time when magic had not been so easily categorised into Dark and Light.
If Hermione had to guess, she would bet that there was a dash of Imperio involved, along with a pinch of Acclaromency thrown in for good measure. Good old-fashioned mind reading via a faint, psychic connection.
This ensured that 'masters' were at all times aware of the whereabouts of their servants, making escape for an initiate damn near impossible.
If one wanted to escape, that was. The bemused looking lass on page six hundred and seventeen most definitely did not look in any hurry to run off.
- From mid-1600s, usage of Fida Mia as a means of monitoring indentured servants waned. This coincided with the popularity of House Elves as an alternative to human servants.- 1762. Danish Charms expert and famed polygamist, Lars Hendricks, upon being denied official Ministry permission to marry his five lovers, developed a personalised marriage ritual. Fida Mia was selected as the base of the invented enchantment. Note of interest: Lars was later prosecuted and fined by local authorities for improper magical 'handling' of a goat. Note to self: look up any association with 'Aberforth Dumbledore'.
- 1800. Fida Mia, the marriage spell was developed by the Hendricks family (numbering some thirty six members) and marketed as a fashionable marriage alternative to 'staid' wizarding marriage vows.
And less than a hundred years later, the spell was declared illegal in Britain, but was still practiced in parts of Eastern Europe.
With a furrowed brow, Hermione turned to the next chapter, making quick notes as she read.
Chapter Four: Effects- Fida Mia initiates often experiences a brief period of erotic Erotic?! Hermione groaned, but was glad that she was in good enough spirits to appreciate a choice Freudian Slip when she wrote one. Wetting the tip of her quill, she corrected the error.
- ....erotic euphoric bliss during and immediately after the process of marking. This state may last anywhere from hours to weeks..
From what she had gathered so far, the magic had been woven into and around her and Draco from the very first movement of the tattooist's needle. Irregardless of whether it had started out as an ill conceived thrill seeking idea or whether they had knowingly meant to undertake Fida Mia, the spell was binding and inescapable once commenced.
Draco's tattoo, by far, had been the more intricate of the pair. Twice over the past three days, Hermione had attempted to sketch it. And each time, she had chucked her drawing pad aside in frustration.
It wasn' t her artistic skills letting her down. Rather, it was the fact that on paper, Draco's wings simply did not look convincing. No amount of careful shading or contouring with her little stick of charcoal helped. On paper, the inky, black wings were flat, lifeless and seemed completely, well...wrong.
Perhaps she wasn't remembering it accurately.
She recalled how Draco had lain down on his stomach on the tattooist's table, wearing only his finely tailored, dress pants. Pants that were so dark, they had sucked what little light lantern light there had been in the small room and stood out in startling contrast against his pale skin.
He had been nursing a bottle of Ogden's when they walked into the makeshift tattoo parlour, and had magnanimously handed the bottle over to Hermione, with the precise instructions for her to consume at least a third of its contents by the time she was to have her turn under the needle.
"For the pain," he had explained pointedly, with a disturbing amount of anticipation.
Despite the fact that he was well and truly sotted by this point, his tongue had been as sharp as usual. He had pulled a face at the less than sanitary state of the studio, questioned the sterilization process used on the equipment and then made a few choice predictions about the likelihood of him receiving splinters from the rough, wooden table he had to lie on.
The hunched, ancient, tattooist had remained silent and impassive during this blithering, but broke into a scary, toothless grin when Draco poured the contents of his money pouch into the woman's cupped hands.
As it turned out, she did not speak a word of English. Neither did she speak French, German, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Gobbledegook or anything else they threw at her. The pleasant sound of clinking Galleons, however, seemed to overcome any communication barriers.
With her frightening dentition still on display, the crone had directed Hermione to a battered old couch in the corner of the room and proceeded to work on Draco with