FUDGE IS A DE!!!!

[KathyK]

No: HPFGUIDX 78874

Fran: 
>And how did Nagini, at least I am assuming LV still has Nagini get 
into the MOM, and down to the Dept of Mysteries the night she bit 
Arthur Weasley.
And think about Harry's year at Hogwarts, all along it seems like 
Umbridge is trying to get rid of him either by making him so angry, 
or getting him expelled.  Harry would be alot easier to get to if he 
were away from Hogwarts<

KathyK:

Harry doesn't need Umbridge's help to make him angry.  But I do agree 
that she is doing everything she can to discredit and get rid of 
Harry.  But I don't think she's doing it because she is helping out 
Lord Voldemort.  She can be awful and evil all on her own without his 
help.  

Picture this:  Fudge returns from Hogwarts after the disastrous 
Triwizard Tournament.  He's got a trail of bodies ending with a dead 
student, a soulless presumed dead Death Eater, and the most powerful 
wizard in the world telling him the other most powerful but evil 
wizard in the world has returned after about 14 years.

The prospect of a returned Voldemort is more than he can handle.  
Just the news that he'd returned would mean utter chaos, and probably 
the end of his own career.  How could he allow Voldemort to return?

So Fudge absolutely refuses to take the idea seriously.  Instead he 
turns to the lesser of two evils:  Dumbledore.  He knows Dumbledore 
is strong and influential.  If Dumbledore starts spreading these 
completely unfounded rumors, Fudge is done for.  So he needs to work 
fast to discredit him.  

He tells his loyal employees that Dumbledore is telling everyone that 
You-Know-Who is back.  Why?  Because Dumbledore is tired of just 
having Hogwarts.  He wants the rest of the WW under his control as 
well.  Not a difficult idea to swallow for a group of power-loving 
officials interested in keeping their jobs.  They know what the mere 
idea of Voldemort's return would mean.  

So they begin their campaign to discredit Dumbledore and Harry.  They 
use the Daily Prophet to spread the idea that Harry is an attention-
starved lunatic.  They make sure the Prophet doesn't run anything 
about Voldemort's supposed return.  They demote Dumbledore in the 
Wizengamot for not keeping his mouth shut.

Then we have Dolores Umbridge, loyal and ruthless Ministry employee.  
She can see the attempts are not enough.  So she does something so 
heinous she dare not even tell Fudge she's done it:  Send Dementors 
after Harry.  

It's my belief that she does this with the intent of getting rid of 
Harry not by getting him to use illegal magic, but by letting the 
Dementors suck his soul.  That would stop his lie spreading.  She 
failed because Harry knew how to conjure a Patronus.  

The Ministry gets their next shot at Harry at his hearing.  Again 
they fail to discredit him and remove him from the WW where he can't 
spread his phony stories anymore.

So Fudge gets Umbridge to be the new DADA so she can watch Dumbledore 
and Harry very closely, as well as work on squelching the notion that 
Voldemort is back.  So we've got that awful quill, where I think 
Umbridge truly believed Harry was lying so she tried to drive the 
message home to him that his stories would not be tolerated.

We've also got all her miserable decrees which I think were a 
combination of trying to keep Hogwarts IN LINE with the Ministry and 
to squelch any Voldemort rumors.  I don't think she was aiming 
directly at getting rid of Harry, but it always turned out that way 
because Harry was always ready and willing to fight against 
everything she did and stood for.  

Umbridge is a horrible, nasty woman.  She clearly hates Harry and 
Dumbledore as well as half-breeds and rule-breakers.  But like Fudge, 
she is not a Death Eater.  She likes her position and authority, like 
Fudge.  She, probably because of what Fudge has told her, sees 
Dumbledore and his "false" reports of Voldemort's return as dangerous 
to her position as well as to the Wizarding World.

She and Fudge both unwittingly helped Voldemort by keeping his return 
quiet.  But they didn't do this because they are his followers, they 
did this to ensure their own careers were safe.  They don't have to 
be Death Eaters to be Evil.

I hope that made sense,

Kathy "Not everyone has to be a Death Eater" K