the night dragged on. hermione’s nerves waxed and waned as the results poured in, doing her best to ignore the numbers as they ticked higher and higher. for every region that swung in her and kingsley’s direction, another went for robards and mclaggen. the popularity of their police reform platform proved to outweigh some of the strongest concerns about mclaggen’s blackmail attempt, but hermione’s speech had earned back the trust of those who aligned with her and shacklebolt’s policies.