It wasn't until Hermione found herself at the Ministry, just down the hall from Fudge's office, that she was finally hit with a healthy dose of stomach-rolling anxiety. What exactly would she be walking into? What kind of "situation" could possibly require her presence to resolve it? Surely this entire, ridiculous thing was well out of her hands by now.
She reached the Minister's door, took a deep breath in an attempt to slow her heartbeat, and knocked.
"Come in, Miss Granger," she heard him beckon.
Hermione opened the door and entered the room to find the Minister accompanied by Draco Malfoy, looking haughty and annoyed; Lucius Malfoy, standing nonchalantly beside him; and Ronald Weasley, whose ears were violently red.
Oh, dear, she thought. Then, sighing heavily, she walked farther into the room until she was close enough to everyone there to be an active part of the conversation. "What seems to be the problem, Minister?" she asked in a tired voice.
"Good morning, Miss Granger, and happy birthday," Fudge greeted her. "I just need you to answer one question, and it should settle this whole thing. Who is Ronald Weasley to you?"
Confused, Hermione furrowed her brow at the Minister and cast a momentary glance in Ron's direction. "Who is he to me?" she repeated.
"Yes, my dear."
Ex-boyfriend? Daily annoyance? Pain in my ass? "Um..."
"No one," Draco answered for her.
"She's my girlfriend," Ron asserted in a tone that suggested he had already said it several times that morning.
"She is not," Draco contended, still addressing the Minister. "And even if she was, it would be irrelevant. They are not engaged."
"Ignore him," Ron said to Fudge. "We've been together since before this law was even passed."
"Is that true, Miss Granger?" the Minister asked.
Hermione knew she had to step carefully. She couldn't bring herself to lie to the head of the magical government, but she still wasn't sure if throwing Ron under the bus was in her best interest, considering that her only other option was Draco. "Well... not exactly, but—"
"Are you engaged to him?" Fudge inquired, each word forcefully enunciated. It was clear that his patience was wearing thin.
Hermione sighed. "No, I'm not."
"Yet!" Ron amended. "We're not engaged yet! But we intend to be! We're... we're engaged to be engaged!"
"Is that true?" Fudge repeated, once again turning to Hermione.
Exhausted by the utter absurdity of her situation, she could only numbly shake her head and gesture helplessly.
"Mister Weasley," Fudge began, "I cannot disregard Mister Malfoy's official request for Miss Granger without just cause. Can either of you give it to me?" he asked, signaling Ron and then Hermione in turn.
"Yes, I can," he maintained. "Hermione and I have a history. We've had feelings for each other since we were in school. We started dating as soon as the war was over." He paused then, blushed indelicately, shyly lowered his gaze, and continued more quietly. "We had each other's virginity."
"Ron!" Hermione hissed in reproach, thoroughly mortified to have her dirty laundry aired in front of her other would-be fiancé, his father, and the Minister of Magic.
"That's very touching, Weasley," Draco sarcastically countered, "but the fact remains that you are not engaged." He spoke the last words very loudly and slowly, as though to someone who was either hard of hearing or very stupid. "As of twelve o'clock on the morning of her twenty-second birthday, she was still not spoken for, and I made the first formal request for her. She is mine!"
"She is not yours!" Ron argued, his volume beginning to rise in his anger. "She has been mine since we were seventeen!"
"Then tell me why there isn't a ring on her finger!" Draco demanded. "Wait, let me guess. You couldn't afford one!"
"Death Eater!" Ron roared furiously.
"Pauper!" Draco shot in return.
"If I may," Lucius smoothly interrupted, causing both young men to fall silent, though they still looked like they were trying to murder each other with their eyes. "I have called in an old favor with the Minister," he continued, nodding his head respectfully in the direction of Fudge, who returned it, "which should settle this argument most effectively."
"Hah!" Draco barked triumphantly, smiling at Ron in a sickeningly self-satisfied way. "Looks like you finish last again, Weasley."
Hermione sank into herself, feeling more hurt than she would have expected. She had thought that she and Lucius were friends, of a sort. He had acted as though he respected her, at least, and very probably liked her; he knew perfectly well that she did not want to marry Draco; and yet here he was, ensuring that she would have to. How could he do this to her?
She looked at him with glistening eyes, silently asking him that very question, and he returned her gaze, though the words he spoke were to the Minister. "I hereby formally request Hermione Granger's hand in marriage."
All of the oxygen was sucked out of the room, and Hermione nearly crumpled under the weight of the oppressive silence that followed. Her mouth hung open, though she did not feel it; the Minister smiled, though she did not see it. Lucius' eyes were unswervingly set on hers, and she found that she could not look away.
"WHAT?" Ron bellowed.
"Calm down, Mister Weasley," Mister Fudge said.
"Father, you can't be serious!" Draco insisted.
"What's the matter, Draco?" Lucius drawled, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. His eyes were still locked on Hermione's. "You disapprove my choice?"
Something in his expression caused an indecent amount of blood to rush to her cheeks.
"YOU SNEAKY, POMPOUS—"
"This is not fair!"
"—TWO-FACED—"
"More than that, it's illegal!"
"—MUGGLE-HATING—"
"I made the first request!"
"—SNAKE IN THE—"
"QUIET!" Fudge shouted. Then, encouraging Hermione to answer: "Miss Granger?"
Again, silence pressed upon her. Four faces peered expectantly at her: Draco was appalled, Ron's complexion rivaled his hair, Lucius waited patiently, and the Minister looked as though he had better things to do. She tried and tried again to absorb what had just happened, convinced that she must be dreaming. Lucius Malfoy, ask to marry her? It simply could not be.
"Miss Granger," the Minister prodded again.
Hermione looked once more at Lucius. As was almost always the case when he was not smirking in condescension or amusement, his face was an expressionless mask. She blinked a few times, as though doing so would somehow reset her vision and afford her more clarity, but it didn't. She then looked once at Ron, and once at Draco, and as dramatic as it sounds, she felt like she was drowning. When she returned her gaze to Lucius, she realized that he was her life raft.
She took a deep, steadying breath, held it a moment, and then she murmured: "I accept."
Fudge nodded, ready to proceed with the formality and move on to whatever else he had on his agenda for the day. "Very well, then," he said as he scribbled something in an open book on his desk. "Mister Malfoy, Miss Granger, if you would please approach." He stood from his chair and came around to stand before his desk, beckoning them with his hands.
"No," Draco firmly protested. "Minister, this is completely out of bounds. The law clearly states—"
"I am aware of what the law states, Mister Malfoy," Fudge calmly interrupted, raising his hand to silence Draco. "You must have skimmed over the part which says that the Minister holds the power to, shall we say, rearrange marriage requests under special circumstances."
Draco was sneering most unattractively. "What kind of circumstances?"
Fudge smiled complacently. "At my discretion."
"This is rubbish!" Ron shouted. "If you're going to rearrange things, you should let her choose which of us she's going to marry!"
"Enough!" Hermione shouted, at last demanding to be heard. She paused long enough to take a deep, calming breath, and continued in a more reasonable tone. "This is really very simple. Lucius Malfoy has asked for my hand," she said, meeting his eyes. "The Minister's records"—and here she gestured to the book on Fudge's desk—"will show that he made the first request. And I have accepted. That is the end of it."
"Well spoken, Miss Granger," Fudge said. "Now, if you please." Again he beckoned her and Lucius to him.
Lucius took three smooth steps and stood beside the Minister; Hermione had to forcibly remind her muscles that they were supposed to respond to the signals her brain was sending. Walk, she told herself absurdly. One foot forward, and then the other. Finally she moved, though her motions were stiff and wooden. What seemed like an hour later, she was standing next to Lucius and in front of Fudge. She looked up at Lucius' face, but he kept his gaze stonily set on the Minister, and she could glean nothing from his expression.
"Hold up your right hands, please."
They obeyed.
"What you are about to enter into is a binding legal contract. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Lucius replied.
Hermione swallowed once and parroted his response.
"It is hereby declared that, barring any mental illness, serious injury, or death, the two of you will marry within one year of today's date, the nineteenth of September, two thousand and one. Do you agree?"
Again, they both answered in the affirmative.
"Failure to uphold this contract is punishable by no less than one year in Azkaban prison. The Minister of Magic is the only official who can release you from these vows. Do you understand?"
Hermione's heart leapt, because she knew that Lucius had been imprisoned in Azkaban for his crimes as a Death Eater, and she knew that it must have been a horrifying experience for him. Was he really willing to enter into this contract, when the penalty for breaking it was to return to that place? She looked up at his face once again, and it was still without expression, but his jaw seemed to be set more firmly than it had been before. "Yes," he answered, and so did she.
Fudge threw his hands in the air and grinned as he exclaimed, "Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials! Now I must ask you to leave, I've got appointments for the next ten years of my life."
Mister Malfoy and Hermione exited the Ministry in complete silence: Lucius because he had nothing to say, and Hermione because she was too dumbfounded to speak. Draco and Ron had left without another word, and Hermione was unspeakably grateful for that, because she did not think she could stand the sound of their nattering on top of the inefficient whirring of her own mind.
They stopped once they had reached the street, and Hermione looked up at Lucius, wanting to ask him why he had done it but utterly certain that she was not ready to hear the answer. So instead, she offered numbly, "We're engaged."
He merely nodded. "That we are."
"You could smile, you know, if you're at all happy about it," she told him, a trifle testily.
The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, for a moment, before returning to their at-rest position, but nothing else of his expression was touched by it.
Hermione frowned. "I suppose that will have to do," she said uncertainly. And, too disoriented by the day's events to realize she was being impolite, she turned and walked away. She left her fiancé behind her, thinking to herself, It's only a quarter to nine in the morning.
