p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Looking back, leaving the battleground of Hogwarts was the most surreal thing about the whole day. To leave the ruins of the castle that the majority of Wizarding Britain called home with all its blood, broken masonry and bodies for the comfort a place untouched by the horrors that had just occurred. Hermione knew that Harry felt as out of place as she did, standing in the kitchen of the Burrow. It was a bittersweet feeling, as they both felt like they had returned to their home, but they were not the same people who left it. Now they were battle-hardened, old for their years and grieved to their souls by that why had seen and done. They are felt out of place as they were grimy from the battle and their months living rough, and Mrs Weasley kept an immaculate home, despite the efforts made by the twins./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The twins. Molly was on the floor, cradling the clock-arm bearing Fred's likeness that they had found on the floor as they walked in. Arthur gently rocked his heartbroken wife as they both sobbed for the loss of their boy. George sat ramrod straight on the large sofa in the living room, staring into nothing, his grief etched into every line and crevice of his face. His siblings (including Percy) sat around him, hugging him and holding each other whilst they cried for their parent's grief and their own. It was too personal a moment, a moment just for family. Without thinking or communicating, Harry and Hermione started making cups of tea for the Weasley's, adding their grief for Fred onto their to-do-list for later. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"***/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Hermione couldn't sleep. She had refused Arthur's kind offer of a Dreamless Sleep potion and was now regretting her decision. Sleeping, as she had for many summers, in Ginny's room had never previously been a problem but Hermione was on edge. Everyone in The Burrow was asleep, and she and Harry had spent one long year with one of them always on guard overnight. It felt wrong to sleep, to feel safe. Holding back a groan of frustration as she rolled over again to try and find a comfortable position, Hermione threw the covers off and padded downstairs and out the back door into the brisk May night air. Calmed by the familiarity of the darkness of the night sky, Hermione sat cross-legged on the grass and began to think clearly, for what felt like the first time in forever through the haze of shock that had fogged her since the first week of May./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"First of all/span/emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;", she thought, looking back at The Burrow, her magical home, emI cannot stay with Ron/em. Whilst their heated kiss over the safety of the Hogwarts house elves had fulfilled Hermione's teenage-hood daydreams, there was no spark or flare of anything that made her heart flutter beyond the adrenaline of taking a few seconds out in the middle of a raging battle. It would be unfair to imply otherwise to Ron, especially in his grief. Sighing, enjoying the mist of her breath swirl and dance before fading into night, Hermione realised that she would need to move out of The Burrow. emSomewhere in the country, so I can do this every night/em, Hermione mused as she stared up at the stars. emNOT the Forest of Dean or anywhere near there/em, she thought with a shudder, emAnd not the Scottish Highlands. Too close to Hogwarts and the winters are miserable. /emShe knew finding somewhere might take a few weeks, given all the post-battle confusion and the fact that she was pretty sure that her Gringotts account would have been terminated following their stunt with the dragon. Feeling contented with the beginnings of a plan, and soothed by the night air, Hermione wondered back inside, to try and get some sleep./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"***/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN'S SAGGING LEFT TESTICLE!" was the shout from the kitchen that woke Hermione up a few weeks later with a jolt. Looking around Ginny's room, she took a moment for the familiar feeling or chagrin and annoyance to pass at her inability to secure a place of her own, muggle or magical, in the five weeks since the Battle of Hogwarts. As she had suspected, the goblins at Gringotts terminated her account and were being bloody awkward with Kings (the new Minister of Magic) about getting hers and Harry's accounts reinstated- Ron was okay as he had his family's account to fall back on. Hearing the ruckus in the kitchen and what sounded like Arthur telling everyone to mind their language, Hermione made her way downstairs, the noise of the Weasley clan near deafening by the time she made it to the kitchen. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The Weasleys (without Molly) were all stood around the kitchen table, their chairs pushed back behind them, making it hard for Hermione to squeeze her way into the incredibly full kitchen. They had clearly been disturbed whilst eating breakfast, their plates containing Full English's of various sizes and quality as Molly still spent much of her time in her bedroom and left her children (who had never had to cook a day in their lives) to fend for themselves before lunch time. Harry had offered to try making breakfasts for everyone the muggle way, but the demands and individual order of the Weasley's frazzled him after a few days, as they brought back painful memories of his youth. Following that, today was the first day where Hermione hadn't been woken up to the smell of something burning. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Dodging round the chairs, Hermione made her way over to Ginny, the only Weasley not shouting. The twitching muscle of Ginny's jaw and the blazing anger in her eyes, which also seemed to fizzle in her long red hair, put Hermione more on edge than the loud anger of the men. Gently touching Ginny's elbow, Hermione urgently whispered "what the bloody hell is happening?" whilst her eyes flicked from the Weasleys' red-faced and red-eared anger to Harry's pale, angry resignation as he seemed to be defending something to the rest of the table, helped by Arthur. Ginny just shook her head and caught her breath on a sob as she reached into the middle of the breakfast table, where the Daily Prophet lay abandoned, and wordlessly pressed it into Hermione's hands. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"strongspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"strongMARRIAGE LAW ENACTED/strong /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Iemn a shocking announcement late last night, the newly-instated Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt declared that the Law For The Preservation of Magical Kind had just been passed in a late-night Wizengamot session, following the defeat of You-Know-Who at the Battle of Hogwarts at the start of May. /em/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="font-size: 12pt;"Shacklebolt stated that the Wizengamot (now less than half it's original number due to various deaths and /spanspan style="font-size: 16px;"imprisonments/spanspan style="font-size: 12pt;") have passed this law to "help boost the population of Wizarding Britain, which has taken a tremendous hit over the last century of war, spontaneous attacks and inbreeding amongst the upper-classes of society. This law is the only way to immediately boost the population whilst maintaining the Statue of Secrecy, as the British Prime Minister has expressed reservations about marrying the magical community into the muggle community, given the doctrine of Tom Riddle and his followers." /span/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I am sure many in the wizarding community are pleased that they will not be forced to marry muggles but what happens now? It was far too complicated for me to understand the process dear reader, but Shacklebolt said that a combination of Potions, Divination, Ancient Runes and character summaries will be used by the Ministry in the coming weeks to help determine who will be married to who. Whilst this is being decided, a temporary anti-apparition and floo barrier is now in place over Britain and anyone requesting to use the floo or in need of a portkey has to do it by official means via the Ministry on the promise to return within a set time frame. Anyone found trying to flee Britain will be placed in Azkaban. /span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"This esteemed journalist will keep you dear readers in the know over the next few weeks – never fear!/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Written by Rita Skeeter. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Whilst the vast majority of Hermione's brain consisted of white noise as she tried to process the fact that she and her friends would be unwillingly married off and that she would most likely be forced to spend the next decade pregnant and devil-snared to her husband's home, the rational part of her brain knew that it was the right thing to do. Tuning in to Harry and Arthur, Hermione realised that they knew it too and were trying to defend their friend's actions to the rest of the Weasley clan. Flashes of newspaper headlines reports attacks and deaths, Potterwatch reports, the bodies in the Great Hall all flicked through Hermione's head as she shook her head to clear her thoughts, as she tried not to dwell on everyone they had lost. Looking to Ginny, she realised that the copper-headed girl's face had lost some of its anger and that she was instead focused on Harry, clearly planning with grim determination that they will end up together. Harry, as ever, remained oblivious. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Looking round the room, Hermione realised that she was being stared at, as her honey gaze caught Ron's bright blue intensity. Whilst the tips of his ears were still red from his flush of anger after reading The Prophet, his gaze was heartbreakingly hopeful. Hermione quickly flicked her eyes away and walked over to the kettle, cursing herself for not having had the balls to sit down with Ron and break things off with him in the midst of their grief over Fred and other friends that they had lost. Pretty hard to tell your best friend of seven years that you don't see a future with him romantically when you've spent much of the last fix weeks either at funerals, preparing for funerals or eating and sleeping your way through grief. Whilst watching the kettle boils, she felt Ron sidle up to her and lightly lay his left hand on her waist, moving Hermione so she could look up at him. She didn't, her eyes staying firmly on the kettle. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""This came for you," he said gently, holding out an envelope bearing a ministry crest. Recalling the article that she had just read, Hermione's eyes flicked up to Ron's and she knew they had fear in them. Ron's freckled face broke out it in sweet smile which melted away into puppy dog eyes. "It won't be the name of your prince charming 'Mione. Although…" his voice dropped a bit so he wouldn't be overheard by his family, "I hope we get paired". Hermione looked down to the envelope in her hand and flicked a quick smile up at Ron, not wanting to get drawn into Ron's hopes for the future which she did not share. The kettle began to whistle as Hermione took half a step back to create some distance between them so she could open the letter. Ron's hand moved off her waist slightly as he lent back to move the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWhen he turned back to Hermione, her face had broken out into a wide grin. "Kings has managed to sort things with Gringotts! My account has been reinstated and all I need to write a letter of apology," her voice quietened as she read on "signed in my own blood." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Her initial exclamation had quietened the room, which was slowly quieting anyway as the Weasley's ran out anger at the marriage law. "I got the same," Harry said, and a quick nod to Hermione as he rubbed the scars on the back of his told her that he was okay with using a blood quill one more time. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The residual annoyance at the frustration of her situation at The Burrow for the last 5 weeks vanished and her heart lightened. "I can move out and get my cottage!" she unthinkingly gasped with delight. She enjoyed the next heartbeat of silence before Ron started shouting and everyone else with him. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The twins. Molly was on the floor, cradling the clock-arm bearing Fred's likeness that they had found on the floor as they walked in. Arthur gently rocked his heartbroken wife as they both sobbed for the loss of their boy. George sat ramrod straight on the large sofa in the living room, staring into nothing, his grief etched into every line and crevice of his face. His siblings (including Percy) sat around him, hugging him and holding each other whilst they cried for their parent's grief and their own. It was too personal a moment, a moment just for family. Without thinking or communicating, Harry and Hermione started making cups of tea for the Weasley's, adding their grief for Fred onto their to-do-list for later. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"***/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Hermione couldn't sleep. She had refused Arthur's kind offer of a Dreamless Sleep potion and was now regretting her decision. Sleeping, as she had for many summers, in Ginny's room had never previously been a problem but Hermione was on edge. Everyone in The Burrow was asleep, and she and Harry had spent one long year with one of them always on guard overnight. It felt wrong to sleep, to feel safe. Holding back a groan of frustration as she rolled over again to try and find a comfortable position, Hermione threw the covers off and padded downstairs and out the back door into the brisk May night air. Calmed by the familiarity of the darkness of the night sky, Hermione sat cross-legged on the grass and began to think clearly, for what felt like the first time in forever through the haze of shock that had fogged her since the first week of May./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"First of all/span/emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;", she thought, looking back at The Burrow, her magical home, emI cannot stay with Ron/em. Whilst their heated kiss over the safety of the Hogwarts house elves had fulfilled Hermione's teenage-hood daydreams, there was no spark or flare of anything that made her heart flutter beyond the adrenaline of taking a few seconds out in the middle of a raging battle. It would be unfair to imply otherwise to Ron, especially in his grief. Sighing, enjoying the mist of her breath swirl and dance before fading into night, Hermione realised that she would need to move out of The Burrow. emSomewhere in the country, so I can do this every night/em, Hermione mused as she stared up at the stars. emNOT the Forest of Dean or anywhere near there/em, she thought with a shudder, emAnd not the Scottish Highlands. Too close to Hogwarts and the winters are miserable. /emShe knew finding somewhere might take a few weeks, given all the post-battle confusion and the fact that she was pretty sure that her Gringotts account would have been terminated following their stunt with the dragon. Feeling contented with the beginnings of a plan, and soothed by the night air, Hermione wondered back inside, to try and get some sleep./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"***/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN'S SAGGING LEFT TESTICLE!" was the shout from the kitchen that woke Hermione up a few weeks later with a jolt. Looking around Ginny's room, she took a moment for the familiar feeling or chagrin and annoyance to pass at her inability to secure a place of her own, muggle or magical, in the five weeks since the Battle of Hogwarts. As she had suspected, the goblins at Gringotts terminated her account and were being bloody awkward with Kings (the new Minister of Magic) about getting hers and Harry's accounts reinstated- Ron was okay as he had his family's account to fall back on. Hearing the ruckus in the kitchen and what sounded like Arthur telling everyone to mind their language, Hermione made her way downstairs, the noise of the Weasley clan near deafening by the time she made it to the kitchen. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The Weasleys (without Molly) were all stood around the kitchen table, their chairs pushed back behind them, making it hard for Hermione to squeeze her way into the incredibly full kitchen. They had clearly been disturbed whilst eating breakfast, their plates containing Full English's of various sizes and quality as Molly still spent much of her time in her bedroom and left her children (who had never had to cook a day in their lives) to fend for themselves before lunch time. Harry had offered to try making breakfasts for everyone the muggle way, but the demands and individual order of the Weasley's frazzled him after a few days, as they brought back painful memories of his youth. Following that, today was the first day where Hermione hadn't been woken up to the smell of something burning. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Dodging round the chairs, Hermione made her way over to Ginny, the only Weasley not shouting. The twitching muscle of Ginny's jaw and the blazing anger in her eyes, which also seemed to fizzle in her long red hair, put Hermione more on edge than the loud anger of the men. Gently touching Ginny's elbow, Hermione urgently whispered "what the bloody hell is happening?" whilst her eyes flicked from the Weasleys' red-faced and red-eared anger to Harry's pale, angry resignation as he seemed to be defending something to the rest of the table, helped by Arthur. Ginny just shook her head and caught her breath on a sob as she reached into the middle of the breakfast table, where the Daily Prophet lay abandoned, and wordlessly pressed it into Hermione's hands. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"strongspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"strongMARRIAGE LAW ENACTED/strong /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Iemn a shocking announcement late last night, the newly-instated Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt declared that the Law For The Preservation of Magical Kind had just been passed in a late-night Wizengamot session, following the defeat of You-Know-Who at the Battle of Hogwarts at the start of May. /em/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="font-size: 12pt;"Shacklebolt stated that the Wizengamot (now less than half it's original number due to various deaths and /spanspan style="font-size: 16px;"imprisonments/spanspan style="font-size: 12pt;") have passed this law to "help boost the population of Wizarding Britain, which has taken a tremendous hit over the last century of war, spontaneous attacks and inbreeding amongst the upper-classes of society. This law is the only way to immediately boost the population whilst maintaining the Statue of Secrecy, as the British Prime Minister has expressed reservations about marrying the magical community into the muggle community, given the doctrine of Tom Riddle and his followers." /span/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"I am sure many in the wizarding community are pleased that they will not be forced to marry muggles but what happens now? It was far too complicated for me to understand the process dear reader, but Shacklebolt said that a combination of Potions, Divination, Ancient Runes and character summaries will be used by the Ministry in the coming weeks to help determine who will be married to who. Whilst this is being decided, a temporary anti-apparition and floo barrier is now in place over Britain and anyone requesting to use the floo or in need of a portkey has to do it by official means via the Ministry on the promise to return within a set time frame. Anyone found trying to flee Britain will be placed in Azkaban. /span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"This esteemed journalist will keep you dear readers in the know over the next few weeks – never fear!/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Written by Rita Skeeter. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Whilst the vast majority of Hermione's brain consisted of white noise as she tried to process the fact that she and her friends would be unwillingly married off and that she would most likely be forced to spend the next decade pregnant and devil-snared to her husband's home, the rational part of her brain knew that it was the right thing to do. Tuning in to Harry and Arthur, Hermione realised that they knew it too and were trying to defend their friend's actions to the rest of the Weasley clan. Flashes of newspaper headlines reports attacks and deaths, Potterwatch reports, the bodies in the Great Hall all flicked through Hermione's head as she shook her head to clear her thoughts, as she tried not to dwell on everyone they had lost. Looking to Ginny, she realised that the copper-headed girl's face had lost some of its anger and that she was instead focused on Harry, clearly planning with grim determination that they will end up together. Harry, as ever, remained oblivious. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Looking round the room, Hermione realised that she was being stared at, as her honey gaze caught Ron's bright blue intensity. Whilst the tips of his ears were still red from his flush of anger after reading The Prophet, his gaze was heartbreakingly hopeful. Hermione quickly flicked her eyes away and walked over to the kettle, cursing herself for not having had the balls to sit down with Ron and break things off with him in the midst of their grief over Fred and other friends that they had lost. Pretty hard to tell your best friend of seven years that you don't see a future with him romantically when you've spent much of the last fix weeks either at funerals, preparing for funerals or eating and sleeping your way through grief. Whilst watching the kettle boils, she felt Ron sidle up to her and lightly lay his left hand on her waist, moving Hermione so she could look up at him. She didn't, her eyes staying firmly on the kettle. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;""This came for you," he said gently, holding out an envelope bearing a ministry crest. Recalling the article that she had just read, Hermione's eyes flicked up to Ron's and she knew they had fear in them. Ron's freckled face broke out it in sweet smile which melted away into puppy dog eyes. "It won't be the name of your prince charming 'Mione. Although…" his voice dropped a bit so he wouldn't be overheard by his family, "I hope we get paired". Hermione looked down to the envelope in her hand and flicked a quick smile up at Ron, not wanting to get drawn into Ron's hopes for the future which she did not share. The kettle began to whistle as Hermione took half a step back to create some distance between them so she could open the letter. Ron's hand moved off her waist slightly as he lent back to move the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWhen he turned back to Hermione, her face had broken out into a wide grin. "Kings has managed to sort things with Gringotts! My account has been reinstated and all I need to write a letter of apology," her voice quietened as she read on "signed in my own blood." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"Her initial exclamation had quietened the room, which was slowly quieting anyway as the Weasley's ran out anger at the marriage law. "I got the same," Harry said, and a quick nod to Hermione as he rubbed the scars on the back of his told her that he was okay with using a blood quill one more time. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"The residual annoyance at the frustration of her situation at The Burrow for the last 5 weeks vanished and her heart lightened. "I can move out and get my cottage!" she unthinkingly gasped with delight. She enjoyed the next heartbeat of silence before Ron started shouting and everyone else with him. /span/p