The Dissertation

The dissertation.

Hi, Rick, how's it going? I promised I'd keep in touch after we graduated, so here goes.

It was a bit scary at first, with me being the only one of my year staying on. There we were, the first ever graduates from Britain's first wizarding university, and they're all going off to find jobs except me. Heaven knows why I decided to take that offer of a postgraduate course. You should have seen Dad's face when I told him! In the end, he sighed and said: well, if you're going to do it, do it well.

I've got to pick a topic for my dissertation, and there's an idea that's been kicking around in my mind for a month or so. You see, one of the things you've got to do in a dissertation - if you want anyone to take any notice of you - is to argue against what everyone else is saying. Well, I want to write the first revisionist history of Cornelius Fudge!

The slight snag is no one, but no one, has written a history of Fudge yet, so being a revisionist is a tad difficult. I mean, he's not exactly a Great Historical Figure. It's more than thirty years since he retired as Minister, and everyone seems to have forgotten he even existed. He died last year, and the Prophet gave his obit five column inches! It's that which gave me the idea. Why such a short obit? And it was very bland. Well, maybe he was bland, and I'm barking up the wrong tree. But he was Minister for quite some time, even if it was during the quiet period between the two wars, so I'd have expected them to say more.

I've got to get the idea past my supervisor yet, but I've got some thoughts. Anyway, I'll see how it pans out.

Had any news of anyone else? I met Susanna in Diagon Alley last month, and ...

Thanks for the letter, Rick. Glad to hear everything's going well so far.

Hey, that was some news about your dad and Ollivander's. I knew Ollivander hadn't any heirs, but to pass the business to your dad like that is quite something. Mind you, I always remember him saying how he was Ollivander's favourite apprentice - and his own shop has done well enough. The three wands I've had have always been from Thomas's - remember what happened to number two? That day in Flitwick's lesson? I was lucky not to get a dozen detentions for that. Quick thinking on your part, I remember.

How's the dissertation going, you ask. Well, glad you asked that. Remember I said that maybe Fudge was bland? Just another boring politician? Well, I started in the Ministry archives, and yes, what was there was nearly as boring as he seems to have been. He took over soon after the first defeat of You Know Who, and of course there was a lot of reconstruction to do. And the trials. Now there's a dissertation waiting to be written! But Fudge himself? Yawn.

So after that, I started on back numbers of the Prophet. Much the same. Reconstruction. Trials. Platitudes from Fudge. So my thesis of Great Man Steers Wizarding World into Calmer Waters is sinking fast. Or was.

There're just two things keeping me going. One is a gut feeling.

You see, I went round interviewing all those old bods who worked with Fudge. Those who are still alive, that is. And I got the same thing. Solid man, Fudge. Pleasure to work with. Just what the country needed after the turmoil of the war - a steadying figure. Then I'd get onto the business of Fudge's last year, when You Know Who was back again, and they'd go all wary. They'd still have that pleasant smile, and were kind about him, going on about the pressure Fudge was under, not a young man any more, might have missed some of the signs, and so on. But there was a look in their eyes. And they weren't as relaxed as they had been. And I got the feeling that they were weighing their words rather carefully. But a feeling is one thing; proving it is another.

And something else set off some alarm bells. Ministry papers are locked away for thirty years before they're released. It's an idea that they got from the Muggle world, where the same thing applies in the National Archives. They didn't bother until relatively recently, since there were no nosy historians like me poking about. Now that's fair enough in some ways, and you could say it's hardly going to be historical if we're only talking about the last thirty years. It didn't worry me because Fudge just falls outside the thirty years.

So, there I was like a good historical drudge, starting at year one of Fudge's ministry, and working forward. I reach the last year, and make my usual request for papers. They give me a half dozen files. Where are the rest, I ask? Ah, they say, and start looking shifty. The restrictions have been extended. Fifty years for most of these.

I started kicking up a fuss, but I get nowhere. Brick wall time. Remember that time we were trying to get into Diagon Alley and forgot which bricks to tap with our wands? Well, it was like that. I remember we tried this brick and that, and still got nowhere. So - what are they hiding?

Sorry to be so long in replying, Rick. I really have been getting nowhere slowly. The brick wall is as solid and unyielding as ever. I'm left with the choice of jacking it all in, or writing something I don't really believe in. Fudge as The Great Man. I mean, otherwise the thing would be so dull that Snape could cut up it and use it in sleeping potions (by the way, did you hear the news that Snape is finally retiring?).

It might make my name for the moment, but in twenty years time it'll be known as 'Finnegan's discredited thesis'. I've not a lot of choice though.

Hey, congratulations on the new job! Hogwarts' new Potions master! If you'd asked me ten years ago whether it'd be you in the dungeons I'd have laughed like a hyena. Especially after the time you sabotaged Snape's Mystifying Potion ...

Well, I've submitted the first draft of the dissertation to my supervisor. I felt a real charlatan as I handed it over. Term's ended now, so I can sit and chew my nails over the Easter break. It'll probably come back torn to shreds ...

You're moving your Potions classes out of the dungeons? You told Snape yet? Mind you, I always found them really depressing. I remember the first day, walking down those steps. Put me off potions for life.

Something odd's happening again. My supervisor's being very mysterious. Keeps on about how my draft's been passed upwards, and I'll hear in due course. In the meantime, I'm to write up all my references (would you believe 112 of them??). And passing it upwards - I mean, there's not that much further up it can go. There's the Head of Department, then there's the Vice Chancellor. I mean, it's not as though the Midwich History Department's that big yet. The University's only four years old.

Rick - I hope you don't mind my asking this, but can you keep all this stuff under your hat? It's all starting to get a bit heavy now, but I promised I'd keep you updated.

It all started when I had a summons to the Vice Chancellor's office. Now that's not something you want to hear. It's usually bad news big time. So Patrick puts on his best academic robes and goes along. I'm wheeled into the office, and there's Professor Granger sitting there behind her desk. Well, you know what she's like. She doesn't take prisoners. I think we found that out in our first year ...

And on her desk is my dissertation. It's stacked neatly in front of her, and the rest of her desk is completely empty. It looked a bit lonely there by itself. So. She tells me to sit down, and I take the one seat carefully placed in front of her.

"Fudge," she says, and I nod. "The Great Man."

I see the corners of her mouth twitch, and think: I'm in for it now.

"You've done a lot of research." I blink and nod. "Although I don't think your research quite justifies your conclusions."

Well, neither did I, to be frank, but I was building bricks without straw. She sat there a little longer, then suddenly leaned back in her chair and sighed.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. And then she started.

"Your research is exemplary; you have marshalled the evidence, but, I would submit, came to realise that it added up to very little. You therefore have built an edifice of Fudge the Great Man in order to bring things to a conclusion, and to make your dissertation seem interesting, if not controversial." Was the woman a mind reader? She smiled. "Good try."

Well, at that point, I was left speechless. I mean, there was nothing left to say, was there? She'd seen straight through me.

"However ..." There she stopped and seemed oddly hesitant. "I've been talking to some of my friends, and we thought it was about time some things came out into the open. And you, Mr Finnegan, provide an ideal opportunity."

Now I was completely lost. But whatever she was talking about, it sounded interesting. Much more interesting than Fudge: The Great Man. So I did my best to look interested and intelligent. (Difficult for me, I know. Don't say it.)

"You see, I've been looking at the notes of some of the interviews you've done. You've been assiduous, and everything you've been told is true. But ... it's been the truth, but not the whole truth."

Ah. So they had been holding something back.

"There are various other dots you haven't connected, but unless you know more of the background, that wouldn't have been easy. However, there is something that you certainly have missed, and shouldn't have done." I did my intelligently enquiring bit again. "Go home, and ask your father and mother about Dolores Umbridge."

Now that did ring a bell. Thirty years is a long time, but at a place like Hogwarts it takes a long time for things to be forgotten. Anyway, she must have seen from my face that the name meant something to me.

"Go talk to your parents, as I said, and make some other enquiries. Then come back to me in a few days time."

I knew a dismissal when I saw one. "Thank you, Vice Chancellor."

She smiled. "I have two motives in setting you on this trail. One is personal. The other - well, I think it's time the truth came out."

Thanks for the info about Umbridge, Rick. Your dad too? They must have really hated her for him to be sounding off like that. I'm off to Hogwarts to do some digging there. There're still enough around from her time.

Well, this is where the thick plottens. Or something. Going back to Hogwarts was - interesting. Four years out, so I hardly knew any of the students. The Head Boy was from Gryffindor, and I remember him as an obnoxious junior. Definitely an incipient Civil Servant, destined for the Ministry.

I tried Snape, but getting anything out of him was worse than useless. More painful than a Potions class. (I'm sure everything will change in September, when this new young Potions master appears. You'll be fighting off all the Seventh Year girls. Or not. And I'm disappointed to learn you've decided to move Potions classes out of the dungeons. You'll be letting in fresh air and sunlight next.)

McGonagall and Flitwick are long gone, of course, as is Dumbledore. I had a long talk with Hagrid, but he's not all that quotable. Not in print, anyway. But I hit gold with Madame Pince. Yes, still there, but retiring at the end of the year just like Snape. Looks as though I got there just in time.

Because after some probing and flattery, she showed me a gold mine. Not literally, but worth as much to me. Umbridge, it turns out, wasn't appointed by Dumbledore but by the Ministry - i.e., Fudge. And Pince had preserved in a file a whole load of 'Educational Decrees' issued by Fudge on her behalf. They are unbelievable! Basically, they said that whatever Umbridge wanted to do, she could. And from what Dad said, she did.

But it's still not obvious what it was all about. What was Fudge after? He even had Dumbledore arrested (or they tried to arrest him but failed) at one stage. So what was that for?

And this was when our Vice Chancellor was in her fifth year. I bet she's got some stories for me.

I've tried to track Umbridge down, but with no success as yet. So it's back to Midwich.

The whole thing becomes more and more mysterious. I get back and made an appointment to see Granger. Normally it would take days before you get slotted into her diary. And you know the legendary Granger organisation. But I get a reply back by return which said simply: '2:30. H.G.'.

So I go in and sit down, and get one of those looks: well then? And I lay down a trump. Pince was very reluctant, but I managed to charm her (the Irish blarney!) into making copies of all those decrees. And I laid down the folder down in front of Granger.

You know, I think her eyes went misty at the sight of those old decrees. Granger, of all people! I just sat there, saying nothing, whilst she went through them one by one. And I could tell that they were bringing back memories. Finally she laid the last one down and looked up at me. The old Granger of steel was back again.

"So, Mr Finnegan, what did you make of those?"

I hesitated. "There was certainly something going on, but it's difficult to work out exactly what. But Fudge's name is all over those. But why Hogwarts? What was that all about?"

"Oh, Hogwarts wasn't the target."

I was lost again. "Really?" I must have sounded really feeble.

She stopped again. I got the feeling she was wondering about whether to go on. Then she said: "Ever heard of the Order of the Phoenix?"

Order of the Phoenix? Does that mean anything to you? Because it didn't to me. I shook my head.

But she smiled. "Good. Security wasn't so bad, after all, then."

Security? Is this cloak and dagger stuff? Hermione Granger, super spy?

I thought the best thing to do was to say nothing. See if she'd keep going. And she did.

"I'm not really the person to speak to about the Order," she went on. So Patrick here just sits and looks at her enquiringly. "The person you really want to talk to ..." she smiled for a moment. You know, I think she was loving this stuff? Granger, the woman of action. "The person you need to talk is the Minister."

The Minister? Harry Potter? Then I remembered (how could I have forgotten!) they'd been in the same year together at Hogwarts.

But she could see I'd no idea what she was really going on about.

"I've arranged an interview with the Minister," she went on more briskly. What? Me? Patrick Finnegan? A wannabe historian? Talking to the Minister? "Tomorrow afternoon. Oh, and by the way, he's read your dissertation. With interest."

Oh, right. Another bombshell. That 'with interest' was ominous.

She must have seen my face. She smiled. "Don't worry, Mr Finnegan. Play this right, and you'll have one of the most explosive dissertations ever written."

I don't what I said to that. If I said anything at all.

Rick, I've charmed this letter so only you can read it. Hope you don't mind, but it's quite important. And swear to me, on the memories of those detentions served together under Kyprioth, that you tell no one, but no one, what I'm going to tell you.

Best academic robes on, I was ushered into see Potter. Youngest Minister of Magic ever. Defeater of You Know Who. And all the rest of it. Actually, he's quite a nice bloke, it turned out. I don't know what I was expecting. Okay, he was in Gryffindor with your dad and mine, and they tell you stories, but you're not sure what to believe and what not.

Anyway, I go in, and he was working away at papers. Must say his desk isn't like Grangers. Heaps of files here and there. He looked quite relieved to see me.

"Mr Finnegan. How's your father?"

So we got through all of that. Then he rummaged round on his desk and pulled out a folder. My dissertation. Oh dear.

"Let's go and sit over there." He pointed the fireplace. There were a couple of armchairs there. "We'd better make ourselves comfortable. This may take some time."

I had a quick look round the room as I walked over, because I was scanning the walls for a portrait of Fudge. And there wasn't one. Potter must have noticed, because he gave me a slight smile. I reached the chair and sat down. I still really couldn't believe I was in the Minister's office. And I'd still no idea why.

Potter sat down opposite me, then put my dissertation on his knee, looked at it, smiled again, and then looked at me.

"Hermione gave me this." Hermione? I couldn't think who he meant for a moment. Then it clicked. Our revered Vice Chancellor. "You didn't really believe what you were writing," he went on. It wasn't a question.

"The Great Man thesis?" I asked cautiously.

He nodded. "Your heart isn't in it. Some nice arguments. But, given what you had to go on, I suppose it's the best you could do."

"Not all the papers were available."

He nodded again. "So I've discovered. I haven't had time to check properly, but I hope they haven't all been destroyed." So did I. "And you know nothing of the Order of the Phoenix?"

"Not a thing. Professor Granger mentioned it, but I haven't had time to go digging."

"I don't think you'd get far if you tried," he said frankly. "There're only about a dozen or so members left alive, and none of them would tell you anything, no matter how hard you tried. But - well, I think it's time the story was told. And better in the hands of an academic than a journalist."

Academic? Me? Well, I was dressed up for the part.

"It'll certainly make your career. Set you up for life if you do it properly. And I imagine Hermione will take a very close personal interest. She'll make sure you get it right."

He stared into the fireplace for a moment, then pulled out another folder from under my dissertation.

"Here's a file that's survived from Fudge's time," he said grimly, and he passed it over to me.

Rick - did you know Potter was tried by the full Wizengamot when he was a boy? For using magic under age? By the full court? That's what he'd just given me - the transcript of the trial.

And it wasn't just the idea of trying a teenager in front of the Wizengamot. There was much more to it. As I started reading the parchment, I realised that the whole thing was dynamite. Well, it certainly blew my thesis out of the water.

I suppose it took me about ten minutes to read it through from beginning to end. Potter just sat there as I read. Once I'd read it, I didn't know where to start. But I had to get him talking.

"Dementors? In Little Whinging? Weren't they still Azkaban guards then?"

"Yes."

I was baffled. "So how did they get there?"

He suddenly sounded very weary. "Umbridge." I didn't understand him at first. "Umbridge sent them," he went on.

"Why?"

He ignored that at first. "To be fair to Fudge, he didn't know that at the time. But it provided him with a wonderful opportunity."

"To do what?"

"Discredit me."

I was utterly lost now. "But why?"

He sighed. "You've read the book?" He didn't have to say which book. 'The Tom Riddle Story', authors H. Potter and H. Granger. I nodded.

"Well," he went on, "it's the truth, but not the whole truth." Now where had I heard that before? "If you read it, there's very little about Fudge in it."

I had read it again as background research. But, as he said, there was so little in it that I had discarded it. It didn't add to or take away from my thesis, so I didn't bother with it.

"We didn't write much about his part in the business because the events were still - well, shall we say, a little raw. And we didn't see the point, really."

"From what I remember, you just said something along the lines that Fudge found the rebirth of You Know Who difficult to believe, and left it at that."

"True enough. What the book doesn't tell you was that Fudge thought the whole thing - the rebirth of Tom Riddle - had been invented by Dumbledore."

"Why?"

"So Dumbledore could replace him as Minister."

"But Dumbledore never wanted to become Minister."

"I know that and you know that - but Fudge didn't. He became - well, paranoid. Thought Dumbledore wanted to take over the Ministry. And thought I was part of the plot."

"Oh." I looked down at the transcript. "Hence the trial." And the light began to dawn. "And hence Umbridge."

"Exactly."

"Dumbledore would have used Hogwarts as a base. So he sent in Umbridge."

"Exactly."

"Hence all the decrees."

He was silent for a moment or two. "The trouble is, he didn't know what he'd sent in."

"What do you mean?"

"Umbridge was evil." The tone of his voice was not nice.

"You mean - a Death Eater?"

He shook his head. "No, nothing like that. She was - well, I suppose you could call her a sadist. He gave her power, and, my word, she enjoyed using it." He turned to look at me. "One day I'll give you another story. Umbridge at Hogwarts. But she's only a footnote to Fudge."

"That's why they tried to arrest Dumbledore!"

"You've got it."

"What was the pretext?"

He smiled. "Ask Hermione that one."

Oh, boy, that'd be fun. "Right. If you say so."

"She'll tell you, don't worry."

"So the first Fudge really knew about You Know Who being back was that night in the Ministry? When You Know Who appeared?"

"Tom Riddle? Yeah. And of course, it all started going downhill for Fudge after that. The Malfoy trial was probably the last straw."

"So it's not Fudge: the Great Leader, but Fudge: the Frightened Man?"

Potter laughed. "Something like that. Now then, there are two things for you to do. One is to get unrestricted access in the archives and read the papers very carefully. I'll arrange that, but it'll have to be kept hush hush. The trouble is, if we do it for you, then others will want to get in on the act. So you've got to make it look as though you've found all the stuff all by yourself.

"The second is that you're going to have to interview some people again. Here's the list." He passed me a parchment. "I've been in touch with them all - they know they can talk now."

"But you haven't told me what this ... Order of the Phoenix ... what it was about."

"Haven't I?" He gazed at the fireplace again. "Well, that was something else left out of the 'Tom Riddle Story'. There are some hints for those in the know, but we felt it better to keep quiet about it at the time. Nowadays - well, I don't think it matters much.

"The Order was set up by Dumbledore when Riddle was making his first appearances. Security then was important as no one was quite sure who was a Death Eater and who wasn't. Then this happened" - he reached up and touched the scar on his forehead momentarily - "and it seemed Riddle had gone for good. The Order went into abeyance, so to speak. Then came Little Hangleton."

Suddenly he didn't look so young any more. The lines on his face deepened, and the grey hair, which had seemed previously to accentuate his youthful look, now seemed more appropriate.

"Well, after I told them all what had happened, Fudge refused to believe me. Thought I was making it all up. Hysterical teenager. Attention seeker. All the rest of it."

"That's what all the articles in the Prophet were saying!"

He gave me another smile. "And who do you think fed them that line?"

"Oh."

"Dumbledore believed me. Since the Ministry weren't going to do anything, Dumbledore revived the Order. Fudge took this to mean Dumbledore was trying to undermine him. Hence Umbridge and the rest."

He looked back at me. "A history of the Order might be a good idea - but you won't find anything on parchment for obvious reasons. And it'll have to come after you've finished this business. But that list I gave you - they're all former members. I've told them they can talk to you."

"Thank you. And - well, thank you for doing this for me."

He smiled. "Thank Hermione. When she saw your dissertation, she nearly blew a fuse. Then she calmed down and realised why you'd done it as you did. And how deep the cover up - if you want to call it that - went.

"So she came to see me, and we decided it was about time to let the daylight in."

I looked at the parchment on his knee. "I've an awful lot of work to do."

"That's the way it goes," he said cheerfully. "But then, Mr Finnegan, if your name isn't famous after this ..."

He stood up. "Give my regards to your mother and father."

"I will," I promised.

So there you have it. Quite something, eh?

Merlin, what a summer! I thought I'd got everything wrapped up, and now all this stuff comes along, and I have to start again. There wasn't much I could salvage from the old dissertation.

I spent a fortnight just in the Archives reading the stuff they'd kept from me. My eyes popped at some of the stuff I was reading (no, you're going to have to wait and find out!). Then after that, I had to go and interview all those people again, and this time they talked. Boy, did they talk! It was the end of July before I could start writing. Everyone else at Midwich was away on holiday (except Granger, of course!), and there was just me working away in my little room every day, trying to pretend the sun wasn't shining. I hope it's going to be worth it.

I took the first draft along to Granger at the beginning of August, and, typically, it comes back the next afternoon with a three foot parchment of comments and suggestions. You know, it took five drafts before she was satisfied. Even then I think she'd have liked more. But we had to stop somewhere.

Dissertations like this are supposed to go out for review - except of course there's hardly anyone else in the country qualified to read it. And Granger certainly wasn't going to send this one abroad! So in the end, my review board was Potter and Granger. Can you imagine?

And the trouble was that they spent half the time arguing about details they thought they remembered.

"No, Harry, the other Auror was Dawlish. I'm positive."

"Well, if you say so, Hermione."

This goes on for two hours, and eventually they've chewed over every bone. So Granger turns to me and say casually: "Congratulations, Dr. Finnegan. Midwich's first post graduate."

I suppose I must have sat there with my mouth open, so much so that Potter started laughing, and then got one of those looks from Granger.

But I was still sworn to silence (and I hope for your sake, you're still keeping all this under your hat. If anything gets out, I shall know who to blame ...!)

Now I've found out why the silence. Granger's always tried to get the University into the news, and I'm her latest weapon in her campaign.

I'd taken a month off (thought I'd earned it), was enjoying my holiday, then I get this blasted owl. And you can guess who it was from.

"Your presence is required at Midwich next Monday. H.G."

She was always sharp and to the point, wasn't she? And term hadn't even begun yet. But I roll up on Monday to find this complete circus. Granger had been setting up the story for the Prophet, and there was this reporter and photographer waiting for me.

The reporter (remember Laren McCall? Head Prefect in Gryffindor when we were First Years?) had obviously read the dissertation through from beginning to end, and was alarmingly well briefed by Granger. They spent the morning grilling me, with Granger throwing in helpful comments from the sidelines. Then when eventually they'd done with that, they made us pose for pictures - Granger by herself, me by myself, the two of us together ... then they went out to take pics of the campus.

So, Rick. Get your copy of the Prophet tomorrow, and see me all over the front page. Patrick Finnegan, media star. Perhaps all that work was worth it after all.