A/N: Oh my Merlin. I haven't even logged on in ages and I am so, so sorry for that. I've been incredibly busy with school and everything else (the junior year of high school is the worst, or so I've been told. It's proving pretty true) BUT WE'RE GOING TO GET SOME FANFIC UP IN THIS BITCH IF IT KILLS ME.
Basically, I got the actual premise of this fic of a post on Tumblr, so credit the blogger on that. Of course, all canon characters, places, and plot belong to JK Rowling. I'm just nicking ideas and writing them.
Basically, it's a marriage law fanfiction, but each character eligible is given a watch that counts down the weeks until they meet their assigned partner, and then…well, it's hard to explain without giving things away. But come on guys, if I could pull off Spirantexcitarent, I'm pretty sure I can manage this.
Not to be cocky or anything.
Count Backwards to 1
Hermione's POV
A marriage law, they're calling it. Arthur Weasley rereads the page in The Daily Prophet, his lips moving furiously but silently. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. His face has become several shades redder, and an unsettling quiet has fallen over the breakfast table. A marriage law. I didn't even think the Ministry had that kind of authority.
"This can't be legal! There's no bloody way!" Ron exclaims, slamming his fork down on the table.
"Language, Ronald," Molly snaps, setting down her own copy of the newspaper. "Unfortunately it is, in times of crisis, anyway."
"How is this a time of crisis?!" Ginny practically shouts. Her voice is harsh on my eardrums. All I want to do is lie down and sleep for a day or five; I'm so tired of fighting for everyone, and now this?
"We lost a lot of our population in the Battle, Ginny. You know that."
My eyes automatically settle on the photographs of Remus and Tonks sitting on the dirty, cluttered kitchen counter. Lost. They hold up Teddy between themselves, the trio of them smiling and bright. Bright but lost.
"It still doesn't give them the right to—"
"It shouldn't, George, but it does," Arthur cuts him off, raising a hand to stop Fred mid-word as well.
"In times of crisis," Harry repeats Molly's words softly. His food looks completely untouched, like he couldn't even bring himself to move it around his plate.
"It says owls will arrive within three days," Arthur interjects. His tone is removed, business-like. "And in anywhere from two weeks' to a month's time, you'll know who your partner is."
"And then at least two kids in three years?!" Ron cries. "What gives them the right?!"
"We can't fix it," I hear myself say. A hollow, resigned voice. "It's Kingsley's law and we can't do anything about it."
The silence falls again, broken only by the occasional clinking of silverware or rustling of newspaper pages. The silence is unsettling, because we all know that in the span of ten minutes, we've given up.
The bracelets are thin, silver bands with narrow rectangular screen-like surfaces in the middle, almost like watch faces but elongated. They have digital countdowns. Weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds. Mine sits on my lap, ticking down my time. 3:4:23:52:28.
"So it counts down your time until you meet your assigned partner. And then it Apparates you to them," Fred says, scanning the note that came with all of our watches. "But apparently you can't see anyone else's clock," he observes as he cranes his neck to try to read George's. He opens his mouth but no words come out. "And apparently you can't tell anyone how much time you have left."
"Can you give vague measurements?" Ginny wonders, frowning. She stares at hers with an expression of such intense disdain, for a moment I fear she's turned into Malfoy.
"Uh…mine says 'soon,'" Ron tries, picking up his bracelet. It dangles from his fingers and he cocks his head, frowning at it as though dirty looks will force his time backward.
"Yeah but what's 'soon'?"
"George, do I look like I know?"
"Exactly."
3:4:23:49:31. Did the Final Battle even end that long ago?
"According to the paper, it Apparates you to Diagon Alley…" Fred says, his voice taking on a tone of curiosity. "Doesn't say why."
"Huh. What if you're not in love with the person? Does it force you to fall in love with them?" Ginny asks, not breaking her angry staring contest with the thin silver chain in front of her.
Fred turns his paper over in his hands, folding and unfolding the crinkled parchment to reveal different quadrants of information. The freckles dotting his hands have been joined by thin lines of greying scars, which I know now cover most of his body. Physically, he's never been quite the same since being nearly crushed to death by a castle wall. But then, who would be?
"This is where magic gets weird," Ron says, eyeing his parchment strangely.
George leans back on the couch of the Burrow's living room, putting his socked feet on the table. After the Battle, everyone except Charlie and Bill and Fleur moved back temporarily. It's been seven Weasleys, me, and Harry for about two weeks now. Crowded, but better than going back to empty flats and lonely houses. Post-Battle, the loneliness can be crushing. Too much, too soon, trying to put yourself back together physically and emotionally all at once. It's like trying to push a fallen wall back up on your own; within a few minutes everything will collapse back on you and you'll be crushed. Just ask Fred.
"Care to elaborate?" George prompts, swinging his chain around his finger nonchalantly.
"Basically, you don't fall in love right away," Ron reads off the paper. "But it…like, it…I don't quite understand…something about slowly releasing a love potion…Hermione? Can you explain what all this is?"
I pluck my note from the table and unfold it, searching out the quadrant. "It slowly releases a diluted form of Amortentia…it would make you feel vague feelings of attraction. But they can't force you to fall in love via potion because when a child is conceived under effects of a love potion—"
"You'd get a bunch of mini Voldemorts running around," Harry interrupts.
"Pretty much. So I guess you'd feel sort of attracted to them, not in love. But enough, I suppose," I try. "However they qualify 'enough.'"
Harry sighs heavily, removes his glasses, and rubs his eyes. They've been bloodshot constantly; maybe it's crying, maybe it's sleep deprivation, maybe it's a combination of both. Maybe it's Firewhiskey. We've been trying so hard. We can't be left alone but we need to be given space, and suddenly the vices stepped in and it hasn't been pretty. It hasn't been fun.
"It's sorted by blood status," Ginny says abruptly.
"What?" I start folding and unfolding quadrants to find the lines she's reading.
"'In order to decrease the likelihood of Squib or nonmagical offspring, Purebloods will not be allowed to marry Purebloods; Purebloods will marry Halfbloods and Muggleborns. Additionally, Muggleborns must marry Purebloods. Halfbloods are free to marry either Halfbloods or Purebloods.'"
I almost feel relieved then; at least there's a chance of me being paired with a Weasley. Then I'd be with people I consider family, if nothing else. I cross my fingers.
"What?! What?! No, no, that can't…no, they can't do that!" George shouts, shooting to his feet. He snatches his paper up. "They can't do that!"
My heart drops into my stomach, leaden with the heaviness of vicarious grief. George has been seeing Angelina Johnson, a Pureblood, since he left Hogwarts midway through his seventh year. My heart drops into my stomach because this is what our world has so rapidly become, the world we all fought so hard for, and there's nothing we can do about it, at least not now, not yet. We fought and suffered and bled for ages and we picked up the salvaged pieces of our world, and this is what we get for our work and our sacrifice.
"It'll be alright, mate," I hear Fred say. He has a hand on George's shoulder, trying to sit him back down. "It's going to be fine, I mean…worse case scenario, we all just spend our three years, have the kids and we're done, right?"
George tangles his fingers in his hair, inadvertently pulling back the overgrown locks meant to cover the gap where his left ear used to be. "I wanted to—"
"Marry her, I know. And you'll get to, just after all of this is over—"
"You don't understand, Fred! I don't want her having some other bloke's kids, it's not…it's not right! It's not fair!" He looks around wildly, his hand unmoving in his hair, his cerulean eyes filled with frantic desperation. We lock eyes for a moment and he flinches, barely perceptible. "I don't want—"
"None of us want this, damn it!" Ron suddenly explodes. "It's not just you—"
"Just because you don't have anyone you're with—"
"You can be so selfish!"
"Are you bloody kidding me?! I know who I want to be with! I already know! You're not with anyone right now, you have no idea—"
"Everybody stop!" Harry suddenly screams, all but leaping to his feet. "Just shut up, both of you! Please…" he adds weakly. "Please."
Ginny looks up at him, brown eyes widened in surprise. But she doesn't speak. Ginny lost her fire somewhere in the Battle; her fierce disposition and endearing snark have faded and she's been…not a husk, but less herself than she should be. Her almost-empty eyes follow Harry.
"It's going to be fine, okay? We'll just…we'll just suffer through three years and be done with it and—"
"Think of it like serving a prison sentence," I offer bleakly. All eyes turn to me. Quiet. "It's unpleasant and awful, but you just bear it and then you're done. That's all."
"That was actually the least hopeful thing I've ever heard you say, Hermione," Harry says quietly. He slowly lowers himself back down to the couch.
"Think of it like more sacrifice, Harry. For the sake of the Wizarding World. Just have the children and serve your three years and…and then you're done."
He stares at me for a long moment, then gives a slight nod. Within a few seconds, Ron, Ginny, Fred, and George have followed suit. Of course they would understand. Of course we can understand sacrifice.
3:3:14:10:37.
I glance at the clock on Ginny's wall, squinting as my eyes gradually adjust to the dark. It's officially Thursday, four AM and change on Thursday. The days have begun to bleed together slightly, almost like a school holiday. You go to bed one night in the summer and the next, you can't remember whether it's Monday or Saturday. We've devoted the past couple of weeks to just mourning and attempting normality again; futures have been put aside, careers temporarily ignored, further schooling tossed aside. I will not be returning to Hogwarts. Neither will Ginny or Luna; Kingsley has promised that those who fought in the Final Battle will be given clearance to be trained in careers of their choosing.
Sometimes I can hear Ginny's steady breathing, see the outline of her chest rising and falling beneath her messy covers. Other times, she is not in her bed, and I don't know where she goes. She's not with Harry; they're friends, close friends, but neither of them could handle romance on top of mourning. Things fall apart, like they did with me and Ron. I love him like a brother; he loves me like a sister. That's the way things need to be.
I run calculations in my head. It's dark and quiet and I can't sleep because the worry is swirling in my head, but math is a natural soother. Numbers are solid and certain; they don't leave you like people do. You can cling to numbers and they'll never betray you because your answer will always be the same each time; you'll never be caught off guard. I'll meet my partner on a Saturday, at six in the evening. 6:37 and forty seconds. I hope I'm not already busy that day. But then, I have three weeks to rearrange my schedule.
I flip my pillow over, laying my head down and drifting off again. Numbers tick behind my eyes.