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History Taught Nothing
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The papers announced the results the day after the election for Minister of Magic. The Wizarding Wireless had been announcing the same results since a few minutes after the polls had closed the night before, regardless of how not nearly all of the votes had been counted. (Neither mentioned how the numbers weren't right, how there seemed to be so many votes marked as cast but suddenly missing from the total being used. It wasn't important enough to matter.) The Daily Prophet had a large above-the-fold picture of Lord Lucius Malfoy extending a hand in an ivory glove to shake the hand of Marvolo Gaunt in order to congratulate the latter on his historic win.
Marvolo Gaunt was giving the camera a grin worthy of Gilderoy Lockhart. That was where the resemblance to the consistent winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile award. Gilderoy Lockhart was admittedly an attractive man with a keen sense of fashion. Marvolo Gaunt had been exceedingly handsome in his youth but as the years had piled on, certain features of the Gaunt blood running through his veins began to make themselves known, as if the handsome vestige was a sacrifice for magical power. Anyone familiar with the muggle British royal family had compared the transformation to how the various princes had changed as they grew up, especially the sons of the late Princess of Wales.
Gaunt had actually been Ministry of Magic a decade and a half in the past. The magical community in the British Isles had suffered greatly under his management. Laws were passed that had made what Grindelwald wanted for Europe look compassionate. The economy had nearly completely collapsed in a way that it still hadn't recovered fully from, despite how long it had been since Gaunt had left office. A lot of the small businesses that wixen relied upon had been forced to close, either because the business had gone bankrupt or because they lost too many employees (or ones with key skill sets). The magical population in the UK had been devastated, with entire bloodlines being wiped out or just disappearing in the middle of the night never to be seen again.
Yet when Gaunt had announced that he was going to be campaigning for Minister of Magic again, he hadn't been dismissed. His hateful rhetoric from his last campaign and term were even more blatant this time. When it became undeniable that Gaunt was only running because of the many court cases being adjudicated against him, no one treated it like a serious matter. Or worse: saying anything against him was treated as if it was only being mentioned because Gaunt had been raised in the muggle world or because the speaker was bitter over Gaunt's success story.
Now Marvolo Gaunt had been voted back into the office of the Minister of Magic.
Apparently, one of his first acts as minister was to give himself a new title.
Lord Voldemort had a knowing glint his ruby red eyes as he made the Minister of Magic position a lifetime position.