Reasons for Fudge's election

[melodypottersnape]

I think there are several reasons he was maneuvered there.

He could of course be easily bribed, but look at what happened after he was elected.

There doesn't seem to be any Hit Wizards (if that is a canon thing). There are less aurors which means that there won't be anybody to fight DEs. There also was a increase in laws against magical beings in his reign. Beings that would join Voldemort later if given a good enough deal. Also there is a chance that Umbridge could have been something of a campaign manager and her prejudice could have been a reason he was elected.

[Kitty279]

Yeah, I always wondered if Lucius had anything to do with his election. A few bribes here, a few there ... if, as it looks like, he's not elected by the public, but by the Wizengamot, then that could easily be done. And as you said, he was the perfect Minister for the Death Eaters to manipulate. Give him some gold and he thinks you are god and does whatever you tell him.

From the POV of the Death Eaters, he was ideal for them. From the POV of the light side, he was an incompetent, pompous idiot who ignored all problems because his Death Eater buddies told him they are now good little boys and who gave him money. I think what Dumbledore said in GoF came only too true - he got to be remembered as the Minister who stepped aside and gave Voldemort a second chance.

[ayrine]

I would agree with several points thought I would add:
After the end of the 1st war, the minster of magic retreated from his/her? function and there was a political vacancy.
Crouch Sr. was the favorite, he was one of the heroes of the war against Voldemort, he should have been the next minister, but after what happened with/to his son. He was rejected. That's public opinion for you, really flimsy.
Then, they asked Dumbledore, he was the other hero of the war against Voldemort, but he declined and with reason, you don't want someone like Dumbledore in power, he could be worse than Fudge.

So after that, they needed a person as minister and they started searching through the ministry officials and there was probably some candidates but I don't think anyone stood out, so wining the election in this case would be a question of connection and allies and money, if the wizards do electoral campaigns like in the Muggle world, Fudge needed influential and rich people to help him and there I believe your suggestion is right. They choose him because he was manipulable, influenceable and bribable.

The rest is the nature of the wizarding world itself. They are racist in majority. Not all of them are killer though, but I imagine that Fudge's sponsors shared Malfoy's idea of pureblood supremacy so they believe that :
1-Aurors shouldn't annoy them and let them to their Dark Arts. So the justice department wasn't given free reign.
2-the purbloods should be in power, so they passed law limiting any other race to access to power while using influence in the dark to limit muggleborns from getting important posts.

The fact that Dumbledore was alive at that time stopped them from going too far, like they did in the 7th book, and completely evict muggleborns from their society by using any shallow and disputable excuse.

And I can see Umbridge being his ally from the start and riding his coattail to power. Of course that helped Voldemort as it had helped him before, because the society didn't change toward the better but became worst, what was an unofficial racism became a lawful one.

[melodypottersnape]

I've idly wondered if Crouch Jr. was telling the truth that he didn't hurt the Longbottoms. I mean Voldemort was dead and people relaxed so what is not to say that he wasn't kidnapped and imperiused for the sole reason to make sure his father looked bad and wouldn't be elected. From what I read his trial was a bit of a sham. Did they have Veritaserum?

Then there is the fact that he helped Voldemort rise. It could be that he knew he would never have freedom so he chose to help the man that would help him get his revenge and would give him freedom if he won.

Also I read a fic were Harry asked Sirius why he didn't escape for him and not to go after Peter. Sirius tells him that dementors took away good memories and that Harry was a good memory.

What is to say that the same didn't happen to Crouch Jr. He doesn't remember good memories about being on the light side. So what is to say that he tried to make sense of his scattered memory and came to the conclusion that he spied for the dark and was imperiused so he could use it as an excuse for what he did.

You know I think I'll write a fic for that. I swear these discussions give me the best story ideas.

[ayrine]

It could be either ways:

It could be that Crouch Jr. had just started hanging with the wrong crowd just out of spite because he was angry at his Dad indifference, he got in the wrong place and wrong time (by getting imperiused?), then he got caught in the Longbottom case and his father betrayal had killed any feeling of love he still had for him, his stay at Azkaban and his years under the Imperius Curse would have finished making him completely crazy.

Or he had already given up his family and started seeing Voldemort as the father he never had, the same type of obsession Bellatrix had with Voldemort, just slightly less creepy. So he was searching for his new Dad by torturing those poor people. The rest of the story is the same.

Also I believe they don't use veritaserum in court, because JKR affirmed (?) that you could give half-truth depending if the questions asked are precise enough or not. For example: You could for example ask a DE under veritaserum "if he did murder a Muggle?" Even if he did murder him, he could still say "no", because it wasn't a murder for him, and that because he don't see the muggle as a human being but as an animal. And you don't murder animals.
So it depends of how sneaky and witty and vigilant you are.

It's true that Demontors feed on happy memories and the only thing that is left are bed memories or obsessions, but I am not sure it's a definitive situation. Do those memories get completely wiped or it's just a temporary state of mind because of the Demontors effect? I believe it's the later, but we don't know for sure.

You should write it, it would be good to read it in the context of HP world, it could even give a more precise idea on those facts.

[melodypottersnape]

Earlier when I said that I was going to write a fic about him being innocent do you guys thing I should do it in my fic The Centaur Was Late.

www.fanfiction.net/s/9676179/1/The-Centaur-Was-Late