Cornelius Fudge hadn’t taken being made a fool of very well. Being forced by brats to publically acknowledge the return of Lord Voldemort had not sat easy with him. He had launched into damage control mode and with the help of a very scared Wizengamot had hurriedly bought new laws into being. One of which was the immediate execution of all known Death Eaters regardless of their current loyalties. If they bore the Dark Mark then they were to be put to death. Those that were already incarcerated in Azkaban the wizarding prison were first to fall to the new law.

Since most of them were already deranged they had been subjected to the Dementor’s Kiss. The few that were still lucid had been transferred to the Ministry to be publically executed. He had to be seen to be doing something to put a stop to the madness. They would also be ‘kissed’ and once their souls were removed they would be pushed through the ‘Veil’. The first to be executed in this manner had been Lucius Malfoy. Under veritaserum the man had confessed to being there when the dark ritual had been performed to resurrect Voldemort. Fudge had been jealous of the man with his beautiful wife, his fortune, his political standing. The smarmy blond had pleaded that he was under the Imperious Curse during the last war and had walked away. He was glad he was gone.

The Malfoy money had been frozen immediately. A monthly allowance would be forwarded to Narcissa Malfoy for the upkeep of herself and her son Draco. The rest would be released to the Malfoy heir on his seventeenth birthday.

***

Fudge sat in his office sipping on a strong cup of tea. It had been a trying morning. He had not given into Dumbledore’s demands. He had been resolute that the new law regarding Voldemort’s followers would apply to everyone even the father of the supposed ‘Saviour of the Wizarding World’ Harry Potter. He loathed the boy and this would be the perfect way to pay him back for disgracing him so publicly.

Potter had been adamant about the return of Voldemort at the end of the previous school year. The ‘Tri-Wizard Tournament’ had ended in disaster with the Diggory boy dying and the brat sprouting lies. At least that was what he had led the people to believe. The Daily Profit was under his control and published what he told them to. With the help of Rita Skeeter’s poisonous pen he branded the boy a liar and an attention seeker; had hinted that Potter was mentally unstable.

There had been a supposed Dementor attack during the summer holidays, that had resulted in the boy illegally using magic. Fudge had hoped the Wizengamot would find him guilty and break his wand thus expelling the boy from the Wizarding World but Dumbledore had interfered and the boy was given his freedom so to speak. 

In an attempt to keep the boy under control he had sent Delores Umbridge to Hogwarts at the beginning of the new school year. The fool woman had let the power go to her head. She had used a Dark Artifact, a blood quill, to punish the boy and others. She might have gotten away with it since teachers and students alike had been rather scared of crossing her and suffering the consequences. She might have; if he hadn’t been stupid enough to consent to Snape teaching the brats how to brew an ancestry potion.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Refusing such a simple request could be a political disaster and he had wanted to avoid that. Besides no-one could have predicted the shock outcome – Severus Snape was revealed as the biological father of one Harry James Potter. With that revelation came others – Snape and Lily Evans had been secretly married. With Voldemort on the war path they had turned to James Potter for help when they realised Lily was pregnant. James had been only too willing to come to the rescue the woman he loved.

Snape was a Potions Master, Evans gifted in Charms and Potter in Transfiguration. Between the three of them they had made the babe look like a Potter rather than a Snape. The spells would reverse when the Dark Lord was dead. The child had been given the name Henry Severus James Snape; James in honour of his pseudo father.

They had removed and stored Snape’s memories and obliviated him so that he honestly believed the boy to be the son of his enemy. Snape had been more than willing to claim the boy as his and Fudge had hoped at the time that the matter was closed.

With the Potter brat being removed from his ‘caring’ relatives he no longer felt obligated to them and was more than happy to tell his father just what kind of loving family they had been. If the outcry over Snape being the boy’s father had been loud then the outcry over the abuse he had received from the Muggles had been deafening. In yet another attempt to save face Fudge had consented to the family being tried by the Wizengamot.

The aunt and uncle had been sentenced to fourteen years in Azkaban. One year for every year they had been the boy’s guardians. That was after they had been cursed with reliving every unkind deed and word they visited on the Potter brat. The cousin had found himself in a Muggle/Wizard foster home. He would be closely supervised and hopefully he would become a better person.

During all of this Delores had kept up her persecution of the boy. The blood quill sessions had happened so often that the boy’s hand was healing slower. His father had found the boy in his bathroom trying to treat his wounds himself. Every time the quill was used Dark Magic had leaked into the cuts and without the proper spells they would never heal completely. The fallout had been widespread and many parents had called for the ‘Kiss’ as punishment, the Wizengamot had agreed. As Minister for Magic he had been present for the ‘Kiss’ and the subsequent execution.

The school year had culminated in the very public ‘return’ of Lord Voldemort. Cornelius could no longer deny it as too many people had seen it.

Seeing Snape get the ‘Kiss’ was going to be the highlight of his life. He had escaped a conviction at the end of the last war because Dumbledore had fought for him. Even now the doddering old fool claimed Snape was a spy for the ‘Light’. He had known that Albus would interfere and that was why he had pushed for the law to state that those with the ‘Mark’ would forfeit their lives. It was a well known fact that the skull and snake tattoo could not be removed. He had delighted in ignoring the man’s plea for clemency and in denying the older wizard’s request to see Snape. He just hoped the boy would be there it would really complete his day.