I don't own Harry Potter, or any related characters, and I'm not making any money off this.

Betrothed

By: Time Keeper

Chapter 1: The Letter

===June 5 1992===

Hermione descends the stairs from the Gryffindor girls dorm. As she enters the common room she remembers her two friends are both in the Hospital Wing. With a sigh she heads to the Great Hall to eat. She enters the hall and heads to the Gryffindor table. Much to her surprise she sees her friend Ron Weasley sitting with his brothers Fred and George.

Hermione sits next to Ron before she speaks. "So Madam Pomfrey let you out early?"

Ron nods as he eats his breakfast. He goes to speak but one of the twins stops him. "You shouldn't talk with your mouth full." The twin speaks.

"Especially in front of a lady." The other says.

Ron swallows. "What lady?"

Hermione chuckles slightly. "I believe they're referring to me."

"You're Hermione, not a lady." Ron argues.

"I go up to the girls' dorm Ron, think about that for a minute." Hermione says. and Ron quietly eats. She watches him eat with his usual reckless abandon wondering how he remains so thin when he eats so much. Then she serves herself and starts eating. Listening to the twins talk about their next prank.

Just as Hermione finishes eating, an owl drops a package in front of her. Hermione examines the plain brown package seeing a gold colored letter on top of the package, the whole thing tied together with a thick red string.

All three Weasleys suddenly get real quiet. One of the twins pulls out their wand and mumbles something, the letter turns white. "Quickly put it in your robes, the spell won't last long."

Hermione quickly grabs the package and tucks it into her robes. "Care to explain, Fred?"

Fred, wand still in his hand, looks absolutely shocked. "How? Our Mum can't even tell us apart!"

Hermione laughs. "You hold your wand with your right hand, George with his left." She explains. "Now explain the package."

"The gold paper is only used for one thing." Fred answers.

"Marriage contracts." George finishes.

"That's…. that's impossible. I'm a muggleborn." Hermione says quietly, thinking to herself. 'This has to be some sort of prank.' She looks at the twins, much to her shock the look in both their eyes tells her they are dead serious.

"We're just telling you what we know." Fred says.

"I'd suggest you go up to your dorm and open it up." George says.

"You'll have to cut yourself on the thread to open it." Fred says.

Hermione nods. "Thank you, I'd better go see what this is all about." She hurries up to her dorm room. Not seeing her dormmates she nervously pulls the package out seeing the letter has already returned to it's gold color. She sits on her bed examining the parcel, once she determines that there's no other way to open it, she carefully cuts herself on the red thread, the wound healing instantly as the thread vanishes. She carefully puts the package aside, grasping the gold letter and carefully opening it then reading it.

This marriage contract is between Harry James Potter and Hermione Jean Granger. This contract is being made September 12, 1981. Present are Lily and James Potter and Helen and Richard Granger.

The conditions of this marriage contract are as follows:

Both James and Lily Potter must be dead.

Harry and Hermione meet at Hogwarts and become friends.

Harry being the younger turns 14 or they share their first kiss.

Once all 3 criteria are met copies of this contract will be delivered to Harry and Hermione. They will be married either on Harry's 17th birthday or his 3rd birthday after this contract is started whichever comes first.

Hermione puts the marriage contract aside as she remembers last night.

#Flashback#

"Here." Hermions says as she hands Harry a vial. "This potion will let you go on." She holds up another one. "This one will let me go back. I'll go get Dumbledore, you stall Snape."

Harry nervously takes the vial. "You can't come with me?"

Hermione shakes her head. "There's only enough potion for one person."

"We can't split it in half?" Harry asks. "After all, we're not adults."

"I highly doubt that the potion was designed based on body weight"

Harry nods. "I figured I'd ask." They both drink their vials. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck." Hermoine says as she leans over to kiss his cheek, but something seemingly catches Harry's attention and he turns towards her and she kisses him on the lips instead and Harry kisses her back.

The kiss only lasts a second before they break it off and turn away from each other, both of them blushing. "I..I better go stop Snape." Harry says and goes on.

#End of Flashback#

Hermione rubs her lips remembering the accidental kiss. She sighs as she opens the package. Inside she finds a vial of memories along with three letters. She pulls the letters out and looks at them; one has Harry's name in block letters, another has hers in the same block letters. The third letter is handwritten and says To: Hermione From: Lily. Hermione carefully opens the letter from Lily.

Dearest Hermione,

I can only hope this letter finds you as a smart, beautiful young woman much like your mother. I'm sure you're wondering how this is all possible since you're a muggleborn. James, Harry and I went into hiding and James had a dental incident, something I didn't know how to fix with magic. So I suggested we go to a muggle dentistry. We ended up at your parents dentistry the day of your second birthday. Your parents had you with them and you were more than happy to play with Harry. I'm sure you don't remember, but when he got tired I watched you two sit down, Harry in your lap. Then you used magic to pull a book to you. Much to my surprise you started reading the small board book aloud to Harry. I immediately explained to your parents that you were a witch and what it meant, especially with the war. Then much to everyone's surprise Harry said his first word. "Mione." Yes, you were his first word,

It was James' idea that we write the marriage contract in case things go wrong. We weren't sure we could until we discovered you're not muggleborn. Your mother is a squib descended from a magic family. So you like Harry are a half-blood, a near perfect union.

The other two letters are charmed to collect happy memories from each of your childhoods. I'm hoping it'll make you two closer than ever. When you open them you'll get the memories. The vial of memories is a copy of the memory of us writing the marriage contract. If anyone tries to declare your betrothal invalid the memory will back it up. If something happens to this vial the goblins can get you a new one.

Love,

Lily Potter Nee Evans

Hermione shuffles the pages.

Hermione if you are reading this our suspicions about Dumbledore having his own plots are likely true. I wrote the letter in such a way that you can show it to others. I ask that you don't show any of these next pages to anyone other than Harry.

I suspect if we die and Harry doesn't it'll be because of the blood wards I use. Dumbledore may use these as an excuse to put Harry with my sister. I hope he doesn't as my sister hates magic. If that is the case I beg you to go through with the marriage contract. Once you two are considered betrothed you can move the blood wards from my sister to you. The instructions are below.

Of course we have considered the fact that you two may not want to get married to each other. So we have included an unwritten clause that if both of you are completely against it the contract may be canceled. The clause is written on the back of the contract, the instructions for revealing it are below. I'm really hoping you won't cancel the contract. I hope you will take care of Harry for me.

Hermione reads the instructions that are beneath the letter and much to her surprise it looks fairly easy. Next she opens the letter with her name in block letters.

Her mind swirls as she sees a memory. Toddler Hermione chases toddler Harry in the Granger's dentistry. "Hermione's going to get you Harry." She says, speaking very clearly for her 2 years of age. Harry toddles to the rug in the kids corner and sits. "Are you tired?" Hermione asks and Harry nods. Hermione sits with Harry and he curls into her lap. She summons a simple kids book to her and starts reading the book to Harry.

After she finishes Harry hugs her. "Mione! My Mione!" Harry says.

Her mind swirls again. She sees Hagrid standing in front of Harry. "You're a wizard, Harry."

She gasps as she realizes that he has no happy memories between meeting her and being told that he's a wizard. The rest of his memories involve her or Ron. One including Harry jumping on the back of the troll to save her. Their kiss last night. Then Harry standing in front of the Mirror of Erised.

Once the memories are over she packs everything up in the robes, putting the package in the trash. She heads downstairs to the common room where she sees Ron sitting on a couch. He gets up from the couch. "Well?"

"It is exactly as your brothers said, a marriage contract." Hermione says. "I'd like to discuss it with Professor McGonagall before anyone else if you don't mind."

Ron nods. "Of course Hermione, I think I saw her heading towards her office.

"Thank you." Hermione says as she leaves and walks to McGonagall's office where she knocks.

"Enter." McGonagall says. Hermione enters, closing the door behind her. "Miss Granger, is something the matter?"

"I received a package this morning." Hermione says. "I could really use your advice as my head of house." She pulls the gold letter out of her robe and hands it to McGonagall.

McGonagall's eyes go wide. "Is that what I think it is?" Hermione nods. "I wonder why I haven't gotten my copy as your head of house." She opens it. "I can't read some of it. I suppose the person you're betrothed to hasn't opened theirs yet."

"He must still be unconscious." Hermione says.

"Mister Potter?" McGonagall asks and suddenly the rest of the contact is visible. "Well the easiest way to get out of it is for the other letter not to be opened. Once it is, I'll get my copy as will the Headmaster."

"I want to discuss the whole thing with Harry when he wakes up."

"That's very brave of you." McGonagall says. "Not sure it can be canceled after that."

Hermione hands McGonagall the letter from Lily. "I've already opened the charmed letter that has Harry's happy memories. There's none between meeting me as a toddler and Hagrid telling him he's a wizard."

"The spell must have messed up."

"The memories continued right up until last night when we accidentally kissed." Hermione says purposely not mentioning the Mirror. "I don't think there was a mistake at all, I think he went nearly 10 years without any happy memories. I want to find out why. If what I suspect is true I will be using Lily Potter's spell and Harry will be going home with me."

McGonagall hands the letter back to Hermione. "On the bright side nobody can touch the letter until Mister Potter does. If you're thinking what I'm thinking, Albus is going to try and stop him from opening the letter."

"Why would he do that?" Hermione asks.

"He's the one that left Harry with his aunt and uncle, and I wonder if they're the reason he has no more happy memories."

"That's horrible." Hermione says.

"That's why I want you up there with him so that you can convince Harry to open the letter." McGonagall says. "Classes are over for the year and I can have your meals delivered to you."

"Can't Dumbledore just force me to leave the Hospital Wing?"

"Not if Madam Pomfrey says you can stay." McGonagall explains. "She overrules him in the Hospital wing."

"Then let's go." Hermione says. McGonagall hands the letters back to Hermione and they quickly make their way to the hospital wing.

"Pomfrey!" McGonagall calls out once there.

"Minerva, is something the matter?" Madam Pomfrey asks.

"Miss Granger, the letter." McGonagall says and Hermione hands the letter to Madam Pomphrey.

"There's one of these by Mister Potter's bedside unopened." Pomfrey says as she opens it. "My goodness!"

"Now the other one." McGonagall says and Hermione complies.

Pomfrey reads the letter. "I don't understand."

"As I told Professor McGonagall I opened the charmed letter that's supposed to have Harry's happy childhood memories inside. There's only one memory before Hagrid came and told him he was a wizard, and that was when we met as toddlers when his parents were still alive. I imagine Lily put the first one in there since she created the letters after it happened."

"Miss Granger, you are welcome to stay here as long as you want. I imagine you and Mister Potter are going to have much to discuss when he wakes up." Madam Pomfrey says.

"Thank you." Hermione says.

"I need to get back to grading exams." McGonagall says. "Miss Granger, might I borrow the vial of memories?"

Hermione hands her the vial. "Let me know if I should view it."

McGonagall nods as she takes the vial. "Somehow I doubt you will." She says as she turns and leaves.

Pomfrey turns to Hermione. "I have a couple spells I'd like to teach you."

About an hour later Hermione is sitting beside Harry's bed reading when Ron comes up. "Had a feeling you ended up here." Ron says.

Hermione places the book down on her lap. "Sorry, I completely forgot."

Ron nods. "I'm sure you have a lot on your mind right now."

"That's putting it mildly." Hermione scoffs.

Ron grabs a chair and goes to sit on the other side of Harry's bed when he sees the golden letter on the bedside table. "That's not yours is it?" He asks and Hermione shakes her head. "So you and Harry huh?"

"What's this about Miss Granger and Mister Potter?" Dumbledore asks, then sees the golden letter. "Is that what I think it is?" He goes to grab it and the letter shocks him.

"Headmaster, are you okay?" Hermione asks.

"I am Miss Granger, I just didn't expect the letter to reject me. After all, I'm Mister Potter's magical guardian." Dumbledore answers.

"Did you sign a marriage contract for Harry?" Ron asks.

"Of course not Mister Weasley! I am insulted that you would think I did!" Dumbledore yells as he thinks. 'Damn goblins won't let me sign marriage contracts.'

"I'm sorry Headmaster." Ron says. "But if you didn't do it, then his parents must have set it up before they died."

Dumbledore sighs knowing there was a time while they were in hiding he wasn't keeping track of their every movement. The only problem is he can't imagine who they would possibly have arranged the marriage to. "I trust you'll have Pomfrey tell me the moment he's awake? I'll want to be here when he opens it."

"Of course Headmaster." Hermione says. "I intend to stay with him the whole time, I feel so bad letting him go ahead. He's injured because of me."

"Don't go blaming yourself Miss Granger, we don't know exactly what happened down there yet."

"Thank you Headmaster." Hermione says. They both watch Dumbledore leave.

"What's the deal?" Ron whispers. "Why didn't you tell Dumbledore?"

Hermione pulls out Lily's letter and hands it to Ron. "Read this and then I'll explain."