Return of the Fudge

A/N: Wrote the Sirius portion of this no longer "one-shot" and then this little bunny hit me. The concept: Fudge becomes the next Dark Lord, can you see the comedic value in that? He really can be quite an amusing figure.

Warning: more than a touch of gross out humor. Mundungus Fletcher brings out the child in me, I expect. The dirty, nasty child… Bad! Bad!! And Dudley Dursley brings out my cruelty. Uh oh! Never say I didn't warn you: "Pig in a Wig."

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Ten long years. No floating in a pool. No bulging bag of galleons for a weekly salary. No one bowing and scraping. No Weatherby to unlace his shoes and fetch his tea. No one bribing him and telling him how smart he was, how strong, how leader-like, how virile. He was tired of being a nobody; he needed the attention, the beautiful home, and all those delicious galleons. And a good house elf made meal. Oh yes, he needed a good meal.

He blinked a few times very rapidly. Tasty meat pies; delicious greasy sausages; Yorkshire pudding with more Yorkshire pudding. And suet, suet covered in Marmite. And potatoes cooked seven ways: mashed; deep fried and mashed; mashed and deep fried; chips; crisps; stuffed jacket potatoes; and raw. Yum! And blood pudding. And blood sausage. And head cheese. And treacle tart. And a tarty treacle. With triple servings of custard over everything. And no bloody greens: no peas, no broccoli, no beans, no cabbage, no celery, no lettuces, or anything else healthy. Meat, meat, meat, potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, meat, potatoes, and three kinds of dessert.

A proper meal after all these years. The best way to get into proper shape again.

Ten years before his release. They hadn't been kind. Dolores had been killed behind bars, Fudge heard, when she got lippy with a witch who was much smarter and stronger than her. Okay, it really could have been any witch in the prison, given those requirements; no one had ever been convicted for Dolores' killing. She had been loathed universally inside the prison: the warden, the guards, and all of the prisoners. Even the house elves.

It would make his plan harder to accomplish, of course, not having a ridiculously sycophantic chief henchtoad. But it was still possible.

Fudge had remained intact, mostly. Physically he only shook violently a few times a night. Mentally, he was still a bit shaky. He didn't like to think about what had happened to him on lonely nights when he was locked in a cell with an unrepentant, sexually curious mountain troll. Oh, the pain; oh, the horror.

No, he couldn't think of those things any longer. He shivered a bit and then moaned lightly.

No, bad Fudge. He scolded himself. Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts. Fudge was out now. He was out and he had a plan. To get the goblins, the EMU, the people who had never voted for him in an election, and the people who had done this to him: Sirius Black and Harry Potter.

Cornelius Fudge had spent his time in prison wisely and carefully, aside from the days and days he required to heal up after being victimized by his cell mate. Now that he was free, it was time to put his master plan into motion.

Operation: Becoming the Dark Overlord.

He had an unstoppable seventeen point plan:

Occupy a dark lair with an indoor pool and a nice view of the sea.

Learn the Killing Curse (or at least a respectable version of the Cutting Curse).

Gather followers, lots and lots of followers. Smart ones, too. Willing to work without wages a definite plus.

Find a new chief henchtoad, someone a touch smarter than Dolores and less smarmy and blonde than Lucius Malfoy.

Design a dark mark, a truly fearsome brand: perhaps a smiling monkey or a clown with red hair.

Get money (or hire someone who understands how to raise/steal money or at least convince someone to bribe you for some reason, the old reliable) in such a way as to anger the goblins: an amount large enough to shame Harry Potter.

Perform several illegal dark rituals to enhance the Fudge virility: he'd need a dark heir, of course.

Find a young, beautiful witch (pureblooded, of course) willing to bear his dark heir: or at least some Muggle date rape drugs to take care of any struggling.

Start a whisper campaign to let everyone know a new fearsome dark lord was coming.

Capture a pack of veela – because Potter and Black each had their own packs.

Destroy the Quidditch League, because Potter bought a team after he finished playing.

Capture Potter Manor. Turn it into a home for the werewolves he'd recruit.

Capture Black Manor. Turn it into a home for the fierce, fierce Cornish pixies he'd recruit.

Retake the Ministry of Magic and the EMU building in Brussels.

Name Fudge Emperor of Magical Britain and Grand Poobah of the EMU. And sit on golden thrones in the Ministry and in Brussels for everyone to watch and adore.

Hold elections every four weeks and force all witches and wizards to 'Vote Fudge' every time. Publish the results again and again.

Conquer the world.

It was foolproof. It was perfect. Not even Potter or Black could stand in his way.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Who knew it was this hard to find decent real estate close to the ocean? Fudge spent three months riding a moped he'd stolen from a grandmotherly type examining one beachfront property after another. Either they weren't dark enough, which sets a poor example to the followers, or they didn't have much of a view or, like most of the nearly perfect dark lair candidates, there was no pool. The pool was definitely a deal breaker. This Dark Overlord liked to float on his back during times of stress. Oh, yes, and he liked to eat bon-bons. Chocolate ones. Or chocolate with cinnamon or orange. Oh, yes, swimming pools and dark chocolate bon-bons.

It was a Thursday when he had a very bad day while searching for an appropriately grand, austere, terrifying, and luxurious dark lair. Fudge had been chased by dogs at three different estates. The last one had managed to maul off a good chunk of his left buttock before Fudge remembered he was a qualified wizard and could apparate.

It was sad, really, that Fudge had once headed the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes as he suddenly had a rather gruesome splinching. Now he was without both buttocks. And feeling more than a bit whoozy.

Blast, double blast. He'd left his moped behind and couldn't go back to get it until he healed up. So he gave up looking for the perfect dark lair. He just needed someplace to sleep off the effects of his splinching. Maybe his buttocks would grow back? Oh well, didn't matter, they were rather larger than they should have been.

Finally, with a sense of desperation, he settled on a cave, just outside Inverness, that was fifty feet from where he was standing. It didn't have a view or an indoor swimming pool, but it certainly was dark and dank.

Step one, complete. He passed out for three days while his body's weak store of magic attempted to heal his mostly self-inflicted wounds.

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Fudge looked again at the cute, stunned rabbit at his feet. He'd summoned it and stunned it with a good deal of difficulty. Now on to the next part of the lesson. "Avada Kedavra." Nothing happened. No green light; no dead bunny.

"Avada Kedavra," he said with a desperately pleasing voice. He wanted the spell to work, really he did. Plus he was hungry and thought he might be able to get a fire going so he could roast the rabbit. Cornelius didn't conjure food well, so he really had to fend for himself. Well, he could conjure marshmallows, but they were mostly air anyway. Not very filling, and he jumped around like a deranged tick for a good half hour because of all the sugar, too. He needed meat. Meat and potatoes and brown sauce and brown bread and tarty treacles and custard sauce, oh yes, and custard sauce.

He pointed his wand again. "Avada Kedavra." Nada. The pesky rabbit wouldn't die.

"Avada Kedavra." He shouted this time. He was mad.

"Avada Kedavra." Still nothing. Blast. Double blast!

"Avada Kedavra." Ah ha! He got some kind of a greenish looking wisp. It wasn't the Killing Curse, but it was something.

He kept shouting the curse away. Five more times he got the greenish mist, then it went away. Another five times, nothing. His wand felt dead in his own hand.

"Avada Kedavra." Nothing. Less than nothing.

Ah hell. It wasn't working. Time for the backup plan.

"Diffindo."

Yes: the Cutting Curse flew out of his wand. Excellent work. It was a moment later that Fudge realized his problem. He hadn't been aiming very closely. The rabbit was still stunned and alive. However, Fudge was now short three toes on his right foot. He promptly fell down and began screaming and cursing like Dolores had just sat on him. Not that she ever had or anything. Really. That was another thing never to be spoken of. Never!

The pain refocused his concentration back to his bleeding, mangled foot. He tried out the half dozen healing spells he knew, but nothing much seemed to work. Still, he had the important spell down. The Dark Overlord's much feared Cutting Curse. Even if he was losing blood and consciousness both at a rapid clip. Very impressive.

Step two, complete. His Cutting Curse was good enough to cut off his own limbs. (He'd already mentally struck off the desire to learn the Killing Curse; no point in it really.) Fudge promptly passed out and the healing magic within his body took four days to fully staunch the bleeding and scab everything over.

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A well bandaged Cornelius Fudge stalked through Knockturn Alley on a dark and spooky night. Every step was torture, but he did have a master plan to complete. Not only did his foot hurt him, but his ruined and absent buttocks made it nearly impossible to walk in a manner sufficiently dignified for a Dark Overlord. So he had to walk slowly, jerkily, and without muttering in pain. Not prudent and certainly not dignified.

He looked over all the beggars and layabouts he saw, all drunk, all sleeping noisily. None of them yet would make a good follower. Where did the slightly better class of ruffians and cutthroats hang out? Someone like Lucius but who worked at a cheaper price? Smart, vicious, but with less smarm?

Too bad really that Lucius was still in prison and would never get out unless it was as a ghost. Same for Rookwood, McNair, and all the others who had served the last Dark Lord. A pity. Fudge would have to start recruiting from scratch. He sighed.

Blast! Double blast! Who knew that being a Dark Overlord was quite this much work? It was dark out, he was cold, and he felt scared walking alone in Knockturn Alley even though he was a Dark Overlord.

He walked slowly and painfully through the Alley until he came across an obviously drunk man who kept exposing himself. 'At least this one is awake and upright,' Fudge thought.

"You. You, what's your name?"

"What's 'ta ya?"

"I want to know your name, you knave…"

"Dung, t'ey call ma Dung."

"I can certainly smell why, Mr. Dung." The disheveled, partially nude man just grunted in annoyance. "Well, you see, I am recruiting an army of dark followers so that I may retake my proper place in the world and the like…"

"Will thar ba lootin'?"

"Oh, yes, most certainly. Pillaging, general disorderliness, looting, forcible conquest, rowdiness, murder most foul, burglary, lying, and perhaps even some of the lesser forms of depravity, such as singing dirty songs and such…I haven't yet decided on that last bit, you know."

"Ima in." He muttered something about 'addin' great bleedin' buggery ter ta list.'

"Come along, Mr. Dung. We have more to recruit. And we have to find you a shower… And could you stop flashing me like that. It's quite revolting; boils the size of snitches, I say. You really should have that looked at. Pus should definitely not be that color. Or that quantity. Can't be hygienic."

"Feels betta when I flash 'im ina wind, ya know?"

"Keep them in your robes, Mr. Dung. We have standards of cleanliness, particularly since our Dark Lair doesn't have any running water and I seem to have forgotten the watering spell, you see… No, really, stop flashing that thing everywhere. Boils. Oh ho. I say, old Dung, is that gangrene?"

"Dun't use 't 'nuf, you see. Fallin' off, I spect."

"Revolting, Mr. Dung, positively revolting. We'll have to see if we can find a Healer who'll work for gratis… Maybe they can publish photos in some medical journal or something to help defray the costs. It certainly looks and smells, er, unique."

"Feels betta when Ima scratchin', ya know…"

"Will you stop that, Mr. Dung?"

Steps three and four, complete and with no loss of consciousness. Dung was now the first follower and chief henchtoad for the Dark Overlord Gnuiucfes. Excellent.

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"No, that's it, Mr. Dung," Cornelius shouted. "I will not infect all my followers with whatever kind of plague you seem to have and call that my mark. I won't have it, you see…"

"It's dead usefu', ya know? Makes it's own cheese, it does…"

Fudge screamed then. He pulled out his wand and shouted, "Diffindo." The weak spell just bounced off the shield Dung put up. The man was still holding his pestilential privates and managed to cast a shield. Fudge was revolted and impressed at the same time.

"Stop flashing it around. I can see the green puss even in this dark cave, you know. It's revolting on so many levels…"

"W'll, if thar's wot you really fink…" Dung drew out his wand and cast "Diffindo." Fudge didn't even know a basic shielding spell so the Cutting Curse parted Cornelius from another three of his toes.

"I did yer a favor, I did, guv. But I wan't be takin' na abuse, now werl I? No! Best ter be off, nah, righy-oh."

With that Cornelius lost his toes, his follower, his chief henchtoad, and his only reason for trying to think up a suitable dark mark. "Bugger it," Fudge said. "Don't need followers and I won't need a dark mark, even though a sleeping bunny is quite menacing."

Thus, he cancelled out steps three, four, and five of his master plan. And promptly passed out again.

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It wasn't fair. The goblins said that he wasn't a good credit risk – and that his plan for being a Dark Overlord was quite full of holes. Holes, Fudge thought. What holes? It was a perfect plan. He had a dark lair and a respectable version of the Cutting Curse. True, he'd lost his only follower and his need for a dark mark, but followers were overrated. They would just as likely mutiny as follow – now, wouldn't they? It was all working out perfectly.

But no, no one believed in the Dark Lord Gnuiucfes. The dwarves wouldn't invest and neither would the acromantulas. However, Fudge wasn't too broken up over the last one. The giant spiders seemed to consider broken skeletal remains to be a form of currency. Wouldn't be much use for a man in Fudge's position, now would it? How many dark mercenaries could he hire – or dark ritual ingredients purchase – with forty pounds of broken bones?

Bah! Where was he going to get money at this time of night? Well, he could try robbing something… Yes, yes, that was it. Robbery! He was a wizard. He could rob, rob, rob the Muggles until the cows came home.

So he worked through the night. Convenience stores, very good. He knocked off three. Late night food wagons, four of those made for a decent haul plus a nice falafel and some rather decent fish and chips. Then he made his mistake. He walked into Big Bubba Benson's All Night Shoppe and attempted to rob it. Two shotgun blasts, one splinching accident, and many, many girlish shrieks later, a bloody Cornelius Fudge returned to his dark, dank lair. When he woke up five days later, partially healed in and around his chest and right thigh, he decided that the night's work hadn't been worth nearly losing his life. The muggle money would only be worth forty-seven galleons, six sickles when converted.

Thus, he canceled step six. He'd go guerilla and operate without a budget. Who needed money when they had motivation, hmm? Then he'd impose a poll tax later on and force witches and wizards to pay for the privilege of 'Voting Fudge' every month for the rest of their lives. Two galleons per vote, a very decent price for paying homage to a great man, the Dark Overlord of Fudgeland.

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Cornelius was feeling quite out of sorts. He'd attempted to utilize numerous dark rituals to improve his completely dessicated libido. But come up dry. Limp as a limpet. Hanging loose like only a goose could. Completely and totally flaccid and then some.

Dark rituals took too long, for one. And were expensive as hell: required all sorts of rare, expensive ingredients, like a dozen freshly harvested erumpent testicles and dragon semen and narwhal urine and such disgusting things. And they, unfairly, Cornelius thought, required an all too demanding standard of magical knowledge and ability. Cornelius had passed three NEWTs with an 'A': History of Magic, Herbology, and Astronomy. And three NEWTs was the absolute minimum required for a career at the Ministry, so that's what Fudge had done. He didn't even have OWLs in Transfiguration or Defense and only an 'A' in Charms at the OWL level. He was quite nearly useless when it came to wand work. But he wasn't admitting it publicly, no sir.

But the biggest problem was something else entirely. The rituals he'd heard about sounded like they were enormously painful. Pluck out your own eye and eat it sort of pain; set yourself on fire with kerosene and a Muggle match sort of pain. Long lasting irreversible pain. So Fudge scrubbed that idea. Oh yes, good food is welcome, but never pain.

So now he was turning to the muggle methods: no time delay, fairly inexpensive, and little to no pain (for Fudge at least). He needed things things called Viagra and Rohypnol. Just the things to give the old soldier a little bit of lead – and to keep the counterattack at bay from whatever lucky pureblooded witch Fudge selected without her consent. Now, according to his memory, there was only one reliable source in the wizarding world for such Muggle oddities: the famous Mundungus Fletcher, barterer in all illicit goods. Hopefully the old smuggler was still operating; ten years was a long time to still be operating illegal businesses.

But, he kept his ears open and discovered that this Mundungus Fletcher was still operating. So the Dark Overlord Gnuiucfes made his way to where this Mundungus made his office: the furthest, dirtiest, smallest back room at the Hogs Head in Hogsmeade.

Fudge pushed his way through the narrow corridor and wound up stopped in front of a massive bruiser of a man.

"Let me through, you peasant."

"No one sees da boss unless'n I's be introducing 'em, you see?"

"Well, then, inform your boss that the Dark Overlord Gnuiucfes is here to transact some business. Be quick about it, my dear sir, unless you wish to feel my wand severing your hand or some such pleasantry…"

"Gnuiucfes, huh? Never 'eard of tha' un, you see. What's it mean, then?"

"Mean?"

The massive wizard just shook his head. "Like Voldemort meanin' 'flight from death,' you see, symbolizin' his fear o' death, you see. So w'at you's name be a-meanin' then, eh?"

Fudge wasn't aware that Voldemort meant anything. So he made up a meaning for his pseudonym.

"You simpleton, it means the 'death of the ordinary.'"

"I dun't ged it. What language it mean it in, then?"

"Language?"

"Not French, you see, or Latin. Learnt them up w'en I was a bogey-nosed tot. So what language you usin' then?"

"Er, Sankrit."

"Got it. Going for the olden days, getting' medieval on everyone's ass, very tricksy, I say."

Fudge let out a sigh of relief. How was he to know that Dark Overlords had to have names that meant something? It was hard enough with the anagrams, you see. Cornelius Vkroard Fudge didn't lend itself to many palatable names: the Dark Overlord Gnuiucfes was the best he could do.

"I'd just be seein' if the boss is up to bidness 'ssociates, then, right?"

The massive bruiser stepped through the doorway and then reappeared. "Get inside, then, you hear?"

Fudge let himself get pushed inside. And then he saw this famous Mundungus Fletcher, the same flaxen, greasy haired man he'd recruited to be his first follower. The stench of his skin disease filled the small room and the man was obviously fondling himself underneath the table.

"Dung. You're the famous smuggler Mundungus Fletcher?"

"Oh, it's yer again, Mr. Dark Overlord Huffl'puff. What a pile of tosh, I'd say." Here he groped himself rather fiercely and the foul smell in the small room increased dramatically.

"I did come to transact some business with you…"

"Bidness. Wid ya? I may be vile, but I aren't dumb, Huffl'puff. Yer dun't got ter money ter talk wid me, your Rancidness…"

Fudge was just about to lay in and defend himself from this character assassination when the bruiser stepped back inside the room. For the briefest moment, the smell seemed to relent a bit. Then it was just as bad as ever: mustiness, decay, and foulness with acrid undertones and the smell of dying tissues.

"Got merself Jeremy to keep idgits like yerself out of my hair, dun't ya know? Yer been promisin' plunder and lootin' and I got tosh for it, yer great bloody wanker. Get yer great arse out of my sight, you bleedin' poncy fanny."

Fudge erupted out of the room after the lesson in colloquial swearing. He tugged up robes and tried not to trip as he fled the place. Hmm, maybe spawning a dark heir and functioning reproductive system weren't all that important in the grand scheme of things. He could adopt or something. Or, to be more evil, he could just steal an appropriately promising child. Yes, an evil looking child, someone who seemed powerful and intimidating. A proper dark heir to a Dark Overlord. Yes, jolly good, a revision to the plan!

Steps seven and eight, 'revised' and promptly forgotten. At least he was still conscious, even if his ears were still ringing a bit and his face a bit flushed in embarrassment. It really was hard, perilous work being a Dark Overlord.

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Starting a whisper campaign was also harder than Fudge had expected. He'd told a dozen people over the last two days about the powerful new Dark Overlord coming down the pipeline.

The common response: "Well, if he's so blooming powerful, what's he done and why haven't I heard of him?"

Fudge, unfortunately, didn't have a great answer for that. He tried out a few mediocre ones, though.

"He killed the Giant Squid in the Black Lake for laughs, you see."

"He ran off and exhausted an entire pack of veela, didn't you hear? Great stamina and prowess. Make them beg for a reprieve."

"He broke into Azkaban and leveled the place. Ministry's hushing it up."

"He put Minister Scrimgeour under the Imperius and has him training a pet monkey and a cute bunny rabbit on the weekends. Ah, yes, and killing Muggles on the week days, yes, that's right."

"He kills a dozen Muggles a day and drinks their blood. Says it's to keep off the extra weight, you know. Lots of fancy dress parties to attend when one is a Dark Overlord; lots and lots of too-rich food."

"He split his soul a dozen different ways and gave the horcruxes out as party favors after a Girl Scout gathering. No one will ever find them all; no one! The devious Girl Scouts hid every last one."

"He ate Albus Dumbledore's liver with some fava beans, manchego cheese, shiitake mushrooms, and a nice Amarone. And he burned the rest on a massive bonfire. For kicks."

"He summoned a demon from the underworld just so he could play gobstones with it. And he won, you know. Really quite a genius with the gobstones."

"He ate unpasteurized cheese from France and lived to tell the tale."

Only the one about the unpasteurized cheese had any credibility. And it wasn't even that daring or impressive.

Cornelius' problem is that he told the one about the veela pack getting ravished by this dark overlord whose-it to a stunning beautiful blonde girl. In the seconds it took for Fudge to figure out what was going on, the blonde girl had turned into a massive bird and claws and fireballs were heading his way.

He apparated away but managed to splinch again, leaving a good chunk of his forearm back with the veela. His healing spells were worthless, so he passed out again, this time for a full week.

Steps nine and ten fell. He couldn't even defend himself against a single veela, let alone an entire amorously aroused pack. It was all a blooming failure, he realized in his pained dreams. He was beginning to have second thoughts.

He'd lost more than half his toes, he was living in a dark, dank cave, he had no followers or even a dark mark to his credit, he wasn't able to copulate or produce a dark heir, and he couldn't even start a decent whisper campaign because he had no great exploits to trumpet. Could he be wrong? Could this all be a tremendous mistake?

No, of course not, he realized when he awoke. Fudge was never wrong. The master plan was a stroke of genius. Potter and Black would never be able to defend against it.

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Fudge apparated to the stadium that Harry Potter owned in the Quidditch League: Puddlemere United, the team he'd flown for during six straight winning seasons and two Quidditch World Cups. He was going to start his reign of terror here, today, with this very structure. He'd level it to the ground and then urinate all over the cinders and laugh in his best evil voice.

Oh, it would be wonderful.

But, first, how to get inside. The wards were near impregnable, but, ah, Cornelius saw an opening. Damn, blast and double blast. It had a long line leading up to it and a half dozen security trolls standing nearby. It was the ticket line, the only vulnerability in the wards.

Thus, Cornelius Fudge, better unknown as the Dark Overlord Gnuiucfes, got into the ticket line. He'd contribute a handful of galleons to the evil Potter and then burn his stadium down, hopefully causing all the spectators to trample each other, creating a wonderful gore bath and a very nice story for his Dark Overlord Scrapbook. Pictures and true stories were very important, Cornelius now knew, for starting whisper campaigns. Soon this Dark Lord would be able to claim the destruction of the Quidditch League! A wonderfully evil achievement in anyone's mind.

He waited in line for twenty minutes before he confronted the bored looking grandmother manning the ticket booth.

"Ticket is sixty-three galleons. They're playing the Vrasta Vultures, you know…"

Fudge frowned. His budget didn't have that kind of flexibility. He quickly totaled up his assets, not much changed since his earlier robbery attempts (especially given that he was mostly unconscious since then).

"I have forty-seven galleons, one sickle will that get me in the gate?"

The lady looked up in surprise. "Sorry!" Then she pointed at the next in line and shouted, "Next!"

But Fudge didn't move. He really needed to get inside and burn the stadium down. Really!

So he drew out his wand and prepared to blast away with his Cutting Curse. Only before the words came out of his mouth, he found a security troll's club had taken off the first three inches of his weeping willow and flobberworm snot core wand. The troll's second clubbing action broke Fudge's arm bones into six distinct fragments.

He remembered again that he was a wizard, fully qualified, and was permitted to do magic, such as apparition. So he apparated away with his broken wand and shattered arm before he could sustain even more damage to his precious person.

Another step incomplete, damn it was painful and expensive being a Dark Overlord. He passed out just as those words crossed his mind. This time he remained in a tepid healing coma for two weeks. All of this unconsciousness was keeping down the food bills at least.

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Right, moving on. Fudge did not dwell in the past, or on past failures, or in the dark, lonely, all-too-frequent nights when that amoral, sexually curious troll slaked his lusts upon his cell mate… No, Fudge did not dwell but he did moan for just a moment. Moving forward: destroy or capture Potter Manor. Now where had Dolores sent those Dementors all those years ago? Ah, yes, Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging.

Right! On to Potter Manor.

He had given up his old, broken wand as a bad job and had taken to using a twig he'd found in the forest outside his cave. It was some kind of dark semi-rotted wood and he'd applied a copious amount of some kind of animal feces to it. It seemed to work as well as his old wand.

He apparated into Little Whinging and wandered around for a few hours until he discovered Privet Drive. Damn if all these houses didn't look identical. Were all Muggles this destitute of imagination? At least Xeno Lovegood's place looked different from Arthur Weasley's. When he went to conquer those two, it would be easy to tell them apart. It's best to know whom one is destroying, Fudge decided. Plus, the red hair was sort of a giveaway for the Weasley clan.

He found Number 4 rather quickly and started to plot. He tried casting a Fire spell at the residence, but it just made some grass smolder. Then he tried a Bludgeoning Hex. It chipped off some paint.

"Ruddy British houses, tough as nails," Fudge said. He tried a color-changing jinx and that did nothing, then a Cutting Curse at one of the windows. It made a minute crack in one of the windows.

"Blast, double blast. Blast it all to Hades!"

He picked up a small stone and hucked it at the almost imperceptibly damaged window. But, of course, his aim was very poor.

It flew, instead, right inside the opened window to one of the rooms Dudley Dursley had commandeered for himself in the basement. Which caused a rather fascinating chain of events to occur.

But first, some background on perhaps the only person as pathetic as Cornelius Fudge in our sad story. Dudley Dursley had been fired from a surprising number of legitimate jobs in his few years of semi-adult life: Grunnings, a position his father had arranged for him after failing out of Smeltings, for stealing twenty-seven drill presses and abandoning them in an alleyway, an action which brought Vernon's massive expense account padding into question and also lost him his job; from Sainsbury's, where Dudley kept on feeling up one of the eighty-three year old assistants, claiming her body was 'smashing' and 'very, very tempting'; from Marks and Spencer, where he managed to punch out three different customers in a thirty-four minute period on his second day of employment; from Debenhams, where he got into a shouting match with his supervisor two weeks into his job, repeatedly calling the poor woman a 'freak' and a 'bloody, effing monster' more than three dozen times; from WH Smith, when a customer asked if he could recommend a book to her, "A book,' he'd screamed, "I've never read a freakish, poncy little book in my life, you great bull dyke."

Then he'd turned back to familiar territory: living in his parent's house (the basement) and roughing people up for their pocket change. But he'd chosen a few of his victims poorly. Dudley had been stabbed twice, been beaned with bricks, logs, stones, and a cement garden gnome, lost his right hand 'piggy' pinky finger to an angry reprisal, been struck by a lorry and knocked to the ground, and had a scar on his face that stretched from scalp down to his jaw from a bigger, more successful bully on the next subdivision. A failure at petty assault and stick-up work, he'd turned to drug resale and manufacturing. In point of fact, he'd set up a small crystal methamphetamine laboratory in his parents' own basement.

Thus the small rock Cornelius threw accidentally through the window hit a mostly empty tin of chocolate biscuits on Dudley's makeshift workbench. That tin skidded a few inches and knocked over a flask of flammable chemicals. The flask hit the floor and rolled over to where Dudley kept his personal-use drug paraphernalia. The few drops of flammable materials still present on the flask reacted very poorly to some of the residues on the bong and the glass device shattered into a few hundred pieces. One of them managed to fly up and stab one of the soft plastic keys on Dudley's half-demolished stereo, which turned on at full volume. The profoundly moving bass line to the song currently playing managed to knock over a half dozen trinkets he'd stolen from small children in the neighborhood, including one tin soldier that plunked off a shelf and fell into a cup half filled with orange soda. The soda and the tin solider began a rather interesting chemical reaction that had orange goo flowing down the front of a television set. That nearly short circuited the device out and resulted in the television turning back on while the DVD player continued to loop Dudley's favorite piece of bestiality porn, where he himself made his debut as "The Original Pig in a Wig" who had the responsibility for rutting with a real live pig on camera for seventeen minutes. The DVD had sold a grand total of seven copies worldwide. The television suddenly fell over and landed on the carpeted floor. The orange liquid goo interacted strangely and before one could say "Quidditch" there was a small fire started on the floor of Dudley's porn theatre/music hall/meth lab.

The fire gradually gained in strength. And then a small tendril of it connected with the chemicals that had been knocked off Dudley's workbench. That ignited quickly and violently. A trail of flames licked back up Dudley's workbench. And quickly the whole table was alight. Cans and flasks of various noxious chemicals began exploding.

Standing forty feet away, Cornelius was amazed to see the basement lighting up because he'd thrown a stone accidentally through a window. His wand hadn't done a damn thing, but a stone did. Yes! This part of the plan had been an absolute success. Potter Manor would burn to the ground in a matter of minutes. The Dark Overlord Gnuiucfes was on his way to greatness, acclaim, perpetually rigged elections where he was always guaranteed to win with ninety-nine point three percent of the vote. A little dissent went a long way in the future nation of Fudgeland.

As he was already congratulating himself on his victory as a Dark Overlord, the Dursley house exploded into a few hundred thousand shards. The rather potent blend of chemicals Dudley kept on hand for his nefarious activities went up in a massive conflagration. Dudley's room was vaporized. Even his toilet managed to explode, which was rather unfortunate for Cornelius Fudge.

You see, the toilet seat flew out of the ruins of the house with a speed and pitch that had it on a dead accurate trajectory for Cornelius Fudge's bulging neckline. It was also unfortunate that Cornelius had not been knocked down by the blast or had not chosen to run away from the situation. No, he had fully intended to watch the house burn to the ground. If anything, he was stunned into place when it exploded.

That was how it came to pass that Cornelius Fudge died that day when Dudley Dursley's oversized, triple steel reinforced toilet seat decapitated his rather pleased head from his rather battered body. Less than half the proper number of toes, no buttocks, and many other self-inflicted wounds.

Thus, Cornelius Fudge died believing he'd accomplished step number twelve in his master plan. When in truth, he hadn't even located Potter Manor, just a hated home from Harry Potter's childhood. He wound up being the only victim, as the Dursleys were visiting a demented Marge Dursley in a Muggle sanitarium, and Fudge's remains were never identified by the Muggle authorities. He was buried in a Potter's field under total and everlasting obscurity. The Dark Overlord Gnuiucfes, indeed.

Fitting really.

The moral of the story? Never throw stones at meth labs! Oh, and don't attempt to become Dark Overlord Hufflepuffs. It never works. And, finally, if you attempt to attack Harry Potter, even if he never notices you, you'll still get your just desserts.

THE END (of a rather psychotic story)