A/N: Hello Again. So, my brain started thinking about marriage law fics and this happened. As I always warn, this is AU. There is a major character death, which will be discussed in a later chapter but other than that, I tried to keep fairly close to the timeline of the books/movies; not running away from what has gone before until after the battle of Hogwarts.

I have no idea how this is going to turn out beyond my main pairing and that is nowhere close to happening yet. My take on the characters may well read OOC at times but I do try and make them fit the story I want to craft. This is rated M for reasons including but not limited to: violence, sexual themes, and language. Please expect a frank discourse on internalized racism and prejudice as well since my Hermione will be a POC.

If those aren't your cuppa, I apologize in advance.

Standard disclaimers apply ie JK Rowling is a goddess but I am not her, I make no money from anything, this is not my sandbox but I love to play here.

~~Daily Prophet Opinion ~~
~~Page 8 Sunday, August 1st~~

To the Editor~

Once upon a time...

Isn't that how most fairy tales start~~ with the four most overused words in the English language? As if time has a face like water or a mirror or your head. One could even say "Long ago when all was quiet and no one had yet to leave the forest..." but most fairy tales which start that way are meant to be heartwrenchingly moral and morality is subjective. Like war, like death, like love~ I don't want morality in my "Happily Ever After."

If you just think about it, there is no such thing as happily ever after, not really. Change is inevitable. Loss happens. Love dies or is murdered in cold blood by an egomaniac with bad skin and no nose. At the end of it all, these things just happen, right? So fairy tales are all fictions, all life lessons which were never learned, all pretty pictures painted in broad strokes.

Think about it.

It's the women who are always wronged. Somehow, men never really pay any serious price in stories. It's the woman who is too spoiled or fast or perfect that suffers; dancing until her feet fall off, loss of a nose, being traded to a beast, losing a voice so that one can escape the sea, falling into a depthless sleep until one is awakened with a baby well planted (Sleeping Beauty did NOT awaken with a kiss in the original stories, she awakened to labor and screaming all because her parents were cowards).

Does any of this sound fair?

Or in this case, let's look to the war that took away people of importance, cut their lives down like so much vegetation until they disappeared in a welter of red and screaming. Did the "Good" side win? Yeah. Sure, depending on one's definition of good. However, if one were to ask the average pureblood they would say that NO, the good side LOST. It would be pointed out, snootily mind, that the wizarding world has been overrun by people who are not fit for the magic they host. Traditions are being ignored, lost, buried, under a tide of newfangled ridiculousness because the changes being foisted onto us all are barbaric.

What good is the Statute of Secrecy if certain muggles KNOW? Whether or not, those muggles are government officials is meaningless. It isn't about secrecy then, is it? No, it is about the supposed safety of our kind or so they say. It is about the galleons and pounds and dollars. Ultimately, it is about power. Most purebloods understand that last part, implicitly.

There are certain things that the purebloods among us have gotten correct.

Not that magic belongs only to the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Hell, magic belongs where it wills itself to go. I must admit that I disagree (strongly!) with the idea that I am not fit to wield the magic I have spent years honing or that I should be shoved back into a world that I would have to hide my truth in. However, the rest of it? The loss of family traditions and inherent magic, wanting to remain completely separate from the world at large, acknowledgment of the fact that wizards are not muggles and should not be treated as such? Hell, even the fact that Muggle-borns like myself do not understand magic in the same way as a pureblood does?

I get it.

I agree.

The war we ended just over a year ago was about ideals and absolutes; however, people are nothing but shades of gray and they always have been. The world as is does not mean anything when it comes to fairy tales. There is no black and white. Yet, I feel that women bear the brunt when it comes to getting things in order. Women are the ones to become chattel, especially when it comes to the loss of income or lives tossed into the well of progress. Women mean no more than trophies.

Just like fairy tales.

The only difference between the average pureblood and the ministry I helped free from the noseless bastard is that some purebloods will admit they want galleons in exchange for the purity of their blood. They arrange marriages for their good little boys and girls like a financial transaction, with the highest amounts being settled upon good PURE (in all ways) stock. The Ministry in all of its hidebound arseholishness is just trying to pretty it up with a marriage law.

In the end, women are still chattel and are still being offered up based on the purity of their stock.

No one who falls under this law will be getting a happily ever after.

Signed,

Hermione Jean Granger

~~ Daily Prophet Politics, Monday, August 2nd~~
~~Page 9, letter response, by Miras Phlaras~~

And so Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of Her Age, weighs in on the Marriage Law which was released via owl, the pages of this paper, and posters on July 30th, 1999. As previously mentioned, this law went into active effect August 1st and is expected to impact every unmarried wizard and witch between the ages of 18 and 40 with three different magical componenets being used to ensure the best matches.

Will MIss Granger fall under the auspices of the law or will she willfully forsake her magic in protest? Her letter does not say and we are loathed to ascribe outcomes based upon the words received. For those of you who reside under a rock here is the gist:

I: The law will aid in repopulation efforts.

II: There will be no recourse once a match is chosen. The marriage will be a life bond, divorce and separation not allowed.

III: Two viable births will be required within the first five years of the union with a stipend paid for each child born thereafter.

IV: Blood purity issues will be ignored for the purposes of magical matching and any contracts signed after August 1st will be null and void until after the magic has been cast.

V: All marriages /announced engagements entered into (prior to the law) will be honored.

VI: All marriages must happen within three months, once a pair has been notified by return receipt owl post.

VII: Failure to comply will result in a prison sentence of no less than five years (for purebloods) or snapped wands and obliviation before being returned to the muggle world for Muggle-borns. Half-blood wizards and witches will fall under the jurisdiction of whichever world they were primarily raised in, with the appropriate punishment to match.

Minister Shacklebolt has gone on record as saying," The Wizengamot has searched for other viable options to offset the loss of life caused by the Second Wizarding War. The Marriage and Population Act is the only proposal that fits every parameter."

What will the outcome be for Miss Granger? For you? For all of us?

One hopes, that with the law in place the final outcome will be children, children to fill the spaces left behind by a war other young men and women had to fight. A war that took one-third of the Golden Trio from this life and left a gaping hole behind.

Otherwise, this law will be worthless.

(Please see page 8 for further opinions)

A/N2: So that's that then.

I hope this caught your interest and if it did, say hello, leave me an idea on what you think.

Until next time~