Author's Note: I'm just going to travel through every trope imaginable at this point. Here's a marriage law for you, because why not? Written by me, who hasn't really read any long marriage law fics…should be interesting.

Chapter 1:

"We're going to have to take care of this problem immediately," Lucius Malfoy snapped, turning to face his wife and son.

"Be realistic, Father. We can't very well kill her," Draco challenged, leaning into the high-back leather chair at the dining table.

"Lucius, we would be the first suspected if the girl went missing," Narcissa tried to reason.

"I hardly think this is a murderable offense," Draco added, taking a bite of his rapidly cooling porridge.

This was certainly not the way he thought he would begin his day. He lifted the letter, written on heavy parchment and sealed with the Ministry's official stamp. He traced a single finger over the name of his newly appointed betrothed. Hermione Jean Granger. Fate was a cruel bitch, mocking him straight to his face.

"She will sully the Malfoy and Black family bloodlines—the purest bloodlines in the wizarding world, Draco. We can't very well have her spawning little half-breeds! What would everyone think?" Lucius lamented, staring at his son with cold eyes.

"That we've finally discarded our ridiculous blood purity ideals and decided to follow the law as it has been directed for once?" the young blond man retorted.

"Draco!" his mother chided.

Draco shot a look to his mother and shoved his breakfast away from his face, no longer hungry and completely done with the conversation at hand. He hadn't even had five minutes to process this information and what it would truly mean for his future. "So, you're telling me you would be receiving to the idea of marrying the little Mudblood?" his father demanded.

"Of course not, Father! We never got along in school. And being tortured on our drawing room floor is hardly going to help," he bit out angrily.

"Draco!" his mother voiced shrilly.

"Calm down, Mother. You'll give yourself a migraine," he rolled his eyes.

"Draco Lucius, we are handling this my way," his father replied.

"You are not going to kill Granger!"

Lucius regarded his son with a hardened set to his face. His mother sighed, pushing a plate of muffins toward him forcefully and dropping her forehead to her fist, closing her eyes as a migraine came on. "Lucius. We cannot kill the girl. We would become the primary suspects and that is the scandal this family needs to avoid at all costs."

"What would you propose we do, Cissy? Allow this farce of a marriage go through? And how would you have the boy consummate with her? How do you think that will go over? And what about when she becomes pregnant? Thousands of years of elite breeding—wasted!" Lucius bellowed, slamming a hand down on the table.

Elite breeding. Neither of his parents even cared that he was being forced by law to marry as opposed to marrying for love. They simply cared because it wasn't the arranged marriage they had proposed and contracted with the Greengrass family. The Ministry had nulled all arranged marriage contracts when it became evident that the wizarding race was in dire need of strengthening. According to the Ministry's team of Healers and researchers, their extensive testing would ensure strong and healthy bloodlines from this point forward. The magical cores of the individuals they paired were complements of one another.

"We will take care of her ability to give birth, Lucius. Once it becomes evident that she is barren, Draco will be allowed to divorce her and marry a more suitable match," his wife reasoned, neither speaking to the young man sitting in front of them.

Draco pushed back from the table and strode from the room, unable to take another moment in his parents' suffocating presence. He walked out to the back gardens and breathed in the warm June air. Some way to spend his birthday—having to plan a wedding and a life with someone he couldn't stand to be around for any length of time.

He had gone to the Ministry for his mandated appointment, had taken the magical aptitude tests, answered the questionnaires about his future plans and his ideal witch. He had met with Ministry approved Healers to have every inch of his health, blood and body scrutinized. He had met with the Mind Healers and answered all of their questions about his psyche. And in the end, he had been matched with the swotty little know-it-all.

Granger. Draco stopped alongside his mother's rose bushes and scrubbed a hand over his face. He hadn't seen her in person in nearly two years, since he and his parents had been arrested after the Battle of Hogwarts. When they were attending school together, she had a way of getting under his skin like no other. The way her hand shot into the air every time the professors asked a single question. The way she took over the best desk in the library every bloody day. The tone her voice took when she spoke to him.

Nevermind how he felt about her. She hated him. Draco couldn't honestly blame her—he'd been a horrible little bastard to her in school. She'd been tortured in his family home. How could she ever accept him as a spouse? How would she ever trust him to lead them as a couple, a family? How would he ever be able to consummate the marriage without it feeling like he was raping her? How could she be expected to carry his children, to mother little people she would likely loathe simply because they belonged to him?

How could he be expected to marry her?

o-o-o

Hermione read over the letter from the Ministry one more time, angry tears filling her eyes. She had fought so valiantly against this new Ministry Mandated Marriage Law—she had went in front of the Wizengamot on three separate occasions to try and place doubt in their minds about what they were doing. But the wizarding world was in an uproar, afraid of how devastatingly the war had wiped out the population. She seemed to be the only one up in arms about this and received very little backing.

Draco Lucius Malfoy. All of those ridiculous tests and examinations and she had been paired with that arrogant git? What did that say about her, to get paired with such an absolute arsehole? She hadn't seen him in two years and she was quite happy about that fact up until now. She sat at her tiny kitchenette table and sobbed angrily. She heard her floo roar to life in the living room, and then, "'Mione? 'Mione—where the hell are you?" came the shaken voice of Harry Potter.

"In here, Harry," she called, wiping the remnants of her tears away from her eyes.

He walked in, carrying his own letter, his face looking ashen. "Hermione, you will not believe who I got paired with!" he croaked, waving the parchment in his hand.

"Well, it can't be worse than Draco Malfoy," she replied solemnly.

"I got Pansy fu—wait, what?" he asked as though she had just sprung a second head of bushy curls.

Harry rushed to her side and lifted her letter to read it for himself. "We are pleased to inform you, that after careful review and consideration, you have been matched with one Draco Lucius Malfoy. The nuptials are to take place within the Ministry approved thirty days…"

"Blimey, Hermione. Malfoy? How in the bloody hell did you get paired with him?" Harry asked, staring in horror at the name printed on the parchment.

"I don't know, Harry. How did you get Pansy Parkinson?" she snapped, snatching the letter from his grasp.

"How do they expect us to manage this within thirty days is the better question," he asked, sinking into the chair across from her. "I've never even had a real conversation with Pansy."

Hermione bit her bottom lip, trying not to cry. "Who did Ron get, then?" she asked curiously, feeling a small pang at the thought of her ex.

Harry smirked a little. "Cho Chang," he replied. "Good luck—she's a little batty, that one."

Hermione huffed out a short laugh before the dismal feeling returned to her stomach. She had to marry Draco Malfoy. How was she going to manage a marriage with someone she loathed? She couldn't remember another time, not even when they were hunting Horcruxes, that she felt more hopeless.

"We should just marry each other before they can force us into this," Harry mentioned, looking up at her.

She shook her head slowly. "We can't. You know they have a ban on any non-appointed marriages now."

Harry dropped his face into his hands and pressed his fingers into his closed eyes, lifting his glasses with the back of his hands as he did so. Hermione made to busy herself as she flitted anxiously around her kitchen, her hands shaking and unsteady as she made them both a cup of tea.

She sat across from him once more and handed him the teacup, her shaking hand spilling a little from the top. Harry cleaned the mess and put a hand over hers. "From everything I've heard, the Malfoys have really changed. I don't think you have anything to fear. It's just…unfortunate."

At that precise moment, an owl the color of charred wood tapped three loud times on her kitchen window. The bird looked regal, menacing. She knew exactly to whom it belonged. Hermione stared at the bird and when it became evident that she was not going to rise to open the window and retrieve the letter, Harry did so in her stead, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder as he walked around behind her.

"Come on in," he told the owl gruffly.

The owl gave an indignant hoot and nipped Harry's finger so hard he drew blood. "Ow! Ruddy flying rat!" Harry said, pointing to Hermione. "Go give her the damn letter then."

The owl hopped from the counter to the table and Hermione saw that he wore a black leather collar with a small platinum nametag. Hades. How appropriate when its master was the devil in disguise. She untied the rolled piece of parchment from the bird's leg and he gave her a gentle flutter, as though he was aware that he would one day belong to her as well. She sighed and pointed to Crookshanks' dish. "He won't mind, boy," she told the owl.

She held the roll between her fingers. Her first correspondence from her betrothed. She felt her stomach roll nauseatingly at the thought. It also crossed Hermione's mind that she could easily disappear from wizarding society. She could assimilate back into life as a muggle and ignore this all completely, forfeiting her magic in the process. But she knew in her heart that she couldn't do that either. It hurt too badly to think of giving up the world, the friends, the life she knew to return to a world that was progressing so rapidly that she scarce fit in there anymore.

Hermione took a deep breath and with shaking, nimble fingers unraveled the parchment.

Granger,

Please join me for tea tomorrow in the Manor's northwest garden. We have much to discuss and very little time in which to discuss it.

-Draco Malfoy

She could feel her insides roil once more at the thought of returning to that home and she leaped from the table and barely had time to make it into the bathroom before she vomited up what little toast she'd managed before she got the news that her life was ruined.

o-o-o

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