A/N: I am in need of a beta, so if you are interested, please be in touch.
Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original world, storylines and works.
Hermione Granger found herself kneeling on her bathroom floor, her tummy still churning after throwing up todays' dinner, as she heard an owl outside her window. She stood up, her legs shaking. She looked at her pale complexion in the mirror. She splashed icy cold water in her face, before brushing her teeth. Then she entered her small living room, allowing a large bearded owl entry. The owl wore the typical Ministry of Magic signet band.
Dear Mrs Granger, we are pleased to inform you about law §40981, known as the Wizarding Marriage and Procreation Act, or WMPA.
Congratulations on the next step of your life! The time for marriage and children has come, and we are pleased to inform you about some government perks you, and your fellow witches and wizards, will be eligible for in the time coming. A list is enclosed in this envelope.
In this envelope you will also find the wording of the law, explaining how this law will affect you and those around you. As well, you will find a couple of forms to be filled out by the end of September.
We wish you a great year!
Colette Flint
Head of marriage law office
Hermione threw the letter away, before looking down at the three documents in her lap. Good news or bad new first, she wondered. She sighed. Bad, she figured.
Law §40981 consist of three parts, hereby known as a, b & c.
§40981 a) All witches and wizards between the ages of 17 and 40 must wed and produce at least two children within a five-year time frame. The first child must be conceived before the first wedding anniversary.
All weddings must take place between September 1st and February 1st. The ministry reserves the right to dictate a list of potential partners. You may choose whom to marry within said list. The lists will be sent out by the end of September. If you have any preferences, you may file them with the ministry before the end of September.
If you currently are married the ministry will inform you weather or not you are eligible to stay married under law §40981.
b) All forms of birth preventions, both muggle and magical, is deemed illegal. All and any attempts at abortion will result in the ministry taking your wand. All eligible wizards and witches must wed if they wish to continue being a part of the magical world. Wizards and witches under the law must have weekly conjugal visits until the time a child is conceived.
c) You might be eligible for divorce after five years of marriage. In order to be eligible for divorce you must have birthed two children, and attempted marriage counselling.
Hermione snorted. How could the ministry have gotten this law through the wizengamont? She knew she should have done something about the corrupt government, but she was tired. She sighed. Oh, so tired. Couldn`t someone else fight for once? How could this law have been passed? How could the ministry do this to them? It had to be illegal. The lawyer within her was bussing with the opportunity to do something, even if she, as a private citizen wanted nothing more than peace and quiet.
Congratulations again! You are getting married!
Under the new marriage law witches earn a great profit by getting married and bearing children. Below we have outlined the benefits we deem the greatest
The ministry will pay for a ministry official to officiate the wedding ceremony.
For each child more than two, the married couple will receive 200 galleons a month.
Free childcare for children between the ages of 1 and 11
Free tuition for squibs to go to muggle school
Free birthing classes with a professional midwifery healer
You get the pleasure of having children around the same time as your best friends
All couples having struggles conceiving a child will get help by professional healers at St. Mungo's, free of charge
You will be assigned a set of healers that will know all about you!
All witches will receive pay during their maternity leave.
You get to do something good for your magical community. Without this sacrifice, our kind would become extinct. All future generations will have us to thank for their ability to live as witches and wizards of the United Kingdom of Britain.
She looked down at the last document. It was a question sheet. She would come back to that later. First, she had to make a plan. There was no way she was going through with this. Bullocks.
"We have to fight this, Hermione. We must fight this! They are taking away our lives! Have not we given enough?" Harry stood up abruptly, causing his plate of fries to crash to the floor. Fries mixed with shreds of glass. He placed both his hands on the table, and leaned forward. He`s going to become head of office soon, Hermione thought, watching his stance. She sighed, causing him to sit back down.
"We need to fight this. It cannot possibly be legal, can it?" He looked at her, trying to read something or another from her expression. But he could not. He starred down at the red and white tablecloth. His fries long forgotten. The café they were in was noisy, with people chatting all around them. Some were laughing to, shrieks of laughter filling up the void.
"It is", Draco drawled, as he sat down next to Hermione. Harry eyed him, used to his presence, but not liking the way he must have overheard their conversation. Perhaps he had even listened in. Harry shrugged at the fact. Not to mention the fact that he had found them. Had he been looking for them? Meanwhile, Hermione watched them over the brim of her cup of tea.
"How? How is this legal?" Harry looked at Hermione, then at Malfoy. Wondering who would speak first. Wondering who would answer his question. Hermione continued studying Malfoy. Harry felt extremely uncomeatable. How did Malfoy even know so much about law? He was not even a lawyer. Damn it all, Harry thought. Malfoy probably had something to do with this. His family always did.
"They have not passed a new law, Harry. Just brought back an old one," Hermione whispered, not taking her eyes of Malfoy. The blonde nodded, a sullen look on his face. Hermione took a large sip from her cup, after blowing at it, making sure that she would not burn her tongue. She was sure he knew nothing about the law. If he had, he wouldn`t have divorced Astoria. She was sure of that. For all though they no longer loved one another, they obviously cared for the other. She was sure of that.
"Why does that change anything?" Harry was just as confused as ever. Malfoy stole a french-fry from Hermione`s plate, but Hermione didn`t seem to notice. She was busy starring out on the street. It was quiet, contrasting strongly with the loud voices within the four walls of the restaurant, and the screams going on within her own very mind.
"It matters because the law was signed by 2/3rds of the magical population in 1762. And that's what you need, is not it Mrs Lawyer?" Malfoy looked over at Hermione. Harry watched her intensely. She nodded. Harry sighed.
"But what I don`t get is why you divorced Ron? No one understands any of it. One day the two of you were fine, talking about children, and the next you inform me that you are divorcing him? He says you`re going to get back together now, is he right?" Harry looked at her, trying his very best to read her facial features. She flinched at the name of her ex-husband, and looked away at the notice of children, but apart from that she hardly seemed to hear him. Malfoy paid close attention to them.
"It is not my place to tell, Harry. Ronald knows what he did. But no. We are never getting back together." She looked away from him. The waitress had come over, trying to remove the rest of Harrys lunch from the floor. Harry sighed. She never did tell him about her problems. He wondered if she ever would.
"What are you going to do, Mione?" Hermione Granger smiled sadly at him; he was such a good friend. He cared for her, perhaps more than Ronald ever had. They shared a look, and Hermione Granger shock her head.
" I`ll think of something. You go marry the hell out of Ginny," Harry smiled. He was going to do that indeed. Draco sighed. He knew that he too probably had to do some thinking. After all, the ministry knew he wanted a divorce. Bullocks.
Hermione found herself kneeling on the floor of a ministry bathroom the very next day. She was crushed over, her chin resting on the toilet seat. She dared not move, afraid that her stomach would churn, and she would find herself throwing up the rest of the content of her stomach. She wiped her sticky hair away from her forehead, where it had previously lain. Tears seeped down her chin, before the drops fell onto her chest. She saw no reason to dry them away, after all, she was alone.
Something was wrong, she knew that. She had found herself on this particular bathroom floor quite a few times the last couple of days. She could not stand the smell of chocolate, but her addiction to French fries had grown to a point where she craved them on a daily basis. She had fallen asleep on her desk three times in the last week alone, and still she found herself walking around as a zombie most of the time. Hermione Granger knew something was wrong. However, she dared not test. There was no way the gods would be that unkind to her. At least, a small part of her still hoped so.
She and Ronald had tried for years, both wishing to contribute to the rebuilding of their magical world. The magical world that Hermione was so grateful to be a part of. The magical world that they had fought so hard to keep. But that it had to come to this? A marriage law? Taking away people's choices? No. She had never imagined that. The tears slipped down her chin faster than before. Where was all that Gryffindor courage, she asked herself? Gone. Ronald had broken her. His deception had come as such a shock. She knew they were growing apart, but that he would go so far. Hermione sobbed into her own arms on the ministry women's toilet.
It was a simple spell she had to preform really. Nothing like the procedure in the muggle world. Just a simple swish and she would know for sure. But knowledge is power, and she found herself wishing that maybe this time she would get to be weak. It was not even dirty. No peeing on sticks, and medical appointments. Just a spell. A spell any first year could perform. She sighed. A spell she needed to do. Even if its result had consequences she did not want to deal with. If she was right, and she was pretty sure she was right, these consequences would be with her for the rest of her life. No matter what she chose to do.
She pointed the wand at her stomach, whispering the spell, and watching as the entire room filled to the brim with a golden light. The floor below her shimmered in the light, and she wanted nothing more than to gag once again. To forget. To escape. But she could not. Even if she had wanted to, there still was the law. She was stuck. She cried hard, as she had to reach over the toilet once again to let the rest of her carbs leave her system.
She was pregnant. And it was Ronalds.
What the hell was she going to do?
That very afternoon Hermione found herself barging into the minister's office without knocking. Normally, she would not have been so unpolite, but at the moment she did not have it in herself to care about formalities. He looked up at her from his place behind his desk, his eyeglasses perched on the end of his nose as he studied her.
"Mrs Granger," he greeted, while continuing to write the letter he had been writing before her abrupt entrance to his office. Hermione watched him, waiting for him to do something, to say something. Anything really.
"Minister," she responded, still a little out of breath from her journey from her office to his. He finished his writing, leaving his deep blue feather pen in its ink dwelling. Hermione watched the pen. How a shame that people didn`t take better care of their pens. The minister looked up at her, analysing her features as well as her behaviour. It was indeed unlike Mrs Granger to run into his office without an appointment. Although, he admitted, Mrs Granger seemed to do a lot as of late that was out of character.
"How may I help you today, Hermione " His tone shifted, she had always been his favourite of the three. The golden trio, they had been named. She was indeed golden, he had to admit. She looked over at him, tears in her eyes. Oh boy, he thought, he was not a man accustomed to the falling tears of women.
"Your damn law is ruining my life, Kingsley," Hermione sobbed, angry at herself for crying. Angry that her weakness was shoving. Angry, angry, angry. Kingsley studied her, before standing up and walking around his own desk. He opened his arms, and she fell into them, sobbing into his chest like she had done all those years ago after the end of the battle. She looked up at him, through tearstriken eyes. They were red and puffy, Kingsley had to admit. This could not be the first time she had cried as of late.
"It is necessary, Hermione," He spoke softly, knowing himself that he was asking way too much of a generation that had already been through too much. He hugged her close, hoping that he at least would give her some comfort.
"I am pregnant, Kingsley," She muttered, not looking up at her. He did not know if he should be glad, because after all, he needed new blood, or sad, because he knew it had to be Ronalds, and he knew what the bastard had done to this pure wonderful woman currently crying in his arms. And he knew that she would have to obey the law. There was no running if she was pregnant. The ministry would find her. And they would take her baby. Kingsley knew that. And he hoped for the life of everything he ever loved that Hermione Granger knew so as well.
"What the hell am I gonna do?" she whispered into his chest before her tears started falling all over again.
Astoria found herself entering her soon to be ex-husbands home office. He was sitting behind his desk, bent over it, working hard on something or another that she cared very little about. That was the problem between them, she guessed. All the passion that was once there had since left them, and the only thing remaining were to miserable people scared of leaving, but more scared of staying. Her husband looked up from his work, noticing her presence in the room.
"Astoria," he greeted, folding his arms over his chest, ready for the shouting match he knew would emerge now that she quite possibly knew about him filing for divorce. Astoria found herself starring down at her toes. Normally she would wear shoes, but as of late she had found herself becoming tired. Her heels were long ago thrown into the back of the closet. He watched her fidget. Something was wrong.
"Is everything all right with Scorpius?" Draco questioned, a worried look imprinted on his face. Astoria did not respond immediately. After some time, she shook her head. Then she looked straight at him, mustering up her courage. It would have been so much easier if she was a damn Gryffindor, she thought to herself as she stuttered over her own words. It would have been so much easier if she was a Gryffindor, but she would just have to say it. He was looking at her, waiting for her to say something.
"I`m sick. Very sick." His entire world broke down in that very moment. He might have wished her gone. He might have wished her to be someone else, but never in a 100 years had he thought about the possibility of her simply not being there, at all. She was the mother of his son, damnit. Things like this was not supposed to happen. He had lost enough people. Tears sprung to her eyes as he remained silent.
"Well, I do not want to divorce you now!" he shouted, standing up gripping his hair with his hands. Broken. Astoria laughed, feeling lightheaded for the first time in days. For the first time since her healer had informed her of the very muggle disease she had. Oh, how she had laughed. She was sick. She could die. And it was a muggle disease that would kill her. The gods must have been laughing at her as well. This was punishment, she was sure, for ever believing herself better than anyone else.
Draco watched his wife, thinking that she must have gone insane. How could she laugh at a time like this? He did not understand. He did not understand a bit of it. Because he himself was sadder than he had ever before been. His heart ached for her, his wife, and their son. The pain their son would face if he ever were to lose his mother. Draco couldn`t even imagine.
"Are you dying, Astoria?" he questioned, making sure that he was not crying. Not yet. Not in front of her. He must be strong, he reminded himself.
"Maybe," He was definitely broken.
A/N: So that`s that. I have a couple of chapters written already, so the first couple of chapters will be up sooner rather than later.
