Weak and Evil!Fudge and the missing wands (was: Re: Old Question

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 113481

> KathyK wrote:
> 
> Isn't it possible that Pettigrew made a quick stop somewhere and 
> stashed Voldemort's robes and wand before Sirius found him "next 
> day?"  So that the only extra stuff he could conceivebley have on 
> him is his own wand and maybe one extra set of bloody robes?  That's 
> the first thing I thought when JKR said Pettigrew had taken LV's 
> things.

Carol responds:
That's what I think, too. He hid LV's wand and robe and returned them
*much* later. They have nothing to do with the confrontation with
Sirius, which apparently occurred the next day.  
> 
KathyK wrote:
> I have not and will not ever concede Fudge a DE or DE sympathizer.  
> In his own way he's evil and in OoP he winds up helping a 
> resurrected Voldemort remain hidden for almost a year.  Something I 
> haven't given a lot of thought to but might consider is that in the 
> beginning, much like the Black family, Fudge thought Voldemort had 
> the right idea so far as issues of Wizarding blood go.  But he 
> worked for the Ministry.  I think he saw firsthand what Voldemort 
> and his Death Eaters were up to and concluded he ought to stay on 
> the Ministry's side, despite his prejudices.
> 
> Carolyn:
> 
> > I've always questioned how he could simultaneously blow a huge 
> hole in the ground and cut his finger off with his hands behind his 
> back. Mad Eye wasn't joking when he said to Harry: 'Better wizards
than you have lost buttocks, you know!'
> 
> KathyK (responding to Carolyn):
> 
> Hmm...Do you think it's possible he had time to blow up the street 
> and *then* cut off his finger before he transformed?  I mean, I 
> always pictured him chopping the finger off as he was yelling about 
> Sirius' betrayal.  But maybe it happened the other way around.  I'd 
> think he'd have to blow up the street pretty quickly before Sirius 
> killed him.  Either way, he had to cut off his finger pretty quickly 
> to make sure his plan worked the way it was intended--*Without* help 
> from Fudge. ;-)
> 
> KathyK, whose copy of PoA is beginning to fall apart :-(

Carol:

Unlike Carolyn, I *do* think that the same spell that blew off his
finger blew the street apart. (Sirius's account of the confrontation 
in PoA is extremely confused and mixed up with other things, but he
does say that Peter had his wand behind his back, which means that he
couldn't see what Peter was doing. We can't tell how many spells there
were or what the sequence was--only that *he* came after Peter, who
accused him of betraying the Potters. As for Fudge, he's doing what
we're doing, reconstructing the events based on partial evidence and
inaccurate witness accounts but with the assumption that Sirius is
guilty.) PP could have quickly unfastened his cloak (as opposed to
"robes") with a bloody hand as he transformed into a rat. That seems
more likely to me than a conspiracy involving Fudge, which requires
that PP not only knew exactly where and when Sirius would confront him
but that he had time to find Fudge and arrange for Fudge to be there.

Note that Fudge did not come alone. He was *one* of the first to
arrive, and Sirius was cornered by Hit Wizards while he was still
laughing madly (the same laugh we hear in the Shrieking Shack in PoA).
I *think* (though I find this incident thoroughly confusing) that
Sirius followed Pettigrew's scent to London immediately after giving
his motorbike to Hagrid and found PP in *Muggle London* soon
afterwards. What PP was doing there I can't say unless he was a
half-blood or a Muggleborn. It certainly seems like an odd place for a
staged or planned confrontation involving Cornelius Fudge. I assume
that Fudge or a more senior Ministry official detected magic in a
Muggle area and arrived on the spot for that reason. They must have
known that the damage was severe in terms of both property and lives,
or else when they saw the hole in the street and the dead Muggles
everywhere they had some means of summoning the Hit Wizards to subdue
the madman who had *apparently* cast the spell.

IMO, we can arrive at something like the truth by combining Fudge's
account with Sirius's, but there are still gaps to be filled. Stan
Shunpike's account, which seems to be the distorted version of Fudge's
that the WW as a whole believes can probably be discarded completely.

Carol, who is tired of conspiracy theories and ESE!everybody

Carol, who doesn't think that Fudge is evil, only weak and easily
manipulated