Hey everyone. This is a re-write of my marriage law story. I hope you all enjoy Law of Opposites.
The Ministry of Magic had bee very busy that summer after the Battle of Hogwarts. They had a lot of plates spinning in the air at the moment. Their first priority however was to find out how many of their citizens they had lost to the war with Voldemort and his followers. A census was needed right away. So Kingsley Shacklebolt new Minister for Magic sent one out to every known witch and wizard in Great Britain. Now that that was sent all he had to do was wait and see what the census said.
Meanwhile at the Burrow, Harry Potter and his friends and family, because that's pretty much what the Weasley's were to him now, sat making arrangements for Fred Weasley's funeral. Talk soon turned to the imminent return of the younger people's return to Hogwarts for their make up year since no really considered last year an actual year at Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall now headmistress of Hogwarts had decided that everyone was due a make up year to get caught up on actual lessons and not Death Eater propaganda. Everyone knew that that meant this years first year class was going to be the biggest that Hogwarts had ever seen.
Harry looked over at Hermione, and Ron as they sat in the room Ron, Harry shared after packing their trunks. "It's going to be strange going back to Hogwarts," he mused almost to himself. "Isn't it? Especially with everything that happened last year. The Battle and everything else."
Ron nodded his agreement with Harry. "I guess itll be okay, mate," Ron mustered up the ability to say. "Looking on the bright side though at least now your no longer going to be hunted. Right?"
Hermione sighed as thought Ron should know better than that. "I wouldn't say that, Ronald," she said with grave authority on the matter. "If you remember reading correctly the Daily Prophet said the Ministry still hasn't caught all the known Death Eaters. It's a known fact that a lot of them still blame Harry for their fall in fortunes."
Leave it to Hermione bring up a hard truth like that, Harry thought as there was knock on the closed door. A few seconds later George Weasley lead Ginny into the room.
"I couldn't help but over hear what you just said Hermione," George told her. "No one in their right minds would ever claim to be a Death Eater now if they can help it. Especially seeing as everyone who has has been promptly sent to Azkaban. It would be utter stupidity to admit that you are Death Eater in this climate. It'd even be stupid to admit that you're related to one."
"Oh my God," Ginny laughed trying to lighten the mood. "Stop the presses. George Weasley was actually listening to what Hermione Granger was saying last night and a few minutes ago. Is the world coming to an end and someone forgot to tell me?"
This brought a burst of laughter from Ron, Harry, and Ginny herself. Hermione however looked very grave about the issue but then again she usually did when it came to rounding up of the Death Eaters.
"No," Hermione said looking seriously at Ginny, "it's not the end of the world, Ginny. Please do be serious about this." She then turned back to George trying to change the subject to something more lighter than Death Eaters and Hogwarts. "So how is the shop doing, George?"
The talk turning to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes totally sobered George up. It was nice to see that he took something serious for once in his life. He smiled at Hermione. "The shops doing fine," he told her. "Sales are up all around the board. I guess people are really trying to lighten mood after everything that went on." He then shuffled his feet a little bit a sadness creeping onto his face that shouldn't be there but was because he lost his other half. "I'm looking to take on some help running the store. It's much easier for two people to run it than it is for one. You know?"
Hermione nodded sympathetically as Ron asked if George would ever consider letting him help run the store. They were just heading downstairs when they saw the owl flying towards the house.
George was about to answer when the owl that no seemed to know the owner of flew through the window of the Burrow. Flying over to Mr. Weasley the owl delivered three thick envelopes to Weasley patriarch before flying back out the window. Arthur Weasley wasted no time in opening the letter addressed to him and his family. Quickly scanning the contents quickly Arthur turned to his family with a grim face.
"It would seem the Ministry of Magic is doing a Census," he told his children and their friends. "To find out how many people were lost to the war with He-Who-Must-Not...Lord Voldemort." He held out the other two envelopes to Harry and Hermione. "There one here for you also, Harry, Hermione."
Taking the envelopes from Mr. Weasley Harry handed Hermione her own. Opening his he found the questionnaire about how many wizards were in his family. He quickly fell to filling out the questionnaire as best he could and when everyone had finished they sent the Census back with the Weasley family's old owl Errol.
Meanwhile back at the Ministry of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt waited patiently for the last owl to return to him with the last three Census sheets. He knew exactly who they belonged. They belonged to the Weasley, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger and for them he'd wait patiently. The Weasley's especially deserved this consideration because they lost a son. This Census must be like tearing open a fresh wound once it's healed a little. He looked up from his thoughts as the Weasley's old owl Errol crash landed on his desk. Taking the three envelopes from the bird he read over their Census adding it the rest of the stack.
Once all the Census's were complied and added together the population of witches and wizards was found to be far to low for anyone's liking. Which prompted him to call impromptu meeting of the Wizengamot and it was decided in this meeting that they would instate a very old unpopular rule back into the world. They'd have to bring back the Marriage Law.
Kingsley sighed as he studied and re-studied the law that he was about to re-instate. The law strictly stated that any witch or wizard seventeen years of age to thirty years of age would be subject to a pairing. Within the span of a year whoever you were paired with you had to marry and have children with the reproduce the magic bloodlines. What made it worse though was that once the pairs were made they were final. No one would be allowed to change their pair no matter what.
Knowing that a lot of people would be upset about this Kingsley steeled himself for the backlash that was coming his way. He knew a lot of the younger witches and wizards would rebel but he also knew that this was a necessary evil. Something that he needed to do to bring the wizarding world back to it's former glory. So he'd do it and deal with the consequences later.
I hope you all enjoyed the re-write of the Prologue chapter of Law of Opposites. I fleshed it out a bit and added more to the prologue. I think it seems to flow a little bit better now.