By Daily Prophet reporter Berny Chiswick
Former Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, Dolores Umbridge, was today convicted for crimes against Muggle-borns during the Second Wizarding War.
During a trial which lasted two weeks, the Wizengamot was presented with evidence demonstrating the gross abuse of power by Umbridge in interrogating and imprisoning Muggle-born witches and wizards for their 'questionable blood-status'.
The disgraced Undersecretary was found guilty of subjecting innocent people to the presence of Dementors during their 'hearings' while accusing them of stealing magic from 'real' witches and wizards. In some cases, she reportedly threatened those who objected with the Dementor's kiss, a threat which she carried out on no less than four known occasions.
One witness, Mary Cattermole of Great Tolling in Evesham, told this reporter of her harrowing experience at Umbridge's hands after the conclusion of today's trial.
"I was at home when someone from the Ministry accosted me. Barged straight into my house while my husband was out at work! Said I was to be brought before the Muggle-born Registration Committee because there were concerns over the Blood Purity questionnaire I had returned two days before. He accused me of stealing the wand of a pure-blood witch! Right in front of my children, too! It's a lie, of course, but how could I possibly prove that?" she says, nervously twisting a handkerchief. "I was immediately arrested, and brought before the Committee the next day. It was the most frightening experience of my life! Dementors guarded all suspected Muggle-borns in the corridor outside the courtroom, and just before I was taken in, a man was dragged out screaming by another two. We all heard her voice threatening him with the Dementor's kiss if he didn't stop struggling. He did, of course - stop struggling, that is - but I'll never forget the sound of him sobbing quietly as they glided away with him. It was the sound of complete and utter hopelessness. It was awful!"
The memories of that day clearly upset Mrs Cattermole, and she has to stop to draw a deep breath before bravely continuing.
"I found out when I was called that there were even more Dementors hovering inside the courtroom: I was terrified! And that … that woman sat there smirking down at me as I wept, knowing what effect they were having on me. She was all right, of course, because she'd conjured a Patronus to protect herself. And she smiled the whole time I was there, as if she'd never had so much fun in all her life! If I hadn't been so scared for me and my children, I would've been sick!"
Mrs Cattermole looks righteously angry, and I cannot help but feel nauseated by what she is telling me, but worse is to come. Asked what happened during the interrogation proper, her voice quavers slightly with the response:
"She asked me which witch or wizard I'd stolen my wand from, and when I said that I hadn't stolen it - that I had bought it after it chose me when I was eleven - she laughed at me! Insinuated that I was a liar! I knew then that she wasn't willing to listen to reason, and that the whole hearing was a farce - nothing more than an excuse for her own vindictive power-play before she convicted me of a crime I hadn't committed. If Harry Potter and his wonderful friends hadn't shown up when they did, I would have been doomed. I'd never have been able to escape, and Reg and I would never have gotten our children to safety before she sent us all to Azkaban, or worse! We owe them our lives! How can I ever thank them?"
Mrs Cattermole is too overcome by her experience to elaborate further, but her testimony is as damning when related to this reporter as it was when given to the Wizangamot.
In another shocking twist, this reporter can exclusively reveal that when she was dragged out of her home, the Death-Eaters-cum-Ministry-Officials, led by then Head of Magical Law Enforcement, 'Bad Boy' Yaxley, callously Stunned Mrs Cattermole's three young children before leaving them alone in the house, instead of seeing them into the safe-keeping of a relative. The youngsters were only found and released several hours later by their distraught father, Ministry employee Reginald Cattermole, who had deliberately not been made aware of his wife's incarceration until the end of his shift.
Umbridge - author of the infamous propaganda pamphlet Mudbloods and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pure-blood Society - denied all charges against her, stating that she was a dedicated public servant who was little more than the innocent victim of a 'world gone mad with misplaced vengeance'. Furthermore, she claims to have been under the influence of an Imperius curse for the last year of the war, and could therefore not be held responsible for any action she may have taken during that time.
This claim was met with outcries of fury from many of her victims and colleagues, and also from members of the public who came to witness the infamous ex-public servant's trial. One man was arrested after running from the benches and bodily throwing himself at the former Undersecretary in an attempt to [quote] '… rip her lying tongue out' [unquote]. He was later released without charges after informing authorities that he had personally overheard her telling a Death Eater that she had [quote] '… never enjoyed [her] work as much as [she] did since Pius Thicknesse became Minister for Magic.' [unquote].
Umbridge was also accused of spectacularly abusing her authority during her tenure as Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor/High Inquisitor/Headmistress at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (September 1995- June 1996). Amongst other charges, she was convicted on multiple counts of cruelty to children for forcing them to use Blood Quills during detentions; of using her position as High Inquisitor to maliciously intimidate fellow educators during class inspections and also of persecuting those others who were non-human.
"She hates part- and non-humans," said one student, a Ravenclaw who declined to give their name. "It was bad enough that she refused to teach us practical defence against the Dark Arts, but she was always looking down her nose at our Head of House, And she used to talk to our Care of Magical Creatures professor like he was an idiot just because he's part giant. That really annoyed us, because it's just not true, but we couldn't say anything in case she retaliated. Anyway, intelligence isn't just academic, you know, that's only part of it. You could be the most academically intelligent wizard on the face of the planet, but if you don't have common sense, then you're still the biggest idiot alive. That's why Professor Hagrid will always be smarter than Scumbridge. Besides, who's she to call anyone part-human when she's so obviously half-toad?"
Out of the mouths of babes, eh readers?
An investigation into the tyrannical rule of Dolores Umbridge was instigated after she left her position at Hogwarts under mysterious circumstances in June 1996, but was promptly abandoned in the build-up to the Second Wizarding War. This failure on the Ministry's part allowed her to be reinstated as Senior Undersecretary mere weeks later and precipitated the terrible events which have culminated in her current conviction.
Ms Umbridge was sentenced to life imprisonment at Azkaban prison earlier today and was sensationally escorted there (screaming) by two of the very same Dementors which she used to instil terror into her Muggle-born victims. ... Continued on Pages 2 and 3.
Umbridge: The Early Years: Page 4
Life after Azkaban: A report on the distressing aftermath for Umbridge's many victims: Pages 5-8
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By Daily Prophet Reporter Oswald Biggerbottom
Former Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge is under increasing pressure to explain his actions since the return of now-deceased Dark Lord Voldemort.
Terrified of having to lead a country into war, the inept official refused point-blank to listen to the late Albus Dumbledore and Chosen One Harry Potter when they informed him of Tom Riddle's return to power on the 24th June 1995. Despite the death of noble Hufflepuff student Cedric Diggory during the TriWizard Tournament, and proof of the marked visibility of the Dark Mark shown to him by Slytherin hero Severus Snape (deceased), Fudge ridiculed the notion and accused Dumbledore and Potter of trying to usurp his authority. In retaliation, he actively worked to strip both of their credibility by revoking Dumbledore's Wizengamot status and influencing the media into ridiculing Potter.
This personal vendetta against two of wizarding society's brightest champions led not only to Ministry interference at Hogwarts, but also to a full year's delay in Ministry preparations to protect that same society against the whim of a madman.
And Cornelius Fudge must now be made to answer for his actions.
Why did he ignore the warnings signs? How did Dolores Umbridge manage to authorise two Dementors of Azkaban to attack Harry Potter and his Muggle cousin in Little Whinging, Surrey without his knowledge? Or was it without his knowledge? Why did Fudge order a full court hearing at the last minute for a case of under-age magic when Potter simply acted in self-defence? What authority did he have to overrule the Governors of Hogwarts and place a Ministry employee there, one who was not qualified for the position she was supposedly teaching? Was Umbridge really there because of a lack of candidates for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, or was she simply Fudge's way of spying on the two people he considered the
greatest threats to his political status?
More importantly, why was Umbridge allowed such free scope to terrorise students during her tenure? Was Fudge aware that she was subjecting them to spot searches and scanning all Owl post to and from students and their families? If so, why did he not rein her in? Did he know of her tortuous detentions? Did he authorise them? And upon being made aware of Umbridge's actions at Hogwarts that year after witnessing the return of Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic, why - if he is innocent of culpability in her crimes - did he not insist that the investigation into her tenure continue instead of being dropped? Or petition then Minister for Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, not to reinstate her when it was? Was this because he had as much to hide as she did?
These and other questions are being asked by witches and wizards all over the country, and demands have been increasing over the last fortnight for the Ministry of Magic to instigate an immediate investigation into Fudge's actions during the latter year of his appointment. The Ministry has, as yet, made no official declaration of its intentions, but unnamed sources inside have told this reporter that Acting Minster for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt is determined to weed out any and all corruption within Ministry walls, whether past or present.
Are these simply the empty words of a fledgling politician keen to prove that he is up to the job at hand before re-elections are held later this year? Can we ever really trust our Ministers for Magic again, given that we have so recently endured the Imperiused rule of Pius Thicknesse and the dangerous ineptitude of Cornelius Fudge? Or is Wizarding War Hero Shacklebolt - Auror and member of the reconstituted (and now legendary) Order of the Phoenix - destined to be a Minister we can truly rely on?
I, for one, believe that he is. His selfless actions over three long decades in protecting society against evil (both from without and within the Ministry) speak for themselves.
Either way, he can only be an improvement on his predecessors. But if he is as determined to weed out Ministry corruption as this reporter has learned, then Cornelius Fudge may soon find himself with some very harsh questions to answer.
Which might even lead to him sharing a cell in Azkaban with his former Undersecretary …
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By Daily Prophet reporter Berny Chiswick
Dolores Umbridge was today convicted by the Wizengamot for crimes against Muggle-borns and sent to Azkaban for the rest of her natural life. The deranged fanatic hounded innocent civilians to prove their blood purity and took malicious delight in the failure of many to be able to meet her outrageous demands.
Yet this reporter can now sensationally reveal that her own blood status was itself in question! And that she covered this up with the use of both magic and blackmail.
During my investigation into her early life, I failed to uncover a birth certificate in the Ministry's Hall of Records. Puzzled that such a blood purity obsessive would have no official registration of her own birth, I entertained the possibility that her record had been lost or not transferred from St Mungo's maternity unit. Yet after making the necessary enquiries, I was reliably informed by a hospital employee that if she wasn't registered there, then she wasn't born there. Next I headed for Hogwarts, but any records of her time as a student there - and therefore clarification of her origin - were destroyed along with many others during the Final Battle earlier this year. Left with no other option, I spent weeks researching Muggle hospitals and local registry offices to determine if they had any record of her, but, again, to no avail.
Frustrated, I then turned to her colleagues, but no one could elaborate on her past because she never discussed it with them.
"She was a very private person, as far as her personal life went," said one, who prefers not be identified. "Whenever we asked about her family she got really defensive and told us to mind our own business, or else. Even threatened me with the Muggle-born Registration Committee if I ever spoke to her about anything not strictly work-related. Not that I was really that interested in her family, but you've got to talk about something when you're stuck in a lift with her. Anything to distract yourself from telling her that she's an evil little frog-faced twat that you'd like to feed to your pet snake."
Indeed.
But this only begs the intriguing question, where was she born: in the magical world she clung to so possessively or the Muggle one she hated?
Sources revealed that she sported a golden locket with the letter 'S' engraved upon it after Death Eaters took over management of the Ministry, claiming that it was a Selwyn family heirloom. These same sources state that Umbridge used it to emphasise her wizarding ancestry, yet - of the two Selwyn records in Ministry files - one has recently been confirmed as a fake which only appeared eleven months earlier and the other (mistakenly filed under the name 'Selvyn') shows that the line she claims to be descended from died out after the mass dragon-pox epidemic of 1714.
So is Dolores Umbridge as blood pure as she claimed? Or is she, in fact, Muggle-born herself? If so, did she first enter the magical world as an eleven year old, only to encounter prejudice against her blood status? Was she so resentful of being treated like a lesser being by the narrow-minded few that she spiralled into a lifelong denial of her heritage and thus became a fanatical Muggle-born hater? Was she desperate to prove her purity because she was ashamed of where she came from? … Continued on Page 10.