Title: And All the King's Horses
Genre: Mystery, Angst
Pairings: Ron/Hermione, Draco/Hermione
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to JKR. This work is for fun, not profit.
Summary: After Voldermort's fall, the world seemed full of hope and promise, and no one's star seemed brighter than Hermione Granger's. Twenty years later, her son tries to put back the pieces of a broken woman. The Marriage Law has gone terribly wrong.
Justicar pointed out that my brackets were not closed. Apparently the site hates closing brackets, but opening brackets are ok. The easiest fix would be to use parentheses, but these are different from brackets, so I shall open my brackets with brackets and close them with parentheses. :(
Author's Notes: This chapter is probably the creepiest thing I have ever written.
Chapter Four
In which the ghost of the Girl-Who-Could-Have-Been is silent
His grandson [mudblood bastard) has been to visit him. The boy has somehow gotten in his head a question about the Marriage Law—too close for comfort. Fortunately, when the brat came he had been researching marriage laws.
Marriage laws there are many. Marriage Law there is one. Of course, his grandson did not know this, and he certainly does not know it now. He grins contentedly at his own cleverness.
"Grandfather, I was wondering if you could tell me about the Marriage Law?"
"Scorpius, dear child, which one?"
The boy looks dumbfounded, but what can one expect of a half-blood mutt like that[Rose is a different matter entirely. She is a true Malfoy).
"Really Scorpius, you must be more specific than that. There are books upon books filled with laws about marriage." He holds up the book he had been reading before his grandson's interruption.
Curious, the boy comes closer and reads a few words off the page.
"Annulments of magical marriages?" The boy asks, clearly puzzled. "Grandfather, why would you be reading about that?"
He smiles, an old Slytherin smile. "A friend of mine requires help in a delicate question. His marriage, which I always knew to be a poor, but unfortunately necessary, match, has now become untenable. Unfortunately, it seems that the laws are rather stacked against his favor."
"Oh," is the boy's sole reply.
"Now Scorpius, haven't you a train to catch?" The boy nods. "Well then, you'd best get back to the Manor. The last thing your Father needs now is to worry about you, and it would hardly be fair to make your darling sister miss her first train ride to Hogwarts."
"Oh, right. Sorry to bother you Grandfather."
"Bother me?" [Only by virtue of your birth.) "Nonsense dear boy. I'm never too busy for my favorite grandson. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some important matters to discuss with the Minister of Magic. You know the way home."
"Of course Grandfather."
The meeting with the Minister hadn't gone at all as he would have liked. The minister had seemed rather intent on keeping that law about the validity of marriage "in sickness and in health." A minor disturbance of course—the Minister can always be bought, he smiles again, letting out all the wickedness in his soul because he knows that there is no one here who will ever tell the tale. And, of course, if the Minister can't be bought, he can always be blackmailed. His smile deepens.
"Poor dear Minister Iscariot, he sold his brother's fiancée for thirty Sickles, and if he doesn't want thirty more, so much the better. Isn't that right my dear?"
She doesn't answer. Of course, he didn't think that she would, or else he would never have said anything. Yes, yes, the issue at the Ministry will all work itself out in due time and his son will be free of his mudblood wife—free to marry a pure-blood worthy of his pedigree and continue the worthy line of Malfoy. But in the meantime, things aren't to his liking, and he finds the need to vent.
He looks at her. She is sitting on her bed, looking blankly at the wall. He walks closer to her. Still no reaction. He moves his hand to her cheek, brushing her hair out of her eyes, brushing his fingers against her flesh. Absent is the usual tremor.
"My, my, this promises to be interesting," he says aloud, to no one but to himself. If she can hear, it doesn't matter, and as for the staff, there's a silencing charm on the room…
The back oh his hand moves across he cheek and down her ivory neck. With both hands he pushes her hair behind her, and then his hands trace the lines of her limp left arm, until they finally come to her dead white hand. He takes her hand in his—it is remarkably warm—and bring her hand to his lips. Her ring finger into his mouth, and with his teeth he removes his son's ring from the girl's flaccid hand. He takes the ring out of his mouth and places it on the counter by her bed, and continues. The ring rolls off the counter, onto the floor, beneath the bed, but he is too busy to notice, let alone pick it up.
Through it all, she is silent.
Author's Notes: I can't say it enough. This chapter is probably the creepiest thing I have ever written, and I'm seriously considering upping the rating. (Advice?) I was originally going to write a chapter that brought the first three together, but I was struck by this image and it wouldn't let me go. As with the previous chapters, there's a lot of unexplained intrigue and junk. And no, Minister Iscariot is not an OC—Malfoy's just being nasty. A cookie for the first person to correctly guess the cannon name of the current Minister of Magic. I promise the next chapter will put a lot of things into perspective (it may actually be written in the past tense and in third person omniscient instead of faux-stream of consciousness, I'm not certain yet).
Also, when I said that the last three chapters were happening concurrently, I lied. The correct chronological order of the chapters is 1, 3, 4, 2. Scorpius goes to visit Ron in Azkaban. The next day, he goes to visit LM at the Ministry of Magic while Neville is visiting Hermione. Later that day LM visits Hermione while Draco takes Rose and Scorpius to King's Cross Station. That night, Rose is sorted into Slytherin, and the next day, Neville plans to talk to Scorpius about his mother after lessons. About a week later, Draco writes the letter to Rose. Makes sense? I probably should have stated somewhere that this story is not told in chronological order. From now on I will tell you guys when the chapters are taking place.
Happy holidays to you all! Be kind and don't forget to review! Please.