Wizarding Common Law
Chapter Two: Is She Mrs. Weasley?
Hermione & Fred. They've been living together as friends for seven years which means that according to Wizarding Commonlaw, they are now married. Hermione is Head of the Auror department, and dealing with a case involving a series of murders. How will she be able to cope with the difficult case with the wedding presents that keep appearing? Is there any way to divorce in the wizarding world? Moreover, do they want to? And what the heck does toilet paper have to do with anything?
The next morning, Hermione awoke in her bed to the smell of coffee. Wondering why that smell was permeating the house, she wandered into the kitchen to be confronted with her solicitor making himself coffee.
"Make yourself at home, why don't you," Hermione said grouchily. Hermione was never very cheerful in the mornings, especially when the smell of coffee was around. She hated coffee with a passion. Apparently, her solicitor didn't agree with her because he was busy pouring himself quite a large cup of the substance.
"I will," said the solicitor, a Mr. Wood, cheerfully. It appeared that Mr. Wood was not grouchy in the morning, but rather very bouncy and happy.
Hermione glared at him for a couple moments. "Get to the point already!" she said in a rare fit of temper when he didn't say anything else.
"I am, I am," said the portly Mr. Wood, sipping his coffee delicately like a male version of Professor Umbridge.
"Then say it!"
"I simply dropped by to congratulate you on your marriage, Ms. Granger, and I wanted to ask you if you will be keeping the surname 'Granger' or changing it to 'Weasley'?"
Hermione stared at him. She must have heard him wrong. "Pardon, what exactly did you just say?" she asked, "I must have heard you wrong- I could have sworn you just-"
"What, has someone performed a memory charm on you?" he asked a little surprised, and muttered to himself that he would have thought the Head of the Auror department too good at magic to have that happen to her. "You married Mr. Fred Weasley yesterday, did you not? I saw the announcement in the Daily Prophet this morning, and wanted to be the first to offer my congratulations."
Hermione spluttered, still not grasping what happened.
He continued. "And to ask you if you are planning on keeping your maiden name- the world does know you as Hermione Granger, and I do not think you should change it to Weasley."
"But how? We never went through the ceremony!" Yes, she had had a secret little crush on him for a while, but surely this was too stupid to be a dream?
Mr. Wood looked thoughtfully for a moment. "How long have you been living together?" he asked.
"Seven years, as of yesterday," she replied.
"Ah, that would explain it," he said. "You see, when a witch and wizard live together for an extended period of time, seven years I believe, their magic starts to bond. If they move out or break up, both become magically unstable. There are ways around this of course, if they really wanted to split up, but the automatic response is marriage, enabling the two people to stay together and have stronger magic."
"WHAT?" Hermione was flabbergasted. How come she had never heard of this in all her reading?
"Yes," he said, "According to Wizarding Common Law- these are the fundamental rules of wizarding government and magic, you understand- any witch and wizard who live together for the period of seven years automatically become married on the seventh anniversary of their living together."
Hermione was still a little flabbergasted. So this wasn't a dream. Her subconscious could never have come up with that. But what on earth was she going to say to Fred and what were they going to do? She was working on an important case, dammit! And with her marriage appearing in the prophet, it was going to be blasted hard to work… wait a moment, how did it get in the prophet anyways?
"How did the marriage get in the prophet anyways?" she asked, still bemused at the idea of being married to her long-time crush. She didn't mind, but it was out of the blue and she didn't want to ruin her relationship with Fred over something trivial. She'd rather be friends than have awesome sex for one day and break up the next. Besides, it was blasted bad timing what with the Warbeck case and all.
"The prophet has sensors for these kinds of things, and when it felt that you and Mr. Weasley had been living together the set amount of time, it put the announcement in so you wouldn't have to bother," he supplied helpfully, "Was there anything else?"
Hermione shook her head, still a little out of it. "No, not right now," she said wryly, "But no doubt there will be momentarily. I'll owl you tomorrow."
"And the last name?" he queried.
"Yes, yes, Granger will be fine," she said, still a little disturbed, "Is that everything?"
Mr. Wood looked happy that she had finally returned to her senses and departed after wishing her happiness in her marriage.
Her marriage; what a strange thought.
Fred came into the room looking rather gleeful. "What a good joke!" he said, before heading to the icebox to get bacon for the stove.
"You heard?"
"Of course I did- I smelled the coffee and went to investigate," he said, "But you got there first- your room is closest to the kitchen."
Hermione laughed. Her room was indeed, closer to the kitchen, and it was a long-standing mock-argument between them. He did have the better view from his window, a fact that made his room nicer.
"What's for breakfast?" he asked cheerily.
Hermione looked at him, "You're just going to blow talk of our marriage off? It's true, you know."
"I know," he said, "And we will talk about it, but later, when you come home from work." He flipped the bacon before saying, "You've got enough on your mind as it is with the Warbeck case, and George and I are debuting our 'toilet paper traumas' today that we've been working on for weeks."
"Okay," she said, a little comforted, pleased that he was being so respectful of what she needed to get done. "I'm fine with that, but we're going to your mum's house tonight, remember?"
"Oh lord," Fred said, letting his bacon burn and putting his head in his hands, "I forgot we were going there tonight… do you think she knows?"
"Is she Mrs. Weasley?" Hermione asked.
A/N: Okay, well, not much happened with the Warbeck case in this chapter, but it was necessary. I promise, the next chapter will have more of the mystery. And yes, toilet paper plays a pretty major role. Please review to tell me what you thought of it, and until next time (probably Tuesday),
Lady Mage