Ravenclaw Head of House, Themed, Prompt: [Speech] "I can't marry him/her/them! He/She/They would kill me the first week!", WC:2675
In a world where the marriage law has been introduced, Colin Creevey isn't dead, and numerous others are still alive. A slight AU in the air.
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I, Hermione Granger, am now supposed to marry a random person. It may be a person I've never met, but it could also be someone I know very well. So, anywhere between freaky-old-tramp, to Harry Potter himself. Neither of which is at all appealing. No offence meant to Harry, of course. He's just really not my type.
The marriage law was released three weeks ago, owls delivered to every Wizarding Household in the country. Today is the day we're supposed to find out these pairings. I can't help but think that these names are going to be nonsensical, as if chosen from a hat. There was uproar, even after Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt explained the necessity to preserve our kind – given how many died in the war. They wanted us to mix and, eventually, procreate.
Personally, I prefer the natural process of finding a mate. Many people felt, and still do feel, the same. To no avail, however. The force from the Ministry was strong and left no room for negotiation.
A tapping on the window announces the owl's arrival. Myself, Harry, and all Weasley's are congregated in their small kitchen, internal panic attacks racing through us. I can't be the only one who feels as though they're going to throw up everywhere. Harry and Ginny are holding hands – as friends, they're trying to tell people. Fred and George are pale-faced beside each other. Percy stands with one arm around his mother. Bill and Fleur don't need to worry, already married. No one has seen Charlie in a month. Ron is beside me.
Arthur, the only one unattached, retrieves the thick parcel from the owl's leg. He unwraps it with bated breath, then hands a letter to each one of us. There's one left in his hand; Charlie. None of us say anything when he slips it inside his cloak pocket.
I feel a surging wave of love and appreciation or this family. They have all been so wonderful and welcoming, allowing both Harry and me to become part of the clan. I have never felt anything so delightfully comfortable.
The paper is rougher than I expected, with a jittery cursive, Hermione. I know it must have been done by magic and not by hand from this. It matters not. No one else has opened theirs yet. I can't be the first, can I? Everyone is waiting. Slowly, horrified, I move myself away from Ron. The envelope practically peels itself to nothing in my shaking hands.
No.
No, no, no.
"Hermione?" Ron asks, almost hopeful.
I turn and run up the stairs.
0-0
"Hermione?" Ron's voice calls through his sister's bedroom door. "Hermione, are you alright?" I don't respond. "I know this is awful. And we've all opened ours now. Mum said maybe we should have opened them separately. I didn't get you, so I know you didn't get me." He pauses. "It can't be that bad."
"Ron, please go away. I don't mean to be rude, but I need to be alone."
He sighs on the other side of the door, resigned.
"Okay, I'm sorry."
His footsteps fade themselves away down the hall and curling the staircase to the kitchen where I know they must all be talking about me. I'm still staring at the paper, horrified, confused, a broad spectrum of emotions, all as equally as powerful as the last. I pull my blanket closer around myself, feeling a chill despite the hot summer day. It's a ridiculous notion that I should need a blanket, but I feel all too bare without it.
Talk emanates from downstairs. Vaguely, I wonder whether everyone else is as displeased with their pairings as I am. It seems likely, but no one else ran away from the group. Then again, they all belong as their family. My parents aren't here as they're still living in Australia. I decided, two months ago, that I will leave them there. It's far too complicated to involve them, for now.
Maybe, when I feel ready, I can let them back in. Just, not yet.
Three sharp raps sound on the bedroom door again, and Ginny barges her way through my weak locking charm. From one glance at her dishevelled look, I can glean that things are either really good or really bad, nowhere in between. She grimaces and makes a wild attempt at humour.
"Will you show me yours, if I show you mine?"
I laugh without humour.
"Come on, I'm not the boys," Ginny says, moving to sit at the end of my bed. "I may be a Weasley, and a protégé of the twins, but I am certainly not going to take the piss. Not even if you get someone like Colin Creevey. Or, Merlin forbid it, Justin Finch-Fletchley."
"And if it's worse?" I ask, voice timid.
She sighs, smiling at me. "Trust me, whoever it is, we'll deal with it. I love you, Hermione. This isn't going to change anything between us."
A kerfuffle is heard from downstairs, shouting, hollering voices. Ginny ignores them, so I do as well.
"I got Blaise," she blurts out. "Blaise Zabini."
"No way!"
"Yes way!" she laughs, incredulous. "Now will you tell me yours?"
I take a deep breath, then nod.
Suddenly, the bedroom door crashes open and Ron pours inside, half furious and half completely surprised that it was open. He can hardly get his words out, spluttering, tumbling over his emotions. Ginny tells him to spit it out, but he's clutching at his chest, as though overcome great trauma and most certainly tired out from running up the stairs.
"Draco Malfoy," he pants. "He's here to see Hermione."
Shit.
0-0
The blond bombshell is standing in the brightly coloured Weasley kitchen when the three of us make it downstairs. He's wearing a reasonably modest shirt, and dark jeans, and yet he doesn't look totally uncomfortable. The last time I saw him was in the Great Hall after the Battle of Hogwarts, sitting with his family and recuperating.
It was revealed just a week ago that Draco had been sending tip-offs to the Order of the Phoenix ever since Voldemort had first recruited him. Which, I'm assuming, is why he's in this program and not rotting in a cell in Azkaban. I'm almost annoyed that he doesn't look awkward in jeans. Surely something has to ruffle those ridiculously pruned feathers of his?
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Fred demands into the silence, arms folded. The entire Weasley clan are looking furiously at him. Malfoy just stares at me, knowing that I know the answer to his question. "You're here to see Hermione? What for?"
He considers his words. "I just need to speak with her, rather urgently, I might add."
"What about?" Harry asks, stepping forward.
Malfoy doesn't respond but continues looking at me. His grey eyes are almost impossible to break away from. Eventually, he says, "You didn't tell them?"
"No," I breathe, hating myself. I should have told them.
"No!" Ginny shouts, half angry, and half laughing. "No way!"
"Yes way," I repeat her words from earlier this evening. I cough, preparing myself, as everyone turns to look in my direction. Oh, how I wish the ground would swallow me whole. "Malfoy and I… Draco is my… We…"
"We're getting married," he butts in.
The uproar is tumultuous.
0-0
"Look, I know this isn't exactly ideal," Malfoy murmurs some minutes later, standing underneath the willow tree in the Weasley garden. "And you would probably much rather have to marry someone else." I don't say a word, but simply look back at him, knowing he wants to say more. "But I guess I can say that I'm glad I no longer have to marry Pansy."
I laugh, feeling ever so slightly more relaxed about the whole situation.
"So, why are you here then? You didn't need to come in person," I say, moving closer to him, cautiously. The sun glitters brightly above, midday rolling around far more quickly than I would have anticipated. Summer hasn't exactly been kind to us so far, but today it seems to have made up for the past four weeks of continuous rain.
"My mother," he admits. "I mean, it was the right thing to do. You know, get the initial freak-out out of the way in person, rather than writing a letter. Writing would have been cowardly, I think."
Which was exactly what I was planning to do.
"Was your mother displeased about the pairing?" I ask. Malfoy half smiles and shakes his head. "Oh." My expulsion of word is ridiculously short and with minimum impact. Malfoy reaches inside his jean pocket for something. "Did your mother marry through betrothal then?"
He pauses, perplexed. "No, actually. She and my father married for love. You wouldn't think it when you see them together, but it was not something her parents were exactly supporting of – the concept of marrying for love. Perhaps it was lucky for her that she chose someone more acceptable, rather than my aunt Andromeda who supposedly disgraced the family."
"I've met Ted. He's not a disgrace," I tell him. Malfoy nods.
"I know. He's caring, and he's funny."
My surprise that he has met Ted is registered by him. I can tell by the way his eyebrows raise fractionally.
"Anyway," he says, reaching inside his pocket again. "This is supposed to be that big romantic gesture in all those Muggle movies, when love culminates in this incredible crescendo of emotion. When lives are perfectly in tune. I don't know about you, but I wasn't exactly planning to get married anytime soon." I shake my head, oddly nervous for whatever he is about to say.
It's gotta be a ring, right? It has to be.
"Yet, here we are. And I ought to do it right."
He pulls a tiny black box from his pocket. Maybe I expected it to be velvet, but, in fact, it's wooden. I expected it to be square, but instead it is more of a rectangle. My breath catches in the back of my throat, despite myself. This shouldn't be my moment, Draco Malfoy should be proposing to someone he intended to marry. And, though we had our animosity before the war, I am almost convinced that he would have found someone he could love, and who would love him. As opposed to me.
"Hermione Granger," he starts, kneeling. Suddenly, I miss my mother and father so very much that it hits me like a freight train. They should be here for this. "I know this is sudden, and a little unintentional. But would you please do me the honour of being my wife?" Malfoy asks it as a question, like I have a say in the matter. My pause is what perhaps elicits the humour from him. "I make really good bread, you know. And I have actually seen laundry being done. Sometimes I even make my mother tea - she likes that peculiar herbal stuff. I can even -"
I cut him off. "Malfoy, please just shush. Yes, I will marry you. Just know that I am a regular tea kind of person. PG Tips exclusive."
He laughs, relieved that I'm speaking I think. Then he opens the wooden box, revealing the single gold ring inside. I suppose I expected it to be slightly more opulent, but the simplicity of it is endearing. I extend my hand at his request. It's a perfect fit.
"If you don't like it, we can...?"
"I love it," I murmur, glancing down at it, and smiling back up at him.
0-0
"Saw you and Malfoy having a little moment outside earlier," Ginny winks at me some hours later, washing up dishes beside me. I scowl in her direction and continue drying the bowl in my hands. "How are you feeling about it? I know you and Ron were never 'in love' or anything, but there was always that inexplicable... Something between you two. Were you hoping it would be him?"
I shrug, pensive. "Maybe, I'm not sure. It would certainly be easier than marrying Malfoy - who I will have to call Draco, eventually." We shudder.
"What's wrong with Malfoy?" Ginny asks a little tentatively. "I mean, he is good looking. Tall. Very wealthy. Bit of a dodgy moral code, but he got there in the end, right?"
"Are you kidding?" I laugh, swatting her with the dishcloth. "I can't marry him! He would kill me the first week!" Ginny shakes her head in dismay, grinning. "I didn't really want to marry anyone, but now it's forced upon all us. How is that fair? How is that not an atrocious disrespect for our human rights?"
The pair of us stand in silence for a few moments longer, staring out at the garden where the boys are playing Quidditch in the glowing light of the full moon. It's a somewhat magical evening, even without the knowledge that we all possess wands and broomsticks and tomes on potion-making. Glimmering whiteness bursts over dew-dropped grass, stars flickering above the entire scene. Out there in the dark, the night is alive.
"How are you feeling about it?" I ask Ginny, a chill running up my arms. "Are you worried?"
"Fucking terrified," she breathes in return. "You know, as much as the Slytherin's had reservations about us, we are pretty much the same about them. Assuming they're all evil incarnate, or something like that. Maybe it's just as unfair to assume they're all bad as them assuming we're all lower class." Ginny shrugs then, setting down her own dishcloth. "I'm not afraid of Blaise in the slightest. I just... I wish it was Harry."
"Is there nothing you can do?" I frown. The last year of the war was incredibly difficult on the both of them. Being apart from each other was difficult on all of us, but Harry truly did love her, and Ginny suspected that she felt the same. She wasn't certain. "Surely they'd understand? Maybe if you prove that you were in a relationship with him, and that you were planning to get married?"
"Maybe," Ginny sighs. "What about you and Ron?"
I shake my head ever so slightly. "I don't think it's the same for us at all."
We finish the dishes in silence. Eventually, Ginny ventures out into the cool air to see Harry, and I turn to the stairs.
0-0
In the shadowy warmth of Ginny's room, I pull out the remaining photo I have of my parents. What would they think of me now, in a somewhat arranged marriage? I always thought of my parents as having this golden relationship. They fell in love really young, married young, had me young. It was as though they were meant to be together. Most of the time, they were completely kind and generous towards each other.
There were times in my childhood when my parents would rage at each other like they were going to murder each other. My father would scream obscenities, and my mother would throw the food they were cooking, or the lunchbox she was packing, or she would simply throw a crying tantrum. In those moments, I really thought they would either combust into burning embers of anger, or that they would leave me. They would leave each other, and leave me.
However, every single time, it didn't happen like that.
They would cry and scream and swear, but then, suddenly, they would laugh.
They would laugh, and laugh, until different tears were rolling down their cheeks.
And everything would be okay. It all brings my thoughts back to Malfoy - Draco.
Draco and I absolutely do not need to be perfect for each to make a marriage work. I know he's not always humorous, but maybe we can learn to be somewhat humorous together. Maybe we can laugh about our ridiculous arguments, and find some sort of civil solution without killing each other.
Maybe, just maybe, I will even love him.
We'll see.
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Thanks for reading!