2

She saw the tension in his face as she prepared to say her vows, felt the apprehension in his breathing.

She hesitated, to centre her thoughts, to answer the vows he had made to her.

He had said, “I, Viktor Krum, do take you, Hermione Granger, for my wife. In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others, even my Quidditch career, if you so desire it. I have waited for this moment for a long time. I have loved you for a very, very long time. You are my life, my love, my sanity, Hermione.”

She knew how she must answer him. She had to make him see that he was all that she needed or wanted. The friendships and ties to her classmates meant nothing next to him. He was her world, her future, her only happiness.

“Your people shall be my people.” Those words hopefully said everything she wanted him to realise.

The light in his eyes at those words made her heart soar. She saw the tears of joy and happiness, of relief, and thankfulness well up in his dark eyes, and knew her own eyes held tears as well.

When his hands raised her veil, she whispered to him, and his kiss in answer told her their life together would be filled with love, respect, joy, and passion. They were meant to be together, from the day they met.

Their love, first fledged in the Triwizard Tournament year, had reached maturity in the years after the Dark Lord’s fall.

This wedding marked the first of the Marriage Law weddings, but it was based on true love, not a simple expedient law to rebuild the Wizarding world population. This wedding gave all of those subject to the new law hope that they too could find the kind of love that the Krums shared.