Trial by Marriage

Author's Note

Some abuse of a fandom fic cliché. You'll know the one.

Trial by Marriage

by Leni Jess

The new Minister was mad.

Not Scrimgeour. At the height of the war he had been discovered "dallying" (as Rita Skeeter expressed it) on his office carpet with a young Auror. In a storm of public indignation he was forced to resign. He didn't make much of a fuss about it, remarking that he was bored, er, mindless by trying to force the Wizengamot into motion. His lover was not penalised; it was assumed she had been overcome either by respect for ministerial authority or fear for her position. She lowered her eyes and firmed her mouth to suppress a naughty grin.

The new Minister certainly managed to push the Wizengamot into action, and both Voldemort and Harry Potter found it quite inconvenient.

When all the shouting was over, however, Voldemort was dead (at Potter's hand, as everyone expected). Getting them together again, into their last duel, had been effected by some astonishing shifts in alliance.

The notorious double agent Severus Snape appeared to change position so often he scintillated (almost impossible in black robes). Lucius Malfoy, whom the new Minister let out of Azkaban on the understanding that he assist Potter in his quest, found his former master still bent on punishing him for ill-defined sins. He resignedly gave Potter all the assistance Potter would accept. Potter's committee of Young Turks (including Malfoy's only son), some of whom until recently should still have been in school, examined every suggestion from seven different angles before recommending acceptance or rejection. Potter did as he pleased, which surprised neither them nor Malfoy. It worked. Eventually.

Having observed the usefulness of cooperation between political opponents, the new Minister decided to institutionalise it. The Wizengamot, enthusiastic about action after hundreds of years of inertia, supported him. They were safely out of it. Marriage, the new Minister declared, would weld together the disparate parts of wizarding society, long unnaturally separated. Rita Skeeter reproduced all his metaphors faithfully without cracking either a smirk or a sneer, and each day wrote up the new Minister's decisions for the prurient delectation of the wizarding world.

The new Minister started with his predecessor. Scrimgeour was now said to have been a secret supporter of Voldemort, hence his masterly inaction; his young companion (still seen with him occasionally, without benefit of carpet) was now known to have been a fervent and active supporter of Potter. They should marry, the new Minister declared, and provide an example of cooperation. Rita Skeeter thought the Minister wasn't quite as mad as he let on, and a great deal more observant. She didn't say so. Her articles concentrated on the far more scandalous aspect of the new Minister's ruling.

To ensure that public harmony was not obtained at the price of private misery, the new Minister declared, this marriage, and all those subsequently decreed, should be a trial marriage. The couples should live together a year and a day, and thereafter marry, if they found themselves content, or separate without penalty.

The subsequent hullabaloo varied from, "But what if she gets pregnant? Are you going to let him abandon her?" through "But what if she gets pregnant? Are you going to let her and her vile offspring batten on him for life?" to "But what if she gets pregnant? Are you going to support the mother and child? What about his parental rights?"

Scrimgeour and his pink-haired young woman (who asked for and got a year's leave before her boss stopped reeling) quietly disappeared to do their duty by the wizarding world. Eventually Rita Skeeter gave up trying to find their hidey-hole. By the time they reappeared, just over a year later, Ms Tonks had a broad gold ring on her left hand, but no baby, while former Minister Scrimgeour looked ten years younger and not in the least bored. Rita sighed with discontent, and resumed searching for some of the other couples on her list.

The next decree didn't arouse so much interest in the wizarding public (though Rita Skeeter herself found it fascinating, and could be seen sitting about grinning with anticipation). Severus Snape and Hermione Granger, both of whom had done some extremely dodgy things in their intermittent support of the Light (or possibly total commitment to it), were ordered to enter a trial marriage. It was difficult to tell which of them screamed louder, though Severus Snape certainly screamed longer, without once losing control of his vocabulary. By the end his temporary bride could be seen looking at him thoughtfully and with some approval.

After a lot of skirmishing they took themselves off to a cottage which Snape had inherited in the Lakeland. He then, in true wizarding fashion, equipped its small cellar with two spacious, dry and warm potions workrooms, fully and separately equipped. Rita Skeeter was frustrated when the groom's second act was to layer the cottage and its vicinity with protective and exclusionary spells. Even so, screaming, both bass and contralto, could occasionally be heard from the nearest point of approach, usually about the dinner hour.

On the 367th day Hermione Granger Apparated to her parents' house with her robes' pockets full of miniaturised possessions, and several boxes of books and parchments and potions and potions equipment flying obediently after her. Two days later she had a flat off Diagon Alley and a job as an Unspeakable. Six months later she took a week's leave and was one day seen in Keswick with a tall thin disgruntled man with whom she appeared to be having a stand-up (verbal) fight. Rita Skeeter snarled in frustration yet again. Three months later Hermione started disappearing every weekend. A year later Severus Snape was frequently to be seen in Diagon Alley mid-week. They married ten years later, when Hermione Granger (soon to be Snape) decided she had better make time to have a child, not trusting her Muggle-born genes to behave as a witch's would, and for many years yet allow her safely to bear a viable child.

The new Minister had proceeded on his merry way, temporarily uniting Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley, on the grounds that the hereditary dispute between their families should be ended, no matter what Draco's most recent political affiliations had been. He was a Malfoy, after all, and might find another cause more family-friendly next week. Draco had a Slytherin smirk on his face and Ginny a look of long-suffering as their friends helped them to move into the second floor of the east wing of Malfoy Manor. Harry Potter kissed her goodbye perfectly cheerfully, though possibly for too long to suit her trial groom, and compounded the offence by slapping Draco's shoulder and recommending the most powerful Weasley-proof contraceptive charms. Draco Malfoy shrugged all the irritation off and locked the bedroom door. Eventually his new bride let him get as far as the bed. The house-elves assured the interested they were eating, though at odd intervals.

They married as soon as Lucius Malfoy accepted their intention not to come out of the bedroom otherwise until Ginny needed the services of a midwitch. Rita Skeeter reported the wedding, which was lavish, and widely attended (by all sorts of strange people and even beings), as a triumph for ministerial policy. Ginny Malfoy proved to have a far better talent for diplomacy and manipulation than her husband, and her father-in-law eventually came to have a considerable respect for her. Her husband did as he was told, though she kindly never gave him an order in public.

The new Minister shoved together several more disparate couples whose anxieties were of interest to few beyond themselves and their friends, including the furiously pureblood Blaise Zabini and a Muggle-born Ravenclaw. He was heard to console himself with the reflections that at least she was not a Hufflepuff, and her extreme fairness complemented his dark beauty. They married. Blaise knew his mother would be able to advise him on the best way to end it, if necessary. His wife stroked her wand and smiled, thinking of her library of dubious Dark Arts compendia. If their home looked like an armed camp, it was peaceful at night.

Then the new Minister unleashed the most scandalous proposal of all.

Lucius Malfoy, once Voldemort's second-in-command, and Harry Potter, the Man Who Settled the Voldemort Question, should undertake a trial marriage.

Even the public outcry at a marriage between two men was no louder than the victims' objections. Lucius Malfoy soon enough ended his temper tantrum, deciding that he would, of course, have his way with Potter, whatever Potter thought, and it might be amusing. A year and a day of tormenting his tormentor would make up for many griefs and humiliations. Harry Potter, red in the face from yelling, finally remembered that Malfoy already had a perfectly good wife, discreetly out of the limelight, at home in Malfoy Manor. Was he required to be an involuntary bigamist? he demanded. Malfoy suppressed a snigger at Potter's producing two multisyllabic words in one sentence. Severus Snape's influence in the last couple of years of the war, no doubt.

Rita Skeeter took on her Animagus form in a convenient alcove and crawled closer to Potter.

Hermione Granger (much later to become Hermione Snape) seized Potter's ear and led him aside. Rita followed, concealing her shining carapace in a fold of the heavy curtains, taking care to stay out of Granger's line of sight. That young woman had not become less ruthless in the five years since their first encounter, so painful for Rita.

Apart from Rita, only Remus Lupin, with his Dark creature's acute hearing, heard Granger pointing out that Malfoy appeared to have been able to content his wife while undertaking a number of adventures with his own sex, however discreetly. Harry should not be too hasty, she adjured him. Since he and Ginny called it a day, he hadn't so far found a wizard able to please him in bed without also irritating him by either seeing him through a mist of hero-worship, or plotting so hard to use him that they didn't see him at all. There was no doubt that Lucius Malfoy wasn't interested in the Boy Who Lived, but he might prove to be a useful tutor for Harry Potter.

Potter went silent very suddenly, and those standing out of earshot who knew enough to look at Remus Lupin for his reaction got no more than a poker face and twitching lips. Rita rejoiced in the knowledge that her Quick-Quotes Quill (though subsumed in her Animagus form, like her lime-green robes and her crocodile handbag) would emerge with a complete transcript when she shifted back.

Granger gave her friend some surprisingly blunt advice about not irritating the Minister yet.

If Harry Potter was thinking of opposing the Minister publicly, that was even better news than his morally repugnant reasons for accepting the proposed 'marriage' with Lucius Malfoy. That could keep, though.

Perhaps it could all keep: an eyewitness account of the honeymoon, if any, or even the whole of Potter's year at Malfoy Manor, might be worth much more than Rita's normal scoop bonus. She shouldn't forget that Malfoy and Potter had worked together before, to bring down Voldemort. If a beetle could have licked her lips, she would have done it. Lucius Malfoy had not done her any favours in a long time; not since he introduced her to his son in Potter's fourth year - and that, in the long run, had not been a good career move for her. She owed them both.

If she planned to watch them over a period of time she would need to be careful. Both of them, as well as Granger, knew her Animagus form, as did Draco Malfoy, even if none of them had betrayed her to the Animagus Registry - yet. The good thing about this was that even if she could not witness them conspiring against the Ministry she would almost certainly be able to write up their wedding night.

This time there was no formal wedding. The contract - the Prophet on principle did not describe these unions as marriages - was celebrated privately, in a ceremony conducted by the Minister, like all the earlier trial marriages.

By this time Rita had leave to investigate the outcome of this particular union, although Lucius Malfoy still had stock in the Prophet. She attended without the formality of an invitation. Now that Voldemort was gone, and his followers no longer disrupting business by forcing the paper to push their agenda, it was not so necessary for it to be tender of stockholders' feelings. The current management had made it clear, immediately after the war ended, that stockholders were entitled to profits rather than special consideration. They had no intention of going through that again.

Rita was used to the miasma of magic that usually hung around weddings. If this tasted rather different from what she (and undoubtedly Lucius Malfoy) was familiar with, it was, after all, a union of two men. Malfoy was calm, his expression closed; Potter was agitated, but made no protests, and the ceremony differed markedly from a normal wizarding wedding. The couple were attended by Malfoy's wife (which Rita thought her readers would consider in the worst of taste) and by Potter's Young Turks (including the junior Mr and Mrs Malfoy, and Miss Granger, despite her prior commitment). Most of them seemed to be keeping their mouths shut by a great effort.

Rita found the whole thing quite disappointing. No show, no drama, not even from Harry Potter or Narcissa Malfoy. She took a small revenge, before Apparating hastily to beseige Malfoy Manor, by writing an article speculating that Lucius Malfoy had overreached himself on the expenses of his son's wedding, and could not afford even to give the appearance of celebrating his own union in appropriate style. It would surprise no one that she had contrived to be a witness, and Malfoy might think her malice spent.

As a spectacle, the wedding night was far superior to the wedding, even though the Prophet would never print the detailed account Rita hoped to write. She was an expert at innuendo, and had long known the imagination of the wizarding world, prompted a little, could come up with far more lurid scenes than the participants were likely to devise. The Prophet would make hay at Malfoy and Potter's expense, oh yes, and she would make quite a bit on the side by selling the unexpurgated version to a wizard who ran a dingy printery off Knockturn Alley. Even with the names removed - which that cautious person would probably insist on - his buyers would be able to read between the lines.

Rita was probably almost as surprised as Potter by Mrs Malfoy's initial participation, but after she had (by the look of it) amused herself by teasing both men to a frenzy she left, kissing her husband and stroking her husband's new partner intimately and shamelessly. Rita settled into the heavy bed curtains and prepared to make a long night of it, considering the best way to use Narcissa Malfoy's hidden depths of depravity.

Malfoy hardly waited for the door to close before he seized Potter's hand, dragging it away from his body and clamping it on his own instead.

"Let's see if you've learned anything since you were eighteen, Potter."

Potter snarled back, "I hated you then and I hate you now, Malfoy, and I'm no more interested in what you want now than I was then. It was your idea to oblige the Minister. You were the one who wanted to 'ratify' this contract, so let's see you make yourself useful. Or are you all politics and no practice?"

Despite his defiance Potter was panting, and his hand moving urgently on Malfoy suggested an interest he would not admit to.

Malfoy responded to it by pressing closer, lifting one leg over Potter to hold him in place, grinding against him, trapping that hand between their bodies. His free hand gripped Potter's hair, shoving his head back into the pillows, and Malfoy kissed his partner. A greedy rather than a coaxing kiss. Potter made some indistinct sound, and his left hand clawed at Malfoy's back, leaving red streaks on the alabaster skin, but another minute or so confirmed Rita's opinion that this was not protest.

It seemed to Rita that despite Granger's opinion Harry Potter hardly needed a tutor. He managed to get Malfoy to fuck him in a remarkably short time, in spite of Lucius Malfoy's evident intention to make him wait (and, probably, beg; if it was Rita she would have made him cry and scream, too, but Malfoy was too self-indulgent to stick to his agenda).

Afterwards they lay side by side on the disordered sheets, and it was Potter's face, not Malfoy's, that bore a self-satisfied grin. Malfoy was frowning a little, even in the relaxation of satiety.

"Union consummated as required?" Potter asked.

"Yes," Malfoy murmured, "if that's enough for you."

The smirk vanished from Potter's mouth, and his movement towards the edge of the bed was aborted. Rita felt mild admiration for Malfoy's ability to get back to business, even if he could not keep his mind on it all the time. That short response had wrong-footed Potter neatly.

Malfoy followed up with, "If you want more, Harry, you'll have to pay more attention to what I want."

"That wasn't good enough for you?"

Malfoy shrugged. "If that's the best you can do..."

Potter spent the next couple of hours proving that he could more than match Malfoy for stamina, if not for inventiveness, and that when properly challenged he would do almost anything to win.

Rita tucked herself further into some rampant embroidery on the bed-curtains and reflected that the Boy Who Lived had a lot to learn. Once they were asleep she retreated, cautiously, and once outside the Manor's bounds shifted back to her human form and returned to London, planning how to make the most of all those interesting observations.

Yawning, she wrote up her account, though she did not expect to publish it even through her seedy acquaintance yet. She was at her best immediately after the event. Recollection in tranquillity was not Rita's style.

She thought she had a good idea of how the Malfoy-Potter union would progress, and left them to get on with it for a month.

She persuaded her editor that rather than writing up the wedding night - much of which could not be shared with the tender sensibilities of the wizarding world, if the Prophet did not want to weather a storm of indignant protest from supporters of proper marriages - she should continue to observe, and publish the true story at the end of the year, trumping whatever version Malfoy and Potter chose to put out.

It should certainly be possible to write the occasional less revealing article to sustain public interest, without betraying to Lucius Malfoy that she had the entrée to his home. He was, after all, quite competent to tighten the wards on Malfoy Manor until one of those viruses some Muggleborns went on about could not get through, never mind a beetle. Nor did she fancy finding either Malfoy or Potter lying in wait for her on her next visit, whether with a wand or a killing bottle. She didn't think it would be a bottle with airholes in the lid this time.

Rita enjoyed her visits to Malfoy Manor, though they became much more dangerous when a kindly spring arrived early, and the heavy curtains were replaced, in the rooms the family used, by lace or silk that let through the sun's light as well as warmth. A beetle of her size was regrettably conspicuous on sheer gauze, coloured silks imported from the Han wizards of China, or even on French lace. She was forced instead to cower down by the junction of wall and floor, hoping to be concealed in shadows.

The inconvenience - she would not admit to apprehension - took her mind off the pleasures of cataloguing the extent of Lucius Malfoy's sexual expertise, or Harry Potter's surprising ability to learn. It was also much more difficult to observe them. It was not as if they ever said much to guide her when she could not see them properly. Most of what either did say was unashamed manipulation of the other, rather than sexual prompts or responses. They were good at those mind games (Potter evidently took well to Malfoy's teaching there too), but Rita's readers wouldn't care about such subtleties.

It was summer and the trial year nearly over before Rita saw Mrs Malfoy with her husband and his temporary partner again. Rita had little doubt that this union would be dissolved as soon as it was possible. She had had a good deal of entertainment, around May Day, and thanked her good fortune at being present, when Harry Potter tried to walk out of Malfoy Manor after a worse quarrel than usual. He came back from the front gates not just scowling, but yelling in uncontrolled rage, even worse than when he had first heard the Minister's plan.

Poor lad. He had not been able to leave. Malfoy had tried to soothe him, but his attempts were ruined by his evident amusement. Mrs Malfoy had more success, and sobered both men by pointing out that Potter was not confined to the Manor if he and Malfoy were in agreement about his going. They had been out to dinner in Festive Alley often enough; Potter had even gone to visit friends by himself. This must be some restriction imposed by the Minister at their wedding. Rita noted that she used the word without flinching, and listened eagerly from her concealment in the nearby flowering shrubbery.

Malfoy was not the only one whose eyes narrowed at the suggestion.

Potter said, a promise in his voice that unexpectedly made Rita's wing-casings shiver, "We should do something about that, later."

Malfoy and Potter exchanged glances. Malfoy nodded, but cautioned, "When we're free. Once we're sure we're no longer bound. And when it will be useful, Harry."

"Oh yes," Potter agreed.

No sign now of that adolescent fury. This was the young man who had killed Voldemort, then destroyed the last of his shredded soul in a fiery bath of Severus Snape's devising, by all accounts watching the writhing shape and listening to the hideous, but brief, screams unmoved.

Rita wondered uneasily if she had been wise to plan to memorialise their brief marriage to titillate the wizarding world (and for private vengeance, which must not be mentioned to anyone). But beetles could not square their shoulders, and Rita Skeeter did not turn her back on a story. She might take care to be out of the country on a much-deserved leave-of-absence once Harry Potter and Lucius Malfoy were free men again, however.

Besides, Britain was turning into a boring place. Perhaps she should investigate the rumours of a powerful group of Dark wizards recently finishing their studies at Durmstrang. One could have enough of Dark magic, however, and her French was better than her German or Russian. The scandal of the Headmistress of Beauxbatons being involved not only with a British half-giant wizard whose wand had been broken before he came of age, but with a highly placed part-Veela member of the French Ministry, might be more worthy of her attention.

Rita's opus magnus appeared two days after Malfoy and Potter's year-and-a-day was up, though unaccountably Potter had not moved out of Malfoy Manor yet. She packed some spare copies of that issue of the Prophet in her bags, and took a regular Portkey for Paris.



Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy and Harry Potter read over breakfast that Miss Skeeter would be reporting on French summer fashions, and then writing a series of reports about wizarding resorts in the Mediterranean and the surprising persons to be found disporting themselves there.

Narcissa smiled at her men. "Happy now you've got rid of her?"

"It was worth it," Harry declared. "She's harassed me for ten years now. The longer she's away the less willing to come back she'll be. Though I suppose you should get that lawyer of yours to have a go at the Prophet's management again every so often, Lucius, just to make sure they and she know we're not pleased with her." He stretched, and refilled his coffee cup. "'Our foreign correspondent' sounds good to me. And to you, yes?"

Lucius Malfoy smiled, a slow, sinister smile that was wasted on both Harry and Narcissa. "So does an afternoon in bed without having to scramble into a pornographer's dream to keep Skeeter's mind off what we've been discussing."

Narcissa said briskly, "You can dispense with subversion for a while, both of you. I'm tired of it, and I'd like you to concentrate on me for a while."

"Certainly, my dear," Lucius assented. Harry merely grinned wickedly, hopefully.



The new Minister was not mad.

He got what he wanted. He certainly kept most wizards' and witches' minds off their troubles, and, more importantly, his. Few of those who had helped him in this laudable endeavour were grateful to him, but they had other things closer to home to worry about now. They seemed to thrive on it, as he did.

He didn't know how mistaken he was.

~~~ The End ~~~

End note

Written April-May 2006 for the LJ community daily_deviant for 26 May 2006. No very noticable deviancy here, though. The kinks chosen were trial marriage, plus a little group sex (hardly enough to see with the naked eye). Beta-read by my ever-helpful brother.