Honorguard

Chapter 1: It starts with a letter

It starts when Harry turns thirteen. She's eating breakfast with her friends, trying to devise a way to get into Hogsmeade without a parent's permission, when an unknown owl lands and delivers a letter right next to her porridge. She glances at it and picks it up, one hand holding the toast up to her mouth, and reads.

Heiress Henrietta Hyacinth Potter

It is with great respect that I reach out and request an audience with you and your Honorguard to inquire about an alliance between our two great houses.

Lord Edmund Greengrass and Lady Isa Greengrass

She wrinkles her nose at it and frowns.

"I-is something wrong, Lady Potter?" Neville asks her, fiddling with his tie, face drawn with worry.

She wants to ask him why he's decided to call her Lady Potter -- since when, really, and why -- but all she can think about is the note.

"I mean, there's nothing wrong, Neville, I just read the weirdest letter though..." She trails off with a frown.

She passes him the note when he perks and glances in her direction.

"Oh, I think they're going to ask you for a betrothal contact. But it's weird that they went to you and not to your Godfather or your Guardian, and it's weird that they call you "Heiress" since you're the current Lady of the house." Neville said with a frown.

Harry wrinkles her nose. "A betrothal? But I'm thirteen."

Neville shrugs a little and shifts in his seat. He passes the letter back to Harry and makes painstakingly sure their fingers don't touch as he does so. "It's a bit old fashioned to set one up this young, but the Greengrass family is one of the sacred twenty eight so it's not that weird that they still follow a lot of the old customs. It's actually normal for those following the old customs to have betrothals setup since birth."

"'M pretty sure my great-great grandparents were betrothed before they were even born, mate," George adds, turning away from where he's been speaking with his twin. "Kinda fell out of fashion in the Weasley family a generation ago, thank Merlin."

"And I'm the current Lady of the house... what does that mean?" Harry asks. She carefully folds the letter up, pockets it, and takes a few more bites of her cooling porridge.

The twins and Neville look at her, surprise clearly lining their faces. "What do you mean? No one's talked to you about being the Lady of House Potter?" Fred asks, eyes wide.

"That's unbelievable. I mean, Fred and I aren't even the Heirs and we've had a talk about what it means to be an heir." George added. "Had to take a whole bloody set of etiquette classes for it, too."

"Bloody boring if you ask me," Fred adds.

"T-they are boring," Neville agrees, biting his lip. "I mean, but no one's given you the talk about being the Heiress? You turned thirteen this summer right? I imagine they'd give it to you then at least."

Harry shakes her head, frowning. "Um, no? Why would they wait until I'm thirteen though?"

"Thirteen's a sacred number, and it's the age that you're supposed to be considered mature enough to have a grasp on accidental magic. Used to be the old age of maturity -- now it's seventeen, but thirteen used to be the age you could get married at and such. Still couldn't live together till you were seventeen at least -- which is why they ended up changing the date of adulthood -- since thirteen is too young for witches to give birth without risk of dying, but it's just kind of stuck for the age when an Heir or Heiress starts to take on responsibility for their House."