945Thanks for the reviews! This is a little early. Enjoy.
And oops, I forgot to mention in the first chapter that this would be a Marriage Law fic. I love them. They are like crack. :D
And there's no Severus for a while yet...sorry...
"Hermione?" Harry knocked twice on her open bedroom door and poked his head around. He gave her a brief smile. "You've had a glaring of owls."
Hermione willed herself to look at him. Sat on her bed, her body was tight, her knees drawn hard up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Spread out over the faded quilt were the twenty unopened letters. Magic thrummed through them, the echo of it in her blood. They matched something within in her, she could almost taste it, like a deep sweetness on her tongue, and for the past hour she had fought the compulsion to open the bloody things.
"Hermione?" Harry stepped into the room, slow, cautious, as if she were a hippogriff he would bow to. The thought pulled a bleak smile. "What are they?"
"Did you see today's Prophet?"
"That insane law?"
Her laughter was brittle. "And these are my insane offers."
"Gods," he murmured, inching closer to her bed. He stood still beside her and stared. "And you have to pick one?"
"One is enough."
She pressed her fingers to her mouth, unsure whether she was going to laugh or cry. At least Harry was back. She couldn't begin to imagine having this conversation with a pissed off and sulking Ron. Was he one of the boys -men- who were magically compatible with her? Her throat tightened. Would she chose him if he were? And what if he wasn't there? How could their already tenuous friendship survive that insult?
She pushed down further thoughts of Ron. One problem at a time. "They want me to open them. But I can't. Not yet. I want a copy of the law. There has to be a loophole. It's been rushed-"
"Then wait downstairs. We're overrun with owls. I think Mrs Weasley has sent six already."
"Yes. Maybe Kingsley has found the courage to answer my questions. He should've got my harried owl about two hours ago." She unwound her body and let her bare feet touch the floor. Her toes curled into the thickness of the rug. "I saw him last week, Harry. We all did. And nothing. Not a flicker as he pinned that medal to me. No hint he planned to offer me to, to...them." She caught her fingers in her hair. "I didn't fight the darkness for this travesty."
"We'll sort everything." He took her hand and gave it a tight squeeze. "You'll sort everything. Gods, Hermione, you fought five Death Eaters to a standstill and defended and saved Snape."
"Professor Snape."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Yes. That." He waved his hand at the bed. "So this? Piece of cake.
"I'm glad you think so." She took a hard step away from the pile of letters and even as difficult as it was to leave them, their influence faded. A little. Magic was a strange beast. Thankfully, she closed the door on their pull and let out a slow breath. "Is this going to affect you?"
Harry rubbed the back of his neck, and even in the shadow of the passage, his expression was sheepish. "Ginny and I, we sort of eloped yesterday..."
Hermione blinked. "You knew?"
Pain twisted hard in her chest and her hands shook. She fisted them to fight the anger, the betrayal firing through her blood. A metallic stink swept around her and her head felt dangerously light. Harry's eyes darted nervously at her hair. Yes, she was sparking.
"You knew and you didn't tell me?"
Harry backed away. "I didn't know. I didn't, Hermione, honest." He lifted his hands, his fingers wide. "Molly was dictating everything. The time. The place. Guests. Who would bind us." A wry smile pulled at his mouth. "I pointed out I wasn't marrying her-"
Hermione snorted. "I bet that went down well."
Harry let out a long slow breath. "You can't imagine. Anyway. I'm of age, and Ginny is well...close. We wanted something for ourselves." He winced and caught his fingers in his untidy hair.
Yes, she needed the reminder that he had a choice. Hermione glanced back to her room and even through the closed door the array of envelopes tugged at her, their magic pushing and pulling against her own. She had a choice too. In a way. A very unfair and bitter way.
She shoved down her sourness and willed a smile. "Congratulations." She drew him into a hard hug. "I mean it." She pulled back and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "And also you're insane. How are you going to deal with your marriage in school? And what about Molly? She'll try to have it annulled-"
Harry reddened and pressed his lips into a thin line. "Not possible."
Hermione tutted and swiped at his arm. "Naughty boy." She took a back step and gave him another smile. "Downstairs." She pushed him towards the stairwell and followed him, resisting the urge to look back to her room. "Have you told no one?"
"You're the first."
"Not even..." She waved back along the dark landing to Ron's room. It was easier to lose herself in Harry's life than the nightmare that her own had become. "He's never been exactly happy about you two."
"No." Harry sighed. "We're going to get it in the neck for this. But too many others have always had a say in my life, in both our lives. We wanted this for us."
Hermione ignored the twist in her chest, the sudden wrench at this words, of the freedom he'd managed to grab for himself. "You should tell Professor McGonagall, at least. Then she can break it to the Headmaster."
"Him."
"Harry..."
"It's still...weird. His devotion to my mother." He shook his head and padded down the stairs. "He did everything for her. Everything."
Hermione didn't answer. She'd not set eyes on Severus Snape since she'd apparated with him into the heart of St Mungo's, screaming for medical assistance. A smile tugged at her mouth. Well, she had stood over him, wand drawn against healers who had declared him a murderer, a villain.
She'd been a sight. The Professor a crumpled pile of black cloth and ravaged flesh on the tiled floor, barely alive. Her, fierce, hair sparking, clothes torn and splattered with his blood and the blood of the Death Eaters who'd tried to exact their own revenge...
Of course, someone had caught that wild moment in a picture. It was on the front page of the Prophet the very next morning. And the first nail in the coffin of her almost-relationship with Ron. He hadn't blown up in his usual burst of red-headed temper. No, it'd been worse. A quiet muttering, bitter and scathing about how she could be so fierce in defence of a man like Snape. That she'd run from him in his time of mourning, his time of need to fight for another man...
Ron was very good at poking at her guilt. Very, very good.
Hermione pushed that from her mind. Not that Ron could claim that Snape had shown any interest in her. In fact, she doubted the Professor wanted anything to do with her. He was a proud man and an insanely powerful wizard. To be seen at his lowest before the whole wizarding world with a girl protecting him? It was little wonder she'd heard nothing from him. Not that she needed his thanks. Her single act was a payment for the years he'd protected them. It was almost a relief that after he'd been cleared of all wrongdoing, he'd remained Headmaster. Sitting in a classroom with him would've been...uncomfortable at best.
She followed Harry into the brightness of the kitchen. Owls hooted softly from the backs of chairs, yet more perched between the pans on high racks and against the plates on the dresser. "Glaring, indeed," she murmured. "Are you all for me?"
In a wild flutter of wings and heavy gusts of air, letters and scrolls fell into her open hands. A moment later and the long kitchen was devoid of owls. She sorted through the letters and frowned. Still nothing from Kingsley. She swore under her breath. "What is he playing at?"
"Kingsley?"
"Yes." She sighed. "I can't do anything until I know what I'm fighting against."
Harry squeezed her shoulder. "I'm going to floo McGonagall now about my marriage." A brief bark of laughter burst from him and it forced Hermione to smile. "Married. Me." He wiped his mouth. "Anyway, she has to be dealing with this too -for other pupils. You're not the only muggleborn at Hogwarts."
"It's crazy. I'm sure wizards and witches are...procreating all over the place since the war ended." She caught his smirk and scowled at him. "It's a perfectly good word, Harry."
He held up his hands. "I said nothing. Though from the Prophet it seems to be favouring quality over quantity."
"I should be happy I'm a prized heifer?" She snorted. "Don't answer that." She pushed herself away from the table and yet another pile of unopened letters. "All right. Let's floo Professor McGonagall. She has to know something."
AN: I can't remember Ginny's birthday...so I'm grabbing the licence that she's not yet 17...
Let me know what you think :)