This is meant to be a lighthearted fic. You will not find much angst here. In light of the current world climate I have opted to do something different than I normally do. Do not expect my usual heartbreaking shenanigans. Also, this is not Beta'd, so, expect mistakes.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Alas, this is JK Rowling's sandbox, I'm just building castles.
Please remember to feed the magical review eating fairy.
The only happy marriages I know are arranged ones.
- Leo Tolstoy
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was not an easy place to navigate. Moving staircases and secret passages aside, the castle itself wasn't the issue, it was the politics. It was the fact that every interaction, every move you made, every word you spoke had a hand to play in how the world would see you when you left the school behind and entered into the complicated society that awaited you after graduation.
Slytherins learned this young, it was a vital part of who they were, everything they did was done with calculated carefulness not to spoil their chances at making powerful connections. Ravenclaws were often the next to learn the intricacies of the social climate at Hogwarts, usually realizing that if they desired to make it in their future careers they would have to play the game. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs often didn't realize this until much later when many of their bridges were already burned.
Sitting in Dumbledore's office Daphne Greengrass could feel the weight of these social politics pressing down on her in a manner that she found nearly suffocating. She didn't know exactly how she was supposed to react to having been summoned to the Headmaster's office that evening, but the fact that her parents had also been summoned didn't seem to bode well. Gareth and Aubrey Greengrass sat on either side of their eldest daughter with grim expressions on their faces.
Behind his desk, Professor Dumbledore also wore a grim expression, and Daphne wondered if the man ever smiled anymore. It had been a long, stressful summer. With the confirmation of the Dark Lord's return now out among the public everyone in the Wizarding world seemed to be teetering on a knife's edge.
"Miss Greengrass, surely you must be curious as to why I have brought you here this evening," Professor Dumbledore began. Daphne nodded, not ready to vocalize the depth of her confusion at that moment."Your parents have asked me to oversee and mediate a meeting between your family and that of another student about a topic that may be ill received by yourself and your fellow classmate."
Daphne frowned. Dumbledore was being evasive on purpose, she was sure of it. He may have been a Gryffindor when he was a student but the Headmaster certainly seemed to have a bit of Slytherin in him. His words were carefully chosen, revealing enough so that Daphne had an idea of what was about to happen but keeping her in the dark about the finer details until he was ready to reveal them to her.
"We are simply waiting for two more people to arrive and then I will do my best to explain the situation," the Headmaster said firmly.
Daphne folded her hands in her lap and willed herself not to squirm under the elderly wizard's gaze. She didn't say anything, opting for silence until she was certain what kind of waters she was treading. She simply nodded and retreated into her thoughts.
There were very few scenarios that Daphne could imagine had led to her current predicament, none of them pleasant. Everything from a bastard half sibling to an arranged marriage crossed her mind and Daphne turned each new idea over in her head carefully before setting it aside. It wouldn't do to dwell on any of her theories for long or she might lose her grasp on her calm facade.
She didn't need to wait very long, just as Dumbledore's office door swung open the fire-place roared to life with emerald green flames. Harry Potter stepped into the room at the same time as his godfather, Sirius Black, stepped out of the grate. Instantly Daphne knew what was happening, there was no way that Potter was her half brother, which only left one other possibility.
Daphne observed both of them with a detached sort of interest. Sirius Black had been declared innocent and pardoned by the Ministry at the end of their fifth year. It had been all over the papers that the Black heir was not only innocent of the crimes he had been sent to Azkaban for, but that he had been wronged by the Ministry when he had been denied a trial not once, but twice. First when he had been sent to Azkaban, and then again when Fudge had ordered that he was to receive the Kiss when he'd been briefly captured in their third year.
Harry Potter was a bit of an enigma. During the previous year he had been made out to be a bit of a nutter, though the Slytherins had all known that his claims about the Dark Lord were true. Both the Daily Prophet and Umbridge had been determined to make the rest of the world view him as some sort of attention seeking psychopath. Daphne didn't know the boy very well, although they were in the same year she had never interacted with him directly. Upon seeing the Greengrass' and his godfather Potter stopped in his tracks, his gaze flicking from them to Professor Dumbledore curiously.
"Harry, we have been waiting for you," Dumbledore said, feigning cheerfulness, "please, join us." Potter looked at Black, who indicated that he should sit, though the man himself simply leaned against the wall, declining to sit next to Daphne's father.
"What's going on?" Harry asked, not even attempting to hide the unease in his voice. Dumbledore sighed and pulled out a long piece of parchment from his desk drawer.
"Miss Greengrass will, no doubt, have already guessed what we are about discuss, but as you were raised by muggles, Harry, I hope no one will hold it against me if I give a brief history lesson before we jump into the details." The Headmaster looked at each of them in turn and, when no one objected, continued. "There was a time, not very long ago, when it was common practice for older families in our community to use blood magic in order to form magically binding marriage contracts.
"These arranged marriages were agreed upon at the birth of two children and signed in magic and blood. Since the end of the first war this practice has largely fallen out of vogue, since the main driving force behind such contracts was blood purity, a sentiment that many families didn't want to publicly align themselves with," Dumbledore explained. "It still happens of course, I believe such a contract exists for three other students in your year." Daphne glanced sideways at Potter. He looked politely puzzled, as if he couldn't imagine what any of this had to do with him.
"I don't understand," he stated honestly. Daphne felt her heart sink into the pit of her stomach.
"These contracts are unbreakable, Harry," Dumbledore continued, "they can be passed down from one generation to the next if all parties involved can agree, but it can only been done once."
"But I don't-" Potter began but stopped abruptly when Black cut him off.
"James was so in love with Lily," he rasped, drawing everyone's attention to him. "You'd have thought that she was Aphrodite herself the way James went on and on about her. We never thought he'd have a chance, Lily thought James was a right git for years and she had no issues telling him as much." Black was looking at Potter with tears in his eyes and Daphne felt as though she were intruding on an incredibly private moment.
"In their seventh year at Hogwarts your parents fell very deeply in love, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said softly. "It was incredibly beautiful to watch, but it was also very bittersweet. You see, Harry, from the time of his birth your father was betrothed to a very lovely witch named Katrina Greengrass. It was, most unfortunately, a blood magic contract. However, Katrina had no desire to marry James, and with the consent of their parents they decided to pass their contract down to the next generation. It was decided that should magic grant the two families children of the opposite sex they would be bound by blood and magic in a marriage contract."
Potter seemed dumbfounded, and Daphne resisted the urge to sigh aloud when she saw that he still hadn't quite grasped what Dumbledore was saying.
"Harry, Katrina Greengrass died during the first war, she never married, never had any children," Dumbledore continued.
"Oh," Potter murmured. "So does that mean that the contract is broken?" he asked, still obviously confused.
"No," Black told him. "Harry the contract exists between the Potter and Greengrass families, you were never going to be betrothed to any of Katrina's children because once she married, if she'd had that opportunity, her children would be considered part of her husband's line."
Gareth Greengrass seemed to have lost his patience with the conversation because he suddenly let out an exasperated sigh. "Mr Potter, you are, and have been since birth, betrothed to my daughter, Daphne," her father told him. Daphne swallowed, nervously glancing at Potter who seemed to be imitating a very large fish. His mouth kept opening and then closing, as if he was trying to speak but couldn't find his voice. His entire face was turning red and Daphne frowned.
"Breathe, Potter," she reminded him gently. His mouth snapped shut and she heard him inhale deeply as his eyes found hers. The color drained from his face and Daphne was surprised to find a torrent of fear in his gaze.
"Because the contract has already been passed down a generation it can't be done again," Black said after an uncomfortable silence. Potter's eyes left hers and focused on his godfather. "And even if it could be done again the Greengrass family has no sons to carry on the family name, so we couldn't do it anyway."
"But..." Potter glanced at Daphne. "I don't even know her."
"That is why, Harry, we are telling you now," Dumbledore explained patiently. "You must marry one another before she turns eighteen, if you do not then you both will die."
"Traditionally you would marry shortly after graduating from Hogwarts," Daphne's mother chimed in. "We decided it would be best to given you two some time to get to know one another before that time comes."
"Professor," Potter began nervously, "I don't have time for... for... We're fight a war, I'm fighting a war." Daphne felt her heart seize at the reminder of the war. The Dark Lord had returned, and he was after Potter. Potter who was, supposedly, destined to defeat him. Potter who was betrothed to her.
"The Dark Lord," she whispered, panic flooding her as she finally understood the fear she had seen in Potter's eyes when he'd looked at her. "If he found out-"
"No one is going to hurt you," Black growled menacingly. "I won't allow it. You are betrothed to my godson, I swore on my life and my magic that I would protect him, and by extension that means that I will do everything in my power to protect you, Princess."
Daphne felt her eyes widen at the endearment but she couldn't deny the flood of relief she felt at his words. The Black family, although it only consisted of him now, was not one to be trifled with.
"We don't get a say in this?" Potter demanded. "She doesn't get a say in this?"
"I was never going to get a say, Potter," Daphne told him honestly. "No matter who it was."
He looked at her as if she'd slapped him. It was so easy to forget that he had been raised by muggles, he was such a powerful wizard, nearly a prodigy in Defense Against the Dark Arts. It hadn't occurred to her that he wouldn't know that the majority of his classmates were being traded to other families like branded cattle. She knew that the Weasleys had fostered him for at least a portion of the summer every year, but the Weasleys were famous for ignoring the more medieval practices of their culture.
"This isn't fair to you," Potter insisted angrily. Daphne let out a bitter laugh.
"Its not fair to you either, Potter," she pointed out. Potter frowned at her.
"My life has hardly been fair, Greengrass, but this paints a target on your back," he said, as if desperate to make her understand. "You're in Slytherin. At the end of the night I get to go up to Gryffindor Tower knowing that they can't touch me there, but you share a common room with them. You sleep in the same dorm as their children."
"I am a fully capable witch," Daphne sniffed at him. Though she felt a bit flattered that he'd just been told that he would have to marry her and he was more upset that she hadn't been given a choice. His first concern seemed to be her safety, which wasn't something she had expected. Maybe she should have, in retrospect. Potter was famous for being fiercely protective of his friends, it seemed that in their current predicament that loyalty now extended to her, since she was to be his wife. She'd expected him to be angry, to rage about being expected to marry an evil Slytherin like her.
"Fully capable or not," Black said, interrupting their little spat, "I went to Gringotts before I came here and picked up something that will ensure your safety."
He pulled a velvet box out of the pocket of his leather jacket and set it on Dumbledore's desk in front of her. Daphne hesitated for a moment before reaching out and opening it. It was a cuff bracelet, shiny white gold set with a very large, glittering black opal. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Black family heirloom, it's enchanted with a very powerful protection enchantment," he explained. "You may consider it a betrothal gift from your intended's paterfamilias. Once you put it on, no one but Harry or myself will be able to remove that from your wrist, not even you."
Daphne nodded in satisfaction and slipped the cuff over her hand, it shrank to fit around her wrist and she felt the magic of it seal itself around her. She turned to Potter.
"Feel better?" she asked. Potter shook his head.
"I'd feel better if I woke up and this was just a dream," he said sourly.
"That makes two of us," she agreed. His lips twitched like he wanted to smile.
"You're taking this well," he observed.
"I've been expecting this my entire life," Daphne reminded him. "Maybe I wasn't expecting it to be you, but I've been expecting it nonetheless." She longed to say that he was taking the news much better than she had expected but decided it was best to leave it alone for now. Later they could fight about how he surely didn't want this, about how his choices had been yanked away from him, about how he never in a million years would have chosen her.
"I'm tired," she announced. "Thank you, Mr Black, for your very generous gift, it is much to my taste." She stood and looked to her father, who nodded his dismissal. There was a proud glint in his eyes, she had laid down and taken her life sentence like a proper pureblood young lady ought to. "Good night," she said, doing her best not to sound sullen as she made her way to the door.
"Princess," Black called out after her. She turned, arranging her face into a politely curious mask. "You can call me Sirius." Daphne nodded in acknowledgment before turning and all but fleeing from the room.
