Thank you for the responses on the last chapter!

This chapter has an election, and a bit of a step forward for Snape and Harry.

Chapter Forty: Election Day

The Muggles had never been able to see the last tower in the Tower of London, where the Ministry had kept its voting owls for four hundred years. Rather than following the usual practice of cloaking it in illusions of a ruined bit of stonework, the original family that had hit upon the idea of the voting owls, the Light-devoted Gloryflowers, had Disillusioned the whole thing.

Rufus steadied himself on the uppermost level of a tower that he'd had to climb by feel, and shivered in the push of an impatient gust of wind, and decided that it was still—mostly—an excellent idea.

He turned and extended his hand, helping Amelia out of the last archway, though his murmured warning to duck her head came too late. She cursed under her breath, and then climbed up and stood beside him. Rufus heard her swallow as they looked out over the expanse of Muggle London, draped in snow and in silence. It was the first day of January, the first day of the new year.

And the day of our election.

Rufus found he was grinning. It was highly unusual for him to smile that much, but he couldn't really help it. Things were changing. He might love the law, but he had no objection to change, especially when he thought it would improve the law.

"I never thought I would be standing here," Amelia murmured.

Rufus turned to her and raised his eyebrows in an expression of polite disbelief. Oh, certainly, Amelia had been shocked that Fudge had gone as far as he had, but she had moved too quickly and smoothly, both before and after the vote of no confidence, to establish her own candidacy. Rufus didn't think that he would really believe her if she admitted to no ambition.

Amelia tossed her head impatiently. "All right, I didn't know that I would be standing here now," she said.

Rufus could share that sentiment. "Neither did I," he murmured, as he began walking carefully along the narrow path of invisible stone set before them, one hand resting on the outer wall to guide him. The wall was only up to his waist, not really as high as he could have wished. It was impossible for anyone but the candidates in a Ministerial election to alter the Tower, though—another Gloryflower addition—and Rufus certainly didn't have the inclination or the talent to work stone. "I did think Cornelius would be Minister for another good ten years. Or perhaps not good, not under Cornelius, but at least not intolerably bad."

"But he was," said Amelia, hurrying after him.

Rufus cast an incredulous glance back at her, before understanding the gleam in her eyes. She wasn't asking for reassurance. She was challenging him to say that she could possibly have acted wrongly. Rufus relaxed.

"He was," he agreed. "And just think, we might not have known until too late if it wasn't for Harry Potter." He saw the gleam of metal ahead, and stepped back, bowing. Amelia had arranged this election. It was only right that she go first.

"The child disturbs me," Amelia muttered, as she took the honor with a nod to him. "Lords don't appear from nowhere like that. Dumbledore's coming was like a storm slowly rolling over Britain, and there were rumors of You-Know-Who for a long time before he showed his face."

"I do not think he has evil intentions." Rufus had already had this argument several times. e He found it amusing that everyone around him kept thinking he would change his mind about the boy.

"I just find it unnatural," Amelia murmured, and this time Rufus deliberately didn't warn her to duck her head as she passed under the arched door into the last invisible room. "Ouch!"

Rufus held his laughter, and followed her, almost crouching. They could still see outside, but there were walls around them; the wind was cut to almost nothing. And around them sat the only part of the Tower not under the Disillusionment Charm: thousands of small, perfectly wrought golden owls, with emerald eyes.

Rufus froze with admiration. It was one thing to hear about them, or see one of them flying with a ballot in its belly, another to see them gathered all together. These were Gloryflower creations, too. The Dark families had a tradition of making artificial animals of the kind that crawled on corpses or hid in abandoned houses—spiders, snakes, rats, centipedes—but the Light ones made beautiful and useful creatures—horses, unicorns, owls.

He barely breathed as he reached out and touched one of the owls on its cold breast. A moment after he touched it, it lit with sparks of warmth under his fingers, and the owl turned its head. Emerald eyes surveyed Rufus for a moment. Rufus held still and waited, patiently. He had already passed the first test—the owls would respond only to the touch of an actual declared candidate for the Minister's post—but he had to wait for the bird to inspect him. The Gloryflowers had not kept control of the owls in their family, but bound them to the Tower and the candidates for the position. Rufus could feel the ancient magic all around him, surging through owl after owl, awakening them one after one, singing and roaring in the invisible stone.

The wave met the wave coming from the owl Amelia had touched, opposite the one he had, and collided with it. For a moment, it was like a meeting of two breakers, and Rufus thought he felt the Tower tremble. Then the waves melted into one another, and he and Amelia stood in the middle of a joined ring.

The owls surged up into the air as one, their wings spreading and catching the harsh New Year's wind. In a moment, they spun around and hurtled out the windows that they could see, though Rufus would only have been able to find them by feel. They exploded in dozens of different directions the moment they were out, heading off to every wizard seventeen or older in Britain—well, the ones who weren't incapacitated by legal restrictions such as being in prison from voting, anyway. They would coast down to each wizard or witch and spit out the ballots already growing in their bellies. The wizard or witch must write down a choice for Minister and return the ballots to the owls. Every bird would be back in the Tower by nightfall, and Rufus and Amelia, together, would count the ballots. The owls' magic would keep them honest, just as it would prevent anyone else from interfering with their flight.

"Well," said Amelia, when the last owl was out of sight, traveling like a small golden comet flung through stars, "what now?"

Rufus cast a warming charm, and conjured a chair in the corner of the room. "Now we sit down and compare plans for what we're going to do when we become Minister," he said. "Excuse me. For when I become Minister."

Amelia rolled her eyes and conjured a chair of her own. "You can dream, Rufus. No one ever said that you weren't ambitious."

"No, they didn't," said Rufus, and began, patiently, to outline the new way the Aurors would work, and how Amelia would have to prepare for several unexpected losses in that department if he won—or even if he didn't.

"For whom are you voting, Severus?"

Snape gave McGonagall a distrustful look as he took the ballot from the voting owl's beak. She had been pestering him since the night of the Yule Ball for details of Harry's mental state and magic, and when he had refused to give them to her, she'd retreated into these useless pleasantries, as if she really thought that they would persuade him to relax his guard.

"It's none of your business," he said, and quickly scrambled the name, and returned it to the owl. The little creature swallowed the ballot and lifted, skimming towards the windows of the Great Hall, instinctively avoiding the other birds, both real and artificial, headed the same way. Snape watched, almost hoping that someone would try to grab his owl, but no one did. Too bad. The punishment for interfering with a voting owl was amusing to watch: a crippling lightning-like shock to the fingers, which kept someone from being able to write for the rest of the day.

"I might as well tell you that I voted for Scrimgeour," said McGonagall, and leaned back in her chair, surveying the students eating in the Great Hall with a kind of lazy indolence.

Snape watched her in silence. He had no objection to taking knowledge of her when she offered it on a silver platter like this, and she might as well be saying that she'd abandoned the Headmaster. She knew that Scrimgeour and Dumbledore didn't get along, and she had voted for him anyway.

"Why?" Snape asked quietly. He meant several different things by it, on several different resonances. He wondered if she would pick up on all of them.

Her smile was ever so slightly bitter. "I tried to speak to him about a—problem I had with my upper-year Gryffindors, and I spoke to him about your imprisonment. Neither helped. He put me off with platitudes, and with phrases like 'the implacable logic of war.' He talked about not being able to change anything, or disrupt the normal course of law in wizarding Britain. And then it turned out that he did vote to depose Fudge and free you, after all, when I hadn't thought he would do so. I know that I didn't pay the prices for that, Severus. I'm afraid that Harry did."

Snape froze. He had been trying to observe all he could of the other Slytherins and the way they acted around Harry, since he knew it was different now, but no one had so far hinted that Harry had given any sacrifices to free him. "Do you know what it was?" he asked.

McGonagall shook her head. "He missed my class the Friday before the First Task, and Draco Malfoy fainted in it. There were rumors that Hawthorn Parkinson had escorted Harry back to bed in the Slytherin common room. He had some kind of tipping point, Severus, but I don't know what it was." She closed her eyes, as though running the events over again in her mind, then opened them. They had the gleam of a cat chasing down a mouse. "He did receive a letter that morning."

From his mother, perhaps?

Snape snarled and stood. He would have to find Harry and have this out with him, one way or another. In the days since Christmas, Harry had effectively stonewalled both him and Draco, saying that he didn't want to talk about what had happened with Lily, that it was done and that was quite enough. He would talk about spells, Dark Arts, most of what he'd done during Snape's imprisonment, potions, what he thought of Scrimgeour's chances to become the new Minister—anything but what was most important to heal and not just freeze his wounds.

Snape could not imagine Harry breaking down over a letter unless the letter was from Lily. And if Harry had written back to her as part of any bargain to get Snape free…

My Slytherins have him accepting help more readily than he would otherwise. It is now time to make him listen when we ask him not to do things that are sacrifices for him or injurious to his mental health.

Harry leaned back on his pillow and thoughtfully turned James's latest letter over and over in his hands. He had written and explained that he didn't want to see his father again, nor have him be concerned over Harry. He would do nothing to interfere in his relationship with Connor, but he had seen Lily again and she had convinced him that he was done with parents.

James had sent back this letter, as if he didn't like Harry's cutting off of contact. Perhaps it would simply say that James would be the one to decide how and if they cut off contact, Harry thought, with a quiver of a smile.

He supposed it would not do much harm if he read it. He certainly did not have to respond, did not feel bound, as he had with his mother—

Harry strangled the thought, which he'd become good at doing, and slid its corpse under the pools of his mind with the corpses of all the other thoughts about her. He slit the envelope and drew out the letter. It was a simple message, and short.

Dear Harry:

You told me that you had not looked into the Pensieve. Until you do, you will not understand why I cannot allow you to cut off contact. You must have a parent, Harry, and I'm the best choice for the role.

Your loving father,

James.

Harry raised his eyebrows. Well, part of that's true enough. I didn't want to see what he might have chosen to send me—probably more memories of a happy family to bring me back to my senses—but perhaps it really is important.

He stretched out a hand and murmured, "Accio James's Pensieve."

The trunk at the foot of the bed opened, and the Pensieve came skimming in through the curtains. Harry was grateful that no one else was in the room. Blaise had gone off to moon over Ginny, Vince to join a snowball fight in the courtyard that the upper-year Ravenclaws had been talking about excitedly at breakfast.

Draco…

Harry shook his head. Draco had pushed him a bit too far this morning. He'd tried to reassure Harry that his magic wasn't foul or evil or awful-smelling, and ignored Harry's quiet requests to stop talking about it. Harry had finally cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, and then cast an illusion at the door, to make it look as though he'd hurried out of the room. Draco was off looking for him now, while Harry made himself comfortable in his bed with James's letter and the latest book Snape had lent him.

Harry drew the Pensieve towards him, and ignored his own fear. Yes, he had some reason to be nervous about Pensieves, but James was not a wizard of Dumbledore's strength and skill. Harry didn't really think he could enchant a Pensieve into a trap, nor that he would want to try. Besides, his own magic was strong enough to resist most spells his father could cast.

He plunged his head beneath the surface.

He found himself in a room it took him a moment to recognize: his father's study at Lux Aeterna. Harry turned in a circle, studying it. The walls were lined with books, and a desk directly in front of him was scattered with papers. Harry walked towards them, curious. He could see no one else in the room just yet.

He bent over the papers, and his eyes widened. They were copies of old Daily Prophet articles, concerning the Death Eater trials. On the top one was a photograph of Snape, his stare fixed on something unseen as he sat in the chain-bound chair of the Wizengamot courtroom.

"I've looked and looked."

Harry jumped and glanced over his shoulder. James had entered, with Remus close behind him, looking pale and harassed. Harry backed cautiously away from the desk, though of course they couldn't see him. James sat down in the chair in front of the desk, and looked wistfully at the articles.

"I've tried to justify my son's choice of guardian," he whispered, "and I can't. Even when I know he was acting as a spy for Dumbledore, making his own sacrifices for the war, Snape was still a bastard. Listen to this." He picked up the paper on top and cleared his throat. "Asked whether it was true that he had risked his life to stop several Death Eater attacks on Muggle villages in late October of this year, Severus Snape told the Wizengamot to 'believe what you like. You will anyway.'" James shook his head and slammed the paper down. "Can you believe him?"

"I don't think his general truthfulness is why Harry chose him as his guardian, James," said Remus, and rubbed his forehead.

You're wrong, Harry thought, at least in part. He glanced curiously out the study's window. The cheerful colors spoke to him of early autumn. This would be before Remus had left James to go to the Seers' Sanctuary, then.

"I've been through all of them," said James adamantly, "looking for some sign that he displayed any of those qualities he was supposed to have—courage, strength of will, compassion—to other people. Nothing. I think Harry made a mistake, Remus. He must have done. Snape puts on a good act, but he only wants Harry with him to get one over on me. I've looked at it up and down, and I can come to no other conclusion."

"I told you what I saw at the school last year," said Remus. "There are times Snape would have killed Sirius to keep Harry safe."

"And now he's dead." James's voice was an ugly, bitter thing. Harry winced. Did he ever mourn like Connor and I did? His father pushed the articles around in an agitated manner. "I don't know, Remus. I suppose perhaps the papers don't have the most unbiased sources. I'll look elsewhere." He stood up and paced to the door. "I just can't believe that a man I've always despised should have more favor from my son than I do," he whispered.

Remus caught himself on what looked like the edge of a vehement protest, and shook his head. They left, shutting the door behind them, and the Pensieve shuddered lightly, and Harry found himself in the midst of another memory.

This next image showed his father alone in his study, watching another Pensieve. Shrugging off thoughts about an endless succession of mirrors and becoming trapped in them, Harry edged up beside him and looked down.

A younger James was floating in midair, his robes dangling over his head as a spell suspended him by his ankle. Harry couldn't hear sounds from the remembered Pensieve, but he could see the younger version of his father thrashing and struggling. He could imagine the humiliation that would be rising off him. James had never liked being embarrassed, which was one reason Snape's insanity potion had worked as well as it had.

"How can there be anything good in him?" whispered the memory of the older James. "When he invented spells like that?"

Harry stared at his face in wonder. Does he really think that will convince me? I know that he and the other Marauders went after Snape, too. It's not just a one-sided grudge. And if Snape couldn't put it in the past and have done with it, then neither could he.

"He's not the right kind of man to be a father," James went on muttering, and then pushed the Pensieve away from him, and Harry was in another memory, though he did think before he went, If the papers aren't unbiased witnesses, what do you say about your own memories?

This time, James was standing on the very outer edge of Lux Aeterna's lawn, his arms folded around his chest as he frowned at the wards.

"Harry Potter," he said.

The wards went on glowing.

"Draco Malfoy."

A small spark from the wards, but they remained mostly quiescent.

"Severus Snape."

The wards snarled and animated, one of them projecting something that looked like a tooth or a scorpion's sting. James nodded, satisfied, and stepped back from the projection, which sank into the magic a moment later.

"They still consider him a Dark, evil bastard," he said.

Harry rolled his eyes. Has he forgotten that the house leans on him, and adopts his likes and dislikes? Of course it's going to forbid entrance to Snape. He practiced Dark magic, but so did Draco, and so did I. James's emotions are also a deciding factor in who gets to enter there.

And so it went, through memory after memory, as James apparently sought evidence for existence of some good traits in Snape, and found nothing. Harry watched in growing disgust. He could appreciate his father's determination to make sure that, if he had to yield up care of one of his sons, he was yielding it to the right person, but his grudge would have made him blind to a good streak a mile wide. And Snape's was narrower than that, but still. Harry thought it was the kind he needed.

If he would only stop trying to talk to me about Lily, at least.

The memories ended with a sight of James writing the letter he'd sent along with the Pensieve. Harry pulled his head out with a sigh, and eyed the Pensieve for a moment, wondering if he should send it back.

No, he decided at last. I don't want him to think I'm rejecting what he tried to do for me. But I'd better make my letter utterly clear, and concise, and to the point.

He summoned a sheet of parchment and a quill, and wrote the letter braced on his Defense Against the Dark Arts book.

Dear James:

I'm afraid that I still think Snape is a good guardian for me. He isn't you, and he isn't Lily or Dumbledore, and at the moment, that's what makes him best. He would fight for me. He does make an effort to teach me to defend myself. He doesn't think that the war against Voldemort is more important than I am. He saved my life the other night. I keep telling you that I'm fine with him. I'll tell you again, and I hope that this time you'll listen to me, instead of deciding that your own son can't possibly know what he's talking about.

Harry.

Harry thought a moment, then added:

P.S. I wouldn't mind keeping up communication with you, but trying to force me to return is the worst thing you could do right now. I don't have a problem cutting off the communication, either.

He was not sure that was the right idea, but James had proven less hopeless than Harry had thought he would. He was also not Lily, and he'd shown no sign of knowing about Lily's and Dumbledore's plots. If he ever did reveal that he had, Harry would start burning his letters the moment they came, and would send no more of his own.

He went to the Owlery to post his letter, accompanied now and then by the golden gleam of voting owls. They paid no attention to him. Harry found it rather refreshing.

On his way back down, he paused by one particular sealed classroom, and swept a hand across the door, sighing.

He would need to speak with Snape about this.

Snape looked up in surprise as someone knocked on his office door. He hadn't sent a message to Harry, and no one else would willingly seek him out on New Year's Day.

"Enter," he said.

Harry opened the door. One look at his set jaw, and Snape knew he wouldn't have to summon his charge for a serious discussion.

He sat back and studied Harry in silence as the boy walked up to the desk and folded his arms. Snape said nothing. If Harry expected him to know what this was about, he didn't, and he had learned that speaking too directly of Lily was the way to make Harry bristle. Best to let him choose the direction of the conversation, and then Snape would seize and guide it.

"I want to know what the Meleager Potion does," said Harry.

Snape knew that he couldn't hide the widening of his eyes, but at least he controlled it soon, and no one but Harry was there to see it. "Why?" he asked.

"Because Fawkes didn't burn the potion and all your notes after all." Harry sounded utterly unembarrassed to admit that he'd lied. "There's a sample in a classroom upstairs, sealed with house elf magic. I didn't dare to destroy it or unlight the candle floating in the middle of it, since I didn't know what would happen to Minister Fudge if I did. What would happen?"

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself not to get angry. His goal today was to make Harry lose his temper, since he thought it was the only way to make him speak freely. Besides, he'd brewed the potion under the influence of the cold anger. That put him in the wrong immediately.

"It would burn him," said Snape. "Horribly. Painfully. From the inside out. And it would also burn years off his life, though he wouldn't know that. Even if I let the candle stay undisturbed for the rest of his life, that might be only three more years. Or five. Or ten. Everything depends on my will."

He looked at Harry, and found his charge frowning softly.

"How could you do that?" Harry asked.

Snape cocked his head to the side. You are not getting angry. You can't let yourself. "Do you mean, how could I brew a potion like that?"

"Yes." Harry studied him. "I know that you're capable of great things, wonderful things. You're certainly no stranger to compassion, or healing. Why would you brew a potion like that for the Minister, when he'd never done you any harm?"

That was going too far, Snape decided. "Do not play stupid with me," he hissed, rising to his feet. "You spoke what you believed to be my reasons under Veritaserum at my trial. You know that I did it to avenge the insult to you, to hurt him for hurting you. You may judge me as you like for the overweening pride of that response, for my stupidity in getting caught, for letting my hatred overtake my reason, but you will not pretend that you expected me to forgive him. You know what I am, Harry. I have forgiven no one who hurt you, unless they have paid a price already. Black has paid that price. None of the others have."

Harry's face was pale. This was leading towards territory where he didn't want Snape and Draco treading, Snape knew. He did not back up, though, and tried to keep the conversation on the Meleager Potion. "What should we do with it?"

"I could brew an antidote," said Snape reluctantly. He had come halfway around the desk, but forced himself to pause. "But there might be a problem having the Minister take it. It would be better to brew a neutralizer, instead, something that can turn the sample of potion we have into harmless water. I will begin on that soon." He scrutinized Harry in silence for a moment. "Will that satisfy you?"

Harry nodded. "So long as you think that Fudge will take no more ill effects from the potion."

"No. It works as I have told you." And it did. Snape was not holding back any secrets from his charge, not this time. He wanted his honesty reciprocated with honesty. "And I have no reason to use it, not again. The effects of the various poisons will remain in Fudge's body, but without my will to act on them, and without the candle burning to act as an anchor for my will, they will stay inert."

Harry relaxed slightly, but the tight lines around his eyes remained. "You still should not have done it," he said.

"I should not have," Snape agreed readily, and saw Harry blink, astonished, off-guard. He struck. "It was a stupid step to take, and you need a guardian who does not make stupid sacrifices. Just as I need a ward who does not make stupid sacrifices to free me. Did you answer letters from your mother so that Dumbledore would vote to depose the Minister and free me?"

The flush climbing Harry's cheeks answered the question. But he shook his head a moment later. "Don't talk about her," he whispered. "It's done."

"When I can no longer see the parts she's ripped out of your soul, then I will consider it done," said Snape. "You made me swear not to hurt her, Harry, and I have not done so. That she left Hogwarts alive testifies to that." Christmas night had been a sore test of his self-control. He would have been just as happy to go to the hospital wing and end everything with a swift Avada Kedavra, but Harry did not need his guardian going to prison again. "You did not make me promise to leave you wounded and soul-hurt."

Harry's eyes flashed with an emotion only half fury. Snape recognized the panic behind it, too. "I don't want to talk about it," he managed to say. "You know a lot already. Draco knows even more. He heard what she said to me. It's enough that you know, isn't it? You don't need to go on talking to me about it. You don't need to go on looking at me."

"Harry—"

"I don't want you to look at me," Harry whispered. "Not this part of me. Promise that you won't."

Snape shook his head. "I will not give promises that I cannot keep."

Harry snarled at him. He'd cracked the boy's shell of cold indifference, Snape thought, but he had expected more anger than was there. Harry was frightened more than anything else. "I suffered. There. Is that what you want to hear? I did suffer, and now I'm not going to suffer at their hands anymore. They don't need to be punished. Both of you are too obsessed with casting blame. Draco just won't stop talking about it. Even when I beg him not to say a word about Lily, he still wants to reassure me that my magic isn't foul."

"Is that what she said to you?" Snape asked quietly. If he had known that Christmas night, he was not so sure that Lily would have lived, after all. Or she might have, but not as whole as she had been. There were spells that left no marks, and there was Obliviate.

"It doesn't matter." Harry looked torn between running and collapsing. "Please. Stop it. They don't need to suffer. There doesn't need to be vengeance."

"I would disagree," Snape murmured. "But I would say that, at least, there does need to be justice."

"What does justice do but create more pain? No. Leave it alone. I won't have anything to do with her again, and I've already taken more than she deserves to lose. Leave it."

Snape simply watched Harry, saying nothing else, until his charge got himself back under control. Harry shut his eyes and stood in silence for a time, then shook his head. When he opened his eyes, he was smiling, and seemed determined to forget the whole thing.

"Can I help you come up with a neutralizer for the Meleager Potion?" he asked.

Snape nodded. It was not time to push him on talking, he thought. Not yet.

But he did not believe that Harry was right. If nothing else, he had left enemies alive behind him, and that was not a Slytherin thing to do. And there should be justice, at least, if there could not be vengeance. And there was always the chance, faint though it seemed right now, that the Wizengamot might someday force Harry back into the control of his blood parents.

Snape's gaze strayed often as they worked, going to the cauldron of clear Pensieve Potion in the corner of the room. Not in a glass container, it was not yet ready to record memories, and Snape would not have used it on Harry anyway. But on a willing person who wanted to see Harry's mother suffer, and who knew more than Snape did about what she'd said?

I shall have to see whether Draco is willing to give me some of his memories.

Rufus lifted his head from a half-doze and blinked. The tower was ringing like a plucked bell, and there were no empty perches now. The last of the voting owls had returned, then.

He nodded at Amelia, who stood up and said, "Release the ballots."

Responding to the voice of a candidate, the owls opened their beaks and contracted their bellies. Ballots rained out of them, flying into two neat, precise piles. One would bear his name, Rufus knew, and the other Amelia's name.

In silence, they counted the ballots, each taking their own pile first. Rufus felt his heart speeding up when he passed two thousand, but he kept quiet. He recorded the final number by carving it on the floor of the Tower with his wand when he was done.

Six thousand eight hundred two.

Then he moved over to Amelia's pile, while she moved over to his, and they counted again. Amelia had five thousand six hundred nine votes.

Rufus felt an odd light-headedness welling up in him, though he'd both eaten and slept since they climbed up to the Tower, and he'd expected, partly, to win. He leaned back, took a deep breath, carved his estimated number of her votes into the floor, and then shifted the pile of ballots to the side so that he could see Amelia's number. It was off by a few, but only by ones, not tens. She agreed mostly with him.

The owls uttered a faint, chiming hoot, signaling that the acceptable procedure had been fulfilled. Then they turned to face Rufus, bowed their heads to him, and froze in place until the next time they would be needed.

He looked over the ballots and found Amelia smiling gently at him.

"Congratulations, Rufus," she said, and rose from the floor, groaning as she popped a muscle in her back. "I think I knew it would happen. Not everyone voted, of course, but your victory is decisive." She held out a hand, and Rufus strode over to assist her. "Which of those changes you were talking about are you going to implement first?" If she felt any disappointment, she hid it well.

Rufus lingered a moment, to look at the owls and then stare out over the lights of Muggle London. His heart was beating fast, and he still could not quite believe he was the new Minister of Magic.

Then he thought of the changes Amelia spoke of, and he smiled, and he believed it.

"First," he said casually, "I'm sacking Kingsley Shacklebolt. He's put loyalty to a Lord above loyalty to the Ministry or the law, and the one thing I am not going to have is Lords mucking about in my Ministry."

Amelia laughed at him. Rufus didn't see why. It really was his Ministry, now, and people had to learn that he had no truck with Lords.