Chapter 161: Followers (1/2)

”How many places exactly we're talking about?” Chris asked.

”France, Brazil, America, Romania, Russia... start counting.” Leyla said. ”He was all over the world. Now it's really difficult to retrace his tracks.”

”So you're trying to stop him getting more followers?”

”We're doing our best,” said Lupin.

”How?” Harry asked.

”Well, the main thing is to try and convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who really has returned, to put them on their guard,” said Bill. ”It's proving tricky, though.”

”Because of the Ministry's attitude,” said Tonks. ”You saw Cornelius Fudge after You-Know-Who came back. Well, he hasn't shifted his position at all. He's absolutely refusing to believe it's happened.”

”But why?” said Harry desperately. ”Why's he being so stupid? If Dumbledore —”

”Ah, well, you've put your finger on the problem,” said Mr. Weasley with a wry smile. ”Dumbledore.”

”Fudge is frightened of him, you see,” said Tonks sadly.

”Thought so. What's he thinking by the way? That Dumbledore wants to throw him from his position?” Chris said.

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”Exactly.” Bill said. ”Fudge thinks Dumbledore wants to be Minister of Magic.”

”Rubbish.” Harry said.

”Of course it is,” said Mr. Weasley. ”Dumbledore never wanted the Minister's job, even though a lot of people wanted him to take it when Millicent Bagnold retired. Fudge came to power instead, but he's never quite forgotten how much popular support Dumbledore had, even though Dumbledore never applied for the job.”

”Deep down, Fudge knows Dumbledore's much cleverer than he is, a much more powerful wizard, and in the early days of his Ministry he was forever asking Dumbledore for help and advice,” said Lupin. ”But it seems that he's become fond of power now, and much more confident. He loves being Minister of Magic, and he's managed to convince himself that he's the clever one and Dumbledore's simply stirring up trouble for the sake of it.”

”So he thinks we're all making it all up?” Harry said angrily. ”We're lying? Dumbledore is lying?”

”Yep.” Chris sighed. ”I guess that's what he thinks. Idiot.”

”You see the problem,” said Lupin. ”While the Ministry insists there is nothing to fear from Voldemort, it's hard to convince people he's back, especially as they really don't want to believe it in the first place, let alone the fact there's someone stronger is with him now. What's more, the Ministry's leaning heavily on the Daily Prophet not to report any of what they're calling Dumbledore's rumor-mongering, so most of the Wizarding community are completely unaware anything's happened, and that makes them easy targets for the Death Eaters if they're using the Imperius Curse.”

”But we can't openly oppose Ministry, you see.” Tonks said.

”What about the other Ministries?” Chris asked. ”I mean if Malgino is calling his followers from all over the world then the other Ministers must have noticed this.”

”He is.” Aurelia said to Chris, smiling a little. ”But they're well-practiced at operating in secrecy. The other Ministers had suspicions but they quickly cleared that up in many ways. Everyone thinks everything is going normal and smoothly, no need to worry and that's why IWSP needed to step in.”

”IWSP?”

”It's a secretive community of some wizards and witches, who help to protect the Wizarding World from this kind of dangers. You know, dangers like Malgino, who will involve the entire wizarding world for his plan of world domination.” Aurelia said. ”I work in IWSP.”

”So is this IWSP, works for any particular Ministry or country?” Hermione asked.

”No. We work separately. Maybe we help few Ministries, sometimes, when things go out of their hands, but otherwise no, we don't take orders from them.” Aurelia said. ”When we observed bunch of people from all over the world are disappearing, we went down to investigate. IWSP authorities don't like the power hungry Ministers like Fudge, so when it was Fudge's words against Dumbledore's, our decision was clear. I was sent by the IWSP with some other wizards to meet Dumbledore. We talked, Dumbledore explained the situation to us, and that's it. Now IWSP is working all over the world against Malgino, and gladly, I'm staying with the Order of the Phoenix.”