The Amortentia Enchantment

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter characters, settings, and time lines do not belong to me. Harry Potter is in fact owned by the goddess of children's literature herself: J. K. Rowling. And if you didn't know that, you've been living under a rock, and need to join that support group that meets over there in the corner by the water cooler.

a/n: The Amortentia Enchantment is a story I started two years ago, couldn't write properly, and abandoned. But la few months later, I found it when I was going through my notebook, and found that I could write some more of it, so posted it and then once again lost the will to write properly. A few hours ago, I found it in my archive, while deleting the rest of my old fics. This was the only salvageable piece amongst them, so I have edited it, and added to it. With any luck, the rewrite is better, and more to your taste! Enjoy.

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The Amortentia Enchantment: Crystallized Nights.

I remember the first time I found out about the curse. I was barely fourteen... I remember Mum and Dad sitting me down in the family room and telling me the story. They informed me that a curse had run in the Malfoy and Weasley bloodlines since Relena Weasley and Heero Malfoy had lived.

The story went something like this: Relena and Heero had fallen very deeply in love, but their families hated each other with passion. Neither of the couple would listen to their family members, and had arranged their marriage in spite of it all. Relena's family insisted she was being hexed. Heero's family called him a traitor, and privately believed that his fiancée was merely seducing him in order to possess the Malfoy wealth. Neither of them paid any mind to the whispers, the threats, the storming, raging fights that took place. On their wedding day, just as Relena was about to begin her vows, a curse was fired from one of the places hidden by trees, killing both Relena and Heero instantly, catching Relena first squarely in the center of her stomach, then Heero's back, as he turned toward his fallen wife to be.

There is an ancient magic that forbids this kind of brutal murder. This particular curse is called the Amortentia Enchantment...

The Amortentia Enchantment binds a curse to both bloodlines of the dead, and states: 'That when again one of these bloodlines produces a male, and the other a female child, the two will be bound to each other for life, they will have to marry in the young lady's 19th year and have a year and a half long marriage, that is not tampered with by family members. If this does not happen, the eldest Son of each family will die. It is further stated that they would be married by a Ceremony of the Elements, in the place where the original couple was to be wed. Should anything interfere with this marriage also, every male heir from both bloodlines will die. "

The curse does not leave much room for doubt. There is no getting around magic that dangerous. Many generations have tried to break the curse, but the Enchantment is very binding, and has yet to be evaded.

The curse goes back through 19 generations of fighting it. No one has yet succeeded in undoing the Enchantment. However, on the very day that Heero and Relena died, both the Malfoy and Weasley families cast a charm so that the family lines would always be males, and there would never be an occasion for the curse to become active. However, the charm they cast is only 99 effective... and that one percent that isn't produced me.

I am Ginevra Relena Weasley, and I am the first female child born to either line in exactly 2000 years. I'm 18 years old today, and as of yet, no one has found a way to break the curse...

So, as of today, I will start being trained to be the mistress of Malfoy Manor... Narcissa Malfoy will spend the next year teaching me to be the Lady of the Manor, so that I am ready to assume her role, should our families combined efforts to break the curse fail.

Until now I've had a somewhat of numb acceptance of the curse. However, today it hit me with full force: if a way can not be found to break the curse, I will have to marry Draco Malfoy next year, or forfeit the life of my favorite brother.

I hate Draco Malfoy. I loath and despise him, and I always have. I have no desire to become a Lady. But how does one forfeit the life of her favorite family member, and then face her family? Worse: How does one do that, and live with herself?

They don't. Thus begins my story.

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a/n: Yes, it's short. I know, but it was only the beginning, and it WILL get better, I promise!