I have no self-control. That's the biggest reason for me posting this story when I'm working on others at the moment (Also because another of my amazing readers really liked the idea of me posting this and I simply adore her for all her support of my stories — Bookcozy, that's you, love).
I don't read any FanFiction anymore, but I enjoy writing and I'm, unfortunately, just not creative enough to write my own book. Plus, you know, there's something about George Weasley that melts me inside.
This idea is killing me, so, despite the fact that I'm writing another series, I'm going to do this anyway against my better judgment. I'm several chapters ahead in TandE, so I'm feeling good about myself. Typically, I update about once a week, so I'll try to do that with this story as well, but I go through random bouts of writing nonstop and then not writing at all, so it all really depends on what's going on in my life.
I used to love Marriage Law fics when I used to read them, and I just want to put my own spin on it. I was on Google trying to find the perfect title for this for at least an hour, and I've outlined the entire fic, so let's hope for the best here.
As a side note, the beginning will be Ron x Hermione. I try very hard to like Ron, but I just do not (I'm so sorry!) but I'm trying to keep from the Ron bashing in this — my opinion of him aside, he's her and Harry's best friend and I just sincerely believe that he would have been so much better if he and Hermione hadn't gotten together. Only my opinion though. I promise he won't be an ass forever in this fic as I don't want to ruin that relationship for the sake of plot.
He is going to be kind of a dick at first though just to show the difference in personality between him and George. That has to be done. If you're a Ronnie lover, I apologize in advance.
As always, any reviews or constructive criticism is very appreciated. No flames though please, I'm sensitive LOL.
I love to hear from you guys as much as I love writing. Any particular ideas you have, you can always bounce off me and I'll see what I can do to include it.
Off we go!
Title: Fait Accompli: noun; a thing that has already happened or been decided before those affected hear about it, leaving them with no option but to accept it.
Summary: After fighting and winning a war, there was little that Hermione Granger thought would give her an overwhelming sense of fear and dread. Until she got a letter in the mail stating she had to get married…to the absolute last person that she'd have imagined.
Disclaimer: I'll do this once because doing it every chapter is incredibly annoying. It goes without saying that I am not JKR. All rights to these characters belong to her and only her. I don't profit off of this story in any way. I just simply cannot let go of its characters.
Chapter One
At nineteen years old, Hermione Granger had never known a life of serenity.
Well, perhaps not totally true. Her childhood had been average and mostly uneventful. She'd been the smart kid — the one everyone wanted to "befriend" in order to get answers to homework or tests (answers which Hermione would never have handed over, of course!), the one that everyone wanted to sit next to in the hopes that they could peek over and get a look at her exams, the one they'd bullied and mocked when she'd refused to give them what they wanted. Her parents had been dentists, and she'd lived in an average, middle-class home. They lived comfortably, and she wanted for little. She had a single friend, who lived across the street from her, that she'd known since they'd been six. She'd followed every rule, every law, every authority figure she knew with very little questions.
Her parents had always said she was strong-willed with a strong moral compass. She'd been a listener then, and her parents had always been right. They'd told her that she wouldn't be successful without getting high marks in school…she'd gotten high marks. They told her that the internet was dangerous…she'd hardly used it. They told her that laws and rules were meant to be followed (they were there to protect her and everyone else)…she'd followed those rules and laws to a tee.
At that age, everything had been black and white. A rule was followed with no questions; it didn't matter that kids were mean because she was doing the right thing by not letting them cheat; her parents were always right.
It had been simpler then, of course.
From the moment she'd turned eleven, everything had changed.
She could remember the day her Hogwarts letter had been delivered. As she'd been Muggle-born, with no previous magical blood within her lineage, Professor McGonagall had been sent to explain things to her and her parents. Her parents had raised her to be straight-laced and practical — a woman who had shown up at the door stating that she had magical abilities had been laughable. She'd thought it was some cruel prank one of the children at her primary school had thought up, though she had no idea how they'd managed to convince an adult to go along with it.
She had very little patience or respect for people who thought it funny to play pranks on others. They were often mean and demeaning, and she had no interest in being a part of anything that would cause laughter at another's expense.
But she couldn't argue with the woman when she'd pulled out an intricately carved stick, waved it, and set a vase of flowers on fire with merely a flick of her wand. Her mother had screamed, she and her father had gaped, but McGonagall had waved her wand calmly and the fire had disappeared, leaving not even a single mark or singe on the flowers that should have been burned to ash.
There was nothing practical to do after that other than accept that she was a witch. Her parents had found it quite exciting…at first. They were open-minded people, and they loved to learn. They found the idea of a new world fascinating, something to be studied that would make them more intelligent, more well-rounded people. They'd known their daughter was special from the moment they'd held her in their arms, and this had been their confirmation. She was going to do wonderful, incredible things in the world.
Unfortunately, they'd not been welcomed with open arms by everyone in the Wizarding World. There were some that believed them lesser than because they did not carry magic within their veins. Hermione had learned this for herself very quickly — she spent a lot of time in the library, reading up on the history of a world she barely understood. She could read between the lines.
She'd tried to keep this discrimination from her parents, however. They wouldn't like it, this idea that their daughter was judged and ridiculed and targeted simply because she had no lineage with magic. An altercation between Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy the summer before her second year had opened their eyes, however. They'd been displeased, of course, but at the time there had been nothing horrible other than a few rude names spewed in her direction. It was nothing worse than she'd had to deal with in primary school.
The moment Voldemort had come back to power, though, she'd lived in a place of fear and anxiety. For herself, for Harry, for the Weasleys, for her parents.
She'd tried to cover the horrors occurring within her world as best she could. She'd tried to shield them from the worry and concern, but it was hard to ignore when the dementors had gotten loose, the clouds turning gray and the air turning cold even in the dead of summer. It was hard to ignore the uptick in "gas explosions" and "infrastructure failures." It was hard to ignore the way Hermione had become a recluse, too afraid to leave her house in case her parents were targeted simply because she knew Harry. It was hard to ignore their typically vibrant, outspoken daughter, choosing to distance herself from her parents and read as many defensive books as she could in the event that she might need them.
They'd known, and she'd told them as little as she could, still glossing over the more horrific parts. They'd not wanted her to return to Hogwarts in her sixth year, but they knew and trusted Dumbledore from all of her stories, and they took her at her word that Hogwarts was the safest place she could be. But when Dumbledore had died, and they'd had to go on the run, Hermione had lied more than she'd ever lied before. Despite the guilt and the gnawing pain, she'd told them that all was well, Dumbledore had a plan, they were going to be fine.
And then she'd wiped their memories and sent them off to Australia.
It had been…horrible. The worst she'd ever felt in all her life. She'd used this thing that her parents were already leery of given the events in her world, this thing that they barely understood because she'd stopped telling them about her year to keep them from knowing how bad things were, and she'd used it against them.
It had been to protect them, and that's what she told herself over and over again when the guilt became too much. That's what she'd told them when she'd gone to Australia after everything had been over, and she felt comfortable enough to bring them home. There were still Death Eaters that had to be caught, but the protective charms could be placed back on the house, and the man calling the shots was dead for good this time. She had believed them to be safe.
But it hadn't mattered at all what she'd told them. It didn't matter at all how she'd tried to justify it to herself or them. They'd been angry, hurt, betrayed. They'd screamed and screamed — she'd taken away their choice, she'd lied to them, she'd put herself willingly in harm's way. They'd come back to England, moved back into their old home, but they'd not forgiven her. They were scared of her now — she had a power they never thought she'd use against them, and she had shown she could do so without them being any the wiser. So she'd stayed at the Burrow with the Weasleys for a time before she'd gone back to Hogwarts for her N.E.W.T.s.
She hadn't had to go back. There was no place in the Wizarding World that hadn't wanted to hire her, Harry, and Ron. But she'd needed some normalcy, something soothing when it felt like her life had fallen to pieces. It felt like it was lying around her in shambles, even though they'd done the impossible and defeated the darkest wizard of all time. It should have been freeing. It should have been calm and relaxing and euphoric.
What it really had been was lonely. She needed her parents, and no one around her understood what it felt like not to have them or their support. She'd been left with trauma that was hard to beat back — horrible nightmares, jumping at loud noises or any time someone walked up behind her without warning, scars that she couldn't get rid of and had tried to learn to cover. The Wizarding World did not have great access or belief in mental health resources, and her two best friends had been next to useless. They didn't like talking about anything emotional, and they buried their own issues from her instead of talking about them. So she'd done the same. She'd buried it all, and thrown herself into repairing the Wizarding World. They'd worked to repair Hogwarts so that they could have it up and running by the time September first had come around. They'd had to repair the twins' shop as it had been ransacked by Death Eaters. Gringotts had needed repair, children had needed homes – temporary or permanent, the Ministry had needed to be re-built, Death Eaters needed to be tried.
She'd done what she could to throw herself into helping with re-building as much as she could, so that she could ignore the pain and PTSD she was experiencing elsewhere. By the time Hogwarts had come around, she'd needed something she was used to. She'd accepted the offer to return for an "eighth" year with little fight, despite the fact that plenty of Ministry departments had begged her to join them. Harry and Ron had not gone with her, choosing to go into Auror training instead. She'd not seen the appeal — they'd spent the last four years fighting, what was the draw in continuing to do so?
But she'd not been able to convince them to come back with her, so she'd gone back alone — well, with Ginny. Her mother had refused to let her stop her schooling, so she'd gone back with her, and they'd spent the majority of their year together or studying. Hermione had passed every one of her exams with an Outstanding, but not even that had brought her completely out of her funk.
And now her N.E.W.T.s had been passed, she'd accepted a position within the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, she was dating the boy she'd pined after for years, and yet still…she felt like she was simply going through the motions.
"You could at least try to look happy that we're going home."
Hermione jumped, pulling her gaze from the train window that she'd been looking out wistfully. Ginny wasn't even looking at her, her gaze glued to some Quidditch magazine that she'd been reading. They'd become rather close since their time at Hogwarts — they'd been comfortable with each other before, friendly even, but they'd not spent a great deal of time together outside of summers at the Burrow.
Now, Ginny was one of her closest friends, as important to her as Ron and Harry.
"Sorry," Hermione said, smiling apologetically. "I haven't been much fun, have I?"
Ginny sighed and closed her magazine, giving her a hard look.
"I expected you to be a bit put out that we were leaving Hogwarts for the last time, but I didn't expect you to be so…morose," she said. "What's happening? What are you thinking?"
Hermione didn't know how to answer that. She was thinking a great many things, as was her usual. At the moment, none of them were very positive or rational.
"Just that it's a bit odd, going home and having…well, nothing to do," she said. "I mean, I've spent the last four years waiting for something to come jumping out to attack Harry or reading as many textbooks as possible to prepare myself for whatever fight was coming next. What am I supposed to do for the rest of the summer?"
She didn't start working until September, her job lining up with the school year. At the time, she'd thought some rest and relaxation would have been in order, but it seemed like a poorly thought out plan now. She didn't even know how to relax.
Ginny gave her a long-suffering look.
"I don't know," she said sarcastically. "Go for a swim, read a hundred of those smutty romance novels you try to disguise as Charms textbooks —"
Hermione spluttered, her cheeks flushing scarlet.
"I — I do not —"
Ginny talked over her embarrassed stuttering as if she hadn't spoken at all.
" — go for brunch in the village, talk to Percy about ridiculous Ministry regulations no one else cares about, live some of those smutty romance scenes by shagging Ron. The possibilities here are quite endless."
"I can't stand you sometimes, Ginny," Hermione said, blushing to the roots of her hair still. Ginny sniggered.
"Don't be such a prude, Mione," she said with a snort. "It's basic human nature. Besides, the two of you didn't exactly get a ton of time to be a couple with you going off to Hogwarts, and refusing to sneak out of the castle to meet him —"
"I was Head Girl," Hermione said, affronted. "I'm supposed to set an example, not go about sneaking out to Hogsmeade for a good shag!"
Ginny raised an eyebrow and smirked at her widely.
"Real pity, too," she said pointedly. "You could use one of those — they're very relaxing —"
"I'm going to stop you there before you start going on about your and Harry's sex life," she cut in hastily. She'd heard quite enough of that throughout the year, and it made her want to be sick at the thought. There were simply some things she didn't need to know about Harry Potter. "And anyway, Ron and I — well, we aren't shagging."
"Yes, I can tell," Ginny snorted, grabbing her magazine again and flipping it open carefully. "You're very tightly wound."
Hermione huffed at her, grabbing the magazine from her grasp in retaliation. Ginny scowled at her.
"That's not what I meant," Hermione said with an eye roll. "I mean that…well, I've always thought I would wait until marriage for that sort of thing."
Ginny blinked at her once before sitting up straighter, her mouth falling open.
"I — you're serious?" she said, whistling when Hermione nodded awkwardly.
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No, of course not," Ginny said, waving her away. "It's just a bit surprising, is all. Well, no, it's not surprising. I mean, it's you, isn't it? You've always been a bit by-the-book. I just thought that the two of you were…Harry made it sound like Ron told him that you were." Hermione's brow furrowed, wondering what that meant, but Ginny kept speaking before she could ask. "There's nothing wrong with that though. You should do whatever you're comfortable with. Just change the last thing to snogging Ron then. Just because you aren't shagging doesn't mean you can't do…other things, does it?"
"How did we get on this conversation again?" Hermione said, wishing she'd cut off the topic far earlier. "This is your brother we're talking about."
Ginny scrunched her face in disgust.
"Right, yeah, let's talk about something else," she said to Hermione's amusement. "I try to forget that bit, but if you're going to bring it up so deliberately, we've got to move on. Are you planning on telling Mum that you're moving out?"
Hermione grimaced.
"You've got a real knack for talking about the things I don't want to think about," she grumbled. Ginny snickered.
"Well, someone ought to," she said. "She's going to ask what your plans are. You can't avoid her forever — believe me, the twins tried that with the shop and look at how that turned out."
"With them opening a wildly successful joke shop and raking in more Galleons than they have the time to spend?" Hermione said with a snort. "If you ask me, it sounds like keeping secrets worked out well for them. Besides, I'm not planning on leaving any time soon. I have to have the money to move out, don't I? And I don't start work until September. I'll tell her then."
"Couldn't you just live at Grimmauld with Harry and Ron?" she said. "Be easier, wouldn't it?"
"I'm tired of cleaning up after those two," Hermione said with a pointed look. "If you'd like to, be my guest. Besides, I — I mean, I don't want Ron to get the wrong idea or anything…I want to start a career before we move in together or get married or any of those things."
"Fair enough," Ginny said with a sigh. "I was sort of hoping you could tell her that you were moving out at the same time that I told her I want to go into professional Quidditch, and it would soften the blow a little."
Hermione laughed.
"Very nice, Gin," she said. "For a moment there, I thought you actually wanted to be supportive."
"Oh, don't start," Ginny snorted, smacking her on the arm. "I do want to be supportive — I was simply going to capitalize on an opportunity. It's what Fred and George would do."
Hermione gave her a very pointed look.
"I don't think you should be taking pointers from Fred and George," she said seriously. "They nearly drove your mother mad."
Before Ginny could answer, the train whistle was blaring to signal that they had arrived in London. Ginny sat up eagerly, her eyes twinkling excitedly at the prospect of seeing Harry again. Hermione eyed her in half-amusement, half-jealousy; Harry and Ginny were so obviously meant for each other. They had that way about them that made her believe that real, fairy-tale love existed in the world. They were always so excited to see each other, so wrapped up in the other when they were together. Harry brightened the moment Ginny walked into a room, Ginny gushed about him the moment he left one. They'd barely survived without the other while they'd been at Hogwarts, and Ginny had snuck out more often than Hermione would have liked to admit, though she'd turned a blind eye. They communicated so well together, offset each other's personalities so well, that there was no question that they belonged together.
Hermione wondered what that must feel like.
Not that she and Ron were unhappy exactly. She loved Ron…of course, she did, but to say that they hadn't had their fair share of problems would have been a lie. He was a bit…clingy, and he'd not found it easy to be away from her for months at a time. He was also insecure and possessive, all of these things leading to a number of arguments and conversations about whether she'd get bored and leave him for someone she met at school instead. More arguments because Ginny snuck out to see Harry, and if Hermione loved him as much as she claimed to then he didn't see why she didn't as well. They'd survived a war, and she couldn't even break one rule for him.
Then, of course, there was the fact that they weren't having sex. It had been an issue from the start, though she had no idea why. She'd been perfectly content to just be with him, but he always seemed like they had to be doing something. He didn't want to sit in the same space in silence, just enjoying the other's company. He wanted to be talking or kissing or touching or playing chess or Exploding Snap. He wanted to go on dates, though he expected her to plan them. He wanted her to be this perfect, lovesick fool — no opinions, no aspirations outside their relationship, no expectations.
Though not everything was bad between them, and all of these things weren't exactly surprising. She'd been friends with Ron for so long that most of these things were things she'd already expected to be road blocks. She knew they'd be things they had to work through. Some days it was just more exhausting than anything else, and she wondered at what point their relationship would be stable enough that they'd look like Harry and Ginny did.
She hoped that the lack of distance would help them a bit. Being in a long-distance relationship certainly wasn't the easiest of feats, and communicating via owl wasn't exactly the easiest way to get a point across.
She was excited to see him. She was. It would all make more sense to her when they could be together and work everything out. Love wasn't supposed to be easy, she knew, and she also knew that Harry and Ginny had had their fair share of issues as well.
She was overthinking again, and that was so much easier to do whenever she and Ron weren't together. It was always that way — when they were together, everything felt right (assuming they weren't arguing anyway), but the moment they were apart it all felt bleak. And she'd been stuck in this phase of feeling bleak for so long that it bled over to their relationship as well.
It would all be so much better once they could actually have a relationship, she was sure.
Feeling much better about the entire thing, she let some of Ginny's excitement bleed into her as well at the thought of seeing Harry and Ron. It had been months since the last Hogsmeade visit when she'd seen them last and it was difficult being away from them when they'd spent every waking moment together the year before.
By the time the train had stopped at the station, the both of them were already waiting for the doors to open, bouncing excitedly and grinning at each other. They rushed out of the compartment and onto the platform the moment the doors opened, looking around frantically for Harry and the Weasleys. The platform was packed with excited parents and siblings, but the distinctive ginger hair was easy to spot.
"Harry!" Ginny squealed, throwing her arms around him in a hug.
"Do you see that, George?" Fred said, eyeing his little sister in displeasure. "We're her brothers and she goes straight to Harry like she didn't even notice we're standing here."
"And after we closed the shop to come and see her," George said, grinning when Ginny turned to look at him disapprovingly with her hands on her hips. "We see how it is, Ginny. We're not wanted."
"Shut up, the both of you," Ginny said, rolling her eyes, and pulled the two of them in for a hug by their necks, laughing outrageously when they hugged her so hard that they pulled her off her feet. Fred and George had always been Ginny's favorite brothers.
Hermione smiled at the three of them, wondering what life would have been like if Fred hadn't survived the war. It had been touch and go for a while, and they'd been unsure if he'd wake up after the Healers had put him in a magical coma, but he'd pulled through, despite all of the odds.
"Hermione, dear, how are you?"
Hermione let Mrs. Weasley pull her into a tight hug, grinning despite her earlier melancholy. She might not have been able to see her own mother, but Mrs. Weasley had treated her as one of her own, and it soothed some of that ache for her. It wasn't the same, but it helped.
"I'm fine, Mrs. Weasley —" she said.
"You look far too skinny," the older woman said, eyeing her up and down. "No worry, dear, we've got dinner all planned for the two of you."
"Oh, thank you, you really didn't have to —"
The woman was gone before she could make the polite protest, off to separate her daughter from her twin sons to greet her as well and Harry laughed at Hermione's clear surprise. He pulled her into a hug before she could even begin to fathom the chaos around her as the Weasleys all chattered excitedly to each other.
"Welcome back, Mione," Harry joked. "It's exactly as chaotic as it was before you left."
Hermione snorted, and pulled back to look at her best friend. He looked good. He'd outgrown her years ago, he was still blind as ever, his hair was still a mess in the back, but he was tanner than he had been the last time she'd seen him, and whatever training they were doing had helped him fill out a little. It was the happiness, though, that really made the difference. He looked much more relaxed, his eyes brighter without the shadows darkening them.
"I missed you," she said, grinning widely. "You look good, Harry."
"So do you, don't listen to Mrs. Weasley," he said with a fond eye roll. "She's been looking for someone to fuss over since Ron and I moved out. I don't think she's suited much for an empty nest."
"Where is Ron?" she said, looking around excitedly.
She didn't see him among the other Weasleys — the twins and Mrs. Weasley were the only ones she could see near them, and she knew that Bill and Mr. Weasley had had to work for the day. Fleur and Ginny were still working on their relationship, and Charlie had gone back to Romania, but she didn't see Ron anywhere.
Harry's grin fell and he looked at her cautiously.
"He — er — he had training this afternoon," he said awkwardly.
Hermione's brow furrowed.
"If he had training then why didn't you?"
Harry was silent for a long moment, shifting his gaze toward the Weasleys awkwardly, clearly wishing that they'd help him out of the conversation, but the four of them were still chattering away with each other.
"Well, I asked for the day off," he said awkwardly. "I wanted to see Ginny, you know, since I haven't seen her in so long."
Hermione's smile dropped a little.
"And Ron didn't ask off," she said, the words coming out more as a statement than a question. Harry cleared his throat, but nodded.
"He's been having a hard time with some of the training," he said, trying to defend his friend, as he typically did. "He's behind, and I think he just wanted some extra time to practice…"
"No, right," she said, forcing that smile back onto her face, despite the pity she could see on his. "That — that makes sense."
There was an awkward silence between them as they attempted to figure out a way to come back from the disappointment that Hermione felt at not having seen her boyfriend after two months, and knowing that he wasn't here to welcome her back. It was these sorts of things that really confused her. He got upset with her for not sneaking out of the castle to see him, but he couldn't even bother to get a day off of training to see her? It was all so very confusing to her sometimes.
They were spared from the awkward conversation by Fred and George, who had made their way over to them. Hermione gasped loudly when Fred lifted her off the ground in a hug, kissing her loudly on the cheek.
"Fred Weasley, put me down this instant!" she said, horrified. Harry was laughing uproariously. "You can't just go about accosting people —"
"Accosting," he said, releasing her to stumble backward as if she'd offended him. She gave him a long-suffering look and caught herself on George's arm before she could stumble into him. "How could you, Hermione? I thought we had something special —"
"What on Earth are you talking about?" she said, rolling her eyes at him in exasperation.
"But I see how it is," Fred said, sighing forlornly. "We share one kiss and you've forgotten all about me —"
Hermione spluttered indignantly as George laughed beside her.
"I did not — we did not — I gave you mouth-to-mouth, Fred, I didn't kiss you," she hissed, as if it were some horrid secret that she didn't want anyone else to know.
She'd been the first of them to come to her senses when the wall had fallen on him, and she'd refused to believe that Fred Weasley was dead. Not someone who worked so hard to keep people laughing, someone who was unfailingly optimistic. She couldn't handle the thought that he wouldn't wake up.
She hadn't seen a Killing Curse hit him before the explosion, so she'd given him CPR with the hope that he'd merely been hit with something minor, something that could be fixed. She had no idea what she was doing — she wasn't a Healer, and she'd not spent much time learning Healing spells, but her parents had made her take CPR lessons.
She'd fallen on the only thing she'd known and she'd nearly sobbed in relief when he'd gasped in a breath. It had still been tough going after that, but he'd been breathing and that's all she'd cared about at the moment.
She'd been so afraid that leaving him alone would make him revert back to that lifeless state, and he'd been in an immense amount of pain that she wasn't sure how to help with. Ron and Harry had gotten George, and they'd left him with his twin so that they could finish what they'd started.
George had wanted to ask her a hundred questions that she hadn't had the time to answer until after, and the twins had been nicer to her ever since. Not that they'd ever been particularly cruel to her before, but they were far more protective of her now, and they tried to include her in their jokes more often, an act they insisted was being used to help her loosen up a little.
Sometimes it made her feel like she was a part of something, though most of the time she was one step away from going mad.
Though now, she'd wished she'd just lied and told them she'd used a spell to start his heart again because he made jokes about the fact that she'd given him CPR at every available opportunity, though he'd learned the hard way not to make them in front of Ron.
"Don't worry, Hermy," he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
"Don't call me that," she said in disgust, rolling her eyes.
"We can call out kiss a one time thing," he said, winking at her. She gave him a dry look, fighting the urge to stomp on his foot. "Though, between us," he said, whispering quite loudly with a grin at his twin. "You got the better twin. Georgie gets a lot of complaints, see —"
"Hardly," George snorted, raising an eyebrow at this brother. "You're the one that made a girl cry after you snogged her —"
Hermione couldn't help the giggle that came out when Fred stood up straight to glare at his twin, pointing a finger at him in warning.
"That is not true, and you know it," he said defensively. "She was crying because her owl had died —"
"So she told you. Maybe she just didn't want to hurt your feelings," Hermione smirked.
Fred turned to point at her instead as George laughed beside her.
"Don't start, Granger," he said. "I'm not above kissing you to prove a point."
Hermione snorted.
"That's very romantic," she said sarcastically. "But you'll have to control yourself — I'm dating your brother." She didn't know why, but the twins shared a look with each other that she couldn't quite interpret before Fred eyed her silently for a long moment. She raised an eyebrow. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
Fred opened his mouth to say something, but George gave him a hard look and answered before he could say anything.
"Nothing, Mione," he said hastily, ushering her toward his mother, Harry, and Ginny. "He's high on potion fumes. He's been a bit odd today —"
"He's odd every day, George," she said pointedly. "I don't see how you can tell the difference."
He chuckled, waving her toward the barrier expectantly.
"I'll explain it to you another time," he said with a grin. "But at the moment, we've been promised dinner."
Hermione had been told to stay away from the kitchen because the dinner was in celebration of her final year at Hogwarts, and she wasn't allowed to help prepare it.
Ginny hadn't been allowed to either, but she'd disappeared with Harry, and Mrs. Weasley was simply too happy about their relationship to care much. She'd enlisted the twins to help her prepare instead, with firm warnings to the both of them to behave until after dinner. She didn't want anyone's hair turning purple over dinner, and she would yell herself hoarse if she caught them doing any funny business.
They'd merely grinned at her winningly and let her order them about the kitchen with hardly a complaint.
Hermione had decided to get away from the chaos of the kitchen by going up to the twins' old room — well, her room for the time being, she supposed — to read one of the romance novels that Ginny had been teasing her about earlier.
They were a guilty pleasure of hers. A simple way to escape reality, despite the fact that they offered her no intellectual stimulation.
She'd have gone out to the lake, but she knew that Ginny and Harry used it as their hideout and she had no desire to walk in on them snogging…or worse.
So she'd let herself get sucked into the ridiculous novel instead, the hours passing idly as she read. She'd nearly read half of the book by the time that she heard someone racing up the stairs and she sat up hastily, reaching for her wand in reflex, when the door to the room opened.
Her pounding heart relaxed some at the sight of Ron before her, and she grinned widely, some of her earlier irritation and disappointment in him fading to nothing like it normally did whenever she saw him.
"Ron!" she said excitedly, racing toward him for a hug. He laughed elatedly and hugged her back hard. "I missed you," she whispered sincerely, inhaling the scent of him and letting some of the tension in her shoulders relax. "You weren't at the train station —"
He cut her off by pulling her into a kiss, and she gasped in surprise though she didn't push him away. It had been so long since they'd been together and her stomach fluttered that he was here with her now.
Kissing him always took a great deal of her concentration. He had an…odd way of kissing her that she hadn't yet gotten used to, and it always took a moment for them to fall into a rhythm with each other.
It was the same this time, his lips hard and unyielding against hers, his teeth hitting against hers painfully at first, the kiss more…wet than she always expected. Sometimes it felt more like he was trying to suck her face into his mouth rather than actually kiss her, and she shouldn't have been surprised. It was how he'd kissed Lavender too, but she had a hard time figuring out the movements of the entire thing in the beginning. Of course, the only other person she'd ever kissed was Viktor, and he'd had an entirely different approach. She supposed everyone did, and Ron's way of kissing would just take some getting used to.
Eventually, they found a rhythm that worked, and she relaxed again, not realizing she'd tensed to begin with. His hands were rough against her sides, and she pulled away when he began sliding them up further, clearly intent on taking things a bit further.
As excited as she was to see him, she was more interested in spending time with him than a heated snog, though she wanted to do some kissing.
"Everything alright?" He said when she pulled back, moving to sit on her bed.
She smiled at him and leaned against the headboard.
"Yeah, it's great," she said, patting the bed next to her. "I just want to talk to you. I haven't seen you in ages. How's training?"
He looked a bit put out, but he moved toward her and settled on the bed next to her without comment. There was an internal sigh of relief because she couldn't always tell how he'd take her changing the pace of their time together.
"Not bad," he said, grinning at her. "We were working on some Transfiguration stuff today. Spells we can use to alter our appearance, stay hidden from dark wizards."
She laughed, shaking her head a little.
"I don't understand how you and Harry can want to do that after everything we've already been through," she said.
Ron shrugged.
"It's cool though, isn't it?" he said with a grin. "Being the one doing the protecting. Bringing in the bad guys."
Hermione had always understood Harry's desire to go into Auror training — he'd always been the selfless sort, and DADA had come so easily to him. He'd been better at the subject than even she had been. And he found a purpose in helping others, in keeping them safe. He'd spent his entire life putting his life on the line to protect people simply because it was the right thing to do, because it was in his nature.
But sometimes she got the impression that Ron was only going into the field because Harry was doing it. Because he had some inflated sense of himself, and just didn't know what else he would do if he weren't an Auror. It was almost like he'd picked the coolest Ministry job he could think of, and simply gone with it, not considering the weight or intensity of the job itself.
He wasn't exactly good under pressure or even good with balancing out his emotions in times of stress. Their time on the run had proven that when he'd left them alone for weeks at a time before he'd found a way to come back.
"Yes, I suppose," she said instead of voicing that all to him. "If that's what you want. I think I'll stick to Magical Creatures for the time being."
"I'm sure the first thing you'll do is help the house-elves," he said with a grin. She tried not to bristle at the amusement that he said it with. He'd thought about the house-elves during the battle and he loved Kreacher, but she wasn't always sure that he took S.P.E.W. any more seriously now than he had before. But he supported her, and that's what she should be happy about. "And I'll bet you got every one of your N.E.W.T.s."
She brightened at the subject, and nodded.
"Of course," she said. "I was afraid that I wouldn't manage the Transfiguration one — it was tough this year, and McGonagall wasn't giving us any leeway for all that time we had out of school, but I got an Outstanding. And Defense was much easier considering we were on the run and we had to know those things to survive. Not to mention —"
He laughed at her excitement, and leaned forward to kiss her gently.
"Yeah, well, with all that studying you did, I'd be surprised if you didn't," he said. "I haven't seen you in ages because of it."
She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, fighting the urge to ask him why he was so concerned about the time she spent studying instead of sneaking out. They'd had the argument a hundred times and she wasn't interested in having it again.
Not to mention, she hadn't seen him in so long, and it was so nice to just be with him. Even if he didn't seem altogether interested in her exams, though he pretended to be. He'd never really been much for academia so she couldn't be surprised.
"Well, how's living with Harry then?" She said, changing the subject back to him in an attempt to circumvent another spat. "Did you manage to get that awful painting down?"
Ron laughed.
"Oh, yeah, I didn't tell you?" he said, "We asked Fred and George for ideas on how we should get it down. Thought maybe they could come up with some product that would help. They just knocked the whole bloody wall down."
Hermione gaped.
"You're joking," she said, not sure if she wanted to laugh or be horrified.
"Nah," he said with a grin. "I don't know why we expected anything less to tell you the truth. Worked though. I mean, Mrs. Black screamed her head off the whole time, but we managed to get her into Kreacher's room instead. Harry didn't think he'd want her to go away completely, you know, but we don't want to look at her."
Hermione's heart swelled at the words. Harry had always been so much better about treating elves fairly — he just wasn't vocal about their mistreatment. Kreacher had had such horrible masters before him, and she was grateful that Harry had grown to like him so much that he'd have even thought to do something like that at all.
"That's very sweet," she said, tearing up a little. Ron chuckled, reaching forward to brush a tear away.
"Don't cry, Hermione," he said. "It's no big deal. We've been working on getting that tapestry down now — the Black family tree one. She put a permanent sticking charm on that too, but Fred and George reckon we shouldn't knock that wall down, seeing as the other side is connected to another Muggle's house."
Hermione snorted and rolled her eyes.
"Well, I should hope not," she said. "You can't go knocking down every wall, can you?"
"Don't say that to Fred and George," he joked. "They might take that as a challenge." He grinned at her again, brushing one of her curls back away from her face. She'd lost some of the bushiness she'd had as she'd gotten older, and she'd managed to find a spell that made her hair a little more wavy than bushy, so that helped. "You're beautiful, you know?"
He'd been giving her more compliments recently, and she enjoyed them a great deal. She'd never felt particularly pretty throughout her childhood. She was simply the girl that most boys overlooked — even Ron at one point.
It was nice hearing someone say it to her unprovoked.
"Thank you," she said, smiling gently at him.
And then he was kissing her again. This one felt different than the first — less rushed, more gentle, though still a bit more wet than she would have preferred, but it was easier for her to get into this time. It felt more natural.
She relaxed into him, and didn't protest when he leaned forward and pushed her backward onto the bed. He hovered over her, his mouth not leaving hers once, and her heart pounded in her chest, her blood racing in her veins.
She didn't want to take things too far, but she was attracted to him, wasn't she? And this was still relatively innocent in the grand scheme of things.
She felt him twist his hand in her curls, his other sliding down from her waist to her hip, and she gasped when he deepened the kiss. He'd never once kissed her like this, and her head was spinning a little as she tried to keep her wits about her.
It was when he ground down against her that she pulled back, panting.
"Hermione?"
She cleared her throat, trying to get her voice to work over the pounding of her heart and the stirrings of arousal. Despite that, going further was just something she wasn't ready for. And she definitely didn't want to have her first sexual experience of any sort occur at the Burrow. In what used to be George's bed. While everyone was downstairs preparing dinner.
"We can't, Ron," she said firmly, pushing against his chest so that he lifted himself off of her. She sat back up, straightening her shirt from where it had ridden up.
She expected it, but his huff of annoyance still hurt a little.
"I just want to be with you, Hermione," he said impatiently, as if she were misunderstanding the situation somehow.
"You are with me, Ron," she snapped. "You don't have to have sex to spend time with someone."
"I didn't say that —"
"I haven't seen you in months," she continued, her voice rising despite her attempts to keep it even. "I just wanted to see you, to talk, to spend time with you for a few hours before dinner. I'm not ready for —"
"Yeah, you've said that," he said, rubbing a hand down his face. "You want to wait until marriage."
"Then why are you pushing it so much?" She said in frustration.
He threw his hands up in the air.
"I don't know because this is the twentieth century," he said with an eye roll. "We don't have to wait until marriage —"
"It doesn't have anything to do with what we have to do," she said, looking at him as if she'd never seen him before. "I just want to wait until I'm with someone I love —"
It had been the wrong way to phrase the statement, and she knew it the moment the words had left her mouth. Ron took everything she said so literally, and he stood angrily to glare at her.
"I thought you did love me," he said angrily. "Or is that just something you said because I said it?"
"What? No, of course not!" She said indignantly. "I do love you! You know I do! I just meant that —"
"That you're waiting for someone better to come along to take things to the next level, I got that," he snapped, making his way toward the door. "I'm going to go help Mum with dinner."
She didn't even know what to say as he left, and she didn't even know how to feel at the moment. A part of her was angry and indignant because she had more to offer than just her body, and it annoyed her that Ron — her best friend for years — had no interest in anything other than sex. It hadn't always been that way either. It was something more recent. The first few months that they'd been together had been a blur of compliments, gifts, and romantic outings. They'd laughed and kissed (awkwardly, mind, but she'd expected it to be when they were moving from friends to romance), and hand-holding. For those first several months, being away from him had been torture somehow.
But then she'd decided to go back to school, and he'd decided to stay, and it had all gone downhill for them at that point. The insecurities had started then, the constant accusations, the arguments about how he wanted to see her more than she wanted to see him. Nevermind the fact that she'd owled him every day to make up for the fact that she couldn't see him as much as she'd wanted. Nevermind the fact that she was so excited to see him at every Hogsmeade visit. Nevermind that he saw her on holidays.
With the insecurities had come this persistent desire to be more physical, as if he were trying to make up for their distance by taking things as far as they could. As if he were making up for not seeing her by trying to shove it all into one moment to make up for lost time. He'd been understanding of her wanting to wait until marriage, but she suspected that he'd thought she would cave the more they were together. She suspected that he really had started to believe that he was more interested in her than she was in him, no matter what she told him to the contrary.
Perhaps he was right.
Every time they kissed, she felt like she was elsewhere. She felt like she was just going through the motions. Maybe she wasn't putting as much into this relationship as he was. Maybe she just overthought everything.
But she couldn't force herself to be ready for something that she wasn't. And she didn't feel like she should be pressured into feeling badly about that fact either. She had a hard time being understanding or sensitive to his feelings when they were always at the expense of her own.
She let herself flop back onto the pillows and covered her stinging eyes with her arm.
Why was everything with them always so complicated?
Dinner that evening was a lively affair, all of the Weasleys, sans Charlie, ate dinner outside, laughing and joking and arguing playfully. Despite their earlier argument, the rest of the family appeared oblivious to the tension between herself and Ron.
Of course, Harry noticed, but he kept the conversation light and didn't ask any questions. An attempt that was made easier by the fact that the Weasleys were such a rowdy, happy bunch. The twins were pestering Percy, trying to get him to loosen up a bit. Percy, for his part, appeared to be trying to maintain some level of patience. Fleur was nursing the one-month old, Victoire, the baby girl hidden beneath her bright pink blanket. Bill was speaking to his father about something or another with Gringotts, his gaze drifting lovingly to his wife and daughter from time to time.
It felt so different from the year it had before, this rowdy, chaotic peace. Such an overwhelming happiness surrounding them all. Mrs. Weasley must have agreed because Hermione caught her several times, gazing upon them all with misty eyes, as if she couldn't quite believe her own good fortune.
Despite that melancholy that clung to the back of her mind, Hermione couldn't help but feel the same. She was lucky to have what she did. They'd all survived so much, and they were still here. They deserved to be happy.
But, of course, the world had different plans. It always did, didn't it?
No one blinked when the owl swooped down to drop the Evening Prophet into Mr. Weasley's lap. No one stopped their conversations at all, the joking and laughter continuing for a prolonged moment, despite the way Mr. Weasley had paled at whatever was on the front page before him.
Still, no one noticed when Bill leaned over to look himself at whatever had caused his father to go so still. No one noticed when he paled too, leaning over to whisper to his wife, who gaped at him as if he'd said something she didn't understand. It wasn't until the silence had spread to the matriarch of the family that any of them appeared to notice that something was off.
"No, they can't," Mrs. Weasley whispered, sounding frightened. It was the sound of that whisper that caught their attention and the table went quiet one by one. "Arthur, they wouldn't — had you heard that they were planning —?"
"No," he said, working hard to keep his voice even and pushing his glasses up his nose. "No, I haven't heard — no one mentioned it. They must have kept it under wraps to avoid a panic —"
"A panic?" Mrs. Weasley shrieked. "If they wanted to avoid a panic, they shouldn't have published the news in the Prophet! They shouldn't have done it at all — this can't stand, can it? Kingsley won't allow —"
"Kingsley can't control the entire Wizengamot, Molly, you know this," Mr. Weasley said. "I'm sure he tried to fight it, but —"
"Will one of you explain what the bloody hell is happening?" Fred said loudly from the other end of the table. "You're freaking everybody out."
It was a true testament to whatever was in that paper that Mrs. Weasley didn't immediately scold her son for his use of language. Hermione should have known then that it was something she wouldn't want to hear.
Mr. Weasley shared a long look with his wife before sighing heavily and turning the paper to face them all.
There was no photo, but the headline was large and bold, and the words didn't immediately register to her. She read it a couple of times before she fully understood what she was reading.
"Wait, what does that mean?" Ron said, confused as the rest of the table froze in shock. "What am I looking at here?"
"A marriage law," Hermione said, her voice shaking. "They're forcing people to marry."
For right there, clear as day, in bold black letters were the words:
MINISTRY OF MAGIC ENACTS CENTURIES OLD LEGISLATION: THE DECREE FOR MAGICAL UNION AND CONCEPTION
And just like that, the world as she knew it imploded, and she wondered why she'd even bothered getting comfortable at all.
There we go — the first chapter. I don't know how I feel about it personally, but the first chapter is always the most difficult for me to write. Setting the stage is difficult here.
As far as Ron goes, I'll apologize for making him such a git again. Some people are just incompatible in every way, and that's how I've always felt about Ron and Hermione. He won't be an ass forever, PROMISE.