Chapter 5
Remus J. Lupin returned to 12 Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore wasn't in; Lupin realized that the leader of the Order must already have gone to Hogwarts. He walked over to the fireplace and tossed in some floo powder.
"Albus, I didn't get through the entire speech," Lupin reported, "Someone tried to use the killing curse on me. I ducked it, but it scared off the crowd. Whoever it was escaped in the confusion."
Dumbledore nodded sagely. "I see," he said, "Well, better luck tomorrow. If Scrimgeour's assassins are active in London, perhaps you should speak at another town instead. I suggest you visit Wizard Southampton."
Lupin nodded and pulled his head from the fire. The Order of the Phoenix had found its new purpose: from this time on, it was Harry Potter's official campaign organization. Dumbledore wrote several more speeches and gave them out to Order members.
That day, meanwhile, the whole Order was engaged. Throughout the day of August 23, Order members knocked on doors, handing out leaflets to refute the mis-quotations of the Daily Prophet.
Nymphadora Tonks proceeded up to yet another house in the small town of Birmingham. She knocked on the door and was answered by an elderly, white-haired witch with blue eyes and a large, pointed nose. "Hello, my name is Nymphadora Tonks. I'm doing a survey in this town. First, may…"
"…I ask, did you see the Daily Prophet from the past two days?" Alastor Moody asked politely to a middle-aged, tall, fat wizard in the wizard section of Liverpool.
"Yes, of course I did," replied a blonde, brown-eyed wizard of about twenty-five years old, when asked the same question by Minerva McGonagall in central London. "I see," Minerva said evenly, "so what do you think of the scandalous photograph that was on the front page two days ago?"
"Absolutely disgusting," was the reply a black-haired wizard gave to Bill Weasley in Manchester. The wizard looked at Bill carefully.
"Perhaps you do not know, then," Kingsley Shacklebolt spoke to a tall blonde witch somewhere in Edinburgh, "that the photograph was forged. I happen to know the people involved in the photograph and they did no such thing. We confirmed that with Veritaserum."
"Do you work for the Potter campaign?"
"Yes, actually I do," Tonks replied. "The important information we're trying to give out is that, first of all, Ron Weasley was deliberately misquoted in yesterday's Prophet. In the place of the ellipsis there, he actually said the word, 'not'. This newspaper has had a grudge against us for a long time, so be skeptical of anything they say about Potter or his friends."
"Scrimgeour's people could have taken Polyjuice Potion to make that photograph…" Moody explained,
"…or they could have used very advanced transfiguration methods…" Bill said,
"…or Metamorphagi," Minerva said,
"…since the Daily Prophet refuses to publish our opinions, we've been forced to resort to door-to-door campaigning to correct the misinformation Skeeter's put out."
Kingsley Shacklebolt moved on to the next house; a slightly larger house, but quite similar in style to the last one. He again knocked on the door.
Meanwhile, several houses behind him, a black-cloaked figure, with the cloak billowing, swept up to one of the houses Kingsley had already visited.
The owner of that house, a stout, white-haired, bespectacled man who looked to be in his forties, opened the door and shrank back in fear. Rodolphus Lestrange stayed outside the door, safe behind his black mask, allowing the man to back away.
"I won't hurt you," Rodolphus said imperatively, "I just want you to know some things. Just now, I believe, you were visited by a Potter supporter?"
The white-haired man nodded mutely.
"Well, I work for Scrimgeour. The photograph from the Daily Prophet is genuine. In fact, I was one of the people who made the photographs. This campaign could be a little violent, and you should know that there is only one man who can protect us from these cloaked men…"
Meanwhile, other Death Eaters were surreptitiously trailing the other Order members.
"…That man is Rufus Scrimgeour!" Bellatrix shouted to the blonde, brown-eyed wizard who had just been interviewed by Professor McGonagall in London. "Think about your vote carefully, young man—it may be the difference between life and death, for you!"
In Manchester, an eight-foot-tall black cloaked figure glided up to the raven-haired young wizard whom Bill had recently spoken to. The wizard backed instinctively away from the Dementor at his door, but the Dementor held out one of its gray, scabbly hands, in which were held a brochure. On the brochure was printed much the same speech that other Death Eaters were giving live. The black haired wizard hesitantly took the brochure. The Dementor nodded, satisfied, and left.
"I remind you again," Draco said to a tall, fat wizard in the wizarding section of Liverpool, "the Aurors will be watching the polls, so we will know who voted for whom. If you vote the right way, Scrimgeour has the resources to protect you."
Draco left, his cloak billowing behind him, and the relieved wizard shut his door. Draco quickly turned and pretended to walk the other way as Alastor Moody, four houses away, looked around. Moody saw only a cloaked figure, but didn't see the fact that its face was masked. He strolled up to the next house and rang the doorbell, preparing to repeat his spiel. Draco Malfoy quickly ran up to another of the houses that Moody had visited not fifteen minutes ago and rang that doorbell.
-----September 5, 1998----
The battle lines had been drawn. The Order of the Phoenix endorsed Harry Potter for the Minister of Magic position, while all the businesses controlled by the Malfoys endorsed Rufus Scrimgeour. Order members continued going door to door, passing out leaflets, booklets, and Quibbler magazines printed with Mr. Lovegood's printing press. The Death Eaters and Dementors also went door to door, delivering ad posters for Scrimgeour and warnings on the mortal perils of supporting the other side. The fevered campaigning made for a tight political race, and many voters, answering the door to Order members in the morning and Death Eaters in the afternoon, and receiving campaign literature from both sides, remained undecided.
On this day, the September issue of The Quibbler hit the stands.
Mark Lovegood's most recent Floo-powder poll of 100 households showed Potter and Scrimgeour tied at 31 percent each, with 38 percent of the voters undecided.
By contrast, the internal floo polling of the Order of the Phoenix showed 72 percent of the voters supporting Potter. Lovegood wondered if it had something to do with the fact that poll respondents knew who the interviewing Order members were. The Scrimgeour campaign had conducted its own poll the previous week and claimed that 97 percent of the respondents supported Scrimgeour. For two weeks now the two campaigns had been releasing conflicting statistics, and while Lovegood (and the Order members) trusted his own statistics, most of Wizarding Britain didn't know what to believe.
As it all went on, the Hogwarts Express was boarding. Luna sat alone in a compartment, as Ginny had to go up to the Head compartment this time.
The ride went uneventfully.
-----September 7, 1998-----
After eating lunch quickly, Luna hurried back to Ravenclaw Tower and went straight up to her dorm and opened her trunk. From the bottom of the trunk, she took out several wide rolls of parchment. These were large posters the Order had created for Harry Potter's campaign. Since all the seventh-years were able to vote, Dumbledore had approved some campaigning in school, although he himself was not permitted to take part.
But as she had left the Great Hall, three figures rose from the Slytherin table and followed her.
Stepping down the stairs into the Ravenclaw common room, Luna took one poster and unrolled it, then took her wand and placed a sticking charm on the wall opposite the couch, firmly pressing the poster to the wall. With the rest, she walked outside, intending to put the posters on the walls near the Ravenclaw Tower entrance.
She took one poster in her hand, leaning the others against the wall. She put a Sticking Charm as high as she could reach on the stone wall, then stuck on another poster, jumping to push the top of the poster flat against the wall.
When she turned, the four rolled-up signs she had leaned on the wall were gone.
"Looking for these?" a haughty voice echoed off the walls behind her. She turned again to see a rather plump Slytherin girl—a prefect—holding up the four campaign posters in one hand, her wand in the other. Beside her, there were two other Slytherins, both boys, and they had their wands pointed at her.
"Take down the poster!" one of the boys warned.
"Are we really going to…?" one boy whispered nervously.
"Yes!" the girl whispered back fiercely. "Malfoy'll kill us if we don't!"
The boy pointed his wand again, more resolutely.
"Avada kedavra!"
Author's Note: I've gotten a review saying that people are going to over-dramatic lengths to win the campaign. I don't know if political violence is over-dramatic, but it is certainly not uncommon. I know those of us in Muggle Britain and America (and many other countries)are used to peaceful, orderly elections, but this isn't the norm in some countries. For example, some countries in Africa often have fradulent elections and people were, and still are, outright murdered for their votes or political expressions.
