Fudge, the prophecy and Harry's expulsion

[Derek Thorburn]

No: HPFGUIDX 130823

I have been reading with great interest the post regarding Fudge, the 
prophecy and Harry's expulsion.  In the first book, Hagrid, whilst answering 
the many questions Harry was asking, told him of Fudge's election as 
Minister.  Unfortunately, I will need to rely on memory from the audiobooks, 
as I can't see, but from what I gather, Hagrid seemed to infer that Fudge 
wasn't any good as Minister and was continually asking Dumbledore's advice 
as to what to do.  The way I see it, as far as Fudge was concerned, Harry 
had broken the law and, as he looked on LV's return as a story told by some 
deluded old fogey, he chose to look at the dementors' attack in the same 
light.  To me, Fudge seems to be a man who acts before he thinks and we must 
also remember that he was in ignorance that Umbridge was unworthy of his 
trust.  If he had only made inquiries as to whether two dementors had 
deserted their posts on the evening of 2nd August, he could then have got 
the ministry together, possibly with someone present who was able to sense 
whether or not everyone was telling the truth.

Derek