Marriage Law Madness

Note: The chapter title comes from the song \"Love Changes Everything\" by Andrew Lloyd Webber.


Minerva McGonagall was getting very ticked off at her fiancée. In his usual way, he neglected to do anything for the wedding planning. ‘What is he going to do, get married in his pajamas and transfigure a lemon drop into a ring?’ she fumed to herself. There was only one thing for it. She’d have to corner him and get some promises, and then get the men to drag him wedding robe shopping.

HER robe, on the other hand, was hanging in Molly’s spare armoire at Snape Manor. It was candlelight satin with an empire waist and a short train. She was drawn from her musing by the sound of Albus whistling as he left the high table, having earlier announced his intention to take a long, hot bath.

That was it! She quickly left the hall, changing into her Animagus form. Running flat out to get ahead of Dumbledore, she changed back long enough to utter the password that would let her into his rooms and then popped back to cat form. She secreted herself in the vanity for most of his bath, waiting until his back was turned to jump onto the stack of towels.

He reached for a towel without looking, and was surprised to be swiped in the hand by a paw. “Feeling voyeuristic this evening, Minerva?” he joked, knowing that was the farthest thing from her mind. In response, she jumped off the towels, knocking them into the water with a kick of her hind legs. She turned around so her back was to him, and he saw a flash of angrily twitching tail before his fiancée resumed her normal form. Putting her wand behind her back, she muttered “ Obscura.” A light, shimmering film appeared on the surface of the water, like a thick coat of bubbles. Minerva turned around and smirked, “Gotcha. Now let’s get this wedding planned.”

Albus groaned. “Can I warm up the water first?”

“Oh, I suppose.” Within a five minute period they had made the basic plans: Molly and Severus would stand up with them, the hall would be decorated in poinsettias accented with red and white roses, and he would ask Severus if Saturday was suitable to go robe shopping.

There was a timid knock on the door. “Sir, Miss, you is needed in the hospital wing.” Dobby squeaked.

They reached the Hospital Wing just as Harry Potter stumbled in, supporting Ron Weasley, who had several large bats flapping around his head. “Bat-Bogey Hex. His sister again?” Madam Pomfrey inquired. “Get him on a bed, will you?”

Harry nodded, then jumped as a voice came around a bed curtain. “You mean she’s done this before?” Molly Snape looked indignant, but turned at a moan from her husband.

Dumbledore emerged from behind Snape\'s curtain shaking his head. “You two
deserve each other.”

“What actually happened?” Harry inquired. Since Sirius’ death and that of Vernon and Petunia Dursley, the Weasleys had been in the process of adopting Harry, so he had a vested interest in attempting to be nice to Severus. Dudley had gone to live with Aunt Marge.

“Since Severus didn’t come home for dinner for a third night in a row, Molly decided to come here and eat with him. She interrupted Severus for dinner in the middle of an experiment. Due to the fact that the experiment wasn’t going well, he was in a foul mood. He chucked a cauldron in her general direction. You know your mother – she chucked it right back at him. She knocked him out and got the potion all over him.”

“Amazing.” Harry had admiration for her. \"Hopefully Draco will take the lesson by proxy not to mess with a female Weasley.\"

“I’m going to have him spend the night here, but he’ll be alright. I think he’ll think twice before letting his temper get the better of him, at least in front of Molly.” Poppy said.

Ron immediately turned to Dumbledore. “Any possibility of her sitting in on all our potions lessons, for, say, the rest of the year?”

“Is he that bad? I rather thought marriage had improved his attitude immensely. I was telling Minerva the other day that I if I had known the benefits to his temperament, I would have married him off years ago.”

There was another moan from the bed. “Then again, it may have made him worse.”

~~~

“Feeling better, Severus?” Dumbledore motioned for him to take a seat. At Severus’s weary nod, he continued. “Then we need to talk about your behavior with your students lately. After young Mr. Weasley’s comment last evening, I asked four of the students to start common room conversations about potions class, and I listened in by means of chocolate frog cards. Whereas your attitude outside the classroom has improved, your classroom manner has deteriorated to abysmal levels. You have given more detentions than any other professor this year, but have not taken any yourself. You were one of the supporters of a return to controlled corporal punishment, but have yet to use it. And apparently you frightened a Slytherin first year so badly she wet herself. Terrifying your own house, usually your favored students. What’s going on?”

“I hate teaching and have a worse crop of dunderheads than usual. Miss Granger is the only one who makes my days bearable. Said first year added an ingredient off the student shelf that looked like what she was supposed to get without reading the label. Cactus buds instead of Aloe stalks. Do you know what happens when those ingredients are interchanged in an otherwise extremely simple pain relief potion? She could have killed all of her classmates had I not seen her do it and Evanescoed it before it exploded. I came very close to bending her over the desk and paddling her right then and there. She has a detention at eight where I will attempt to impress upon her the importance of reading labels.”

Albus handed him a piece of paper. “Do you know what these are?”

“N.E.W.T. scores. What happened, did Granger get tired waiting on us to realize her genius and go take the tests at the ministry? I know of no one else capable of these scores.”

“Those are Molly’s scores, Severus. She has ability similar to Miss Granger, but was not allowed to even apply to schools. Your college at Oxford offered her a full ride based on her scores alone, but her father insisted a woman’s place was at home. He actually punished her if he caught her reading or studying subjects he deemed inappropriate. That is the reason that few people know I am her godfather. I tried to step in and he refused to allow me to see her – after she graduated Hogwarts I didn’t see her again until his funeral, but by then she was married to Arthur, who was just as traditional. I offered to pay for her to go back to school a few years ago, anticipating you would leave after the final battle and I would need a new potions teacher. Arthur refused to allow it.”

“I had no idea he was so controlling. It also explains why she looked like she thought I was going to beat her when I walked into the library the other evening and caught her reading one of my books.” Severus’s fists clenched in anger.

“I put the same offer to you, now, but with an added request. To keep her sanity, Molly threw herself into becoming the perfect wife. She learned every possible magical home arts charm, spell, or potion she could find. I think she could take the exams cold and have a degree in Magical Home Arts. We have students that are very young that are going to have to survive in a marriage situation. I’d like her to get that degree and teach here half-days, teaching both the males and females in fifth thru seventh year basic housekeeping and cooking. Which would leave the afternoons free for her to work with you and Miss Granger, and to teach potions as an assistant. She could be qualified as a Potions mistress in a year and a half, figuring some time out with pregnancy.”

“But once she’s pregnant she can’t be around potions! And how am I supposed to teach two years of girls who are all trying to get pregnant?” Snape demanded.

“Let her teach them. Make up a syllabus of only safe potions. Then they can do an evening a week with you catching up once they deliver.”

“Brilliant. Of course she can do it if she wants. I\'ll ask her when I get home and let you know tonight after Miss Withers\' detention. if that\'s alright? She can teach them all the beauty potions all the girls are nagging me to teach them, too.”

“Or, thanks to the miracles of Magic, if you really want to retire, wait a year and she can teach potions and you can have the baby.”

“Oh, No. No Way.” Severus stammered.

Dumbledore just smiled. \"Start improving your classroom manner, starting with Miss Withers this evening. Had you done what you felt like doing to her yesterday, I wouldn\'t have blamed you. Do convince her you are serious. I have no wish to have to explain to the board why we have to remodel the potions lab again.\"