A/N: Dear cowards, if you had any arguments that could contradict me, I'd let you post them, even under guest reviews. But no. All you can do is call me names. Sign in before sending me hate-mail or I'll taunt you with more truths that you obviously can't stand to see but can't refute either.

Chapter 4.

Hermione yawned and stretched as she came down the stairs of Headquarters. She had volunteered as a poll watcher to make sure there were no voting irregularities. It had meant a late night, but luckily everything had gone smoothly. She was looking forward to Dumbledore taking office and the insanity of the last few years fading into a bad memory.

She walked into the kitchen and found glum faces where she had expected happiness and even celebration. "What happened?" she asked with trepidation.

Harry passed over the Daily Profit and she read the Headline.

VOLDEMORT NEW GOD-EMPEROR OF MAGICAL WORLD

"What!?" she screamed with enough volume that she would have woken Sirius's mother, if they hadn't found a way to kill her painting. "That's impossible!"

"Fraid not, luv," John Dawlish drawled. He was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping tea, with his boots up on the table.

"I was THERE, Auror Dawlish," Hermione managed to make his name sound like an insult. "We stopped counting at midnight. The vote was 6,120 to 3,223." She remembered as she was slightly disappointed that Dumbledore had been so close to winning by a 2 to 1 margin and just barely missed it. "There was exactly one write-in ballot for Voldemort." She suspected it was his own vote.

"Yeah but then 20,000 ballots came in for Voldemort at 4 AM this morning," countered Dawlish.

"Exactly 20,000? They're obviously fake. Just throw them out."

Dawlish shook his head. "They're not fake. They came in a box marked 'Totally Not Fake Ballots.' So, you see? There's nothing to do but accept it. 'Sides, the Profit already crowned him 'God-Emperor' this morning."

"John," Hermione began in a tone of voice reserved for extremely slow children you were trying not to throttle. "There are only around 10,000 magical people in all of Great Britain and 90% of them voted. There aren't enough people for there to be another 20,000 ballots. It's fraud!"

"Well, you obviously didn't read far enough, then," said Dawlish, pointing to the paper in her hands.

Hermione skimmed further down and read what she found aloud. "'There is no proof of voter fraud and anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a traitor.' What? How can they preemptively say 'there's no proof'? We haven't had a chance to show our evidence. Besides the fact that there are too many obviously fake ballots. And since when does the Daily Profit crown God-Emperors, anyway? That's not even a thing!"

"They haven't before," Luna chimed in. "Usually, they just repeat the Ministry's announcement of whatever winners there were of each election. But this election was special. They have to make sure the people know and—more importantly—know not to question this election. Don't worry though. Daddy's preparing a special edition exposing everything. Right down to the Rotfang conspiracy."

"He is, is he?" Dawlish sat up. "Excuse me, I- uh think I left my floo on," he said as he rushed out.

"When did Dawlish even join the Order?" Hermione asked, but received only shrugs.

Hermione held a crying Luna while Ron comforted an inconsolable Xenophilius. Personally, she felt she got the better end of that deal. Especially compared to the Lovegoods, who just had both their home and business burned to the ground in one fell swoop.

Harry had found a piece of parchment nailed to the still-standing door (though nothing but the door and frame were still upright). "By order of the Ministry of Truth—Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Truthiness—the publication known as The Quibbler has been found guilty, in a secret trial, of printing misinformation, fake news, and general un-truthiness; and are hereby blocked from printing their hateful content and malicious lies forever more."

"Arrgh!" Hermione yelled to the grey sky overhead. "1984 was not supposed to be a playbook!" Once she had calmed down a bit, it was Luna's turn to comfort her. Or maybe they comforted each other. Not that way, you perverts. At least not yet, and not in this story.

"What will you do now?" Hermione asked.

Luna wrinkled her nose. "I suppose we'll print the truth on Teen Witch Weekly's magical printing press. They don't look that closely at what's being printed, so I doubt they could censor us there if they tried. But there's a reason it's known as 'The Pit.' I'm just sad to see The Quibbler come to an end like this."

Ministerial Decree 665:

By order of Delores Umbridge, Almost Senior under the under-secretary down-the-hall-secretary to the Minister of Truthiness.

There is a new, invisible, form of Dragon Pox going around. Death rates have been as high as 0.001%. Therefore, in the interest of public safety, all public gatherings of more than 3 people are hereby banned forever. Or until you all stop questioning who won the last election.

Exceptions include: burning down buildings, looting, rioting, celebrating our new God-Emperor, those who espouse proper values, and government employees suppressing the rights of those who disagree with us.

Laughing, having fun, and smiling are all hereby banned forever as those actions may spread the virus. There are no outward signs of this virus, so most of you will never know if you have it or not. Living in fear forevermore is recommended.

Look forward to Ministerial Decree 666, where we explain to you how you can show your support for the Ministry of Truth and protect yourself from this invisible, killer virus that only kills Dumbledore's supporters when they're out supporting Dumbledore.

"We are extremely proud of the quality, balanced journalism that the Daily Profit produces. But we're concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common from 'alternative media sources.' More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories... stories that just aren't true, without checking facts first. Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control 'exactly what people think'...This is extremely dangerous to a democracy. At The Daily Profit, it's our responsibility to pursue and report the truth. We understand Truth is neither politically 'left nor right' but instead must be completely in support of our new God-Emperor. Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever. We work very hard to seek the truth and strive to be fair, balanced and factual... We consider it our honor, our privilege to responsibly deliver the news every day."

- Mendacity Sinclair. Editor for the Daily Profit.

A/N2: Google "extremely dangerous to our democracy" if you want to see something that's REALLY dangerous to our democracy.