"You ready for the big day Rosie?" Albus asked Rose. Rose shot him a look across the kitchen table they were currently eating breakfast at. Al held up his hands feigning innocence and then gave an amused look back to her. "Oh c'mon, what is the worst thing that could happen to you?"
"I could get stuck with a heartless git who I in no possible way could ever find feelings for and I would be stuck living the rest of my life as a lie." Rose stated as if it were blatantly obvious. "And I won't have the joy of falling in love myself and choosing someone on my own!" Today was the day when the Ministry's Marriage Law finally affected Rose and Albus. Now that they were of age, they would be forced into an arranged marriage with someone of the Ministry's choosing.
Rose hated the law and made sure everyone knew that she was completely unhappy about it. Rose was cranky considering it was the morning they got paired up and instead of eating, she stabbed her eggs with her fork. Al on the other hand was acting as if the Law didn't bother him at all. Rose knew her cousin well enough to know that he was secretly very anxious to know which girl would become his bride-to-be.
All of a sudden, the door to Rose's flat was flung open and in bounded her cousins Lily, James, Louis and her brother Hugo. Two years ago James had been subjected to the Marriage Law but his fiance, whom James didn't know, had died training as an Auror so James was getting a new fiance this year like Rose. Hugo and Lily were both still too young for the law to apply to them so they had nothing to worry about. Louis was the same age as Rose and would also be finding a bride.
"Why the angry face Rosie?" James asks. "Its not as if a small decision today is determining the rest of your future! Oh wait."
"Hahaha James, you're hilarious. And say one more word on the subject and I will hex you right back out the door in which you came through." Rose told him threateningly. James took a few steps away from Rose.
"Rose lighten up deary, he was just trying to make a joke." Albus told Rose. Rose glared at him but didn't say another word. "Would you guys like some breakfast? Rosie cooks when she's upset so we have bacon, eggs, pancakes, muffins. So help yourself." The minute the words left Al's mouth James and Hugo were in the kitchen.
Rose rolled her eyes and took her plate to the sink. She flipped on the water and turned it all the way to warm and rinsed her plate the muggle way. Albus always made fun of her for doing this but Rose reminded him the last time he used Scourgify on a plate, he broke it. He stopped bothering her after that.
Rose was the one in her family with the biggest temper. She was the daughter of Ron and Hermione Weasley, she was bound to get irritated quickly. But all her cousins knew, even James though he hardly acted accordingly, if they upset Rose they were likely to be hexed. And along with her temper Rose also got intelligence from her mom so she was also the best at hexes and spells.
"Hey Rose!" Hugo screamed. It sounded more like 'Ey Wofe' since he had his mouth full. Rose walked back over to the kitchen table and gave Hugo a disapproving look.
"Hugo do not talk with your mouth full."
"What are you my mother?"
"No, your older sister and you are in my apartment so you follow my rules and a rule we have is no talking with food in your mouth. Clear?"
Hugo nodded once and turned away from everyone to get another muffin. Rose glanced up at the clock and noticed it was 9:47. They were due down at the Ministry at 10:00 and Rose did not want to be late.
"Ok guys it's time to go. Finish up and put your plates in the sink. Al can attempt to Scourgify them later." Rose said smirking at Albus. He glared back at her. "Ok Lily and Hugo are too young to apparate so we are going by Floo."
James' face lit up. He loved Floo powder which Rose didn't understand. She thought apparating was much faster and less dirty. Lily pulled a face because like Rose she didn't like getting dirty from the soot in the fireplace.
"Me first!" James said jumping up and down looking like an 11 year old who just got their Hogwarts letter, not a 19 year old traveling by floo powder for the thousandth time. James ran forward and grabbed a handful of the powder. "Ministry of Magic!" James shouted and with that he was consumed by green flames and was gone.
Rose, Al, Hugo, Louis and Lily repeated his actions and soon they were all gathered inside the Ministry of Magic. Louis quickly pulled out his wand and cleaned them off from the soot. Rose looked around and saw many students she knew from Hogwarts all being forced into the same law.
"C'mon guys. We promised we'd meet everyone in front of Aunt Hermione's office." Lily said pulling everyone toward the Magical Law Department. They got to Hermione's office just as she was stepping out.
"Hello guys. Are you ready?" Hermione asked.
They all gave a sign of recognition to Hermione's comment but no one was really ready. "Ok Lily, Hugo you can wait in my office while I take them down to the Marriage Department. Harry and Ron said they would come and get you guys but they seem to be running late."
"No we are not." Harry said as he rounded the corner with Ron. They were both slightly out of breath.
"You had to run didn't you?" Hermione asked. Ron and Harry both shook their heads really quickly which just told Hermione thats exactly what they were doing. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ok well you're here now, so you can watch Lily and Hugo. You can wait in my office or go do something else. And if you wait in my office don't break or mess up anything."
"We'll make sure they don't dear." Ron told Hermione and opened her office door for Lily and Hugo to go in.
"Ronald, I trust Lily and Hugo just fine. I was talking about you and Harry."
"Yes mum." Ron murmured.
"Excuse me?"
"I mean yes my beautiful wife that I love so much." Ron said nervously.
"Much better." Hermione said and permitted Ron to kiss her cheek and then Ron turned to follow Harry who was already walking into Hermione's office.
"Okay let's go." said Rose. She was ready for this to be over and done with.
"You know guys it's not as bad as you think. The ministry sometimes makes good choices. Like Ginny and Harry. And Ron and me. We are happy." Hermione says trying to cheer the kids up.
"Yeah but you guys just won the war for them. They sorta had to give you good choices." Louis says glumly.
"Listen here all of you." Hermione says sternly and stops walking. "You might not like who they choose for you originally but you will eventually learn to love them. So stop being upset." Everyone continued walking in silence until they reached the Marriage Department.
"Ok all you need to do is go in there, find the desk with your Hogwarts house and they'll give you an envelope with whom they chose for you. I'll wait out here for you" Hermione said waving them in.
James was the first to go in everyone else following him. Around the room there were five desks set up with signs saying which Hogwarts house or if you attended a different school. Each desk had two lines, one for boys and one for girls. Louis headed over to the desk that said Ravenclaw while James, Albus and Rose went to the desk that said Gryffindor. Rose got in line behind Alice Longbottom, Neville and Hannah's daughter, who was shaking and murmuring to herself.
"Hey Alice, are you okay?" said Rose. Alice looked up and smiled when she saw Rose.
"Oh yeah, I'm fine." She said but Rose didn't believe her. "I just really hope I don't get a Slytherin, not because I'm prejudice just Dad would hate their parents, and I really don't want to get Lorcan." Alice had dated Lorcan Scamander for 2 years until Lorcan cheated on Alice and Alice broke up with him. It took her at least 3 months to get over it.
"I'm sure you won't." said Rose giving Alice a reassuring smile. Alice smiled back and turned back around to face the desk. Alice was now at the front of the line and told the ministry worker behind the desk her name. The worker flipped through a stack of envelope's and handed Alice one that had Alice Longbottom written across the front in fancy script.
"Rose Weasley." Rose said to the employee on the other side of the desk. The employee handed Rose the envelope on the bottom of the stack. "Thank you." Rose said sarcastically while glaring at the employee. Alice was waiting for Rose and Rose noticed she hadn't opened her envelope.
"I wanted to open it with someone." Alice said and started to carefully peel back the envelope. Rose on the other hand ripped the paper angrily until she had a small blue piece of paper in her hand folded in half. Rose looked at Alice who was also holding her paper.
"Well we can't wait forever." said Rose and proceeded to unfold her paper. Rose felt her blood instantly boil and hatred filled her eyes as she stared at the name on her paper.
"Who did you get?" Alice asked. Rose shoved the paper at Alice and Alice squealed.
"Oh my god you got Scorpius Malfoy! He is like the hottest guy on the planet." Alice giggled.
"No, he's the biggest prick on the planet." Rose growled. "Now open yours." Alice ripped her paper open and her eyes widened.
"I got Lysander."
"Lysander Scamander?!"
"What other Lysander do you know?! Of course him. Oh god this is going to be so awkward, I mean he's Lorcan's twin!"
Lorcan and Lysander had always been rivals at everything. Lorcan was in Gryffindor while Lysander was in Ravenclaw. They were both really good Quidditch players, Gryffindor having three Quidditch cups, Ravenclaw two . And they were both right at the top of the class, underneath Rose of course, Lysander getting 10 OWL's, Lorcan 8. They competed with everything.
"Lorcan is going to be pissed." James said from behind Alice as he read over her shoulder. Alice jumped slightly and then nodded. After Alice broke up with Lorcan he spent forever trying to win her back but Alice still hated him after he cheated on her.
"Well..." said Rose. She looked at James expectantly. "Who'd you get?"
"Violet Wood, Katie and Oliver's daughter. I think I kissed her in fifth year." James said. Albus walked up behind James and looked really pale. "Al, who did you get?"
"Dorea Zabini." Albus says quickly. "You guys?"
"Lysander Scamander."
"Violet Wood."
"Scorpius Malfoy."
"What?!" Albus fell silent. He stared at Rose in disbelief over who she got. "Are you serious? You got Malfoy?" Rose glared at Albus.
"C'mon let's go find Louis and then get back to Aunt Hermione." James says stepping between Rose and Albus before Rose had a chance to respond to Albus. "Bye Alice. Tell Neville we said hi." Alice waved and then skips off to find her older brothers, Frank and Matthew.
They all caught up with Louis, who had been paired with Marina Finnigan, and walked in silence back to Hermione.
"So, how did it go?" Hermione asked with a worried look. Everyone exchanged glances until James spoke up.
"I got Violet Wood, Albus got Dorea Zabini, Louis got Marina Finnigan and Rosie got Malfoy." James said in almost a bored tone.
"Oh well, no one completely awful." Hermione said optimistically. Rose and Albus both glared at Hermione.
"Aunt Hermione, Rosie and I got the kids of a Zabini and a Malfoy! It's completely awful." Albus exclaimed.
"Now I know that you've heard things from Harry and Ron about Scorpius and Dorea but I am sure they are not true." Hermione told them. "Now I need to head to a meeting so you guys can Floo out in my office and I'm sure all your fiance's will be wonderful and extremely nice." Hermione hugged everyone goodbye and walked off in the direction of her meeting.
"I bet Malfoy's nice, I mean, he has shagged almost every girl at Hogwarts. That's gotta mean he's at least friendly." James whispered to Rose. Rose turned around and smacked James as hard as she could on the shoulder, while he sniggered at his own joke.
"Well, well, well, so you're a feisty one eh Weasley?" Rose turned around to come face to face with Scorpius Malfoy. His perfect blonde hair hung in front of his gray eyes and while most girls fainted at the sight of it, it made Rose want to throw up. Flanking Malfoy was Christopher Zabini and Andrew Nott. From what Rose knew Zabini was a complete ass and Nott was the nicest out of the three, as Rose had been paired with him in Potions and he was perfectly tolerable, just not very friendly.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" James growled at the Slytherin.
"None of your business Potter." Malfoy sneered at James.
"So you're who my sister got?" Zabini asked looking disdainfully up and down at Albus. Albus scowled at him.
"Yeah, I am. What poor girl is going to be stuck with you?" Albus shot back.
"Macmillan. I think the first name is Sari. Some whiney Hufflepuff." Zabini made a face. "At least that means she'll probably be a screamer." Zabini laughed at his own joke.
"Like she'll ever let you get that close to her." Louis retorted. James and Albus laughed but Rose just stayed glaring at Malfoy.
"So what do you want Malfoy?" Rose asked. Malfoy strolled over to Rose's side and put his arm around her only to have Rose shake it off immediately.
"I just wanted to see my fiance. What's wrong with that?"
"Well you've seen her." Rose said dismissively. "So bye."
"Well I wanted to see you a bit more, say, close up" Malfoy's said still wearing his trademark smirk. Zabini and Nott laughed at Malfoy's joke. Rose glared back at Malfoy.
"In your dreams, Malfoy."
"Oh you will be."
At this Rose shot one more death glare at Malfoy and stomped off, her cousins chasing after her.
"See you at the wedding." Malfoy called.
"Don't count on it." Rose yelled back over her shoulder. She continued to walk quickly, not bothering to see if anyone was keeping up with her and when she reached her mum's office she walked straight past it. Rose kept walking until she was near the main entrance and then turned on the spot, being glad that out of her cousins, so far, she was the only one that could apparate.
In a flash Rose was back in her apartment. She looked down in her hands and she still held the envelope with the blue paper back inside. Rose pulled out her wand and threw the paper in the fireplace.
"Incendio." Rose growled at the paper. The paper burst into flames and Rose watched as it turned to black, then crumpled into a pile of ash. Rose couldn't help but smile at where the envelope had been in the fireplace just seconds before. But her joy was short-lived. Rose then quickly ran to her room down the hall. She wanted to be locked in there before Albus could get home and try to talk to her. Rose undressed and then climbed into the shower and turned the handle to cold, hoping that it would cool her down.
It didn't work.