Unsurprisingly, Fudge chose the second course. A goblin from the Goblin Liaison Office arrived with a thin case and a face that betrayed nothing. He nodded towards Arcturus andstarted. Forfeitures and seizures. Fudge scratched his name in a cramped hand where he was told and tried to stand before the ink dried. The chair held him. Two Aurors took the arms. A third braced a boot against the base to keep it from sliding. Wood rasped. Iron murmured. It took a hard heave to free the chair from his back. Amelia marked the absurdity without moving a muscle. The chains had been theatre; the man could not have risen without a pulley.
When the chair was finally pried loose and Fudge was hauled out, Arcturus turned to Amelia. "Director Bones," he said. "Your office will receive three times its present budget at once, by way of a 'private endowment' from an upstanding citizen." His gaze was on Fudge who was being escorted out to his new home for the foreseebale future. "Begin recruitment and advanced training. Be advised that I reserve the final say on all new entries to the force."
The chamber chuckled. It was not friendly. Sharks enjoy the taste of blood after all. Fudge had been the first lesson of the day. The second was the reminder that coin and sanction now moved together.
Amelia kept her face level. Inside, surprise flared and then settled into calculation. Yesterday she was nearly begging a Minister to hold the current budget and figting against cuts. Today she could build. Proper intake standards. A training block that did not simply teach hexes. Field craft. Case procedure. Internal review that did more than collect dust. The reservation of names by the Minister sat in the middle of the table like a heavy paperweight, but there was room to work around it. It was a start, a good one.
"Next," said the interim Minister.
Several members startled despite themselves. The doors opened and Lucius Malfoy entered between two Aurors. His famous hair had lost its parade ground shine. Amelia allowed herself the smallest private smile. Lucius sat. The chains coiled.
"Lord Malfoy," Amelia said. "You are charged with bribing officers of the Ministry, including the former Minister and with criminal cooperation in the perversion of lawful process. Do you understand the charges." She glanced to the Minister. He offered no addition and no hint. She faced the prisoner again. Upon receiving a nod from him, she asked with a satisfied tone. "How do you plead."
--
Lucius Malfoy had made many moves in his life. Some were mistakes. Others had been useful at the time. A mask gives a man license to do his worst and call it a day. He had taken that license. Marriage to Narcissa Black had been one of his better bargains. Love was not a term in the contract. Doors and names were. He had won both. Supporting Fudge had been an error, a big one. Trusting the fool can control a petty Undersecretary was the biggest as of today. Prod at Corvus Black... Even he would not have done that with best of preparations, maybe he would think if the price is high enough though. Now he sat under the eyes of a wolf who disliked his very guts, hate everything tied to the Dark Lord he was carrying the mark of.
He measured the room. He measured the man who now kept the chair of minister warm. Only a fool would call him interim. The Traditional benches knew better. So did Lucius. There was no profit in testing a temper that had just offered 'mercy' to Fudge and made it sound like a sentence. Lucius had always prided himself on clarity. He would sell anything that was not nailed to his marrow. Except for Draco. ..Probably. If the price grew high enough, he would at least consider the offer.
The old family curse that followed them to the island tugged at the edge of his thoughts. One child and that only if fortune cared to look, it would be a son. Malfoys had used blood adoption more than once to keep the gold in the family vaaults. A cool practice for a cool house.
He lifted his chin. "Guilty," he said, voice even. "I will pay whatever price the Minister deems fit."
Arcturus raised one eyebrow, he read the small parchment in his hands again. It was given to one of the clerks by Corvus. The message was short, 'I need him to be free.' "Whatever price I see fit," he repeated with a sharp smile. "How fortunate for you Lord Malfoy. On my first day in the office, I am moved to select the most merciful of our older ordinances. It pleases me to show clemency to a fellow Lord of this chamber."
Lucius understood it at that very moment, he understood with perfect clarity. He would be skinned, and skinned well. Gold first. Then deeds. Then favours stacked until the ledger balanced to the Minister's taste. He sat straighter and told himself that it would still be worth it. After all, he was keeping Draco... For now. The thought tasted dry as old parchment.
He smiled the thin Malfoy smile and waited to hear how deep the knife would go.
--
Corvus sat in the visitors' tier through the sitting and watched the benches learn. The Progressives still postured as if morals would save them. The Neutrals were already edging under Black colours. The Traditionalists had stopped pretending they were not there. None of it surprised him. The Minister's chair fit Arcturus too well. The old wolf was enjoying every moment of it.
Fudge's matter had been clean. No theatre beyond the chair. Veritaserum and a file full of accounts. The toad made everything clear as crystal. Arcturus did not let even Dumbledore to rule. As for Fudge, no friends left to stand and call for mercy. No vote to count. A simple fall.
When Lucius Malfoy settled and the chains coiled, Corvus smiled to himself. He wrote a short line on a neat slip and sent it by a clerk. Best to have daddy Malfoy out of that chair if the diary was to find the little Weaslet in due course. He was observing the effect of that strange power, that moved events towards their canon timeline. Let's see if it will work again, if not Blacks would visit Malfoys to make sure no feathers were ruffled to harshly. He couldn't help but chuckle at his own last thought. Clearly Arcturus had different ideas with that smile on his face. All teeth and no mercy at all.
--
Arcturus folded the note and turned his head.
"Lord Malfoy," he said, voice even. "We will begin by attending to St Mungo's needs. Charity after all calms the restless and the realm is in need of rest, would you not agree?" Lucius nodded, soulless. "Shall we call it ..one hundred thousand galleons. Payable today."
Lucius inhaled deeply as if struck by a burning dagger. He inclined his head. "The hospital will receive it within the day Minister."
"Good," said Arcturus. "The Ministry should not be forgotten as well. You hold two shops in Diagon Alley. Hopefully not essential to your household. You will place them in trust to the Ministry, in good faith of course, to be sold as to not 'hurt' your vaults deeply."
Lucius's lips trembled. Trying to shaped a courtly smile and failing miserably. "In good faith," he said. "As you wish."
"And there is the matter of penalty," Arcturus went on. "Fifty thousand galleons to the Treasury. Recorded as fine."
Lucius kept the failing smile. His knuckles whitened where the chain kissed his skin. "Of course," he said.
Arcturus looked to Amelia. "Proceed please."
Quills moved. The arm rings unlatched. The chains fell back against the iron with a dull sound. Lucius rose like a man who had left something important on the floor and did not dare bend to pick it up. He walked out without looking at anyone.
Another lesson set its hook. No one was safe in that chair. Not even the Lords who had thought themselves part of the fence rather than the field.
Lord Nott was brought in next. He did not have Malfoy's liquid gold. He had land. Old acres that ran close to Hogwarts, with hedges laid before living memory. He bled as Lucius had bled. He watched the Minister's face and tried not to swallow.
"Land will do," Arcturus said after checking the assets of House Nott. "The strip close to Hogsmeade and the parcels south of the road. Deed it to the Ministry today. You will serve one month in Azkaban. Consider it reflection."
Nott bowed his head once. "As you wish, Lord Black," he said. Neither Arcturus, Dumbledore, nor any of the lords and ladies in the chambers corrected him for addressing the minister. The chains fell away. The Aurors took his arms without force.
Across the benches, minds finished their sums. Rings tapped once and then went still. Clerks took whispered dictation for private ledgers. The lesson was simple. Do not sit in that chair while Arcturus Black holds the reins. Interim meant nothing. Title meant nothing. Keep disputes out of the chamber, settle accounts before the door, keep favours off parchment. Mercy had a tariff and house pride did not cover the fee.
Arcturus 'offered' to bring forth the Roiser Lordship issue before the trial of Sirius Black. The Chief Warlock's answer was calling a recess of thirty minutes. Robes lifted in haste. The air loosened. Clerks hurried to and from with files and tea.
Corvus watched the dais. After the break the Registrar would be called. The Rosier report would be read. He wondered if Albus would try a small game with a large face. It would be pleasant to take the crook nosed fart from that seat. Today, if he'll act on it or soon as he was sure Dumbledore could not sit and watch them dismantle everything he build in decades brick by brick.
Across the floor, Arcturus leaned back and allowed himself a thin smile.
--
Lucius left the chamber with a soul scraped thin. He could feel each galleon the Minister had taken. That sum had been the harvest of masked nights, profit counted in whispers and screams, fathers bent over children while a wand hovered with a cruciatus on hold, wives leveraged by fear. He told himself he had earned it. It was gone as if it had never warmed his vault. The shops too. Gone. He tasted iron and swallowed it.
Only one thought cooled the heat. Nott. The fool had little coin and old acres he got the same way he got those assets. The stubborn bastard did not sell them when asked, multiple times at that. The Minister would pluck them anyway. Lucius gave a dry laugh at the Apparition Point, set his jaw, and vanished on the spot.
Malfoy Manor knew the touch of its master and stirred the wards. Torches woke along the corridor with a soft breath. Narcissa met him in the entrance hall, pale and composed, a study in control.
"Lucius," she said. "Are you well."
"I was," he said, "before your grandfather bled me dry." His voice climbed without his leave. "He cost us one hundred and fifty thousand galleons and two shops in the Alley."
She straightened by a fraction. "And Fudge. And Nott."
"Fudge is finished," Lucius said. "Ten percent of all his assets left to the family. The rest, gone! He is on his way to Azkaban as we speak. And for Nott, I did not stay to see him peeled. The old acres will walk to the Treasury all the same. A lesson in charity, as the Minister calls it."
Narcissa's mouth did not move, but a clean satisfaction settled behind her eyes. She did not love this man. She did not pretend to herself that she did. Her father had bartered her to a hollow thing. The only mercy came from a neat French curse that had ended his potency in some 'delicate' areas after Draco was conceived. She thanked that nameless house each night. Malfoys had slipped out of France when the wind turned and had bought their way up in Britain, rung by rung. Wealth had made them noble. Today wealth had made him bleed. There was a poetic sence to it that pleased her.
"You are home and well, that is enough." she said in an even tone. "You will bathe. You need to relax."
His hands opened and closed. "Your grandfather sat there and smiled while the quills wrote," he said. "One hundred thousand to St Mungo's. Two deeds to the Ministry. Fifty thousand in fine. He called it mercy!"
Narcissa let the word hang in the air. Mercy had many shapes. Some were very old. "And you are still here instead of a boat to an island. Consider that mercy as well."
He turned away from her, then back, then away again, a man who could not find the wall that would hold him up. She stepped past him, light as a blade. "Dobby."
The elf appeared with fearful eyes and a bowed head. "Mistress."
"Prepare a bath for Lord Malfoy. The blue salts. Bring him tea after. Black. No sugar."
"Yes, Mistress." The elf vanished with a pop.
Narcissa turned back. "You will wash. You will sleep. You will not take actions while you are angry."
He drew breath to argue and saw that she would not yield him even that small victory. The anger slid and left him with the count of losses and the feel of the chain on his wrist. He thought of Draco and decided to listen to his wise wife, like every wise man should do*..
"Very well," he said. "See to the accounts. We will adjust."
"The accounts will be adjusted." Her eyes were cold.
He stood in the middle of the hall until the first heat ebbed. He told himself again that it would still be worth it.
Back in the chamber, robes settled as the recess ended. The Chief Warlock took the dais. The Minister resumed his place. Quills lifted.
"Next subject," Arcturus said, his voice clear.