"Hermione—"

"No!"

Ginny flinched at the loud, shrill noise that echoed off the corridor walls. She rubbed her ear with her fingertip, her eyes narrowing at Hermione. Behind her, their friends took a cautious step back when Ginny had been interrupted for the second time.

"Hermione," she started saying again through her teeth, "I thought you said there was no point in fighting with Kingsley? That we had to go through the Wizengamot—"

"To hell with the Minister and his stupid, imprisoning, medieval council! They are going to marry me off to Draco Malfoy, Ginny! Malfoy!"

"All right. Fine. I get it, but—"

"No, you don't bloody well get it. None of you do," Hermione hissed, her brown eyes throwing daggers at her friends hiding behind Ginny. Luna tried to smile, but it faded away when Hermione curled her lip at her. "That sorting hat is wrong. I cannot be—I am not—suitable for marriage with Draco Malfoy. He hates me. I rather be off with Cormac Mclaggen and have a whole bunch of Mclaggen babies than to marry Malfoy!"

With a grunt, Ron stepped away from behind his sister. "Give it a rest, Hermione. It's done."

"How can you even say—?"

"I got Parkinson," it was Ron's turn to interrupt Hermione. Ginny let out a distasteful snort from beside him at the reminder. "She's just as horrible as Malfoy, but what else can I do? I told you, the Wizengamot doesn't change their mind on anything. So no matter how many tantrums you throw, this is going to happen."

"I can't accept that," Hermione let out with an uneven breath. "I can't accept this marriage, so how can you? How can you want to see me with him? How can you want to settle for Parkinson because the Ministry said so?"

Something crossed Ron's freckled features that almost reminded Hermione of the boy she had fallen in love with, but as quickly as it came, it left. Staring back at her was the man the war had made, the same one who had let her walk away with the shattered pieces of what they could have been.

"This is the aftermath of living, isn't it?" Ron said with hallow words that created no echo around the corridor, but that Hermione felt somewhere in her bones.

With a clearing of his throat, Seamus broke what was already smashed between Ron and Hermione, making the two add more space between each other. "So, Susan Bones and Tracy Davies, huh? Who saw that happening?"

"Me," said Lavender with a laugh, grinning when the group of friends rose questioning brows at her. "I was looking for a compartment on the train and stumbled on a poorly warded one. Obviously, curiosity killed the Gryffindor, so I broke through those and found the two in a very compromising situation. Davies swore she'd kill me if I said anything, but you can't take anyone seriously when they're stark naked, can you?"

Ginny grinned. "That's amazing."

"Oh, they are in love," Luna said, another smile successfully tugging at her pink mouth. "Trace has been in love with Susie for two years and seven months."

"How come Davies gets the witch of her dreams and I get you?" Seamus demanded from Lavender just as she and Ginny questioned Luna exactly how she knew those details. He frowned as if she had somehow bribed the sorting hat in her favor. "That Ravenclaw girl was supposed to be the mother of my children!"

Lavender reached for his ear, tugging hard. "Respect me, you idiot, or I'll make sure you never have children. Got it?"

"That's enough from you two," Dean said, his arm carefully finding itself wrapping around Luna's shoulders. She beamed up at him, her fingers moving to play with the bracelet on his wrist one of his sisters had given him over the summer. "Remember that you were friends before this—always have been, yeah? We are not gonna let this marriage law ruin our relationships with each other, okay. We're better than all of this."

The words were starting to seep into those feuding with each other when Headmistress McGonagall stepped out of the classroom they were huddled in front of. Her eyes narrowed at them in a manner that was all too familiar when she said, "If you are all done with this needless chatter, your first Marriage and Family Life lesson is about to begin. Get inside and sit beside your partners."

With a frown of his own, Ron followed McGonagall in.

"Don't mind him," Harry said to Hermione, offering her a sympathetic smile for the first time since she regained consciousness after her sorting. "He's going through something."

"I'll give him something else to go through," she huffed, beginning to follow her friends inside the classroom. "And it'll hurt."

"We'll take a desk near you, okay?" Harry then said with an arm around her waist. She leaned into his touch, briefly resting her head on his shoulder for comfort. Ginny walked ahead of them, letting them have that moment because she knew what Hermione most needed was her best friend's warmth and understanding.

From a nearby desk, Draco Malfoy zeroed silver eyes on Hermione and Harry. When she noticed him staring, she let out a loud, defeated sigh, pulling herself away from her friend to reluctantly join Draco at the seat he had chosen.

He scooted himself to the very edge of the bench when she sat, his hands balled into fists over the counter.

Hermione felt a slow, steady stream of fury travel through her bloodstream, but was put off releasing it when Professor Flitwick levitated himself onto a stack of huge, ancient books so he was perfectly visible to everyone. He did not say anything right away; he was preoccupied with assessing the couples before him.

And there really were some odd ones: Pavarti Patil and Gregory Goyle, Ronald Weasley and Pansy Parkinson, Theodore Nott, Romilda Vane, and Blake Harper, Millicent Bulstrode and Ernie McMillan, and, perhaps the oddest, most terrifying of all, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy.

He truly hoped the Ministry knew what they were doing when they decided to pass this law.

"All right," said Professor Flitwick, hiding a snort at the mess with a small cough, "today's lesson will be an introductory. Some of you might know each other as friends, but not as future spouses. If that is so, your assignment is to acquire five facts of what each of you expect from marriage so you have a better understanding of what is to come. As for those of you who have never spoken a polite word to each other in all your years here, your assignment is to acquire five facts about each other so you start to get acquainted."

Even as he said it, Flitwick thought it sounded ridiculous to his own ears. He understood the grunts of disdain coming from certain couples in the classroom.

Pulling in air through flared nostrils, Hermione slowly turned to Draco. "Let's get it over with, then. Go first."

Whatever she had seen in his silver eyes during her sorting was gone. There was no trace of warmth in his irises, not when he glared in a way she knew all too well. "One, I hate you, Granger. Two, I hate you. Three, this is fucking mad. Four, get that look off your face because I'm positive I have it worse. And five, I hate you."

"Nice try, Mr. Malfoy," Flitwick said to Draco as he came around their table to inspect that these poor souls were doing what was legally required of them. "Be respectful of your partner and try again."

Draco turned away from the Charms professor just as Hermione clutched to the edge of their shared desk. If she did not quickly settle her magic, she was sure the wood would start breaking away into sharp chips that would ultimately end up in Malfoy's eye.

"I'm going to waste away beside you," she told him through clenched teeth. "I don't want to be married to the likes of you."

"The likes of me?" he returned just as viciously. "You're going to taint my good name."

"Good?" repeated Hermione with a loud, incredulous laugh. "You think the Malfoy name holds any respectability now? It clearly has escaped your notice, but no one gives a damn about your family. And if it seemed like we did in the last few months, it was because your mother saved Harry's life. We don't forget our manners, so we returned the favor by saving hers and yours."

Draco's hands balled into fists and his magic, alike Hermione's, threatened to explode out of him in levels of fury not yet known even to themselves. But he had to maintain composure—his life was now determined by reason first.

"Enough, Granger. Let's just get this over with," he told her with his lip curled. He did not give her time to defy him when he said, "I was five when my father bought me my first broom."

Hermione stared back at him like he was feeding her lies, like he was telling her Earth was actually flat all along and they had fallen into a black hole that somehow led them to this exact scenario. She was going to continue fighting him, but Flitwick was circling again, so with a grunt, she said, "I'm the only child."

"As am I," he said with a clearing of his throat, "but you knew that, didn't you?"

"I'm a muggle-born—but you knew that, didn't you?" Hermione returned, her disdain for Draco impossible to control. "So, you'll be the first Malfoy to ever ruin the family tree by marrying me."

"I own seven house-elves," Draco bit back, "they'll be at your command as the first muggle-born Malfoy."

Hermione's right hand slipped from the edge of the desk. "I enjoyed slapping you Third Year. I might just make it my new hobby."

"That's abuse, Granger," he told her with a scoff, "I'd be glad to have you locked up."

"And you know what it's like to be in Azkaban, right? Do give me tips on how to stay warm while there."

"If you ask me, the basilisk wasted its time petrifying you. It should have just eaten you and saved us all from the bossy, insufferable bookworm."

"I hate you," Hermione hissed as she stood, shoving the desk forward. Her wand was out in the next second, already right under Draco's nose.

"The feeling is mutual, Granger," Draco snarled back, his left hand reaching out for his own wand.

"Malfoy! Granger!" Headmistress McGonagall pierced the tension in the abruptly quiet classroom with her shrill voice. "Lower your wands immediately. This is absolutely unacceptable."

Neither Draco or Hermione blinked as they locked brown and silver eyes together, hate solidifying the distance between them.

"'Mione, please," Harry muttered from his seat near her, "just calm down."

"You marry Malfoy then!" she yelled at her best friend, her wand actually inching closer to her target.

"She's an absolute lunatic," Pansy hissed from across the room.

Ron glared from his place beside her. "So what? Malfoy's a complete twat. Blow his head off, Hermione."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" demanded Tracy Davis, carefully pulling herself away from Susan Bones' hand reaching for her shoulder to calm her down. "Are you threatening his life, Weasley?"

"This is your doing," Draco told Hermione. "Didn't you preach peace, but you are sparking feuds among the Houses?"

Hermione swallowed a knot in her throat, but she did not move.

"Lower your wand, Miss Granger," McGonagall said. "I will not tell you a third time."

"Come on, Hermione," Harry pleaded again.

"Fine," she yelled, throwing her wand at her best friend, but eyes locked on McGonagall. "You want my magic? Take it. I'm a muggle-born. I know how to survive without it."

"Miss Granger—"

"No," she interrupted Professor Flitwick before he attempted to persuade her to think rationally. "I'm not doing this. I'm not marrying Malfoy. I rather be married to Lavender Brown and deal with her madness than ever deal with his—no offense, Lav," she added as she started stalking out of the classroom.

Harry and Ginny started calling out for their friend just as Seamus stood from his seat. "Wait! Hermione, come back!" He yanked Lavender's arm up, waving it maniacally. "You can have her! Take her!"