Cornelius Oswald Fudge

• Fudge was Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Catastrophes in November of 1981.¹
• Elected Minister of Magic in 1990.²

Speculation

I am hardly the first to note that it is decidedly odd how much that Fudge handles personally as Minister of Magic. Where is Amelia Bones and the rest of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement before Umbridge starts to misuse them?

Specifically looking at both the arrest of Hagrid and the handling of Sirius's escape, I strongly suspect that his actions are at best quasi-legal and that Dumbledore could have done more in both cases.

In the case of Hagrid, I suspect that Fudge is being fairly honest about his motives. Some news about the Chamber must have leaked out to the wider Wizarding World (possibly via Lucius), and Fudge feels that his popularity numbers are suffering. Why Dumbledore does not act is more complicated.

The case of Sirius is almost certainly more sinister. Fudge was one of the first on the scene,³ and even as a "Junior Minister", probably one of the more senior people actually on the scene. As such he was probably a key figure in the investigation, and should have been a key witness in the trial. Except that a trial did not happen. Fudge probably rode his "capture" of the "infamous" Sirius Black in his upward climb that resulted in his election to Minister of Magic.

Criticising Other Authors

It is extremely common to portray Bagnold as having retired almost immediately after Riddle's first fall. Depending on the author, Fudge was either a dark horse candidate because the government was otherwise gridlocked between opposing parties, he was Dumbledore's hand picked choice, or Malfoy's equally hand picked choice. None of these fits the facts. As noted above, Fudge did not become Minister until 1990, which explains why he was so unsure of himself in his role as minister throughout the first book.