The Turning Point
Six months on from the Battle of Hogwarts and the Golden Trio were still being used as a mediator for international political relations. Six months on from the Battle of Hogwarts and the Golden Trio had not been given time to grieve, or heal, or be nineteen years old. This was not thought about by the Ministry officials who were sending them off to different countries all over the world to reconcile with the governments and ministries and inform them that Voldemort and his band of death eaters would not be causing trouble for anyone, ever again. It just so happened though, that this certain trip was to Paris right before Christmas. Kingsley had promised Harry that they would all be home before the 22nd, however it was now the 23rd and they were still being called to dinners and meetings with the 'Gouvernement Magique'. The early setting winter sun had already dipped below the skyline of Paris as the trio were getting ready for a state dinner with the Minister and her husband; Hermione's hotel room was bathed in soft light from the muggle lamps deliberately spaced around the room. Ron had been fascinated by the touch technology, spending hours tapping on the base of the lamp to turn it off and on again, until Hermione had ushered him out of her room so she could finally get some peace and quiet.
Knock, knock.
"Hermione? It's Harry. Are you nearly ready?" Harry called through the old fashioned, slightly crusty white door. It clicked open but Hermione was no where to be seen, so clearly she wasn't following their rules of 'No magic in muggle hotels' - not a rule they'd assigned for themselves, one that had been written for them by their Ministry advisers… Harry walked into her hotel room and sat himself in the wicker chair in the corner of the room, expecting Hermione to make herself visible at any minute.
"Have we had any word from the Ministry when we're being escorted home?" The word 'escorted' came with an eye roll as Hermione gracefully walked from the dressing room into the main room, her floor length red gown creating a swish as she walked in intricate gold heels. The magical ribbons of her heels were looped around her lower calves, artfully glimpsing through when her skirt moved. And even though she had no cares for make up or jewellery, the French Minister for Magic had sent through a drop down diamond necklace and matching earrings, so she naturally had to wear them, plus the make up did well at covering up the scars and the sallow face from her lack of sleep, and appetite.
Harry took a quick double take as Hermione walked into the room, there were few occasions when Hermione's beauty caught his eye - for the first time at the Yule Ball, a handful of times in between, and now. "U-uh, no. Well I haven't checked my post, there's a large pile of it on the bureau back in the room."
"But nothing with a Ministry stamp?" Hermione sighed, presuming that she wouldn't have anything either. "I'm a bit sick and tired of this. I know that we're ambassadors for England, and that Kingsley needs us to be doing this whilst he rebuilds the mess that is the Ministry. But it's Christmas for Merlin's sake." She took her clutch from the large queen sized bed and slipped her wand and a bottle of water into it, amazing Harry once again with how much she could fit in one purse.
"He promised we'd be home for Christmas." Hermione rolled her eyes, thinking that Harry wouldn't see her. She wasn't as sneaky as she thought.
"Don't, Mione. I know you're running out of faith in Kingsley, but I trust him."
"Maybe if he follows through with his promises I'll learn to trust him," she bit back, not meaning to snap at one of her best friends, but she was weary and emotionally disengaged by this point. "Let's just go and find Ron, he's taking forever."
After grabbing the key from the side and double locking her room, they walked down the corridor to number six and knocked three times, expecting Ron to come running and apologise for how long he was taking. If they weren't careful they would be late for the Minister's dinner, and she was already a feisty woman. It wouldn't do them any good to make relations even more tense between the two countries.
"Should we knock again?" Hermione asked, raising a perfectly pencilled eyebrow. "This isn't like him."
Harry knocked on the door once more, with a bit more force, only to find that it was open. He shrugged to his friend, and pushed the door open, walking through into the large suite that mirrored his and Hermione's. Ron was sat on the bed with a Ministry envelope in one hand, and a levitating letter in front of his face. It had clearly delivered it's message already.
"Ron..?"
"Mate?"
"You look like you've seen a dementor Ronald, what's the matter?"
"I think I'd rather see a bloody dementor right now," he mumbled, his facial expression not changing in the slightest, his eyes firmly staring at the letter in front of him. "Have you not got one?"
"Ignored the post." Harry shrugged, a sense of dread filling him that he'd rarely felt since the war. Quickly looking to Hermione who echoed his sentiments of ignoring the post, he urged her to step forward and read the letter too.
"Here. Take it." Ron muttered, his mood deteriorating further. Hermione reached one hand forward, hastily grabbing the letter before it could make up it's own mind, she started to read.
After scanning the letter, Hermione looked down at Ron with a look of anger on her face that they'd only seen a couple of times before, generally in the face of Voldemort or one of his minions. "They can't. That's barbaric. Primitive almost!"
"I know! But it's law now. No wonder they've been keeping us away from Ministry meetings.."
"Um.. care to fill me in, Ron, Mione?" Harry's brows were furrowed together, confusion all over his face at why his friends were so disgusted. He figured that they wouldn't be back in time for Christmas, but there was something in Harry that said Hermione wouldn't describe that as 'primitive' or 'barbaric'.
"You better read this." Hermione passed him the letter and subsequently started to pace around Ron's hotel room; the once elegant swish of her designer dress was now dramatic and filled with a sense of rage that most of the young wizarding population probably felt collectively at this moment in time.
"What does this even mean? A marriage law?" Harry exclaimed, "The Ministry have already determined who will be matched, and this will be announced on the evening of the date that the letter is received upon. All witches and wizards will be made aware of who their match is via owl, it is then the witch or wizards duty to find their partner and marry them within the year. After the date of marriage a child should be .. no no they are not turning us into a baby farm?!"
"Well it looks like they're fucking about to, we don't seem to have a choice in that!" Ron remarked, the two men stood opposite each other in their dress robes, bickering back and forth about the new law.
"What if we get someone we don't like?"
"What if they don't want to marry us?" The questions pinged back and forth - faster than a quaffle between two Weasley's.
"BOYS!" Hermione shouted over the top of their incessant arguing, "Whilst you two have been arguing, I've written an owl to the minister of magique apologising that we won't be at dinner, and arranged for our things to be sent back to the UK. Now, there is no way that I can apparate in these heels, so will one of you lend me your arm?"
"Of course. Back to the burrow?" Harry held her arm out for Hermione, and nodded to Ron for him to apparate first. They quickly followed suit, landing back onto the frozen ground of the apparation point in the field outside of the burrow. They'd left everything but their wands back in Paris, including their coats. Which in hindsight, was one of their worst decisions yet.
"Dumbledore!" Ron called out as soon as the icy chill of December hit him, not even thinking of Hermione in a strapless ball gown. "Let's get inside."
"Ronald! Oh! Harry! Where's Hermione?" Molly Weasley was stood at the stove in the burrow, easily balancing four or five different pots over the heat when her youngest son and her 'adopted' son walked into the house. She hadn't been expecting them back but it didn't mean that she was any less thrilled to have them.
"She was just with us.." Ron turned around, looking out of the kitchen window to see if he could see Hermione. He could. Her arms were tightly wrapped around both of the twins, who had formed a tight bond with Hermione ever since she saved Fred's life at the BoH. Finally they let her go and the youngest Weasley son could just about see Fred holding her at an arms length checking she was okay - the twins felt this overwhelming sense of duty to watch out for Hermione, something they'd stopped being ale to do for Ginny ever since her and Harry got together.
"I suppose you've heard about the letters Mrs Weasley.." Harry sighed, taking a seat at the kitchen table and smiling gratefully as she handed him a mug of tea. She patted his shoulder in condolence, even thought Harry had a niggling thought at the back of her head that he would be okay. Ginny had to be his soul mate, there was no doubt about that, surely.
"Yes dear. Ginny told me as soon as she got hers this morning, you two will be just fine I'm sure of it. Everyone else.. Well, thankfully Bill and Fleur are all settled." Mrs Weasley rambled away, ushering the twins inside along with Hermione. "Oh love, you must be absolutely frozen to the bone. Especially since you've not got any meat on your bones. Fred, George, one of you go and grab her a blanket."
Hermione hugged Mrs Weasley close, thankful for the welcoming matriarch that she was, always making sure that each one of her kids were happy, even if they weren't her kids to begin with. Her natural ability to adopt whoever came over the doorstep was about to be tested with this new marriage law, but Hermione knew that she would extend her home to anyone who arrived.
Finally a little while later they were all sat around the kitchen table, Hermione with a blanket over her shoulders and her heels strewn on the floor, Fred and George either side of her, trying to coax her into eating some supper - even thought she lacked an appetite now more than ever. Ginny had appeared out of the shower and had come down to the kitchen to reassure Harry that they wouldn't be split up, the post would come and it would say their names matched together. Ron was nervously chatting to his Dad and Percy about why the law had been implemented in the first place.
Rappatap, rappatap. RAPPATAP. RAPPATAP.
"Oh for Merlin's sake, I'll let them in shall I?" Mrs Weasley stood from the table, rolling her eyes at all of the cowering young adults around the table. Of course she understood that this was a nerve wracking time for all of them, but there was no use in avoiding their fates. Hence, why the two owls at the window flew into the kitchen and delivered each letter in record time before taking a treat from Mrs Weasley and flying back off into the dark evening skies.
"Should we open them together?" Hermione mumbled nervously, trying to regain a little control in a time where she had none. It was too late though, George had already opened his and others had followed suit. Before she could even open her letter Harry and Ginny were holding each other tight, a small sob escaping Ginny in her happiness that she had been paired with her boyfriend. George's letter announced that his soul mate was Angelina, which left him in an awkward position - they'd broken up a couple of months ago, both dealing with grief in different ways and not 'clicking' anymore.
"So who'd you get then Mione?" Fred mumbled, audible to only Hermione. The rest of his family were preoccupied with their own letters, or they were happily tucking into some supper that Mrs Weasley way laying out - if she didn't know what to do, or how to help her children she would generally provide cake and tea. It seemed to solve most problems over the years.
"Oliver Wood.." She whispered back, the confusion clear in her voice. "Wasn't he captain of the quidditch team?"
"Merlin.. yeah. He was mates with Perce, definitely fought in the battle. Don't really know him besides quidditch." Fred shrugged, wishing he could provide more information to her about her 'soul' mate. This whole law seemed to be getting weirder and weirder, considering that Hermione barely knew her match, he didn't even recognise the name of his, and George's was his ex.
"Who is she? I've never heard of her, have you Fred?" Hermione scanned over the parchment, to see if there was an address or any sort of information about Eliza McGonagall. "You don't think she's.."
"A relation of McGonagall? She's got to be. It's not exactly a common surname Mione.."
"Ooooh Freddiekins! You've ended up with Eliza McGonagall!" George cheered, jesting at his twin brother. Fred deftly hit him over the arm with his rolled up parchment, not that it would inflict any pain, but it might make George shut up for one minute.
"Wait. You know who she is?"
"Wait. You don't?!" George remarked back at his twin, mirroring his arched eyebrow perfectly.
"No.. Should I?"
"Lee had a poster of her next to his bed in the dorm!"
Hermione scoffed, "And she's Fred's match?"
By now everyone at the table had turned their attention to Fred's mysterious match, thankfully letting everyone else forget about their impending forced relationships. Mr Weasley was the next one to speak up, he knew Eliza from her struggle to petition for home schooling, which had had to go through the Ministry.
"Eliza McGonagall, well I'll be damned. She's the youngest chaser that the Holyhead Harpies have ever had, officially joined the team at sixteen thanks to some loophole in the bi laws. Made a right mess at the Ministry with regards to her home schooling."
"So that's why you don't know who she is Fred! She was home schooled. There must be a picture of her in one of those stupid magazines." Hermione commented, looking to Ginny who owned a large stack of women's quidditch mags. Ginny quickly got the hint and detangled herself from Harry, running up the stairs to her room to look for a picture of Eliza McGonagall.
"But it still doesn't explain why she's been matched with me? I don't know her," Fred blurted out, staring at Percy and his Dad, presuming they could give him some sort of explanation. Only when they didn't say anything, did he speak up again. "Do you really think this makes sense? In a year's time me, Mione, Charlie and Ron are going to have to marry people we barely know and then have bundles of mush with them!" His anger was misplaced, but he was confused. Surely the ministry couldn't force them to marry and procreate with people they didn't know?
"I'm sorry son. We've had marriage laws before, and the majority of the Ministry thought.. well they thought it would work again." He let out a sigh, looking to Molly for back up. She rubbed his arm affectionately, not knowing, like her husband, what to say to make it better for their kids. "I admit, it's a pretty old fashioned experiment, but you've just turned out to be the unlucky ones who doesn't know their match."
"FOU-U-UND HER!" Ginny called out, running down the staircase at an extraordinary pace, skidding into the kitchen in her mismatched socks, she threw down an open magazine in front of Fred, Hermione and George. There was a double page spread on the rookie witch who was 'taking the quidditch world by storm', the article featured a few pictures of her in action along with a more staged photograph of her in brand new Holyhead Harpies kit, her long blonde hair blown out, and a little make up to accentuate her features.
"Merlin.. she's even more stunning than I remembered." George mumbled, going to high five his brother, who couldn't have been paying less attention to George if he tried.
"This.. is Eliza McGonagall?" Fred let out a puff of breath that he'd been holding in, picking up the magazine and reading all about his new wife.
"Ronald dear, you're very quiet. Who did you get?" Mrs Weasley lent over the table, trying to take a peek at the letter in Ron's hand.
"Oh, I haven't opened it yet. I don't want to know." Ron swallowed a lump in his throat, looking to Harry who was happily snuggled up with Ginny, and then to Hermione, who was reading her letter again, looking for an address to go and find her future husband at. She didn't seem disappointed, just lacking any sort of opinion. And of course Harry was happy, he already had a girlfriend. But what if he got someone that he knew and didn't like, or worse, ended up with someone awful.. what if he ended up with a slytherin?! "No, I'm going to wait the 14 day period and then go and find her, but right now, I'm happier not knowing."
"Well, um, if you think that's for the best.. But .. oh Arthur, Percy. Tell him what happens if he doesn't follow through."