Author's Note: Liked the idea of a Marriage Law, so tried to give it my own take.
Oh and none of these people are mine…
What Might Have Been
Chapter Ten
"Ah, Harry…" Dumbledore said, as if Harry had just dropped round for tea. "So good to see you. Won't you sit down? And Miss Weasley as well, of course." He gestured toward the squashy chintz armchairs that he seemed to inexplicably favor. The two students exchanged glances, and each took a seat. "Now," the headmaster continued, "what can I do for you?"
"We - we wanted to - we wanted to ask you about the Marriage Law," Harry began, unsure of where he needed to start. Dumbledore looked at Harry astutely.
"Does this have anything to do with a certain engagement that I've heard about?" he asked. Harry's cheeks burned.
"Yes, actually," he said shortly.
"There is not a lot I can do, I'm afraid," Dumbledore admitted. "I was hoping, against all hope, as it seems, that this law would not be passed, but there are nevertheless some very powerful Purebloods in the Ministry."
"Haven't they learned anything at all? From the war with Voldemort?" Harry burst out, angrily.
"Harry, I'm afraid there are some, who are saying that the reason Voldemort was such a problem was because he was half-blood."
"They're not!" Ginny exclaimed, half under her breath.
"I'd hoped for Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger to become a couple," Dumbledore continued. Harry remembered the piercing look Dumbledore had given him in the corridor outside the Great Hall on the morning that the scrolls first arrived. "It will keep her safe for now."
"But what about - ?" Harry burst out, and clamped his mouth tightly shut, before it could betray him. Dumbledore looked at him with sympathy.
"Harry, I'm afraid whatever relationship you and Miss Granger had will have to come to an end, at least with things the way they are now." Harry felt something swell inside his chest, and his breathing grew more rapid. Something about hearing Dumbledore actually say it hurt more than anything else so far.
"No," Harry said, shaking his head, "no, I don't accept that! I refuse to believe that there is nothing that can be done!"
"I didn't think that I would live to see a day where a Marriage Law was once again enacted. After all that we've been through in the name of Purebloodedness…." Dumbledore seemed to be thinking of something long ago. "If it were anyone else but you and Miss Granger, I would marry you myself."
"Why not me?" Harry asked, despair trembling in his voice.
"You're the Boy Who Lived… and Hermione Granger is the Girl Who Helped You. You two are extremely high-profile, and would find it rather difficult to just disappear. There is the added fact that young Mr. Malfoy seems to have taken an interest in Miss Granger. You don't think that his pride would be hurt enough to have his father's associates track her down?"
This gave Harry pause.
"Not to mention the enmity he feels toward you. And you would be breaking the law. There are some who would garner complete pleasure out of making an example of you. Mr. Weasley's marriage would be legal, and he has my implicit trust that he would keep Miss Granger safe."
Harry's shoulders slumped in defeat. His eyes, when he looked back up at the headmaster, seemed devoid of emotion.
"What about the D.A., sir?" he asked. "Is there anything we could do to help?" Dumbledore looked pleased.
"The word should be spread for the students to follow Mr. Weasley's and Miss Granger's example," he said, "Before too many of our young ladies are married off to rich Death Eaters old enough to be their fathers." Harry's eyes widened at the undercurrent of anger in Dumbledore's tone. "It is also possible that the Order could get involved in …extreme cases." He looked at the two young people in front of him. "I assume I can trust you two to head this up."
"Absolutely, sir," Ginny said, excitedly. Harry nodded, something inside him grimly pleased to have something to keep his mind occupied…and off of Hermione.
Ron was mildly surprised when he woke up the morning after Hermione's arrival to find Harry gone. Although, he supposed he really should have been expecting it. He had felt something of the desire to flee himself, and could only imagine how much more magnified it would be in Harry.
"Hey," he said to Hermione, as he clumped over to the breakfast table, where she was eating a bowl of oatmeal.
"Hey," she replied, idly. Her cheek was propped up on one hand, as she read a book while she ate. He watched her covertly, as he stirred honey into his own bowl of oatmeal. A cloud of steam wafted between them. He didn't even realize that he had continued to stare, until she looked up at him, impatiently, closing her book with a snap.
"What?" she asked. He gazed at her idiotically, for a moment not even comprehending what she was talking about.
"Er…so Harry's off, then?" he said, grasping for the first subject that entered his head. She always made him feel so awkward and stupid. Why was he so nervous around her?
Hermione slumped a bit, and she played with her oatmeal listlessly. "Yeah…" she said slowly, as if the information had been dragged out of her unwillingly.
"He's been under a lot of stress, lately," Ron added, helpfully. Hermione appeared not to have heard him at all.
"I hope he's going to be all right," she said wistfully. Ron was forcibly reminded of the vigil she had kept at Harry's bedside in St. Mungo's. She was in love with him.
And I'm in love with her, Ron realized suddenly. Bloody hell.
It was very late when Harry entered the portrait hole leading to the Head common room. He had walked Ginny back to Gryffindor Tower, and they had spent a few moments whispering plans by the firelight. Harry was exhausted, in his body, in his mind, in his soul. He wondered if all days without Hermione would feel this tiring.
He pulled his foot over the rim of the portrait, and stopped, standing as still as if he'd been petrified. The fire had burned down very low, and Ron and Hermione were snuggled together, asleep, on the sofa.
Jealousy surged inside of him like the thrum of a combustion engine, but Pain was nipping at its heels. Didn't take you long, did it Hermione? He thought bitterly, even as he noticed the dried traces of tears on her cheeks.
Instantly his anger dissolved, and all he was left with was the pain of powerlessness, the heavy burden of having no control over his life.
He turned to go upstairs to his dormitory, but he must have made some involuntary, scarcely audible noise, for Hermione stirred. He froze.
"Harry?" she said, as her eyelids fluttered open.
Harry shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, and eyed her uncomfortably. There was a long awkward silence, broken only by the even rhythm of Ron's breathing. Hermione extricated herself out from under Ron's arm, and stood in front of Harry, nervously smoothing out her hair and her clothing.
"That…" Hermione indicated the sofa by waving one arm, "was….I was upset, and he held me." She said simply, but with a tinge of guilt in her voice that quite annoyed Harry.
"Don't do that," he said, bleakly. She blinked at him, bewildered. "Don't say that to me like you're…confessing or something. You didn't do anything wrong. You're engaged to him. And I have no right to care."
"You have every right to care," Hermione's voice was tremulous. "I gave you the right to care. I love you! And I always will." Harry held up one hand, as if he did not want to hear it.
"You shouldn't even be saying that to me," Harry said, anger cracking his voice. "Don't you care how he feels?"
"Well, you certainly seem to! Have you given any thought as to how this makes me feel?" Hermione answered hotly, her voice growing a little louder. "Harry Potter is so damned noble, sacrificing his happiness for the good of all, while Hermione Granger blithely goes off and marries the first bloke she finds, and they live happily ever after!" Her tone had grown bitter and ugly. Harry was taken aback at the sudden geyser-like force of her ire.
"I - " Harry stammered, trying to come up with some kind of verbal defense.
"Isn't that what you've been thinking?" Hermione insisted. "Isn't it?" Her eyes were wild and red-rimmed.
"No, that's not what I've been thinking," Harry countered, but without much conviction in his voice. Hermione continued on, as if he had not spoken at all.
"Well, it's not true. You think it's so awful, that you'll be all alone or something, but what about having to be with someone you're not in love with? Being forced to marry them and make babies with them, all because some Pureblood is bleeding afraid of siring a Squib?" Her anger faded, and her voice was broken and sad, "Having to watch your dreams turn to ashes and fall through your fingers? You think that's easy?"
"I know it's not easy, because I've been feeling the same way!" Harry said, in a tone so intense that it seemed to resound around the room, even though it was not loud. "I've been wracking my brain all day, trying to figure out if there might not be some way out of it, but no! I'm the damned Boy Who Lived, and people out there are just waiting for me to screw up, so they can throw the book at me!"
Hermione lanced him with a sharp look. "You've been talking to Dumbledore." It was not a question.
"You have too?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Four times," Hermione said, looking at her feet self-consciously. "We've tried to think of any possibility, any loophole. Unfortunately - "
"-there's not one," Harry finished for her. Hermione sighed.
"Evidently, Ron's was the first marriage proposal to be accepted and sent back to the Ministry. They want to make a big deal out of this wedding, show how well the Marriage Law is working…Minister Fudge wants to be at the wedding."
Harry muttered something about what Fudge could do with his desire to be at the wedding blackly under his breath. Although the Ministry's motives did make sense. Ron…Hermione…two people who were closest to the Boy Who Lived…happy, beautiful, young…It was great PR, Harry had to admit.
"When will it be?" he asked, in the tone of one asking how long they had before succumbing to a terminal illness.
Hermione's eyes flickered up to meet his briefly.
"Well, you have 21 days to consider and send in the accepted proposal, and then - "
"Twenty-one days!" Harry exclaimed. "Hermione, you sent it back immediately. You could have stalled for time!"
"I know!" Hermione admitted, apologetically, biting her lip. "I wasn't thinking. I wanted Malfoy to know there was no way in - "
"It's not your fault," Harry interjected. "How long until the wedding?"
"The Law says within 6 months…with a child on the way within the first year of the marriage. If a child is not produced, or if the child is a Squib, the marriage shall be dissolved, and new partners assigned. The marriage may be dissolved under mutual consent from both involved parties after two children are born." Hermione said dully, obviously reciting the law from memory.
Somehow in the back of his mind, Harry had managed to ignore the fact that Hermione would have to have a baby, more than one actually, very quickly. Despair nudged him again, with the tip of his fiery knife.
Hermione must have seen something of that flash in his eyes, because she looked at him seriously, her eyes luminous and concerned. He watched her forehead crinkle and her bottom lip go between her teeth.
"Harry, I - " she began, but he stepped very close to her, and bracketed her face with his hands.
"I love you so much," he said, very rapidly, as if talking to himself. "I don't know why I never realized it before. You've always been there, and I should have seen it. I wish we had more time."
"I know, Harry, I know," she spoke with a shushing noise, like one would use comforting a small child. Her hands fluttered aimlessly, across his shoulders, in his hair.
Her touch was inflammatory. Before he knew it, his arms were around her, pulling her close against the length of his body. He was practically breathing into her mouth, and she was looking at him, wide-eyed and silent, but she did not move away.
"Hermione," he groaned, the word ripped from his soul, as a plea, as a protest, as a pledge. He saw the pulse beating rapidly in her neck, saw her eyes grow shiny and dark, as her pupils dilated, saw her lips part in a kind of breathless expectation.
He kissed her then, roughly, as one giving in to a baser desire. She made a noise, a kind of sob into his mouth, and melted against him, her arms twined around his neck. And he knew, he knew then, that if he carried her upstairs, she would not stop him.
Even as he felt her body against his, and held her tightly in his arms, he felt rational thought seep back into his brain. There was a small chuffing noise and a shower of sparks as the last log cracked in two and settled firmly into the bed of embers. Ron shifted on the sofa.
He stepped away from her, and Hermione's straight posture seemed to sag a little. They both sighed heavily, in unison.
"Hermione, I - " Harry ran one hand back through his hair, appearing at a loss for words.
She managed an unsteady, tight-lipped smile at him. His eyes flickered up the stairs for an instant, and came back down to meet hers. "You know I want - "
Her eyes crinkled at the corners. "Me too," she said, a little shyly.
"You know why we…can't," the last word stuck in his throat.
"We've had this conversation already, Harry," she reminded him lightly. He could not smile back.
"Right," he whispered hoarsely, his gaze drifting to her mouth. He suddenly looked much older than his seventeen years. "I'm just going to go on up…" he trailed off, and turned toward the stairs, climbing them slowly, as if it took much concentrated effort. Hermione watched him until he rounded the curve and vanished from sight. He did not look back.
Hermione's shoulders slumped, and she started for her own set of stairs, when Ron's sleeping form caught her eye. She padded quietly to his side, and watched him for a moment. He shifted a little and screwed up his face.
"'Mione," he mumbled, never opening his eyes. Guilt stabbed at Hermione with a rapier blade. She didn't deserve him. He didn't deserve this. She pulled a blanket from where it was folded over the arm of one chair, and softly covered him over with it.
"Good night, Ronald."
TBC
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