One Minute Marriage

Summary: The word marriage looks a lot like the word magic when you're running for your life from a hoard of Death Eaters. So Harry could be forgiven for the mistake.

The Third Minute: Traffic Jam… When You're Already Late

"Vault number 302," Griphook announced as he stepped out of the cart.

'Thank you Griphook,' Harry said as he gently took Blaise's little sister out of his shaking arms.

'You are welcome Mr Potter,' the goblin replied, taking the key from the Gryffindor.

"I take it you don't like the cart rides much," he said to the Slytherin.

"No, you think?" he replied sarcastically, ruining the effect by swallowing loudly and steadying himself on a marble column.

Harry simply rolled his eyes and gestured for the other teenager to follow him into the vault. Mounds of gold, silver and bronze coins surrounded them, but he ignored these and continued further into the vault.

Blaise, however, had halted the instant he saw the gold. "Holy… You're rich!" he exclaimed in surprise.

Harry looked at him weirdly. "Yeah, so?"

"Why do you wear those outdated clothes that are five times too big for you all the time then? We all just assumed…"

"Perhaps you shouldn't assume to know the lives of others."

The two walked in silence to the back of the vault. The entire wall of the back section was covered in books, jewellery, weapons and other assorted items from top to bottom. Harry lowered Blaise's little sister to the ground and moved to the middle section where a shelf stood covered in necklaces and various pieces of jewellery. He opened the top drawer and shut it just as quickly, working his way halfway down the chest before stopping and taking a step back.

Zabini moved forward and looked inside the drawer. There were twenty rings altogether, ten female and ten male wedding bands.

"So, are you going to pick?" Harry asked.

"I… don't know," he replied softly.

"I believe it would be best to let the rings choose," Griphook stated from behind them. "If the ring you choose takes a disliking to you… well, it wouldn't be pretty."

Harry shifted away from the drawer slightly. "What is it with the Wizarding world? Objects always seem to choose the person instead of the other way around."

The Slytherin sighed and shut his eyes, holding his hand over the rings. After a minute he picked up a ring, a snake twining around made of gold with glittering diamond eyes. Harry quickly did the same, picking up a ring that was a snake twining in the opposite direction with the same diamond eyes, but made of white gold.

"Huh, how convenient," Harry said suspiciously, going to place the ring on his finger.

"Wait!" Griphook shouted, making the Gryffindor halt. "You must have your husband place the ring on your finger or it will reject you."

"Oh," Harry said intelligently.

Blaise muttered to himself and quickly swapped rings with Harry before holding out his left hand. Blushing lightly, the Gryffindor placed the ring on the other's finger before he did the same. The bands heated slightly before the snakes came to life and wound themselves tightly around the two ring fingers.

The Slytherin sighed loudly. "I can't believe that we just have to accept this… Mum never had this problem with her husbands."

Harry looked at him quizzically. "Husbands? I thought there was no divorce in the Wizarding world."

"That's never been an issue. She's had seven husbands, they're all dead," Zabini replied indifferently.

The Gryffindor blinked. "Seven? And they all died young?"

Zabini smirked. "Well, they may have had a little help."

Harry's eyes widened. "Note to self; never write Zabini into my will or it will probably be the last thing I do…" he muttered.

"So are we done here? I need to get my sister home, and before you get any ideas I refuse to live anywhere other than my own house. So you're coming with me," Zabini stated.

"Since you asked so nicely…"

The Slytherin simply rolled his eyes as he picked up his little sister and walked towards the exit of the vault. Harry shook his head and followed the tall boy out the large door. Another stomach twisting cart ride and the two Hogwarts students were back in the enormous foyer.

"I suppose we'll need to stop at your house to get your belongings," Zabini sighed.

Harry frowned as they began walking out of the bank and into Diagon Alley. "Knight Bus?"

"Unless you truly expect me to take a muggle means of transport," the Slytherin sneered.

"Joy," Harry said sarcastically at the thought of the drunken driving style Ernie the bus driver employed.

The two of them enjoyed a tense silence as they exited the Alley and the Leaky Cauldron, entering muggle London. Zabini promptly stuck his wand out and the purple double-decker bus immediately popped into existence in front of them. Stan Shunpike, as pimpled as ever, stepped out of the bus and recited the same speech he had given in Harry's third year before looking up and recognising the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Neville!" He exclaimed in recognition. "'Choo doin' 'ere?"

"I've been here since you dropped me off four years ago," Harry deadpanned.

The conductor's eyes widened. "'Choo been 'ere that long?!"

Harry sighed. "Look, we're all going to Magnolia Crescent in Surrey. No extras."

Stan looked curiously at Zabini and his little sister. "One Galleon and ten Sickles for the three of you, children are only five Sickles." The Gryffindor handed him the money and followed the man up to the front of the bus. "Oy, Ern! Look 'oo it is! It's Neville again!"

The old man turned around an adjusted his glasses slightly, squinting at Harry through the layers of glass. "Neville, eh? Minister not after you this time?"

"Depends on what you'd classify as being after me," the boy replied.

Ernie cackled and turned to face the road again. "I suppose you're onto something there. Where to?"

"Magnolia Crescent in Surrey. Back where we picked 'im up last time," Stan said.

Harry immediately sat down in the nearest seat, dragging Zabini down next to him, and clung desperately to a part of the bus that was attached. The Slytherin smirked at him.

"I take it you're not a fan of the Knight Bus then," he said.

"I'm not really a fan of any Wizarding mode of transport," Harry muttered bitterly. "Except brooms of course. I mean, the Knight Bus is some sort of terrifying roller coaster ride, I never seem to end up where I'm supposed to when I Floo somewhere, apparition was obviously created by a masochist, and portkeys…" Harry just shuddered.

Blaise just continued smirking at the Gryffindor for the rest of the trip, having to continuously prevent himself from laughing when Potter glared at him every few minutes. Two stops and ten minutes later, the Knight Bus came to a sudden halt in a very plain, symmetrical street, and the three of them quickly got off the bus. When the bus had disappeared, Blaise turned to the other boy and raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Neville?"

Potter sighed. "It's a long story."

Blaise just shook his head and followed the other teen down the street with his little sister. After a few minutes of walking, the Gryffindor turned down into another perfectly symmetrical street, with perfectly grown gardens and perfectly clean yards. It was all so unnaturally normal.

Potter made his way into the backyard of number four, and nudged three planks of the fence up to fit through into the next yard. Blaise sneered at the muggle fence, but held up the planks to let his sister through before ducking under them himself and following the Gryffindor into the house that was no doubt identical to those on the other two streets.

"What was that about?" Blaise asked as soon as the door closed behind him.

"Dumbledore has people watching the house, if I want to go anywhere I have to sneak out. Since Moody doesn't take shifts anymore, I figure they wont notice if I'm gone," Potter explained.

"How very Slytherin of you," Blaise said.

To his surprise, Potter grinned at him before walking up the stairs. The Slytherin glared around at the totally normal house and followed the other upstairs, making sure that his sister was keeping close behind him. Blaise found the other swiftly packing a few books into his school trunk in a tiny room with only a bed, desk and wardrobe furnishing it. A soft hoot drew his attention to the almost pure white snowy owl housed in a reasonable sized cage with the door open to allow it to fly around, and his sister immediately raced forwards to coo at the bird.

Potter turned from the bed and noticed the girl looking at his owl. "That's Hedwig, I got her for my eleventh birthday," he said with a grin.

"She's pretty!" she said.

The Gryffindor gave her a strange look as though suddenly realising something. "You know, I don't know your name yet."

The girl smiled up at him. "My name's Cherise, but you can call me Cherry. That's what my friends call me."

"Well then, it's very nice to meet you Cherry," the boy said with an answering smile. "I'm Harry."

"I know, you're Harry Potter. Blaise talks about you, you know," she said innocently.

Blaise glared at his little sister as she gave him an almost invisible smirk. At least they didn't have to worry about whether or not she was going to be in Slytherin.

"Is that so? Complaining about me to your family?" Potter asked with his own barely visible smirk.

"Actually, complaining about Draco complaining about you," Blaise said huffily. "You'd be surprised how much he whines."

"Actually, I don't think I would."

The Gryffindor shut the lid of his trunk and quickly pulled off his glasses, replacing them with a pair of oval glasses that had a thin wire frame. Blaise looked at him oddly as he placed the old glasses on the bedside table and put a feather-light charm on his trunk before grabbing his owl's cage and walking into the hallway.

"Not that I'm complaining about the loss of those monstrosities you call glasses, but why did you just leave them there?" the Slytherin asked.

"Someone has a tracking charm on them," Potter said. "I couldn't get rid of it without the person knowing, so I transferred it to the bedside table. Unfortunately I can't make the transfer permanent, so I had to get a new pair of glasses today."

"Are you certain that nothing else you own has tracking charms on them? I don't want you leading any Death Eaters to my house."

"No, I checked."

"Just so you know, I will be blaming you if our house is burned to the ground and we're all murdered in a gruesome fashion," Blaise told him seriously.

"I'll keep that in mind," Potter said, rolling his eyes. "I'll just go tell my Aunt that I'm leaving, so she'll have to cook."

Potter left his trunk and owl in the living room with the two Zabini's and walked into the kitchen. Blaise looked around the room at the hundreds of pictures of an overly rotund blond boy, a man that looked almost the same but with a bushy moustache, and a horse faced woman. The Slytherin curiously wondered at Potter's lack of appearance, but before he could think on it further, a loud crash came from the kitchen and Potter ran out looking over his shoulder.

"What-"

"Duck!" he yelled as he pulled Cherise down.

Blaise ducked just in time to see a china plate go whizzing over his head. He looked over at the kitchen door and was surprised to see the same horse faced woman that was in the pictures armed with plates and a few cups glaring angrily at Potter.

"And how dare you bring more of your kind into our house! Especially after last time!" the woman yelled, punctuating each sentence with another thrown piece of china.

The three of them hastily sped out of the back of the house, with more objects being thrown at them every second, and through the fence, the large trunk only just squeezing through. Blaise straightened himself up, brushing off small pieces of china that had exploded onto his robes before frowning at the Gryffindor.

"What in Merlin's name was that?"

Author's Note

Well, this did much better on the review front this time. :grin: And I still haven't been burned at the stake! Hoorah!

fragonknight01: I cracked up at the bit about Malfoy, that would be very amusing to say the least. I'll definitely consider those suggestions :evil plotting grin:
kez: Blaise was shopping with his sister at Diagon Alley when the Death Eaters attacked. Because she's only six he had to carry her to run fast enough to get away, but then he decided to be a Gryffindor and help the other little girl. Yes, Harry does own a house but I mentioned (sort of, I understand how people missed it) that it wasn't finished being built. Hope that clears it up!

Thanks go to AxBxR, mumimeanjudy, IheartPineapple, Oshiiyume, TwinHighElf222, JuMiKu, Mara202, sparkley-tangerine, kagomite, Angel Baby1, fifespice, Sony Boy, Serser, Harry potter Goddess (Still NO!!!), and thafemaleshacklebolt.

Remember, reviews feed muses and mine are starving!

FGoI