no need to stand guard over him anymore, Dumble-dore!" she shrieked.
"The Minister has seen to that!"
Harry had never seen Professor McGonagall lose control like this. There were
angry blotches of color in her cheeks, and a hands were balled into fists; she was
trembling with fury.-
"When we told Mr. Fudge that we had caught the Death Eater responsible for
tonight's events," said Snape, in a low voice; he seemed to feel his personal safety
was in question. He insisted on summoning a dementor to accompany him into the
castle. He brought it up to the office where Barty Crouch -"
"I told him you would not agree, Dumbledore!" McGonagall fumed. "I told him
you would never allow dementors to set foot inside the castle, but -"
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"My dear woman!" roared Fudge, who likewise looked angrier than Harry had
ever seen him, "as Minister of Magic, it is my decision whether I wish to bring
protection with me when interviewing a possibly dangerous -"
But Professor McGonagall's voice drowned Fudge's.
"The moment that - that thing entered the room," she screamed, pointing at Fudge,
trembling all over, "it swooped down on Crouch and - and -"
Harry felt a chill in his stomach as Professor McGonagall struggled to find words
to describe what had happened. He did not need her to finish her sentence. He
knew what the dementor must have done. It had administered its fatal kiss to Barty
Crouch. It had sucked his soul out through his mouth. He was worse than dead.
"By all accounts, he is no loss!" blustered Fudge. "It seems he has been
responsible for several deaths'."
"But he cannot now give testimony, Cornelius," said Dumbledore. He was staring
hard at Fudge, as though seeing him plainly for the first time. "He cannot give
evidence about why he killed those people."
"Why he killed them? Well, that's no mystery, is it?" blustered Fudge. "He was a
raving lunatic! From what Minerva and Severus have told me, he seems to have
thought he was doing it all on You-Know-Who's instructions!"
"Lord Voldemort was giving him instructions, Cornelius," Dumbledore said.
"Those peoples deaths were mere by-products of a plan to restore Voldemort to
full strength again. The plan succeeded. Voldemort has been restored to his body."
Fudge looked as though someone had just swung a heavy weight into his face.
Dazed and blinking, he stared back at Dumbledore as if he couldn't quite believe
what he had just heard. He began to sputter, still goggling at Dumbledore.
"You-Know-Who . . . returned? Preposterous. Come now, Dumbledore ..."
"As Minerva and Severus have doubtless told you," said Dumbledore, "we heard
Barty Crouch confess. Under the influence of Veritaserum, he told us how he was
smuggled out of Azkaban, and how Voldemort - learning of his continued
existence from Bertha Jorkins - went to free him from his father and used him to
capture Harry. The plan worked, I tell you. Crouch has helped Voldemort to
return."
"See here, Dumbledore," said Fudge, and Harry was astonished to see a slight
smile dawning on his face, "you - you can't seriously believe that You-Know-Who
- back? Come now, come now . . . certainly, Crouch may have believed himself to
be acting upon You-Know-Who's orders - but to take the word of a lunatic like
that, Dumbledore ..."
"When Harry touched the Triwizard Cup tonight, he was transported straight to
Voldemort," said Dumbledore steadily. "He witnessed Lord Voldemort's rebirth. I
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will explain it all to you if you will step up to my office."
Dumbledore glanced around at Harry and saw that he was awake, but shook his
head and said, "I am afraid I cannot permit you to question Harry tonight."
Fudge's curious smile lingered. He too glanced at Harry, then looked back at
Dumbledore, and said, "You are - er - prepared to take Harry's word on this, are
you, Dumbledore?"
There was a moment's silence, which was broken by Sirius growling. His hackles
were raised, and he was baring his teeth at Fudge.
"Certainly, I believe Harry," said Dumbledore. His eyes were blazing now. "I
heard Crouch's confession, and I heard Harry's account of what happened after he
touched the Triwizard Cup; the two stories make sense, they explain everything
that has happened since Bertha Jorkins disappeared last summer."
Fudge still had that strange smile on his face. Once again, he glanced at Harry
before answering.
"You are prepared to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned, on the word of a
lunatic murderer, and a boy who . . . well..."
Fudge shot Harry another look, and Harry suddenly understood.
"You've been reading Rita Skeeter, Mr. Fudge," he said quietly.
Ron, Hermione, Mrs. Weasley, and Bill all jumped. None of them had realized
that Harry was awake.
Fudge reddened slightly, but a defiant and obstinate look came over his face.
"And if I have?" he said, looking at Dumbledore. "If I have discovered that you've
been keeping certain facts about the boy very quiet? A Parselmouth, eh? And
having funny turns all over the place -"
"I assume that you are referring to the pains Harry has been experiencing in his
scar?" said Dumbledore coolly.
"You admit that he has been having these pains, then?" said Fudge quickly.
"Headaches? Nightmares? Possibly - hallucinations?"
"Listen to me, Cornelius," said Dumbledore, taking a step toward Fudge, and once
again, he seemed to radiate that indefinable sense of power that Harry had felt
after Dumbledore had Stunned young Crouch. "Harry is as sane as you or I. That
scar upon his forehead has not addled his brains. I believe it hurts him when Lord
Voldemort is close by, or feeling particularly murderous."
Fudge had taken half a step back from Dumbledore, but he looked no less
stubborn.
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"You'll forgive me, Dumbledore, but I've never heard of a curse scar acting as an
alarm bell before. ..."
"Look, I saw Voldemort come back!" Harry shouted. He tried to get out of bed
again, but Mrs. Weasley forced him back. "I saw the Death Eaters! I can give you
their names! Lucius Malfoy -"
Snape made a sudden movement, but as Harry looked at him, Snape's eyes flew
back to Fudge.
"Malfoy was cleared!" said Fudge, visibly affronted. "A very old family -
donations to excellent causes -"
"Macnair!" Harry continued.
"Also cleared! Now working for the Ministry!"
"Avery - Nott - Crabbe - Goyle -"
"You are merely repeating the names of those who were acquitted of being Death
Eaters thirteen years ago!" said Fudge angrily. "You could have found those
names in old reports of the trials! For heavens sake, Dumbledore - the boy was full
of some crackpot story at the end of last year too - his tales are getting taller, and
you're still swallowing them - the boy can talk to snakes. Dumbledore, and you
still think he's trustworthy?"
"You fool!" Professor McGonagall cried. "Cedric Diggory! Mr. Crouch! These
deaths were not the random work of a lunatic!"
"I see no evidence to the contrary!" shouted Fudge, now matching her anger, his
face purpling. "It seems to me that you are all determined to start a panic that will
destabilize everything we have worked for these last thirteen years!"
Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had always thought of Fudge as a
kindly figure, a little blustering, a little pompous, but essentially good-natured. But
now a short, angry wizard stood before him, refusing, point-blank, to accept the
prospect of disruption in his comfortable and ordered world - to believe that
Voldemort could have risen.
"Voldemort has returned," Dumbledore repeated. "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 -"
"Preposterous!" shouted Fudge again. "Remove the dementors? I'd be kicked out
of office for suggesting it! Half of us only feel safe in our beds at night because we
know the dementors are standing guard at Azkaban!"
"The rest of us sleep less soundly in our beds, Cornelius, knowing that you have
put Lord Voldemort's most dangerous supporters in the care of creatures who will
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join him the instant he asks them!" said Dumbledore. "They will not remain loyal
to you, Fudge! 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!"
Fudge was opening and closing his mouth as though no words could express his
outrage.
"The second step you must take - and at once," Dumbledore pressed on, "is to send
envoys to the giants."
"Envoys to the giants?" Fudge shrieked, finding his tongue again. "What madness
is this?"
"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!"
"You - you cannot be serious!" Fudge gasped, shaking his head and retreating
further from Dumbledore. "If the magical community got wind that I had
approached the giants - people hate them, Dumbledore - end of my career -"
"You are blinded," said Dumbledore, his voice rising now, the aura of power
around him palpable, his eyes blazing once more, "by the love of the office you
hold, Cornelius! You place too much importance, and you always have done, on
the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what
someone is born, but what they grow to be! Your dementor has just destroyed the
last remaining member of a pure-blood family as old as any - and see what that
man chose to make of his life! 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. Fail to act - and history will remember
you