(minor punctuation tweaks and Author Notes slightly expanded: 24th September, 2016; Author Notes expanded further: 12th October, 2016)

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following short sketch takes place in January, 1996 (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix school year), a few days after Lord Voldemort breaks prisoners out of Azkaban, in a universe which has largely gone as in canon up until this particular moment. It takes place in the office of the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge (said office being presumed to be somewhere at the Ministry of Magic in London), and is from the perspective of Cornelius Fudge. I'm assuming (for what it matters) that Cornelius Fudge has genuinely believed to date that Lord Voldemort is 'not back' and that various bad things which have been happening are all down to Sirius Black.

This piece is a one-shot.

Rating: This piece is rated 'T'.

January, 1996

The moment that he had closed the door of his office, Cornelius Fudge felt a couple of spells strike him, and he froze in place. Then there was a faint shimmer in the air and, from under the cover of some sort of invisibility magic, a wizard with whose face from multiple 'wanted' posters Cornelius Fudge was highly familiar appeared, and it was not a wizard the sight of whom filled him with thoughts of anything but dread: this was unmistakeably Sirius Black.

Black patted the paralysed Cornelius down carefully, retrieved Cornelius' wand, then wandered around to sit in the Minister's chair, leaning back in it and placing his boots deliberately on the Ministerial desk.

"I thought that it was time that you and I had a quiet word, Minister." Black said, with a grin. It was a grin that Cornelius found distinctly unreassuring. This was the man who had been the late You-Know-Who's right hand man, and who only a handful of days earlier had broken some of his fellow Death Eaters out of Azkaban. "I am, I hope you will have realised by now, Sirius Black – the man whom your own statements and the entire Wizarding World's press have repeatedly described as the right hand man of the late Lord Voldemort, except they still don't dare to refer to him as anything other than 'You-Know-Who'. Which in some respects is very wise, Cornelius, but not so much in others. You see I am the most trusted and most powerful servant of the Dark Lord, but he is very much not dead and he is growing very Angry that the Ministry consistently refuses to recognise his return. Whilst he's happy with my loyalty, he's not happy that I am being quite wrongly credited with some of his greatest works, of late, and he has Required me to come here today and to set the record straight with you, Cornelius, old boy."

Cornelius could practically hear the capital letters of the start of 'Angry' and 'Required', the way that Black emphasised them in particular.

"So let's have an end to this messing around, shall we, Cornelius, old thing." Black continued. "The Ministry acknowledges, tomorrow, that the Dark Lord is back, or else I will have to take 'steps'. 'Steps' that is, above and beyond those which I have already taken, today. The Dark Lord has not yet altogether lost his patience with you, but his temper is running short, and this lack of credit to him for his actions is vexing him to the point where punishment is required. This is your lucky day, though, Cornelius. Today, only your lackey, Dolores Umbridge, is being punished for your mistakes and the Ministry's refusal to acknowledge the Dark Lord's triumphant return. Most of what the Potter brat said after the third task was true, only the Dark Lord let him 'escape', to spread the word of his return, whilst the Dark Lord dealt with more important concerns like rewarding his most faithful, and punishing the most guilty, amongst his followers. But soon, old boy, he will have things ordered to his liking, and he will be ready to turn his attention elsewhere; yet if you make him turn the full force of his attention upon the Ministry a moment sooner than he would prefer – by continuing to deny his return – then he will not be best pleased, and 'mercy' will be in distinctly short supply… as Dear Dolores Umbridge is at this very moment finding out." And Black gave a particularly obnoxious grin. He rose to his feet, and sauntered back across to the still-frozen Minister. "You know what to do, old boy." Black said, tucking Cornelius' wand back into Cornelius' breast pocket. "So be about it, chop, chop – and by the way: the Dark Lord has eyes and ears in the Ministry; many eyes and ears, and not all of them knowingly so or acting of their own free will. You're being watched, closely."

And with that parting-shot, and a particularly insolent grin, Black sauntered out.

It was fifteen more minutes before whatever Black had done began to wear off, and Cornelius could finally yelp for help.

It turned out to be much too late for the wizards dispatched to Hogwarts, post-haste, to save Dolores Umbridge from the fiendish curses placed on the seemingly innocuous fluffy kitten soft toy that someone had owled to her, that morning…

Author Notes:

In this piece, Sirius Black gets tired of sitting around in Grimmauld Place doing nothing, sneaks out, breaks into the Ministry (possibly with some incredible good fortune, and possibly with some unique Marauder skills) and has a 'little chat' with Cornelius Fudge, figuring that he may as well use his infamy for something. Since the Ministry believes that he is in fact Lord Voldemort's right-hand man, Sirius figures that the Ministry should take his word for it that Lord Voldemort is actually back, and stop denying it.

As with some of the 'classic' Sirius plans of canon there are of course problems with this one, not least including that it's not going to do Albus Dumbledore much good that he's been claiming for months that Sirius is an innocent man, only for Sirius to break into the Ministry, hold the Minister up at wandpoint, and claim to have been a Death Eater all along. Oh well…

Sirius is of course responsible for the heavily cursed item which has been sent to Dolores Umbridge. He figured that it was just the sort of thing that a Death Eater might do as part of a 'this is your last warning, Minister' scenario, and that Dolores had been giving Harry so much grief so far that it was alright for Sirius to do bad stuff to her. Whatever magic he's used, he didn't intend to kill her, but he won't lose any sleep over it if she's permanently damaged or does die.

Sirius' final parting shot to the Minister about 'eyes and ears' is an attempt by Sirius to discredit Lucius Malfoy. Sirius figured that it would be unconvincing for him to tell Cornelius Fudge 'by the way, Lucius Malfoy is a Death Eater', if Sirius were actually a Death Eater (why say 'this man is my comrade' in such a fashion?), but he reckoned that the reference to not acting 'of their own free will' would remind the Minister that Lucius claimed to have been placed under the Imperius Curse during the First Wizarding War, and make him wonder if Lucius might have been put under it 'again'?

This story is a one-shot. Maybe somebody else will feel inspired by it, and rewrite and expand the idea into a fully fledged alternate universe.

Further note, 24th September, 2016:

Sirius tells Cornelius that Lord Voldemort 'let' Harry escape, since Sirius figures that that's what a real Death Eater would do. Sirius thinks that in the interests of playing his role convincingly, it's worth contradicting the version of events Harry reported, slightly, on this point; after all the really important thing here is getting the Ministry to acknowledge that Lord Voldemort is back, right?

Further note, 12th October, 2016:

Regarding the suggestion made by one early reviewer that – having gained access to the Minister – Sirius could instead have made some effort to convince the Ministry by 'veritaserum' or 'memory' that they were entirely wrong about certain things, I think the Ministry (and Minister) would be entirely sceptical of anything which Sirius Black had prepared and brought with him which entirely contradicts their already extant views and prejudices, no matter what Sirius 'claimed' that such things might be, the effects which they might seem to have or any genuine items they may appear to resemble.