Unfortunately for the children at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, Molly Weasley was not in the house to hear their call for help. She, along with Mr. Weasley, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Andromeda and Ted Tonks and the Doctors Granger, had all journeyed to the residence of one Penelope James for an emergency committee meeting.
"He did WHAT?!"
"Signed for Hermione Granger when her name popped up on that infernal list." Lizzie Snape set down the sheaf of papers she was holding onto her mother's elegant dining room table before leaning down to lift Trinity into her lap. The cherub-cheeked toddler nestled immediately against her mother's bosom, her mouth and tongue eagerly working on a cherry lolly her grandmother had given her. "He said that her name appeared while he was perusing the list, and since all the other choices were horrible, he snatched her up before someone else did."
"But that's not possible. I thought the names didn't appear on the list until they became of age. Hermione isn't seventeen until the nineteenth of September. I know my own daughter's age!" Brandon Granger was quickly becoming an impressive shade of plum. Juliet Granger, on the other hand, was extremely pale.
"But… isn't your step-son a teacher at the school? Surely the Ministry cannot be willing to let such a union come to pass." She looked towards the Weasleys. "Arthur, surely there's some way to stop this."
But Arthur was frowning, one hand absently mopping his bald spot with a handkerchief. "The Ministry will be expecting that the actual marriage take place after Hermione completes her final year, of course. As for her name appearing early, I can only think that it must have something to do with that time turner she used in her third year."
The other witches and wizards at the table blinked. Lizzie gaped at Arthur. "Who was the idiot that thought it was a good idea to give a third year a time turner, and why would you want to?"
Brandon rubbed the back of his already burning neck. "Well, Professor McGonagall explained it all to us before doing it, of course. Hermione couldn't make up her mind what classes she wanted to take, so she signed up for everything. Some of them overlapped, so she was given a time turner to allow her to repeat hours. We had to sign a permission form from the Ministry about it."
"You mean this lot can travel through time? Imagine the business opportunities." Mrs. Thomas gave her husband a disapproving glare, which he ignored with a smile.
"But the Ministry has always disregarded additional time from use of time travel in regards to age, Arthur. We Aurors would still have to consider her an underage witch should she get into legal troubles."
"Yes, Kingsley, ordinarily they would. However, Fudge is desperate, as are the purebloods. They see their own families giving birth to more and more squibs, to children with illnesses and deformities, stillbirths and all other manner of troubles. Then they see people like Andromeda and Ted here, who are a pureblood and a muggleborn. Their daughter is a metamorphmagus, something rare and powerful. Harry Potter is the product of a pureblood and a muggleborn, and he defeated You Know Who. Then there's the muggleborns themselves, with Hermione shining brighter than all of them. They want that power, that strength, and it's become obvious that the only way to get it is to take it by force. The muggle parents who have given birth to magical children were unwilling to enter betrothal contracts. It's too old fashioned a notion for them."
Juliet gasped. "Malfoy."
Arthur's eyes shot up to the Grangers. "What was that?"
Juliet looked at her husband. Brandon swallowed. "About six months ago, when the children were still at school, that git of a wizard you had the tussle with in that bookshop showed up at our office. Said he wanted to discuss some business with us. We agreed to speak with him after we finished seeing our patients. We had him in the office and he started going on about how difficult it could be for Hermione once she left school, with Juliet and I being Muggles. Well, we're not dim. It didn't take very long of hearing him explain Wizarding Society to realize he was trying to sell himself, or his family and its connections rather."
"Then he offered to 'help' Hermione with her future by extending a betrothal contract with his son."
Kingsley frowned. "Malfoy approached you for your daughter? That isn't good."
"That's exactly what we were hoping to avoid by having Arthur 'split' from the committee." Molly sighed, her shoulders slumping. "We thought to keep Hermione out of harms way by binding her to our family until the law had been abolished."
"However, this might be a better choice."
Everyone stared at Arthur, who was still frowning in thought at a blank place on the table. When he didn't elaborate, Brandon decided to ask. "How can this possibly be a better choice? The man is almost as old as I am."
"Because of whom he is," began Arthur, "and who his family is. They're very powerful and very well connected. Also, most people who attended Hogwarts over the past couple of decades still fear him. He's a formidable wizard in his own right and even Malfoy holds him in respect. There aren't many who will go against the Snapes in regards to this, and Severus was already aware of the plan. He'll complain and glower, but I think he can be trusted to stick to the basic idea."
"So we're just supposed to let our daughter go on with everyone believing she's going to marry a man who's treated her like an irritating brat for the past six years?"
"Brandon, she'll be safer under his protection. And he'll be at the school with her, able to keep an eye on her. If Lucius Malfoy is willing to approach you before the law and seek her hand for his son, then our worst fears have a valid basis. That family has been linked with dark dealings for generations and we're certain he's a Death Eater. Gaining control of your daughter would not only grant him security in the knowledge that the next heir to the Malfoy line would be born healthy and powerful, but as Draco's wife Hermione would have little to no opportunity to help us in our fight."
"I'm not entirely sure I want my daughter involved in your fight." Brandon sighed and ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. "On the other hand, we raised her not to sit by while people were being treated unjustly. This Voldemort character (he didn't notice how most of the people at the table flinched) sounds like Hitler, only worse. I shudder to think what that madman could have done had he been a wizard."
"I hate to say it, but I have to agree with Arthur on this one." Everyone turned towards Andromeda, who shrugged. "The Malfoys have all been rotten, but the Snapes are sort of half and half. Augustus was a real prat in his younger days, but Lizzie here has been really good for him. This was heavy handed of him, I'll grant you, but Severus is trusted by Albus Dumbledore and I trust that wizard's judgment over any other's. And Arthur's right about how few will be willing to go against the Snapes in this. That family holds a lot of power."
The Grangers still looked unconvinced. Elizabeth gave a sound that was a lot like a growl before deciding to put in her two knuts. "Look, I can't say that I've had much exposure to Severus since my marriage, and I'm certain he thinks badly of me, but I believe he's an honorable man. I remember him when he was my teacher, and I won't deny that I wished him a long and painful death, as did most of the student body. On the other hand, no matter how hard they try to deny it, Augustus and Severus are a lot alike."
Juliet arched a brow. "Considering that the age difference between you and your husband is greater than it is between your step-son and our daughter, that is not something that inspires comfort."
Lizzie grinned. "I meant that they are the same in that they keep their word once it is given." She shifted Trinity's weight in her lap as her leg began to fall asleep. "I doubt that he's willing to speak to his father at the moment. I'll go to Hogwarts and speak with him after the term starts and before Hermione comes of age. That should give him enough time to calm down to the point he won't hex me on sight."
"You think that he'll listen to you?"
"I'm not a student any longer, so I no longer have a reason to be afraid of him. Also, whether he likes it or not, I'm the matriarch of his family now. He'll listen to me or he'll wish You-Know-Who would put him out of his misery.
~***~
"Hermione, wake up. Come on, please wake up." Ron was shaking his still unconscious friend by her shoulder, ignoring Fred and George with their suggestions of giving her a firm slap across the cheek. It wasn't that he thought it was a bad idea, but he knew that she had a stunning right hook he didn't want to be on the receiving end of. "Harry, I think she hit her head too hard when she fell. Ginny, go find Mum."
Ginny was about to leave when she bit off a curse and turned back to her brother. "I forgot, she's not here."
"Not here? Where did she go?"
"Committee meeting with Lizzie Snape."
"A little late for that now," remarked Fred darkly.
"What is going on here?"
Four red haired heads and one rather messy black haired head spun around to gape at the doorway. They had all somehow forgotten how tall Professor Snape was, or how his full-cut robes billowed to the point that he could completely fill a doorway. Even though they didn't leave for school until the day after tomorrow, and therefore he did not currently have the power to land them in detention or take away house points, even those who had already left school were quite frightened of the Potions Master.
None of them dared answer him, but his eyes had landed on the girl Ron was still hovering over. Suddenly he was moving into the room and towards Hermione. Perhaps it was temporary insanity that brought it about, but just as quickly all five conscious youths had moved to place themselves between their fallen comrade and Severus. He glared at them. "I am hardly likely to molest the girl, so stand aside!"
"Considering that it's now your legal right to do so, I think we'll stay where we are," countered one of the twins with a mulish expression.
"I gather that Miss Granger's current condition has something to do with that idiotic betrothal contract, then." The crowd before him did not answer other than to glare. "Move!" They scattered out of his way, allowing him to approach the silent girl and kneel down beside her. "Have you tried enervate yet?"
"No." Snape looked up at whatever twin had answered with a disdainful look. "She wasn't stunned, she fainted!"
He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Of course it would be the intelligent one who passed out." Removing his wand from his robes he pointed it at his fiancé. "Enervate."
A soft sound escaped her lips as her eyes fluttered open. They were slightly crossed as she came to, but she blinked them a few times to force them to focus. Looking up she came eye to eye with Severus. The sound that came from her was something of a cross between a yelp and a squeak, and so unexpected that Severus jerked back. Quick as a flash, Hermione sat up and scooted backwards until she was flush with the wall, her skin a pasty white and her eyes wide with what looked like fear.
"Get hold of yourself, Miss Granger! I am not here to drag you off to the nearest church!"
She flinched as though he had struck her, her eyes moving frantically around the room until she spotted the letter from the Ministry where it had fallen from Ginny's hand earlier. Hermione's hand shook violently as she raised a finger to point at the discarded parchment. "P…professor… your father… he… he…"
"I am well aware of my father's latest attempt to prove his own insanity."
"But you're… you're my professor!"
"I am well aware of that fact as well, Miss Granger."
"I can't marry my professor! It isn't ethical!"
"We are in complete agreement there, Miss Granger."
Ginny moved towards her friend. "Hermione, are you all right? You hit your head pretty hard when you fell." She was maintaining a soft, gentle voice, as though frightened Hermione might attack someone if startled.
"If she's capable of wrapping her mind around ethics, then she's perfectly fine, Miss Weasley. Where are your parents?"
"They're at a committee meeting with Lizzie Snape."
"A little late for that now." Severus didn't see the look exchanged between the twins, and neither twin was willing to admit he had shared the same exact thought less than ten minutes ago. "When will they return?"
"I don't know, Professor."
Severus gave Ginny a disdainful look and straightened his robes. "Very well. I recommend that we bring Miss Granger to the kitchens. A cup of chamomile tea to sooth her nerves would not be amiss, and I could do with something from the wine cellars." Without bothering to ask Harry if he minded opening what were technically his wine cellars, Snape turned on his heel and left the room.
Ginny was no stranger to a kitchen, but there was little skill in brewing a pot of herbal tea. What did require skill was keeping your eye on the teapot so that one of the twins didn't spike the tea with whiskey, but she wasn't quite experienced enough to manage that bit just yet. Hermione coughed a bit from the unexpected burning, but Severus merely sniffed her cup before handing it back to her without comment. For himself he selected a nice, tawny port from what proved to be a rather extensive collection hidden behind a secret door in the pantry. Ron had found where his mother had hidden the leftover cakes from tea the previous day and set them on the table for everyone. An awkward silence filled the kitchen as they waited, and eventually Ginny bullied Ron into helping her start dinner as four o'clock approached.
By the time Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Kingsley and Mr. and Mrs. Tonks had returned at a quarter 'til seven, there was a hearty meal of roast game hens, boiled potatoes, glazed carrots and hot rolls waiting for them. Mrs. Weasley was clearly grateful that her children had taken the initiative of preparing the evening meal and praised Ginny on her cooking while Arthur nervously approached Professor Snape.
"Severus, if I might have a word with you across the hall…"
Severus seemed to have been expecting this. He had only drunk one glass of the port, but now claimed an additional glass as he and Mr. Weasley left the room. Hermione watched them leave with a nervous expression, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. On either side of her sat Harry and Ron, their stony expressions resembling those of gargoyles that guarded the teachers' lounge at Hogwarts. When the adults did speak to any of them, it was with soft voices, much like one would use with a mentally disturbed person.
The exception to this was Mrs. Weasley, who seemed to think that the best way to nurse emotional trauma and periods of high stress was to gorge yourself on food. She fixed a plate for Hermione that contained more food than the girl would have been able to eat in a single day, let alone in a single meal, and set it before her. "There you go, Dear. Tuck in. A full stomach will make it easier to sleep, and a good night's sleep will make things seem far brighter in the morning."
"Don't think food is going to help this one, Mum," commented Fred as he buttered a roll.
"Slipping a bit of hemlock into Snape's port might, though," added George.
Mrs. Weasley glared at her twin sons before pouring Hermione a mug of butterbeer. She was just about to sit down herself when Severus' voice at the level of a roar came from the room across the hall.
"HAVE YOU LOST WHAT'S LEFT OF YOUR MIND?!"
Mr. Weasley's response wasn't heard, but they did hear a door being flung open hard enough to slam against the wall. Ted Tonks gave a low whistle. "Sounds like Arthur's told Snape the plan."
"What plan?" Hermione gave Mrs. Weasley a look that resembled a deer caught in a pair of headlights.
"Don't worry about it just yet, Dear. Come on, eat your dinner."
"What's Dad said that's got Snape so upset?"
"Professor Snape, Ron. Another roll, Harry?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley." Harry buttered a fresh roll before biting into it. The door to the kitchen swung open as Remus Lupin arrived. He swung a heavy satchel from his shoulder and set it down in a chair by the door.
"Dinner smells wonderful, Molly, as always."
"Thank you, Remus, but Ginny did the cooking tonight."
Lupin gave Ginny a warm smile, causing her to blush scarlet, before moving to claim a chair for himself. He was just about to sit down when Snape's voice boomed out again. "I AM NOT GOING TO SURRENDER TO MY FATHER'S INSANITY!"
Remus paused, his brows raised. "Is something the matter?"
"Snape's father signed him up to marry Hermione," responded Fred around a mouthful of carrots. Hermione lost hold of her fork which skittered over the table and landed on the floor.
"He did what?" Remus automatically offered his still-unused fork towards Hermione. "I thought we'd all agreed that Arthur would sign of Hermione, keep her out of harms way until the law was abolished."
"Yes, well, that was the plan, but none of us thought that the Ministry would ignore precedent and go by actual age rather than calendar age." Molly removed a fresh pan of hot rolls from the oven and transferred them to a bread basket which she then sat upon the table. "However, it was decided earlier today that this will work out better."
Hermione lost her grip on her new fork, but this time Harry caught it deftly. Ron forced down a bit of game hen. "Better?! How can this be better?"
Molly finally started fixing her own plate and claimed a chair. "Because the Snapes have just as much political and social prestige as the Malfoys. Lucius would find it difficult to contest the contract, whereas he could probably bribe the officials at the Ministry to favor him over Arthur."
"An excellent point." Lupin took a long drink from his goblet.
"APPARENTLY MISS GRANGER AND I ARE THE ONLY SANE PEOPLE REMAINING IN THE ORDER!"
"It doesn't sound as though Severus agrees with it all."
"Mrs. Weasley, may I be excused?"
"Excused? But you've hardly eaten anything at all."
"I'm not very hungry." Hermione pushed her plate away and pushed her chair back, her face a faint shade of green. "I think I'd rather go lie down."
"Well, if you're sure, I suppose you may. I'll store your dinner away in case you get hungry in the night."
Hermione mumbled a barely audible 'thank you' and left the table, shaking her head when Ron made to leave with her. She didn't really want to be with anyone else right at the moment. She exited the door to the kitchen and came face to face with an agitated Mr. Weasley who had the grace to blush before giving a soft greeting and walking past her to dinner. The kitchen door shut behind her, leaving her to look through the open door across the hall and meet the gaze of her professor.
They stared at one another for a long, drawn out moment, neither one seeming to know what to say. Finally, Hermione scraped together enough courage to offer a gentle "I'm sorry, Professor."
"What do you have to be sorry about?"
"That you have to put up with… with all of this."
Snape raised a single brow. "It would appear that we are in the same predicament, Miss Granger."
"Well, yes, but it's worse for you. You're a grown man and your father can still do this to you."
"Whereas you and the rest of the Muggleborns have been reduced to so much chattel. I am afraid that I fail to see how I am worse off in this matter. I do, after all, get the promise of a young, attractive wife who is not likely to bore me with insipid discussions about shoes and fancy robes over badly cooked dinners."
"But you were yelling at Mr. Weasley just a moment ago about…"
"That was before he imparted a final piece of knowledge."
"And that would be?"
Severus gave a muffled growl. "Apparently Lucius Malfoy approached your parents with an offer of marriage to Draco prior to this law being enacted." He saw his fiancé go even paler than himself and sway dangerously on her feet. "Don't you dare faint again!"
"Malfoy? But I don't want to be a Malfoy."
"Of course you don't. You're too intelligent for that. And at any rate, I don't want to have to bother with poisoning you to prevent such a union."
"You would poison me to keep me from marrying Draco?"
He pondered this for a moment. "No, that would be foolish as then you would be dead and the Wizarding World would still be stuck with Draco. I'd poison him, instead."
"I thought you liked Draco."
"Politics," he explained with a wave of his hand. Silence fell between them once more until, "It's not as though we will actually marry. With all the fury against this law, I expect it will be thrown out before your graduation. We only have to let the contract stand until then. After that the Ministry will have no choice but to willingly dissolve any unwanted contracts that have not yet been sealed by marriage vows and consummation."
"And if we're all wrong? What if they cannot get the law thrown out?" She looked at him with wide, fearful eyes. "We can't hold off the wedding forever."
A bitter, cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Then you may rest assured, Miss Granger, that given my lifestyle it is very likely you will find yourself a rather wealthy widow while still young enough to enjoy it."