Chapter One: Misfortune in the DMLE Warehouse
Hermione Granger was excited, she was going to find proof of her recent suspicions, magical artifacts used to control and mistreat the house elfs! She would succeed this time in her research, she just knew it. She could feel it, among the sodding Malfoy's artifacts confiscated by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement(DMLE) at Malfoy Manor there HAD to be something! She had failed to find anything in her first two inspections at the Nott and Greengrass collections, but that was irrelevant to her. The Nott were just plain crazy, at least Nott senior had been, and they would not think of using something so sophisticated to subdue an house elf will, they would just beat him/her into submission. The Greengrass were the extreme opposite, too decent looking and respectable-like to resort to coercion to obtain an elf obedience. No, the Malfoys were the perfect target, enough sophisticated and devious and ruthless at the same time to use such methods. As she had these thoughts, she finally arrived at the DMLE warehouse, showed the auror there her authorization certificate to check the Malfoy's artifacts the Ministry had taken to check for dark magic material and remove it if found. The auror led her to a room with a massive amount of materials: parchments, orbs, cups, some strange wands, canes, there was really any kind of weird and ancient thing possible - " Which is the materials taken from the Malfoys? " - " All the one in this room Miss Granger" - "What?! Just how much rich those racist snobs are?! Excuse me, I am just very taken with this task. thanks for having shown me the materials, I will be able to check it by myself now" - The Auror, hesitantly because unsure if Granger could safely check all those artifacts by herself, despite her authorization, nodded and left her in the room.
Hermione sighed heavily, cursing the Malfoys for their annoyingly wealthy status. It would take much more time than she had to check all those artifacts! She would have probably to come back for at least another two times. Sighing again, but determined to find out what she was looking for, she began checking the many artifacts. As she predicted, the first day was not enough to find anything, after three hours she left without having checked even ⅕ of the materials. The third time, as she was leaving still with no success, she met Harry, who had been working until late that day at the DMLE, asking her - "Hermione… I do not mean to undermine your judgment capability of course, but could it be that MAYBE, those dark artifacts to control an elf do not really exist after all? It is the third time you have come checking, you almost finished, if even the Malfoys do not have them… " - "Harry, I KNOW it may sound obsessive of me, but I KNOW I will find something, I can feel it, there is no way so many elfs punished themselves like that without their "masters" knowing anything about their thoughts of misbehaviour. There HAS to be something like dark mental control magic about it. Something similar to the "Imperious!" - "If you say so…".
The fifth, and Hermione thought it would be the last, time she went again checking the Malfoy's artifacts, there was not really much left to check she thought with a mixture of relief, desperation and frustration, it was still a LOT sure, but certainly not compared to what she saw the first time. After a while she saw something like a treasure chest, it had two big golden letters, BE, on the lock. THAT had to be! Finally she thought! BE, could it mean "Bewitchment (of) elfs"? Her hopeness and former frustration turned excitement clouding her judgment, she quickly opened the chest with "Alohomora" and saw a huge amount of sealed letters. They looked all identical, all of them had a silver seal with the same "BE" on it. Ignoring the now very weak voice within her telling her to be careful, Hermione, excited and determined, thinking hopeful that those letters were the dark control enchantments she had been looking for, took one of the letters, hesitated just a moment, and broke its seal. In the instant she broke the seal, a powerful spell seemed to activate, a big green and golden light surrounding her and making her body shake slightly, she felt an emotion oddly similar to the one she felt when she took a commitment she was determined to keep. After a full minute, the light and the feeling disappeared, the seal was broken and Hermione's thoughts were going from shock to disappointment to a worried - "What the hell have I so foolishly done?" - She finished opening the letter and with an increasingly horrified expression read:
"BETROTHAL ENCHANCEMENT (BE)
By breaking this seal, your Noble person has agreed to a Betrothal arrangement with the Heir/ess of the Noble Malfoy Family, meaning the Heir/ess to the land and building/s going under the name of Malfoy Manor. The enhancement will immediately begin forming a magical bond between your person and the Heir/ess.
Such bond does entail:
A certain level of physical and emotional attraction between your person and the heir/ess, if before the enhancement activation there was animosity between you, the attraction will be very weak and minimal, if there was affection, it will be significant.
The inability of your person and of the Heir/ess to have sexual relationships with other people, at least until a child between you is conceived
The bond can only be broken by the death of one of the two persons involved. Attempts to otherwise ignore it and fight it, like having sexual relationships with others before the conceivement of the betrothed couple first child, will result in deep mental and physical pain that will only stop when the attempt will end.
The Malfoy family welcomes you among Its Noble and grand members. may you bring glory and purity to it and contentness and prestige to your Noble self.
SANCTIMONIA VINCIT SEMPER
"For the huge balls of motherfucking Merlin WHAT THE HELL HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO!" - Hermione was panicking, she knew who the Malfoy Heir was currently, and this horrified her so much she was almost considering doing the only thing the stupid enhancement said could break the betrothal. She could easily do it she thought. Who would have cared if that racist, snobbish, entitled, arrogant, vile, sorry excuse for a human being called Lucius sodding Malfoy had an "accident"? She wished so much she could do it, but she knew she couldn't. She hated what that arsehole represented and was with all herself, but she was not the kind of person to kill someone who, while being a despicable person, was not a grave danger to anybody anymore. The arsehole was out of Azkaban only because he had cooperated heavily to capture several of his ex fellow death eaters, and the conditions of his release, happened four years after the war however, were enough to make sure he did not harm anybody ever again(at least by magic). He could not ever again use any form of dark magic and was also forbidden for three years to use grey magic too. He was no longer the owner of the Manor, he was currently the heir only because the new owner, Draco, had still not fathered a child. He was still an arsehole and an horrible excuse of a human(or at least so Hermione thought) but he was mostly harmless and she could not in conscience just kill him. So, since her damn conscience stopped her from ridding the world from the sodding arsehole, the only alternative she had, she realized sadly, was one she loathed almost as much as going through with the stupid betrothal. The solution was only logical, since the betrothal was magically enforced, the way to stop it from functioning was simple. She had to seal her magic.