fudge

fudge verb (trans):  to present or deal with (something) in a vague, noncommittal, or inadequate way, esp.    so as to conceal the truth or mislead

Who has any respect for Cornelius Fudge?    His wife, maybe, who doesn't quite know what's going on and who at any rate might see him through a colored lens.    But maybe not even her.    He seems to be two things:  a] precisely the sort of weak man who is wrong for the job of Minister of Magic, obedient in all the wrong ways to all the wrong people, self-preserving at all costs including, ultimately, his own preservation;  and b] precisely the sort of man who rises to become Minister of Magic.

He could have been remembered, in office or out, as a brave and great Minister.    But instead, losing his life as he saved it, he'll be remembered for all time as the man who stepped aside and gave Voldemort a second chance to destroy.

Of all the kinds of bravery, political bravery must be the rarest.    It does take a special person to be able to stand up to the Lucius Malfoys of the world, when they storm into your office demanding that something be done or else.

JKR is an old-fashioned writer.   Her goal seems to be the classical goal for art, to delight and instruct.   The first she does beyond what the audience had ever come to expect.   Could we have ever thought a novelist would speak to the world Zeitgeist again?   Or that there would even be a world Zeitgeist again?   The second she does without ever pulling out the blackboard.   There's not one whiff of moral propaganda here, as there is in so many fantasy books of a certain kind.    (The Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials both come to mind.)    And yet it's there, unmistakable.

She wants you to admire Harry's courage (and not admire his nastiness and haste);  she wants to you admire Ron's and Hermione's loyalty to Harry and to the cause (and not admire Bellatrix's loyalty to the other cause).    And she wants to you despise Cornelius Fudge.   

Know him for what he is, and despise him.   Recognize his facial expressions and his gestures, and his words.   Recognize his refusal to accept the prospect of disruption in his comfortable and ordered world, his blinding love of office, his mad desire to remain in his high position, even at the cost of ripping the world in half.    He actually refuses to do what's right because he'd be fired, and says so to Dumbledore (who, we remember, was fired at least twice, becoming more powerful each time).   

Despise him, so that you can vow never to be him, and so that you can know him when you see him in real life, and do what you can to drive him out.