a faint aura of bridle. Fudge smiled inwardly as they crossed an ellipsoid room and headed out the another door. The Minister stopped just long enough to grab a cigar from a box in a drawer of the desk.

"Uh, Minister...are you sure you should be..."

Fudge interrupted. "See this desk, Weasley?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you know anything about it?"

"No, sir."

"It's from the H.M.S. Resolute. It's ours, too."

ON THE BALCONY, CIGARS LIT, Fudge continued his oration. Long-winded as he was, his cadences were pleasing and the general air was one of comfort and ease as they looked out from the balcony of the American Executive Mansion over Washington. In between jetting fine blue plumes of smoke into the night air (Fudge forming elaborate shapes of Masonic complexity, Weasley coughing with the unease of a momentarily practicing, generally non-practicing smoker of Muggle flora), Fudge spoke:

"Percy, unlike most European countries, Britain had a Puritan dictatorship -- it's in Muggle history -- called the Commonwealth. Good: it paved the way for what Muggledom calls "parliamentary supremacy." Bad, in that it separated our two worlds before most other countries -- *they* left when science began to reign. We were booted out early by a group of religious fanatics. The rest of the Wizarding world entered alongside their countrymen. We came in, during the Restoration, in a kind of nervous equality. Also, don't forget, Britain has historically not wanted to join *anything* -- the European Union or what-have-you."

Momentary silence. Percy, for being bored, Fudge thought, faked well. He made a note of that and continued on

"Needless to say, the rest of the world is not as...behind as Britain. As for your other questions: yes, a Portkey. An execptionally smooth one, as you posited. The Muggle Minister, Churchill, used it all the time during the Grindelwald War. Yes, eagles. And unlike at 10 Downing Street, I am an honored and known guest here. We may sit and smoke here as long as we like."

And so they talked. As one might catch various facets of a gem when turning it to and fro in a clear ray of light, so too there began to emerge, during their conversation, certain giveaways that told Fudge -- who, as has been shown before, was nothing if not a careful observer of men -- two things about Percival Weasley. As the young man, still slightly red-cheeked, listened to the Minister's unfurlings of anecdotes, dealings, of strategy, plot, plan and counter-plan, he reacted in telling ways. When Fudge finally hit upon the troubles with the Potter boy, "Such great promise and power in one child," Percy made an unusual remark:

"Well, I knew him personally at Hogwarts, he's not so much."

"Oh?"

Percy's face took an odd look to it. "Yes, Minister, I was Head Boy. That was supposed to be my year. But he had to hog it. He's that way; always breaking the rules. Looking to be a big man. But I suppose you get that with everything; fame, glory, even money, Ron says, handed to you." Fudge then realized the twisted grimace was envy, jealousy. Hmm. And equally disturbing, when the talk turned to Voldemort -- of course, Percy made the usual sounds and words of disgust...but there was something there, hiding. So Fudge carefully proceeded to talk of the Dark Lord's great power, promise, and ability. His humble origins. His greatness sadly turned to ash.

Percy continued showing marked disapproval, but a kind of rough hunger glowed in his face which no amount of posing could mask.

Of course, Fudge thought to himself; you should have been in Slytherin.

You want my job, don't you? The Dark Lord would know how to play you. He would offer you what he offered me.

It was then he decided Percy Weasley had to be watched, but close. Cartography to be continued apace. So he kept him around -- although he couldn't stand him. And sent him to his father whenever he, Fudge, had grown-up affairs to discuss. The Minister had always been big on family.

He turned back to Albus Dumbledore.

"Albus. You know we have no choice."

"There's always a choice," said the old man. God, he had that defiant stare down perfectly! He was the best actor Fudge had ever seen, and he'd seen the lot. "Soon, we will all have to make the decision between what is right, and --"

"And, yes, what is easy." Fudge, tightlipped. "You say it all the time, Albus. And yet you won't surrender the stage for the greater good. This is war, Albus, and you're wanting still to play the aging primadonna."

Dumbledore stood up, his face turning scarlet. "It is NOT your choice to make! You did NOT see what they did to the boy!"

Fudge looked very quietly at the tall figure before him. Poor Dumbledore. He had so long been the greatest wizard alive, so celebrated, so brilliant, that it was sad to see him revealed as he really was; an aging, decrepit hack, his powers fading at his century-and-a-half mark, cashing in on a once-well deserved fame for power and wisdom -- one he no longer deserved. Dumbledore, his experts told him (and he believed personal observation confirmed), had not been battle-ready for decades. Voldemort feared him, but only by reputation. The great voice, the gleaming eyes that had sent a dark wizard to the cleansing fires in the Black Forest fifty years ago, were now reduced to petty tirades and childish fits, like King Lear having to surrender one piece of his kingdom at a time. Every time Albus spoke of Potter, he was really speaking about himself; he had gotten a lot of mileage out of this so-called "special relationship" he had with The Boy Who Lived...

But Dumbledore was declining, and he knew it. He was happy and beloved at Hogwarts -- it was an easy retirement, a good sinecure far from actual challenges and research. The children loved him and he was popular there as only an old grandfather could be; they offered him the Ministry every couple of years to help his pride -- and after he turned it down, they gave it to the truly deserving. Fudge had done him the additional courtesy of very publicly sending him owls for advice. The old man had taken that for a sign of weakness and began showing up to Fudge's offices, uninvited. It killed everyone to see him like this, sputtering and rambling about his special status inside the Wizarding World. A fleck of spit landed on Fudge's desk as Dumbledore continued: "...and moreover, if I was the Minister of Magic..."

"BUT YOU'RE NOT!" Fudge had held his wand up to his throat and his voice shook through the walls. Somewhere, a car alarm went off. Dumbledore, suddenly pale again, sat back down.

"Albus." Fudge crossed from behind his desk and put his hand on Dumbledore's. "We have been friends for so long...you've always been my mentor. You know this. You know my respect for you..."

Dumbledore looked up, like a child.

Fudge continued to coo: "...Please, Albus. We must do this. It's the only way. He won't come out in the open unless you're off the board. How many times have we played chess? The black king never comes out until the queen -- the most powerful piece -- is off the board." Well, thought Fudge, drama queen, at least.

Dumbledore gazed up to the Minister of Magic, "You don't know...what you ask. It would kill Harry..."

"I do this for Harry. You know the prophecy, Albus. Voldemort has to be brought out into the open. We can't have a war of shadows. Not again. We must act now."

"I can't...I just..." Dumbledore wheezed "...I...no, I just..."

"Albus," said Fudge, now squatting an inch from Professor Dumbledore, "you must do it...

"You must fake your own death."

A long pause. Dumbledore stayed quiet.

"Albus, Harry won't be safe until you do. And you know this."

Dumbledore looked down at his boots.

After what seemed like an hour, finally:

"All...all right."

That was his cue, Fudge thought. He thought, Come in, and a door opened in the side of his office. A very thin, very pale figure slid in, like a wan shadow slipping back to its source with the coming of the dawn.

Fudge gave a little nod:

"Severus. Please join us..."

~~~~~~~

SEVERAL hours later, Fudge arrived at his residence, a tall white townhouse next to Baroness Thatcher's. Most of his predecessors preferred to apparate, but Fudge liked to walk. Even with a war on, he thought, I keep my fool habits. Well, if they can take that from you, they've already won, haven't they? He walked up the secret back flight of stairs and into the parlor, from there to the kitchen.

Kingsley Shacklebolt was standing there.

He was cleaning two wine glasses with a soft white rag. "Hi," he said, lips parting, grinning to reveal two rows of gleaming white teeth.

Fudge smiled back as he sat on the couch. "Hello there yourself."

"Hard day at work?" Kingsley poured a glass of red, then another. God bless him. Kingsley always knew. He walked over with the two long-stemmed cups and handed one to Fudge.

"The worst. Oh, god, the worst. You wouldn't believe..." Fudge sat the wineglass on the glass-topped coffee table in front of him and rubbed his temples. "The worst." He leaned back and picked his glass. "I swear to God, I thought I was going to murder Albus today."

Kingsley, damn him, smiling again, as he put his arm around Fudge. "Don't worry -- Severus will do that for you."

Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, powerful warlock, keen judge of men and situations, powerbroker and above-average dresser, found himself helpless as usual before the twin great dark eyes of the love of his life.

"You total arse."

"I know."

Fudge leaned in close. "Much to my surprise, I find myself quite fond of you."

"I love you too."

They finished their glasses and went to bed.

AT A heavy wooden door, Fudge paused and then turned. Out of his pinstriped cloak came a set of heavy-looking keys on a ring that could have belonged to the chain of a great anchor, that could have rested comfortably on the middle finger of Fridwulfa or on the wrist of her son, Rubeus Hagrid. This would have been surprising to the casual observer -- as a glance at Fudge's middle-aged yet deceptively graceful frame would yielded no evidence of deep pockets with protruding bulges. He found a key the color of a Snitch and stuck it into a lock that grew and shrank in a fairly constant rhythm. Fudge then took out his wand, muttered some words, tapped the door twice, and entered into what was, if the sign on the door was still accurate, Old-New Auxilary Storage Room No. 39. Even if his eyes deceived him, this might be one of those Rooms of Requirement that occasionally pop up in the basement, and that would serve just as well for Fudge's needs.

No. 39 was as it'd always been. There was Igjugarjuk's stick on the wall, as always. To a Muggle's eyes, this hidden vault, despite its shabby wooden shelves and cobwebbed corners, would appear a secret cache, a cave of wonders beyond the dreams of Croesus and Merlin. Ancient scrolls, strange containers, silver statues, voodoo heads, enchanted gems from Benares, two of the world's oldest cauldrons from East Africa, gnarled wooden sticks that had the power to summon rain, jars of what appeared to be blue fireflies, a treasure chest of what only appeared to be animal crackers, what appeared to be a wall-section of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and quite possibly the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. Fudge paid all of these no mind.

Mediocre men look to wealth as symbol of providential beneficence. Fudge was no such man. As to most men to whom meaningful, useful power appears a dearer jewel, the Minister had no hunger for boodle. Oh, what was the name of that sad little man they'd picked up a few times? Ah. Mundungus Fletcher. Dung. Of the burning-socks smoke. Colored green. Basset-hound look. That was it. He'd asked Fudge's Ministry for money after the Skullheads had gone beserk at the World Cup, something to the equivalent of a destroyed tent with a dozen rooms and a jacuzzi. Oh, he'd also been kicked out of the Hog's Head. And that business with the pots. Cauldrons, indeed. And not even good ones.

But he, Fudge? His curiousity for rare and exotic trinkets was merely utilitarian, verging on academic -- and besides this, he shared a trait common to all human beings; increased jadedness upon continual accquaintance to daily wonders. Fudge remembered telling Weasely, telling him about a flying machine the Muggles had perfected a century ago. Here was the story: after throwing aside the broom for Ptolemy knows what reason, the Muggles, stealing a few ideas from that faux-magus, DaVinci, had taken it in their head to build artificial wings. They had never read the Great German Grimoire of Aeration: "If man was meant to fly, he would have been given dragon-wings. Thus, let us use broomsticks." Even after Guthrie Lochrin's moaning and groaning, nobody had really ever improved on the basic design. Why bother? Progress was for non-wizards.

Decade upon decade they smithied away trying to imitated the owls and eagles; for centuries they'd thirsted on gaining a slim purchase upon the air to match that of the hawks and gulls. Finally -- and this, Percy Weasley could hardly believe, was a good near-hundred-years since the Mugs had muddled their way into commanding steam -- they had done it; two bicycle repairmen had launched a dangerous, oil-powered bird over a place, Kitty Hot or something like that. The Minister had never been sure of the name.

(Fudge would never understand the modern Muggle obsession with the petrochemical remains of dinosaurs; he'd seen the great beasts first hand, after all. Anything that smelled that bad? Nothing good could come from them)

After that achievement, Muggles began flying everywhere. And here was the point: a group of Mugs had been having a tea-and-cucumber sandwich party or some such thing outside, at a country house. Fudge took another sip of his tea, still in his left hand. Ahhh. Still warm enough to be good, and the right amount of subtle bitter. Earl Gray! Hits the sport like a good Celestina Warbeck song. Not that he didn't fancy the charms of Glenda Chittock just as much...this had long been a debate between Rufus and he. No chance of resolving it anytime soon...

Anyway, during the Muggle tea social, one of them had flown a plain -- that was it -- over the get-together. It was a big surprise, like apparating. Muggles did it to show off their new toys all the time. None of these bluebloods had ever seen anything like the plain-air, Percy'd said. "Plain-air"? Odd name, Fudge thought, for something so obviously not.

The Minister was getting slightly frustrated. He poked at what appeared to be a brown bag of enchanted grizzly bear teeth from the American West. Dear me, every time the Americans send us worthless diplomatic tchotchkes as gifts, we must store them down here. No wonder we're in such a state. He was never going to find what he was looking for...

What came next? Oh yes. The flying machine operator had landed on the wide green lawn. What cheek! And what a machine! The assembled Muggles had oohed and cooed over the fabulous oiled metal beast. Then they went inside for baccarat or some ridiculous game where the cards didn't talk to you, and forgot all about the noisy, smelly artificial bird outside. Muggles, Wizards -- we all have a way of doing that, thought Fudge. Wonder if they'd get over it so soon if they discovered about us. Probably not until after they'd tried that laughable stake trick again. Martin Miggses, the lot of 'em. "A Fair Deal for Wizards Who Deal Fair with Muggles." He'd eaten a lot of words in his life so far. If he lived through the next few years, there'd be another buffet waiting for him.

The phrase lept to mind easily -- Someone had left a copy of The Mad Muggle down here, along with a conspicuous trail of Everyflavor beans. Fudge picked one up with his free hand and nibbled it. Ach. The Minister wasn't sure of the exact flavor, but the tang on his tongue reminded him strongly of "Smoking Tobacco Kept In An Old Slipper Nailed Above a Fireplace." He spit it out and the half-chewed gum end splif'd on a pile of Witch Weeklys. So. Taking breaks down here, were they? Somebody was Apparating all over the Ministry. He'd put the Bootlicker on them. Then again, it was probably nothing. Dolores, maybe. Exactly: nothing.

Then it hit him like a Bludger: the Bernie Botts' that he'd just chewed was as stale as the air in this room. He looked at the copy of the Weekly on top. October 27, 1981. Ah. Of course. Nobody had been in here...since. Since...well. Since Godric's Hollow. Of course. Although nobody would have been able to see it, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, Reckoned Roughly Second Among Wizarding Officials in the World, Inheritor of the Chair of Barberus Bragge, blushed a crimson red, like an oyster in a barrel of water who, even though her home rests on dry land, turns with the tide that is so many miles away.

IT IS interesting to speculate exactly how far underground the dungeons of the Ministry go. No one can be certain for sure. Their expanses are perhaps beyond calculation. Magic, as nobody should need to be told, is a tricky business. Infinite treasures tend to hide in deceptively small rooms. Nobody knew this better than Cornelius Fudge, who often thought about such things as he trudged up the long flights of stone stairs, made for narrower times, but all the same, still so much better cut than the Muggle's castle staircases of what they were calling -- what was it? -- oh yes, "The Dark Ages." Muggles. That was their problem, thought Fudge. Like the Skullheads. Neither ever built things to last.

And the ministry? A city wouldn't hold its depths.

All of observers are agreed, however; one of the most fascinating things about the Ministry of Magic is its size. Even by the roughest estimate, it is huge. It would dwarf Hogswarts and Hogsmeade put together.

Below all the levels of the Ministry known to employees and visitors; submerged like a mighty, unchecked, twisting root beneath B1 (Minister's Floor), B2 (Law), B3 (Unfortunate Events), B4 (Beasts), B5 (Foreign), B6 (Transport), B7 (Games), The Lobby of B8 with the fountain that Fudge secretly hates, B9 (Mysteries, with their Brain Room. Sometimes Fudge will go in there for hours at a time just to sit. For what reason, he couldn't even say), and the Courtrooms of B10, are the real offices of the Ministry. An untellable, fantastic set of caverns beyond the range and depth of any spelunkers. Wizards live a long time by anybody's reckoning, but who could fathom the bottom of these old halls? Crypts, hollows, rooms, passages, halls, depths, wells, walls, trapdoors and dangerous tricks to catch the unwary. The safe ways are not written down but communicated; known to every Minister and senior-level member of Fudge's world; but the complete knowledge and scope is lost to time and age.

In its intestines are the magical treasures gathered from an Empire that once covered a quarter of the globe. Not that the ministry isn't powerful. Its influence dwarfs the Ministère du Magics in Paris, the Bundesministerium des Zauberer in Berlin, and the Department of Magic in Washington. All beholden to the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy of 1692, all slightly inferior in their power to the secret organization headed by Cornelius Oswald Fudge. The Ministry isn't insignificant these days, not by anyone's compass. Certainly not by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

But when Britian really ruled the waves, so did the Ministry. Its wands sank the Spanish Armada. Burned Napoleon's ships. Broke the giant's dreams at Waterloo. In a rare nod to Muggle religion and to one of its own members, Christopher Wren -- to say nothing of national pride -- the Ministry preserved the great dome of St. Peter's during the Blitz and countless lives. Not that the Ministry interferes in every affair of the government; when the Prime Minister asked them to do something about Gandhi, the wizards had very curtly told him that they couldn't take up arms against one of their own. Then again, Jack the Ripper was also once a member of the Ministry. And if you look at Cell 2410-67 (a good mile under the surface of London) he still is, technically. Part of the ministry, that is.

Well, nobody's perfect.

But that's the bailiwick of the Department of Mysteries. Home of the Unspeakables. And there are some powers even Cornelius Fudge knows not to inquire into too deeply.

Cornelius Fudge always made a habit of stepping over blood. Thought certainly the generous cut of his robes allowed him ample room to swing his legs so as to avoid any dark and spreading pools, Fudge was scrupulous and exact when it came to all matters of sanguinity.

These were the thoughts that coursed through his head as he watched the black puddle that had so recently been the property of Ignatius Carge, Death Eater, sweep near his feet. How odd, he thought, as he stepped back another foot and lifted a cup of Earl Grey to his mouth. There for the Grace of Dumbledore go I. Ha. Have to remember to tell that to Porter.

The head, removed from its recent perch, has an odd way of laying. As the thick black hair continued to moisten and glisten with the gained accoutrements of the stone-cobbled floor, Fudge, Minister of Magic, allowed himself the habit of mordant reflections, so common these days, anyway.

The Dark Lord'd have that be me. Be all of us. Life is cheap and so, apparently are the Skull-mouths. "Reginald," said Fudge, with the impeccable air of command he's groomed for in-chamber -- "brilliant job, as always."

"Thank you, Minister," the executioner mumbled. Reginald had the sort of exactitude that you so rarely found in axemen.

Look, for example at the cut at Carge's neck -- perfect! Sharp and neat as a preacher -- or so Fudge had heard the Muggle expression used -- on Sunday. Axes in the wizarding world are indeeded guarded against dullness by charms, but it's hardly a decent headman who doesn't maintain positive upkeep.

A good workman has good tools. And here Reggie had indeed showed the skill of the lion by the claw marks. Ex pede Herculem, they'd said, in the Muggle "classical" ages -- ye shall know Hercules by his foot. The Romans had a habit of building statues and remembering feet, Fudge guessed. And yet again, how different was the real thing from any work of marble or brass.

Here, sliced as if a fine razor had cut it, were the scalenus medius of I. Carge, spilling its traffic on the dungeon bricks since the recent sectioning of its transport. Also sharply divided, as a house against itself (Fudge smiled -- bitter humor was a fine luxury, on the order of the spices of the Old Levant, or medieval silks from China and Araby), was the longus colli, the levator anguli scapulae muscle, the rectus capitis anticus major.

A curious diagonal angle, true -- but we all should be allowed our little peccadilloes.

Stepping over the body again. "You missed your calling as the sharpest butcher in the Kingdom, Reginald."

Reggie had something like a grin on his face. "But I'd hardly have as much occasion to ply my trade -- now, would I?"

Fudge gave a grim smile. Then he went up the stairs, out of the deep dungeons under the Ministry of Magic.