Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any related characters or elements.

A/N: I really appreciate all the positive responses I've been getting for this story, I just wish FFN hadn't changed how they handled anonymous reviews because now I have to take the time to read through the replies left by assholes who don't want their review to be associated with them. If you don't like the story don't read, and if you don't intend continue reading I don't need to hear your bitching. Sorry about the rant.

Harry Potter and Death's Bargain

Chapter 3

Harry eagerly opened the door to the private quarters that Hermione and he had been assigned. They had spent nearly an hour just looking through the different parchments before they had been found by a house elf named Roddy who had given them a note from Professor McGonagall. The note informed them that Harry would be allowed into the Arithmancy and Ancient Runes and also provided directions to their private quarters on the fourth floor. They asked Roddy to have lunch delivered to their quarters before they quickly made their way to their new home.

On impulse Harry picked Hermione up and carried her through the door, drawing an amused giggle from Hermione. On the other side of the door was a small sitting room/study. There was a fireplace on one wall with a couple of comfortable looking chairs and a couch. On the opposite wall was a pair of ornate desks with a large bookcase between them. The third wall, which was directly across from the entrance, had two doors. Both of their trunks were sitting directly between the two doors. Harry set Hermione down and they walked over to the door on the left, inside was a bedroom with a king size bed and a large window looking out over the grounds. Wondering where the other door lead they opened it to find another bedroom, this one with a single bed and a much smaller window.

"I don't know if McGonagall was being optimistic or just didn't want to presume." Harry mused as he moved both his and Hermione's trunks into the first bedroom.

"Perhaps it was a little bit of both." Hermione suggested

There hadn't even needed to be a discussion about sleeping arrangements, after all they had been sharing a bed on and off since second year. It had started innocently enough when Harry had come down to the common room to find Hermione sleeping on a chair, being unable to wake her and unwilling to let his friend spend the night in a chair Harry had carried her up to the boys dorm. Over the years they had often shared a bed whether they were together or not, Harry had commonly found that it was the only way to ensure that Hermione quit studying long enough to get a good night's sleep. Now that they wouldn't need to be sneaking around neither had any intention of ever sleeping alone again.

"So, what do you think we should work on first?" Harry asked as they ate lunch sitting on their bed.

"Well, it won't be the first thing we can do, but there is something we need to talk about before everything else. Even though your scar isn't a horcrux, it is tainted by some kind of dark magic, and there's no knowing what kind of long term effects it could have on your health. It's even possible that it has been effecting your decisions, making you more impulsive." Hermione said, pulling out the parchment she had set aside earlier.

"I assume that you have something there about how to deal with it." Harry said gesturing to the parchment Hermione was holding in her hands.

"Well yes, it's a purification ritual. It breaks down any magic that has a lasting effect on anyone involved in the ritual and then pours it into the magical cores of everyone involved. The thing is the ritual can only be performed on the night of a full moon in early spring... and both of us would need to be virgins." Hermione explained, hesitating before revealing the last requirement of the ritual.

"Okay." Harry said, quickly derailing Hermione's worries over his reaction "If we need to wait to do this ritual we need to wait. Besides we are a little young right now, even though right now it's only a few months earlier than our first time." Harry paused as he remembered the true aftermath of the Yule Ball, and if the look in Hermione's eyes was any indication she was currently reminiscing about the same night. "We both agreed that even though we didn't regret it we were still to young."

Hermione sighed in relief "I'm glad you're so understanding, if you were any other teenage boy, it would be almost impossible to convince you to wait, though if you were any other teenage boy I probably wouldn't have married you." Hermione said with a smile. "Even if we didn't have to wait til spring I would still have insisted that we wait until after we told my parents that we're married."

"When did you plan on doing that? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you can just put in a letter."

"Well," Hermione started with a pleading look in her eyes "I was hoping we could do it tomorrow. It's a Sunday so no one will be looking for us, and we could use your cloak to sneak out to Hogsmeade and apparate to my house. Maybe have lunch with my parents before coming back."

"Of course we can go tomorrow. I know how much you miss them, and I half expected you to insist we go over there for dinner tonight." Harry said pulling Hermione into a comforting hug.

"Good, while we're there I can grab some more books so we can fill up our bookshelf. Now back to business," Hermione quickly switched to a more business-like tone "The first thing we should probably work on is the animagus transformation. This is a recipe for a potion which apparently short-cuts the entire process. It's pretty complicated the first step is brewing six different potions which form the base of the final potion. Unfortunately each of the potions will need two cauldrons if we both want to be able to use this, which means that with only our two cauldrons it will take about a month to finish."

"What if we had as many cauldrons as we needed?" Harry asked.

"Ten days, eleven at the most, but we would need at least eight cauldrons, and cauldrons aren't cheap." Hermione said after running through the information in her head.

"I know where we can get as many cauldrons as we need, for free, and we need to go there anyways." Harry said with a grin. "Though we may need to fix them up a bit before we use them. Do we have all the ingredients for the potions?"

"Yeah, if we can get enough cauldrons we'll be able to start immediately, but where are we getting the cauldrons?"

"One thing that the Room of Requirements has always been used for is hiding stolen, damaged, or illegal things, whether it's a potions book with dark curses written in the margins or a horcrux. Among other things there are a whole bunch of... lightly used caldrons in there. We probably just need to clean them up a little and they'll be good as new." Harry explained as he stood up and offered Hermione a hand up.

When Harry opened the door to the Room Hermione was surprised by the sheer mass of things that had been squirreled away there over the years. "Hermione, you start looking through the cauldrons while I look for the horcrux." Harry said, pointing out a large pile of cauldrons in varying states of disrepair.

"Why on earth would Voldemort hide a horcrux here?" Hermione asked as she dislodged a cauldron that looked almost brand new, until she looked inside to see a strange neon green residue coating the inside of the cauldron.

"My best guess is that when he found this place he had never heard of anything like it, so in his infinite arrogance he decided that he must be the only person who had ever found it, therefore making it the best place in Hogwarts to hide his horcrux." Harry mused as he conjured a wooden box to hold the horcrux.

"Do you really think he's that arrogant Harry? I mean it would take some serious mental gymnastics to convince yourself that no one else has ever found this room before, I mean just the sheer volume of stuff in here would suggest otherwise."

"Have you ever heard the guy talk? I don't think I've ever heard him go two sentences without referring to himself as the most powerful wizard to ever live or the greatest dark lord in history. He isn't even in the top five in the world today when it comes to raw power, and Grindlewald definitely has him beat for greatest dark lord of the twentieth century." Harry had levitated Ravenclaw's diadem into the box and was now helping Hermione with the cauldrons.

"How do you figure that Harry? Everything I've read about Grindlewald says that he was pretty nasty, but every author says that Voldemort was worse."

"These are the same people who wrote that I was an attention seeking maniac one day and the lone voice of reason the next. Voldemort is worse because he's fresh and new, in a few decades when historians start to write objective analysis of the events of this century they'll all probably agree that Grindlewald was the more serious threat. I mean Grindlewald started gathering power and followers in the twenties, he uses his influence and magic to manipulate muggle politics to create tension, then he manipulates the German economy to the point of collapse to get his Nazi puppets elected and starts a war that claims millions of lives just to get plenty of dead bodies to create an unending army of inferi to try to conquer Europe. By the time Dumbledore decides to get involved every magical government in continental Europe is on the verge of collapse or has already surrendered, and Grindlewald is beginning a push into Asia. Grindlewald held power for two decades, Voldemort was nowhere close to that. He starts up in the late sixties and for most of a decade he's just the leader of a glamorized band of petty thugs killing and torturing muggles for fun, no one even cared until '77 when he killed Edgar Bones and then he only lasted four years until he lost. All told Voldemort and the death eaters never even broke a thousand for the body count."

Hermione was impressed by Harry's knowledge of History "Where did you learn all that? Even with all the memories we both lost I don't remember you ever reading that much history."

"When you were petrified in second year I spent a lot of time reading about modern history, hoping to find something about the first time the Chamber of Secrets had been opened. When I realized there was nothing there I started looking into the other things I read about, I even compiled all my notes so you could read them when you woke up, but after I killed the basilisk Dumbledore decided that I couldn't be allowed to keep thinking the way I was about history and other things so he obliviated me, no idea what he did with my notes." Harry finished sadly, the notes had actually been pretty good, and would easily have been enough to write up a thesis paper as an alternative to taking his OWLs in History of Magic.

By this time they had found more than enough caldrons, and with a few quick spells Hermione had them all cleaned up, fixed up, and shrunk down. When they got back to their rooms Hermione shrunk all the furniture in the spare bedroom and setup all the cauldrons they would need.

"So, how exactly does this whole thing work?" Harry asked as Hermione set the last potion to simmering.

"Well we start by making the six component potions, along with a few doses of blood replenishing and muscle relaxing potions. Then when all of them are done we each drink the first three potions, let them work their way through our bodies before collecting a pint of our blood, hence the blood replenishing potion. Then we drink the fourth potion to give it three days to loosen our bodies up to allow the transformation while we mix the two remaining potions with our blood and a few other ingredients. Then when the potions have finished mixing we drink them and it apparently forces us through the entire animagus process inn a little under an hour. It's apparently quite painful as the last instruction before drinking the potion is to silence the room. Apparently it also leaves you quite sore, which is why you make the muscle relaxers." Hermione explained as she reread the directions

"So is this going to be like the polijuice where you had to sneak off at the weirdest times to do something to the potion?"

"Nope most of these just need to simmer for a set amount of time, and the more complicated ones only take a day to do. The initial potions should take a week, so we'll be able to take the final potion after dinner next Wednesday."

"Speaking of dinner, it's getting kind of late, you want to head down to the Great Hall or ask Roddy to bring something up?" Harry asked when he finally looked at his watch.

Hermione thought about their options before she sighed in resignation "We might as well head down and face everyone now, it will only get worse if we stay hidden away."

As Harry and Hermione entered the Great Hall they were truly amazed by the efficiency of the Hogwarts gossips. Somehow in the ten hours since they had gotten married the entire school seemed to have learned about it, which was even more impressive since the only person they had talked to about it was Professor McGonagall, and it was extremely unlikely she would have told any of the students. When everyone saw Harry and Hermione walk into the Hall a silence swept across the hall as everyone tried to gauge what their response should be. Seeing that Harry and Hermione were holding hands and were apparently quite happy caused a number of different reactions that could generally be quantified by the trim color of the robes a person was wearing. Those with green trim were disappointed that they could not torment the two Gryfindors about the results of their foolishness, those with blue trim looked on with their usual studied indifference and filed this new information away for future reference, those with yellow trim were conflicted, on one hand they were still upset that Harry Potter had stolen Cedric's glory the night before, but on the other hand it was not in the nature of a Hufflepuff to be vindictive and on any other day they would have been happy for the Gryfindor couple. The people with red trim, for the most part were happy for their housemates, though more than a few females, and one or two males were disappointed that the Boy-Who-Lived was well and truly off the market. Most of Gryfindor house had been expecting Harry and Hermione to officially become a couple since half-way through their first year and more than a few had seen hints that they were more than friends over the years, but when they would go back to the way they normally were a few days later everyone assumed that they had mutually decided that they weren't ready for a romantic relationship yet. None suspected that their on again off again relationship was the result of a meddling old man with an unhealthy obsession with a young boy.

When Harry and Hermione sat down at the Gryfindor table many of their housemates came over to congratulate them. When Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil came over Hermione was dreading what was sure to be a highly embarrassing and extremely personal conversation, however shortly after the required niceties were exchanged before Lavender could begin her in-depth interrogation Hermione was rescued by Harry's female teammates coming to congratulate them.

As Alicia was jokingly explaining to Hermione that they expected her to keep Harry out of trouble, so as to avoid any injuries that could potentially interfere with quidditch next year, they were approached by one of the people they were hoping to avoid for at least a couple of days.

"POTTER!" Ron yelled as he came stomping toward them. Harry could tell from the particular shade of red that adorned Ron's face that he had spent most of the day building up a head of steam, in fact to have gotten this mad Ron would have to have been one of the first to find out. In that moment Harry finally connected the dots, and while he snapped off a quick silencing charm at Ron he looked at Hermione, the look of understanding and anger in her eyes immediately told him she had come to the same conclusion. They both looked up at the staff table and the twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes as he looked on with barely disguised glee confirmed all their suspicions.

When McGonagall had informed the headmaster of Harry and Hermione's new status his plans had taken a serious blow, up until that point he had been able to remove any memory of their relationship using a couple of highly questionable loopholes in the Hogwarts rules. If they had discovered his actions he would lose their trust, but he would be protected from any legal action. Now though, it would be highly illegal to remove the memory of their marriage from them, and it wouldn't do any good as there would be documentation of their marriage and every official document would now list them as Harry and Hermione Potter. So in a fit of childish rage Dumbledore had decided to go for a little bit of petty revenge. He had informed Ronald that there would now be no way for him to get Granger as she was now married, knowing that the first time Ronald came into contact with the Potters he would make a very loud and very public scene which would quickly reveal the Potters' marriage despite any efforts they might have taken to conceal it. After Ronald had left his office he realized that the fact that they had requested private quarters meant that they probably had no intention of keeping it a secret from anyone, with the possible exception of the former Miss Granger's parents, and as they were muggles they wouldn't find out about it through the Hogwarts parents grapevine. At least he could hope that the confrontation would be loud enough to warrant intervention from a teacher, or perhaps take place near Snape who would take any opportunity to punish Potter. He also hadn't accounted for the fact that Ron in a fury was not a quiet thing and that within twenty minutes of leaving the headmaster's office he had already started muttering about Harry and Hermione getting married. When he muttered these recriminations he was sitting in the Gryfindor common room, only ten feet away from Lavender Brown, the Gossip Queen of Gryfindor. Within ten minutes every girl in Gryfindor Tower knew and they quick extrapolated the most likely scenario, which happened to be extremely close to the cover story that Harry and Hermione had created.

As Hermione had learned in the Department of Mysteries when she had silenced Dolohov in a misguided attempt to keep him from casting any spells, silencing spells do not actually prevent a person from speaking, they just create a thin bubble around their head that stops sound from going out. As a result Ron was not aware that he was the only person who could hear his rage fueled rant in the middle of the great hall, however from watching his lips Harry was able to make out a few phrases, like 'my girl', 'selfish bastard', and 'any witch in Hogwarts' before he turned his rage towards Hermione. At this point all the discernible phrases were variations on a theme, this theme was calling into question Hermione's virtue and implied strongly that she had used her 'loose muggle ways' to ensnare Harry in order to get her hands on his money. Harry was quite certain that Ron believed everything he said, he just couldn't determine whether Ron was pissed because someone had stolen the Weasleys' plan or if he was just an idiot who didn't realize that he had been actively involved in a plan to do exactly the same thing.

Growing tired of Ron's silent shouting Harry and Hermione returned to their meal. After a couple of minutes there was the sound of scuffle and Harry turned to see Katie with Ron's wand in one hand while her other hand had Ron's arm twisted up behind his back. Apparently Ron had finally realized that they weren't listening to his yelling and had decided to hex them in the back.

"Thanks Katie." Harry said, standing up to look Ron directly in the eyes.

"No problem Harry." Katie replied, not letting go of Ron's arm, though she did relieve some of the pressure.

Harry stared directly into Ron's eyes before saying, in a voice so cold that several people sitting near by checked their drinks to see if they had frozen, "Ronald Weasley, the insults you have made against myself and my wife give me every right to challenge you to a duel of honor, a duel that we both know you would not survive. It is only in recognition of our friendship of the last three years that I have not done so, that friendship is now over, and if you ever insult Hermione again I will not show such restraint. Do we have an understanding?"

Ron nodded quickly before he turned and ran out of the Hall, leaving his wand and his appetite behind. Harry was surprised that none of the teachers had intervened, though now that he thought about it, after Ron's initial shout, the confrontation had been rather quiet and hexes had not actually been exchanged, and while Snape would probably have loved to punish Harry for casting a silencing charm on Ron without any Slytherins involved and plenty of other teachers present he had no authority, which McGonagall would gladly point out to him.

Harry and Hermione finished dinner quickly after Ron left. Once they were done they made their way back to their quarters where Hermione made a quick check of all the potions brewing in the spare room.

Having assured herself that the potions were exactly as they Hermione's mind moved onto other things, Harry's home life had been bothering her for years, and she had previously spent hours going through the library looking for any legal basis for getting Harry away from the Dursleys. Unfortunately those hours had turned up very little, without someone with a stronger claim to custody coming forward, which eliminated everyone but Sirius Black, Harry could not be removed from the Dursley home. However if Hermione remembered correctly, and she usually did, there had been a mention of what, at the time, seemed a little piece of legal trivia, but now could provide an escape for Harry.

While Hermione was busy thinking Harry was doing the next few weeks of homework from memory, taking only enough time to make it look neat. Harry had just finished a Transfiguration essay that was going to be assigned two weeks from Thursday when he looked up to see Hermione caught in an internal debate with herself.

"What's up?" Harry asked with a note of concern.

"Oh, there's something I wanted to look up in a book before we go see my parents tomorrow, but I need to add an ingredient to one of the potions in an hour, and the library will be closing a few minutes after that. I'm pretty sure I know which book it's in, but if I'm wrong it might take too long to find the right one." Hermione said with a small sigh.

"Okay," Harry said with a chuckle of relief "just tell me what to do, and I'll handle the potion while you run to the library."

"Thanks Harry." Hermione said giving him a kiss on the cheek before grabbing her book bag. "When the timer goes off add the fluxxweed from the blue bowls to cauldrons three and four, then stir them both three times counter-clockwise. The stirring spoons are charmed to act together so you only need to stir one."

By the time Hermione returned Harry had finished all his homework for the month of November, with the obvious exceptions of Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, and added the fluxxweed. Once Hermione had returned Harry and Hermione retired to their new bedroom. They would be up early tomorrow, and it was going another long day, so after only a few minutes they were both fast asleep.

A/N: Sorry this took so long to get out, life got complicated, then I got distracted, then I got busy and it took me the better part of a month to get this down. I hope you all enjoy, and hopefully you won't have to wait as long for the next chapter.