Chapter Text
Sunday Evening 2nd August 2001
"Do you, Ronald Bilius Weasley, take this witch, Hermione Jean Granger, to have and to hold. To honour above all others, for as long as you both shall live?"
"I do." Ron beamed at her. She could feel the tiny tremors in his hands and she smiled back at him. He was nervous too but making the best of it. Trying. He wanted this. She took a breath, squeezing his familiar warm hands. She did want him. Enough at least to not want the alternative.
It had been hidden under layers of secrecy at the ministry of course. The old guard only, Winzengamot seats that'd withstood generations of change. But the Golden Girl had been tipped off. Kingsley had owed her that much at least. So she knew. Tomorrow every witch and wizard able to bear children would be matched. Paired up neatly and tucked into the little picket fence boxes that solved everything.
"Do you, Hermione Jean Granger, take this wizard, Ronald Bilius Weasley, to have and to hold. To honour above all others, for as long as you both shall live?"
She smiled back, trying to focus on the good. Her hair, halfway-tamed by Fleur, her dress, simple and sleek, and the people who had joined them for the fourth Weasley backyard wedding she'd attended. Molly and Arthur smiling up at them, Ginny standing beside them, leaning into Harry. These people that loved them. She tried to push the lights, the flowers, Ron to the front of her mind- ease the bitter sting of the inevitable. It was this or some nameless, faceless wizard. Or worse. She took another breath.
"I.."
Her tongue feels heavy. Her throat tight. She struggles to speak. Is this her body refusing for her? Or- her racing mind supplied, while distantly categorizing the colours Ron's face is rapidly cycling through... The vow of secrecy. She’d been unable to refuse- Kingsley dangled it before her, offering her something he felt she deserved to know, however only under such conditions that kept the secret. Except it hadn't been only secrecy now that she thinks about it. The wording specifically mentioned not to speak of this to Ron or Harry.
She had jumped on it at the time, of course. Unable to resist. Knowing Ginny was never truly out of contact. The old DA Galleons had seen to that. Once Hermione had gotten word to her, she'd managed to travel home from the Lovegood-led, (miraculously funded) Scandinavian expedition at record speed. Was the magic interpreting this wedding as a discussion about the upcoming marriage act? The Birthrate Emergency Governing Edict Two (BEGET act, like these wrinkled fucks never grew out of Hogwarts).
"Hermione?"
But why would Kingsley do this to her? Did he know? Or was this simply an unintended consequence of the get-out-of-jail-free card she thought she'd been gifted. She could have cut and run. Her parents, whether they knew her or not, were Australian citizens now. She couldn't give up her magic. She would rather have cut off her own leg. Her head, even. But she could have done the paperwork, renounced her British citizenship and gotten away. She'd stayed. Ignored the bolt hole and tried to overturn it, thinking all along she at least had this option. She'd thought that this was the worst case scenario. A lukewarm, but loving marriage to her ex-boyfriend and childhood friend. She had been a fool. She had believed her own press, the brilliant one, the brains of the trio. Now she was out of time. She looked up at Ron, raising a hand to her mouth, gesturing, trying to explain. She could have cut and run but it was too late. Far too late.
The majority of the wedding guests had left in a hurry after Ginny and Molly had explained that the event they had been invited to was not going to proceed. Most had politely assumed it was Hermione simply refusing to marry Ron after all, which had to have stung him, she knew. But she was dazed, had no room for pity for anyone outside of herself, and in short order- really rather drunk. She had been hustled upstairs into Percy's old bedroom with a bottle of champagne and a few muttered words of what was intended to be reassurance. While she waited in the dark for her own wedding to be disassembled around her, she drank.
Two weeks prior, Ginny had been able to explain to Harry and Ron what Hermione had told her the second she had returned. They had gathered in Grimmauld place, in the dining room where all of their old war councils had taken place and planned it all out together. Ginny and Harry would elope immediately, and if there was any hit of suspicion they would subtly suggest an unplanned pregnancy causing the rush. Charlie had gained residency in Romania. Hermione would lobby and push behind closed doors at the Ministry, and make the prospect of this BEGET Act as unattractive as possible. It had rubbed her the wrong way at the time. Shouldn't people simply be able to do the right thing? She hated feeling like some kind of goody-goody schoolmarm but wasn't it obvious? Did others not think of this? Not care? She was incandescent with rage over the next few weeks. Hair flying she strode around the Ministry. Calling in favours, making subtle threats, and making some very unsubtle ones too. She had been so certain. Her back up plan- George and Angelina marrying on the Saturday, herself and Ron on the Sunday the weekend prior was barely planned. The Ministry wouldn't receive notice until Monday morning was all. Barely thought of. And now it was done. The Act passed Friday afternoon, using the same strategy she had. It would be enacted Monday morning.
Hermione bothered people she knew. At the Ministry she was considered too demanding by some. By most if she was honest. Too ambitious by others. Too much a heartbreaker if the Prophet was to be believed. But somehow also too boring, too bookish, and if she was going to be like that anyway, why didn't she just be nice. Behave. Be sober and sedate and agree with what other people thought. Even when they were wrong, even when she didn't find them interesting either. And she somehow doubted that simply asking nicely would have changed much either. Not many wizards who had a hundred years of government experience had any interest in listening to someone who had been a schoolgirl just a handful of years prior. Did it matter to them that she had fought a damn war while they had closed their wrinkly eyes, covered their ears and waited it out? While they’d been on extended sabbaticals, caring for sick relatives or down with various convenient maladies safely tucked away on the continent, she’d been destroying dark artifacts, ducking and hiding, fighting. And for what? A different bunch of corrupt wizened old fools to be in charge anyway.
By the time Harry came upstairs to give her the all clear she had she'd the few tears she'd needed to that night. Stumbling downstairs in her wedding dress to the Weasley family & their overstuffed kitchen table, she saw them all turn to look at her with varying degrees of pity. Pulling up a worn wooden chair next to Ron, she saw the hallmark of his low spirits- managing only a few bites of his roast beef, looking down at it with the mien of some grieving aristocratic widow.
"Well, before all of the hubbub it was a beautiful wedding." Molly managed, setting out pitchers of something sparkling and pungent.
"Even Muriel couldn't find much fault with it- ran out of steam at about the six-minute mark I would say."
"Yes, good practice I suppose," Ron replied bleakly. His collar was open, and with his beatific expression gone he looked tired.
"Sorry" Hermione muttered, slipping into a battered wooden seat next to him, as a fresh wave of guilt crashed over her. She had ruined his chance of escape too.
"No!" His head whipped around. "I didn't mean it was your fault- we all know how hard you worked. Ginny explained the vow. I don't.. I didn't mean to blame you.." He was opening and closing his mouth like a plimpie, and Hermione took pity on him.
"It's okay Ron, and y’know. Thank you. For trying.” She leaned into him, resting her head against his broad shoulder and shakes her head. “Anyway, I have a plan."
"You do?" Ginny slid in across from her, looping an arm around Harry and pulling themselves conspiratorially into the table. Angelina and Fred, likewise entangled, leaned forward.
Hermione nodded, bringing the nearly empty bottle of wine up in an ironic toast. "Isn't it obvious? We get absolutely pissed."