Chapter 2: Marriage Law (Flashback)
Shivering with tension I knocked at the heavy oak door, which blocked the view of the headmaster's office.
Never before I was called to the headmaster and I was unable to make head nor tail of what I could have done wrong.
Especially nothing that was so bad that I was summoned to the headmaster.
Quietly the door began to open. I looked at the large desk with Dumbledore's authoritarian figure at the head.
He smiled at me encouragingly, when my heart stopped beating a moment.
Next to him stood Professor Snape, who was almost covert among the shades of a massive bookshelf.
As usual he put on an air of darkness, when I entered.
"You aren't serious, Albus, are you?!" he asked and his voice was like a bad omen in the room. I started back.
"Please have a seat, Miss Granger," Dumbledore requested without reacting to Snape's comment.
"You will soon reach the age of 17," he uttered.
I looked at him in confusion and noticed that Professor Snape panted with rage.
"Yes, Sir. That's correct," I answered drawing my attention back to him.
"But may I , I mean, that can't be certainly the reason why you want to talk to me, can it?" Uncertainly I stared him.
"In a way it already is, Miss Granger. You have to know that the ministry of magic passed a new law."
"A law? I don't understand. What kind of law?" I asked.
"Well, because of the numerous muggle-born attacks, the ministry decided that each muggle-born has to marrya half or pure blood within two month after his 17th birthday," he answered and looked me over with his bright blue eyes.
"What happened if someone doesn't follow?" I wanted to know.
"Forced Marriage," my potion teacher replied out of the blue and looked up and down at me coldly.
I had to swallow. Everything seemed to be a bad joke – marriage law?
Why was it passed now and why had it to blindside me? And what the hell had that got to do with Professor Snape?
As far as I knew just one of his parents posses magical potency.
"No" I was as if struck by lightning and looked from Dumbleodre to Snape in horror.
That has to be a bad joke! I mean Professor Snape was my teacher, tutor of Slyhterin and it was not quite a mysterie that he abhored me – "Miss-know-it-all". Dumbledore can't be serious!
"I know, that this has to be a shock for you, but please let me explain," Dumbledore said, while I had to pull myself off not to lose my temper.
I lowered my head to swallow my nascent tears unnoticedly. When I calmed down I looked quizzically at Dumbledore again: "Please explain it, Sir."
He gave me a relieved smile before he start to speak: "As you may know, Mr Longbottom's parents were tortured with the crutiatus curse until they lose their mind."
I nodded in confusion. As sad as it was, what had Neville's parents got to do with the obvious fact that Dumbledore wants me to marry Professor Snape?
"Well, what you don't know is that those cases like the Longbottom case accumulated in the last few month and that a cure was detected that could help those people to recover," he stopped surveying if I could follow him.
But there were just two eyes in confusing looking back at him. What the hell had that to do with me?
"The healer of St. Mungo's Hospital are overwhelmed with work, Severus was charged with borwing the complicated elixir. But he need help, because it has to be brewed in a short interval and in great quantities." He gave me a look of expectancy and finally the penny dropped.
"Me…? You ask me to help Professor Snape? But Sir I haven't finished my tuition yet. What about a older student, who have just finished his graduation? He would be more adequate, wouldn't he?" I protested.
"I told you so, Albus, she doesn't want it," Professor Snape noted in self satisfaction.
"Miss Granger, you are a very talented witch and you have a knack of brewing potions as I have it from a good source," the headmaster said and looked at Professor Snape triumphantly, whose lips abruptly puckered up as if he had taken a bite out of a acid lemon.
"Well, let's say, just hypothetically, that, I work with Professor Snape together. Why have I to marry him for that reason?" I wanted to know. The sense still escaped me.
"M dear Miss Granger, it's because you will come under fire by Voldemort and his followers, if you work with Professor Snape together. As you know Severus is a double spy and posses the dark mark. When you are a death eater you can't hide anything from Voldemort. He will find out that there is a muggle-born in the house of one of his most intimate followers. If you marry him, you will be under the protection of Severus," Dumbledore said.
"And I believe that you are seriously mistaken, Albus. The dark lord won't keep his hands off her, even or just because she is my wife," Professor Snape disagreed.
"And what about Ron?" I asked. For a change they gazed at me in confusion. "We are a couple and the Weasley's are pure-blooded. Won't he a better match?" I eyed Dumbledore hopefully, even so suspecting what counterarguments they would alleged – that Ron was not full age, that he won't reach his 17th birthday within 2 month and that his family was pure-blooded but even so blood-traitors and so on.
"I know that you need time to think the whole thing over firstly, but please mind the hundred of humans you would give life back," he said firmly.
"I will think about that, Sir" I replied wearily and turned to go.
"Please don't take your time for too long", he called at me.
Before I shut the door, I listened to Snape, who snorted: "If she agrees, it borders on madness."