Who'll Fill a Coward's Grave? ↣ Harmione

Chapter Five

Chapter 5 - A Secret No More

His morning had started off so well too. The Daily Prophet had broken the story, and printed it just as he'd planned. Malfoys Murdered by Boy-Who-Kills was a headline that would grab everyone's attention. His favourite though was 'Dumbledore attacks Minister and Aurors before fleeing with Potter'. There was a nice picture of the Minister on the front page too, in quite an authoritative pose - if Cornelius said so himself. With Dumbledore and Potter now disgraced, that would leave Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, as the most popular wizard in Britain. That thought alone had made Cornelius' morning.

Of the dastardly deed, all the paper's emphasis was placed on Potter cursing Lucius in the back. What Lucius was wearing at the time of being cursed didn't rate a mention. Neither did the fact that young Draco had cast the killing curse. After all, the curse only hit a muggle.

That there was no mention of Madam Bones' resignation as Head of the DMLE was a deliberate action on Cornelius' part. He wanted to have someone in place to take over the DMLE before publicly announcing the change, with no mention being made of why Bones resigned.

That's where his morning started to go wrong, with the first candidate he had sent for point-blank refusing to accept the position of DMLE head. When Cornelius attempted to force the issue, he found an auror badge being tossed onto his desk. After that, the scene had been replayed spookily similar to the earlier episode in his office by his second choice for the post. This one actually threw their badge at the Minister, Cornelius was left perplexed at what to do next.

In this situation, his normal modus operandi was to ask for advice. With Lucius dead and Dumbledore on the run, Cornelius sent for his Senior Undersecretary.

When Dolores finally arrived, Cornelius was about to reprimand her for the time she took to answer his summons when he noticed she seemed rather flustered and somewhat detached. "Dolores, are you feeling unwell?"

"What? No Cornelius. I apologise for taking so long but I was in the Department of Mysteries when your summons arrived."

"What were you doing down there?"

A troubled Dolores explained how she'd spent her morning - up until now. "There's a vicious rumour spreading throughout the ministry that a prophecy exists regarding Harry Potter and you-know-who. Apparently Potter is prophesied to defeat him. I was down there checking if there could be any truth in these rumours."

This was dismissed out of hand by Cornelius. "It doesn't matter if there was a prophecy or not. Harry Potter defeated you-know-who so the prophecy would already be fulfilled. There was no need for you to go all the way down there to discover that."

"I'm afraid there was, Cornelius. The rumour has since evolved to include the existence of this prophecy. Someone has apparently already been down there and confirmed that fact. I had to see it for myself..."

Cornelius shook his head, good staff was getting harder to find. "I already told you, any prophecy that existed has already been fulfilled!"

"The unspeakable told me that, when a prophecy has been fulfilled, the sphere turns black. I saw this prophecy orb for myself. This prophecy was made by a seer to Dumbledore, and the orb is still silver."

Getting really worried now, Cornelius was left clutching at proverbial straws. "Could there be a mistake?"

"I asked that very same question. In all the centuries prophecy orbs have been used, there has never been a mistake. The unspeakable was quite adamant, this particular prophecy is still active."

Both officials in the Minister's Office knew exactly what this meant. For the prophecy to still be active, you-know-who couldn't be dead."Do we have any means of discovering the exact wording of this prophecy? I am the Minister of Magic after all, and this is a matter of national security."