Somebody to Love by Queen
Miss Weasley,
The War has caused a drop in the population of the wizarding world. To correct the situation, the International Confederation of Wizards is arranging marriages for every witch and wizard of age. The marriages are determined by a soul mate spell. Each couple will have to produce three children minimum. All forms of contraceptive are banned. Please come to the Ministry of Magic at 9:00 on Monday morning to be paired with your soul mate. If you do not show up to receive your fiancé(e) on the date above, you will be exiled from the wizarding world.
Sincerely,
Rufus Scrimgeour
Minister of Magic
Every unmarried witch and wizard of age was getting a letter exactly like Ginny’s.
“Mum!” Ginny shouted downstairs.
“What, dear?” Mrs. Weasley said, entering her daughter’s bedroom.
“I’m getting married,” Ginny announced.
“What?” Mrs. Weasley screeched. Ginny handed her the letter and watched her read it several times.
“I wonder if Arthur can do anything about this law. It just seems so ridiculous. Isn’t there another way to increase the population?”
“No, Mum,” Ginny said. “The letter is pretty clear that everyone has to get married and produce offspring or be exiled.”
“Well, what about Harry?” she pestered.
“I’m not in love with Harry. Sure, I love him, but only as a brother,” Ginny told her mother for what seemed like the billionth time.
Just then, Ron ran into the room. “Mum, I’m getting married,” he exclaimed unenthusiastically.
“So am I, Ron.”
He looked taken aback. “My baby sister is NOT getting married to some stranger, and no way is she having three kids with him!” Ron shouted, completely enraged. “I’m sending you to become a nun! Surely they can’t make you marry if you’ve pledged yourself to God?”
Ginny rolled her eyes at her brother’s overprotectiveness and chewed on her lip. What if her soul mate didn’t like her? What if she didn’t like him? Ginny decided to go into her closet to pick out the perfect outfit to meet her fiancé to take her mind off of such things.
“Right?” Ron asked.
“No dear. Ginny has to get married, and so do you and your brothers,” Mrs. Weasley explained. “And I’m going to have loads and loads of grandchildren!” she added with immense glee.
* * *
The Weasley siblings, Harry, Hermione, and Luna arrived at the Ministry the following morning. They checked in at the front desk, and the receptionist told Bill to go down the hall and into room number seven. The others sat down to wait. They couldn’t help but speculate about the new couples.
“Bill and Fleur are perfect together,” Luna pointed out.
Hermione agreed. “Yes, they’re going to stay together.”
“You know who’s perfect together?” Harry said. He turned to Ron and Hermione. “You two.”
“Hopefully the Ministry thinks so, too,” Ron replied.
Hermione nodded, looking down at her shoes, thinking they were very interesting.
George turned to Fred. “I wonder where Katie is.”
“Why? So you can make sure that she gets you?” Charlie asked, giving him a slight glare and not knowing exactly why.
George looked at his brother pointedly. “Maybe.”
Ginny listened silently, watching everyone’s faces.
“Well, I don’t care what that spell says, Angelina and I are going to stay together,” Fred announced, his chin higher than usual.
His twin agreed, “You two go together like Penelope and Percy and Charlie and Alicia.”
“Charles Weasley!” the receptionist called out. Charlie stood up and walked into the room that Bill was just exiting. He was hand in had with his fiancée, Fleur Delacour, and they were both grinning like fools.
“I told you,” Luna stated dreamily.
“Percy Weasley!”
Percy stood up and left, catching Penelope’s eye as he walked through the door.
Just then Charlie walked out with a pissed off Katie Bell.
George stood up, outraged, “What the bloody hell?”
“I didn’t plan this George, so don’t go looking at me,” Charlie said, defending himself.
“Fred Weasley!”
Fred got up in a hurry, anxious to get out of his angry twin’s sight. “Love to stay and help you out, but I’ve just been called,” Fred shouted to Charlie as he disappeared into another room.
Katie tried to reason with him. “George, it’s no use. The Ministry is expecting us to get married within the month, and we can’t do anything about it.”
“George Weasley!”
“You are so dead when I get back, Charlie Weasley!” George shouted.
Just then Fred came out of the room with Angelina around his arm, beaming.
“Lucky sod,” George muttered as he went past his twin.
“Luna Lovegood!”
Luna stood and slowly made her way towards the room that the receptionist indicated.
“You know, Percy hasn’t come out yet,” Ginny said aloud, wondering what was going on behind the door.
Harry nodded. “You’re right. I wonder what’s taking him so long.”
“Here he comes now,” Hermione said, pointing, “And look who he’s with!”
“Is that...?” Ron sputtered.
Ginny laughed aloud. “Daphne Greengrass.”
“What happened to Penelope?” Ron asked, confused as to how his perfect brother ended up with a Slytherin.
“Shut up, Ron!” he snapped.
“Percy, who’s she?” Penelope asked, walking to her boyfriend and pointing at Daphne.
“His fiancée,” Daphne smirked. She wasn’t about to let some goody-two-shoes Ravenclaw insult her.
Penelope screamed at Percy and stomped out of the Ministry. Percy just king of stood there, looking stupid, which was quite uncharacteristic for him.
George exited his room, looking even angrier, dragging a frightened and annoyed Alicia Spinnet.
“George Weasley, you prick, slow down!” Alicia yelled. George stopped and was rewarded with a smack upside the head from his new fiancée.
“Ow!” He turned to glare at her.
“Good.”
The receptionist called out, “Ronald Weasley!”
Ron walked down the hall to the indicated room, looking nervous.
Luna appeared in the hallway soon after, and Harry said, “Hey look, it’s Luna with... Zabini!” Harry spat out his foe's name, venom dripping from each letter.
“Goodbye, everyone,” she said dreamily. “We’re going to Daddy’s house so he can meet Blaise.” And the odd couple walked out together.
“Hermione Granger!”
Hermione said goodbye to her friends and entered room thirteen.
* * *
When she walked into the room the spell administrator said, “Miss Granger, if you don’t mind, I’m going to perform the soul mate spell for you.” Hermione nodded and waited for the man to continue.
“Reperio comes comitits.”
In gold letters, the name Severus Snape appeared in the air before Hermione. Hermione gulped. Her luck couldn’t be than bad, could it?
The man sent a message to the receptionist, probably to floo Snape in.
"There must be a mistake," Hermione said, frantically. "You must have done the spell improperly."
"No, ma'am. There isn't a mistake," the man replied, solemn.
Just then the door opened. She shut her eyes, her back to the door, hoping that it was all a nightmare. She opened them--nope, the gold letters still said Severus Snape.
“Severus Snape, may I introduce...” the man started.
“Miss Granger?” Snape finished incredulously.
Hermione turned around to face him, tears shining in her eyes and blinking them away. “Hello, Professor.”
“Well...” the man said, feeling rather uncomfortable that he just matched up a student with her professor, “I’ve got the marriage papers here; do you want to get married now?”
“No,” Hermione said, her lips pursed, and eyes still shining with unshed tears. “Molly would flip if I didn’t have a wedding that she could plan and bully her sons into going to.”
“It’s settled, then. We’ll go see Molly right now and get married within the month,” Snape said, trying to act civil. “And another thing, Miss Granger: call me Severus if we’re to be married.”
“Likewise.”
The pair strode out of the room and toward the Weasleys. Fleur was with Bill, Katie with Charlie, Daphne with Percy, Angelina with Fred, Alicia with George, and Pansy Parkinson with Ron.
“Hermione, what are you doing with Snape?” Ron asked innocently, hoping to Merlin that it wasn’t what it looked like.
“What do you think, Ronald?” Hermione snapped. “And what are you doing with Parkinson?”
“Same as everyone else here,” Ron growled.
Snape sneered. “Can’t we just leave?” he asked Hermione, not wanting to hang around her moronic friends.
“No, we have to wait for Harry and Ginny,” she replied, sternly.
“Everyone knows that the Boy Who Won’t Die is going to be with that insufferable Gryffindor princess, so what’s the point in waiting?” he complained, but sat down to wait. “I think I’d rather brave the Muggle world.”
When Harry came out of the room, he was alone. Ginny noticed and asked him about it.
“My soul mate is Gabrielle Delacour,” he replied.
“But she’s...” Ginny started.
“Yes. Not of age,” Harry finished.
“So...?”
“They’re contacting the French Ministry of Magic to see what they can do, but for now, I’m fiancée-less.”
“Ginevra Weasley!”
“See you later, guys!” She smiled cheerily as she made her way to room fifteen. Upon entering, she knew that something was off.
“What do you mean I can’t get someone else?” the man in the chair thundered at the spell administrator.
“She’s your soul mate, and it’s the law,” the administrator squeaked.
The young man turned around, presumably to find something to throw at the shaking administrator. Then he caught sight of her and stopped. He stopped breathing, he stopped moving, hell, he thought that he was paralyzed.
To say that she had changed since he’d last seen her was a grand understatement. Her brassy red, unruly hair had darkened to a rich wine red and had been tamed into beautiful bouncy curls. Her face didn’t look like it had been dunked in a bowl of cinnamon anymore, but was sprinkled with a dusting of freckles. She’d filled out in all the right places and had generous curves in the most pleasing areas. It was safe to say that she was not a little girl anymore.
“Weasley?” he managed to choke out.
“Hello, Malfoy. If you are unhappy with the arrangement, you don’t have to marry me. I’m sure that I wouldn’t mind living in the Muggle world for the rest of my life.”
He looked her over again, then turned abruptly back to the man. “I’ve changed my mind.”
Ginny grinned. “Oh no, you don’t. You can’t go back on your decision now; I’ve already made plans to work at Burger King and live in a little apartment in New York City, you can’t go crushing my dreams.”
“Watch me,” he said low and dangerously, crossing the room to stand in front of her.
“I’d like to see you try,” Ginny challenged. She knew it was a bad idea standing so close to him and she knew his first instinct would be to kiss her, but she wasn’t going to back down. And she was half right; he closed in to kiss her, but stopped a hair away from her lips. She prepared herself for a passionate, lust-filled kiss and closed her eyes, but it never came. Instead she heard chuckling right next to her ear.
Her eyes snapped open. “You prat,” she said, hitting his shoulder for effect.
Miss Weasley,
The War has caused a drop in the population of the wizarding world. To correct the situation, the International Confederation of Wizards is arranging marriages for every witch and wizard of age. The marriages are determined by a soul mate spell. Each couple will have to produce three children minimum. All forms of contraceptive are banned. Please come to the Ministry of Magic at 9:00 on Monday morning to be paired with your soul mate. If you do not show up to receive your fiancé(e) on the date above, you will be exiled from the wizarding world.
Sincerely,
Rufus Scrimgeour
Minister of Magic
Every unmarried witch and wizard of age was getting a letter exactly like Ginny’s.
“Mum!” Ginny shouted downstairs.
“What, dear?” Mrs. Weasley said, entering her daughter’s bedroom.
“I’m getting married,” Ginny announced.
“What?” Mrs. Weasley screeched. Ginny handed her the letter and watched her read it several times.
“I wonder if Arthur can do anything about this law. It just seems so ridiculous. Isn’t there another way to increase the population?”
“No, Mum,” Ginny said. “The letter is pretty clear that everyone has to get married and produce offspring or be exiled.”
“Well, what about Harry?” she pestered.
“I’m not in love with Harry. Sure, I love him, but only as a brother,” Ginny told her mother for what seemed like the billionth time.
Just then, Ron ran into the room. “Mum, I’m getting married,” he exclaimed unenthusiastically.
“So am I, Ron.”
He looked taken aback. “My baby sister is NOT getting married to some stranger, and no way is she having three kids with him!” Ron shouted, completely enraged. “I’m sending you to become a nun! Surely they can’t make you marry if you’ve pledged yourself to God?”
Ginny rolled her eyes at her brother’s overprotectiveness and chewed on her lip. What if her soul mate didn’t like her? What if she didn’t like him? Ginny decided to go into her closet to pick out the perfect outfit to meet her fiancé to take her mind off of such things.
“Right?” Ron asked.
“No dear. Ginny has to get married, and so do you and your brothers,” Mrs. Weasley explained. “And I’m going to have loads and loads of grandchildren!” she added with immense glee.
* * *
The Weasley siblings, Harry, Hermione, and Luna arrived at the Ministry the following morning. They checked in at the front desk, and the receptionist told Bill to go down the hall and into room number seven. The others sat down to wait. They couldn’t help but speculate about the new couples.
“Bill and Fleur are perfect together,” Luna pointed out.
Hermione agreed. “Yes, they’re going to stay together.”
“You know who’s perfect together?” Harry said. He turned to Ron and Hermione. “You two.”
“Hopefully the Ministry thinks so, too,” Ron replied.
Hermione nodded, looking down at her shoes, thinking they were very interesting.
George turned to Fred. “I wonder where Katie is.”
“Why? So you can make sure that she gets you?” Charlie asked, giving him a slight glare and not knowing exactly why.
George looked at his brother pointedly. “Maybe.”
Ginny listened silently, watching everyone’s faces.
“Well, I don’t care what that spell says, Angelina and I are going to stay together,” Fred announced, his chin higher than usual.
His twin agreed, “You two go together like Penelope and Percy and Charlie and Alicia.”
“Charles Weasley!” the receptionist called out. Charlie stood up and walked into the room that Bill was just exiting. He was hand in had with his fiancée, Fleur Delacour, and they were both grinning like fools.
“I told you,” Luna stated dreamily.
“Percy Weasley!”
Percy stood up and left, catching Penelope’s eye as he walked through the door.
Just then Charlie walked out with a pissed off Katie Bell.
George stood up, outraged, “What the bloody hell?”
“I didn’t plan this George, so don’t go looking at me,” Charlie said, defending himself.
“Fred Weasley!”
Fred got up in a hurry, anxious to get out of his angry twin’s sight. “Love to stay and help you out, but I’ve just been called,” Fred shouted to Charlie as he disappeared into another room.
Katie tried to reason with him. “George, it’s no use. The Ministry is expecting us to get married within the month, and we can’t do anything about it.”
“George Weasley!”
“You are so dead when I get back, Charlie Weasley!” George shouted.
Just then Fred came out of the room with Angelina around his arm, beaming.
“Lucky sod,” George muttered as he went past his twin.
“Luna Lovegood!”
Luna stood and slowly made her way towards the room that the receptionist indicated.
“You know, Percy hasn’t come out yet,” Ginny said aloud, wondering what was going on behind the door.
Harry nodded. “You’re right. I wonder what’s taking him so long.”
“Here he comes now,” Hermione said, pointing, “And look who he’s with!”
“Is that...?” Ron sputtered.
Ginny laughed aloud. “Daphne Greengrass.”
“What happened to Penelope?” Ron asked, confused as to how his perfect brother ended up with a Slytherin.
“Shut up, Ron!” he snapped.
“Percy, who’s she?” Penelope asked, walking to her boyfriend and pointing at Daphne.
“His fiancée,” Daphne smirked. She wasn’t about to let some goody-two-shoes Ravenclaw insult her.
Penelope screamed at Percy and stomped out of the Ministry. Percy just king of stood there, looking stupid, which was quite uncharacteristic for him.
George exited his room, looking even angrier, dragging a frightened and annoyed Alicia Spinnet.
“George Weasley, you prick, slow down!” Alicia yelled. George stopped and was rewarded with a smack upside the head from his new fiancée.
“Ow!” He turned to glare at her.
“Good.”
The receptionist called out, “Ronald Weasley!”
Ron walked down the hall to the indicated room, looking nervous.
Luna appeared in the hallway soon after, and Harry said, “Hey look, it’s Luna with... Zabini!” Harry spat out his foe's name, venom dripping from each letter.
“Goodbye, everyone,” she said dreamily. “We’re going to Daddy’s house so he can meet Blaise.” And the odd couple walked out together.
“Hermione Granger!”
Hermione said goodbye to her friends and entered room thirteen.
* * *
When she walked into the room the spell administrator said, “Miss Granger, if you don’t mind, I’m going to perform the soul mate spell for you.” Hermione nodded and waited for the man to continue.
“Reperio comes comitits.”
In gold letters, the name Severus Snape appeared in the air before Hermione. Hermione gulped. Her luck couldn’t be than bad, could it?
The man sent a message to the receptionist, probably to floo Snape in.
"There must be a mistake," Hermione said, frantically. "You must have done the spell improperly."
"No, ma'am. There isn't a mistake," the man replied, solemn.
Just then the door opened. She shut her eyes, her back to the door, hoping that it was all a nightmare. She opened them--nope, the gold letters still said Severus Snape.
“Severus Snape, may I introduce...” the man started.
“Miss Granger?” Snape finished incredulously.
Hermione turned around to face him, tears shining in her eyes and blinking them away. “Hello, Professor.”
“Well...” the man said, feeling rather uncomfortable that he just matched up a student with her professor, “I’ve got the marriage papers here; do you want to get married now?”
“No,” Hermione said, her lips pursed, and eyes still shining with unshed tears. “Molly would flip if I didn’t have a wedding that she could plan and bully her sons into going to.”
“It’s settled, then. We’ll go see Molly right now and get married within the month,” Snape said, trying to act civil. “And another thing, Miss Granger: call me Severus if we’re to be married.”
“Likewise.”
The pair strode out of the room and toward the Weasleys. Fleur was with Bill, Katie with Charlie, Daphne with Percy, Angelina with Fred, Alicia with George, and Pansy Parkinson with Ron.
“Hermione, what are you doing with Snape?” Ron asked innocently, hoping to Merlin that it wasn’t what it looked like.
“What do you think, Ronald?” Hermione snapped. “And what are you doing with Parkinson?”
“Same as everyone else here,” Ron growled.
Snape sneered. “Can’t we just leave?” he asked Hermione, not wanting to hang around her moronic friends.
“No, we have to wait for Harry and Ginny,” she replied, sternly.
“Everyone knows that the Boy Who Won’t Die is going to be with that insufferable Gryffindor princess, so what’s the point in waiting?” he complained, but sat down to wait. “I think I’d rather brave the Muggle world.”
When Harry came out of the room, he was alone. Ginny noticed and asked him about it.
“My soul mate is Gabrielle Delacour,” he replied.
“But she’s...” Ginny started.
“Yes. Not of age,” Harry finished.
“So...?”
“They’re contacting the French Ministry of Magic to see what they can do, but for now, I’m fiancée-less.”
“Ginevra Weasley!”
“See you later, guys!” She smiled cheerily as she made her way to room fifteen. Upon entering, she knew that something was off.
“What do you mean I can’t get someone else?” the man in the chair thundered at the spell administrator.
“She’s your soul mate, and it’s the law,” the administrator squeaked.
The young man turned around, presumably to find something to throw at the shaking administrator. Then he caught sight of her and stopped. He stopped breathing, he stopped moving, hell, he thought that he was paralyzed.
To say that she had changed since he’d last seen her was a grand understatement. Her brassy red, unruly hair had darkened to a rich wine red and had been tamed into beautiful bouncy curls. Her face didn’t look like it had been dunked in a bowl of cinnamon anymore, but was sprinkled with a dusting of freckles. She’d filled out in all the right places and had generous curves in the most pleasing areas. It was safe to say that she was not a little girl anymore.
“Weasley?” he managed to choke out.
“Hello, Malfoy. If you are unhappy with the arrangement, you don’t have to marry me. I’m sure that I wouldn’t mind living in the Muggle world for the rest of my life.”
He looked her over again, then turned abruptly back to the man. “I’ve changed my mind.”
Ginny grinned. “Oh no, you don’t. You can’t go back on your decision now; I’ve already made plans to work at Burger King and live in a little apartment in New York City, you can’t go crushing my dreams.”
“Watch me,” he said low and dangerously, crossing the room to stand in front of her.
“I’d like to see you try,” Ginny challenged. She knew it was a bad idea standing so close to him and she knew his first instinct would be to kiss her, but she wasn’t going to back down. And she was half right; he closed in to kiss her, but stopped a hair away from her lips. She prepared herself for a passionate, lust-filled kiss and closed her eyes, but it never came. Instead she heard chuckling right next to her ear.
Her eyes snapped open. “You prat,” she said, hitting his shoulder for effect.
Author notes: Please review. This is my first chapter fic that has been accepted and I still don't know what I think about it yet.
P.S. Many thanks to thewalk for being a great beta!
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