Chapter 1
Dear wizarding citizens,
The recent war has decimated the population of wizarding Britain, and even four years on there are no signs of growth. This is not sustainable, so after much debate it has been decided that a marriage law will be introduced. Every unmarried witch and wizard between the ages of 20 and 40 must submit a sample of their magical core to the ministry, which will then be analyzed to discover your most compatible partner. Once the results are announced all couples will have a three week period in which to get married. Couples must produce a minimum of three children before they are eligible for divorce. Same-sex couples and couples experiencing fertility issues will be eligible to adopt and receive other ministry aid. Non-compliance is punishable by Azkaban.
The Ministry of Magic.
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Hermione sat at her kitchen table with Ron, Harry and Ginny. The room, while small, was cosy and bright, helping to alleviate some of the darkness from the morning. The group sat in silence as they all stared at the letters before them. The letters that contained the names of their soon to be spouses.
Ron was the most outwardly discontent, crossing and uncrossing his arms, sighing and grunting angrily, eyes sharp and cold. “This is bloody ridiculous! They can’t just make us marry whoever they want” he complained for the millionth time this week.
“They can and they are” Hermione sighed tiredly.
Obviously she hated this just as much as Ron, but at least she knew complaining now wouldn’t change anything, the ministry had made sure of that.
They had all fought so hard against this law, she had written essay after essay about why this was demeaning and wrong, gave enumerable proposals about alternative solutions, she had even spent a full hour yelling at minister Kingsley himself.
But none of it did anything. They had practically patted her on the head and laughed in her face as she desperately tried to fight for her freedom and her future. It was infuriating, after everything their generation had gone through in the war, after how bloody hard she fought, this was how they were being rewarded- and for once she could see no way out.
She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, she wanted to burn the ministry to the ground.
But she couldn’t, not right now anyway. Right now she just had to open the letter.
“How did it end up like this?” Harry asked quietly, from the chair next to her, his shoulders slumped and eyes defeated, so different from the determined fighter he usually was.
This was one of the worst parts about the law she decided, watching all of her friends suffer and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it.
She hated feeling this useless, this helpless, she had learned to rely on herself and her capabilities. Losing this fight was…excruciating. She knew the others felt the same. Harry was taking it especially hard, as if he was personally responsible, no matter how many times they all told him that he didn’t have to be the goddam ‘saviour’ anymore, it was proving a hard lesson for him to learn.
She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, getting rewarded with a small smile back. At least they had each other, could still give small comforts.
One thing she hoped desperately was that the name in front of her wasn’t Ron’s. They loved each other, but after a few months of post war dating it became very clear to her that it was a friendship love, not romantic. They also just weren’t good together as partners, they fought constantly about every little thing, the pressure of being together causing them to fall apart.
It hadn’t been easy rebuilding their friendship after that dating disaster, but they were both stubborn enough to make it work and they had done it, much to the relief of all their friends. Having to marry each other now would just be… bad. From the way Ron was glancing at her then quickly looking away, he felt the same about it as she did.
Ginny and Harry were also looking nervously at each other, just like Ron and Hermione, once the pressure of war was gone and they had time and space to really explore what a relationship would be like they realised they were better off as friends.
If these bloody envelopes ruined her little group of friends, of family, that Hermione had fought so, so hard for… she didn’t know if she could cope. They were all she had now…
She banished these dark thoughts, if they could get through a war they could get through this, she would make sure of it.
“Let’s just get this over with”, Ron suddenly snapped, grabbing his letter and tearing it open. They quietly watched him scan the page, their apprehension turning to sickly dread as his face fell. There was a moment of quiet, Ron stared in disbelief at his letter, and the other three stared anxiously at him, nobody wanting to intrude by prompting him for the name.
“Pansy Parkinson” he finally whispered, “I have to marry Parkinson”. As he said her name Hermione could see him getting angry, could see it in his reddening face and white knuckled grip on the paper. “I have to marry that idiotic Slytherin” he seethed.
Hermione mentally groaned, all these years later and Ron still hadn’t really moved on from their old Hogwarts house rivalry, could still only see Slytherins as bullies and death eaters. She had tried to tell him time and time again that he was unfairly prejudiced against them, that they were just kids, but he wouldn’t listen to reason.
Despite this, it was still difficult to see one of her best friends so upset, but she was notoriously bad at knowing what to say in situations like this. “Well” she tried, “that’s not ideal- but you should give her a chance at least…” she trailed off as Ron stared at her as if she had grown another head.
“Exactly, you haven’t even spoken to her in years“ Harry quickly agreed, trying to diffuse Ron’s temper.
“What does it matter?! She was bloody awful in school, and even worse in the war, I don’t want to marry someone like that!” Ron responded sharply.
“You may not want to but you have to” Ginny contributes, which only makes Ron turn even redder and scowl even harder. Much like Hermione, Ginny wasn’t great at finding the right words in times like this, she was an incredibly pragmatic person and struggled to see why just telling harsh truths wasn’t always the best approach.
Hermione hurriedly said “You may not have chosen to marry her, but you can choose how you treat her. If you hate her you’ll just be miserable, so at least give her a chance, please”. Ron stared at her, for what felt like an age, Hermione practically holding her breath to see if he would calm down or explode. Thankfully he seemed to accept and maybe even absorb her advice, slowly nodding, the fight fading from his eyes, returning the table to a slightly less tense silence.
Never one to sit still for long Ginny grabs her letter next. Her face was briefly blank as she read the name, Hermione couldn’t tell if she was upset and trying to hide it or genuinely didn’t really mind who she had been assigned. The boys couldn’t tell either if their awkward anticipation stares were anything to go by.
Ginny glanced up and smiled at their hesitancy and announced with a gleam in her eyes “I’ve got Blaise Zabini… he’s pretty fit isn’t he?” Hermione breathed a sigh of relief at her friends unbothered reaction, and smirked as she saw Ron looked scandalised at hearing his little sister say anyone was fit, let alone a Slytherin.
“Mmm fit and tall, honestly Gin I’m a bit jealous” Hermione offered in a contemplative tone, Ginny grinning wickedly back.
“Yeah he played quidditch too, had particularly good stamina if I remember rightly” Harry said with a wink.
The shade of purple Ron turned was truly hilarious and she, Ginny and Harry all started snickering, she was glad that they could still laugh even in such a horrible situation.
Before Ron could say anything about his future brother in law Harry announced that it was his turn, subduing the group once again, but banishing the tension.
He frowned slightly when he read the name, but then consciously fought it off. Then for some utterly inconceivable reason he decided to do an awful impression of Rita Skeeter's grating voice and announced “the future husband of the wondrous Boy Who Lived is!…. drumroll please!….Theodore Nott!”.
Predictably enough Ron groaned, which was ridiculous because she was pretty sure he had never spoken to Nott in his life.
Hermione knew even less about Nott than she did about Zabini so decided to be optimistically neutral until she got to know him, Ginny seemed to agree as they both shot supportive smiles at Harry.
Ron however looked at Harry consolingly, to which Harry replied “Oh come on Ron, you have to give him a chance, he’s going to be my husband and I certainly don’t want you to scare him off”, he said this in a light tone but everyone could hear the undercurrent of warning in it. Hermione raised her eyebrow at Ron, prompting him to look at least a little chastised and give a nod.
“Just me left then” she sighed and stared down at her letter. The levity she had found seemed to disappear as she realised that this letter, this moment would change her life forever. Feeling her heart speed up with anticipation she picked up the letter with traitorously shaky hands, how the hell had the others done this so calmly? Just breath she thought- looking up to see her best friend's faces all smiling supportively at her, helping ease some of the pressure in her chest.
She could do this. Taking a deep breath she unfolded the thick paper, eyes scanning the dense text before her eyes landed on the name.
No.
It couldn’t be, could it? Was there some sort of mistake? Or a terrible joke? She couldn’t actually marry… him… her childhood bully, her tormentor, her introduction to prejudice… she couldn’t.
“Hermione? Who is it?” Ron said in a worried tone, the concern evident on Harry and Ginny’s faces too.
She took a deep breath even as she felt her eyes well up with tears and forced herself to say
“Draco Malfoy, I’m marrying Malfoy”. Hearing this made it feel far too real, disbelief gave way to anguish and tears began to escape her eyes even as she stared unblinkingly at the table.
Why couldn’t anything go right? Why didn’t the universe want her to be happy?
Harry swung a comforting arm over her shoulders, trying to reassure her it was going to be alright. “It’ll be ok Mione, you're more than capable of knocking him on his arse if he’s being a git” Ron said slightly awkwardly, with a smile that was really more of a grimace, but she appreciated the effort- she didn’t think she could deal with his anger right now.
She just felt drained, empty.
“I… how am I going to live with him, how am I going to have children with him?” Her voice sounded weak. What if she still hated her for being a muggleborn, what if he hated their half-blood kids? She never expected to be in love with her assigned husband… but she had at least hoped for something functional.
“Well I mean you never know, he certainly seems to have changed a lot since Hogwarts” Ginny said optimistically.
She wasn’t wrong, it did seem like he had changed since the war, supporting various charities and businesses, even helping identify leftover Voldemort sympathisers. At first she had thought it was all an act, as had most of the wizarding world, but even all these years later his reformed image hadn’t faltered once- it had certainly been enough for the public to forgive him, but was it enough for her?
She knew she shouldn’t judge him based on the past, that he was probably a different man than the one she knew, but she just couldn’t get that sneering boy's face out of her mind.
And now she sounded like Ron. Great. She needed to pull herself together.
“You’re right, I’m being ridiculous. I need to at least talk to him before resigning myself to misery” she said with a watery smile, not fully believing her words, but saying them anyway, for the others benefit if nothing else. Though oddly enough they did help her feel a little better, stronger.
She then extracted herself from under Harry’s arm, simultaneously feeling embarrassed and incredibly reluctant to let him go. Thankfully Harry seemed to understand this and kept a tight grip on her hand, which was honestly far more reassuring than she really wanted to admit.
“It’s ok to be nervous, we all are” Harry said with Ron and Ginny nodding supportively, “But you’re right, we should go into this as open minded as possible.” Just as she was about to tell him what a mature thing that was to say about his old nemesis he added in a flat and serious tone, “However, if he does anything to hurt you I will genuinely hex his bollocks off, and permanently turn him into a ferret”. She snorted at this mental image, “You laugh” he responded indignantly ”But I’m a senior Auror, I can totally get away with it”.
Ginny gave a half laugh half sigh, “Well I’m certainly impressed that we got through this with only one threat of grievous bodily harm.”
The group fell into a comfortable silence, each alone in their thoughts, contemplating their new partners and married life; they were far from happy, but just existing in the same space together really helped, knowing that they weren’t going through this alone.
Despite everything, Hermione smiled. She would get through this, no matter what. However apprehensive she might feel, she resolved to go into this marriage with an open mind. She just hoped that Malfoy would do the same.