ENDEARED IN DARKNESS
The atmosphere of the Gryffindor common room was so tense with apprehension, there seemed to be a hum in the air. It was late evening and all the seventh-year girls had been mysteriously summoned by their Head of House for an unstated purpose.
"Seventh-year" was not practically true, as this was their eighth year at Hogwarts. But since students of every age had been made to redo their previous term, the school had decided not to add to confusion by altering vocabulary.
War against Voldemort in its final throes had so ravaged the normalcy of wizarding customs, (students pulled out mid-semester, classes indefinitely postponed, exams untaken), no one was surprised when, in the wake of ultimate victory, the more level headed among them concluded they might as well call the year a "lost term" and start over from scratch.
Very few expressed quibbles or resistance. It was a relief for most to have something as mundane as schoolwork to reestablish regularity in their lives.
Now, barely three weeks into their new "seventh" year, Hermione, Lavender, and Parvati were understandably wary of anything out of the ordinary.
And this cryptic meeting in the after hours of the evening certainly qualified as out of the ordinary.
"What is it, Professor?" Hermione asked quietly into the silence.
Lavender fussed with her plaited hair. "Please, I really don't have the constitution for surprises."
McGonagall wore her customary thin-lipped austerity that seemed to have magnified somehow since becoming Headmistress. Her arms folded across her chest as she let out a short breath and Hermione saw an expression cross her face that she found entirely impossible to interpret.
"You will be told in short order," McGonagall replied curtly. "No fretting for now, it does no one any good. Miss Granger, Professor Flitwick is waiting for you outside the portrait hole. You will follow him to the dungeons. Miss Brown, you will come with me to the Astronomy wing. Miss Patil, you will wait here for further instructions."
Sensing that no further illumination was forthcoming, the girls did what they were told.
As Hermione made her way out of the common room, she saw a glimpse of Ginny, tucked discreetly into the dormitory stairwell, eavesdropping.
Ginny caught Hermione's eyes briefly and gave her a questioning look. What? She mouthed.
Hermione shrugged, shaking her head. No idea, she mouthed back.
Flitwick was waiting in the hall just as McGonagall said. Mirroring all the same crypticism as his Headmistress, he merely beckoned Hermione to walk with him.
Hermione followed his small form in silence, too nervous to ask questions. The war had done a number on everyone and she didn't count herself out. As much as she used to throw words at anything that moved, especially when she was nervous, the fall of Voldemort, and the deaths of people she loved, had softened her impulsive instincts.
Nowadays, she carried herself with a bit more shrewdness, played things closer to the chest.
She had learned that from Harry.
Brave Harry who vanquished Voldemort with such a righteous flash of vengeance when Dumbledore fell in battle. So heralded as the chosen boy of wonder, he too now spent his time in more contemplative silence than most of his peers.
Only Ron seemed able to maintain his former cheery self. Perhaps because his family had come out more or less unscathed. Bill with a few scratches, Fred and George with a new penchant for the shakes, Mr. Weasley several fingers short, but everyone alive and healthy and ready to start rebuilding.
The Order had been the hardest hit as they were the ones who commenced the first line assault. Among the dead: Alastair Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Nymphadora Tonks, and many more witches and wizards caught in the crossfire whom Hermione only knew of in passing but had never personally met.
Lupin made it through by the skin of his teeth. He and Snape together had taken up the vanguard near the end of it all, plowing their way through wrath and danger to clear a path for Harry to make the final blow.
Hermione hadn't been there (thankfully), but she'd read the reports. Bellatrix Lestrange jumped them unexpectedly and caught Lupin in the back with a torturous curse that took him to his knees, suffocating him swiftly. Only Snape's merciless dispatching of the deranged woman and quick dismantling of the curse managed to spare Lupin from sudden demise.
After everything was over, once the dust clouds had settled, Lupin returned to Hogwarts for the new term. Now a war hero, he was officially exonerated from prejudice and allowed once again to take on the mantle of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (accepting all proper precautions, of course).
His countenance, if possible, was gaunter than ever, haunted (as they all were), by the ghosts of fallen friends. But he seemed keen to be back in the castle and most students who remembered him were thrilled to be under his tutelage.
Even Snape seemed less of a mind to pick the same fights from before. The troubled waters between him and Lupin mostly seemed to have calmed on this side of the storm. And with Voldemort out of the picture, with no more double life to lead, Snape appeared to make no further indication of interest in the Dark Arts position. Whether out of sourness on the subject or self-preservation, Hermione was not sure. She imagined she would never know the secrets behind his enigmatic mind. And with Dumbledore gone, she further imagined that no one ever would.
When Hermione and Flitwick finally arrived in the dungeons, Hermione was surprised to find their path leading to the advanced potions laboratory. Flitwick bid her to enter with a flutter of his hand and she did so with trepidation.
The lab still felt somewhat unfamiliar. Reserved exclusively for seventh-years, last year was the first time she had actually seen it. But their studies had been so infrequent, what with Snape being very often called away to take part in increasingly harrowing situations, she barely knew the full prospects it held.
At the moment, the lab was empty, but Hermione could see bright light beaming from behind Snape's private office.
Flitwick knocked firmly on the office door before opening it and walking hurriedly inside.
A female voice began speaking immediately as Hermione blinked, dazedly tried to take in everything at once:
"Please enter, Miss Granger, there is much to discuss and we have several more students to see before the night is over."
Snape's office was of modest size and tightly packed with an elegant assortment of clutter. Shelves laden with objects so exotic, Hermione's gaze passed by them without any spark of recognition.
Several people were clustered inside this relatively small space. Two women, whom Hermione had never seen before, stood before the desk. Flitwick fell into place beside them. And there, in the very back of the room, pressed so deeply into the shadows she almost missed him entirely, was Snape. He was clad, as usual, in head to toe black, leaning against the bookshelves with his arms crossed over his chest and looking more than ever like an overgrown bat at roost.
"This is Dagmar Vance, Miss Granger," Flitwick explained nervously. "She is from the Ministry."
The woman Flitwick indicated was, Hermione thought, a woman of almost Victorian refinement. She was not what one would call ravishing but she was darkly glamorous.
Pale green eyes met Hermione's brown. A cutting gaze. No nonsense, all order.
Dagmar's hair was a dark and lustrous brunette. Her witch's robes were forest green and well fitted with her neckline buttoned up past her collar bone, yet somehow tailored so well that the look was almost sensual, cat-like and flagrantly feminine.
Beside Dagmar stood another woman. Slight and fragile, with wispy white hair and wide, watery eyes.
"As I said," Dagmar continued, "we are short of time this evening so I'll get right to the point. Our Wizarding population is dwindling rapidly. We all knew this, of course, but no one ever took the initiative to do any work or run the projections. Until me."
Her face was as inscrutable as stone.
"Those projections produced troubling numbers of disastrous proportions. Research has further revealed that the inbreeding of Pure-bloods has so muddied our pool that magical unions are, more often than not, producing unmagical progeny. The math does not lie and action must be taken."
Dagmar cleared her throat. The woman beside her hurriedly pulled a scroll from beneath her arm and handed it over.
Dagmar unrolled the scroll in one fluid flick, her cold gaze roving over the parchment as she read:
"By Ministry decree, every uncoupled Pure-blood of age must marry an uncoupled Muggle-born of age and produce a magical heir. Where there is no suitable Muggle-born available for a Pure-blood prospect, Half-blood matches have been arranged instead."
Hermione's ears were ringing.
It was so hard to grasp, she felt like she was swimming through molasses.
She knew the war had thinned their numbers. Numbers on both sides, of course, Voldemort's followers being, though despicable, still in practice, magical brethren.
But, to come to this…
Dagmar continued. "Hermione Granger, you are documented as a Muggle-born witch and thus have been called here this evening to receive your match."
Hermione felt her mouth fall open in shock. Now? She thought wildly. Here? Me?
Desperately, she tried to form words, to form any thought beyond blind panic, but her mind was lost in a tangled mess of brilliant static.
Dagmar did not wait for Hermione to catch up. She plowed on, no longer reading from her parchment. "Matches have been chosen according to compatibility and timeline of fertility, prioritizing younger women with older men for the sake of efficiency. Women, as we know, have limited time and must start young. Men who are young have plenty of time to perform their use later."
Older men?
Hermione's eyes widened. She felt her chest seize as she looked over at Flitwick, aghast.
"No, my dear," he said quickly. "Not me."
Everyone in the room apart from Dagmar gave a jump as Snape suddenly erupted from his position in the back of the room.
"This is institutionalized derangement of the highest order!" he roared, throwing up his hands and striding into the full circle of firelight. "To even entertain the idea of wedding me to this obsequious, prattle-mouth, grade-grubbing, mouse of a girl! Has the Ministry become so unhinged as to dredge the daycares for their indentured child brides? Why stop there, Miss Vance, shall we seek to enlist toddlers into the Auror infantry as well?"
Dagmar watched calmly as Snape completed his tirade. She waited a moment to be certain he was finished before responding. "You may refuse this match, Professor, but the alternatives I have to offer are likely not ones you will appreciate. Our people are on the brink of extinction. So called prattle and grade-grubbing seem shallow discomforts in the face of such circumstances. As to your misgivings of youth, Miss Granger is eighteen years old and well of age."
Snape let out a snort much like that of an ill-tempered rhinoceros and turned his face away, staring determinedly at the glowing hearth that smoldered innocently in a nearby alcove.
"This is a priority match," Dagmar said patiently. "I don't mind revealing. There is very strong inherent magical value in your union. Academic scores and above average talents, both of you detrimental contributors to the victory against You-Know-Who. It behooves you to do your duty and marry as our matchmaker has sanctioned."
The ringing in Hermione's ears was now deafening.
Marry.
Her.
To Snape?
"You can't be serious," Hermione said quietly.
Dagmar turned to Hermione and Hermione felt herself recoil slightly from the dagger of her stare.
"Quite serious, yes," she said. "If the mandate is not followed, wands will be confiscated and destroyed, all education credentials rescinded, and such persons will be excommunicated from the Wizarding World without exception."
Snape interjected again in a fit, his dark eyes flashing. "Not much of a choice is it?" he snapped. "All very well for Granger, she can trot off home to Mummy and cavort with as many Muggles as she please. Without magic, I have no trade or income. I will be destitute and without prospect, no option but to turn to black market flimflam which we all know, past this war, has significantly less avenues for darker dealings. You may as well offer Azkaban and be done with it."
Hermione felt herself form words as though she were a stranger in her own body. "Excommunication makes no sense," she said slowly. "Don't you want to grow your magical population, not decrease it?"
Dagmar gave an elegant shrug. "We require compliance. Strong motivation is needed and we don't have the infrastructure for mass incarceration. This is a gamble we are willing to take."
Hermione dimly considered this answer.
A gamble indeed. But, she realized, one well made.
Because, with everything considered, it was hardly a choice. Certainly not a fair one. Hermione had fought so hard these past seven years to make a place for herself in this world. Her future ambitions, her interests, her pursuits, her friends, her colleagues, the unimaginable gift of magic… to think that all of it would be gone, it was unbearable.
On the other hand, marriage, so early in her life, and to someone so old and contemptuous, someone so full of loathing, whose sinister past she barely knew even the smallest fraction of – that was equally impossible to accept.
Dagmar had mentioned that she and Snape were a "priority match," so Hermione considered briefly if they had any position to bargain their way out. But she knew immediately that it would be a dangerous game of chicken she didn't want to play. One that, as Snape had pointed out, she would be playing not only with her future but with his life. And Dagmar Vance did not seem the sort to back down.
Hermione realized she could not make this choice for herself alone. Much though her classmates resented him (she too, of course, did not find anything altogether appealing about their sallow, taciturn Potions Master), his life was now in her hands and she couldn't very well leave him to rot. Snape had made it very clear. Marriage or destitution. There was no other option for him.
Through all of this, Snape never once looked Hermione's way. He spoke of her as though she were an object in another room, an invisible specter of contagion. Prattle-mouth and grade-grubbing, he'd said. Mouse of a girl. She knew she should be offended, but her sensitivities were so preoccupied by other thoughts, she didn't have room for pride.
Snape, on the other hand, stood as though pride were a cloak upon his shoulders. Tall and tense, fists clenched at his sides, a storm cloud personified.
Hermione could not bear to say the words, her throat was too dry. Instead, under Dagmar's questioning look, she simply nodded.
Dagmar gave a pert nod in response. "Very well. This is my assistant, Cerise. She will see to the nuptials."
Cerise gave an awkward wave of introduction.
Dagmar walked swiftly towards the exit. "As I mentioned, there are many more students to visit tonight. Professor Flitwick will remain here to be your witness." And without any more fanfare or fuss, Dagmar promptly left the room.
Hermione thought she had already reached the heights of stupified surprise, but she somehow managed to find herself even more stunned than before.
Now. It was happening now.
Cerise cleared her throat, glancing nervously at Snape. "If you… Um... could both step forward. Um… Please."
Snape took one very sullen, very deliberately miniscule step in Cerise's direction.
Hermione realized she had never attended a wizarding wedding before. She didn't have the first clue what to do. Desperately, still reeling with shock, she looked to Flitwick for help.
He rushed forward in a flutter to assist. "Oh, Miss Granger. I… Well, I'm… at a loss for words. But… But, yes, I do… I do understand that we must now… We must…" He gave a troubled sigh and reached for Hermione's hand.
She allowed him to gently lead her closer to Cerise and Snape, placing her on Snape's right side.
Snape continued to ignore Hermione in all possible capacities. Without a word, he raised his hand in the air between them at chest height.
Flitwick motioned for Hermione to place her hand on top of Snape's.
Heart thumping, belatedly realizing that she was shaking slightly, Hermione raised her hand and, gentle as a ghost, let her palm rest lightly in the air, just barely grazing his knuckles.
Snape seemed to tense further at the brief flash of contact, but otherwise made no acknowledgement.
Cerise raised her wand and whispered a charm. With a dim flash, a golden ribbon emerged and extended towards Hermione and Snape, winding itself several times around their hands, forcing Hermione's palm downward so that she was fully flush against him.
His hand was cold and unmoving as a statue.
Though she trembled and shook, she tried her best to quiet her tremors as the ribbon finished its revolutions and formed itself into a tidy bow.
"Hermione Granger," Cerise said in a small voice, "do you accept Severus Snape?"
Her heart continued to hammer against her chest, her knees weak and the dryness in her throat was almost painful. "I... " She flicked another glance at Snape but he continued to stare stonily ahead.
"I suppose so," she said at last, so softly even she could barely hear the words.
"Severus Snape, do you accept Hermione Granger?"
Snape's jaw was clenched to the point that he could barely snarl the words. "As I must," he ground out darkly.
"Then by the magic of this binding you are now pronounced married." Cerise flicked her wand again and the ribbon untied itself with a flourish, disappearing into thin air.
Snape snatched his hand back from Hermione's as though burned, retreating again to his familiar shadowed corner.
Hermione waited in abject fear for her and Snape to be instructed to kiss, but the ceremony appeared to be over and no such request was made.
Cerise then made her way to the door, motioning for Flitwick to follow. "If you'll pardon us, there are more ceremonies to perform… I imagine."
Flitwick followed her dejectedly. But he halted for a moment at the threshold, turning to face Hermione and Snape. "You are of course free to do as you wish," he said, "though I feel it important to point out that, as you are still teacher and student, your situation is therefore unique. For the sake of Miss Granger's privacy, I implore you to keep this information to yourselves. I assure you that the Hogwarts staff will exercise every precaution to maintain such secrecy."
The silence in the room once Flitwick departed was among the longest and most intense that Hermione had ever experienced in recent memory.
For the life of her, she could not figure out what to say first.
Anxiously, she turned to face Snape, still feeling more or less like an observer of her own actions rather than the master of them.
Snape, for the first time, made eye contact with her. The sudden shock of his gaze sent a shiver of fear down her spine.
"What are you waiting for, applause?" he spat cruelly. "Get out. We've both managed to pledge our Ministry malfeasance, now go anywhere that isn't here and contemplate this new sentence of servitude. I guarantee no comfort will be afforded to you here."
Hermione stood speechless as Snape strode by her and flung open the door with an angry flourish. "GO!" he barked again. "I must see to the girls of my House. I expect they are being forced to make similar odious decisions."
As Hermione walked back to the Gryffindor common room, feeling incorporeal as a shade, she wondered dimly if this marriage pact actually would change her life that much after all.
Snape clearly wanted no part of it, or of her. So if they fulfilled their contract in name alone, she might be able to get away with not having to see him or even acknowledge their "marriage" outside of tonight. Especially if they could both keep their mouths shut, no one would ever have to know.
But, something wasn't sitting right with her…
There's more to it, she thought, clambering through the portrait hole. Dagmar Vance seemed like she had enough clarity to see her vision through.
I wonder what we're missing...
Later that night, the girls were gathered in their dormitory for bed. Ginny had joined them, pajama-clad and bearing a bevy of blankets, she was all ready to settle in for a long visit.
Hermione and Lavender each perched in their own beds, with Ginny joining Parvati on hers. The two were deeply entrenched in the throes of gossip which Hermione and Lavender mostly observed in silence.
Ginny had somehow already discovered the outcomes of the majority of Ministry meetings (she was, after all, both absurdly popular and incurably curious). Her reaction to the proposal was outright fury while Parvati seemed to find the whole thing funnier than Hermione thought she should.
It appeared that only three of the almost two dozen girls proposed with matches had refused: Eloise Midgen, Pansy Parkinson, and Luna Lovegood.
At first, Hermione was shocked that so many said yes, even knowing how harsh the conditions of refusal were. However, the more she thought on it, the more she was able to reason it away. In some form or another, everyone had their values, their reasons for remaining in the wizarding world. Ravenclaws pursued knowledge at all costs, Hufflepuffs were stalwart and loyal to their comrades, Slytherins prioritized ambition and opportunity, while Gryffindors were brave in the face of adversity. Certainly, each girl had to weigh their own match, but Hermione realized quickly that her dedication to remaining a witch against strenuous odds was not altogether uncommon.
Thus proving, once again, that Dagmar Vance knew well the gamble she'd made.
Parvati was more than free with her information, revealing to their group that her match was "surprisingly well off for a no-name bachelor." He had been chosen thoughtfully (her words), someone from her parent's friend circle whom she'd only met once at her great aunt's funeral. Padma had apparently been given a more operose option. "Older than the trees," Parvati said with a magnificent roll of her eyes. "Though, he does have a villa in Avignon, so I suppose that's something."
Hermione, true to Flitwick's suggestion, kept her match with Snape a secret. And Lavender, following Hermione's example, kept hers quiet as well.
In fact, Lavender, more than anyone, seemed the most affected by her choice. Her normally bubbly countenance was very drawn and mortally serious. While Parvati giggled at ridiculous prospects, and Ginny railed about the tyrannical injustice, Lavender mentioned in a very quiet tone that she actually agreed with the mandate.
"You're JOKING," Ginny spluttered.
"I'm not," Lavender replied stolidly. "The methods may be harsh but if our situation is as dire as Vance claims, we have to seek extreme solutions. I believe in civic duty."
Ginny made a loud exhalation of disbelief. "Civic duty," she repeated mulishly.
Lavender tipped her chin up and made no further comment, looking at all of them through half-lidded eyes, her aura exuding such determined dignity, as though she thought herself a martyr of ancient times.
Moments later, she slipped underneath her covers and extinguished the candle beside her bed, ignoring Ginny's pleas of protest.
Hermione was exhausted from the evening's activities. Her head still clouded with an unfamiliar daze, she soon followed suit, burrowing beneath her duvet and listening in passive silence as Ginny and Parvati remained awake, discussing in breathy tones, Pansy Parkinson's refusal.
"I expect her parents had something to do with it," Parvati said. "Her pedigree, you know. They'd do anything to maintain her inbred lineage."
Ginny scoffed. "I bet they tried to pair her up with Snape and she fainted with horror."
"Ewwww!" Parvati squealed. "Snape, I can't imagine! Do you really think they tried to offer him to her?"
"Well, he is a Pure-blood and you know what they said about prioritizing older men."
"Poor Pansy…"
"Do you think Lupin got matched up with someone?"
"He's not a Pure-blood so I don't think he qualifies."
"Oh, yes, that's right…"
Somehow, despite the noise, despite the frequent flashes of images she kept replaying in her mind, of Dagmar's clever gaze, of Snape's heated tantrum, Flitwick's mournful face, Hermione clung dimly to the idea that she and Snape may endeavor somehow to ignore each other and carry on without disruption, that this would all fade into an unpleasant memory, and she eventually found herself falling into a deep and abyssal sleep.
Hermione woke the next morning still strangely locked into a state of dreamy disassociation.
When she arrived for breakfast, she could see three seats were conspicuously empty at the Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin tables, as though the missing girls' peers were devoted to preserving their memory. (Or else hadn't had the capacity yet to believe they wouldn't appear).
Apparently, the removal of recusant witches had been just as swift as the impromptu marriages.
Harry and Ron glommed to Hermione's side from the moment she'd appeared in the daybreak hours at the foot of her dormitory tower. Their presence, though an awkward male effort to prove through proximity their undying support, still succeeded in making her feel less alone. Both of them seemed out of words and tongue-tied.
Ron in particular burned from his neck to his hairline when asking her whom she'd been matched with (she refused to disclose) and Harry expressed his condolences in a low and reserved tone of voice.
Hermione was careful with her words, not wanting to inspire the boys to dramatics. Ginny's common room orations and spirited rally calls for organized revolt were enough to make Hermione sufficiently nervous about potential rashness dragging them all to Azkaban. And war-torn as they all were, she did have a certain degree of reticence when it came to the idea of inciting trouble this close to peace.
"I won't say I'm thrilled," she admitted. "I suppose I haven't quite had the time to process. You see how many of us acquiesced. The choice wasn't… exactly…" She shook her head, not sure how to explain the nuances of her decision. Especially given how much of it revolved around Snape and the impossible odds he faced.
"That's bullocks!" Ron thumped his fist on the table.
"It's always been about sacrifice." Harry said simply, clutching his spoon and staring distantly into his oatmeal.
Ron shot him a mystified look. "What do you mean?"
"My mum. Sirius. Dumbledore. It's like… a fated part of this world or something. We're always circling back to it, like there's some mechanism behind the curtains we can't see or understand. We enter these dire states of desperation, then there's this catalyst of sacrifice and… somehow we crawl our way out. As if there's a battery somewhere slowly failing that we continuously need to recharge."
Ron looked like he wanted to argue but his eyebrows were so screwed together, Hermione could tell he didn't know the first place to start.
Which was just as well. She was as taken aback as he was. Though she had recently come to expect these existential platitudes from Harry, she hadn't quite gotten used to them.
"Anyway, Hermione," Harry continued. "I'm sorry you're… you know." He clutched her hand. "I'm glad you're still with us."
Hermione opened her mouth to respond. But before she could utter a word, she was promptly interrupted by a sudden flurry of owls.
They descended en masse through the windows. As though heralded from the Heavens, they flew (there was no mistaking) to every seventh-year girl in the Great Hall.
Hermione reached towards her owl as it alighted on the table before her and plucked the letter from its leg, noting the Ministry seal.
She carefully unfurled it, her stomach aching with an almighty pang, feeling like an enormous rock had dropped through the hollow of her chest.
It read:
Consummation Requirements
All married girls, as an allowance for students, are required to make conjugal visits once per month while still at school. Upon graduation, they are expected to live with their spouse until a viable heir is produced. When a magical child is born, healthy, and in suitable guardianship, only then will divorce be permitted.
Arrangements have been made by your Heads of House in cooperation with Ministry officials to take place this Saturday eve.
Warm regards,
Dagmar Vance