Death to Freedom, Birth to Hell

Author's Notes: Blah. College. It's caused me to write wonderful papers and terrible fanfiction. Sorry readers.

Summary: The Golden Trio never finished their 7th year at Hogwarts. They are called back to school to graduate to help them attain their desired careers, but a new Minister for Magic creates problems for them. MarriageLaw, Non-Slash, MPREG.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. JK Rowling and Warner Brothers does…sadly.

-HP-

August 13th, 1998

"Well, I believe the vote is unanimous. Congratulations, Mr. Valatio, your bill has passed the Wizengamot. Your ten minutes impressed many of the Wizengamot's members. We cannot wait to see this new law in action, to protect the little wizards of Great Britain," said an old wizard by the name of Judge Tibbs. He was a stocky and old fellow, but it appeared he had a sharp mind. Note: the Wizengamot judge only appeared to have a sharp mind.

The elderly wizard held the parchment at eye-level and flicked his wand at it. A yellow spark attached his wand to the parchment, and the paper zipped straight into an enormous magically bound book called, "Current Wizarding Law 1999 to 2000."

The book was automatically updated every year. This year was going to be an interesting one; nobody knew what was to come. A few seconds after the law was attached to the book, Judge Tibbs closed it. Or at least tried to.

"Eh? What in Merlin's balls—"

Try as he might, the poor old wizard couldn't close the thing. 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds…the damn book of law still wouldn't shut. He could barely lift the book's cover off the table.

"What is the meaning of this?" Cried the judge in anger. "Did someone tamper with this? Who tampered with-"

Just then, the new page of Wizarding Law began to glow. Judge Tibbs moved his long silver hair out of his face, adjusted his small round glasses, and glared at the page. After a minute or so of scanning, he took in a deep breath, and shouted, "Mr. Valatio! What is the meaning of this *hidden amendment?"

But somehow, Mr. Valatio had disappeared from underneath the Wizengamot's beady eyes. The law was set. Mr. Valatio had tricked the Wizengamot into accepting the bill.

Hell would be raised.

Memos were flying all around the Ministry. Arthur Weasley swore he had never seen as many flying papers as he did that day. "I wonder what's going on?" he asked Alabaster Huttle, a Magical Artifacts representative from Ireland.

"I 'ave no idea, really," said Alabaster. "I assume we'll get a memo about it sooner or later." A man ran past the both of them and launched into the elevator. He pressed the button to get to the Wizengamot one time, two times, and then three times.

"I'll kill those bastards!" he shouted, and the elevator doors shut.

"Whatever it is, it's getting some people quite riled up," chuckled Mr. Weasley. "It must be some sort of new broom flying restriction, I expect. I'll be in my office waiting for the memo." After seeing the angry man rush into the elevator, he decided he would take the stairs.

He made his way down and as he approached his office door, he noticed that there was a rather large crowd gathering around his office, all speaking in both angry shouts and tense whispers. There were statements of, "Who the hell's responsible?" and "What the bloody hell was the Wizengamot thinking?" and of course, "Screw the Ministry; I'm not taking part in this. I'd rather go to Azkaban."

Arthur looked around the room and saw Finnegan, a close friend in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Departments, and asked, "What's all the ruckus about? I only just got here and I find everyone angry and yelling at memos. What in the world's changed?"

Finnegan was a tall, slender, and very lanky man. He spoke with a bit of a lisp and had pus-filled pimples covering his forehead and chin. He wasn't a looker to any one woman at all, except to maybe his mother. And his personality was not very appealing either—he was quiet and awkward around women and when he wasn't quiet and awkward, he was solemn and depressing. He was single, obviously, but he wasn't a day over 25.

Today, he would've competed over the spot for Eeyore in the muggle book Winnie the Pooh.

"I'm going to be married," he said. Dread drenched his dismal tone.

Arthur's eyebrows went up and he instantly patted Finnegan on the shoulder going into what the Weasley twins would call, "father-mode." "Congratulations, Finnegan! Who's the lucky chickadee?"

Finnegan's face paled and he said, "I have no bloody idea." Finnegan handed over the memo to Mr. Weasley, and when Mr. Weasley read the contents of it, he guffawed and said, "Oh for the love of Merlin, this has to be a joke!"

The memo was simple in text, but required an enormous amount of thought and worry:

"Dear Mr. Finnegan Bartley,

Congratulations! You will be marrying within a month! A new law has been passed called the Pureblood Population Law. This new amendment will promote the repopulation of pureblood wizards and witches among the British, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish magic population. You will be married to a randomly selected witch either being half-blood or pureblood. You will marry her within the month of September and if you don't marry within that month, the Pureblood Population Law states that you will be sent to Azkaban for a year. If you do marry, then you must have a biological child within two years of marriage, and after that, you are free to divorce. Do not hesitate to contact the Ministry for more information.

Sincerely,

The Wizengamot."

Finnegan's face didn't brighten to Mr. Weasley's disbelieving remark. "It's not a joke. Everyone who isn't married has gotten the memo and there are members of the Wizengamot who are putting up a fight to this…but the Minister claims he can't do a thing about it because the bill was just permanently placed into the Current Wizarding Law book. It also has a fail-safe…the ink won't fade and the page won't release until two years pass. The law has to be followed and whoever disobeys will be thrown into Azkaban. Whoever it was magicked the ink so well that the laws are immediately instated. If they can magick it that well, then they can magick it so that if the law is disobeyed, magic could easily transport someone to Azkaban. It was a *pork-barrel amendment, you know, designed to create a greater pureblood population."

Arthur looked at Finnegan in disbelief. "Really now? I'm going to see the Minister about this, or at least someone close to him. I don't believe it—I mean, really, how can they magick the entire wizarding population? They would have to do so individually—"

Finnegan looked even more ashamed now and said, "They already did. These memos were pre-planned. The person who the memo was for was given…this new Pureblood Population magic. See, look," he said. He flipped over the small memo and showed him the magical thumbprint runes covering it. "Those spell runes weren't on it when I got the memo. It's like a ticking time bomb. You touch it, and the spell activates for you. Someone told me there was an age limit—no one will have this sent to them who's under the age of 18. The only halfway decent thing about this is that…I don't have to find someone to marry me. They've gotten Hogwarts involved."

Arthur once again looked at Finnegan in disbelief. "I don't see it anywhere on this memo—"

"I've gotten some info from an inside source—an angry Wizengamot court-member. I believe his name was Jeevish Pyre, or something like that, Peevish Jyre, maybe? Anyways, it looks like the bride or groom won't be randomly selected at all. They're going to use the damn Sorting Hat to pick out who gets paired with who," he said, his voice dipping to even more depressing levels.

Finnegan was a known Hufflepuff, and many of his friends knew he resented the Sorting Hat for throwing him in there. He wanted to be in Ravenclaw, like his parents, but it appeared that two geniuses made a retard. Finnegan was inept at almost any and all spells, but what was weird was that he wasn't a Squib. He could do a spell, but when he did it, it came out backwards or failed in someway. His parents assumed he was an idiot and forever treated him like the dunce he looked like. He hated Hufflepuff for creating an even more undesirable persona of the "idiot-child."

Thus, he always resented the Sorting Hat. Leave it to a crazy, singing, pointy hat to kill a great life full of genius potential.

Arthur stared at the memo, and then stared back at Finnegan and said, "I've got to get home before any member of my family touches this. Merlin's balls—"

He ran off in the direction of the already filled elevator, pushed his way inside, and let the door close. "Please, don't get the memo, don't get the memo, don't get the memo," he begged silently to himself as he went up towards the surface, hoping to get an unclogged Floo ride back home.

-Fin-

*Hidden-Amendment/Pork Barrel Amendment – a hidden amendment that can be placed inside a proposed bill. It has to be there, but it can be there, usually for the benefit of a benefactor towards the proposition of the bill. Can you guess who, in this story?

I'm not making this up, though. Really, there's such a thing. Look it up. It's normally thrown in with a REALLY GOOD SOUNDING BILL. It's a hidden amendment. The Road/Bridge to Nowhere? In place thanks to a Pork-Barrel Amendment.

I love written politics. Oh, so much fun to decipher.

Author's Notes: I hoped to make up the length of my last chapter with the length of this one. Sorry for the delay—lots of art, not much time for anything else save for college work and other papers. Enjoy. :) READ AND REVIEW! :D