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An Arranged Marriage (Harry Potter)

Reviewed by Kathryn A on 21st May 2009 (31)
Tags: Novella, AU, SSHG, Romance, MLC
Characters: Hermione Granger, Severus Snape
(173K)

Summary: "Just because a marriage is not a love match does not mean it is loveless consideration turns to respect, respect turns to admiration, and admiration turns to love." HG/SS

Note first that this is AU, and I think it was written just after Order Of The Phoenix, even though it is set after seventh year. Also note that I give a typo warning for this, particularly the first couple of chapters.

The start of this story was surprisingly plausible; yes, having a law which forces people to marry is ridiculous, but the way it's set up, it's just the kind of thing that Fudge would be stupid enough to do if someone convinced him that it was a good idea. Also, the way of making Ron a less likely candidate was reasonably plausible, considering when this was written.

Snape is very much in character, and so is Hermione. They clash on a fundamental level; Slytherin and Gryffindor simply approach life differently. Unfortunately, I couldn't really see how they got from respect to love; it just sort of happened, which was dissappointing, considering that I had thought that the biggest hurdle for the story was going to be the initial premise. Others may not have a problem with this at all; for them, this story is definitely worth reading.

Addendum: (2011) I have since discovered that the idea of a "Marriage Law" isn't original with this author - there was in fact a challenge in Harry Potter fandom to write stories based on a "Marriage Law", and it has been a quite popular challenge too. However, this must have been the first Marriage Law story I'd read, so I thought the idea was original. As MLC stories go, this one is pretty average - there are much better stories out there. Unfortunately a lot of them are Adult rated, and thus won't be recced here.