Friday — August 10th, 2001.

Hermione said goodbye to Ron at the cafe, as she refused to go the Weasley's joke shop, to see Fred and George — they'd see it in her eyes and her slump. Or they wouldn't, and that would be worse.

Hermione dropped her satchel onto the floor of her office. She hadn't said much to Penelope when she arrived, as she'd already explained herself. She didn't want to tell Penelope the results either, she didn't even want to tell Ron, but she had to tell someone. She mashed the heels of her palms against her tired eyes as her head wound and her forearm ached in competition. Her mind was the worst yet as she felt the exhaustion tendril out from her force of will.

In the slight security of her office, the morning flooded back to her.

The rotten taste of a failed love potion. That must have been what they had used on her. She hadn't spent enough time perfecting potion reversal by taste, more by sight — but she could sample out pieces of it with her more discerning taste buds.

Ash and… Veritaserum, perhaps, as she couldn't work out what else Adder's fork was used for. Perhaps a poison, or counter-poison.

Once her analytical flashes slowed, she felt ill. Deeply ill, too hot, like she may throw up. Her skin was too sensitive, and she'd not looked at her forearm since she'd shown Ron.

Her lunch with Ron had reinforced her want to keep the results a secret. He hadn't helped. She hadn't wanted him to help either, just to listen to her, but he'd not even done that for her. He was warm and familiar, but it wasn't a comforting thing to have him mock her choices or how cold she'd become. He didn't seem to care about her in the midst of it, except for the fact that he lost her as an option for his future.

As if that loss hadn't been three years old and counting.

"I could ask for you."

Her stomach turned.

He had meant it, she realized in a distant way. He'd have married her if he thought it'd have saved her. But she had been given two days for her appointment and her date to be wed less than twenty-four hours after that. There was no turnaround as swift as this. She wondered if they wanted from her; compliance or conflict.

Perhaps they expected her to run. Or to marry one of the Weasley boys so they could arrest both Hermione and whoever helped her.

And Ron would do it, to save her.

But she couldn't do that to him.

Because she did love him in some capacity. Perhaps not as ardently as she had in her younger years. That had been before Harry died when she'd thought she might marry Ron in a childish, sweet way. She lost that impulse along with any lingering sweetness.

What hadn't she lost to the beast that was war?

She didn't want to marry Ron. She would grow to resent him for the trap he'd helped place her into. He would resent her for her way of being, how critical she could be, how picky she was, how bossy she was, how awful she was. There was a list longer than her forearm of reasons he could hate her and that list doubled at the thought of marriage and close quarters with her ex-crush, her ex-everything.

Ron would try to be a good husband, which would be difficult.

Or he'd be awful at it, and that'd be even more difficult.

Worse than his shortcomings were her own. She'd be a terrible wife by design and by nature. She was too independent and she didn't thrive under the thumb of anyone. The thought of marriage made her life reduce to a fine point, like a light at the end of a tunnel. All options, occluded. All reasons dismissed.

Because being married to someone you cared about, even a little, meant that you had to try.

And that didn't factor in their natural friction, where his bleeding heart strategy clashed with her clinical pragmatism.

The mere thought of being married to Ron out of necessity made her feel ill. Being married to Snape made her feel ill in a different way, one she could become accustomed to. At least with Snape, she wouldn't have to pretend to make it work, as he certainly wouldn't.

Would he expect her to kiss him?

To — have him?

Her skin crawled anew as she sank further into her office chair. It was a treat to have a shorter shift, but the weight of her morning ruined any pleasure. Further to that vague dread of commitment, the visual imagery of being with Snape, naked, made her want to be ill. It wasn't his fault, he wasn't specifically objectionable for his appearance or personality, it was the situation by and large. The forced nature of it, the power dynamics.

He was a teacher in her younger years. He'd guided her from when she was a First year, reveled in her punishment, tore her to pieces. And when he wasn't cruel he was limitedly supportive, if she were truly exceptional in a specific class. But that support was just a slightly less sharp scowl or how he'd not tear her apart, just for those few minutes her potion glistened.

She could see him like a great bat, or a Dementor who'd gained corporeal form. Slick black hair framed a sallow face, empty eyes until they were cruel, spider-like fingers wrapped around an essay where he'd found faults in her work that he'd have ignored in others. He wasn't ugly; she couldn't say he was. His presence was sort of like a giant tree trunk, fallen and fungal in the wood. It could be beautiful in a distant, untouchable way, where you knew it had been something. There was a necessity in its place, that it had been something, once. But she didn't want to go near it, saw no reason to.

Not that she thought he was attractive; far from it.

But it could be worse.

That would be her mantra she realized as she picked through her latest manuscript. The simpler ones weren't keeping her attention nor her focus, and this rang especially true for the memoir of a Hufflepuff girl about her time at Hogwarts during the Carrows.

So much of the same; torture, tears, tragedy.

Lies.

So many lies.

Hermione eyed the large stack of manuscripts that she'd set aside last night.

She reached across to sift through the titles until one slim, deceptively short potioneering proposal caught her eye. She snatched it up, to examine the cover letter.

Bethany Botts, apprentice potioneer, expert at experimental evanescence. Aspiring author and aggressive activist. Mother of five cats, lover of tea.

Hermione rolled her eyes, though she thought it was a sweet attempt at crafting empathy. The alliteration was never as clever as people thought it was, but it was non-fiction.

She skimmed the work with a critical eye. It was a no-nonsense guide to alternative uses for pixie offal. While pixie teeth and wings were the primary focus of most texts, this witch was determined to prove that even the bones or guts of the creatures had merit.

She had been putting the manuscript off, if only because it would involve so much research.

It was exactly the sort of thing she needed.

Penelope paid her fifty Galleons that evening, given she'd missed part of her shift. And the books she'd taken last week, Penelope explained, you took more than I realized.

Hermione smiled like she was thankful and mentally rationed how she'd afford both rent and food this coming month.

It wasn't until she arrived home that she accepted that it'd be one or the other.

And she needed somewhere to live more than she needed food.

...

Hermione Apparated straight home from Diagon Alley. She didn't touch the fridge or the pantry. They needed to go shopping, and she couldn't bring herself to do it tonight. She hadn't much of an appetite anyway. She had been hot since St. Mungo's and her stomach hadn't settled since her hot chocolate. She felt stuck between the flu and a stomach bug, both nauseous and hot.

She laid awake in her shared flat with Ginny, her hands folded on her stomach and her throat tight. She had run several diagnostic spells, to detect wards or devices. She checked for Extendable Ears, she checked for scrying spells, she tried everything. But there was nothing.

She checked her constellation the same, but it seemed to be… Empty. Or, devoid of magic, rather than expelling magic.

Did the Death Eaters know how hard she'd tried to avoid them?

Did it make them laugh, to watch her struggle?

They didn't have the kindness to kill her outright or to capture her. They gave her the breathing room to feel like she had a chance, where she could flex her wings and spread and that'd make it easier for her. She would end up pinned like a monarch butterfly, spread wide and prostrated for the public's viewing pleasure as Mrs. Severus Snape.

The image of herself peppered with confetti on Snape's arm.

The interview where he said he cried from joy, her interview where she cried altogether.

She's so happy, they'd say. She couldn't stop crying.

She hadn't cried until she did.

She hadn't cried when they'd told her she was to marry Snape. She hadn't cried when Ron told her she was stupid for participating in the charade. She hadn't even cried when she'd had her pay docked twenty Galleons for four hours of work missed. She hadn't cried when she counted her coins and realized she'd have to skimp on food to make rent, so as to not lean more on Ginny than she already had.

No.

She'd started to cry something trivial, like a child. She had dug through her old textbooks to take to the Order that night — and instead stumbled over a lesson plan she'd made with Harry for Dumbledore's Army, packed full of hexes and defensive spells. They wanted to keep it as Light Arts as possible, defensive, protective. She recognized his handwriting, his scrawly and unsure penmanship never improved in spite of all the essays he wrote.

The jagged shapes sat next to her neat curls, as she'd practiced her cursive so thoroughly during her holidays so much that she'd cramped her wrist. She had been so afraid of the other children if they'd see her messy handwriting or mock her for not knowing how to use a quill. She wanted people to like her, and so she polished herself so much she shone.

And people mocked her for that instead.

The parchment remained clasped between her hands on her stomach, scrunched and flattened between her sobs.

It was so stupid to cry about a lesson plan, but it ran deeper than that.

It was their optimism laid bare, black ink on brown parchment.

It was when they still believed that there could be a triumph and that things would snap back into place.

As if wars were absolute, win or lose.

Good or evil.

Not once had she thought about the shape of war, how it cut you away until you could pass through it. It trimmed your compassion and your future foresight until you passed through, smaller, more afraid, more vicious, more unsure. But even if you got out of it, you weren't the same.

You were ready for war, even when there was nothing to fight.

Her hands shook and her mind whirled and her chest ached. She fought for the past three years in every way she could think of. But she had run out of ideas. She felt so scraped bare of hope that the word didn't even sound real anymore. They just needed hope. More hope.

Perhaps that's why she felt so sick as she laid in her bed at seven o'clock in the evening. She tried and tried, and it never seemed to amount to more than hurt. She tried to help Harry, he had died. She tried to find her parents, and she had. They had died. She tried to help Moody, and Dumbledore, and Sirius, and the names bundled together with fresher wounds. The bright-faced, no-name people who'd come to the Order base once, or twice, and then never again.

She hadn't even a chance to get to know them before she mourned them.

They had become more defensive now. Less outward, less preemptive attacks. They were just surviving if that.

She hadn't gotten through the war yet, either. She was still in it, with her face rubbed red and raw. She swallowed hard, her lashes fluttered over glossy eyes.

She wasn't crying about the Marital Clause.

She was just crying.

The evaluation had been dehumanizing. They'd assessed her constellation and taken several photos. They took photos of her, her hair up, her hair down. They spun her and drew blood and taken her hair and if it hadn't been at St. Mungo's, she may have drawn her wand. If it hadn't been for Umbridge and her failed attempt at Imperio, she may have been awake to assess the potion. If she'd been clever enough, she'd have examined it so has to pull it apart.

Not every witch had a supposed match.

Her fingers wound around one another as golden light formed notes, a shorthand appeared for all the tests they'd run. The room it had been in. The Healers that had been involved. Anything that she could bring to the Order, in the hopes that they'd be able to do something about it. Perhaps she could be the last Muggleborn girl to go through it. Then she would feel justified in her choice to marry a man based on skewed political mandates.

On top of her personal grief, she hated how traditional a concept it was. People couldn't simply love one another if shoved together. It ignored the agency of those involved, as a baseline. They didn't ask about her gender or her preference.

Some people didn't fancy the opposite gender, and some people didn't fancy anyone at all. It was barbaric to corral young witches into paired sets with 'real' magical men, as they deigned them.

And that was a whole other unique insult.

Hermione pushed up from her bed, her hands clasped on the thin mattress. It was warm again, too warm, and her thin tank top and shorts were drenched in sweat. If she didn't know better, she'd say she had a fever. She had been hot since her time at St. Mungo's, especially around her arm. It made her chest ache and her cheeks flush.

Perhaps her body was trying to reject the mercurial specks, or whatever had been in the potion they'd slammed down her throat.

She tromped to the bathroom to fetch a cure-all vial. They had several practical kits, themed after specific injuries. They were set inside the medicine cabinet, shrunk small like a deck of cards and undetectable. This was a Muggle apartment complex and magic wasn't strictly permitted inside of it.

Not that it stopped her, nor Ginny. They couldn't Trace them by their magic alone, not unless they delved into magic so intense it warped the ley lines.

She downed the small vial, which tasted of pepper and citrus. The fever-like heat in her face dissipated, a happy coincidence that the potion narrowed down on her red face and swollen eyes.

She closed the cabinet door and saw her reflection in the evening darkness. She'd ignored it initially, given how red her eyes were and how hot her face felt. She still looked red and swollen, but it melted from her like an ice cube on warm kitchen tiles.

Her hair was wound into thick braids at the base of her neck, as she'd not want to think about it beyond the necessity of braiding it. She was still tempted to chop the whole thing off, to have short hair, but her curls would turn her head triangular if she did that.

She'd had short hair as a girl, and looked like a sad little mushroom.

Her eyes were glossy, rubbed red like her nose and her cheeks. The brown looked more resigned than bright, and she couldn't keep eye contact for more than a few seconds. She looked no different to when she'd been in school, except that she was thinner and more severe because of it. Everyone she knew had that same tension in their brows and at the corners of their lips.

She rested her forehead against the mirror, for the hope that it would be cool. It wasn't, and neither was the sink nor the tiles. Everything in their apartment was warm and stayed warm, as summer burned itself out.

She had to be at the Order meeting in an hour.

She hoped for her sake that Snape didn't attend.

…

There was no reason to bob and weave through the streets, to Apparate all around and catch a train the rest of the way. She wondered if they'd watch her theatrics, to see her float between places and pretend to be clever.

A man with dirty blonde hair stood across the street, though he was faced towards the docks. She stood for a long moment until he set off towards the city.

She didn't trust him, even if he hadn't seemed to notice her.

Hermione stepped into their safe house on Craggle Street with her arms full of old clothes and several books. She dropped them near the donation box, which had a few joke shop toys and snacks in it. The books Hermione had left had all vanished which made her smile until she saw one tucked beneath the leg of a bed.

She frowned and dipped into space, to pry the book out.

"That bed woggles," a girl with blond hair said. She was upside-down, laying on her back with her head over the edge.

"It wobbles?" Hermione both corrected and asked. She waved a hand to fasten the leg, though she put pressure on it to make sure she'd done as intended. It didn't wobble now, and that left the book free from its torturous prison.

"It's just a book," the girl scoffed as she rolled onto her stomach. She tucked her mouth against her arms, to narrow her eyes at Hermione.

Hermione flipped the book to examine the title. It was The Tales of Beedle the Bard, though the leg of the bed had put a heavy dent into it. "It's more than a book."

The little girl sat up, a scrupulous look on her face.

"This helped us defeat V — You-Know-Who," Hermione said as she crouched beside the bed. "Have you read it?"

"A book defeated him..?" She said the same scrutiny now lilted her voice. "How's a book gonna do that?"

"Well no," Hermione smiled. "A book can do many things. It can offer you an escape, it can teach you things, it can keep you company, it can save your life," she placed the book beside the girl. "Why don't you read it, you can tell me what you think."

The girl snatched it up to flip it open. She wasn't cruel enough to toss the book away while Hermione was around, but it wouldn't surprise her if she found out the girl hadn't even tried.

"I'm Hermione," she said, her tone cautious. "What's your name?"

"Abigal Abbott," she said, no patience for Hermione's questions.

Mr. Abbott had been put into Azkaban for suspicion of conspiring with terrorists last month. Hermione wasn't sure if Hannah had been told they'd taken in her half-siblings.

Hermione pushed up from the floor, aware that she'd been stalling. She was still worried she'd find Snape upstairs. She hadn't planned what to say.

Would he know that she was the one she'd been matched with?

By the time she arrived on the third-floor meeting room, she could hear the rumble of conversation. It stopped altogether when they saw her enter. Ron was red in the face, his hands shaking and his gaze fixed on the middle of the table.

So they all knew.

"We're sorry to hear about your — about the evaluation, Hermione," Remus said. Tonks wasn't there, nor were Jones, Doge or Proudfoot. They tended to come on the first of each month rather than every week, as it was suspicious to have repeated plans.

Ginny was still in her Holyhead Harpies uniform, which Hermione shot a worried look at.

It was like she'd died and arrived like a ghost.

"Had we known — "

"No," Hermione shook her head. "I wasn't going to let you all stage a rescue on my behalf."

The room grew tense, but Hermione ignored it. Instead, she took a seat beside Ginny, her head bowed low.

"And don't be sorry," Hermione said in a flat voice. "I'd wanted to tell you myself — "

"I figured you wouldn't come," Ron said with a moody pout. "Wouldn't expect you to have."

"I wanted to report my experience," Hermione arched a brow at Ron. "So perhaps we can find a way to reverse this for the girls who've been brought in already. And to prevent further evaluations."

The Weasleys filled half the table. They were lucky to have their allegiance in this way. The sheer loyalty they held for the Order was built on the backs of one another. There was no reason for them to care so much about Muggleborns, given they were purebloods. They could have had a far easier life if they'd never cared.

Hermione waited for the peripheral conversations to die down, which only took a moment. They all focused on her, their hands folded in front of their or formed into fists. Fred looked ready to snatch Hermione up and Apparate her to France, which made her smile.

He'd always been her favorite Weasley, aside from Ginny.

She'd never tell Ron that.

"So, it's at St. Mungo's," Hermione dug out her small notepad, which was linked to her golden notes that she'd crochet around her fingers. She flipped to her notes, which were impeccable. Even in her strife, she prioritized cleanliness. "It isn't linked to their internal departments. The Ministry keeps the records if there are any. I wasn't required to sign anything, which is something I could point to when they evaluate this program — I don't know how legally binding this is, the marriage or the evaluation."

Hermione looked around, though no one spoke. "Umbridge is involved. She tried to use Imperio to make me compliant in the process, but she failed. She didn't try very hard, perhaps she underestimated me. I don't think she'd make that same mistake again," Hermione said, in a voice that made it sound like she was bragging. It was fear, in truth. She had no one to report the woman to, no way to combat her cruelty.

"You didn't tell me that — "

"I'm telling you now," Hermione shot Ron a withering look. "I didn't want to relive it on repeat. So please, allow me to speak."

"Of course Hermione," Molly nodded, with Authur by her side. Authur looked happier than Hermione remembered. He'd been fired from the Ministry of Magic last summer and begun as a mechanic's apprentice. He looked fuller and warmer, and was the sole person she'd seen improve since being cut away from the Ministry.

He had only ever been at the Ministry on behalf of the Order, after all.

What a life they all could have had if war machinations didn't grip their hearts and throats.

"Healer Auger is the woman in charge of the medical side. There's a potion they administer, which I assume implants these silver spots. They could be more than pure silver, given the liquid nature of them, but I haven't been able to get a sample of them," she shifted her sleeve up to reveal the faintly glowing constellation. "I'm not yet sure of the implications of these marks. Based on my initial examination, they don't appear to have a locational trace or any auditorial function… So they aren't spy equipment." Her lips quirked at her simplification, though there was nothing funny about it.

That had been the first thing she'd checked when she'd gotten out of St. Mungo's. It wouldn't have surprised her if they were going to use them as a means to track her. The fact that they didn't was unexpected.

"There's no inherent magical trace to them at all… Which is strange. Given they were administered by a potion, there should at least be evidence that they were once magical, enough to form the connection with my magical signature and the metal itself." She slipped her sleeve back into place. "As for receiving the marks, the subject has to be awake and able to think; they rely on memories and on internal factors. I don't know if this is true, but that's what I gleaned from their conversations. They took measurements and assessed my overall health. There's no expectation for repopulation — "

A ripple of disgust filled the room, in the grit of teeth and shake of shoulders.

"So I believe it's as we discussed last week; it's a diversion tactic, a visible cause to champion while a deeper, more insidious cause builds beneath the surface."

"What's worse than being forced to marry Snape?" George scoffed.

Fred and Ron wore matching, murderous expressions. She didn't want to ask what was wrong, she knew. There was a flit of eye contact between the Weasley boys as if they'd agreed to kill on her behalf.

"Of all the people I could be forced to marry, it's fortunate that it is Snape."

The room fell silent. Each of them eyed her with their own version of disgust or confusion.

"Imagine if I had to marry Carrow." Hermione's gaze weighted down on the table in front of her. "Or, Yaxley."

"That's like saying it's better to fall off a broom instead of being shot by a killing curse," Ginny said, her voice cautious. She'd not spoken since Hermione had arrived.

"One's certain death while the other…" Hermione grit her teeth. "At least there's a chance."

The Order meeting pivoted from there to cover the week that had passed. Bill had been planted at a warehouse on the northern end of London, where there were double the amount of Death Eaters than expected.

A dozen arrived followed by a dozen more.

"And they weren't Snatchers?"

Bill shook his head. "They had the masks, the robes. Full regalia. One boy had his mask yanked off by another," Bill paused, his brow furrowed. "I recognized him. He wouldn't leave me alone when I came to Hogwarts, to help with the dragons for the Tournament. Wanted to work in dragon rehabilitation," he said.

"How old was he at Hogwarts?" George asked his arms folded on the table.

"Couldn't have been older than eleven."

Hermione's eyes flickered with the math of it all.

New Death Eaters meant that they were able to create Dark Marks. Such a feat had been tied to Voldemort, to their knowledge. So to see young people, as young as eighteen, with marks on their inner arms. They couldn't have received them during the Battle of Hogwarts.

It had to mean something.

They just weren't sure what that was yet.

Their conversation swirled around the topic of Voldemort's body, as it tended to. He'd been dead for three years but the Order didn't trust him to remain that way. Even if they got their hands on his body, they didn't have an expressed plan of what to do with it. It was merely a way to strike at the heart of the Death Eaters, who cherished their fallen master beyond logic.

Snape couldn't verify the location of the body, as it was under Bellatrix's control the last he'd heard of it. No one spoke about it, it was a taboo subject. Snape had been frozen out after the Battle of Hogwarts, kept on for the sheer fact that they thought he might be able to spy on the Order for them.

But it was a benign cause with no end in sight. Except for the end that had been scratched onto a small piece of card stock. Her name, Snape's, a date by which they would meet.

Snape had stipulated his expectations for any marriage he was assigned. They would notify him of the match by that evening and she would meet him at the Ministry tomorrow morning.

Hermione didn't mention the immediacy of the wedding to those in the meeting.

She didn't want anyone to attend the ceremony or lack thereof.

She scrunched further into her seat, unsure what to expect at the Ministry.

In a distant, dim way she was upset that Snape hadn't bothered to attend their meeting at the Order that night. He had to have been notified of the alignment. He hadn't sent an owl, he hadn't touched base at all. She was left with a pit in her stomach. If he refused to attend, would she be the one they punished?

All she could picture was Umbridge, tutting her tongue and her brows heavy of her eyes.

"Of course not even Snape would want to marry you," she would say. "He's chosen Azkaban over you."

And then she'd be warped until the constellation matched a new set, someone else. That boy Charlie had spoken to, who wanted to help dragons when he was a child. Or Rabastan Lestrange. The web extended to all the awful men who'd tried to kill her or tear her apart.

"If anything changes after you're married, we'll know."

They would know — but would they care?