Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, and my magic 8-ball keeps telling me that probably won't change any time in the near future. (For those needing clarification, while I own a magic 8-ball the concept of the magic 8-ball also belongs to someone else.)

Harry Potter and Death's Bargain

Chapter 4

Ginevra Molly Weasley was in a sour mood. It had all started her Harry's name had come out of that stupid goblet. Dumbledore had promised her that this year would be the year she could finally have him, that arrangements would be made to keep that worthless bitch Granger away from him and she could get closer to him without her interference. Now there was no way Granger was going to leave Harry alone, after all who could resist spending time with a Tri-Wizard Champion, and Harry would always turn to Granger for help. What was worse was her stupid brother couldn't keep his damn mouth shut, he had to go and accuse Harry of entering himself. Then around lunch the next day the silliest rumors start to make their way through Hogwarts, somehow people were foolishly believing that her Harry had married Granger. While it wasn't unheard of for muggleborns to accidentally marry each other, that could never happen to Harry, after all he was a proper wizard, unlike that uppity bookworm.

Ginny was convinced this was just Lavender blowing things out of proportions, Harry and Hermione had probably just been seen holding hands together and the story just snowballed. And while Harry may have been seduced by that bucktoothed know-it-all, Ginny would forgive him for it once the headmaster had fixed things again. And since Dumbledore was going to make sure neither of them would remember this in a few days she might as well take the opportunity to give that bitch a piece of her mind.

So Ginny had been waiting for Hermione to return to the common room, she had missed dinner waiting, and she had waited all night, and when Hermione hadn't returned by midnight she had taken a few hours to sleep before returning to her post, she wasn't going to let Granger slip past her.

While Ginny was waiting in Gryfindor Tower her intended prey was sleeping peacefully in the arms of her new husband three floors below. Harry and Hermione woke early, but still later than Ginny, and decided to get an early breakfast before going to Oxford to talk with Hermione's parents.

There was the usual early morning group in the Great Hall, a handful of early risers from each house and more than a few Ravenclaws who wanted to get some breakfast before heading to the library as soon as it opened at 8 o'clock. Harry and Hermione had been irregular members of this group through all their years at Hogwarts, Harry had developed a habit of waking early while living at the Dursleys' and had never broken it, while Hermione enjoyed the more serene atmosphere the early morning gave the Great Hall. The irregularity of their membership was due in no small part to the fact that Hermione would always wait for Harry to head down for breakfast, and during the periods immediately after Dumbledore had rearranged their memories Harry had a strong urge to wait until closer to the normal breakfast time so he could make sure Ron got up in time, these urges would fade over the next few weeks and Harry would soon find himself and Hermione back in the habit o getting breakfast as soon as it was available to avoid the rush. At 7:15 there was the normal early delivery from the post owls, the school owls had been trained to deliver mail only at 7:15, 8:15, and on weekends at 9:15, and the personal owls followed these schedules to help maintain the privacy of their owners.

Harry and Hermione had been slightly dreading the possibility that they would receive some kind of response to their marriage, and were pleasantly surprised when the only mail they received was from a Ministry owl bearing an official copy of their marriage certificate along with some other legal forms which Hermione scanned through quickly before tucking them in her bag to deal with them later.

They were quite certain that the only reason they had not received any correspondence concerning their marriage, outside of the official recognition, was that everyone inside the castle had the decency to await confirmation before informing people outside of the castle, though this may have been more a response to the fear of looking like a complete fool if the rumors had proven false rather than a respect for privacy. As a result the earliest an owl could have gone out was the previous night after dinner, which would mean that, unless someone had sent one to a parent that lived within a hundred miles, it most likely would be arriving at its destination at that very moment, since owls were smart enough not to deliver mail in the middle of the night.

Harry and Hermione fully expected their marriage to be at least mentioned in the Daily Prophet and could only hope that it was at the very least tastefully done, though they both mentally resigned themselves to the fact that the Prophet was not known for being tasteful on a good day, and would sooner close its doors than ignore a potential scandal, whether real or imagined. They need not have worried though as at that very moment in a dingy little basement office at the Daily Prophet a middle aged witch by the name of Erin Templeton was receiving a letter from her contact at the Ministry about the marriage of Harry Potter. Ms. Templeton had been the Prophet's marriage correspondent for over forty years, ever since she had taken the job right out of Hogwarts. She had been given the job because, while she was an excellent writer and journalist, she was far too polite to make a career of journalism in the opinion of the editor at the time, and their current marriage correspondent was on the verge of retirement. She had accepted the job because she genuinely loved weddings and figured the job would be an excellent way to wrangle an invitation to any wedding in the country, and it was. Everyone had been astonished when her first published piece had been met with a positive response despite the fact that she had totally ignored the fact that six months before the wedding the groom had been regularly seen in the company of the bride's older sister.

While Harry and Hermione were sneaking out of the castle through a secret passageway Erin Templeton was marching into the editor's office, this story could be the biggest one of her career, and she would not let the editor hand it over to that Skeeter bint. Skeeter would make this out to be some sort of scandal, and would completely ruin what should be a happy memory for Mr. Potter and his new wife, besides it was in her contract that she would cover any and all stories related to weddings or marriage and she would be glad to remind the editor of that, even if she had to contact a solicitor to sue the Prophet to the point where the Quibbler would look like a major newspaper by comparison.

Jean Granger was sitting in her kitchen enjoying her morning cup of coffee, she had picked up the habit in University and had never been able to give it up, apparently her daughter had picked it up as well for during the summer more often than not the two of them would enjoy a morning cup together. Her thoughts turning to Hermione Jean looked at the clock, it was the morning of November Second and any minute a beautiful snowy owl would be flying through the window with a letter for her from Hermione. After all the night before last had been Halloween and if life held true to form something had happened, and it would have something to do with the owner of the aforementioned snowy owl, Harry Potter.

For the past three years every letter home had contained at least a paragraph had been all about Harry Potter. From that very first letter Jean could tell that her little girl was in love with Harry and every letter after that only further confirmed that. During the summer Harry would be a major topic of conversation, constantly wondering how Harry was coping with being home. These summer conversations told Jean a lot about Harry, while leaving her with far more questions. That first summer when none of Hermione's letters received replies her first reaction had been fear, not fear that her friend didn't want to write to her, but fear that his relatives wouldn't let him write to her. Hermione had refused to explain the basis of her fears, saying that she wouldn't betray Harry's trust.

Then just a couple of months ago Hermione had received an invitation to an international sporting event, and she had immediately agreed to go, not because she was all that interested in the sport but because she would get to see Harry a couple weeks sooner. As Jean had told her daughter goodbye she had joked that every time she got a letter she half expected it to inform her that Hermione had decided to marry her best friend, and Hermione had assured her mother that she would deliver that news in person.

While she was thinking about her daughter and her best friend she was joined in the kitchen by her husband David. As David was pouring himself a cup of coffee there was a knock at the front door that pulled Jean from her thoughts.

"I've got it." said Jean, setting her cup of coffee on the kitchen counter and heading for the door. When Jean opened the door she was surprised to find the subjects of her earlier thoughts standing on the doorstep. "Hermione, what are you doing here?" She asked her daughter as she pulled her into a hug.

Jean was concerned when Hermione didn't return the hug with her usual enthusiasm, until she pulled back and saw that Hermione was holding Harry's hand and therefore had only one arm free to return the hug. Jean took a quick moment to examine Harry as a small smile crept its way across her face, Harry had changed only a little in the two years since she had seen him that day in Diagon Alley. He was a little taller, though just as skinny. His hair looked as if it hadn't moved at all, it was just as untidy as it apparently always was. However some of the timidity had gone, and Jean could tell it was due in large part to the girl holding his hand. Clearly the relationship between these two had changed, and she had been expecting this for two years now. Of course she hadn't expected Hermione to come down from Scotland for a visit, but as long as it wasn't bad news, and from the looks on their faces it wasn't, then she wasn't going to complain.

"Hi mum, is dad up yet? We need to tell you something." Hermione informed her mother giving Harry's hand a subtle squeeze that was nonetheless seen by her mother.

"Of course dear, come inside its rather chilly out there." Jean replied ushering the two teenagers into the house and closing the door. Deciding to have a little fun teasing her daughter she asked "So, when's the wedding?"

Jean expected the blushing from both teens, even the averted gazes didn't surprise her, but what she had definitely not expected was Hermione's reply.

Looking at her shoe's Hermione timidly responded "Um, yesterday." Jean had absolutely no idea how to respond to that and it showed on her face. On any other occasion Hermione would have found her mother's dumbstruck expression very humorous, but this was already a somewhat delicate situation. "Perhaps you should go get dad so we can explain."

Jean nodded her head trying to get her brain back in gear "Why don't you wait in the den while I go get him." she finally suggested.

While Jean returned to the kitchen Hermione showed Harry into the den where they sat down on the couch, still holding hands though not quite as close to each other as they normally would be. They had spent some time the day before discussing how best to handle informing Hermione's parents of their marriage. Hermione had been of the opinion, and Harry agreed on principle, that the most important part would be telling them that it had been completely accidental while explaining that it could not be undone, but stressing that neither of them was unhappy with the development. This plan would placate Hermione's father long enough for her mother to explain to him that this was not a bad thing. Hermione would have preferred to tell her parents the whole store, but had agreed that it would not be safe to give them much more than their current cover story since they had absolutely no way to defend their minds.

At this point they were joined in the den by Hermione's parents. They both took a seat across from the couch, David examined his daughter and the boy she had brought home. He wasn't entirely sure how to feel about this development, on one hand Hermione had always been shy and before she had gone off to Hogwarts she never really had any friends and he had always feared she would never come out of her shell enough to have a real relationship, on the other hand she was his little girl and he was quite certain that he was supposed to be opposed to her ever dating. However as his wife had been explaining to him for the past year if Hermione had to date one of her friends it was better that it be the boy who was currently seated next to her rather than the insensitive ginger one. He was a little confused as to why they were here when they should be up in Scotland, but hopefully they would explain that soon.

"Hi dad," Hermione started "I want to start by saying that, apparently, Hogwarts has a pretty serious hole in their curriculum for muggleborn students. You see yesterday, because of certain things that no one ever bothered to explain to Harry or I, we kind of... accidentally... got married."

"Accidentally?" asked Jean. "Married?" asked David. These two questions were asked simultaneously with the same tone of surprise.

"Yes, you see yesterday Harry and I were taking a walk because Ron was being a git, and I promised Harry that I would always be there for him and then he promised that he would always be there for me." Hermione explained "What nobody ever bothered to tell us is that once you turn fourteen any promise made to another in good faith is enforced by your magic. Since Harry and I both promised each other that we would never abandon each other our magic sealed the promise in the spirit it was intended, which apparently means we're now married."

"Well, can't you get divorced or something?" David asked with a hint of desperation.

"No, we can't. There is no divorce in the magical world, the best a couple could do is separate, but they would still be legally married. And we couldn't do that because in this case it's the law simply recognizing what our magic has done. If we separated there would be dire consequences, at first we would have trouble sleeping, then we would have trouble controlling our magic we would have a constant urge to find each other that would prevent us from focusing on anything for more than a few minutes, eventually it would drive us both insane." Hermione tried to impress upon her parents how bad it would be if they tried anything drastic.

"Are you two okay with this?" Jean asked "The last I heard you two were just friends, and now your married."

"Of course we're okay mum, this couldn't have happened if we didn't love each other." Hermione reassured her mother before shooting Harry a questioning glance, Harry's response was to shrug his shoulder's, knowing exactly what she was asking and having not enough information to make a judgment he left the decision to her. "And we've never really been 'just friends'. You see magic can do some strange things and when Harry kissed me yesterday it unlocked a whole bunch of memories that had been hidden from us, memories of us being together. It turns out we were friends for less than three hours before we decided to be more than that. We were together for two weeks before someone decided to interfere and made us forget, and that wasn't the only time it happened."

"Who did it?" David practically growled, someone had done something to his little girl and he was going to do something about it.

It was Harry's turn to silently ask Hermione's permission to disclose a piece of information, when she nodded her agreement Harry said in a flat tone "Dumbledore."

"Wait isn't he your headmaster?" Jean asked. Both the teens nodded sadly "Isn't there something you can do about it, he must have broken some kind of law."

"Unfortunately no, if he had even the thinnest excuse saying that what he did was for student safety he has pretty much unlimited power, as long as he doesn't cause permanent physical harm to a student." Hermione said bitterly "He can't do it again though because we're married. If he tried to split us up we could charge him with line theft and he would spend the rest of his life in Azkaban."

"Well you aren't going back to that school." David said.

"We have to." Hermione said "If we don't Harry could lose his magic because of this stupid tournament he's being forced to compete in. And we can't just drop out of school so we would have to wait until next year to change schools anyways." As she was saying this her watch started beeping "Harry, I have a few more things I need to talk to my parents about, but two of the potions need to be taken off the fire in twenty minutes."

"Alright, anything you want me to take back with me?" Harry asked as he took hi invisibility cloak and an empty book bag out of Hermione's bag.

"Yeah, my room's just upstairs to the left, take any of the books off the bottom shelf. When the timer goes off take cauldrons five and six off the fire, pour them into jars E and F, and then clean them out before you come back." Hermione said before giving Harry a quick kiss and sending him off to complete his task.

"What was that about?" Jean asked her daughter as Harry left the room.

"Oh, we're working on an extracurricular project that's kind of time sensitive. Also there were a few topics I need to discuss with you that will be easier to get through if Harry isn't in the room." Hermione explained as she listened for the distinctive crack of Harry apparating away. Once she was sure he had gone back to Hogwarts she reached into her bag and pulled out the bundle of forms they had received from the Ministry. Looking through them she found the form she was looking for and laid it out on the coffee table. "I need to talk to you both about Harry's relatives. They aren't good people, and the way they treat Harry is absolutely deplorable, so I need you both to sign this form to take guardianship of Harry."

"If it's that bad why hasn't something been done before now?" Jean asked moving to sit next to her daughter.

"Because in the magical world there are no laws against child abuse." Hermione said her voice hollow as tears filled her eyes "So as long as they don't stop him from going to Hogwarts no one in the magical world is going to do anything, and if we tried to do something in the muggle courts someone would just come in and make the case disappear."

"So what's different now?" Jean asked pulling Hermione into a hug.

"Now we're married." Hermione said her voice trembling as she wiped away the few tears she had been unable to stop. "When two minors get married one of the families has to take primary custody. Since they are only his aunt and uncle you have a stronger claim, so as long as you fill out that form there is nothing anyone could do about you taking custody of Harry. You would be his legal guardian until I turn seventeen at which point I would be his legal guardian until his birthday."

"Okay dear, just show us where to sign." Jean said softly.

Hermione quickly showed her parents where they needed to sign, but when it was her father's turn to sign the forms he hesitated and was about to say something when Hermione cut him off "Dad if you're thinking about bringing up those statistics about abused children, don't bother. I've read all the literature and Harry isn't going end up like that."

"Pumpkin..."

"No dad, the first rule when dealing with statistics in psychology is that you never make assumptions about an individuals future behavior based on the statistics. Besides abused children become abusers because they grow up thinking that their home life is normal and they base their own behavior around that, Harry saw how his aunt and uncle treated his cousin so he always knew the way he was treated was anything but normal. Harry hates his relatives and would never willingly act like them." Hermione said her tone indicating that there was no room for discussion.

David just nodded and signed where he was told.

Harry returned a few minutes later, as all the important business had been completed for the day Harry and Hermione took some time to go through all of Hermione's books to decide which ones to take back with them. While they were in her room Hermione informed Harry of what had been discussed during his brief trip back to Hogwarts. The look in his eyes when she told him he would never have to go back to the Dursleys' nearly broke her heart. After all his years at the Dursleys' it surprised him when someone did something for him, he understood now why Hermione would go out of her way to help him, but he still thought of her as a special case.

While Harry and Hermione were packing up books the Grangers were ordering take-out for lunch. They called the young couple down to the kitchen when the food arrived and they all had a pleasant lunch of Chinese food. The conversation over lunch was pleasant, the Grangers taking the chance to get to know there new son-in-law better. The conversation avoided the more sensitive subjects that they had learned from Hermione, but they still got a much better idea of who Harry Potter was during their conversation.

One topic of conversation that had the potential to cause an incident though was when Jean asked about their previous relationships. This would normally be a bad topic to discuss with your daughter and her new husband, but when all those previous relationships were with each other it is usually less of a problem. Unfortunately this turn in the conversation brought up the fact that Dumbledore had erased their memories on multiple occasions.

"Sixteen times? How could he have done that? Someone must have noticed something."

"They probably did, but the things they would have noticed wouldn't tell them anything definitive. Most of the times we got together it was shortly after Ron said or did something stupid, so when we were spending more time together most people probably just assumed we were still on the outs with Ron." Hermione explained

"Add to that the fact that we're both very private people and we tried to keep things to ourselves and it isn't all that surprising no one noticed. And if they did they probably just assumed that we agreed that we were too young for a romantic relationship and decided to give things some time." Harry added after a few moments thought

"Still, that only explains the students, not the teachers. Teachers are much more observant than most of the students. How did they not notice anything?" Jean countered

"Most of them probably noticed, but other than McGonagall they all probably thought it wasn't a serious issue if it wasn't mentioned at a staff meeting, and if they did they would have brought their concerns to McGonagall since she's head of Gryfindor." Hermione suggested.

"McGonagall probably noticed but Dumbledore could easily have charmed her so that she wouldn't make the connection between all those separate pieces of information." Harry continued.

After lunch they all went through the remaining paperwork from the Ministry, Hermione confirmed that she would be changing her name to Hermione Potter, Harry granted Hermione full access to all his accounts and properties (this was technically a Gringotts form, but the Ministry provided a copy for convenience), and they filled out a change of address form for Harry, officially making the Granger house his home address.

When they said goodbye to Hermione's parents both teens felt that the day had gone quite well, they had managed to inform Hermione's parents o their marriage without anyone saying something stupid. By revealing the fact that Dumbledore had removed chunks of their memories they had given Mr. Granger something to focus on other than the fact that his little girl was married at fifteen. And most importantly, in Hermione's mind, they had gotten Harry permanently away from the hell he had grown up in.

When they got back to Hogwarts they sent Hedwig off to the Ministry with all their parchmentwork. While Hedwig was delivering that Harry wrote a letter to Sirius informing him about the Tri-Wizard Tournament and his marriage to Hermione. He asked Sirius to inform them when he would be able to meet them as they had important information to tell him, and until they could speak privately to minimize his contact with Dumbledore.

Ginny Weasley had not had anywhere near as productive a day as Harry and Hermione. She had spent the entire day watching the stairs to the girls dormitories waiting for Hermione to come down, she had missed lunch, and she would go on to miss dinner. She would not get to sleep until well after midnight, and when she did she was starting to worry that perhaps the rumors were more true than she had originally thought.

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed. I felt like I had to add the bit about McGonagall in this chapter, rereading chapter two she came off not quite the way I had intended. In my opinion McGonagall is one of the few adult characters in the books that is actually any good. Next Chapter we will hopefully get to the animagus potion and talking to Sirius, but I can't say for certain as the end of this chapter was where I had intended to end the previous chapter and they just sort of took on a life of their own.