Chapter Text
The whooshing sound of the floo was barely audible over the chatter. It wasn’t that the Weasleys lacked what one would politely define as “indoor voice" per se, it was that to carry a conversation in a relatively small sitting room, despite being magically enlarged for the occasion, filled with thirteen adults and six children, one naturally had to raise their voice.
“Ginny! Harry!” Molly cried out at the newly arrived couple. She wiped her damp hands on a checkered tea towel and tossed it over her shoulder before rushing towards them. Hermione winced at the sound of her mother-in-law’s screeched welcome and stepped out of the way of the barrelling woman. She barely avoided the collision, but Molly didn’t seem to notice, as she extended her arms towards Ginny. “Hand him over,” she said, gesturing for her daughter to place her infant grandson into her awaiting arms.
“Mum, don’t wake him up, it took almost an hour to get him to stop crying. It’s why we’re late,” Ginny pleaded quietly. She cautiously placed her black-haired son in her mother’s arms, careful to not jolt him awake. Her oldest didn’t wait to greet his grandmother, escaping before she pinched his cheeks by running off to find his cousins.
“Don’t tell me how to handle a baby, Ginevra Molly Weasley, I raised the seven of you, after all,” Molly snapped shrilly, hugging the sleeping child to her ample chest and rocking from side to side.
Covering her mouth and feigning a cough, Hermione hid a smile when Ginny made a face over her mum’s shoulder, her eyes rolling exaggeratedly to the back of her head. She sat down on an empty sofa, leaving a seat for her sister-in-law and best friend. It was a running gag in the family that Molly would never miss a chance to offer unsolicited parenting advice to her children. She loved to remind them that she obviously knew better, having raised seven children of her own.
The sofa dipped, and without warning, Hermione found herself with a mouthful of long red hair. “And of course, Harry ran to wherever Ron is and let me deal with her all by myself.”
With two fingers, Hermione gently pushed the top of her friend’s head away from her shoulder to lessen the risk of suffocation.“Well, she is your mother,” she pointed out, covering her drink to avoid red strands invading it when Ginny shifted from her shoulder to her chest. “Gin!”
“What? You’re quite comfortable, and I haven’t slept in a month,” she whinged with her eyes closed. “And let me sniff your glass, I’d sell my Nimbus 3000 for a drink. Breastfeeding is pants. Don’t ever do it.”
Laughing, Hermione placed the hammered copper mug containing her Moscow mule under Ginny's nose, allowing her to take a deep whiff of the alcoholic drink. “I’ll leave motherhood to you for now. Maybe in another year or three.”
She had been repeating the same thing for four years now but knew that Gin wouldn't call her out on it. She understood that for Hermione, there were more pressing priorities than adding a few more ginger babies to the Weasley clan.
Baby powder-scented hair whipped across her face once more, and she pushed it out of her face. Ginny straightened up in her seat. “They still haven’t approved the bill?” she asked, pulling the offending hair on top of her head and expertly twisting it into a high bun before securing it with a hair tie from her wrist.
Hermione grimaced. Work was never far from her mind. The war hadn’t changed her dramatically the way it had many of her friends. She liked to think that it sharpened her, focused her. Whereas her studies had been her focus, her work now was. She let out a derisive snort and raised her cup to her mouth. “They’re trying to bury the bill, you know how—”
“Meal is ready,” rang the voice of Molly, enhanced by a Sonorus to be heard over the crowd of Weasleys.
Ginny grimaced towards her mother and muttered something about not wanting to move ever again before holding a hand out to Hermione to be pulled up from the sofa. “Help, I’m so tired, and mum will wake him up, and I won’t even get to eat because he’ll be crying,” she sighed.
Clenching her teeth with the effort to pull her sister-in-law’s deadweight up. “Harry or I can go take care of him if he wakes. Come on now.”
Both witches moved from the sitting room to the temporarily extended dining room, where an impressively large table, big enough to sit the now twenty-two people with the arrival of Harry and Ginny, comfortably.
Gin went to sit by her mother, despite her complaining, just in case her son woke up. Albus Severus Potter, for his part, seemed quite comfortable napping on his nan’s chest.
A quick glance around the full table, and she found Ron sitting with Harry, George, and his wife Angelina. “ Typical,” she thought, taking the sole empty chair between Percy and Fleur.
As usual, the food was delicious. Molly wasn’t exactly Hermione’s favourite person—and while Ron often told her she imagined things, she knew the feeling was mutual—but the woman could cook. Ron often decried Hermione’s talents in the kitchen. It wasn’t that she couldn’t cook, she could feed them both adequately and without burning down their flat, but she didn’t have the same passion for cooking and domesticity as Molly Weasley.
With a full stomach and a happy vodka-induced warmth, Hermione glanced fondly around the table. While the Weasleys were a rowdy bunch, there was love in that family as well. She smiled gently at Aurelia, Percy’s 4-year-old, who was busy using her fork to build a mashed turnip castle on the plate.
“Are you settling well into your new role?” Percy asked primly, leaving the task of wiping his daughter’s sticky hands to his wife, preferring, as always, to talk about Ministry business.
Hermione inwardly sighed. “I am, thank you,” she answered, hoping her short answer would be taken as an indicator that she did not want to engage. Conversations with Percy Weasley were tedious at best. She shot a side glance to Fleur, hoping for a helping hand, but the witch was rapidly speaking French to her daughter.
“Magical cooperation is quite the step up from the DRMC. Well done,” he said. The sentiment could have been genuine, but it came across as condescending, as did most things that came out of his mouth.
It wasn’t that Regulations of Magical Creatures was a dead-end department per se. Hermione had enjoyed fighting for the rights of creatures. It was that she quickly became disillusioned about her ability to effect the change she wanted to see from that Department. Even her former boss, Hubert Bigelow had no political weight when it came to changing laws or rewriting policies.
Magical cooperation was the logical first step. International Magical Law, the second.
“It’s more in line with my career goals, I agree,” she answered politely, hoping it would be enough for Percy to drop the subject.
“You know when I was in Magical Cooperation—”
Movement across the table drew her eyes away from Percy. Arthur, pushing away from the table, had a few of the glasses wobbling precariously. He rose and lifted his glass of wine. “I want to take a moment to wish a happy thirty-fifth anniversary to the rock of this family, my Mollywobbles. I couldn’t ask for a better wife and mother to our children,” he said while smiling gently at his wife.
“Oh, Arthur,” she replied, her voice thick with emotions..
Hermione could see even from the other side of the table that the older woman’s eyes were getting misty when she cautiously moved the still-sleeping Albus to his mother’s lap before rising from her seat, and putting her arms around her husband.
“I love you, Arthur,” she breathed against him before addressing the entire red-haired clan and their spouses. “Arthur and I were blessed to find each other and have a beautiful family. Now, we're glad to pass on the torch. I know a few of your marriages were rushed by that unfortunate business" —she waved a hand dismissively—"with the Ministry, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise when I look at all your happy faces and especially at my precious grandchildren.” She squeezed her husband’s arm fondly. “And now, who wants pudding?”
‘Unfortunate business with the Ministry’ is one way to put it , Hermione thought, and if the bitter look on Genevieve—Percy’s Ministry-appointed Muggleborn wife—was any indication, the sentiment was shared. With the exception of Charlie, who hadn’t been subject to the law due to his Romanian residence, and Bill and Fleur who married in 1997, every couple around the table was a direct result of the Marriage Initiative, as they liked to call it. As if calling it an initiative, instead of a law, made the entire endeavour more palatable.
Sure, Ginny and Harry, as well as George and Angelina, were eventually going to tie the knot anyway. The Initiative had only sped up the timetable, but for some others, the law had disastrous consequences. Percy had been forced to break up his engagement to his then-fiancée, Audrey, simply because the law did not allow two purebloods to marry. Purebloods could marry either Half-bloods or Muggleborns, Muggleborns could only marry Purebloods, and no one seemed overly worried about Half-Bloods, as they could marry Purebloods or each other. To his new wife's dismay, Percy brought up Audrey, who worked in the same department as he did, every chance he had.
When the Initiative was first announced, it was described as the best solution to combat the dwindling fertility numbers amongst the British Wizarding population, and a way to infuse new magical blood into decimated family trees. With very few extenuating circumstances, every wixen between the ages of 18 and 50 was given 60 days to find a partner and marry, or the Ministry would assign them one. It was declared that couples were to produce a minimum of two children in the first five years of marriage to be eligible for a divorce.
The reproduction clause received significant pushback. Hermione, as a then junior Ministry employee, attended every hearing about the Initiative and used the small amount of clout her status as a war heroine afforded her to fight it. Due to the overwhelming opposition, the Ministry went ahead with the Initiative but rolled back the clause about children.
In the end, children were greatly encouraged with large monetary incentives for couples who chose to have them. The divorce clause still stood, but it was also amended so that while divorce was permitted under the Marriage Initiative, only witches and wizards who became parents would not be forced to remarry within 60 days of the dissolution of their union.
Compared to a lot of others, Hermione knew she shouldn’t complain. After all, while it was sudden and forced, she and Ron had been a couple since the end of the war. But if she was honest with herself, she didn’t know if they would have stayed one without the Initiative forcing them to marry.
After the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron had seemed like the logical choice. Her parents were in Australia, and even the specialised memory care team from St. Mungos had not been able to bring their memory back. The Weasleys were grieving Fred’s death, and she had felt like it was her duty to be there for Ron during that time. Then it was helping with rebuilding Hogwarts, the Death Eaters trials—many of them where she, Ron and Harry were called to testify— her NEWTs, and her then internship with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
By the time Hermione had a second to take a breath, the Wizengamot had passed the Marriage Initiative, and she faced forced matrimony. Ron had been there for her every step of the way, assuaging her fears. Of course, he would marry her, he loved her after all. He did not make much working as equipment manager for the Chudley Cannons, but between her salary, and with the incentives promised to those couples with children, they could afford to build their own home in Ottery St.Catchpole.
She had been quick to correct his assumptions. While Hermione wasn’t opposed to motherhood per se, she had very detailed, three and five-year plans, and children did not fit in them. The ten-year one had a tad more flexibility, and depending on her career trajectory, she told Ron she would be open to starting to try in seven to nine years.
Ron whinged and pleaded, nothing unexpected, but Hermione firmly stood her ground. The dream house near his parents turned into an older but well-kept flat on the outskirts of London, and he seemed content enough to play Uncle to his, counting Albus, now seven nieces and nephews, until Hermione was ready to have kids.
It wasn’t a perfect marriage, but they were comfortable and happy. Ron was one of her best friends after all. She caught his eyes from across the room and smiled. He clapped Harry on the back, and both her boys waved and grinned back at her.
No one skipped pudding at the Burrow. Molly's treacle tart rivalled Hogwarts and despite being stuffed from dinner, Hermione indulged in a few too many bites whilst half listening to Percy describe how his department was responsible for the new regulation on number 20 cauldron bottom thickness.
How one could be an utter bore, and yet be so full of themselves always, all at once, never ceased to amuse her. Covering her mouth to stifle a yawn, she glanced around the table, for any good reason to bail on the less than riveting conversation.
Her red-headed saviour, Ginny, angled her head towards the sitting room and raised an eyebrow. Thank Merlin. “Excuse me, Percy. I think Gin needs my help with little Al. Best of luck with the—ah, cauldrons,” she said, trying for a modicum of politeness and excusing herself from the table.
The fussing baby was thrust into her arms before she could take a seat. “Here, hold him while I…"
With a hand supporting his neck and the other his diaper-clad bottom, Hermione carefully took a seat on a large mauve sofa. Like most pieces of furniture at the Burrow, it had seen better days, and the frame protested with a crack.
“Was he waxing on about Audrey and ignoring Genevieve again? You looked bored to tears,” Ginny asked while reaching with both hands under her jumper and pulling free her left breast. She motioned for Hermione to give back her son. The baby made a loud fussing sound, and Hermione held her breath. She didn't mind babies as long as they did not cry.
They both watched his face turn redder and redder as he prepared to cry, but his mother was ready. “Shushh, it’s ok, here,” Ginny said, placing Albus against her chest. The infant settled with minimum fussing.
“No, something about the proper thickness for copper cauldron bottoms. I tuned out before your parents’ speech,” Hermione answered, relaxing back into her seat. She grabbed a crushed velvet cushion and hugged it to her chest, propping her chin on top of it.
“Ron could have saved you a s—”
“I could have done what?” asked Ron, letting himself fall onto the overstuffed chair next to Hermione’s sofa with a bottle of mead in hand. One look at his sister, and he grimaced before dramatically covering his eyes with his free hand. “Merlin, Gin. Do you have to always get your tits out like that?”
Hermione smacked his arm and frowned at his lack of tact, but, as always, Ginny didn’t need defending. Growing up with six brothers gave one thick skin, something Hermione envied.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” she answered, stroking the thick black hair on Albus' head. “You’re not the only one who gets to eat, your nephew was hungry too.”
“Sure,” Ron said, taking a swig of his bottle. “But the whole, you know…" He waved his hand, holding the bottle in a circle in front of his chest. “Tit out thing.”
“You didn’t complain when it was Fleur breastfeeding Victoire and Mathilde, did you?”
Hermione chuckled at that and Ginny smirked. Everyone was very accommodating when Fleur had declared that she didn't care if she offended English sensibilities but would not be forced to feed her children in the loo. Ginny evidently supported the idea.
“I, for one, happen to be quite fond of your sister’s tits,” Harry chimed in, joining the conversation. He bent over to place a kiss on Hermione’s head, then Ginny’s before looking down fondly at his feeding son. “James is fine, he's playing with little Freddy and Aurelia,” he reassured his wife before she had the time to ask. “Hi, Mione,” he added sheepishly, more aware than her husband that they both had left her to fend for herself on the other side of the table with Percy and Genevieve.
Ron propped his feet on the coffee table, pushing the old April copy of Witch Weekly, with a dark-haired witch on the cover, to the floor. He didn’t bother to pick it up. “You’re still scheduled to work the charity ball next week, right?” she asked Harry, moving her cushion to lean over and retrieve the glossy magazine. She placed it back on the table, away from her husband’s socked feet.
“Here, you can burp him,” Ginny tossed a flannel to her husband and placed their son in his arms.
“Gah! Your whole tit!” Ginny!” Ron exclaimed, turning away from his sister. “I need to be obliviated now.”
“Just look away if you don’t want to see it, you primitive git,” Gin snapped at her brother.
Hermione and Harry, used to their bickering, simply ignored them. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” He rubbed small circles on his son’s back. “Robbards have Dean and me on security detail for the evening, but I’ll save you a dance since this prat, who keeps insulting my wife’s chest, can’t even be bothered to accompany you..”
“Oi! I would go. I always do, but the team is playing the Kestrels on Friday,” Ron answered. He lifted the dark bottle and finished his mead. “Plus if someone understands dedication to work, it’s Mione,” he said, leaning over to kiss her temple.
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Casting a stability charm on the two cups of coffee in her hands, she pushed her way to the back of the lift while mumbling, “Excuse me. Pardon me.” Truth be told, she still was a touch motion sick with the abrupt movement of the Ministry lifts and preferred to be against the wall where she could balance herself to minimise the movement.
The doors opened and closed on each floor letting in and out workers as well as interdepartmental memos.
“Morning, Bill,” a witch— one of the admins for the Undersecretary office—smiled.
“Marianne,” an elderly wizard bowed his head in greeting. Hermione adjusted the strap of her satchel on her shoulder and ducked to avoid a memo whizzing by her head to exit at the next floor.
“Level two"
Three Ministry employees crammed themselves into the already full lift. A middle-aged witch in purple robes and two wizards in the grey uniforms of the sanitation department. The taller one waved a copy of the Prophet as he stepped in, seemingly uncaring that he bumped into the witch standing in front of Hermione. She thankfully caught herself on one of the ceiling handles and regained her balance. “Can you believe they’re letting him out?”
“They should have given the kiss to the lot of them, if you ask me.”
“Too right,” the one holding the newspaper responded.
She didn’t overhear the rest of the conversation, because two witches decided to recap the Harpies game from the previous match, play by play. “The chasers have been struggling since Potter went on maternity leave. I cannot wait for her to be back.” Hermione made a mental note to relay that particular conversation to Ginny.
Smiling at the two witches who were fans of her friend, she pushed her way to the front of the lift as the disembodied voice announced “Level 5". She caught a glimpse of a lock of dull platinum hair above the fold of the Prophet before the gilded door closed inches behind a volley of memos.
“Good morning, Grace!” she said, cheerful despite the early hour. With an exaggerated flourish, she rounded off her coworker’s glass desk and deposited one of the two cups of coffee in front of the witch.
While under the umbrella of Magical Cooperation, the Magical Law Department only occupied a small area of the 5th level. Grace MacMillan, a busty, fifty-something brunette, had been assigned to chaperoning Hermione until she completed her legal certification.
Just as she had at Hogwarts, Hermione asked a lot of questions and to make up for Grace’s never-ending patience with her, she kept her well supplied in Muggle caffeine.
“Oh, you absolute angel,” she cooed in delight, clasping the disposable cup with both hands and lifting it to her face to smell the beverage through the small hole in the plastic lid. “Hazelnut?“ she guessed.
Hermione nodded, and Grace lifted the cup to her mouth, letting out a contented sigh. “I wonder if Jonas would consider moving to a Muggle neighbourhood if I asked nicely. It would be worth it just for the coffee,” she said before taking another gulp.
Hermione laughed imagining the two Purebloods and their four children in a muggle coffee shop. “Doubtful.”
Grace grimaced and deposited her already a third-empty cup on top of her copy of the Prophet.
“Callum is busy on a floo conference call with the Germans and one of the solicitors from Burke & Holloway. He should be done by ten,“ the older witch said.
“Perfect. Gives me enough time to go over my last edits before I pass it on to him,” Hermione answered, settling at her desk and pulling out her work files from her magically-extended satchel.
She spent the next forty minutes triple-checking her edits until she decided that nothing could be gained from revising the document for a fourth time. A quick glance at the clock above the door of Callum McLeod’s—the head of Magical Law— office told her she still had almost half an hour to kill.
“Grace.”
“Hm?“
“Mind if I take a peek at your copy of the Daily Prophet? I can't stand to look at my revisions once more, I spent most of the night on it until Ron forced me to go to bed.”
The witch smiled knowingly in a way that told Hermione her overachieving antics were all but too well-known. “Here, have it,” she said, leaning over her desk with the folded newspaper in her hand. “The Malfoy boy was released this morning. The article mentions you but only in passing,” she added.
Hermione nodded. She wasn't mentioned in the news as often these days, but it was to be expected given the nature of the article. She reached over her own desk towards Grace’s outstretched hand, making sure not to knock over her coffee or inkwell. “Thank you.”
Draco Malfoy, youngest convicted Death Eater, released from Azkaban, announced the headline.
She smoothed out the crease in the newspaper, her fingers brushing against a photograph where a gaunt Draco Malfoy was helped by his mother out of the small craft used to shuttle visitors and prisoners alike to and fro Azkaban. Her first thought was he no longer was the pointy boy she remembered from Hogwarts, the second was that shoulder-length hair did not particularly suit him. As if any of it matters, she chided herself.
“ Draco Lucius Malfoy, 24, was released today from a six-year sentence in Azkaban. The Malfoy heir along with his father, Lucius Abraxas Malfoy (see page 6 for a full profile of the Malfoy family) was sentenced to two years in Azkaban on July 5th 1998, a month to the day after his 18th birthday.
Draco and Lucius Malfoy, both marked Death Eaters, earned lenient sentences due to their full cooperation with the DMLE. Narcissa Malfoy (née Black) only served six months of house arrest. It is believed that the testimony of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, two-thirds of the Golden Trio, contributed to the Malfoys' lighter sentences. (See page 10 for a throwback to our coverage of all three Malfoys trials from our special edition of June 23rd 1998)
Draco Malfoy was originally scheduled to be released on July 5th 2000 but a prison yard fight, resulting in a month-long stay in Azkaban’s medical wing for the scion of House Malfoy, added four years to his sentence. Theophile Thimble (serving 108 years), Geoffrey Gibbons (serving a life sentence) as well as Philomena Bilmouth (serving 93 years) were also involved in the altercation. The same four years were added to their sentence.
“We have a strict no fighting policy, and the price to disobey is steep,” said Warden Fitzgerald when interviewed on the matter in June 2000.
The Malfoy family was quite incensed by the extra sentence. “It’s a travesty of justice for the victim of a crime to receive the same punishment as his attackers. There’s no doubt in my mind that the perpetrators wanted to send a message to his (Draco Malfoy’s) father for working closely with the Aurors,” said Godbert Holloway of Burke & Holloway, the solicitor for the Malfoy Family.
What’s next for the Malfoy family now that they are reunited? Will young Draco join his mother in her effort to rehabilitate the family name? (See the society section on page 13 for the scoop on the upcoming Wizarding War Orphan Foundation charity ball) or will he choose a darker path?
Lucius, Narcissa and Draco Malfoy all refused to be interviewed for this article.
She didn’t bother reading the other sections. Hermione remembered all too well the Malfoys' trials. Harry had testified for Narcissa, as she had been instrumental in saving his life when she lied to Voldemort, and they had both taken the stand in the defence of Draco.
Ron never understood why she was so adamant about doing it. She didn’t care about Malfoy then and still didn’t, but to her, it never felt right to glorify the child soldiers from one side while vilifying the others.
The clock told her that she had just enough time for a quick fourth lookover. Hermione refolded the newspaper until only Malfoy’s empty grey eyes were visible under the headline and handed it back to Grace.
The folder containing her proposed bill only held together because of a reinforcement spell cast on the cardstock. She fingered the worn corner and all thoughts of her former classmate ebbed from her mind as she went on rereading her work.