All Debts Must be Paid

Chapter One: The Ministry - Fudge

Cornelius Fudge sipped his tea. English Breakfast, just as he liked it, brought into him at precisely ten thirty along with two rich tea biscuits. He didn't think of himself as a fussy man, but he did like things to be predictable. He had had his morning tea every day at ten thirty for all of the thirty years he had been in the Ministry, just as, for all the years he had been Minister of Magic his regular weekly meetings with the departmental heads had been held on Friday mornings at ten forty five, regular as clockwork. This particular Friday was not, however destined to be predictable.

It was ten forty and there was a hesitant tap at his door. Fudge frowned, teacup in hand; Miss Smithers knew he was never to be interrupted while he had his tea. "Yes?" he said, incredulity in his voice.

The door opened and Milton came in. He was looking, Fudge thought, distinctly green around the gills, under his normally florid complexion. "You're early, Milton," he told the man.

"Er, yes, Minister. There is a reason for that." Milton paused as if unsure quite how to phrase his next sentence.

"Spit it out, man!" Fudge responded, irritated. "If you're ill why didn't your secretary just inform Miss Smithers?"

The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement swallowed nervously, and rushed his fence. "Minister, I regret to have to inform you that Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban."

Fudge dropped his tea. It went all over his desk and splattered onto the trousers of his suit. He pushed his chair back and stood up, trying to wipe himself down with the sleeve of his robes. "Milton!" he spluttered. "That's not funny!"

Milton wasn't laughing. "I'm not trying to be funny, Minister. The Governor of Azkaban came to see me ten minutes ago. Black wasn't in his cell this morning, and he doesn't seem to be anywhere on the island."

Fudge felt his knees go weak and he slumped back down into his chair, remembering the carnage that Black had been responsible for. "No, really it can't be true." he pleaded with Milton.

The other bureaucrat looked at him with a degree of sympathy. "I wish it weren't, Minister," he replied with heartfelt sincerity.

"But I saw him only the other week. He seemed almost normal." Fudge said plaintively, remembering the bored sounding man he had seen.

Milton made a face. "Well however he may have appeared to you, Minister, never forget he's one of the cleverest and most treacherous bastards we've ever had to deal with."

Fudge shuddered. "I'm not likely to forget," he said. Before he could continue however, the door opened again and a large, overweight man, dressed improbably in the colours of the Wimborne Wasps walked in. "Get out, Bagman!" Fudge snapped, rattled by the situation, "The meeting's cancelled, and tell the others." Startled, Bagman withdrew and Fudge pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. "This is all quite preposterous, Milton." Fudge was not a man who liked to confront the unpleasant until it was forced down his throat, so he continued, "But let's not be hasty about this. Scroby's people and the Dementors can hardly have combed the entire island already. Don't want to make fools of ourselves over a false alarm, now do we, eh?" he smiled then as a thought occurred to him. "Probably find Black's holed up somewhere in the sewers or something. In any case, he can't possibly get off the island can he?"

Milton's green colour changed, as he flushed." Minister," he began in a choked voice. Fudge thought he seemed to be having difficulty speaking. "Minister, with all due respect, are you mad?"

"I beg your pardon?" Fudge was taken aback.

"We need to act now!" Milton was losing his cool. "Every minute we waste could be fatal! We should notify the Muggle Prime Minister immediately, we should get teams of Hit Wizards on Black's trail straight away!"

"No, no that's hardly necessary at this stage, Milton." Fudge was rapidly convincing himself that doing nothing was all that was necessary. "But, just to satisfy you, if he hasn't been caught by close of play today, I'll go out to Azkaban myself and see what's what. How's that?"

Milton nearly slammed the door on his way out. Fudge raised his eyebrows, but put it down to overwork, the fellow really needed to take a holiday.

However, as the day wore on, Fudge's rosy tinted attempt to deny reality became increasingly less tenable. There was no welcome news from Azkaban that Black had been found. Indeed the systematic search of the entire fortress was turning up precisely nothing, or nothing living at any rate.

At thirty seconds past five, thirty seconds being the length of time it took to walk from Milton's office to Fudge's, Milton marched back in. "Well, Minister?" he demanded.

Fudge wouldn't meet his eyes. "I, er, suppose I'll be off to Azkaban then," he said. "See what's going on, eh?" He shuffled some papers on his desk. "Probably forgot to tell me they caught him," he said hopefully.

"Yes, Minister." Milton's voice was full of irony, if Fudge cared to hear it. He didn't.

The Minister took his bowler hat from the hat-stand in the corner and fastened his cloak around his shoulders. He pulled out his wand and prepared to Apparate.

Milton raised a hand. "Remember they've put anti-apparition wards in place, Minister."

Fudge put his wand away; annoyed that he'd forgotten and more annoyed that he'd forgotten in front of one of his underlings. "Yes, thank you, Milton, that will be all."

Once the man had left, and Fudge had told Miss Smithers to wait for him, he pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow again. He'd been doing that a lot today. It really was a complete nightmare and he just wanted to wake up. Black on the loose simply didn't bear thinking about. Having to go and explain it all to the Muggle Prime Minister didn't bear thinking about. He took a deep breath and walked over to the fireplace. Taking a pinch of Floo powder from the jar on the mantelpiece he said, "Azkaban!" and threw it on the fire.

Only one fireplace in the fortress was connected to the network and that was the one in the Governor's office. Fudge brushed the ash from his cloak as he stepped from the fireplace and said waspishly, "I hope, Scroby that this has been a waste of my time."

However, when he had finished and looked the Governor in the eye, it was clear that he hadn't wasted his time.

The Governor's expression was sombre. "Good evening, Minister. I had hoped not to have to welcome you here tonight."

"Yes, well, I hoped not to have to come here," Fudge responded pettishly. "What have you to tell me?"

Scroby sighed. "We have combed the entire fortress. The Dementors have been everywhere, with no results; we've used every locator charm we can think of with no results; none of the Sneakoscopes have turned up anything apart from the fact that my deputy has admitted to cheating on his wife, so I'm afraid we really have to conclude that Black is not on the island."

Fudge sank down into a chair beside Scroby's desk. "Why now, after all this time?"

"I don't know," Scroby replied, "But I do know there's more."

Fudge gaped. "You mean it's worse? He killed people while escaping?"

"No, no, Minister, nothing like that." Scroby was quick to reassure him. " We, er, think he might be after Harry Potter."

Fudge pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow yet again. "This is all quite ridiculous, Scroby. Kill Harry Potter? What makes you think Black is going to kill Harry Potter?"

Scroby frowned. "Well quite apart from the fact that it is a rather obvious thing for him to do I would have thought, the guards have told us that for about the last week he's been talking in his sleep."

"Talking in his sleep? I thought most people did. What's unusual about that?"

"Nothing especially, it's what he was saying that's unusual," The Governor sighed. "He kept saying, 'He's at Hogwarts, he's at Hogwarts' over and over again all night."

"You're sure he meant Harry Potter?" Fudge, as always grasped at straws.

"Who else could he mean?"

Forced, at last to face unpleasant facts, Fudge was left with no alternative but to act. The prospect of being, however tenuously, responsible for the death of the Boy Who Lived, was too awful to contemplate. He mentally started rehearsing what he was going to say to the Prime Minister. Well actually, Prime Minister it's like this, we've mislaid a mass murderer. He shuddered at the prospect and briefly wondered if this was what getting hysterical was like.

He stood up. But before he turned to go he asked, "There was nothing in his cell, no indication of how he got out at all?"

Scroby looked helpless. It wasn't an expression that suited him. "Nothing at all, Minister."

Back in London, Fudge summoned Milton and the head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, neither of whom, needless to say had left the office. He had hardly finished brushing himself down from the Floo journey when they walked into his office.

Once they were seated at the table and Miss Smithers was taking the minutes, he called the meeting to order. His world may have been crumbling around him, but proper procedures still had to be followed. He explained what Scroby had told him.

Kellow, the head of the MLES looked thoughtful. "He's at Hogwarts," he murmured. "Hasn't Harry Potter been at Hogwarts for the last two years, Minister?"

The others nodded and Kellow continued, "Then why is it suddenly so important to Black now?"

"I would have thought worrying about that is the least of our problems at the moment," Fudge told him. "Black probably thinks if he kills Harry Potter it will bring back You-Know-Who."

They all blenched at the prospect.

"You told me this morning, Minister," said Milton, "that when you saw Black the other week he seemed almost normal. Nothing else particularly unusual happened when you saw him did it?"

Fudge thought and then felt himself go pale. "Well, he asked if he could have my paper," he replied defensively. "I didn't think anything of it at the time, said he missed doing the crossword."

Identical expressions of incredulity crossed Milton and Kellow's faces. "You let him have your newspaper?" said Milton in a faint voice. "Minister, with all due respect, what possessed you?"

"What!" Fudge blustered, "Are you suggesting that I am responsible for this? There was nothing about Harry Potter in the paper!"

Milton didn't seem to hear him. "We'll need to analyse every word that was in that edition," he said almost feverishly. "There must have been a message somewhere." He paused and slapped his forehead, "Oh Merlin, the crossword clues!"

"Milton, are you all right?"

"Don't you understand, minister? There must have been a message in one of the clues to Black from his Death Eater friends."

Fudge felt ill. "I see." He slumped back in his chair. This just got worse and worse. Now it seemed they might not be dealing with a lone madman at all, but a conspiracy. But then his normal nature reasserted itself and he shook his head, refusing to believe in conspirators until they walked into his office demanding his resignation or his head. "Let's not get carried away now, Milton," he said reprovingly. "Better set your people on it eh, Kellow. Get after Black and catch him."

The two subordinates exchanged a glance. Then, as one, they said, "Right away, Minister." and practically ran out of the room.

TBC...