LAST TANGO IN PARIS Fudge, the arch-villain. An odd thought, to be sure. On the other hand, now that Severus had thought about it for a moment or two, it was impossible to be too surprised. Self-styled Leader of the White Hats or no, it had long been clear to anyone with the eyes to see it that the agenda Cornelius Fudge promoted was generally his own. Still, being a self-serving prat didn't make you necessarily evil. “I wouldn't have thought him clever enough to pull off a stunt like this one,” Severus said under his breath, then added: “Wonder why he got involved at all?” “That's easy. Family, isn't it?” Sal had unearthed a tin of Danish biscuits au beurre from some previously-undiscovered cache in a far high cabinet of the kitchen, and was now systematically dunking them in his Perluceoed tea, one after another. Between the two of them, Severus figured they'd eaten half the tin in under an hour. “Well, yes,” he conceded. “If you're talking about the treasure, that is.” “Among other things.” Sal levitated another half-dozen biscuits across the table toward his own plate. “It's my guess that he inherited more than he'd bargained for, when he got his hands on the Templar treasure. You get the money, you also get the problems that came with it. Trouble is, it's hard to turn down one without giving up the other.” “True.” Severus considered this. “And in this case – seeing as it's Fudge we're talking about – I imagine that even if he had wanted to give up the treasure, he'd have been afraid to say anything to the goblins.” He licked sugar from his fingers. “He always was a little wanker when it came to other species, even back at Hogwarts. Didn't even like house-elves. How he ever managed to stomach an alliance with the dementors, I'll never know.” “To be fair,” Sal said, “Gringotts might have been just a tad cranky, when they found out exactly who'd been sitting on their missing millions for all this time. They've been looking for it for centuries, you know. And then, they're not the only ones – half the wizarding world and a fair number of Muggles have an interest in the Templar fortune. If I were a pudgy little number-cruncher who'd fallen up the ladder and found himself in this situation, I'd be a bit nervous myself.” Severus acknowledged the sense of this with a spare nod and reached for another biscuit. “Makes sense,” he said. “What I'm having more trouble with is the idea of Fudge as a hardcore supremacist.” “Really? Doesn't seem like such a stretch to me.” “Well, I can see how his sympathies might lie that way covertly,” Severus said. “Perhaps. But I knew Fudge in school, remember? And while he's not … thick … exactly, he is rather lazy. All this business about the Nameless account and the money-switching seems like too much effort to me – especially for a cause he doesn't support wholeheartedly.” “Well—“ “—And let's face it. If he'd supported it wholeheartedly, he'd have been a Death-Eater like the rest of th—“ he swallowed hard, “—I mean, us. And he wasn't.” “True enough,” Sal said. “But the Nameless account is a lot older than Fudge himself, right? And who had a better reason to hate Muggles than de Fondant, when their King and Church tortured and executed his father? Seems to me that he must have set that account up back then, once he'd buried his treasure and set his army of skeletons round to protect it.” “Army of skeletons?” Severus frowned, then brightened. “That's right – I remember that bit of the curse now. Used to be famous; there's even a poem about it somewhere. Irma probably has a copy in the Restricted Section ...” “Focus,” Sal ordered, wagging his finger from across the table. “Worry about the book later, all right?” “Right.” Severus took a swallow of now-tepid tea. “I do see what you're getting at,” he said. “You think de Fondant laundered a bit of the Templar money that he didn't bury, possibly through Les Choix, or through his pirating contacts, and used it to seed the Nameless account.” “Yes.” “And that the account, in turn, has been funding this series of assorted nasty little extremist groups down through the centuries.” “Makes sense to me,” Sal said. “Should be simple enough to check Linchpin's records and verify the dates, but I'll wager it all checks out. That sigil on the account – the one that first turned up in Sturbridge's autobiography – that's a Templar symbol if I ever saw one. No one else was nattering on about irrational numbers back then, that's for damn sure.” “So when Fudge inherited the fortune—“ “—that grim little bit of philanthropy had been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years,” Sal finished. “And it was easier for him to just keep the payments going—“ “—than to interfere, and risk making Gringotts curious.” “Exactly.” They stared at each other, then dropped their eyes and reached for the biscuits at the same time. “It's true,” Sal said. “Live together long enough, and you do start to think alike.” Severus grimaced; this was more accurate than he'd have liked to admit. “Now who's not focussing?” “Anyway. Rather brings us up to the matter at hand, doesn't it?” Sal cocked his head to the side. “I've got my theory, of course. But you go first.” “Well.” Severus sipped his tea, made a face, and muttered a Warming Charm at it. “After Phineas Sturbridge died without fulfilling any of his grandiose promises, the Knights of the Golden Wand all but disappeared. There was a brief violent resurgence in the forties, after which public outrage drove them underground again, not to be heard from until Tom Riddle took the reins.” He took another sip. “At that point, Riddle was – in the eyes of the Ministry watchdogs, at least – still just another fringe lunatic heading up a pack of similarly misguided imbeciles. Nothing special. With me so far?” “Mm.” “Until he got a lot more powerful than he was supposed to.” “Ha.” Sal nodded speculatively. “Well said.” Severus jerked his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. “You were in seclusion back then,” he pointed out, “but I wasn't. I remember Fudge from school and directly afterwards, and he was a Ministry sycophant such as hasn't been seen before or since. Puts Percy Weasley's little episode a few years back well in the shade.” He toyed with his teaspoon, his face going grim. “He might not have been far up the ladder at that point, but he certainly had aspirations for upper management – and Voldemort's rise would have been a real threat to that. There must have been Aurors investigating the Death-Eaters' financial situation – must have been; that's the way these things work. And if anyone had found out—“ “Ah. I see.” Sal peered into the biscuit tin. “Damn. No more sugar pretzels.” He hesitated for a moment, then turned away from the tin. “Possibly this would tie things up too neatly,” he said, “but somehow I doubt it. Could those investigating Aurors have been Frank and Alice Longbottom?” “It would certainly make sense, wouldn't it?” “I wonder what they found. And how.” “Not to mention,” Severus said darkly, “who was really behind their attack. In light of all this, I'm inclined to think it might not have been Voldemort at all.” He drained his tea, grimacing at the mouthful of soggy biscuit crumbs at the bottom of his cup. “Probably not even the Longbottoms would know that, though – even if Hermione does manage to restore their memories. Pity, too – because without hard evidence, we can speculate from here to the end of the world and still never put Fudge behind bars.” “Who would know, I wonder?” Sal frowned. “Bellatrix herself?” Severus shook his head. “She had to know it was a doomed mission,” he said. “He was already gone by that time, or believed gone, anyway. She would only have acted on what she believed to be direct orders from him.” “You're probably right,” Sal said. There was an odd look on his face. “But there is one person who'd know, isn't there?” “There is?” “Oh, yes.” Sal's eyes were narrow, and he was grinning; he had that unholy glitter about him that always made Severus wonder if some of the more salacious Slytherin legends might not be true, after all. “At least one. I'll wager he knows everything there is to know.” Severus paled. “You're not thinking of—?” A long, shocked pause. “You are.” “And by now,” Sal said, “I'd be very surprised indeed if he didn't feel like talking.” ** |