And All the King’s Horses

by Lost In A Dark Wood

After Voldermort’s fall, no one’s star seemed brighter than Hermione Granger’s. Twenty years later, her son tries to put back the pieces of a broken woman. The Marriage Law has gone terribly wrong. Dark AU, not for kiddies.

1. Chapter 1

Title: And All the King's Horses
Genre: Mystery, Angst
Pairings: Ron/Hermione, Draco/Hermione
Rating: T

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to JKR. This work is for fun, not profit.

Summary: After Voldermort's fall, the world seemed full of hope and promise, and no one's star seemed brighter than Hermione Granger's. Twenty years later, her son tries to put back the pieces of a broken woman. The Marriage Law has gone terribly wrong.

Author's Notes: First HP fanfic. This story is dark in its themes—touching upon rape, slavery, submission, insanity, and betrayal. The rating may go up. Also, the first few chapters may be a bit confusing. You should note that not everything will be in chronological order, and this story is not DH compliant—the main difference stems from the fact that Snape died before he could tell Harry about Voldemort. Let me know if anything's confusing.

Chapter One
In which a young man visits the man who has haunted his nightmares since he was four

The boy almost whimpers when his wand is taken from him, except that whimpering is undignified. His Father taught him that.

Even with his wand he had felt bare—unprotected. A thousand hurtful thoughts raced through his mind, silky clouds of pitch black venom. Now without his wand he feels naked. No, not naked. Naked is just the very tip of his despair. He feels like a child again. But not, because he hasn't really been a child since he was four. He feels like the four year old hiding behind the curtains in the living room. There's a man, a friend of his Mother's. And then his Father. And then some yelling. His Father and the man, yelling—saying awful things, things he doesn't understand. His Mother starts screaming. That's the most terrifying thing of all. His Mother's never screamed before. She'll never scream again, until— That's besides the point. His Mother is so calm, so docile, she always does what Father wants. Now she's screaming too. Crying. Father looks like he's about to hit her, and he cries out, but his screams of terror are drowned out by his own Mother's scream of pain. His Mother's on the floor now, crying, and Father immediately looks sad. Father's tone changes. Father is kneeling next to Mother. Mother is sobbing quietly, and Father is trying to calm her down. He wants to run to Mother, but he can't he's afraid. Afraid of his own Father.

His eyes are so intensely focused on Father and Mother that he doesn't notice the man as he pulls out his wand. There's just a sudden flash. He's never seen it before, but he knows it's a spell and he can feel that it's a bad one. Father crumples to the ground. Father is the one screaming now. It sounds awful, like father is dying, and he doesn't even know what death means. Father is rolling around on the floor uncontrollably, screaming, screaming, screaming, and Mother is sobbing on the floor, huddled, sobbing. The man kicks Father to the side, but it doesn't seem to make a difference—the screams can't possibly get any worse. Then the man goes to Mother, and he is terrified that the man will hurt her like he hurt Father, but he can't move from behind the curtain.

Mother is standing. She looks like a ghost. More than usual.

The man is kicking Father, harder and harder. The screams aren't changing.

Father is writhing on the floor. Screaming.

Mother is standing.

Tears are rolling down his cheeks. He's too terrified to scream anymore. Suddenly Mother's eyes lock with his. She sees him, and looks even more like a ghost. She looks to the man, still kicking, then to Father, and finally back to him. He thinks tears are rolling down her cheeks, but he can't be sure. She reaches into her dress and pulls out a wand. He's never seen Mother's wand before. He didn't realize she had one. Without flinching she points her wand at the man and says something. The man falls. Father stops screaming, and Mother falls to her knees, her face in her hands.

He runs to Mother, who holds him tightly. Tightly, tightly, he thinks he'll die.

Now, without his wand, he braces himself and tries to be brave for Mother. The Auror opens the door and leads him through a long dark passage, to another door. The Auror does not open this door, so he does it himself; his hands tremble. Finally the door is open. He steps through the threshold and prepares himself to look into the eyes of the man who has haunted his nightmares since he was four.

The man is different now. Azkaban has robbed his hair of its distinctive hue. His eyes are dull and sunken and his head lulls dully to the side.

The man looks like Mother.

He pushes the thought out of his mind and pulls out a slab of chocolate. The man makes no reaction, so he walks forward and offers it to him. Still nothing. He walks closer, and finally breaks a piece off and shoves it through the man's lips. Only then does he begin to move, weakly chewing the chocolate. Once the piece is done his eyes look a little bit brighter. The boy offers up the rest of the bar and weakly the man reaches up for it and shoves it into his mouth like a starving rat. Only once he has finished does he sit up moderately straight.

"My Mother is ill."

"I know."

"She fell ill after looking into the mirror your brothers wanted to buy. I want to know what you did to her."

"I loved her."

It's too much for him, and he's no longer four years old. He slaps the man hard. "Bastard. You're a fucking bastard, and I hope you rot in Hell." He turns to leave.

"If you want to know, it was your father."

He stops. "You are going to tell me what you mean, and if I don't like your answer, I'm going to kill you."

"Listen boy, I've been to Hell and back, and back again. Your idle threats don't scare me. If you're anything like your father you wouldn't have the guts to kill a spider, and even if you did kill me, that would be a mercy, and then you'd have to deal with my brothers. From what I hear they're even more powerful than your father these days. It was your father and your grandfather. You'll never believe me. For my part, my only regret is that I didn't kill him when I had the chance. But a bastard like that deserved to suffer. Poor bastard, you know, I think he's actually deceived himself into thinking he loves her."

"What are you talking about?"

"I told you, you'd never believe me. You have no reason to. I tortured your father. But if you want to know, I'd suggest you go to the law books. Your mother was good at research. I wonder, are you as brilliant as she was—

"Stop referring to my mother in the past tense. She isn't dead yet!"

"Of course she is. She's been dead for twenty years. Maybe you inherited your father's wit. But I'm a Gryffindor, I believe in fair play, so I'll give you a hint: the Marriage Law."

That was that—nothing more could be gotten out of the man, and before long the effects of the chocolate wore off. Unhappily the boy left the room. The Auror escorted him back and gave him back his wand. He left like a bat out of Hell, and didn't breathe easily until he set foot in his room at home. First thing in the morning he would visit Grandfather at the Ministry and ask him about the Marriage Law.

Author's Notes: Loved it, hated it, completely confused? Lemme know. I generally answer all reviews in as much detail as relevant.