After settling his injured subordinates at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Rufus Scrimgeour hurried back to the Ministry of Magic.
The very first thing he did upon returning was to request an audience with Cornelius Fudge.
"Head Scrimgeour, you'd best not go in just yet—Minister Cornelius is flying into a terrible rage inside," Dawlish kindly warned his superior, Rufus Scrimgeour, outside the door of the Minister's office.
However, Scrimgeour ignored his well-meaning advice. Remaining stubborn, he opened the door and stepped right into the Minister's office.
At this moment, the office was tightly packed with Aurors.
"While those robbers were operating inside Gringotts, they also cast Anti-Disapparition Wards around Diagon Alley and erected a massive barrier to block our attack," an Auror was explaining to Fudge in front of the Minister's desk.
Spread out on the desk was a large piece of parchment depicting the architectural layout of Diagon Alley and neighboring Knockturn Alley.
Scrimgeour pushed past the wizards in front of him and made his way to the very front of the crowd.
"They took control of all of Diagon Alley, using its buildings to set up defensive positions against us."
Fudge, holding a quill, waved his hand nonchalantly. "We sent more than two hundred Aurors and Hit-keyers to Diagon Alley. Before a force like that, those robbers are nothing more than a rabble."
After a moment's thought, Fudge, wearing a pair of reading glasses, added, "And what's more, the Aurors were under the command of our finest Head of the Auror Office, Scrimgeour."
Hearing Fudge's words, the wizard reporting the situation quietly exchanged a glance with Kingsley Shacklebolt.
"Minister..." his voice trembled slightly, "Head Scrimgeour..."
The Auror didn't dare continue; another colleague had to bite the bullet and take over for him.
"Head Scrimgeour... failed to capture the robbers who raided Gringotts."
A long silence fell over the room.
With a trembling hand, Cornelius Fudge removed his reading glasses—an action usually so simple, yet now seemingly fraught with immense difficulty.
"Scrimgeour, Kingsley, Crapus, and Burgdorf stay. The rest of you leave."
Cornelius Fudge's voice was barely a whisper, yet in the absolute quiet of the room, it rang out with striking clarity.
Most of the people retreated from the office.
Standing guard outside, Dawlish could hear Cornelius's furious roars from within:
"There were only thirty of them! Just thirty!"
"Your force of Aurors and Hit-keyers numbered over two hundred! And you couldn't even handle a mere handful of robbers?!"
Cornelius stood up from behind his desk, frantically waving his short arms.
"You just stood by and watched them empty out the underground vaults of Gringotts and waltz right off!"
"Cowards! Traitors! Useless fools!"
Scrimgeour fearlessly protested at the top of his voice: "Minister, those words cross the line!"
Fudge bellowed back even louder, "You Aurors are the scum of the Ministry of Magic!"
He slammed his quill violently onto the desk, producing a sharp crack upon impact.
"I am furious!" [Translator's Note: I am furious! - A reference to the viral Hitler downfall meme / Downfall rant.]
"All of you underwent years of training before officially joining, consuming vast amounts of Ministry resources, and in the end, all you've learned is how to use a knife and fork to eat!"
Inside the office, Fudge's tirade continued: "Where is the glory the Auror Office held back during You-Know-Who's reign of terror?! All you ever do is hold me back!"
"I should have thrown every last one of you into Azkaban to feed the Dementors!"
Exhausted from shouting, Cornelius Fudge sank back into his chair with a weary expression.
"Even though I didn't undergo training in the Auror Office after finishing my studies at Hogwarts, my capabilities were recognized by Albus Dumbledore!"
As he said this, Fudge proudly thumped his chest with both fists.
Everyone present knew Fudge was referring to Dumbledore recommending him for the position of Minister for Magic back then.
"This is rebellion!"
Fudge blurted out several more curses, and the Aurors outside the door could clearly pick up several colorful phrases, alongside his "warm regards" directed at Dumbledore.
In reality, Fudge's words were directed at the robbers' mothers, but since Kyle was one of the robbers and his biological mother happened to be Albus Dumbledore, calling it a warm greeting to Dumbledore was technically accurate.
"This is an unforgivable betrayal of the public who put their trust in the Ministry of Magic!"
"Bring those robbers back to me!"
Fudge's tone carried a chilling trace of murderous intent. "Not only must they return the money stolen from Gringotts, but I also want them to atone with their own blood!"
"They will drown in their own blood!"
Outside the office door, a trainee witch who had only recently joined the Auror Department began to sob softly upon hearing the Minister's intense fury.
Beside her, fellow trainee Auror Nymphadora Tonks casually offered comfort: "It's fine, Gerda."
Tonks knew exactly why Fudge was so enraged.
According to a certain anonymous Auror named Kingsley Shacklebolt, a total of ten vaults were raided at Gringotts this time, and Minister Cornelius Fudge's personal vault happened to be among them.
Of the overall losses sustained at Gringotts, Minister Fudge's share alone accounted for forty percent.
Because other prominent families—following the principle of not putting all their eggs in one basket, as well as their inherent distrust of goblins—would only deposit a portion of their assets in Gringotts.
The rest of their wealth was stored in the private vaults of their own manors.
For example, beneath Malfoy Manor lay a massive underground vault; the assets they kept at Gringotts amounted to less than half of their family's total savings.
This was also how Sirius Black, while still a wanted fugitive, had been able to sneak back to the old Black house and withdraw money to buy Harry a Firebolt.
As for our beloved Minister Cornelius, his situation was far more tragic.
In order to maintain an image of an incorruptible Minister before the public, Fudge lived with his wife and child in a dilapidated little building in Godric's Hollow.
Even after taking office, when a Minister possessed the authority to build himself a grand ministerial residence—since construction in the Wizarding World required nothing more than a wave of a wand—Cornelius had turned it down.
Whenever subordinates needed to discuss urgent matters with this "honest Minister" outside official working hours, they would invariably find him sitting in his dimly lit dining room, noisily slurping up a bowl of noodles with soybean paste.
A bite of noodles, a clove of garlic—an incorruptible public servant through and through.
It was precisely because he lived in a run-down little apartment building that Fudge couldn't build a hidden vault at home like those wealthy pure-blood families, leaving him no choice but to deposit all his wealth into Gringotts.
Furthermore, Gringotts' strict confidentiality policy had put his mind at ease; the wizarding public would never know how much money he had saved as Minister.
Now, though both parties had been raided, those grand families still had sixty to seventy percent of their assets preserved elsewhere, whereas Cornelius wasn't so lucky—he had been stripped straight down to a penniless pauper.
Even the Weasley family, widely recognized as the poorest household in the Wizarding World, possessed more visible wealth in their vault than Fudge did now.
At least the Weasleys still had a single Galleon in their vault; Fudge's vault was truly left with absolutely nothing.
Had his years of hard work—er, embezzlement—not vanished overnight, Fudge would never have hurled such harsh words at his own Aurors.
What terrified Fudge even more was the massive mark that had appeared in the sky above Diagon Alley.
That was Voldemort's mark—but hadn't Voldemort died in Godric's Hollow on that fateful night over a decade ago?
Why were Death Eaters following him still appearing in Diagon Alley, committing such heinous, utterly insane crimes?
Inside the room, The Minister's Rage continued to play out.
Cornelius Fudge sat in his chair, head bowed. "All the Aurors have turned into useless fools after such a long period of peace. How is an Auror Office like this supposed to carry out the tasks I assign you?"
His face was a picture of utter sorrow over his lost Galleons. "Do whatever you want."
Hearing the Minister's words, the few people remaining in the room quietly filed out.
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