The marriage law

Regular pt.3

Hermione cracked open an eyelid.

"Too much sun..." she moaned. She tried to lift her arm to cover her eyes, but found that she couldn't. Both of them were pinned down to her torso by something very warm, and very heavy.

"What the...?" she thought as she tried to remember whether she had actually made it to bed last night.

Angling down her chin, she saw a bulk of flesh right before her very eyes. If she could have jumped back from it, she would have.

"Fred?"

The mass of flesh did not move despite the fact that she and it were a massive tangle of arms and legs.

"Fred, let me get up, I need to pee."

Hermione would have giggled at his muffled string of obscenities had she not been at extreme risk of emptying her bladder over him. However, much to her dismay, Fred only grabbed her tighter still.

'I can't believe we slept on the couch last night. What was I thinking...?"

She caught sight of the almost empty wine bottle on the coffee table.

'Oh, that's right. We didn't think..."

Finally she shouted at him.

"Fred please let go!"

"Fine."

He finally acquiesced, and released her to the still cool air of the morning.

Hermione went to take care of herself, but she could not resist a little laugh when she returned to find Fred back under the blanket, hugging one of the sofa cushions.

The only time that she saw him twitch was when the smell of sizzling bacon wafted over from the kitchen to the lounge room.

Hermione turned to see Fred staring hungrily at the empty plates she had already placed at the table.

"Bit peckish, are we?" laughed Hermione as she went about the kitchen preparing toast, eggs and all the breakfast accompaniments.

"You have no idea," replied Fred.

Hermione smirked and set the food before him.

"So," she said when they were both sitting with breakfast, "what are your plans for today."

"The shop," said Fred immediately, not giving it a second thought.

"Of course," replied Hermione.

She paused for a second.

"You really love that shop, don't you?"

"Of course I do," said Fred, not with scorn, but reverence, "George and I worked our backsides off to get that place to where it is today."

"Yeah," sighed Hermione, "I'm sorry that I wasn't supportive of it at first."

"That's ok, I kind of get where you were coming from with your 'don't test on first years' rule."

"Finally, we're getting somewhere!"

Fred smiled before returning back to his toast. He looked back up again, just in time to see Hermione gazing sullenly at her own plate, biting at her bottom lip.

"Uh, Mione, is something the matter?"

Hermione looked up at her husband; her chocolate brown eyes so wide that Fred could see the hesitation in them.

"Umm... I wanted to ask you something, or rather, talk to you about something...I just down know the best way to phrase it..."

"Right," said Fred slowly. "Why don't you just blurt it out? That usually seems to work for Ron."

Hermione ignored the crack towards Ron, and begun to speak.

"You read the requirements of the law, didn't you?"

Fred nodded before motioning for Hermione to continue speaking.

"Well, then, you'll know that we are required to produce one magical child within the next couple of years. As far as I know, there is no loophole out of this..."

Hermione winced at how clinical she sounded.

"Oh," was all that Fred was able to say as the full weight of what Hermione had said, hit him.

"I don't know how to say this...but...we should probably get onto that, don't you think?"

"Yeah," replied Fred automatically.

"We don't have to do anything straight away," replied Hermione quickly, scared that she had offended him, or scared him off. "It's just something that we have to think about..."

"Mhmm," said Fred, still in a bit of a daze, "I've gotta get going now; I can't leave George waiting."

"Bye," said Hermione as, despite herself, she wondered how long it would take Fred to realise that he was still in yesterday's clothes.