Cornelius Pemberton - Senior Ministry Treasurer
“Fortune favors the bold, my dear fellow - though I must admit, sometimes one’s boldness requires a bit of… creative accounting.”
Background
Cornelius Pemberton serves as Senior Treasurer of the Ministry of Magic, a position that grants him access to emergency funds and discretionary spending accounts across all Ministry departments. Once considered a rising star in Ministry finance, Cornelius has spent the last fifteen years methodically climbing the bureaucratic ladder through a combination of genuine talent for numbers and an unfortunate talent for making the wrong sorts of friends.
A Ravenclaw alumnus who shared dormitory quarters with Augustus Thornwick during their Hogwarts years, Cornelius initially maintained a cordial relationship with his former roommate despite their diverging career paths. However, what began as friendly rivalry has curdled into bitter resentment as Augustus’s rapid promotions and reformist zeal have repeatedly interfered with Cornelius’s more… flexible approach to Ministry regulations.
The root of Cornelius’s current predicament lies in his weakness for the thrill of Hippogriff racing at Griffin’s Gambit, the premier magical racing establishment. What started as occasional weekend entertainment has spiraled into a devastating addiction, leaving him drowning in gambling debts that now exceed 8,000 Galleons. To cover his losses, Cornelius has been systematically embezzling from the Ministry’s magical creature welfare emergency fund - small amounts at first, but increasingly larger sums as his desperation grows.
His financial desperation has led him into an even more dangerous partnership with Lady Cordelia Blackthorne. Using his position to facilitate import permits and turn a blind eye to suspicious creature welfare fund expenditures, Cornelius has been helping Cordelia launder money from her illegal magical creature trading operations. In return, she provides him with untraceable Galleons to feed his gambling addiction and maintains his silence about her criminal enterprises.
The Murder Plot
When the Ministry announced surprise financial audits with Deputy Ministers leading internal reviews, Cornelius knew his days were numbered. Augustus, with his insufferable dedication to “transparency and accountability,” would inevitably discover the missing funds. Worse still, Augustus had already begun asking uncomfortable questions about discrepancies in creature welfare allocations, particularly regarding the Ashworth family donations.
Cornelius’s plan was elegant in its simplicity: eliminate Augustus before the audit could expose the embezzlement, while framing the murder as the work of someone with obvious motives related to Augustus’s anti-corruption crusade. During his Hogwarts years, Cornelius had been one of only four students trusted with Professor Spellsworth’s dangerous Arresto Incantum spell - a charm that delays the next spell cast by exactly fifteen minutes.
At the gala, Cornelius approached Augustus during the cocktail hour under the pretense of offering assistance with the creature welfare investigation. In a moment when Augustus was distracted by examining some suspicious documents, Cornelius discretely cast Arresto Incantum followed immediately by the Cordis Cessare curse - a dark magic spell that causes sudden cardiac arrest. Meanwhile, Lady Cordelia - his criminal partner and fellow conspirator - used Seraphina’s color-changing charm on Augustus’s Firewhisky to make it appear poisoned, creating a false trail of evidence to misdirect the investigation.
Gala Objectives
1. Avoid Detection Mingle extensively to establish a solid alibi and deflect any suspicion away from yourself. If anyone brings up Augustus’s investigation or financial irregularities, express concern and offer to help with any “accounting clarifications” that might be needed. Subtly guide conversations toward other attendees who had obvious conflicts with Augustus.
2. Gauge Investigation Progress Discreetly gather information about what evidence has been discovered and whether anyone suspects the true cause of death. Pay particular attention to conversations with Auror Commander Stone, Professor Spellsworth, and Madam Quillfeather, as they might piece together the magical aspects of the murder.