HP: The Duelist of Hogwarts - 444

Chapter 444: The Plot Unfolds

At the Ministry of Magic, Sirius led Harry inside. Guided by Harry’s dream, they headed straight for the Minister for Magic’s office. Both of them moved with extreme caution, but all the way there, they did not encounter a single person. Not until they reached the corridor outside the Minister’s office did Harry finally speak.

“Sirius, is the Ministry always this empty at night?”

Even Sirius felt something was wrong. He might be impulsive and restless, but he was no fool.

He had been to the Ministry at night before. There should have been staff on duty. Yet they had not seen a soul along the way.

If it had been another member of the Order of the Phoenix, they would likely have chosen to turn back now and inform Dumbledore.

But for Sirius, the more clearly he saw that something was off, the more he wanted to tear the veil away and see the truth beneath.

“Harry, stay behind me,” he said quietly. “If anything happens, you run. Go straight back to Grimmauld Place. Understand?”

“Sirius… are we really going to keep going?” Harry asked.

“We are already here. There is no sense turning tail now. Besides…” Sirius stepped in front of Harry, blocking him, and drew his wand. “Besides, the Order has not had a solid lead in far too long. If this turns out to be one, it could be a huge help. I am not about to throw that chance away.”

With that, he reached out and pushed open the door to the Minister’s office.

Cornelius Fudge sat in his chair, head bowed, utterly motionless.

Had he really been killed?

Sirius advanced warily, moving up beside the chair to examine him more closely.

The moment he reached out and touched Fudge, he felt the chill of the body. The corpse toppled sideways and crashed to the floor.

Sirius had just begun to register that Fudge truly was dead when a rush of footsteps sounded from the corridor outside.

“Sirius, someone’s coming. A lot of people!”

Sirius felt the trap snap shut.

Without a second of hesitation, he surged forward, ready to grab Harry and bolt.

At that exact moment, as all of Sirius’s attention focused on the corridor, a figure appeared silently beside Fudge’s body. She lifted her short, stubby wand and fired a Disarming Charm straight at Sirius’s back.

“Expelliarmus!”

A flash of red light. Sirius was blasted off his feet, his wand spinning away in an arc to land at the shoes of the new arrival: Dolores Umbridge.

Seeing Sirius suddenly go flying, Harry whirled and fired a spell in return. He froze for half a second when he saw that Umbridge was the one who had attacked, but he still completed the incantation and sent a spell hurtling at her.

To his surprise, the instant the people in the corridor burst into the office, Umbridge flung her arms wide in a strange, theatrical gesture and made no effort to dodge. Harry’s Disarming Charm struck her squarely, sending her soaring backwards into a bookshelf. She hit hard enough to rattle it, and volumes cascaded to the floor around her.

“Stop right there! Do not move!”

“Stupefy!”

“Expelliarmus!”

Bolts of light streaked through the office. Harry raised his wand and managed to block the first Stunning Spell, but the second Disarming Charm caught him full on. He crashed to the floor, his wand flying from his hand.

Seeing Harry go down, Sirius struggled to his feet with a roar, ready to snatch up his wand and curse the oncoming Aurors. Before he could act, a clear, piercing birdsong rang out. A phoenix swooped in from the corridor, circling Harry and Sirius. Flame blossomed with each beat of its wings, and a figure stepped out of the fire.

Albus Dumbledore.

“Stand down, Sirius,” he said calmly.

Sirius froze in place.

Dumbledore’s eyes moved past him to the cluster of Aurors at the door. He recognised most of them at once as those aligned with the pure‑blood supremacists. Then he looked to Umbridge, now kneeling by Fudge’s body, sobbing loudly and putting on a show of grief.

In that instant, Dumbledore understood what had happened.

The pure‑blood faction had taken their cue from Voldemort. They had murdered Fudge in order to install a Minister who would listen to them. But they could not kill him openly. If the Ministry could point clearly to Voldemort as the culprit, they would be forced to accept his return and would turn more fiercely than ever against Death Eaters and pure‑blood fanatics. Everyone already knew too much about everyone else’s affiliations for them to risk that.

So Fudge’s death needed a scapegoat.

On his way here, Dumbledore had already learned from the Two‑Way Mirror at Grimmauld Place what Sirius and Harry had done, and he had taken the opportunity to contact Sean, who had just been about to leave his orphanage, and heard everything Sean had gone through that day.

Putting those threads together, Dumbledore quickly saw the outline of Voldemort’s plan.

Arthur Weasley’s attack had been the first probe. Voldemort had used it to test whether Harry truly could see through the link between them, and to confirm whether, once Harry knew what Voldemort had done, the Order would treat his visions as real and send people to act on them.

The rescue at the Ministry that night had given Voldemort the answer he wanted.

So, before he set this plan in motion, he had split his Death Eaters. One group went to the orphanage to draw Sean away. Another moved to attract the attention of the Order. Voldemort himself had appeared, pulling Dumbledore’s focus.

That way, when Harry received a false vision through their connection, he would not be able to reach either of them at once.

The dream would lure Harry and other members of the Order to the Ministry, to stand over the dead Minister’s body.

Then Umbridge would point her shaking finger at them, and the pure‑blood Aurors would back her accusation that Harry Potter and Sirius Black had murdered Cornelius Fudge.

Even if it did not end in a conviction, it would still buy Voldemort and his followers precious time, bogging Dumbledore and the Order down in a political mire.

Dumbledore could, in theory, wash his hands of Harry and Sirius and walk away. But if he did that, Voldemort would be free to have them quietly killed—or, failing that, to see them convicted while Dumbledore looked the other way. Even if they escaped death, Harry and Sirius would spend the rest of their lives in Azkaban, which would suit Voldemort well enough.

Of course, Dumbledore would never truly abandon them. But once he stepped in to defend them, his feet would be caught fast. Umbridge could then be installed as Acting Minister for Magic, and by the time the dust settled, Voldemort and his Death Eaters would already have the upper hand.