Fudge sat in his spacious office, the curtains drawn so tightly that he dared not leave even a sliver of a gap.
"As long as I don't say anything," Fudge told himself, "they'll disperse."
"Yes, that's exactly what will happen. People are always forgetful. In a couple of days, they'll turn their attention to something else, like a Quidditch match, or the latest sweets from Honeydukes..."
Fudge wisely chose the response he was best at: playing dead.
No matter how much of an uproar there was outside, he refused to appear or issue any statement.
He believed that giving things the silent treatment was a politician's best friend. Time could dull everything, including fear and anger.
Unfortunately, things did not go his way. Fudge's little scheme fell through, and the crowd outside the Ministry of Magic grew larger by the day.
From the corridor outside, his assistant quietly slipped in a note every other day, and the numbers on them kept growing.
That morning, the number of people gathered outside the Ministry Atrium had already exceeded two hundred.
Fudge crumpled the stack of notes into a ball and tossed it into the wastepaper basket.
"I'm not going out," he told the Auror at the door irritably. "I'm dealing with urgent business and cannot make an appearance for now."
The Auror nodded hesitantly and left without asking any more questions.
Fudge paced back and forth across his office. As he passed the window, he pulled back a corner of the curtain slightly and glanced down.
The hall was a solid mass of people holding placards and waving newspapers. Their clamoring was so loud that the staff could not even work.
Fudge pulled the curtain shut, quickly grabbed a bottle of Calming Draught, and gulped it down, but his irritation did not diminish in the slightest.
"Calm down, calm down." He took a deep breath and tapped his head, admonishing himself. "Think. If Dumbledore were facing this situation, what would he do?"
"...Dumbledore, Dumbledore, Dumbledore..."
The name flashed through Fudge's muddled mind like a bolt of lightning.
He stopped in his tracks as inspiration struck, and a brilliant idea took shape in his mind.
The idea was so simple and effective that he almost wanted to applaud himself.
"Rita Skeeter," he murmured, a barely perceptible smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.
That same morning, at Rita Skeeter's home.
A grayish-brown owl fluttered onto the windowsill, a heavy cloth bag and a roll of parchment tied to its leg.
Rita looked up from her desk, set down her quill, and walked over to remove the cloth bag and envelope.
The mouth of the bag had not been sealed shut. She pulled it open a crack and peered inside, her eyes instantly lighting up.
A whole bag full of Galleons!
She hurriedly set the bag on the desk and unrolled the parchment:
"Dear Ms. Skeeter, I greatly admired your previous report on Harry Potter."
"The wizarding world is currently undergoing a storm, and I believe you know better than anyone what sort of article will truly capture everyone's attention."
"Here is part of your advance payment. I would like you to write an article about Dumbledore."
"There is no need to fabricate anything. You need only reorganize what has already been written in the book and let everyone see that fellow's other side."
"Once it is done, you will receive more Galleons."
Rita happily accepted the advance. She poured the Galleons onto her desk, listening to their crisp clinking, her smile narrowing her eyes to slits.
She turned and sat back down at her desk, pulled open a drawer, and took out a stack of manuscript pages already covered in writing.
The title on them was:
"Dumbledore's true face."
Looking at the title, she could not help laughing aloud.
"Well, isn't that a coincidence?" she said to herself, spreading her hands. "I just happen to have been writing this lately."
She placed the stack of manuscript pages on the desk, turned to the first page, and picked up her quill to dip it in ink.
She had originally planned to finish it in another two days, but with this advance payment, she intended to send it out today.
"Let the people of the wizarding world see," she told the empty room, "what truly explosive news looks like."
Early the next morning, the headline on the Daily Prophet's largest spread stood out with particular clarity, its lettering so large it almost burst off the page:
"Dumbledore's true face!"
Wizards crowded together in front of the newsstand in Diagon Alley.
They gasped the moment they read the headline, while some impatiently stuffed toast into their mouths, their eyes glued to the words on the newspaper.
The opening of the article was exceptionally deft. Rather than attacking directly, it first took a step back:
"Judging by the current situation, the contents of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone are very likely true."
"Too many details have already matched reality, forcing us to confront the terrible facts this book reveals."
"However, if we look deeper, we will discover an even more disturbing truth-behind all of this, everything points to one man: Albus Dumbledore."
Next, with her seemingly neutral prose, Rita peeled back the so-called "coincidences" one by one.
"Based on the contents of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which has already circulated widely throughout the wizarding world, we can uncover certain details most people have overlooked."
"In the year Harry Potter entered school, Quirrell, who was possessed by You-Know-Who, happened to become the Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, while news of the Philosopher's Stone also happened to emerge that same year."
"Quirrell wore a ridiculous, enormous turban all day long, yet Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of our age, never expressed any suspicion about Quirrell's strange headwear."
"Was all of this truly negligence on Dumbledore's part, or was there something else behind it?"
"What is even more intriguing is that, at the climax of the book, Dumbledore happened to arrive and rescue our Chosen One just after he lost consciousness. The timing was so perfect that it hardly seemed like a coincidence."
After this brief account, Rita presented her central hypothesis in the article:
"If we connect all of this, an entirely different picture emerges: Dumbledore knew all along that Quirrell was possessed by You-Know-Who!"
"Let us venture a bold conjecture: Dumbledore wanted to use Potter to destroy You-Know-Who!"
"He seems to truly believe that Potter is You-Know-Who's nemesis, so that year, he first hired Quirrell, who was possessed by You-Know-Who, as a Hogwarts professor."
"Immediately afterward, he released news of the Philosopher's Stone to lure Quirrell into taking the bait, forcing him to cross paths with Potter."
"Dumbledore was also monitoring Potter at all times. This way, if Potter successfully destroyed You-Know-Who, his goal would be achieved."
"If Potter failed to destroy You-Know-Who, he could still appear in time to rescue Potter, earning his gratitude while playing the great mentor who saved the day."
At this point, the article's tone abruptly sharpened:
"But in order to destroy You-Know-Who, Dumbledore actually disregarded the safety of every student and teacher in the school!"
"He knew perfectly well that Quirrell was possessed by You-Know-Who, yet he stubbornly insisted on making him a Hogwarts professor, even allowing him to interact with students every day. How selfish!"
"Did those children sitting in Quirrell's classroom ever know what kind of monster was sitting before them?"
Rita shifted tack, returning to Harry's miserable childhood:
"Furthermore, Potter grew up miserably in his relatives' home, enduring years of abuse."
"This shows that Dumbledore had no desire to raise a hero's child, merely dumping him carelessly on relatives who did not welcome him."
"Dumbledore personally delivered Potter to Privet Drive that night eleven years ago. Only when Potter turned eleven, when he needed to be used against You-Know-Who, did Dumbledore send Hagrid to fetch him."
"Was this protection, or exploitation?"
The concluding summary was the crowning touch, every word painstakingly polished:
"To achieve his own goals, Dumbledore will stop at nothing."
"He uses a child's fate as a chess piece and the safety of every student and teacher in the school as a bargaining chip."
"This is the true face of the greatest wizard of our age: an utterly selfish, unscrupulous 'good man'!"