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Hermione had insisted that Harry must accompany her home for the Christmas holidays. He didn't know what she had told her parents to get them to agree to having him because they'd never invited him or Ron before and he knew she hadn't mentioned their marriage, wanting the opportunity to explain in person. He wouldn't have minded if she wanted to go home and explain things on her own but he also understood that she wanted his support.
Harry was understandably extremely nervous meeting Hermione's parents again. He'd only met them briefly while doing his school shopping with the Weasleys before second year and he didn't think they'd been very impressed with any of them that day.
It turned out that Hermione had told them she was bringing a friend home with her without telling them who she'd invited, or mentioning the pertinent detail that this friend was a boy. As a result, the adult Grangers were already unhappy with the situation before they even brought up the emergency marriage act or the step they had taken to protect Hermione from a potentially abusive marriage. Harry was also upset with Hermione over this, it wasn't fair to him or to her parents to have his presence thrown at them without warning, and he'd had more than enough Christmases where he hadn't been welcome. He would have preferred to stay at school. He pulled his hand from hers.
"You brought home a boyfriend without telling us?" Daniel Granger asked unhappily. He was ready to leave the boy there at the train station. "Boy, have you got enough money to get home?"
"I don't have a home to go to. My relatives aren't expecting me," Harry didn't offer further explanation and the Grangers just assumed that his family were away from home.
"Do you have another friend you can stay with?" Daniel demanded, refusing to back down.
"No Sir, but I have enough money to catch the Knight bus back to school," Harry replied, trying to look confident and unhurt by Hermione's father's reaction.
"Do you have enough for two tickets? I didn't bring any Galleons with me," Hermione asked, grabbing his hand again and holding on tightly so Harry couldn't let go without an effort.
Harry looked surprised but nodded hesitantly. The Grangers looked shocked.
"You would go back to school with Harry instead of coming home for Christmas?" Emma said heartbrokenly.
"It's not my home if Harry isn't welcome there!" Hermione stated bluntly.
Surprisingly the next protest came not from her father who was too busy trying to control his temper and fear that he'd lost his daughter, but from Harry. "No Hermione, don't do this. You can't lose your family because of me."
"Trust me Harry, you're as important to me as they are," Hermione said gently.
"Now wait a minute. You are not going to blackmail us like that, Missy! Go and get in the car with your mother. I want a word with Harry," Daniel ordered.
"There's no blackmail intended Dad. I am returning to Hogwarts with Harry. All our friends went home for the holidays and I won't leave him alone to worry," Hermione said more calmly than she felt.
"Worry about what?" Emma asked.
"Worry about whether Dad has calmed down yet and how he is treating me," Hermione said bluntly.
"Why would he be concerned about that? We've never mistreated you," Emma said offended.
"You both just refused to let the only friend I've ever invited home into the house, what is he supposed to think," Hermione asked snarkily.
"That we are responsible parents who are unwilling to have a boy we don't know staying in our home with our daughter while we're sleeping or at work," Daniel snapped. "Christmas is supposed to be a time for family."
"And just what do you think is going to happen at home that couldn't happen at school while you're a thousand miles away?" Hermione asked sarcastically.
"Hermione…" Daniel started.
"No Dad. I've never been so humiliated in my life. Harry and I are going back to Hogwarts and WE will see you at Easter break," Hermione said showing how upset she really was.
Emma went to wrap her arm around her but Hermione jerked away and buried her head in Harry's shoulder.
"Hermione we are sorry, but you should have told us that the friend you wanted to bring home was a boy," Emma said scolding.
"You do realise that my two best friends have always been boys," Hermione said tiredly.
"That's no reason to assume we'd know you had invited one of them. You've never asked to have either boy stay before," Emma replied.
"That's because until now Harry's movements have been restricted so he couldn't come to visit and Ron knows nothing of the muggle world. I think he'd be afraid to come over and stay," Hermione said. "Of course I have other friends, even some new ones this term, but Harry is the only person I'm close enough with to want him to come for Christmas."
"We don't even know him," Daniel said.
"That's not the point. You've never even met any of my friends other than Harry and Ron, but you were happy to have one of them stay," Hermione countered. "Besides it's as much your fault as mine if you feel you don't know him. He's been my best friend for more than six years. You've met him before today but you barely bothered to say hello."
"You are coming home. Any more rebellious behaviour from you and we will discuss whether you will be grounded for the summer," Daniel growled.
"You forget that I'm seventeen. I'm an adult in the wizarding world," Hermione said.
"You're still financially dependent on me," Daniel said.
"I don't have to be," Hermione said. The headmaster had waived Hogwarts fees for any students who refused to continue to support their children now they were married, particularly those who got married because they had already been matched by the ministry before the corruption was exposed.
"What do you mean you don't have to be?" Daniel asked derisively. "You surely don't think Harry's going to be able to support you."
"No, I'm sure he would if necessary but there's a scholarship fund for students whose parents disown them or refuse to let them compete their magical education," Hermione replied. "Of course, I would have to cut all ties with you to qualify but if it comes down to Harry and Hogwarts or being miserable trying to catch up nearly six years of muggle education in Crawley and ending up in a dead end job because there's no way I could get into university, then it's not really much of a choice."
"Hermione don't! Please! I'm not worth giving up your parents for. Go home and explain what's going on when they're ready to listen or let's go and you can write to them, but don't stand here making threats that you don't want to have to carry through," Harry begged.
"Let's all take Harry's advice and try to calm down. We'll all go home and have a nice cup of tea and clear the air because I am not giving up Christmas with our daughter because of your overprotective attitude, Daniel Granger!" Emma said determinedly, realising as Harry had if she didn't step in between Daniel and Hermione things might be said which wouldn't be forgiven or forgotten once their tempers calmed down.
Daniel took it for the order that it was and nodded. "I suppose one night couldn't hurt. We can bring you back here to catch your bus tomorrow," he agreed as they began walking towards the car.
"No need, the bus will pick me up from anywhere in England or Scotland, I just have to stand on the edge of a road and stick out my wand," Harry said.
"So, what has been going on at Hogwarts this term?" Emma asked as they began their two hour journey to Crawley.
"School itself has been fine but there's things going on in the ministry of magic that are affecting things. Please I can't explain this while you're driving," Hermione said nervously.
"Find a café to stop at," Emma said.
"No this is wizarding stuff we can't talk about it in public. Please just let's get home and then we can have a rational discussion," Hermione almost begged. She could have set up privacy charms in a café but she was worried that this was another attempt to delay letting Harry into their home in the hope that they could talk her out of demanding they let him stay with them or returning to Hogwarts with him before Christmas.
"Very well then, let's go straight home," Emma agreed before starting a conversation that would hopefully calm her husband and daughter down a little. "What can you tell me about the term. Are you still top of your class?"
"Yes Mum, in everything except Defence Against the Dark Arts where Harry has me beat by miles, he has a natural gift for it, and Herbology where Neville is almost a prodigy, the same as always. I spent a lot of my spare time the last two months completing a special project for Ancient Runes, learning about rituals and how to draw ritual circles and how the strings of runes interact with each other and with the ritual chants and movements to add power to each other."
"That sounds interesting, what sort of rituals did you study?" Emma asked.
"Well we learned a little about a lot of different rituals. The more powerful ones require blood sacrifice. The wards at Harry's relatives would be blood runes, very powerful because they were based on his mother's willing sacrifice, and there are a lot of very dark rituals involving the unwilling sacrifice of blood, animal creature or human. We also looked at protection rituals, an ancient bonding ritual, healing rituals. The circle we drew took two or three of us about forty hours to complete," Hermione named the rituals she'd come across while researching more about the bonding ritual they were going to use. She was hoping having some of this background knowledge of how hard she'd worked to find an implement the solution would help when they found out about the ritual they'd used to bond.
"What makes you so good at Defence Against the Dark Arts, Harry?" Emma asked.
"Quick reflexes and good aim, mostly. I can pull my wand out cast a shield or fire a spell, hit the target and line up a second person quicker than anyone else in my class," Harry replied.
"He also has more power than most if not all our class so his shields hold up better and he can break an opponent shield easier than the rest of us," Hermione said.
"So, it's not about knowledge or book learning?" Daniel asked.
"No in fact, nobody in our class knows more spells than Hermione but having more spells to choose from doesn't really help in a duel," Harry replied.
"Just like knowing the Latin name for a plant and all its uses in potions doesn't give me the instinctual knowledge of what care they need that Neville has, his plants just thrive and sometimes he can't even explain how he knows that they need something specific that isn't in the Herbology textbook, or even goes against the textbook in some cases, he just says the textbooks are wrong or that this is an exception they haven't included," Hermione added sighing.
Hermione and her mother made light conversation for the rest of the journey, Emma telling Hermione the news about their extended family, a lot of things she'd already mentioned in her letters until they arrived home and settled at the kitchen table, Emma made tea but didn't offer snacks and Daniel made it clear that Hermione needed to explain herself.
"Why didn't you tell us who you wanted to bring home for Christmas?" Daniel demanded.
"I need to explain what's going on in the wizarding world before I can explain that," Hermione said hesitantly.
"Why?" Daniel snapped.
"Well if I jump in to the explanation at the end it won't make any sense to you, I need to start at the beginning and that's not me inviting Harry home for Christmas," Hermione said. "Have you been reading 'The Daily Prophet'?"
"No, you said it was mostly propaganda so we stopped getting it?" Emma replied while Daniel just glared at Harry. He was even more upset by the reminder that this was the boy the newspaper had declared a dangerous dishonest lunatic and attention seeker, and how protective Hermione had been about him when she read it.
"Then you won't have seen this," Hermione said pulling the front page from the first of November out of her bag.
Emma read it quickly and passed it to Daniel. "You have to get married? Who to? Harry?" she asked shocked.
"No, it wasn't Harry. They matched me to a pureblood bigot about nine years older than me. But we kind of found a way around it. We found a way to get married before the ministry could force us to, so we could choose who we spent the rest of our lives with," Hermione said.
"So, you brought your future husband home to meet us?" Emma asked looking worried. She was aware they hadn't made a very good impression on Harry and hoped he wouldn't change his mind about marrying Hermione and leave her with the wizard the ministry had chosen for her.
"Or is he your husband already?" Daniel demanded.
"Yes Dad he is, we couldn't wait, my appointment to get married at the ministry was three weeks ago," Hermione said.
"And you couldn't tell us before the wedding, we would have met you somewhere to attend," Emma asked shocked and disappointed.
"To try to talk me out of it," Hermione retorted.
"To try to come up with a better solution," Daniel stated.
"There was no other solution, believe me we looked, there were about thirty of us affected by the new law at the time and we all searched everywhere we could," Hermione said. "Even leaving the country or snapping my wand and forsaking magic might not have stopped the portkey charmed letter from delivering me to my forced wedding ceremony."
"And you couldn't ask us to the wedding because…?" Emma asked.
"We couldn't risk the invitation being intercepted. We had real problems with mail being intercepted by the ministry last year," Harry said wanting to give Hermione an out so she didn't have to admit their marriage was done by a sex ritual.
"We also couldn't draw attention to what was going on by leaving the school like that. If the ministry got suspicious of what we were up to they might have stepped in and stopped the rest of the students having a chance to form a marriage bond too. It wouldn't have been fair. Not to mention that the rune circles took too much work to draw one outside of Hogwarts," Hermione said.
Daniel turned to Harry, "Give me one good reason I shouldn't kick you out of here and withdraw Hermione from Hogwarts!" he demanded.
"The wedding ritual we used binds us both to unbreakable fidelity. She could never marry anyone else or even have an affair with anyone else. I know you don't like it that Hermione got married so young but she really truly didn't have a choice. Separating us would guarantee your daughter spends the rest of her life alone and childless unless we manage to find one another again, and if you did that I would be arrested in three months' time and imprisoned until Hermione was found. Hermione would also be arrested and sent to Azkaban for three months if she ever set foot back in Great Britain," Harry replied resignedly, using the argument Terry Boot had told him worked on his own parents. Unfortunately for Harry the difference was he was there in front of them and Daniel and Emma Granger didn't have days to absorb the information and form a rational response.
"What? Why?" Daniel yelled.
"The emergency marriage act was brought back to guarantee an increase in the population, Hermione and I have to start trying to have a baby as soon as she leaves Hogwarts. If she isn't pregnant within three months of her leaving, they will either imprison us for lack of trying or force feed us fertility drugs if we can prove we have been trying unsuccessfully," Harry explained.
"Please understand that this isn't Harry's fault. I married him to get out of the match the ministry chose for me. I asked him to marry me, Harry didn't propose and give me this ring until later that night before the ritual," Hermione begged.
"Why would the ministry match be so much worse than this boy? At least the ministry match would have been able to support a wife," Daniel asked looking at Harry in his worn-out jeans and ill-fitting jumper and raggedy flannelette shirt worn as a jacket, totally inadequate for the cold temperatures of December in London.
"The matches were being made by one of the worst pureblood bigots not to have joined the Death Eaters, and Hermione's chosen match was also one of them and a misogynist as well," Harry replied.
"What does that mean?" Daniel demanded.
"Pure blood bigots believe that witches like Hermione and my mother aren't as good as the rest of the wizarding world because their parents and ancestors didn't have magic. The Death Eaters were a terrorist group who believed in torturing and killing families like yours. Terrence Higgs also believed witches were only useful for breeding, he wouldn't have let Hermione finish school or have a job let alone the post graduate training she wants to do. She'd have a baby each year until she produced a son with strong magic or died trying," Harry said bluntly. "He's also a terrible bully and sadistic, I was surprised he didn't become a death eater."
Emma began to cry.
"Don't worry Mum, I married Harry to escape that. We will still need to produce a child the year after I graduate Hogwarts and another within five years but Harry will support my desire to attend university or accept an apprenticeship and become a working mother," Hermione tried to reassure her.
"You'll never fall in love," Emma said heartbrokenly.
"Well I'm still hoping that I'll fall in love with Harry one day," Hermione said practically.
"But what if you don't, you're still stuck with him. You'll never have the thrill of being romanced or the excitement of planning your wedding or the choice of who to spend the rest of your life with," Emma said.
"I did have that choice and I chose Harry. We can still have a proper wedding the summer after next when we finish Hogwarts before we have a baby. It would have to be in August after Harry turns eighteen though," Hermione offered to soothe her parents' concerns about what people might think if Hermione appeared to be an unmarried teenage mum at eighteen."
"Would you want to do that?" Emma asked.
Hermione looked at Harry who shrugged, indicating that he didn't mind either way. "We didn't really have a wedding this time and it wasn't something we felt like celebrating, it was an emergency measure. I think I would like a proper wedding to celebrate starting our adult lives together," she said carefully.
"It would be a muggle wedding, would your friends be able to behave and act like muggles? I won't have our minister, family or friends obliviwhatsit," Daniel said sternly.
"Well our best friends lately are the other muggleborns who were trapped with the same awful futures we were and who helped with the research and drawing the rune circles for the marriage rituals. Most of them and their partners would fit well in the muggle world," Hermione replied.
"What about those Weasleys?" Daniel asked uncompromisingly.
"They're the nearest thing Harry has to a family, we are on the outs at the moment but I'm sure they'll come around. It will be up to Harry if he invites them, I won't deny him the right to invite the people he cares about just because he doesn't have a family," Hermione said generously.
"Considering that our marriage is the reason they're not currently talking to us I don't really see the need to invite them. Even if we're getting along again by then the wedding would probably stir things up again," Harry replied. "I would like to invite Remus though and his wife Tonks."
"What do your parents do for a living Harry?" Daniel asked.
Hermione frowned at her father.
"My father was an Auror, a magical policeman, or given that we were at war at the time more of a magical soldier, nobody ever told me if Mum had a job after Hogwarts, but I do know she was a stay at home Mum after I was born until she was killed," Harry replied.
"Do you not listen to me talk about my friends?" Hermione demanded crossly.
"Of course, I do princess," Daniel said confused.
"Then I'm positive you must have heard me mention a dozen times over the years that Harry's parents were killed by Voldemort when he was a baby. He's famous for surviving the attack, and I just finished telling you that the Weasleys were the closest thing he had to a family," Hermione retorted unimpressed.
"I'm sorry, Harry" Daniel said abashed. "Who do you live with?"
Hermione scowled at her father at this question too. "If you listened to me, you would know. I've been worried about Harry staying with his relatives for years," she growled.
"I lived with my mother's sister up until now but, I don't plan on returning there. I had to stay until now for protection the blood wards gave me against Voldemort and the Death Eaters but Voldemort is dead and most of the worst Death Eaters have been rounded up. I'll be able to defend myself against the rest once I turn seventeen," Harry replied.
"Do you have plans where you are going to stay?" Emma asked.
"I'll stay at 'The Leaky Cauldron' or at my godfather's house until I turn seventeen and receive my inheritance," Harry replied aware that an invitation from the Grangers wasn't likely to be forthcoming.
"Once you receive your inheritance will you be able to afford a house and to support a wife?" Daniel asked.
"I already own my godfather's house, but it will take quite a bit of work to make it properly habitable," Harry replied. "I think I own the ruins to my parents' house in Godric's Hollow too but Sirius said the house blew up so it probably needs pulling down and rebuilding, even if the dark magic hasn't polluted the land."
"Why do you own your godfather's house?" Daniel asked.
"He was killed in the battle at the ministry last June, he didn't have children of his own his parents and brother were deceased and he wasn't on good terms with the rest of his family," Harry said bluntly.
"And I told you that too," Hermione huffed.
"Where is the house?" Emma asked.
Harry tried to answer, then shook his head. "It's in London, about twenty-five minutes' walk from the ministry of magic."
"It's in Farringdon, the wards won't let us say the actual address, I stayed there with the Weasleys the summer before last" Hermione said.
"So even though it's run down the land value itself would be worth something," Daniel said.
"If we could alter the wards to let people see it," Harry said.
"But if you own the house, don't you control the wards?" Emma asked confused.
"No, I don't. The house was used as a safe house for the order during the war. Dumbledore added to the wards. As head of house Black I can take control of the Black family wards once I'm seventeen and I can demand that control of the wards Dumbledore has added be handed over to me or the wards be dismantled now that the war is over," Harry replied.
"Have you told your relatives about your marriage?" Emma asked.
"No," Harry said without offering any explanation.
"Do they have contact with the magical world, do they know about this new law? Would they approve of it?" Daniel asked.
"Are you kidding, my relatives don't want any contact with witches or wizards and they would be furious that the government is trying to increase the number of witches and wizards in Britain," Harry said laughing.
"Your relatives would be angry that they're trying to increase the birth rates by forcing teenagers to have babies, not upset that they wanted to marry you off to some stranger?" Emma asked curiously.
"No, the fact that I'd have to marry someone who isn't going to love me or want me any more than they did would be the only part of the law that they would approve of," Harry replied dryly. They took me in unwillingly when my parents were killed because the wards protected them too. They're afraid of magic and they hate any mention of magic or the wizarding world, which is why I'm not planning on going back there unless Dumbledore has a damn good reason for it that he's prepared to share with me."
"You're not old enough to live on your own," Emma scolded.
"Why not? I've been looking after myself for as long as I can remember. I did all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, gardening and home maintenance for the last ten years. The only thing I didn't do without help was the shopping because I couldn't drive the car and it was too far to walk without the ice-cream melting before I got home and Petunia likes to gossip with the other shoppers," Harry replied. What he didn't say was that he hoped by then Hermione would want to stay with him.
"Is there anybody you want to visit or anything you need to do while you're here?" Emma asked.
"I need to go to Gringotts but I can take the Knight Bus to get there," Harry said. "After that Hermione has promised to take me shopping. If I'm not going back to the Dursleys then I don't need to worry about them accusing me of stealing if I get new clothes and I'd rather have muggle clothes than robes."
"Glad to hear it. I have nothing against magic but I cannot understand why they're so determined not to fit in with the rest of the world," Daniel said.
"It's the purebloods, they disdain anything and everything non-magical so of course muggles couldn't do anything better than they can," Harry replied dryly.
"Well as much as Hermione has told us about you over the years, she's never mentioned if you have any allergies? Or any foods you don't like?" Emma said questioningly, making sure that Hermione and Daniel both knew she had been listening to her daughter talk about Harry for years.
"No Ma'am I'm not allergic to anything that I know of and I eat everything put in front of me, but my Uncle refused to eat anything but plain British foods and that seems to be all Hogwarts serve as well, so my exposure to spices and things is pretty low," Harry said. He'd heard Hermione and Padma talking about hot curries and comparing that to other chilli dishes and was a little wary of some of the foods they'd described.
"Call me Emma, Harry. Have you tried pizza?" Emma asked.
"No Ma'am, Emma," Harry replied.
"What toppings?" Emma asked turning to Hermione who knew about pizza topping options and Harry's normal food choices.
"I think Harry will like one with the lot, he eats a lot of vegetables when we get some that haven't been overcooked, and maybe BBQ meat lovers," Hermione said diplomatically suggesting her father's favourite pizza as well as the one she really thought Harry would love.
A/N: Thank you to J.F.C, Ghostisreading, katmom, Rc0321, mwinter1, Melikalilly, Ronin Kenshin, The Wandmaker, jkarr, starboy454, BMS, Lientjuhh, delia cerrano, KrisB-71854, Tyler'sPrincess, daithi4377, caughtinblackseyes, tyrannicpuppy, roon0, .Wonderland.8510, Jostanos, Rori Potter, mckertis, KrystylSky, Beyondthesea16, flame55, HinataMorningstar, mikanMD and all those who followed or favourited for your support.
