Healer Janessa Constantine had seen a lot in her fifteen years at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries – after all, the Wizarding world had only just recently ended one of the worst conflicts in its known history. Janessa had dealt with injuries too horrific to describe, watched too many people die as they succumbed to the after-effects of horrible curses with no known cures…and yet, somehow she felt that this problem was the worst one yet.

At 2:27am on Monday, an infant had died at St. Mungo's. Normally, Janessa could have labeled the death as a tragic misfortune and moved on – she was a Healer, after all, and she knew that, while rare, infant mortality wasn't an impossibility. But this was different. This child was only the latest in a long string of infant deaths, and Janessa was certain they were connected somehow. She'd spent every spare minute of her time since this latest death doing research, going through the hospital's records to see if she could find something, anything that would give her answers. After two sleepless nights and far too many cups of coffee, Janessa had found what she was after – and if her conclusions were correct, Wizarding Britain would hate her for it. Clutching her findings to her chest in a plain file folder, Janessa rapped smartly on her supervisor's office door.

"Come in."

Janessa obliged and found herself in the office of Healer Evangeline Richardson. Healer Richardson had been the Head of the Maternity Ward for the last twenty-five years and had been Janessa's supervisor for the last twelve – Janessa generally liked all her co-workers, but it was no secret that Healer Richardson was her favorite, the older woman having been her personal mentor since her trainee days.

"Ah, Healer Constantine." Healer Richardson smiled and looked up from the report she was writing, removing stylish silver reading glasses to reveal her bright blue eyes. Her deep auburn hair was liberally streaked with grey, but Evangeline preferred to keep it natural. "No sense being ashamed of your age," she liked to say.

"Healer Richardson." Janessa tentatively returned the smile and took a seat across from her supervisor, carefully laying the folder on the desk in front of her as she did so.

"What brings you here this evening?" Evangeline asked. "I thought you were off for the rest of the week."

"I was," Janessa admitted, "but…well, I've been working on a little side project. After that little girl passed on Monday – you know the one – I couldn't help but wonder what was going on. The infant mortality rates are far higher than usual, don't you think?"

"Hmm," Evangeline hummed in agreement. "Are you suggesting you've found something?"

"I think I have," Janessa replied. "But if I'm right…well, the repercussions are severe, and I'm not exactly sure how the general public will take it." Evangeline's eyebrows raised in obvious question.

"Perhaps you'd best explain yourself properly." Janessa nodded and tucked a loose strand of long dark hair behind her left ear.

"I did some research," she began, opening her file folder and removing its contents. "Of the infants born at St. Mungo's since January of 1998, ninety-eight percent of those who died before their first birthday were the children of pureblooded couples. I say 'before their first birthday' liberally – the vast majority of those children didn't make it beyond the first month, and many died less than a week after their births. The complications were widespread – heart or lung failure, underdeveloped organs that led to irreversible complications, half a dozen stillbirths – but the conclusion, in each case, was the same. In addition to those infant deaths, if we reach back a little further to include all magical children born in the 1990s, eighty-five percent of pureblooded children who managed to survive infancy are not showing signs of magic – either their magic is incredibly weak, unlikely to ever develop beyond the strength of a Hogwarts first-year, or they can't do magic at all."

"These statistics are certainly disturbing," Evangeline agreed, furrowing her brow as she studied Janessa's charts. "But what are these? And why did you feel the need to bring this to my attention?"

"That's a little bit on Muggle genes, DNA coding, and the consequences of inbreeding," Janessa explained, pointing to the extra papers her supervisor had indicated. "And I brought it to your attention because this is far more problematic than an unusually high percentage of Squibs." Evangeline looked up expectantly and nodded for the younger woman to continue.

"The Wizarding world is still working to recover from the after-effects of the second war," Janessa began. Evangeline couldn't disagree with her mentee there – though the Light had won, the number of casualties had been staggering. Even now, four years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Wizarding Britain still struggled – after the war, people weren't exactly inclined to marry and have children when there was so much physical and emotional rebuilding to be done, so many losses to grieve. Even after the initial celebrations and mourning had died down and most of the damages had been restored, people were still slow to expand their families – they wanted to be sure, absolutely sure, that the terror was gone for good before they brought children into the world. It was a wise decision – after all, a number of Death Eaters had managed to flee from Hogwarts before the battle's end, and it was almost a full two years before they'd all finally been caught and locked away. But the consequences for Wizarding Britain's population…Evangeline's eyes widened. The more she thought about it, the more she was beginning to understand Janessa's worries.

"Hogwarts attendance projections are at an all-time low, and if this trend continues, those numbers aren't going to go up any time soon," Janessa said, extracting yet another chart that illustrated these findings. "But if these pureblooded children keep dying…"

"You mentioned something about inbreeding?" Evangeline asked.

"Yes – as you know, pureblood families who pride themselves on their lineages have been facing smaller pools from which to select their spouses with each successive generation, to the point where most, if not all purebloods are related in some way or other. If you examine the family tree of any one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families, you'll find almost all of the other Sacred Twenty-Eight names, as well as a healthy handful of other pureblood lines. But that's the thing – they're not healthy, not at all. Those families have been forced to marry their own cousins to keep their bloodlines 'pure', and the consequences are starting to show – in their offspring." Janessa removed the sheets containing her Muggle research from the stack and put them in front of her superior.

"Muggles know all about the consequences of inbreeding," she said. "Many Muggle royal families had similar issues in the past, you know – they only wanted their children to marry other royals, and so the selection was rather limited. Queen Victoria herself was a carrier for hemophilia, a deadly blood disease, and that's only one example. Many Muggle countries have laws forbidding marriage between people who are too closely related for this exact reason – children born from those unions are far more likely to have serious problems."

"And if we don't bring this issue to anyone's attention, our already low population is going to take a serious hit," Evangeline concluded.

"Exactly. Those pureblood lines are all going to die out, either because they can't bear any live offspring, or because their children who survive infancy can't perform magic. It's possible for Squibs to bear magical children, of course, but no one can predict how far down the line the magic will go before it resurfaces, and in cases like this, that magic might be permanently weakened."

"So, in essence, if we want to survive, if we want our population to grow instead of stagnating or declining, the purebloods have to stop marrying each other," Evangeline said. She paused for a moment, her brow furrowed deeply in thought. "How in Merlin's name can we do that? It's not like we can force them to look elsewhere."

"No, we can't," Janessa agreed, shaking her head slightly. Wizarding Britain had introduced a marriage law once, way back after the plague had decimated Europe – it was a necessary measure given the circumstances, but to say it hadn't been taken well was a massive understatement. Suggest something like that now, when half the population wasn't lying dead in the streets, and they were bound to start a riot…or another war.

"We can't force them to look elsewhere, but we can make them aware of the risks," she said firmly. "The statistics are too alarming to ignore – even the purest of purebloods will have to agree that Wizarding Britain will slowly but surely disappear if these practices don't change."

"We can certainly make them aware of the risks, just as we can make recommendations," Evangeline added. "Blood tests, for instance, of any couples looking to marry; charts that give the statistics related to the different marriage combinations." She nodded briskly and restacked the papers.

"Draft this carefully, Healer Constantine. If we're to present this to Minister Shacklebolt, we're going to need as much information as possible."

A/N: Hello everyone, & welcome to my new story! This one is DH-compliant minus the epilogue, takes place 4 years after the Battle of Hogwarts, & is my spin on the 'marriage law' trope (as you can probably tell, it's not actually a marriage law at all, but still - similar idea/starting point). I already have the first few chapters done & will do my best to stick to my usual once-a-week updates.

The lovely JKR owns all things HP-related, I just play. Hope to see you along for the ride - enjoy! :)