A Vote for Voldemort
To the members of the Order of the Phoenix,
I hope your summers are all going well and the propaganda posters Sirius and I sent you last week found their ways into all the magical places you visit and maybe even got a few people thinking about their votes.
I am sure by now the lot of you have heard about the Minister, Eugenia Jenkins, and the murder at the Ministry for Magic. Having no Minister at all leaves the Wizarding World really vulnerable, and the Daily Prophet said that means the elections are going to be even more important come 4 August because there's an awful lot that's going to go on now that the major authority is Alastor Moody, as the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. With Moody acting Minister and Harold Minchum a biased party, the Department's head person is Bartemius Crouch, which my dad says he's an alright bloke, if not over-strict.
Bartemius Crouch will be judging the Druella Black case this Monday at the Ministry and there are loads of witches and wizards who have been affected by her awful deeds so the Ministry's going to be packed full of people waiting to see the sentencing delivered.
Sirius and I were thinking that would be a good time to go to the Ministry with our posters and tell people what a great bloke Minchum is and try to raise his numbers at the poll. Right now, Adom Tutman is winning and we absolutely cannot have Tutman in office because having Tutman might as well be electing Voldemort himself!
So basically if you want to come out, we'll be going off down to the Ministry sometime around lunch on Monday and meeting at the gold fountain in the sanctuary. Bring any posters you have left and we'll bring loads, too, and any buttons you might have with the Minchum for Minister message on them!
See you then...
J.P.
Lily Evans laid across her bed, her suitcase on the floor, but empty.
"Lily! Petunia!" Mr. Evans yelled up the stairs, "Are you girls nearly ready? I'm just waiting on your suitcases for the car!"
Lily felt sick. She rolled up the letter from Potter and sat up, taking her wand up from the pillow beside her and waved it so that her clothes folded themselves into her suitcase and a couple of her textbooks and a pair of pretty sandals went in, too, as she tied her trainers and ran a brush through her messy ginger hair. She could hear Petunia in the hall, struggling with her suitcases. Lily got up as her things continued on packing themselves and looked at Petunia, lugging two very large suitcases down the hall. "Want some help?" Lily asked, holding up her wand.
"No," Petunia snapped and she made a face at the sight of Lily's things flying about the room behind her. "Freak," she added haughtily, and she went on dragging her things down the hall.
"Fine. Drag them all the way down the stairs, then," Lily shrugged and slammed the door behind her, turning back as a bottle of sunscreen and her Gryffindor sweater went into the suitcase and it shut, zipped and stood upright on its own, ready for her to take it downstairs to her father. "There."
She took up the letter from James again, looking at the way he'd scrawled the J.P. at the bottom.
When she had received the letter, it had been Saturday afternoon and the Evanses had been sitting together in the living room watching the news. There was nothing on the muggle news about the election race between Minchum and Tutman, nothing about the rise of Lord Voldemort or the murder of the Minister Eugenia Jenkins. In fact, James's letter had been the first Lily had heard about the murder. She'd stared at the letter in stunned silence, her heart racing in fear, for several long moments.
"Is everything alright, dear?" Mrs. Evans had asked and Lily, not wanting to expalin who Voldemort was and why he would kill the Minister for Magic, had said that everything was brilliant.
Now they were about to leave for the airport to go to Florida, supposedly the happiest place on earth, and Lily wanted nothing more than to figure out a way out of the trip so she could go to London to the Ministry and stand with the other Order members to help promote Harold Minchum for Minister. She levitated the suitcase down the stairs to the hall by the front door.
"I'm not feeling well," she lied as she reached the bottom of the steps.
"You'll be fine, just anxious over your first aeroplane ride, I expect," Mr. Evans replied, and he hoisted her suitcase up onto his shoulders, dragging one of Petunia's behind him.
Lily shook her head, "I think I'm really sick. Perhaps I should stay at home so you lot don't all get ill, too, and ruin the trip?"
"Lily, darling, you aren't staying home," Mrs. Evans said, cupping a palm 'round Lily's cheek and smiling. "What is it with you girls?" she laughed as Tuney came up behind Mrs. Evans, "Wanting to get out of the trip of a lifetime! Thinking you're sick! You're both very silly. Now, calm down, the both of you, and get ready to have a really great time! We're going ot have such a lot of fun..."
Lily looked at Petunia, who scowled and crossed her arms.
Several long hours later, after moving through airline check points and listening to Petunia loudly complain when her carry on bag was too large to be carried on until Lily quietly used a shrinking charm when nobody was looking, they were finally on the plane. Lily sat in the window seat of the very large aeroplane, the glass rain-streaked, watching as people ran across the tarmac, loading luggage into the belly of the airbus. Off over the wing she could see the angry-looking grey skies and the vague outlines of buildings and houses beyond the tarmac. Air blew down at her from the spigot above her head and the man in front of her was reclining and straightening his seat, trying to get comfortable with his bad back and she felt Petunia sitting next to her, rummaging through her bag for a book of crossword puzzles, not noticing that everything was just a teensy bit smaller than it used to be.
"Cramped middle seat, no place to put my elbows," muttered Tuney, "Rubbish trip already..."
"Are you sure you don't want the window seat, Tuney?" Lily asked nicely, "I mean... I've flown before..." she glanced about, "On a broom, I mean, but how much different can it really be? And there's an bit more arm room here..."
Petunia stared at Lily with hatred, "I don't want your seat," she snapped, "I just want my seat to be halfway decent, seeing as mummy and daddy are paying a good deal of money for them." Then she turned back to her crossword puzzles.
Lily sighed and drew James's letter out from her purse for about the hundredth time. She hoped things went well for the Order... she'd have given anything to be there with them at the Ministry instead of cramped in the seats of the aeroplane with Petunia. She ran her fingers over James Potter's initials...
Maryrose's hair was white as snow and piled up on her head in a pouffy twist. She wore a pair of hot pink glasses with tiny rhinestones lining the earpieces and a purple dress with thick soled shoes that made her taller. Her eyes were purple, too. James stood near her as they handed out posters to the people milling about in the Ministry chamber. "Vote for Minchum, he's the better candidate!" James said, shoving one of the posters into the hands of a witch with a bald head.
"Minchum will save the Ministry," Maryrose declared, handing a poster to a witch with a large wart on the end of her nose. The witch threw the poster on the ground. "Rude," snapped Maryrose, glaring after her.
James petted Maryrose's shoulder comfortingly.
A few feet away from James and Maryrose, Marlene McKinnon was standing with Annalee McKinnon and Peter Pettigrew, the cluster of them trying to explain to a middle aged wizard with dark blue robes why Minchum was the better choice... Andy Woodhouse stood with Frank Longbottom and Ali Prewitt, telling a witch how he'd been blinded by Orion Black, one of the followers of the Dark Lord, telling them about the experience they'd had at the Black house against Druella and You Know Who himself... Alabaster Jackson was talking in low voices to people he knew to be of Slytherin house, while Henry Warbeck and Meg Johnson walked about taping posters up around the chamber, in the elevator carts and across from every loo entrance. Meanile, Sirius was standing on the edge of the water fountain, shouting, "MINCHUM'S GOT THE EXPERIENCE WE NEED, HE'S A BETTER CANDIDATE BECAUSE HE'S NOT A BLOODY COWARD LIKE TUTMAN IS... A VOTE FOR TUTMAN'S A VOTE FOR VOLDEMORT!"
Gideon Prewett came pushing his way through the crowd toward the cluster of teenagers, his face red. He caught Sirius's leather jacket by the hem. "Mr. Black, you've got to stop using that word, you're starting a panic," he hissed, staring up at Sirius.
"What word? Voldemort?"
"Yes! SHhh!" Gideon reprimanded him. "I don't personally mind and I know some of the more confident, rebellious folks don't - like Dumbledore and Moody - but Sirius you're scaring folks and they're scared enough already. Please."
Sirius frowned.
"Just... please," Gideon said.
"Fine," Sirius agreed.
Gideon wandered off across the chamber. Sirius watched him go, watched him get just far enough away, and then he turned back to the people milling about in the chamber before him, "DOWN WITH VOLDEMORT!!!!!!" he shouted, "DON'T VOTE FOR TUTMAN UNLESS YOU LIKE MOLDY VOLDY! THE IMPERIUS IS WHAT HE'S GOT! CONTROLLED BY DARK MAGIC! RESIST THE DARK LORD!!!"
"Bloody hell," Gideon headed back for the fountain, "Barty Crouch will make me take you in custody if you don't stop saying his name! I'm serious!"
"No you aren't, I am," Sirius replied, grinning.
Gideon glared.
"How are you gonna make people understand the old bugger's just a regular person if not by using his name? Isn't it scarier to call him You Know Who?"
"Not to these people," Gideon said, "These are people directly affected by him --"
"I've been directly affected by him!" Sirius announced, "Been nearly killed by him like three times now! Looked him face-to-face, eye-to-eye, been imperiused by him, and seen him kill my dad, right before my eyes. You think I haven't been affected by Voldemort?"
Gideon hissed, "Shhh. Sirius, I'm not saying that, I'm just bloody askin' you not to say his name."
"VOL-DE-MORT," Sirius said darkly.
James looked over from where he and Maryrose stood.
Gideon frowned. "Sirius, I'm tryin' to be your pal here, alright, Barty Crouch ain't foolin' around, he's ---"
"Here," muttered Alastor Moody, passing by. "He's here is what he is. Come along, Prewett One."
"Moody!" shouted James, shoving a poster into Moody's hand, "Vote for Minchum!"
"Yeah, a vote for Tutman is a vote for Voldemort!" shouted Sirius.
Moody's magical eye swung backward to glower at Sirius.
There was a clearing of a throat, and a short, dark-haired, twitchy man with thick eyebrows and a thick mustache cut his way through the crowd, a mid-length cape clipped at his neck with a bright blue brooch. He wore a squat top hat and smart, charcoal robes. He looked up at Sirius on the fountain's edge. "Sir, I would appreciate if you would please step down from the edge of the monument and refrain from saying His name." The tone of Mr. Crouch's voice was clipped and carried a snooty sort of accent to it, like he was speaking from somewhere high up in his nose rather than his regular voice box. "We will refrain, too, from soliciting political views in the chambers of the Ministry, it simply isn't proper protocol." He looked at Moody. "Have you seen what these teens are up to, Mr. Moody?"
"Yeah, I seen it, Mr. Crouch, now move along to yeh trial," grumbled Moody, glowering at Crouch, as though to remind him which of them was technically head of the department and currently the acting Minister.
Gideon smirked and turned away.
Mr. Crouch glowered at Sirius and Sirius jumped down off the fountain to the floor. Satisfied he'd won at least a bit of the battle, Mr. Crouch nodded to Moody, and moved on through the crowd toward the gold elevator cart that would bring him down to the Department of Mysteries, where the trial of Druella Black would be held.
Moody watched him go, then turned on Sirius. "Mr. Black, you'll refrain from shouting You Know Who's name or I'll come out here and turn you into a toad and send you off to be dewarted. Is that understood?"
Sirius nodded.
Gideon smirked.
Moody looked at Gideon. "Prewett One, get moving; you'll be needed in the dungeons to transport Druella Black along to the trial. Hop along."
"Yes sir," and, still smirking, Gideon took off.
"The rest of you ought not to be here, you're too young to be witnessing the proceedings," he looked about a Peter, Meg, Annalee, Marlene, Andy, Frank, Ali, Sirius, James, Maryrose, and the rest. "Do your parents know you're here?"
Sirius snorted.
Moody glared at Sirius. "Especially you, Black. Your mother and darling cousins will be on their way soon; so unless you fancy running into the lot of them, I'd clear out if I was you." And with that, he hunkered away.
James looked at Sirius, "Well mate?"
Sirius looked about at the others, then grabbed a handful of posters from James's arm and went over to a witch. "Excuse me, do you have a moment for me to tell you a bit about our next Minister for Magic, Harold Minchum?"
James grinned.