ccxxx. threads of the loom

The tinny noise of late-eighties music jittered over Hermione's head.

She could feel the clerk's eyes boring into her back as she perused the little shelf of office supplies. The shop offered an assortment of items, mostly convenient snacks and whatnot customers could pick up on their way home from work. Elara had her hands full with Ginny, who'd apparently inherited her father's zeal for all things Muggle. She kept chirping, "Brilliant!" over innocuous things, and the clerk's expression had only grown more and more suspicious as time passed.

Hermione sighed through her nose. She found the packet of dusty sticky notes and picked them up, turning them over in her hands. Diagon Alley sold something similar; you could tap them with your wand and they'd change color, stick to pages, sort themselves, even chime reminders or read notes aloud, but sometimes Hermione craved the familiar. She grew up with those notes. Her father showed her how to use them.

She stared at the little package, unmoving.

"Blimey! Look at this!" Ginny had a blue stress ball in hand, and when she squeezed it, it turned bright red, pink stars swirling against the stretched material. "I thought Muggles didn't have magic?"

Elara cleared her throat and coughed, Ginny blushing as she realized her gaffe. The big black dog waiting outside the front door barked.

Hermione quickly brought her selection to the register, startled when Elara and Ginny suddenly joined her, dropping Mars bars, a bag of strangely flavored crisps, and the stress ball onto the counter. Another bark sent Elara back to the sweets, grabbing nonsense at random before shooting the dog a frustrated glower.

The clerk watched this with a strained expression.

Hermione smiled at the man as she brought out the wallet she hadn't used for years. "That's it."

He rang up their purchases—and Elara stood on Ginny's foot before she could comment on the scanner.

"Nine-fifty."

Hermione forked over the pounds, thanking the man with a strained smile as she accepted the two plastic bags and made a beeline for the door. The sensor chimed as they crossed under it—and Ginny made two goes under it, giggling, until Hermione and Elara wrangled her back into walking.

They wandered along the street toward the avenue, and Sirius circled them, snapping his jaws together when he nudged the bag.

"Stop it," Elara hissed. "You're a wretched escort, do you know that? We're supposed to be discreet!"

Their little expedition this afternoon had been a last-minute decision, a small break from the oppressive atmosphere inside Grimmauld Place to get outside and have a nice walk. Of course, they'd dressed as inconspicuously as possible, donning their most bland Muggle-style clothes. Elara wore shorts and had her hair down, Hermione's hair charmed sleek and blond. She still felt they stood out too much, but it was worth an hour out of the house.

Longbottom had been entirely too nosy of late—a complete and utter nuisance, he and the Weasley twins, who wanted nothing more than to figure out what happened in the Order meetings held in the basement. It drove them all to distraction. He kept watching Harriet when he could, a scenario far too similar to what had occurred in their second year for Hermione to stomach. Elara had already had words with him, but Longbottom claimed he just wanted to talk with her.

Well, if Hermione had her way, Neville could stay as far from Harriet as possible.

In the privacy of her own mind, and quite apart from having Longbottom around, she could admit she rather liked Grimmauld Place with more people inside. Peace and quiet had their uses, but the warmth of human presence permeated those cold, despairing corners of Elara's home like firelight spilling from an empty hearth. Mrs. Weasley all but smothered them in her motherly affection, her exuberance reminding Hermione fiercely of her own mother, of how she'd been before—before everything, really. She pondered if the Weasley children knew how lucky they were to have someone who loved them so baldly, without reserve.

The steady tromp of Order members through the house brought with them a different pall. Where the Weasley matriarch did all she could to remind them of their youth, to make their summer as normal as possible, the Order was a burr that couldn't be ignored. Sometimes there were injuries, other times they came through grim and officious, barely sparing a glance for the younger witches and wizards. Most of them carried Muggle papers from every corner of the United Kingdom—official local issues and less reputable rags alike. When Hermione stole glimpses at them, each reported a similar theme; Muggles were disappearing.

"Why did you want to go in there, anyway?" Elara asked as they walked, stirring Hermione from her spiraling thoughts. "If not for something to eat?"

"Oh. I needed new supplies." Need was a strong word for it, but Hermione had wanted to get out of the house regardless of the reason. She hadn't wanted to stay behind like Harriet, who'd put in a token protest about being left but hadn't argued more than that. "For a project."

"A project?"

"Mhm." Hermione explained no more than that, letting the plastic bags sway from her grip as they made for the crossing. It was surreal to be back amongst the purr of engines and fast, flickering electric lights after so long in the Wizarding world. In many ways, Hermione missed the certainty of it, the assurance of physics and unilateral knowledge coming from unassailable facts. Magic shattered reality in a manner most awe-inspiring—and horrific.

Hermione felt like she would never catch up.

They returned to Grimmauld Place, walking casually up the pavement. As they did so, they crossed wards sketched into the ground, layered to mask their passage in gradual increments. The first distracted, the second blurred, and by the time they reached the steps to Number Twelve, Hermione knew anyone watching from the estate would have lost track of their presence. She looked over her shoulder as Sirius nosed the door open, but as she stared across the park, she failed to see any Aurors waiting.

They could be hidden, Hermione reminded herself. Don't let yourself be fooled.

Once indoors, Sirius changed forms, and he grabbed a bag from her. "Excellent," he extolled, reaching inside. "Curly Wurly! Oh, I fecking love these. We used to get these all the time when we'd pop out and give ol' mummy the slip. Did cost a bomb, though, didn't it? Nine pounds fifty? Merlin's bollocks."

As he tore into the sweet, Hermione went about setting her appearance right, and Elara used her wand to charm her hair back up into a bun.

"It looks nice down," Ginny assured, but the other witch grimaced. Elara tied her hair into place, then reached out and snatched the plastic bag from Sirius.

"Give me that," she snapped. "It's not all for you."

"All right, all right…" He held his hands up, mouth full of caramel. "Don't haff to ask twice—."

Elara started up the stairs first, and Hermione came after, Ginny on her heels. They could hear Mrs. Weasley in the kitchen below, raking her boys over the coals for yet another infraction, and Hermione hoped for their sakes that hadn't broken anything new. Elara's temper couldn't be described as anything but thin of late.

The stairs creaked under their weight as they climbed higher, Elara extracting the crisps from the bag of snacks before handing it off to Ginny. On the level that housed their bedrooms, they pushed open the door to the office, which remained ajar as they'd left it. Also exactly as they'd left it was Harriet, having slumped half off the chaise to the dusty floor, her menacing familiar loosely wrapped about her skinny legs.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Hermione sighed. "Have you moved at all? I thought you were going to go to the kitchen for a tea?"

"Mmm." Harriet remained on her back, staring at the ceiling. She'd done the same ever since returning to Grimmauld.

Hermione had expected more from her—more curiosity about the strangers in the house, more frustration, more anger. Harriet had never been a meek girl, always the first to react, to throw the first punch, quick and bright and flaring like sunlight blinding against steel. But, since returning from Azkaban, Harriet had been slow. Quiet. She moved with lethargy if she moved at all, staring into the distance with no mind behind her dull green eyes.

Even now, she seemed to collapse in on herself like a balloon deflated, all the air gone, left on the floor to be found after a child's birthday party. When Hermione looked at her, she felt as if she was watching her best friend bleed out, and everything that made Harriet herself leaked from a wound Hermione couldn't find.

Well, that wasn't entirely true; she could find the wound. It came from being betrayed, tortured, and constantly thrown upon the whims of petty boy wizards who played with others like a cat plays with a mouse. It left marks in predictable ways—but the wound itself burrowed deeper than plasters or magic could reach. If Harriet kept bleeding, what would happen then?

Worse, what would happen if she stopped? If suddenly all that anger and hate had nowhere else to go—.

Elara threw the bag of crisps at Harriet's head with some force, startling the other witch. "Prat," Harriet hissed—then she rotated the bag round the right way up and read the label. "Dill pickle and spicy shrimp? Brilliant."

"Stop resembling a rug."

"Bugger off."

She opened up the bag, and Hermione sputtered at the smell.

"How on earth did you know she would eat those things?" she demanded in an undertone. Elara shrugged as she passed, going to the chaise Harriet had abandoned, stepping around Livi's unraveled coils.

"I didn't."

Hermione's mouth formed a thin moue, but she said nothing more and walked across the room to the window, urging it open enough for fresh air to filter inside. The thick summer breeze crossed the desk and scattered a few of the top sheets of loose parchments. Sighing, Hermione dropped her news sticky notes on the desk and bent to clean up the mess.

Ginny came over to assist, and, displaying her natural Weasley curiosity, couldn't help but read some of what had been written.

"Hermione," she asked. "What is all this?"

Hermione didn't answer at first. Rather, she gathered the material that had fallen and re-sorted it back into its proper place. "I've been—well. What with the Minister for Magic election happening at the end of the year, I've been tracking the Wizengamot."

Elara had been watching Harriet munch on her crisps, but she looked around when Hermione spoke, eyes sharpening. "What do you mean?" Ginny nodded as well, clearly wanting to know.

"You know how the election works, yes?" Hermione asked, fiddling with the paper. "There's an election every three years. The season opens on Beltane, then runs until Yule, with the election being held around that time. The candidate ballot is confirmed on Mabon in late September. All this gets thrown out the window if the Minister passes away, of course; the Ministry enters a state of emergency, wherein the government is closed until the Wizengamot can be convened and a new election held."

The three other witches listened to her, Harriet thoughtfully munching on her snack. Seeing their attention, Hermione gathered her confidence.

"The final election is decided by the Wizengamot's vote. Originally, when the Ministry first came together in 1707, three hundred and thirty-three families and circles who'd previously been a part of the Wizard's Council selected representatives and were inducted into the WIzengamot. Centuries later, those three hundred and thirty-three families have mostly merged, gone extinct, or married, but the original three hundred and thirty-three votes remain, now disseminated into sixty-six theoretical bodies."

Hermione unfurled a parchment, showing the long, winding list of names. The others gazed at it, leaning closer.

"I say theoretical bodies because a number of the open or pending Houses are in different kinds of limbo. For instance, the Prewett family."

Ginny perked up.

"That's my mum's family."

"Yes. The last known heirs—Gideon and Fabian, your uncles—died in the war, and the votes went to the only living descendant, Molly Weasley. The House would, in practice, vote alongside House Weasley in the Wizengamot, and when Molly passes, the Prewett specification would meld into the House Weasley, down the ruling bodies to sixty-five."

Ginny wrinkled her nose. "I think I remember something about this from way back when. I haven't heard my parents talk about it in years—but I know Dad isn't in the Wizengamot despite working at the Ministry."

Hermione nodded and continued. "The Weasleys couldn't afford the dues to keep their House active—or otherwise chose not to renew. The rights were purchased by House Malfoy, but will remain in a kind of 'custody limbo' for one generation. House Malfoy has, in fact, purchased the rights of many Houses over the centuries, a leading cause of several old families being stricken from the Wizengamot." Hermione tapped her lip in thought. "Three hundred and thirty-three votes. In practice, sixty-six voting bodies. I've had a touch of difficulty sleeping of late, so I've been looking at records—anyway. I've tracked the voting trends for the last thirty years and formed a simple aggregate of which way a House is most likely to lean."

Hermione gave one sheaf a tap with her wand, and the list projected itself into the air. She sat in the middle of the floor to give it more room, and the other witches all watched as the net of lines and numbers formed itself. The lines connecting each House to their recorded votes were color-coded either red, yellow, or blue. The Omega symbol marked the red votes, the Lambda symbol for the yellow, and the Alpha symbol for the blue.

"The Omega party, as I've taken to calling it, usually falls in line with agendas that support Minister Gaunt or other Dark designs. The Lambda faction is more unpredictable; they're neutral, for lack of a better term. Sometimes they'll agree with Gaunt, sometimes they won't. The Alpha party almost always opposes Gaunt, for better or worse."

"For better or worse?"

"Not everything Gaunt passes is inherently evil. Wouldn't make for a very good politician then, would he? The Alpha party will vote in opposition to him to destabilize his platform, even if it means striking down inherently good changes."

The light of the colors swirled across Elara's face as she stared at Hermione's notes. "This is all well and good," Elara said, slowly. "But why have you been tracking this? What is the benefit?"

Hermione swirled her wand again, breaking the groups apart more cleanly. She hadn't been ready to show this all to the others, her ideas still too nebulous, but she might as well do so now. "Three hundred and thirty-one votes. Forty-seven fall into the Alpha party. Sixty-five into the Lambda party, and…two-hundred and twenty-one into the Omega party."

Ginny groaned, and the others looked suitably distressed. They understood, then. The vast majority of the voting body within the Ministry was—or, had been—firmly planted in Gaunt's cushy pocket.

"That's fucked, then," Harriet grumbled as she flicked a crisp to Livius. The serpent studied the object, tongue flicking out, and decided whatever Harriet had tossed him was definitely not food. "Gaunt will be reelected."

"Not necessarily."

"Is anyone even running against him?" Elara asked.

"No, not at the moment."

Harriet and Elara shared an exasperated glance. Even Ginny had to repress an eye-roll, and Hermione propped her hands on her hips.

"I'm being quite serious, you know. The odds are stacked against it—but I'm not about to resign myself to another three years of Gaunt. He thinks he's infallible, but he is not. Our government may be corrupt, but it is still a democracy, and no matter how the numbers come about, it will follow the Wizengamot. Not Gaunt."

Harriet chewed another crisp, brow furrowed. "But even if the Lamb people—."

"Lambda, Harriet. It's about halfway between Alpha and Omega."

"Even if the Lambda party all voted against Gaunt's election, that's—what? A hundred and odd change votes in total? Because everyone in the Omega party would vote to have him elected again." She waved a hand at the large mass of red in Hermione's diagram. "That's more than double the whole Lambda and Alpha parties put together. That's fucked."

"And that's where we need to concentrate," Hermione said, bringing her hands together. "If we could convince people to change their minds—."

Elara scoffed. "A great deal of them are families who had dyed-in-the-wool Death Eaters in their ranks during the war. They won't be convinced of much else."

"Well—." Hermione's voice cracked, and she forced herself to clear her throat. "Well, we'll just have to persuade them to change their minds. Even if they don't want to."

Silence followed her bleak pronouncement. Harriet broke it by snorting, "You've gone barmy. But go on. You've a plan, don't you?"

"I think—I think it's possible," Hermione rushed to explain, warmed by Harriet's faith. "There's been a large shift in the number within the last five years. It rattles the odds. House Black voting power was proxied by the Malfoys through Narcissa—."

"But not now," Elara finished. She tilted her head, thoughts turning behind her colorless eyes. "We had only just turned twelve when Gaunt was up for reelection. Remember, Dumbledore theorized he organized everything with Selwyn and the Diadem to create chaos in Hogwarts?"

"So he could solve everything and be the hero, innit?"

"That's right. I had Mr. Piers rescind voting power as soon as I understood enough of what was going on. I haven't voted on anything that's come up in the Wizengamot, as they can't summon minors from Hogwarts and I simply don't have the time to research things being proposed, but Sirius…."

"Yes. House Black has control of thirty votes—including two from the House McKinnon. With Sirius in control of the votes now, a massive bit of the voting power for the Omega power has been taken away." Hermione couldn't help how she wriggled in place, feeling again the sudden burst of energy she'd first felt when she'd run the numbers. She'd been reticent to share her ideas, thinking she'd surely overreached this time, but her friends were listening. Understanding. "I think if we concentrate on Houses that are susceptible to our arguments—people who are suffering under Gaunt, or fallen out of favor—we can sway the vote. See, here—."

Hermione swiftly highlighted a few of the Omega party families she felt would be best for them to sway. "If we got these families to change their minds and swung the Lambda votes, the Alpha candidate in opposition to Gaunt would have one hundred seventy-two votes to Gaunt's one hundred sixty-one!"

"But that's only if the neutral party aligns in the way you're projecting," Elara argued. She started to pace. "Some of those families are Dark in all but name. Greengrass, Hawkworth, Higgs. They're nominally free agents, but in a vote for Minister, they'll vote for Gaunt. The margin is too thin, Hermione. We would need something larger."

"Yes," Hermione agreed, sighing. Her excitement waned. Even assuming every single Lambda vote went against Gaunt, the prospective candidate would win by only a handful of votes—and then, that was hoping that every House in her aggregate that had voted into her Alpha party's parameters didn't stray.

She dismissed the design with a wave of her wand, shutting her eyes. They needed someone willing to challenge Gaunt. They needed something more.

"It's somewhere to begin, at least." Hermione opened her eyes again to find Harriet watching her, a familiar warmth in her tired, lined face. "It's mad. Utterly mad. You're talking about upending the Ministry, Hermione, not rigging a vote for Quidditch captain. But, if anyone can figure it out, it's you."

Elara agreed as she found her place on the chaise again, head in her hands. "God help us all."

"So," Ginny said, reaching for another one of the sweets left in the shopping bag. The wrapper crinkled. "Is this what you lot do during summer? A bit of plotting, a bit of scheming. Might take over the world before supper?"

From the floor, Harriet retorted, "Sometimes we have dessert, too."

They burst into laughter.


A/N:

Gaunt: "I'm so clever and great. No one can beat me at my own game!"

Hermione, brushing up on politics: "We'll see, bitch."