Notes: Here's a political maneuvers piece. I realize that many readers might not find these very interesting, but other readers do, and I love writing them. There will be more of them in future chapters, but no fear, there will also be more family scenes.

To answer the guest Leeaa about the previous chapter: A) Their motives weren't really the best. Hermione wanted to be a mother and didn't want to sacrifice that over her concerns about Tom. Tom is a narcissist and wanted to spread his traits. He also wanted a person who was part of him and Hermione. B) Yes, Tom loves his child, in his own way. And yes, he is harboring a dream of having an immortal family and really thinks Hermione and their children will sign on eventually. C) I think it's apparent that Horcruxes don't stop anyone from aging. Whether one would end up disembodied after the death of the body from age-related illness, or trapped in a decrepit, barely-animated body, I can't say. He's not thinking too hard about that yet. I have "headcanon" about how this set of issues plays out for them, but I'm really hesitant to put it up, because other people might prefer something different.

Chapter Five: Highly Irregular

Hermione picked up the letter, trying to control her anger and alarm.

.

Mrs. Riddle—

.

Hermione generally did not think about it overmuch, and when she did, it didn't trouble her, but at the moment, she really disliked that address. She disliked the implication that she was somehow answerable for whatever he had done. That his deeds were connected to her.

Unfortunately, in a very real sense, they were. Each day, she allowed him to continue his pursuit of power and influence by not revealing any of his dark, career-ending secrets.

She had taken his name because she wanted to show him that she was committed to him. Also, she was pleased that he wasn't running away from his identity this time and wanted to show him that she supported that. Besides, the name "Granger" belonged to the life she would never have again, and the name "Green" was a lie and a fraud, concocted on the spur of the moment. This name was authentic, at least. It would be hypocritical to expect him not to use an assumed name while using one herself.

But right now, she hated every letter of it.

Her black cat, Sable, curled around her legs, rubbing against her comfortingly. She sank into the nearest chair and petted him. He gave a pleasant purr of contentment and lay down on the floor at her feet. It was very relaxing to have a pet, especially a fluffy, furry one.

Hermione forced her gaze past the salutation and reread the letter itself.

.

As you undoubtedly know, my family's petition to be re-seated on the Wizengamot was voted down by that estimable body. I regret that my father's misdeeds eight years ago incurred such wrath, and I apologize on behalf of myself, my sister, my wife, and my cousins for the inexcusable conduct of our fathers toward you and your husband.

Nonetheless, I have some concerns about the procedure. I have been informed that the vote of the Wizengamot on this matter was sealed. Moreover, the members have been prohibited from discussing their votes. Although I realize that secret ballots are normal for votes concerning the assignment of seats, this degree of enforced secrecy is highly irregular. I have examined records of Wizengamot votes on new seats and have not found a case of a "gag order" for over five centuries. You know, of course, that this includes the tumultuous time of persecution and the political controversy and upheaval of Wizarding Seclusion. I must inquire as to why a vote on the assignment of a new seat requires greater secrecy than the historical votes affecting our entire world.

As you also know, Abraxas Malfoy is a close friend of my family, and a member in good standing of the Wizengamot. He informed me that the vote was almost ready to begin when he learned of a schedule change, and he had to rush to attend the session. Malfoy further inquired of Minister Tuft about this mishap. The Minister told him that all members of the court were duly informed of the time change and that she herself had written confirmation from each member passed to her from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Malfoy, however, insists that both he and Cantankerus Nott were unaware of the change. Nott, in fact, did miss the vote. As your husband is the new Head of Magical Law Enforcement, I entreat you to inform him of this. I am sure he is very busy, establishing himself in the post, but the possibility of intercepted letters and forgery is very concerning. I hope that the problem is simply an error by some worker in the office.

Finally, I have been unable to discover whether established protocol was followed concerning Wizengamot members who had conflicts of interest and should therefore have recused themselves from the vote. Please understand that I am not casting aspersions upon you, your husband, or your allies in saying this. I simply wish to be assured that the vote was carried out with full due process to my family.

Yours sincerely,

Orion Black

.

Hermione set the parchment down, her heart pounding. She really didn't like to think about this sort of thing, but it was in her face now.

It had been a difficult decision, and she had been torn between loyalty to Tom, disgust for Black's pureblood supremacism and sense of entitlement, and—at the same time—the urge to forgive magnanimously, offer an olive branch to a political opponent, and put the sordid past behind her. At last she had simply abstained from the vote. Tom, she was sure, had voted against Black. Their allies—who could say? Vincent Rosier did not yet have a vote, and his father would have divided loyalties, with one child dependent on Tom's patronage and another married to a Black. The vote, as Orion had written, was secret, and she did not know who voted in what way. She guessed that even Tom didn't, since he had not expressed any irritation with her over her abstention. It was a secret ballot.

She also had a suspicion of exactly why Malfoy and Nott had not known about the time change, and it certainly was not office incompetence or interception of the letters. That Orion had underlined the word "forgery" was… troubling. She knew all too well what Tom was capable of, and that sort of stunt would be nothing to him. Did Orion suspect? His father and his cousin removed, Arcturus and Pollux Black, had hatched a plot in 1944 to forge evidence, and he might have learned about it by now from Arcturus. He could have emphasized the word because he was worried someone else had forged his return note, but it wasn't as if Hermione could ask him what he meant.

And yet… how dare Orion. Did he not have the spine to write Tom himself? Clearly not. He was also pretty foolish to imagine that conducting a correspondence with her would not incur Tom's wrath. Tom's possessiveness of his family (or "devotion," as people called it sanguinely) was legendary in their social stratum. She had to keep this situation under control; if Orion got himself killed or imprisoned, Sirius would not be born. Hermione did not want her tampering with time to keep people she had known from existing. The idea was to give them better lives.

It's not fair that I always have to balance these things. Tidy up after Tom's corrupt, dishonest maneuvers, and keep the future in mind at the same time. Nobody else has that kind of responsibility.

A cry sounded from the nursery, transmitted magically to the room. Hermione sighed and got up. Madeline was probably done with her nap. It was just as well that there would be something to distract her from this for a time, she supposed, as she went to tend to her child.

After a late-evening dinner, and after Madeline had been put to bed for the night, Hermione and Tom sat at the table in the family dining room with after-dinner drinks. She had told him that she needed to talk about something important with him.

The room really was not much less grand than the formal dining room that they rarely used except when guests were present. Tall, heavily draped windows punctuated one wall, and another wall was lined with cabinetry containing china, bottles of spirits, and various magical curios. A gaslit chandelier—well, Hermione supposed, it had been gaslit when this house belonged to Muggles, but it of course was not now—dangled from the ceiling. All in all, the room was rather imposing. Hermione somewhat regretted not having this discussion in their cozy private sitting room instead.

Taking a deep breath, she drew the letter out of her robes and unfolded it on the table. "I got this today from Orion Black," she said.

Tom's face hardened at once at that name.

"It was about the Wizengamot vote on a seat for his family," she explained.

"And what does he have to say?" Tom asked, his voice dangerously quiet. "Was he complaining about the outcome?"

"Well," she hedged, "sort of. He thinks…." She trailed off uneasily.

Tom sipped his drink and set it down on the table. The clatter of glass on wood made Hermione jump. He raised an eyebrow. "Just say it, Hermione."

She took a deep breath. "He has questions about the vote, and your—actions."

"My actions," Tom repeated. "What actions?"

"Tom, I have never received a letter from anyone about your… professional conduct… before. Ever," she emphasized. "But this one… I'm not saying that Orion should have written. He shouldn't have. But what he says here… what he alleges…."

Tom glared at the offending piece of parchment, his brow darkening. "And just what does he allege?"

She stared back, unbowed. "Well, it wasn't just a secret vote. You made the actual vote tally secret, only announced the outcome, and ordered the Wizengamot not to reveal how they voted. That's fact, not allegation, I know, but he says that was never done on a vote about granting a new seat—or reinstating one, in this case."

"It was for the members' own protection," Tom said airily. "If enough of them talked, Black could figure out who voted against reinstatement. He could retaliate."

Hermione knew very well that this could not be Tom's actual rationale for the vote lockdown, but she decided to move to another issue. "What about the schedule change, and the Black allies not knowing about it?" She plunged forward. "Tom, did you forge letters from Malfoy and Nott to say they had received the notifications?"

He stared back challengingly. "That's quite an accusation."

"You did," she said in awe. "You did. Tom—"

"What bloody difference does it make?" he exploded. "Why do you want people like that to have Wizengamot votes?"

"It's not about what I want!" Hermione exclaimed. "They are Wizengamot members. They have votes."

"The only reason they do is because their families have hereditary seats," Tom snarled, clutching his wand as if it were a stress reliever. "They didn't earn those seats. They didn't get there based on merit. I did. You did. Even Dumbledore—he at least deserves his seat. I don't like him, but he is a great wizard. These people aren't. There's nothing exceptional about them. Why are you defending them?"

"I'm not saying I like the inherited seats, because I don't, but it's the law," Hermione said. "You should push to change it instead—"

Tom laughed harshly and sipped his after-dinner drink. "Hermione, you are such an idealist."

"That's not an insult, you know. You are too, in your way."

"All right—you're naïve. Except that I don't think you really are. You have to know that there would be so much resistance to that…. It's not going to happen right now. It's not. Even I couldn't… maybe as Minister after several years… but not now." He gazed at her with the look of a predator about to make a kill. "Besides, Hermione, Orion's own family planned to forge actual evidence against you when you were in school. Remember that? He has to know that by now. He has a lot of nerve to whine to you about what happened with Malfoy and Nott."

He had a point about that, Hermione realized. Orion did have some nerve to object to the possibility (the reality, she thought grimly) that Tom had abused his new post to falsify signatures for mere acknowledgment letters, when his family had plotted to fake evidence about her for a criminal matter. Maybe he thought she didn't know about it. That idea, that patronizing notion, directed the storm of anger in her away from Tom.

"You shouldn't have tried to prevent them from voting," Hermione mumbled, somewhat defeatedly. She saw Tom's point, but this was still a principle she wasn't going to drop. "Or… if you were really determined to… then you should have recused yourself. It would have looked better."

"Most of the hereditary members are related to the Blacks multiple times over. Malfoy and old Rosier were involved in Arcturus's conspiracy—until they weren't. Nott actually dueled us. Where was the call for them to recuse themselves? Why should we be the only ones?" Tom exclaimed. "Hermione, whose side are you on?"

That hurt. Did he really not trust her? Did he really doubt—? Hermione drew back as if slapped. "Tom, of course I'm on your side!"

He glowered defensively. "It sure doesn't sound like it."

She stared at him with wounded eyes. "It's all right; I know that you have done things like this before. I haven't ever argued with you about it. It's politics. I get that. It's not what I would do, but that's why I'm glad you're the one with that type of political job."

Tom relaxed a little bit. He drained the rest of his whisky and set the glass down on the table.

"But this time, I've had it thrown in my face. I was the one to get the letter from Black."

"There is that," Tom said, his eyebrows narrowing. "Orion Black sent a letter to you asking you to confront me, instead of coming directly to me. That gutless, cowardly, despicable—"

"I agree that Orion should have addressed his concerns to you, rather than—"

"Rather than trying to create discord in another wizard's marriage?" he snarled. "He didn't have the stones to confront me, but he sure had the unmitigated presumption to try to come between us! And now we've argued, because of him." Fury written in every feature of his face, Tom got up and went to the liquor cabinet to pour himself another glass.

Hermione sighed. Tom was intensely possessive of their relationship; he always had been, and now, he was fixated upon a perceived threat to that to the exclusion of all else.

She banished the letter to a shelf. Holding the bottle in hand, Tom watched the note fly through the dining room, and then he returned his gaze to her. "Don't answer him," he growled, his eyes flashing dangerously crimson. "He wanted you to confront me. I'll make damn sure he knows that you did just that." He put the bottle up and stormed back to the table. He took a deep pull from the glass and blinked several times as it made his eyes water. Hermione winced at the added gleams of red from the refractive effect.

"Tom," she sighed, "you really need to calm down and not do anything rash. I am on the Wizengamot myself, after all. He probably saw me as more approachable than you."

"He has some nerve, considering what his father orchestrated—and what his good-for-nothing dead father-in-law did to you! Why would he think you would be any friendlier to his 'cause' than I am?" he sneered.

"He's not his father—or father-in-law. You know the reinstatement of his family would have been contingent upon Arcturus never holding the actual vote. I just—why do this? Prevent people from voting—or try to—and then make the tally secret and gag the members? Did you even win the vote, Tom?"

Tom breathed deeply, trying to control his anger, and looked her straight in the eye. "In fact, I did. I had four more nays. It was close. That was why I sealed it. If Nott had made it—and you and I had recused ourselves—that would have been a single-vote margin. I didn't want Black finding that out."

Hermione looked down, unable to meet his eyes for this admission. "It would've been a two-vote margin. I actually abstained from the vote."

Tom stopped cold.

"You… didn't vote with me. You didn't vote on returning a seat to Orion bloody Black," he said, his voice rising. "After all that his family did to you—"

"I just said that he is not his father."

Tom glared. "You can be so hypocritical sometimes. No—let me finish," he said as she opened her mouth to object angrily. "You're on my case every time I say something about Muggles—"

"I do not jump on you every time—"

"I can hardly say anything about them without a quick 'correction' from you, or one of your sternly disapproving looks, or some sort of response. But when it comes to giving a Wizengamot vote to someone who would use it against everything you want to do, and most of what I want to do—someone who thinks anyone who isn't pureblood back to medieval times has no right to be in our world—you abstained. You wouldn't take a position on that! It's enough to make me think you just have a problem with me."

He was defensive and angry, but Hermione detected real hurt in his words. She paused, considering what he had said. Had she been unduly hard on him?

With a rush of dismay, she realized that she did respond visibly when he made a comment about "Muggle" anything. It didn't even have to be a venomous comment. He could simply refer to a subject as "Muggle"—Muggle entertainment, Muggle art, Muggle science—and she would object in some way.

It's because I am trying to convince him that there are some things that are a shared human heritage, she thought. Muggle science is just science, even if we can override some of it with magic. Our culture is based on Muggle culture, our art and architecture are based on Muggle art, and people need to stop pretending that they're wholly separate. That's all it's about.

On the other hand, it probably does come across as pedantic, self-righteous nagging… and focusing on something comparatively unimportant. I… have a tendency to do that sometimes, even though I know now that it's counterproductive. And then when I tell him that I abstained… yes, I see his point.

He was staring at her darkly, his eyes flashing with anger.

"Tom," she said in what she hoped was a conciliatory tone, "I see what you mean, and I'm sorry. I really don't mean to be annoying about it. It's just… one of our political goals is to be more realistic about Muggles. That was what we agreed on back in school. But I see that it would be hard on your nerves to always be reminded that not all Muggles are bad, or that something we have was influenced by their works, or that some topic is not 'Muggle' even though it's almost all Muggles who study it. I understand."

The anger in his expression cooled.

"I'll try not to do it. As far as the vote is concerned, I was torn. A part of me wanted to move past it, but I didn't want to enable a system I don't support—giving him a seat strictly because his dad had one—and I didn't want to be against you either. I didn't! You supported and protected me during all of that, and it matters to me, Tom. But—"

His eyebrows narrowed again. "There's always a 'but,'" he muttered.

"No buts on what I just said. I'll try not to nag you anymore, and I never intended to make you think that I had a problem with you, or didn't love you," she said. "I just wish that you would… oh, how to say this."

He gazed at her, waiting.

"You had four more votes." She leaned forward and stared at him pleadingly. "Why the underhanded tricks? You didn't have to. I think you wanted to."

"Excuse me?"

"I know that you get some kind of enjoyment out of making sure people know you outmaneuvered them, even if it's corrupt, as long as they can't use it against you. You enjoy that as much as the maneuvering itself sometimes."

He glowered at her. "And if I do, what of it?"

"You know what. When people suspect things, they talk. And I hear about it." Hermione hesitated before her last statement, but decided to go ahead with it. "The very fact that you'd ever prefer that people know what you did—or even just suspect you—well, it means that you have more Gryffindor in you than you might want to acknowledge."

Tom blinked. "Oh, you did not just say that."

"I did." She gave him a sideways smirk. "You said once that Gryffindor was the house of courage, bravado, and trying to prove a point."

"If I do any such thing, it's because I want there to be no doubt in their minds that it was my doing. If people thought it was only bad luck, they might decide to try again. Of course, I wouldn't want anyone to have anything on me, so it would be best for them to know without being able to prove anything."

"My point exactly."

He glared but subsided.

"I really would rather not be dragged into it, though."

"And I don't want anyone doing that to you. I'll make certain Black and his 'friends' know not to involve you."

"Don't do anything to him, Tom," she pleaded. "He's supposed to have sons—"

"Yes, yes, all the people you remember," Tom said. He finished his second glass and smiled sinisterly at her. "Fortunately for these yet-unborn people—and the man himself—Orion's just a nuisance. He's obviously intimidated by me, so he won't be hard to manage."

Hermione shook her head in mild consternation, but she supposed this reassurance would have to do.

He got up from his chair and walked over to hers, standing behind her. She craned her neck to look at him as he ruffled her curly hair—and then his touch was gone. Her face fell slightly.

He met her eyes and smirked knowingly at her as he departed the room.

End Notes: This scene continues in a separate one-shot titled "Shattered Glass." It is not posted on this website, nor will it be, for good reason. If you are interested in reading it, it is posted on Archive of Our Own. My page on AO3, which has the fic link, is listed on my profile here. If you do read it, be very sure to look over all the story tags for it first!