Inspired by JK Rowling's works, posted only for mine and others amusement.

This is my dark, AU spin on the WIKTT Marriage Law Challenge. My only advice is "assume nothing". Good luck, and please review.

Chapter 1

Nearly every argument in the Snape residence ended with her same words: "Our wedding night was the worst thing that's ever happened to me!" And he couldn't disagree. Of course, when he offered no rebuttal, a heavy silence would descend between them, and after a few moments one of them would stalk from the room. Usually her, but occasionally Severus would end the dispute with a growl and a flutter of robes as he retreated to his private rooms.

The very morning after that disastrous wedding night, Severus laid out a simple plan as to who would occupy which rooms of Spinner's End, and ordered all the house elves to ensure that Mrs. Snape didn't stray into his personal quarters, and vice versa.

After sixteen very long and tense months of marriage, Severus still couldn't bring himself to think of the girl as his wife, and certainly not someone deserving of carrying his name. He assumed she shared the opinion, as she used her maiden name almost exclusively, except for those few occasions when a hyphenated name must suffice. Severus knew she wasn't at all keen about marrying a professor and a Death Eater, just as he would have no desire to wed a student. Or an Auror. You don't bed the enemy.

Not that his loyalty to the Dark Lord or to Dumbledore was absolute. Always a Slytherin, he swung with the odds-on winner to suit his needs. His few remaining morals naturally wanted Dumbledore the victor, but at the time, his reasoning was that in the end it didn't really matter.

His opinioned changed now. Looking back, Severus wondered how... He had acquired so much influence over the years. Always with that disturbingly warm and charismatic demeanor; like the Imperius Curse in and of itself; it was no surprise that scores of young wizards and witches fell to Voldemort's charms. Now so many of those young wizards were dead and buried, felled in the last grand battle against their enemy. And the young witches handed off to the remaining men, most of them Severus' age or older, as prizes for their loyalty. Some reward.

He couldn't even say his name anymore. And it wasn't fear or intimidation, it was betrayal and seething rage. It was easier just to call him The Minister, as he took that illustrious title after overthrowing Fudge and his incompetents.

Now they lived in a magical world to The Minister's exact specifications. The Marriage Law, the worst tripe to leave the Ministry in decades, declared his most loyal followers the privilege of marrying "suitable" wives; it amounted to pureblood men owning pureblood women and making pureblood babies.

It didn't mean that mix-bloods didn't slip through the cracks, Severus mused. No one knew his own lineage, and it was just as well. If it became public knowledge that his father was in fact a drunkard muggle, he'd be executed and his dear wife imprisoned for marrying a mudblood.

Never mind that she'd been forced into the ceremony as much as he had. It was one of the few things they shared, what she aptly called their 'mutual rape'. The joke which had been the vows did not state that they would love and cherish each other, but something to the effect that they would make like rabbits and raise a whole litter of Voldemort loyalists. The meaning had been craftily concealed with words like 'honor', 'obey', and 'prosper', but the expectation that the husbands would keep the wives on their back every night until the halls of Hogwarts were filled again was not lost on any of the couples.

The reception afterwards had gone even worse. A hundred drunken wizards, most in their forties or fifties propositioning the young witches with promises of wealth and comfort if only they came to their beds. Severus swallowed his own bile as more than a few accepted the offer. But really, there weren't many options. Find a spouse, or have The Minister assign one, as had happened with the Snapes. The unhappy couple was more unhappy than any of the guests. Prisoners at Azkaban were probably having a better day.

It was when they had to consummate their vows that the real brutality of it all surfaced. Severus didn't want to take the innocence of a student, adult or not, or even a woman whom loved him less than he did her. But the consummation spell would break if they did not, and they didn't need to be told the punishment of such an insult to the Minister, who had gone to such great lengths to arrange proper, sensible marriages.

So, he took her. It was the nail in the preverbal coffin on either of their happiness. Severus had promised to be quick about it, but it was near impossible to be aroused by a woman barely out of childhood, a mere girl he'd never given a second thought to, and the whole disaster ended up taking far too long. She cried pitifully through the whole thing, but after an unsatisfying climax, when Severus offered to obliviate the memory, she declined.

"I won't let myself forget why I hate him," she'd reasoned, and he let it be at that. Of course it would have saved them much shouting and object throwing if he'd just erased the thoughts anyway, against her will, but he couldn't bring himself to do that. She'd had so much taken from her against her will, she didn't need her mind sullied and violated either.

So they brooded and raged and generally avoided each other whenever possible, except for dinner, which they decided mutually to be neutral territory, and spoke in calm, civilized voices for an hour while they ate. Then it was back behind the battle lines. If only the outside world left them at such peace.

The Minister was rather disappointed that the Snapes had yet to produce an heir, but they were not the only couple to remain childless, and could hide behind that statistic for awhile longer, at least until the two year deadline, when a mediwitch would be assigned to their home to oversee their "procreative habits". Severus had laughed out loud at the idea, but The Minister was not amused. Speaking to him as if a child, the dark lord explained that technique was key to reproduction, and not everyone was blessed with such skill. But, with luck, Severus would have a son to carry on his name.

It left Severus feeling ill, he hadn't bedded his wife but the one time, and what then, when the mediwitch reported that the Snapes didn't even share same wings of the manor, much less a room or a bed?

Mutual rape. It was an accurate description. When at Hogwarts, when students didn't realize his presence in the shadows of the darkened halls where they hid to console one another, the older witches bemoaned the letters they received, informing them of the coming nuptials to men elder than their own fathers. And of course, their fathers and mothers approved, wanting their precious daughter set in comfortably with an established, well connected man of at least moderate wealth. After all, they had their grandchildren to think about.

Severus didn't think he could feel any sicker about the current events, until his wife stormed into his room, house elves trailing behind like whiny children, begging her to leave. She threw a copy of the Daily Prophet into his lap, and stormed out just as wordlessly.

The main story was short, and to the point, and no doubt the eventual cause of their next domestic dispute. He read through it twice before tossing the paper away angrily.

Own Your Own Muggle!
This 26 of June, his most honorable Minister of Magic
has decreed the auction of many healthy, hard working
mudbloods captured during the Glorious Victory of the
Final Battle. Males and females of all ages, ready and
willing to do your bidding. Auctioning will being at noon,
in the main foyer of the Ministry building, so bring your
galleons a buy a piece of history!

It wasn't a pleasant situation. The Minister had an unusual soft spot for purebloods of all kinds, even those against him. The Weasley clan, for example, had been moved into a larger, grander home, stocked with all the latest convinces they could need. They resisted, as was their nature, but The Minister was adamant, contributing substantial amounts to their Gringotts vault. Pureblood was pureblood, as far as he was concerned, and with a little help the Weasleys- and others- would eventually come around. Thus far they hadn't, much to Severus' amusement.

Though the purebloods of Dumbledore's army were let off the hook, the muggleborns and halfbloods were not. They came peacefully, or they died. Those with treatable injuries were removed from the battlefield, healed, then shipped to Azkaban. After the war, when his armies of Death Eaters claimed the Ministry and the major alleys of London, it had been bloody and prolonged. Hundreds, thousands perhaps, had died. Official counts were impossible, so many of the bodies were incinerated, mutilated, or banished without trace. A Manifest of Azkaban could not be found, either, and many were left to wonder if their loved ones were dead, imprisoned, or swayed to the other side.

Quite a few muggleborns were allowed to return to their old lives, if they agreed to obliviations. The rest were taken away to undisclosed locations, most probably to be slaughtered. The remaining Aurors switched from 'dark wizard catching' to 'mudblood catching', and Severus counted the days until he was found out.

He needn't wait much longer. A letter arrived for him on the morning June 26th, requesting his immediate presence with The Minister to discuss 'urgent matters' regarding his pureblood lineage.

Severus had no hope of pleading for his own life. Mudblood was mudblood, after all. But if he couldn't save his own life, perhaps he could save hers. After all, it was his duty to protect his wife, and she had no knowledge of his bloodline. And she was a good person, deserving of a second chance- her life had been ruined enough as it was by him and the Ministry.

He only hoped Pansy Parkinson would forgive him, eventually.