Summary: SSHG, AU, Ronald Weasley just wanted to marry Hermione Granger. The steps he takes to make it happen digs him into a far deeper hole than he ever expected.

Beta Love: Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01

A/N: My brain says, "I have a headache. Get out!"

Written for the Scratch That Niche 2022 Fest, #scratchthatniche22

Rare Pair: Arthur/Narcissa

Prompt: crushed

A World Gone Mad

Madness does not always howl. Sometimes, it is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "Hey, is there room in your head for one more?"

-Despair Inc.

Harry walked down the darkened corridor to the entrance of the Department of Mysteries and closed his eyes upon reaching the foyer that led to the door to the Ministry's most mysterious secrets. While not all of things nestled within the infamous department were as bizarre as the brain tank or as lethal as the veil gateway, security for the department had become infamous ever since Riddle had barged in and a group of adolescent children had confronted Death Eaters within its hallowed halls.

The foyer had a great many doors. Each one seemed to be carved in relief and would spontaneously come alive. Dragons, fae, and other fantastical renderings of magical creatures and beings graced each door, and then the doors seemingly exposed a portal that gave no indication of where it would go or even if it would work.

Harry hadn't really kept up with the DoM's workings until his best mate had—

Harry swallowed hard, the very thought of it had changed so many things.

Growing up, Harry hadn't paid all that much thought to the old stories and folktales, but Ron—or rather his family—did. Like most of the old tales, they tended to involve a moral or some deeper lesson, but Ron was always a bit impatient, always wanting instant gratification. As an Auror, he was very good at hounding "the bad guys" but was also one to follow his impulses over reason. He was also someone who always wanted to please his mum, lest he be driven insane by her constant nagging.

And nagging was a particular specialty of Molly Weasley after the war. She wanted anything and everything to keep her mind off of Fred's death and ultimately the death of her brothers, Gideon and Fabian Prewett. Ginny had said that her mum never finished grieving for either of them, and the end of the war had given her "time" so she didn't have to face the feeling of emptiness in her heart.

Harry closed his eyes. He knew he should have been paying better attention, but he'd been utterly focused on his work and his relationship with Ginny. He'd been trying to start a family and thought—

He'd thought that things would somehow work out for the best.

But Ron's attempts at wooing Hermione Granger had failed in all the ways that his career as an Auror hadn't. While Ronald Weasley had become a stellar Auror with one of the highest Dark Wizard apprehension counts in the entire department, Hermione kept turning down his proposals of marriage.

So a determined Ronald Weasley had turned to consulting books.

It was probably a horrible idea, Harry thought, and he should have heard the alarm bells going off as soon as he learned of Ron seeking books.

While the man was one of the best at leading inquiries of suspects, all of his skills in reading people failed him utterly with Hermione Jean Granger. He couldn't see the forest for the trees when it came to their best female friend.

Harry felt the shifting magic in the room, and he sensed the door he was looking for. The doors appeared to be all the same, but the portals behind them—

They changed on a whim known only to magic. He had to wait until he felt the right one land on the right door—

The door that wouldn't eat him or—well, something even worse.

He knocked on the plain, almost dilapidated-looking door, opened it, and stepped on through.

He landed hard on his rear inside a cauldron, which was thankfully not full of something and wasn't placed over a blazing fire.

A clutter of startled-looking spiders stared at him from the nearby shelf, their mandibles clicking slowly as if to contemplate their next move.

"Ugh," Harry muttered, extricating himself from his quite embarrassing crash landing.

"Let your thoughts wander while stepping through again, Auror Potter?" a young wizard greeted him from the doorway. "At least you didn't end up inside the wall this time."

Harry grunted a response as he brushed himself off. "I have a lot on my mind," he groused.

"Mental mother-in-law issues, mate?" the man asked rather dryly.

Few things ever escaped the knowledge of the DoM, and the drama with the Weasley family had been the talk of pretty much every dinner table across Britain for the last year or so.

Ron had been an avid supporter of the Ministry's Marriage Law. His reasoning had been that it would "help repopulate Wizardkind," but his real reason had been a bit closer to home. He wanted Hermione to "see reason" and realise they were truly "meant" for each other.

Instead, he'd set into motion what would become known as the "Great Remarriage Scramble" where names were basically pulled out of a hat and people were divorced from their previous spouses and remarried to those they'd just been paired with—

The fine print claimed it was because the bloodlines needed to be more freshly mixed, but Ron hadn't really read that far into it. He had simply been determined to marry Hermione, one way or another.

The Wizarding World had been split 50/50 both for and against the law until Ron had stepped up to vote. It was sheer dumb luck that it'd been his vote that had tipped the scales and caused it to go into immediate effect.

All the names were all placed into a goblet, and Harry was starting to think that anything involving pulling names out of a goblet was seriously bad news, and then the entirety of wedded Britain fell into absolute chaos.

While many former couples were resigned to their assigned re-matches, Arthur Weasley was paired with Narcissa Malfoy, and Molly Weasley had been paired with Xenophilius Lovegood. Harry hadn't been able to remember any of the other matches but for the sound of Molly's screams and her shrill demands that her youngest son "fix what he'd completely buggered up right now!"

Strangely, Arthur and Narcissa had seemed almost relieved. Harry hadn't had that much time to think about the implications because Ron's hasty attempt to "fix everything" had only succeeded in making things worse.

He'd gone into the containment area to find the djinn and make a wish, but had instead released the Bean-nighe who immediately said that since he'd been so kind as to release her, she could either wash his clothes or someone else's.

Thinking that having someone to wash their clothes would surely endear him to Hermione, he had chosen her—

And on that very night, Hermione had come down with a highly aggressive and terminal form of cancer.

Harry walked out of the cupboard and headed straight for the infirmary. Mungos hadn't been able to do anything for her, so they had sent Hermione to the DoM as a last resort, a place where the healers were well accustomed to putting to rights the very worst medical mistakes in the Wizarding World and all under a cover of total anonymity.

"Potter," a familiar voice rumbled as Harry walked into the room that Hermione shared with her roommate: a comatose Lucius Malfoy, who had cast a self-inflicted withering curse on himself in order to avoid being forced to have sexual relations with his newly-appointed wife: Sybill Patricia Trelawney.

Obviously, Lucius definitely had not experienced the same degree of wedded bliss that his beautiful ex-wife had with her new husband, Arthur Weasley. Rumour had it that the witch was already happily pregnant with triplets.

It's a really good thing wizards and witches live a lot longer than Muggles, Harry thought. He couldn't even imagine raising a toddler as a geriatric.

Dudley had said at their last lunch together that Vernon had been bitten by a mosquito, and had an unusually severe reaction that ended up paralysing him from the waist down. Harry couldn't help but think it would have been better had it been from the waist up, but he was trying to play nice now that he and Dudley were acting like proper adults and behaving far more maturely than Vernon could ever have done.

Snape was sitting right by Hermione's bedside, her pale hand in his, and she was looking every bit as pallid as Snape did. His long black hair fell around his face as he looked down at her, his expression oddly intent but unreadable.

"Here with good news, I hope?" Snape enquired. "The gruesome death of the imbecilic Weasley whelp via an unfortunate run-in with a Muggle lorry? Perhaps he fell off a ferry in Scotland and was eaten by Nessie?"

"Severus," Hermione's weak voice chided gently. "Be nice."

"I am downright adorable," Severus snorted, deadpan.

Hermione's lip twitched. "You are indeed."

His dark eyes narrowed as he glowered at her. "You're also terminally ill and not in your right mind, witch."

"I'm dying, not brain dead," Hermione huffed. She winced as her pain suddenly seemed to spike, and she closed her eyes.

Snape's expression hardened. "If I could strangle the bloody idiot without the risk of time in Azkaban, I would," he growled. "But he has to go and make a pact with a sodding Bean-nighe. No one can alter his fate but her."

"Sir," Harry said. "I was never one for studying old folktales. What is the Bean-nighe?"

"She is the Old Washer Woman—she is the omen of death," Snape said heavily. "She is said to wash the clothes of those soon to die. For a price, she can wash the clothes of one's enemy. But there is always a price."

"What price would he have paid?" Harry asked, frowning in thought. He didn't really see Ron having anything that could be of value to a powerful death omen.

"She wants what is far too great a price for one to pay," Snape explained. "She could save the life of someone you love, but take away all memory of your love for them. Weasley's case is unique in that he set her free. She owed him a favour, yet the pact still remains. It would leave a mark upon him.''

"You mean a curse," Harry said slowly.

"Of sorts," Snape nodded. "If anything, my study of such elusive creatures in the DoM has made me more knowledgeable about those of her kind, but she is not like any of the creatures and beings that make their homes here. She cares not for winners or losers. She cares not for light or darkness. She wants whatever you have if you wish for her aid, and what she wants is always more than any sane person would be willing to pay."

"Hermione," Harry said softly, taking her other hand and clasping it. "You don't have to do this, you know."

Snape shot Harry a poisonous glare.

Hermione, however, opened her eyes and gave Harry a hardened stare. "I'm not doing this because I'm dying, Harry. I'm doing this because he's my husband, and I'd be a horrible mate if I didn't live as long as he did."

Harry shook his head stubbornly. "We could find a cure. It wouldn't have to be—"

"Harry James Potter," Hermione chided. "I'll be a vampire, not the Tasmanian Devil Doxy Pox, and I won't be going around biting everything that moves. Severus will be right there with me, and he's not likely to let me dash off and drink someone dry on a first meeting."

"Unless it's Mr Weasley," Severus muttered.

Hermione sighed, squeezing his hand. "Honestly, Severus, for an immortal, your feelings of vengeance are remarkably long-lived. Whatever happened to forgive and forget?"

"I can forget to stop hexing him until he stops breathing," Severus offered with a scowl.

Hermione let out a long breath. "Baby steps, I suppose," she said.

"But what about having kids—" Harry protested.

"Harry, even if the cancer hadn't happened, Severus and I wouldn't have been able to have children," she pointed out. "Bellatrix saw to that. And Nagini's venom caused Severus' fast track to rebirth, so it wasn't like there was ever the possibility of either of us being able to have children."

Harry seemed absolutely horrified at the thought of a childless life.

Hermione tapped the large tome next to her. "Sanguini left me a little bit of reading material, so I'd know all the questions I needed to ask before agreeing to be Turned. Vampires gain immortality of the body instead of immortality through their children. They do have families, of sorts, but it's never about having a Quidditch team's worth of children like the Weasleys."

"That's what you call a little light reading?" Harry blurted, visibly aghast. "It's as big as the ruddy table!"

Hermione just shrugged. She rubbed her thumb against the back of Snape's hand. "I would have made the very same choice without Ron's interference," she said with a sigh. "I want to be there with Severus as both his equal and his friend."

Snape's expression seemed to soften and the creases around his eyes smoothed out. "You are a bit mad, witch."

Hermioe rolled her eyes. "You're going to be stuck with me for a very long time. Get used to it."

"I came to terms with that back when our Head Boss of Us first made us partners and said 'Get along or else'," said Severus with a quirk of his lip.

"Amelia wrangles dragons, wyverns, vampires, creatures, beings, and everything in between on a daily basis without batting an eyelash," Hermione said with a chuckle. "My self-righteousness and your stubbornness really didn't stand a chance against her."

"Surviving an assassination attempt during a war will do that to a person," Severus acknowleged after a thoughful silence. "Everyone topside thinks she's dead, but she's just doubly alive down here. There are a lot of folks here in the Department of Mysteries living wonderful lives while the general public believes them dead."

Hermione looked over to where Lucius Malfoy was laying still in his bed, his body suspended under spells to prevent the withering curse from continuing its deadly work. "Some are still waiting for the cures they need."

"We'll work on it together, love," Snape promised. "I know the two of you never saw eye to eye and understandably so, but the fact that you were willing to put all that aside to help with the research—you are something quite special indeed. Being able to put up with me makes you even more remarkable."

Hermione nodded. "We'll have a lot of time, but not all of the people afflicted have that much time left. I want the time that we do have to truly matter."

Snape nodded. He turned to Harry. "Potter, I know getting you out of Hermione's life is impossible, but I would like some privacy with my wife. Unless you would like to be her very first drink."

Harry's eyes widened. "No, sir," he said, standing up hurriedly. He looked at Hermione with a somewhat conflicted expression. "You're sure you don't want to press charges against Ron?"

Hermione shook her head. "It would be unfair of me to take my pound of flesh out of him when there are so many others who were negatively affected by his asinine vote to tip the Marriage Law into effect, and that's even before he managed to set free a Bean-nighe. If anything, when you do finally manage to track him down, make sure that he helps all the victims of the Bean-nighe. That will be enough punishment for me."

"I'm sure there will be plenty of them," Harry allowed. "There was a reason she was sealed away. I have no idea how he even managed to get in a position to turn her loose."

"I'm sure it was in the works for a very long time, and Weasley was simply the sucker who happened to be in the right place at exactly the wrong time," Severus said. "Trapping such things for long is—well, it was bound to happen eventually, especially since it was being kept in the Auror containment area and not in the DoM. By the way, Potter, I hope that you're doing something about changing the regulations with regard to such ancient artefacts and cursed objects."

Harry nodded fervently. "I am, sir," he said with a sharp exhale. "Believe me, I am."

Snape seemed to evaluate him for a long moment, his cold gaze just as icy as ever. "I believe you," he finally said. "You are not a dunderhead like your father."

Harry blinked and then smiled. "Thank you, sir. Coming from you that really means a lot."

As Harry left the room, Severus called out to him.

"Potter."

"Yes, sir?"

"Whatever happened to Sybill?"

Harry's expression twisted with emotion. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"She threw her ministry ring meant for Lucius into Black Lake and," Harry trailed off.

"And?"

"She's now married to the giant squid."

Severus' expression remained set like stone as he shook his head. "Poor bastard."

Harry closed the door and walked away. He had his best mate to find and give the mickey for the epic shitestorm he'd managed to set in motion, not including the massive pile of paperwork that was solely devoted to covering Ron's antics from when he'd first attempted to solve his problems using the Aurors' containment room.

"She's a far better person than we are, Ron," he said to himself as he walked out the portal and back to the DMLE.

Rita Skeeter Imprisoned in Azkaban For Attempted Murder of Her Ministry-Appointed Husband: Ronald Bilius Weasley

As if those paying attention to recent events don't have enough reason to hold a grudge against Ronald Weasley with his voice being the one to tip the Marriage Law into effect for the next ten years, it seems that his Ministry-appointed bride wanted to kill him as well.

Rita Skeeter, well-known for being the most infamous columnist in the history of the Daily Prophet, will be spending the remainder of her life in Azkaban for attempting to murder, in public and around no less than two hundred Muggles, her new Ministry-appointed husband, Ronald Weasley.

While questions as to why Weasley was spending time at a Muggle Star Trek convention to begin with remain unanswered, the reason why Rita tracked him there and proceeded to attack him with her wand, which was disguised as something called a "phaser," is also unknown.

Fortunately, most of the Muggles at the convention believed it to be some sort of elaborate roleplay game, and the Oblivation teams did not find it necessary to wipe the minds of all attendees. The only one they had to deal with was an older man named Dave, who seemed to believe that wearing a tinfoil hat would protect him from Obliviation. The gentleman claimed to have seen "that crazy lady in red spectacles transform from a bug into a woman and point a phaser at this red-headed bloke who was off getting himself knackered at 10-Forward."

Auror Weasley is currently in protective custody after several nasty fights broke out all across Great Britain due to the vast number of very angry people who wanted to give him a piece of their wand.

Ronald Weasley's latest appointed match from the Marriage Law, Luna Lovegood, has been released from obligation due to the multiple attempts on her would-be husband's life. As soon as that happened, she immediately moved to Scandinavia to marry world-famous adventurer Rolf Scamander. The new Mrs Scamander plans to travel the world with her husband in search of the fabled Crumple-Horned Snorkack—as for just what the creature might be, well, this reporter has no idea whatsoever.

Far away, on some distant, isolated shore, an old woman bent over a pile of dirty clothes, washing them by the riverside as she hummed a quiet tune to herself. All around her, a vast array of small glass jars glowed with some form of energy that seemed to pulse from within. The energy was formless in some, and in others it formed shapes—shapes not unlike the beating of a human heart, an animal, a flower, or something that danced and shifted between one form and another.

She smiled, a slight tug about her thin lips. She studied the jars critically until she finally settled on one. That one seemed to displease her, its colour or some thing known only to her causing her to frown. As she finished her batch of washing, she picked up one jar and opened the lid, her hand dipping into the container and snatching at the heart-shaped orb of energy.

"Our bargain was broken, mortal," she snarled. "My gaze will no longer be averted from you."

She crushed the pulsing heart with her wizened hand, causing the energy to shatter into millions of tiny sand-like particles and slowly trickle away. A face formed in void where the glowing pact of promise once glowed—the face of the one who had attempted to break their pact.

She would know them on sight—until they were dead.

"What fools you mortals be," she said. "It never changes, but I will always be here to collect the best parts of you while the least of you rots and withers away."

Gathering another pile of clothing, the old woman resumed her task of washing and humming.

Life went on as usual.

Fin.

#scratchthatniche22

Short Division

Prompt: crushed, Bean-nighe