Ernest's interest had been piqued by the start of a disagreement between the Minister's brother and the Quidditch Guy, though the Minister was quick to put that down before it became too interesting. As a result, though, he was paying more attention than he might otherwise have done as the other department heads put in their two cents. He was still largely unconcerned, having no interests in Irvingly either from a personal or professional standpoint, but he could appreciate the potential for this to cause chaos if it began to affect the things that dwelt in the forest, and chaos was generally not in anyone's best interests. They were all here to problem solve, he supposed, since the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes couldn't be bothered to solve their own problems. Not that he was incredibly surprised; the incompetence of other Ministry workers never surprised him.

A thought occurred to him, and he cleared his throat mildly to redirect the conversation from the topic of werewolves (which was a topic he, like Mr. Crouch, was rather failing to see the relevancy of). "Has this been assigned to the correct department?" he asked, with a glance at Mrs. Parkinson and then to the Minister. "That is, is there any evidence that it was an accident?" In his experience, accidents tended to be clumsy, and this fog had so far shown itself to be anything but. It was growing at a predictable rate and expanding daily, and if someone had intended to create a fog that prevented the use of magic — well, starting it off in the one area of the world where the magical population would be least likely to realize this particular affect until it was already well underway was rather ingenious, he thought. And Ernest did not use the concept of genius lightly.