Mourning and Regrets

Mourning and Regrets

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Fudge

All hope is dead. My hope that the world was still safe from You-Know-Who has died. He's back. It's stupid. If anyone had told me last year -- even last month -- that I'd actually be wishing that Dumbledore was plotting against me, building his own private army with Harry Potter at its head, I'd have thought they were crazy. But it's better than the alternative. Much better. I hoped that You-Know-Who wasn't really alive, wasn't really back. I hoped that Dumbledore was lying to trick me.

Now, of course, I know that he wasn't. I've actually seen You-Know-Who, alive, dangerous and right here in the Ministry's Atrium. We've got eleven Death Eaters locked up. We've got a dead Unspeakable, Broderick Bode. I can't deny any of it.

Arthur Weasley ... I knew he was on Dumbledore's side. I treated him accordingly. What did Arthur do to 'retaliate'? He almost died trying to stop You-Know-Who from stealing a weapon from right under my nose. He was trying to protect us all, while I was denying that You-Know-Who was even back. I'd have let him steal it.

Maybe Arthur ought to be the Minister. I wanted this power; I was terrified I might lose it, so terrified that I let You-Know-Who take away control of the Dementors and free a dozen Death Eaters. I preferred to hear Lucius' words to Dumbledore's, and now we've got Lucius locked up. I won't be visiting him.

Arthur's blood is just as pure as mine or Lucius'. No. That's partly it -- his blood's not as pure as mine. It's purer, there are no dubious five-greats-grandmothers in his ancestry. Is that it? Am I that scared of being less pure than him, that I've just used his fondness for Muggles as an excuse? Lucius despised him -- and I see that in a new light now. Two of Arthur's children were right there, risking their lives with Harry Potter, to fight the Death Eaters. Where was I? At home in bed. Where was Lucius -- no, I know that answer. He was one of them.

Harry brought five friends with him. Four of them are pure-bloods, and Harry himself is a half-blood, but the other one, Harry's girlfriend, is a Mu- ... a Muggle-born. She fought just as hard as the others. I wouldn't have brought her. I wouldn't have trusted her. But then, I trusted Lucius. Maybe Dumbledore's right, and we should be more welcoming to Muggle-borns. After all, You-Know-Who doesn't trust them, he only wants pure-bloods. He'd never recruit the Granger girl. She'd never turn out to have been betraying the Ministry, like Rookwood and Macnair. I wonder if I met her? She might be the one who was at the World Cup with Arthur's family and Harry; Arthur didn't introduce the girl that day.

How different am I from You-Know-Who, anyway? I forced Dolores Umbridge on Dumbledore. She was supposed to discredit him -- You-Know-Who must have loved that. She was supposed to discredit Harry. Arthur's two youngest say she tortured him, and he's still got the scars, because he insisted that You-Know-Who was back. He brought us fourteen years of safety, he told the truth whatever we did to him, and that's how she repaid him. That's how I repaid him. She admitted setting two Dementors on him, too. Two? I only took one to Hogwarts with me to visit Barty Crouch's son -- a known Death Eater, not an innocent teenage boy and hero. Did she know Harry had any chance at all of surviving them? I haven't asked her. I daren't ask her. Apparently she would even have used the Cruciatus Curse on him if the Granger girl hadn't come up with a plan to stop her.

Maybe that girl should be the new Minister. Well, no. There'd be something to say for making Harry the Minister one day, though. He's done more than most people have to fight You-Know-Who, even at his age. He's certainly done more than I have. I wasn't even the Minister back then, it was old Bagnold. I've lived in the peace that Harry brought us. My entire Ministry, until this month, was in that peace. Now I've doubted his word and set Dolores on him, to be more cruel to him than ... than any of the Death Eaters, to tell the truth.

I don't know who should be the new Minister. Arthur, Harry, that girl ... but I'm sure of one thing. It's time for a new one. I can't cope. I haven't coped. I've just been denying everything. The way I'm feeling right now, if someone mentioned those goblin pies again, I'd probably confess.

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Croaker

Broderick's dead? For years, whenever anyone's met us, we've been 'Bode and Croaker, Unspeakables' as though that was all one word. People won't recognise me without him.

Life goes on. I suppose. Look at Arthur Weasley. Whatever the real reason was for why he was found, so badly injured from that attack, in our corridor, he seems to have recovered OK.

That was the corridor that Sturgis was arrested for being in, it was the corridor that Broderick ... well, of course Broderick had every right to be in that corridor. But not under the Imperius Curse, not ... not dead now.

The oddest thing is, after all those years we worked together, I have so few memories of him that don't involve work. I think some of the kids at the funeral were his, but I can't remember their names, or anything. I only vaguely remember him from Hogwarts -- a few years difference in age makes so much difference when you're a child -- I just remember that we used to go to Quidditch matches together. Of course, our both cheering Ravenclaw's team is what brought us together in the first place, two Quidditch fans who couldn't stop talking about the games.

Maybe that's how I should think about him now. I should remember him cheering for Ireland at the Quidditch World Cup. I should remember his delight at winning that bet from Ludo, and his fury when Ludo cheated him, as he cheated so many others. What does that matter now? If he had those forty Galleons, he couldn't spend them now, could he?

No, I should remember him at the World Cup, not as he was at his funeral. It was claimed it was an accident, that the pot plants had been mixed up, but now we know about the Imperius Curse, and it's obvious he was murdered to avoid him being able to tell us anything. Would I have recognised Devil's Snare from Herbology, if I'd visited him a bit more often? Could I have saved him? It's been a while. The Healer didn't recognise it. Maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I would, and he'd be alive now ...

No! Don't think about his death, think about his life! Cheering at the World Cup ... finding out I'd got us two good tickets ... his jealousy (and mine) when we found out Arthur had seats in the Top Box, and enough of them for all his children and a couple of guests ... vowing that at the next World Cup he'd be sitting in the Top Box, whatever it took ... no. No, no, no. He won't be at the next one. Maybe I'll be there, but -- yes, I will be there, and I'll get a seat in the Top Box, and watch the match for him!

That's the best way to remember him. He'd have wanted that.

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Lupin

There's only me now. James has been dead for years. I thought Peter -- Wormtail -- was dead for almost that whole time -- and he might as well be dead now, as I certainly don't want to see him again. And now Sirius has been killed, by his own cousin. I'm the only surviving Marauder. The only real one. The one who thought that, because of what he was, he would never find friends. I did find friends. Now I've lost them all.

Maybe I do want to see Peter again, for one very final meeting. I wonder what happens if a werewolf eats a rat that's really an Animagus? Provided the rat died instantly, he couldn't transform back, could he? There wouldn't be a body left to bury, any more than there was for Sirius. First Peter betrayed James and Lily to Voldemort, then he faked his own death to frame Sirius, and now ... all right, he didn't actually kill Sirius, not personally. He didn't actually kill James and Lily, either. All the coward does is set things up so that someone else will do the killing. They're still dead. They're still on his conscience -- if he's got one.

This time it was Sirius' cousin. Voldemort got the Dementors to free her; and he is only a menace again because Peter did so much, worked so hard, to bring him back from the condition Harry left him in.

Poor Harry. I wonder if he's thinking about this the same way that I am. I'm sure he's thinking about it in some way. Peter killed his parents, and Harry ... Harry saved Peter's life when Sirius and I would have killed him. I agreed then that Harry was doing the right thing, but if he hadn't done that, we'd have had the body. I'm sure Dumbledore could have got it to the Ministry to prove that Peter'd just died, and wasn't blown to pieces by Sirius. Sirius would have been cleared, Harry would probably have gone to live with him, and Voldemort wouldn't be back now.

But he did save his life. We never cleared Sirius' name, and Voldemort is back. Without Harry's actions, Sirius wouldn't be dead. Not that I blame Harry. Poor Harry. Condemned to go back to Lily's sister for the rest of his childhood, with no chance now to stay with Sirius. All because he was merciful. It's hardly a reward for being good.

'The rest of his childhood'? I hope it's not the rest of his life! I hope he does manage to survive to become an adult. He's growing more powerful, of course, but the danger from Voldemort is getting worse. Dumbledore admitted to me that he's told Harry the famous prophecy about him. I don't know what it is -- I don't know if I even want to know -- but Harry knows, and apparently it explains why Voldemort wants to kill him. I'm sure that's a great comfort. He's only fifteen -- OK, almost sixteen now -- and Voldemort's come close to killing him -- what is it? -- five times now, four times in person and once through that group of Death Eaters. I suppose we can hope that the Ministry, now that it believes he's back, will at least find some way to keep those Death Eaters away from him, even if the Dementors aren't any use now.

I'd volunteer to execute them, if the Ministry would ever trust a werewolf.

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