Inspired by Double Time by QElwynD
Hermione Jean Potter-Black née Granger paced around her home as she bit her lip with worry. She'd not felt so anxious or stressed since those long, arduous months in the tent, alone and scared, hunting for Voldemort's vile horcruxes. Worse, there was nothing she could do.
It had all started a few months ago when some bloody idiot pompous, moron Pureblood suggested an amendment to the new Wizengamot Code of Conduct; that all members with more than one title to their name be required to take up a second spouse to repopulate the Wizengamot's hereditary seats. Hermione saw it as the last gasp attempt from the Pureblood faction to propose an alternative to her reforms calling for publicly elected Wizengamot members.
Hermione sat down on her couch with a huff, her eyes drawn to all the notes on the coffee table before her. She had coached Harry on all manner of legal arguments he could raise to shoot this proposal down and he'd done a wonderful job diving into this fight alongside her. In addition, he had the weight of his fame as the Man Who Won, a title he hated, and St. Mungo's top healer, a distinction he felt he had earned and was quite proud of, behind him. Harry had literally saved some of the Wizengamot member's lives twice over in both roles as hero and healer. That had to count for something. It did.
Unfortunately, this proposal seemed likely to pass and, since it only concerned the Wizengamot, of which Harry was part but she was not, she had no say in the matter. For the first and only time did Hermione curse Kingsley's Separations of Powers Act.
Instead, she was worrying herself sick at home as she left her marriage up to the tender mercies of a Pureblood faction that seemed eager to retain its reputation as an inept clown show.
Hell, the bigots probably believed they were doing Harry a favor by letting him legally sleep around on his "harpy, shrew of a wife"!
As the voting session loomed and Harry and Hermione's hopes started dying, they'd considered everything. Harry suggested abdicating his Wizengamot seat, an option that would have only emboldened the Pureblood and severely weakened Kingsley's position, offered to empty his vaults and move the two of them and Hermione's parents to Australia, a suggestion that was unacceptable as it would have uprooted their entire lives, to simply becoming a fugitive and disobeying the rules of conduct, a suggestion that did tingle Hermione's secret wild side for rule breaking, but would have also weakened Harry's position to help Kingsley and her own reforms.
A week ago, Hermione had all but given in and started writing dossiers on any potential wives Harry might take up. He only needed one witch to take up the Black family line with, after all.
Harry and come home after a long shift and St. Mungo's, looked at Ginny's dossier, made a face, and transfigured the dossiers into photos of Hermione. He then promised he'd do whatever he needed to stop this or, failing that, that he'd never need any other witch in his life but her.
But Hermione knew Harry's luck. Their marriage was as good as fucked.
That night, after a bit of desperate love making, Hermione had come down to their living room in the middle of the night and looked at the reports again, all of them sporting her own face and information.
In that midnight, post-coital haze, her brilliant mind suddenly came up with a perfect solution. The Wizengamot law would pass and Harry would have to take another wife, but he said he'd never need any other woman but her and Hermione was in no mood to see him in someone else's arms.
She'd prepared in secret since she knew Harry needed no distractions while he prepared for tonight's voting session. It'd shake his confidence if he knew she had all but given up and was preparing for the worst.
The front door's wards signaled Harry's arrival and Hermione wasted no time in jumping off the couch and rushing to greet him. She found her new husband in the middle of shrugging off his Wizengamot's dress robes and his healer's satchel, his eyes worried and downcast.
"Oh, Harry!" Hermione gasped, already fearing the worst. She approached and threw her arms over her love before pulling him into a long kiss. "We'll get through this, Harry."
"Hermione-"
"It's Ok, it's Ok," she cooed, running her hand through his hair. If she knew Harry at all, he'd be blaming himself for this situation. Imagining that he had somehow failed in stopping this proposal from going through. "I've already sorted all of this out."
Harry pulled back, his green eyes searching her own. He looked so lost and bewildered and Hermione's heart melted at the sight of her Harry looking so unsure.
"How?" he wondered.
"Like this," a voice called out behind them.
Hermione watched as Harry looked up towards the top of the stairs in shock.
There, at the top of the stairs, stood Hermione Jane Potter-Black.
"I- we- I got my hands on a true Time Turner. I met up with an Unspeakable today at lunch," Hermione began, squeezing her husband as her temporal clone came down the stairs. Her other self quickly joined their embrace as she continued her explanation, "A personal favor from Kingsley for a research project. Since the Ministry is looking to destroy them all, they gifted me this last one with the explicit conditions to destroy it after this experiment."
"Exper- is this why today was one hour longer?" Harry gasps.
Her other self spoke up, causing Harry to look away from her and towards herself. "Yes. Today at six-"
"When the Wizengamot was in session," Hermione adds.
"-that Hermione went into the future to steal from ourselves. She figured that, once the proposal went through, she'd devote her life to time travel in an effort to undo your second marriage-"
Harry shook his head, "But I don't need to marry anyone else!"
"I know, Harry." "I know, Harry."
The two temporal clones looked to each other before one of them continued. "Our guess was right; there, in my study, was the exact arithmantic formula that I needed. I then used the Time Turner to come back to today, to an hour before I left at five. Then I simply stopped myself from leaving and the two us put our minds together to carry out the ritual. We destroyed the true Time Turner while anchoring myself to this newly adjusted time. I'm here to stay."
Harry gaped at the two Hermiones, "You used time travel to make two of yourselves?"
"Yes. She will carry on the Potter family line. I will carry on the Black family line. We'll be in full compliance of the law. Albeit maliciously."
Harry was stunned.
The other Hermione became a little flushed and embarrassed, "Unless you… don't want me?"
Now it was Hermione's turn to be worried. She never stopped to consider the possibility that Harry would not be willing to engage in bigamy, even if it was herself. Hermione had to admit it was a strange, novel solution to their predicament, and would save their marriage, but there were logistical issues, among other things.
Even now, Hermione would have to admit that she would feel jealous to see Harry with herself, even if that made no logical sense. Maybe this too much for him to handle?
"Of course, I want you!" Harry announced, though he wasn't sure where exactly to look. Eventually, he settled on looking at the two of them. "Love, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. Two of you would make me the luckiest wizard in the world twice over."
Hermione tried to throw her arms around Harry in an effort to kiss him when her arms collided with her other self's arms. The three of them did an awkward dance to see who would kiss who, when the two Hermione's decided to sort it out among themselves. Hermione went first and kissed her husband before allowing her other self to do the same afterwards.
Harry ended up looking flushed and suddenly looking forward to the benefits of two women who wanted to share their lives with him before his featured sobered up.
"But," he tentatively began, "The proposal failed."
One Hermione had a look of absolute relief on her face while the other had one of shock. Then they switched expressions with each other.
"Which means-"
"Yeah," Harry started, "Bigamy is still illegal."
Hermione looked at the two of them, her mind working a kilometer a minute as she processed the new situation they all found themselves in. She was a bit too stunned at the turn of events, her mind wondering how Harry's luck had finally pulled through.
"We're… technically not breaking the law," one of the Hermione's began.
The other picked up on that train of thought as she considered her future self's notes on the legality of this situation. Technically, they existed in a legal gray zone for which a strong argument could be made one way or another. They had both planned on arguing before the Wizengamot that they were both two separate women, temporal mechanics notwithstanding, and therefore Harry would have followed the Wizengamot Code of Conduct. Their plan would have required both Hermione's to divorce Harry and then immediately remarry him, with one taking up the Potter name and the other taking up the Black name.
But… now that they didn't need to make that argument and, in fact, needed to make the opposite argument, that they are in fact the same woman and therefore not breaking any bigamy laws, a simple blood test or magical signature test would reveal that they are both indeed the same woman.
"That's true," she began, a bit surer of herself now that she'd calmed down a bit. "We're complying with the law."
"Albeit maliciously?" Harry smirked.
The two Hermiones looked to each other before shrugging. They nearly crushed their husband between themselves as they hugged him, the two of them deciding to focus on the fact that their marriage was saved… at least for the moment. Now that there were three of them, they'd be better able to defeat anything that threatened the lives they'd built for themselves.
"Malicious compliance sounds good to us."