A/N:

This story was meant to be part of the Harmony & Co's Valentine's Shag-A-Thon fest, but I blew past the word limit and didn't finish in time, so you get this now as a standalone story. It's almost finished and will be 10-12 chapters. I plan to update 2-3 times a week until it's fully posted. Many thanks to The Frumpologist for reading this at roughly the halfway point and convincing me that I had to finish it, rather than toss it out.

-Elle

~oOo~

Chapter 1 - An Unfortunate Law

If I looked back at the last year or so with the power of hindsight, I perhaps could see the signs I'd ignored at the time. But I had been too busy to see, too wrapped up in my work in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and too focused on the drama of my daily life to pay much attention to anything else.

Thus the announcement of a marriage law took me wholly by surprise, and I read the announcement in the "Daily Prophet" with horror.

I knew there had been concerns about the small size of the population after the war and the fall of Voldemort, but it had honestly never occurred to me, a muggleborn, that the Wizengamot might take such drastic action as forced marriage and reproduction. It was archaic, it was barbaric, it went against everything I held dear, everything I believed about freedom, bodily autonomy, and the role of government in the lives in its citizens, and I did not hesitate to tell Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt all of that - loudly - to his face.

Unfortunately for me and a bunch of other wizards and witches, the Minister refused to be swayed by my arguments and pleas, and I was sent away to stew in my frustration. Too many generations of inbreeding amongst purebloods, too many arranged marriages between magically incompatible wizards and witches and too many wars had led to a population in freefall.

Everyone of child-bearing age was being forced into matrimony. No matter what. No matter how loudly I protested to the press, to the government, to anyone who would listen.

As sorry as I felt for myself, I could not help but feel even worse for the marriages that were dissolved under the act. If a couple had not yet produced a child with demonstrable magic, they were subject to the act as well and had to undergo testing to determine whether the combination of their magics could produce magical offspring. For weeks the pages of the "Daily Prophet" were filled with sob stories of couples in love whose marriage bonds were severed due to 'magical incompatibility.'

I thought it ableist in the extreme, frankly, that the Ministry would break up otherwise happy couples because their magical incompatibility meant they were highly unlikely to conceive a healthy magical child. And yet, deep down, I could not help but think that that if given a choice, I would want my future child to be magical. Magic was an integral part of who I was, and with my parents lost to me after the war, their memories of me long gone, the magical world was all I had left, and the magical world was not a hospitable place to a child born without magic.

My friends' reactions to the law generally matched my own. Harry was outraged, as were the rest of our friends. Neville and Luna had wed only months before and were both relieved to discover they were magically compatible and would be permitted to stay together. Seamus Finnigan announced that he'd rather leave Britain altogether than marry a witch when he preferred wizards, and he departed for Ireland at once, slipping out of the country on a muggle airplane before he could be stopped by the Ministry.

I considered fleeing as well, and I tried to talk Harry into going with me. He was hesitant of course. I'd known he would be. He had never traveled outside of the United Kingdom, and he did not even have a proper muggle passport. He no longer had contact with his muggle relatives, and he'd made a home here in the magical world.

After the war, Harry had chosen to spend his free time and money fixing up 12 Grimmauld Place, cleansing it of all dark magic and restoring as much of it as he could to its former glory. I stayed with the Weasleys the summer after the war, but I soon felt smothered there, overwhelmed by the sheer number of people, by Molly's mothering, and by the way everyone tried to convince Ron and me to rush into marriage. I went back to Hogwarts with Harry for an additional 8th year of school after the war, and I stayed with the Weasleys during Christmas hols whilst Harry returned to Grimmauld Place. I did not last the whole holiday before cramming my belongings into my trusty beaded bag and showing up on Harry's doorstep.

Four years had passed since then, and I had not left.

Life with Harry was easy. It was like living in a tent together all over again but with plenty of food and comfortable and spacious accommodations. We knew each other inside and out. He tolerated my stacks of books and parchments everywhere, and I didn't nag when he came back from a pick-up quidditch game with his friends and left his gear in front of the fireplace for me to trip over when I floo'd home. We both understand what it was to be orphans and how hard it was to be a part of the magical world yet feel as if we weren't fully there because of our muggle childhoods. We just fit together.

Harry had a job he loved as an Auror and a comfortable place he'd made his home. He didn't want to leave it all behind. His own heated conversations with Kingsley Shacklebolt had left him convinced that the Ministry would never let the Boy-Who-Lived out of this law, and that leaving would only result in us being hunted again, as we had been during the war. By the time I managed to convince him that perhaps it really would be best to flee, to head somewhere like Australia or the United States, it was too late.

International portkey travel was severely restricted and charms were put in place to detect wizards trying to leave the country via airport or through the Chunnel. It was more than a little bit terrifying, not to mention utterly infuriating. THIS was what we fought a war for? This was our outcome? Forced marriage? Forced reproduction? Restrictions on travel?

I was still trying to figure out how to be an adult. I had no business being anyone's mother. The very thought was horrifying, almost as horrifying as the idea that I'd won a war only to lose control over my own body and life.

For his part, Harry apologised profusely for being the reason I couldn't get out of Britain, for holding up my escape. He clearly felt really terrible about it. I did my best to assure him it was okay before putting up silencing charms in my room and crying all night. What I wasn't able to admit at the time, even to myself, is that I don't think I could have left Harry behind. He'd been my best friend since that Halloween in our first year at Hogwarts. My life without Harry Potter in it just didn't seem like an option.

~oOo~

In the two months following the dreadful marriage law announcement, I did my best to keep my head down and figure out how to best proceed once it was clear I'd have to stay in the UK. Ron came to me right from the start and proposed. Once upon a time, I would have been thrilled by such a proposal, but the time for girlish daydreams of white dresses and bouquets of roses and Ron in dress robes at an altar had long faded into cold, hard, truth: Ron and I were not well suited to each other. We wanted different things in life - namely I wanted a career and to change the world, and he wanted what his parents had: a family and a wife at home with a passel of children. Still, he proposed, and he was rather put out when I declined, having convinced himself beforehand that there was surely no way I'd turn him down.

I was also owled no less than four times by Cormac MacLaggen, who proposed marriage, pending proof of magical compatibility. If Cormac and I were compatible, then I was prepared to declare the whole testing process utter bullshite. I respectfully declined his proposals, but he didn't seem to understand the word, "no" any more than Ron did.

In the years after the war, Harry had done his best to fade from the public eye. He was an Auror, of course, and he enjoyed his career, but he steadfastly avoided galas, fundraisers, and high-profile social events. Still, the allure of "The Boy Who Lived" had not faded, and Harry was beset by marriage offers from witches across Britain who hoped they'd be magically compatible. It got bad enough that I had to charm both his office and Grimmauld Place to block delivery of most of his mail.

The Ministry set up a new office within the Department of Vital Records to test magical compatibility. Harry and I both steered clear of it. Once you were tested, their spellwork would scan the magical signatures of everyone else who'd already been tested and spit out a list of possible matches for you. As subsequent wizards and witches were tested, you'd continue to receive owls with new matches. It was basically a crapshoot - test early and grab a match whilst that person was still available or wait and hope for better options? Or I suppose there was the third option Harry and I had chosen: ignore it all and pretend it's not happening.

My colleagues spent less time working and more time panicking or rejoicing over their test results whilst I stewed in the background, angry about the lack of actual work being accomplished.

We were only given a measly three months to find a spouse. Anyone who'd not entered into a betrothal contract by that point would be matched by the Ministry, with an effort made to pair the most compatible people together. The idea that I might end up with a 7th year student at Hogwarts or a wizard many years my senior was abhorrent to me, but it wasn't like I was in love and had a significant other who couldn't wait to live happily ever after with me. The short timeline should have sent me into a panic, but I was so angry over the whole thing and so resentful that I was still having to fight battles in the magical world that I had little room for panic.

Four days after Harry and I put the kibosh on trying to escape Britain, Draco Malfoy sauntered into my office and plopped down in a chair like he owned the place. He then slapped a copy of what looked like a family tree on the table, followed by the report on his magical signature.

"What's this?" I asked with a frown. Malfoy and I had come to a truce of sorts in our 8th year at Hogwarts, but we were far from friends. I saw him occasionally at the Ministry, and that was about it. I didn't hate him, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that I necessarily liked him either.

"The Malfoy family pedigree."

"Yes, I see that. Why is it here?"

"You've not been tested, have you, Granger?" he asked, eyeing me carefully.

"No. Nor am I in any hurry."

"I'll spare you the surprise then. We're a match."

I gaped at him. "What makes you so certain of that?"

"Look at it," he said, motioning to the family tree. "Generation upon generation of purebloods marrying other purebloods. My family frequently marries witches from France, Germany, Switzerland, and other European countries, so we're significantly less inbred than the rest of the Sacred 28 families."

"Congratulations then on not being your own cousin," I said dryly.

"Thank you. I am rather proud of that. As you lack magical ancestry, there's virtually no chance we're related at all, which means we're a match."

I frowned at him again. "Kingsley was clear this wasn't about blood status. Magical compatibility doesn't have anything to do with blood status."

"Do you really believe that? Look at this list," he said, motioning to another parchment.

I scanned through the short list of witches. There was only one I recognised, a half-blood witch who'd been in Ravenclaw.

"There's not a single pureblood name on my list, Granger. I've talked to some of my mates, and to others at the Ministry. With few exceptions, the purebloods are getting lists of muggleborns and half-bloods."

I froze, my hands clenched around his list. As if being married off like a piece of property wasn't bad enough, I was apparently going to be sold into marriage to some inbred pureblood, if Malfoy was correct.

"So why me?" I asked. "You have at least one witch on here who is a half-blood."

He snorted. "Believe it or not, I don't particularly care about your blood status, as much as I about having magical children. I'd marry a muggle if I knew it meant I wouldn't have a squib as an heir."

"Charming," I muttered as I studied his list again.

"Granger, look realistically at this situation: there are only so many muggleborns in our world."

"Yes, attempted genocide tends to do that to a population. Funny how that works."

He ignored my jibe.

"So if compatible magic is based at least in part on having no blood relation, then purebloods and muggleborns are likely to be good matches. But as I said, there aren't that many of you. Not sure how many half-bloods are in the age cohort affected by the law, but I can't imagine it's a huge number."

"What's your point?"

"My point is that if they're finding the best matches is couples with from differing… backgrounds… there aren't going to be enough muggleborns and half-bloods to go around. Not everyone is going to get a great match. I've got a short list, with varying degrees of match. As more and more couples pair up and marry off, the list of those remaining gets smaller and smaller. There's a cutoff, at which point the Ministry feels the couple are not compatible enough, and they won't approve a match. The closer you are to that cutoff, the greater the chance of being stuck in a forced marriage that produces squibs. That's unacceptable to me."

I paused and let that sink in. "I'm not sure that your science is accurate there, Malfoy."

He waved his hand dismissively. "Regardless, I'm not willing to take a chance. I want the best possible match, and I'm prepared to bet a very large sum of galleons you're it. I won't expect much from you. If you want to keep your job doing… whatever it is you do here, I won't object, as long as you provide me with an heir. You can donate generously to whatever bleeding heart cause you're supporting these days, and I can guarantee you'll have a very comfortable life."

I sat back in my chair and studied him for a long moment. Draco Malfoy had grown into his pointed features a bit with age, and if I was very honest with myself, I'd have to admit that objectively speaking, he was attractive. Unfortunately, he was also still a spoiled git, and I was fairly certain we'd kill each other within the first month of marriage, assuming we were even compatible. And that didn't even touch on the fact that his father was a war criminal and his mother looked at me like something foul she stepped in on the street.

"This is probably the least romantic proposal I've ever had," I mumbled, more to myself than to him.

He stared at me for a moment and then sighed heavily.

"Hermione Granger, will you marry me?"