The One for Me?

Draco and Hermione looked at each other with a mix of apprehension, confusion, and slight disgust. Draco was still standing in the doorway, apparently afraid to move.





"Honestly, this has got to be a mistake." Draco responded to the portly man, whose name Hermione still did not know.





"I assure you young man this is no mistake, the Ministry does not make mistakes. Now please take your seat. Good luck with these two Mr. LaFlemme." The official said, shutting the door behind him.





" Um, right well, best to get down to it right?" His attempt at a smile didn\'t really work this time. " Draconis Malfoy, 18, Pureblood, you are hereby betrothed to Hermione Granger, 19, Muggleborn. The Law is as follows: Term 1, Couple must Marry by the 9\'th month after meeting date. Term 2, Couple must conceive within one year of Marriage. Term 3, and most important if I do say so, neither party can harm one another by Magical means or otherwise. Term 4, Couples still in school may or may not room together at their school. That really depends if you two want to live together or not. If so, the school will provide all accommodations. Term 5, if the couple cannot conceive within one year of marriage, the marriage is further dissolved, and the parties may or may not be partnered up with someone else, according to Ministry by-laws. Lastly Term 6, if either party should try to evade the law, they will be stripped of their magic and their wands will be broken."





"Now, the two of you must be longing to get to know one another, or maybe to just sulk, as I can see by your faces. SO, he said loudly clapping his hands, you have one hour to do just that before you can floo back to Hogwarts. Good day." Charles LaFlemme said, and high tailed it out of there as fast as he could.





For a moment they just sat and stared at each other with narrowed eyes. She took in his form. Broad shoulders, platinum blonde hair, blue but slightly gray eyes. Looking down she stifled a giggle, he had chicken legs. Ha! She knew there was no one out there that was perfect. She heard a cough and looked back up quickly, Malfoy was sitting there with a raised eyebrow.





"Is something amusing you Granger? I can\'t possibly see how this is a laughing matter!" He noticed his voice was a little high pitched and coughed again.





Sighing inwardly, "It\'s not funny, I agree. There must be some way to get out of this. I\'ve been researching the Library about Marriage Laws but so far haven\'t found anything helpful about the matter." She got up and started to pace the room. "I just don\'t understand how they can get away with this! I DO understand that the population is low, but why force marriage? Or why not let people choose who they want to be with, and give them a date that they must be married by?"





"Maybe because the Ministry knows they will try and run off." Draco shrugged. " I can\'t believe I\'m forced to marry you, what about Weasley? Why is he not your match made in heaven hmmm?





Hermione stopped pacing then and faced away from him. Tears in her eyes that she wouldn\'t let him see. "It\'s not any of you business! And what about Pansy aye?"





Draco stiffened. He didn\'t want to let her know that he was glad to be rid of Pansy. She would be too happy to hear that. "Nevermind, how about we just try and figure a way out of this?"





Still angry about his earlier comment she turned and looked at him with a devious smile. "Well, we could always castrate you, then not only could you not impregnate me, the world would be better off because there would be no little Malfoy\'s running around any longer." Right after she said it, she felt slightly guilty. That was a prejudice thing to say and Draco knew, for she could see the way his eyes widened in shock.





"That was low, even for you Granger." Draco said growling. "Maybe we should check if your pregnant, then I wouldn\'t have to marry you and you could go about having a million Weasley spawns. You could even move into a one room home aye? Isn\'t that all they can afford? Stupid little Mud-" Draco cut himself off. He was not that person anymore, he scolded himself inside. Outwardly it looked like he was grimacing. He took a deep breath.





"Listen, obviously nothing is going to be solved today. Lets just calm down and we can meet later on in the week and see if we can find a way out of this ok?" Hermione said calmly. She knew it would do no good to argue. Both of them were already as mad as can be, it would continue to get worse if the stayed there.





Draco groaned. Great, now we have to meet at school? "Fine, how about we meet Tuesday, in the library right after dinner?" She nodded in consent, and right after she did Draco zoomed out of the room. He needed time to think and he definitely needed to be away from her. Flying through the Floo back into McGonagalls office he saw more students getting ready to leave for noon. Blaise among them, he nodded to his friend but didn\'t stop to say anything. It was lunch but he didn\'t think he had the stomach to eat so instead he headed back to his Common Room. Laying down in his bed, he was just about to start thinking about his situation when someone knocked at his door.





"Piss off!" He yelled out. He just didn\'t want to deal with anyone.





"Draco? Can I please come in, I want to know what happened." It was Pansy. She was going to react very very badly. Might as well get it over with though.





"Come on in Pans." She came in and shut the door behind her. Walking over she sat on the edge of the bed. He sighed. She sat, waiting for him to tell her. Right when she was opening her mouth to say something... "Its Granger."





"What?" It was barely a whisper. She was gripping the bed sheets tightly. Shaking her head. "It just cant be. That\'s just not possible."





"Well, believe it. I\'m as shocked as you are. I have to find a way out of it. There must be a way. Part of me would rather get my wand snapped."





"I don\'t want to go. Maybe I just shouldn\'t go?" Pansy said in a shocked but yet sullen voice. He honestly hadn\'t even thought about her, but now he remembered she was heading there soon.





"Unless you want your wand snapped, I would go if I were you. Pansy, no offense but I would really like some time alone." She got off the bed and walked to the door, just when she was about to shut it he called out, "Oh, and good luck Pansy, may your fates be far better than mine."







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About four hours later you could find Hermione sitting once again in the Common Room in front of the fire. She had yet to tell her friends of her meeting with Malfoy. Ginny and Harry had been so worried before they left she didn\'t want them to stress out more. Ron did ask her about it but she wanted to wait till all her friends came back before she retold the horrible story. When out of nowhere the common room portrait slammed open.





"I cannot believe this!" It was Ron with Harry and Ginny in tow. He was looking at her with anger and confusion. She was so confused. She had thought he heard about her and Malfoy from someone else when he bellowed "They weren\'t matched up together!!!" Pointing at Harry and Ginny, whose faces were as sullen as can be.





"What? then, then who?"





Harry looked at her, "Neville Longbottom."





"Um, Harry, I think the couples are only male and female." Hermione said looking confused and scandalized.





"No! Ginny is matched up with Neville! As for me, well, I\'m matched up with the devil."











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Dun dun dun! Is it Pansy? It may or may not be! Sorry for the short chapter, next will be longer.



Also I noticed I had some grammatical errors in Chapter 2, I\'m sorry for that. I\'m going to take more and more time to look over the completed chapters.



And thank you everyone for you kind reviews!!!!!