The Intelligent Potter

*** The Minister's Home

Cornelius Fudge lay back into his hot tub and relaxed for the first time that week.

Merlin's Beard, what a week it had been!

Fudge had never resented his position as Minister quite as much as he did at that moment.

Not only was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named back, the ICW were on his a.s.s 24/7.

There were 24 aurors outside his house at this very moment, protecting him from any kind of attack. Additionally, there were supposed to be 6 more aurors guarding him inside his own house, but Fudge had slipped them a gold galleon each and sent them home.

He had to have some down-time after all. It was impossible to relax in one's hot tub in quite the same way with 6 burly men standing guard around it and waving their wands around.

Cornelius Fudge had never been a wartime Minister, he had taken over the job directly from Millicent Bagnold, who had been in power during the majority of the reign of Voldemort. During said reign, he had been rising through the ranks of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.

Fortunately for him at the time, not high enough through the ranks to ever be noticed by the Dark Lord, living in fear of Death Eaters but no more so than the next Magical British citizen.

If he had been Minister during the earlier reign of Voldemort, or indeed in any position of power that would put him in the Dark Lord's notice, he would not have been sending away security the previous hour.

He would have been on his knees, begging Amelia Bones for more aurors to protect his sorry behind.

Alas, he had not been in such power, and had no such experience, and thus was presently lounging in his bath tub with no auror detail on his person, relying entirely on his paltry wards and the 24 aurors stationed outside his house.

Cornelius closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath, basking in the relaxation of the moment.

Cornelius' relaxation was broken by the sound of a few muted thumps from outside his house.

With barely veiled annoyance, Cornelius cursed the stupid aurors, who had no doubt succ.u.mbed to boredom and were engaging in some form of childish horseplay to pass the time.

'Well,' Cornelius thought, 'They shall not be interrupting me this night!' and with a triumphant flick of his wand, muted sounds from outside with a whispered spell.

It didn't quite work but muted the already soft sounds enough that the spell, along with the copious amount of earwax in Cornelius' ears managed to block out the sound enough for the foolish man to ignore them entirely.

Outside the house, a majority Cornelius' auror detail lay in various stages of lifelessness and injury, scattered across the floor, some more gruesomely than others.

The Death Eaters themselves had suffered 3 casualties at the hands of valiant aurors until the Dark Lord himself deigned it time to enter the battle himself, effectively ending it right there and then.

The head of the auror guard, Bromophenol Blue, just about managed to avoid the first overwhelming wave of darkness which the Dark Lord sent his way with a careless flick of his wrist.

Bromophenol sent rubble rocketing at Voldemort, hoping to distract the Dark Lord for just a split second.

He fumbled inside his coat, finding the small blue stone given to him by Babajide Akingbade, to squeeze in times of need.

Bromophenol squeezed the stone desperately as Voldemort seemed to simply walk through the hail of debris coming his way, the debris that came close to hitting the monstrosity of a man seemed to turn to dust just before they could hit him.

Thankfully, Bromophenol noted, the Dark Lord seemed to be simply playing with him, the crazed look on his face resembling a child with a favorite toy more than a Dark Lord hell-bent on killing him.

As he squeezed the stone, it seemed to project a hologram-like image of Babajide upwards.

At the moment, the Nigerian man seemed to be sleeping, his eyes closed.

"Akingbade!" Bromophenol yelled.

Babajide seemed to awaken in a single instant, taking in the situation immediately, "Brom, where are you?" he said quickly, already getting up, picking up a dragon-hide protective cloak and shrugging it on over his nightie, his wand sliding out of a holster on his arm.

"The Minister's house," Bromophenol said quickly, opening his mouth to speak again, only to be blown away by a gust of wind.

Bromophenol got to his feet in a roll, groaning at the several broken ribs, only to find himself face-to-face with Voldemort, who he could have sworn was several feet away but had dissolved into being right in front of him, in a way quite unlike regular apparition.

"Boo." The Dark Lord said mirthlessly, the first words he had spoken that night, in a raspy voice.

Before his brain could fully comprehend the terror of being face to face with Voldemort himself, it found itself along with the rest of his head several metres away from the rest of Bromophenol's body.

Voldemort giggled.

Three loud cracks behind him forced Voldemort to turn around, only to meet several spells to the face.

Voldemort dissolved into shadows, appearing behind his 3 assailants.

The Dark Lord identified his attackers as 3 of the 4 members of the ICW inspection team.

Babajide Akingbade, Cyril Cosmos, and Anu Iyer faced him defiantly.

"Baba, what happened here?" Anu muttered, surveying the bodies of the auror detail with barely veiled horror.

Babajide himself seemed to be looking for someone.

The eyes of the Nigerian wizard finally came to lay upon the severed head of Bromophenol Blue.

His eyes cloudy with rage, Babajide attacked the Dark Lord with ruthless abandon.

Cyril and Anu could only watch as their leader charged Voldemort.

The duel that followed was truly fierce.

The Minister's house was located well outside of muggle-inhabited areas, and it had muggle repelling wards for a mile around, there was a wizarding village not too far away but for his own safety and peace, the Minister was a fair distance away from the village.

The open terrain allowed Voldemort to truly release his magical power, unlike he could without risking buildings collapsing on himself in most other scenarios.

A wave of darkness lifted the Dark Lord up and he rode it, hurtling towards Babajide.

With a swish of his wand, he pierced the wave of darkness with a beam of light, forcing Voldemort to freefall towards the ground, catching himself in a net of darkness which released him onto the ground, almost on Babajide himself.

The two wizards raised their wands simultaneously, their wands at each other's noses at the same time, both their mouths opening to speak an incantation.

*** End of Chapter