Disclaimer: I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).
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On this grey morning in early December, Hermione frowns at her reflection before the mirror in her parents' front hall. She has long since become accustomed to seeing herself in medieval regalia, but the sight of her parents behind her, in petitioners' robes, sets her back in spite of the previous rehearsals.
They do look distinguished, and she finally understands Draco's remark that her mother looks as if she might be a rather accomplished Legilimens.
Elizabeth had smiled at that, and said, "No, only practice as a parent. Your own mother does the same, though no doubt magic helps."
He'd frowned in the way one would on unexpectedly encountering clear glass where air ought to be. Draco collides with reality, she called that look.
And yes, they are long since on first names. She'd never really thought about what it might be like to have siblings… no, she'd had the thought at the Burrow, more than once, but she'd never imagined the sort of brother or sister she might have had, because that wasn't the universe in which she lived.
If today's hearing succeeds, she will have a brother who doesn't in the least resemble her… well, that's not the way to think of it. Think, rather, of the injustice and danger averted, and the precedent set.
Her father looks particularly fine in the dark robes, trimmed with a rich fur collar. Her parents had debated the question of a haircut—the same conversation they have this time every year, when he insists that the mane will keep his head warm, and her mother says that he's looking shaggy. This year the decision is rather different: the mane will look distinguished. In the wizarding world, long hair is eminently correct on men and women alike.
William adjusts his steel-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and shakes out the pleats so that the robe drapes smoothly. Excepting the spectacles, he looks like a solemn courtier in a Holbein portrait.
Hermione closes her hands nervously over the blue beaded bag that no longer holds everything, only everything that's needed for the hearing.
With a soft pop, Andromeda Tonks materializes in the front room, looking discomfited. A discreet arrival is necessary because the Grangers aren't on the Floo System, but it's clear that Andromeda's Pureblood sensibilities still aren't up to Apparition on the wrong side of the threshold.
Hermione takes a deep breath, and offers her arm to her father; Andromeda echoes the gesture. Elizabeth accepts, and says to Andromeda, "It will be quite all right," though she's cut off mid-sentence by the compression of space in the immediate vicinity.
They rematerialize in the foyer of the vast courtroom. Hermione shivers. It's the chamber that Umbridge used during the war, for the hearings of the Muggle-born Registration Commission… no, she will not think about that. It's only a courtroom, and Umbridge is long since consigned to Azkaban for life.
Narcissa is standing on the other side of the antechamber, in a severer version of her usual mourning garb; she looks like a barrister, less the wig. Her moon-pale hair hangs down her back in a long swaying sheet. Draco stands behind her, looking paler than usual and even a little sick. She can't say she blames him. So much hangs on the outcome of the procedure. He'd be pacing and wringing his hands, no doubt, if he weren't holding Hypatia, who is dressed in a miniature copy of his black robes. Her hair hangs loose around her face, and Hermione notices that it's come in thicker than before, or maybe that's the effect of it not being constrained in pigtails. She's certainly picked up on the solemnity of the occasion, and she's rather more subdued than usual.
Kingsley puts in his appearance last of all. He will be representing them before the wizards' court, both in his capacity as Minister and as the sponsor of the contract. He has with him the necessary volumes, though Hermione has brought with her a full set of duplicates of all the necessary files.
It's a full sitting of the wizards' court, and room has been made as well for a spectators' section. All of the living kin of the petitioners have been seated: in a moment, Andromeda Tonks will be seating herself next to Harry Potter, to represent the House of Black. Teddy Lupin sits restively on his godfather's lap. Ginny sits next to Harry rather than with her own family, as the godmother. Ron, Bill and George are present, along with Arthur and Molly. Percy is involved as well, attendant on the Minister. Augusta and Neville are flanked by a selection of the Lancashire kin: Algie and Enid, and a couple in rather consciously archaic robes.
"Harfang and Callidora," Andromeda whispers to her. "It's an occasion… though the Longbottoms and the Blacks have crossed a few times before, it's never involved the Malfoys." Then she goes to take her place, because they will begin in a few minutes, just as soon as Madam Marchbanks arrives.
It hadn't occurred to her just how many families are being stitched together if the petition is granted; Augusta will be taking on Draco as something like a grandson-in-law, and the absent Lucius with him… well, that doesn't bear thinking about. She knows that Augusta has never held Lucius in much esteem… well, and nearer to home, there are Harry and Ron looking at her. Harry has his bemused look on (when he's not keeping Teddy from wriggling excessively) and Ron has that faintly gobsmacked look that hasn't ever left his face since she broke the news to them. He understands the spirit of the thing, of course, but the sheer effect of it… well, and she can only imagine how Arthur looks at the matter.
There's no call for her to be so nervous. Kingsley will be taking the better part of the business. Her part in the traditional ritual is all but nonexistent.
Kingsley is brokering the business, and her parents know their lines. Narcissa is standing regent for the House of Malfoy, but her only part is to consent to the contract for which her son is petitioning. In principle, he could proceed without his mother's permission, although for the full effect on her marriage contract, her consent is required.
Hermione takes a deep breath and lets it out. These are all things she knows already, and the only reason that she's reviewing the whole thing in her head is that she's nervous, and the whole business is minutes from being underway. Everyone is rehearsed; there will be no outcries from the spectators' section that objection is made.
Nonetheless.. she looks across to Draco, who's jiggling Hypatia on his hip to calm her, as she makes a play for the silver clasps on his robe. At least she's not tugging on his hair, she thinks. He looks up, and the apprehension on his face makes it look paler and thinner than usual.
Madam Marchbanks enters and calls the court to order, and there is no more time to think. The most difficult part has finished: the conference with her friends.
ooo
Late November, and the wind would be rattling the panes at Hogwarts. Here, in the suburbs of London, the dead leaves blow by the modern window-panes without a sound.
Hermione takes her mother's new electric kettle off its stand and pours hot water into the teapot. She says, addressing none of them in particular, "Well, there's no putting it off."
Neville smiles a bit nervously, and her mother nods judiciously. Her father rummages in the cupboards for the extra packets of biscuits. Tea, then, for six or seven additional guests. It seemed the best way to make the announcement, but now she's getting nervous.
Her mother says, "We'll need an extra leaf to the table." Andromeda nods, waving her wand to move the case files off the table.
Draco shakes his head, and hands Hypatia over to Elizabeth. "Allow me."
He waves his wand with a rather showy swish and flick, and the table stretches and changes shape. Draco's Transfiguration form is rather good, actually; he must have been practicing. Elizabeth frowns as the table not merely lengthens, but grows massive and heavy-legged, like some medieval piece one might see at a manor house that's been a Gracious Home since Norman times. The carvings on the legs shape themselves to cradle a shield whose figures rearrange themselves as Draco thinks out the matter.
Elizabeth says, in a tone that has the faintest touch of quelling: "Now, Draco, you know perfectly well we don't have a coat of arms."
He says, "Now you do." One more flick of the wand, and the tabletop has acquired the sort of mirror sheen that's not possible short of generations of varnishing and waxing. "If you have a court wizard, then you have a coat of arms."
Hermione doesn't say aloud that the matter's not yet decided. She's not sure in what direction her superstition should run: should they take it for granted, or should they be cautious lest the fates think them presumptuous? What will be will be, in any case. Really, at this point it's out of her hands, or anyone's. She's done all she can, and they've prepared the press.
Now all that remains is to explain to her friends what's going to play out, and to ask them, as her friends, not to object, at least in the public part of the ritual.
ooo
Harry arrives first, with Teddy. Ginny will be a little later, he says, as she's coming from practice with the Harpies and will want to stop at the Burrow to freshen up. Ron and Lavender come through the Floo a few minutes later, and then Luna puts in an appearance, smiling in her usual abstracted way.
Draco is in the kitchen, seeing to the last details, and she'd wager, taking deep breaths and trying to calm himself. Elizabeth brings out the tea things on a large silver tray (another of Draco's Transfiguration showpieces). If this does go through, she'll have to have a word with Draco sub rosa about the distinction between his taste and her mother's. No doubt it's a product of his upbringing, but Draco's notion of the House Beautiful is very far from modern.
William comes down the stairs and greets Harry and Ron, and there's handshakes all around, and much exclaiming over Teddy, who has grown quite a bit since the summer.
Teddy smiles at one and all and flashes through his repertoire of hair and eyes, then lights on the biscuits with the inimitable expression of a small child in the presence of treats.
Tea is poured and handed all around, and then once Ginny arrives, her spiky copper-colored hair still damp from her bath, there's a second round. Draco and Hypatia emerge from the kitchen. Neville pulls out a chair for Draco to sit down with his little charge, who immediately smiles and gabbles something unintelligible at her cousin Teddy.
Harry frowns at Draco, but more in puzzlement than hostility. Ginny raises an eyebrow.
Ron says, "Malfoy."
Draco inclines his head briefly, and looks him in the eye. "Weasley."
She resists the urge to say, Boys, because really it's so much like two gunslingers facing off in a Western. All gruff masculinity and good form, and it doesn't sit well either on slight blond Draco or gangly ginger Ron.
She says, "It's good to see you all."
Luna says, "Thank you for inviting us. And Draco. It must be something to do with the case, isn't it? You're all rather out of sorts." She frowns. "And that with nary a Nargle in sight." She says that last in a way that redounds immediately to the credit of Elizabeth and William, that as Muggles they manage a house free of supernatural pests they can't even see.
She says, "Yes, it's about the case." Into the deep water all in one dive, then. Better than tiptoeing into the shallows and freezing by degrees. "Luna's right. It's about the case. We have a petition before the Wizengamot to rectify the situation with Draco's mother's marriage contract."
Ron frowns. (She reminds herself that she'll be doing well if it's only frowns by the end of the business.) "I thought Kingsley was going to ask the Wizengamot to ban that sort of thing."
"Well, yes, but that's only going forward. The contract in question won't be affected, because the Wizengamot has made clear that ex post facto measures aren't practicable with existing contracts. Not that there actually are all that many of that sort of contract…" With Draco in the room, she doesn't want to say it the way she does behind closed doors.
She takes a deep breath.
Ron goes pale. "Don't tell me you're going to have to marry Malfoy, or something."
Neville shakes his head with a grim little smile, and pats her hand under the table. She takes the reassurance, and continues, "No, Ron. Nothing that radical. Well, at least not radical that way." (That conversation with Draco about his unseemly crush must have taken, because he's looking a bit greenish around the gills, or maybe it's the prospect of the wrath of Weasley that does that.)
"Madam Tonks and Minister Shacklebolt found a solution, but it's rather archaic." She says, "I'm not quite sure how to explain it…"
Elizabeth Granger says, "If I may, Hermione." She says, "You've heard of King Arthur and Merlin, no doubt." Ron looks at her and nods, as does Luna. Frankly, she suspects Luna of knowing the whole thing and just keeping quiet, from the dreamy look on her face. "Well, it's a more recent form of the contract – for one thing, it's written – but we will be petitioning the Wizengamot to take on Draco as our court wizard."
Harry's mouth drops open, as does Ron's. Well, at least they're quiet. For now. Until the shock wears off.
Luna nods, her expression unchanged. Ginny actually smirks. Actually, Hermione would suspect her of storing up the tale for her mother. Molly Weasley would be going through her shelf of books on housekeeping charms, so that Draco wouldn't make a mess of things.
Now that the ice is broken, Hermione takes up the theme. "If the Wizengamot grants the petition, then Draco will put Hypatia under my parents' sponsorship."
Draco adds, "So if she turns out a Squib, they'll be able to help us with the marriage alliance."
Harry makes a face. "Er, Malfoy, I think your information may be a bit out of date. For England, anyway."
Draco ruffles a bit, then catches himself. "Potter." A pause, then he says, "Of course Hypatia can marry whom she likes. But it's always good to have proper guidance in the matter." He glances deferentially toward Elizabeth Granger as he says this, carefully not making eye contact with Andromeda, who certainly didn't turn to any Pureblood's notion of proper guidance in the question of her own choice of husband.
Andromeda nods. "And there's the matter of her schooling, of course. I think a Muggle primary school would be the best choice, all in all. But that's for later."
Harry says, "That's bizarre. Hiring Malfoy as a court wizard."
A silence falls. At length she says, "Draco, I think it might work best if you stepped out a moment." Elizabeth nods, and takes Hypatia. William says to Draco, "We'll sit in the study."
Once the door had closes behind William and Draco, Hermione turns to the five of them: Harry and Ron, Ginny and Luna. Neville looks at her inquiringly. She says, "I can't say it in front of him… but." She looks down. "I had no idea."
It comes out in a whisper. "He's not an only child." She says, "It's not hypothetical, any of it, the part about killing squibs. So we're doing this dodge, this court wizard's contract. Like something out of a television comedy, isn't it? Some sort of magical creature comes to the suburbs…" She turns up her hands in her lap, staring at them. "They're not even sure how to interpret some of the forms. Things have changed. Even if Nicholas Flamel were still alive, I'm not sure he'd be able to help. This was old when he was born. The last one was over six hundred years ago. So Kingsley and Andromeda and I have been trying to negotiate how to do this. My parents aren't royalty, or even gentry, so they don't have a court or camp-followers even. Draco has very few living relatives who would approve of this sort of thing, so we had to set up Narcissa as the one to sign off on it. And you.., the five of you, they decided you were close enough to qualify as my sworn brothers and sisters in arms. So you're standing in for my … " she pauses over the word, because it's so absurd. ".. my court. Or my parents' court." She says, "And mercifully Draco is of age, though we still need Narcissa to approve of him placing Hypatia under my parents' protection."
She pauses, feeling dizzy. Yes, the press has prepared the ground but there's very little that feels prepared, now that she's said to her friends: we're adopting Draco Malfoy. They've faced him down every year for seven years… and now they're trying to protect him. No, not him. His baby sister, for reasons that are completely a point of principle. She's undertaking this bond, but so are her friends.
"It's the last marriage contract of its kind where children are at issue," she says. "There are others, but those couples are either both dead, both in Azkaban, or separated…" by death or by the walls of Azkaban, she doesn't need to spell out.
"So this is the last one. If all goes well, there will never be one like this again. The Wizengamot is deliberating on it, but Kingsley says it's most likely they'll decide on abolition. The last months, with the clinic, that's made an impression on them." She says, "We've been able to face each other, and them, and it feels as if the war is over." Lavender looks at her, and the dead light of November catches in the silver scars on her face. "The post-war, that won't ever be over, I think."
Ron nods, and swallows hard. Ginny and Harry clasp hands.
She says, "But you all have to agree. That's what they're going to ask in the hearing: do you agree, or at least do you not object. If any one of you objects, it invalidates the petition." She says, "They didn't want their people going into hostile situations, I think. There's more than one court wizard on record who was poisoned. So they tried to be sure that the contract was voluntary. After all, the king or queen isn't the only voice at court." She adds, "And this predates any notion of an absolute monarch."
Ron says, "So… you said that it makes you and Malfoy – relatives."
"Foster brother and sister, actually. Yes. More so that he can't marry me. They didn't want wizard-Muggle marriages. And on the other side, the Muggle princes didn't want the court wizard interfering with their heirs. So that's it."
"That's bizarre," Harry repeats. She nods. It is.
She knows she gets garrulous under stress, but she continues anyway. "It's more like adoption than marriage. If we're successful, then Draco is taken into the family, I mean my family, on this side of the border, so in point of wizarding law, we're, ah, foster-siblings, and of course the binding affects all of our kin, both sides of the family, so it's a kind of alliance I suppose." She takes a deep breath. "And anyway I didn't think it should be too much of a problem since you're cousins anyway."
They're all silent just then, and Hermione hopes that the ground has been prepared with the press coverage, especially in the Quibbler, so that everyone knows what's at stake for Hypatia. Harry looks from Teddy to Hypatia, obviously enough, and his arms close protectively around his godson.
"If it were Teddy," he says, "I'd want him protected."
Ginny says, "Does that mean we have to see him, ah, socially?"
Andromeda cuts in, her grown-up's manner unmistakable. "All we're asking is that you not raise an objection to the petition." She says, "The only real binding is that my sister's marriage contract is superseded as regards Hypatia, and Hermione and Draco are siblings in the eyes of the law. Which really means that they can't marry, or anything of the sort."
Ginny smirks and says, "I'm sure that's an enormous relief to both of them." She's apparently considering the comic possibilities, for her smirk widens into a grin as she adds, "Neville too."
Teddy wriggles in Harry's lap, growing restive, and Harry releases him to toddle among the chairs. He's very much more steady on his feet now. The awkward silence persists, as everyone pretends to be watching his progress, first toward Crookshanks, who absents himself, and then toward his baby cousin, who greets him with a squawk and some noises that seem to be groping their way toward English.
Neville breaks the silence. "I won't raise an objection."
Ginny shrugs. "If that's all there is… well, I suppose not me either."
Harry shakes his head. "Not me either. Just as long as you're sure."
Ron stretches out his legs, as if he's been sitting in the chair for hours, and takes a long sip of his tea, looking first at Hermione, and then at Hypatia. He shakes his head. "Daftest thing I've ever heard." Lavender elbows him discreetly.
Luna says, "Of course." Of course, because she knows the case forward and back, as the de facto assistant editor of the resurrected Quibbler.
Andromeda says, "Of course you'll want to go home and think on it." She adds, "And once you've made up your mind, we'll want your sworn oath."
No fool she, Hermione thinks.
"Fair enough," Ron says. Lavender smiles at him, and then at Teddy, who's listening with a thoughtful face to Hypatia's excited gabble.
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When the consensus has been reached, Andromeda gets up to fetch Draco. He re-enters the room, dead-white and tense as he has not been since facing the Wizengamot as an accused war criminal.
Hermione says to him, "They've agreed." They nod all around, and Draco relaxes.
Ron says to Draco, "The war's over. First thing after the hearing, you're coming to the Burrow with us." He and Ginny exchange a conspiratorial look. "Mum would insist on it. Good manners and all, cousin."
Hermione doesn't even want to know what that's about.
Draco nods, and shakes hands with Ron, and then says to Harry, "Potter," only not with the same animus as before. "You were frightfully decent at the trial. And this is above and beyond."
Harry offers his hand, and suddenly Draco looks as if he might burst into tears. Instead, he stands up even straighter, accepts the handshake, and says, "Thank you," and adds, "Cousin."
ooo
Then there was the political dimension. She didn't mention to her friends just how flimsy the whole business seemed to her, then and now. She'd been more than candid about that with Minister Shacklebolt. She'd argued with Shacklebolt, thinking it better to find the weaknesses behind closed doors, rather than see the petition shot down in court.
"Harry and Ron and Ginny and Luna and Neville didn't swear fealty to me. If anything, we promised to help Harry."
"It's the nearest we could find. The notion of Muggle-born witches and wizards was as yet controversial in those days, so for the purposes of the petition you are merely your parents' heir. Your sworn companions stand in as your parents' courtiers."
She must have looked even more skeptical than she sounded, for he continued, "Yes, I know, it's stretching a point. But the matter had to be hammered about even in the case of the merchant in the 1300s."
"And the Wizengamot is willing to accept this imposture."
"I rather think that times are changing." She looked at him, as if to say, Come off it, Minister. I don't expect platitudes from you.
To his credit, he recognized that look as well. "Even the Pureblood die-hards are rather reluctant to see another war in our time. And the virtue of binding the Malfoy heir to a Muggle court-wizardship is that it will take him out of the running as Lucius Malfoy's political successor."
She could feel herself frowning again, no matter how she tried to keep a neutral expression on her face. "I'm not sure exactly how. I'd think most would see it as the Malfoys doing their usual changing-of-the-spots."
Kingsley smiled, and this time it looked distinctly carnivorous. "They won't forget the conclusion of the ritual, if the petition is granted."
She shook her head in confusion.
"He will swear a formal oath of fealty to your House."
Now she was confused in earnest. The Minister clarified.
"The House of Granger."
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