9Premise:
Well we have so many lovely stories about how veela get bonded to Harry (mostly Fleur or Gabrielle) and become his slaves (or wives without a say). But it is OK since the bond also makes sure they are happy with it and that declining it will have consequences even less desirable. The most common variant is that a veela has to repay a life debt this way.
But what is the fun in fulfilling the fanboy variant for this "bond" to work? What if someone else rescues our two most loved veelas?
Society for the promotion of veela welfare
For the first time Hermione had genuinely enjoyed observing a game of Quidditch. Most importantly it was a game where none of her friend was in mortal danger. And yes when Harry play he is always in mortal danger given what that BOY considers flying. But it was also the atmosphere that was much more about sportsmanship rather than bordering hatred during the Hogwarts games and in professional Quidditch what happened on the pitch was actually worthwhile. In Hogwarts they usually could just let the two seekers play. She couldn't remember a single game in her time at Hogwarts were the seeker didn't snatch enough points to win it. Something she might have to research.
As always the wizarding world seem to just not like them having innocent fun so now mere hours later she was running for her life. In the confusion she got separated from the Weasleys and Harry but she decided to keep moving when she suddenly heard a girl screaming at the top of her lungs. She would love to be able to honestly say that she did not waver and instantly ran to her aid like a true Gryffindor should But at first she stopped and sought cover to think. Then she heard them.
"Look what I caught us. Two French sluts and given how they look certainly half breeds at best."
"You English pigs. Stay away from us!"
"Silence bitch. Crucio!"
The girl screamed again. When the curse was lifted she began to beg.
"Not my sister. Please let her go she is only nine."
The thugs just laughed and began to vanish both girls clothes.
Hermione finally managed to muster her courage and peak around her cover. There were four men in those black robes. Two holding the now naked and bound girls while two others took pleasure at maiming them. From their comments she derived that both girls would get raped and killed shortly. There just wasn't time to get help. But she had the element of surprise on her side. Luckily like always she worked ahead and after that night in the bathroom she swore herself to be never helpless again. She made a quick plan. A distraction and the most destructive spells she had nothing else would do.
She sneaked behind a tent closer to the scene and then transfigured the water from cauldron that must have fallen over in the panic. She liberated the hydrogen and oxygen a process that needed little energy and thus was easy to achieve with basic transfiguration. It also had the advantage of being completely invisible so no one noticed. The two thugs were finished maiming the two girls with their spells and began to force themselves on the now desperately sobbing girls. That meant currently none of the thugs had a wand in their hand. Now or never"
Hermione sprang into action. She aimed at the area were now a critical mass of hydrogen should be present.
"Incendio"
The gas instantly exploded luckily it wasn't enough to do real damage but it got the attention of the four assailants. Hermione levelled her wand on one of them.
"Bombarda"
It resulted in blood, gore and screaming. But Hermione did not let it stop her before the others could even turn around she aimed for the next one.
"Bombarda"
The other two realised that they were ambushed each one grasped one of their injured comrades and apparated out.
Hermione lost not time and closed the distance to the two girls. She helped them to lose their bindings and cut some sheets out of nearby tends to cover them. She also managed to find the older girl's wand and returned it to her. Although she was in no state to use it still convulsing from spasms courtesy to the cruciatus curse. Hermione did her best to help but did not dare to use more than very basic healing spells to clean and close surface wounds.
Somewhere in the distance someone had cast the Dark Mark. She worried, if that meant someone died like she read in the books about the last war. She was really worried about Harry he would be the prime target for those Death Eaters.
Waiting for aid while guarding two distressed young withes felt like eternity but it finally arrived. First in form of ministry officials then in form of the girl's parents. Her underage magic was waved away given the circumstances. She would get a visit by the aurors soon to give her full statement with her guardians present. And someone found the Weasleys and so Bill Weasley came to get her to the Burrow.
Pierre Delacour wasn't one to just let her go though. He insisted that they needed to discuss important matters with her. Still he understood that the Wealesy couldn't just let her go with the Delcacours. Bill and Hermione left him with the nesseary information to contact her either at the Burrow or at her home.
The requests from the aurors and the Delacours resulted in Hermione returning home for the ramining two weeks of the holidays. She suspected her parents wanting to have her close after what just happened had a lot to do with it too. Only the magical contract each pupil enters when actually going through the sorting process was responsible for her still attending Hogwarts after all those times she nearly died. There was a reason Hermione did not accelerate her core studies but branched out in many fields like healing or obscure magical theory, she did not want to get her OWLs early. Since once a student had her OWLs the contract ended and had to be renewed for the NEWTs and her parents knew it!
The questioning with the aurors went without incident but also with little hope for the accused to ever be found. Pure physical injuries were easy to treat with magical healing so her chosen method of attack while effective would not need them to go to St. Mungos. Also the whole incident seemed to be ruled as some kind of vandalism rather than a terrorist attack. Just another sore spot for the magical authorities in the eyes of the Grangers.
Later the same day the Delacours Pierre, Apolline with their two daughters Fleur and Gabrielle were invited for tea. All Delcaours thanked Hermione thoroughly for her rescuing the two girls who got separated from their parents while fleeing from the attack. Even though they still did not like that Hermione was in the same danger the Granger's couldn't help to be proud of her. They sat down and had a nice chat but all Granger's noticed that the Delacours had something distracting them. After some time it seemed Apolline had decided to bring up the delicate topic.
"Hermione you remember the veela you have seen at the game?"
"Yes Madame Dalacour." Answered Hermione not knowing why the woman talked about them.
"You see there is a reason why there are no veela in Britain. The laws for those considered part human or even non-human but still intelligent are not favourable. The veela thought shelter in countries either more progressive or at least granting them autonomy a long time ago. Even then young veela often claim to be part veela telling everyone that their mother or grandmother is a veela. But the truth is every daughter of a veela is a veela and so are my daughters."
Hermione's parents looked at their daughter for an explanation what this was about.
"Sorry I don't know much about veela. I can assure you that we do not share the biggotery of certain wizards and withes in Britain. In fact I'm subject to it as well as muggleborn."
Apolline simled sadly at the young girl.
"Yes I know please bear with me this has a purpose but you need the whole context. You see veela are subject to some special forms of magic. Some your daughter has witnessed at the world cup like the thrall we veela can have emit or our ability to transform into a birdlike form and our connection to fire. But there is also some less known outside the circle of us veela and that is that many magical bindings and contracts work different for us. The most prominent example is when we wed our vows create a bound that is very deep and strong. A marriage with a veela knows no divorce for both sides. But it also affects other areas and the one we need to discuss here is how it affects life debts."
Hermione's eyes widened. Apolline went on with her explanation.
"For a veela to owe a life debt she either has to return the favour within very little time of about two weeks or to repay it in a different way. Sadly we are not talking about money here and you also can't just release them from their debt their magic would rule that as you having decided that their life was not worth saving and execute a severe penalty. Veela who owes a man a life debt often try to get them to wed her since that is one option to repay it but we don't really have the option here. First only one of our daughters could chose that route and while at least magical France allows such unions the veela bond will only work for consummated marriages between male and female. That only leaves a very archaic option both of them have to become your concubines or in less civil speak slaves by performing a binding ritual or suffer the consequences of not reaping their debt which is usually their magic turning against them and torturing them to death. So we ask you, if you would be willing to come with us to France in order to perform the ritual and can only beg you to treat our daughters kindly from there on."
The Grangers were blown out of their mind. Looking at each Delacour, both adults with tears in their eyes but obviously resigned that there was no other options. Gabrielle was nearly sitting in her mother's lap looking downwards. Fleur was looking anywhere but not at Hermione clearly awkward with the whole situation.
Mr. Granger was the first of his family to find his voice.
"This is a lot to take in. I would ask you to give us some space. Since time is important I would ask you to stay for dinner but give us some space right now so that we can come back with questions when we discussed it?"
Pierre agreed for his family and both groups stayed politely away from each other for some time. Sometime later Mr. and Mrs. Granger sought out Pierre and Apolline to decide where they would go for dinner since there certainly would be no time to prepare one. Onwards the Granger's asked for details of what Apolline just revealed to them. This left the girls alone in the garden. Hermione sat down at one of the chairs on the patio and signed. Fleur and Gabrielle stayed standing next to each other respectfully waiting to be addressed. After some awkward silence Fleur decided to address their saviour.
"Do you have any questions Madame?"
Hermione winced.
"Please call me Hermione. Currently you are clearly still free individuals."
Gabrielle seemed to shrink and stared at the floor even more intensive than before. Fleur decided to explain. This was all new for their mistress after all.
"We may not have yet performed the ritual but the life debt already compels us to be respectful. Without the bindings we could fight this or just disregard wishes and orders you give us but it would be hard since our magic won't like it."
Fleur looked Hermione in the eyes and then gave a significant look to some of the empty chairs close by. Even though she did not like it Hermione got the message.
"Please sit down both of you. It will be easier to discuss this when we are all comfortable. "
Two, "Thank you Madame" were followed by the two girls sitting down on the opposite side of the table. Both waiting in expectation for Hermione's questions. Hermione winced again she didn't want this kind of power over someone else. Ever since Harry told her of Dobby she researched how the wizards and witches treated others and was disgusted. For her current year she had planned to do something about it and now she was on the best way to become a slave owner!
"Ok this whole life debt and repay thing seems to be awfully specific. I know magic often seems to have some human perspective build in but I always thought that had to do with the human perspective of whoever developed a spell or ritual. How can it be that it is true for the rules of some basic quasi contractual magic regarding only veela?"
Fleur smiled; at least their new mistress seemed to be intelligent and compassionate about not mistreating others.
"Honestly we do not know. We veela do not want to make it widespread knowledge how one can enslave one of us. We worked hard so that the ways to do so became little known facts for the general population. But it also limited our research options since it can only be done by members of our society. The theory I personally think is the best so far is that some muggleborn fanboy travelled back in time and cursed some females to become the first veela."
The Delacours came back on the next three days and while neither Granger was happy about the situation they agreed that they wouldn't want to live with the consequences of not agreeing to the ritual. Their hope that they might just do it pro forma and then leave and let the two girls live their life in peace was crushed. The debt would inflict the same penalty as if the life was not deemed worth saving in such a case.
But overall the debt and bond would react reasonable. Given that Hermione wanted it the girls could go through their education, get a job and have a career. Still their pay would have to go to Hermione and she would decide how it was spend or give them an allowance. For the time being Hermione going to Hogwarts while Fleur goes to Beauxbatons wasn't a problem since they didn't plan for them to be separated like this. It would become a problem however, if Hermione should still attend Hogwarts when Gabrielle was old enough for magical schooling. Then they would be forced to enlist Gabrielle at Hogwarts not something they wanted to do given her status as either veela or half-breed under British law and if worst came to worst even her status as slave would become known to the British officials. So Hermione finally agreed with her parents to transfer after her OWLs.
In the long term the bond would be more demanding since it would expect Fleur and Gabrielle to arrange their lives accordingly. So they would move together and the girls would serve their mistress. The upcoming ritual would also transfer the current status from just being compelled to be respectful and to fulfil Hermione's orders to much more restrictive measures. It would also make sure that these bindings came before any others like in example future oaths for secrecy of similar. Thus Fleur had to think of a different career than she had in mind since Gringrotts would never accept an employee that would have no choice but to comply if her mistress asked her to spill the information she usually had to keep a secret. Same was true for many positions within the French magical ministry. An Auror who was bound to execute the orders of someone outside the chain of command before all else was just not going to happen.
Another four days still wasn't enough time to come to terms with all the implications. But with time at essence the Grangers still found themselves at a stone circle within France. Many friends and relatives of the Delcacours as well as other veela and some officials from the French ministry present. Hermione was educated about the current laws regarding the binding and were she was limited even if the bond would allow her to do certain things. She already informed herself about those laws and was happy at first that at least something was done but then she read the comments from experts on those laws pointing out that they were virtually not executable and only in place as symbol. And the laws also made very clear that the veela loses her rights as individual and that her master or mistress decisions would be binding for her. So it still came down to her not wavering in her principles. She talked a lot about it with her parents recently and they shared her fears that absolute power over someone else might be enough to change her.
In the evening Hermione waited in a small stone circle for her new concubines to arrive. Pierre and Apolline escorted their two girls both naked. They stopped before entering the circle Pierre hugged Fleur and declared his consent for them to go through with the ritual. Apolline then lead Fleur into the circle hugged her before gently pushing her down to kneel before Hermione. She also declared her consent with the ritual so that her daughter can repay the debt as tradition and bond demand it.
The elder veela who officiated the ceremony offered Hermione a ceremonial dagger and a choker. Hermione took both and then stepped to Fleur.
"Fleur Delacour if you are ready to bind yourself into my service to repay your debt then raise your hands."
When Fleur did she used the Dagger to inflict a small wound in her own hand and let three drops of blood fall on the right place. Then mirrored the process with one of Fleur hands but let the blood drops fall on a different place. She then placed the choker around Fleur's neck. The procedure was repeated with bands for Fleur's wrists and ankles. Hermione then place her wand at a rune on Fleur's choker and demanded her to begin her oath.
"I Fleur Isabelle Delacour wish to repay my debt to Hermione Jean Granger. I swear on my life and magic to always obey and serve her without fail from now until I die. I hear by resign my rights as individual and beg her to accept me as her property."
Hermione was ready for her part while the elder veela left the circle.
"Fleur Isabelle Delacour, I accept the service you offered as payment for the debt you owe."
A group of magicals who waited at the border surrounding the circle began to chant. The choker and the bands began to glow. The bands vanished and left runic tattoo- enchantments binding Fleur to her oath the chokers glow concentrated at the front and was then accepted into Hermione's wand. Hermione looked at Fleur signing in relief. The elder veela returned with a simple woven robe. Hermione clothed Fleur in it.
"Rise Fleur and wait for me outside this circle."
The ritual was repeated with young Gabrielle who first did not let go of her father and then did not want her mother to leave the circle again. But in the end her ritual was finished. The ministry officials had some paperwork for Hermione, her parents and the Delacours to sign and then it was over.
Everyone invited moved to the Delcaours for a feast. As tradition demanded Fleur and Gabrielle had to perform their first service at this feast. Serving drinks, clearing tables and serving the dishes instead of participating. Hermione thought this was extremely unfair and hard on them but at least no one seemed to tease them about it or were giving them otherwise a hard time. But that might also have to do with the two girls' parents knowing whom to invite and whom not.
The following days became awkward for Hermione. The bond clearly was pushing the two girls to explore how they could serve her best and she really would need a lot of time to get used to be called Madame or mistress. In the end she took Apolline's advice and the girls were assigned chores within the household. So that they wouldn't lurk around her always waiting for an order or a different task they could do. She certainly hoped Apolline was right and the bond would learn what level was acceptable (Gabrielle wanted to turn the sides in her book for her when she found her mistress reading for Christ's sake!).
At least she could take a little pleasure in the fact that her parents were uncomfortable with being master and mistress Granger. The Delacours seemed to have expected being called formally Monsieur Papa and Madame Mama from now on. At least they did not comment on it. Finally it was time to return to normality (whatever that is). With only two days left they returned to Britain. Fleur would attend Beauxbatons and Gabrielle would remain with her parents the bond accepted that she couldn't just go with her to Hogwarts. So for the time being she could blend her new situation out.
That was until Dumbledore made his announcement. Students from Beauxbatons would come here to Hogwarts! Only those who were already adults but Fleur just turned 17 and her bond would demand for her to come when she had the option. Hermione just had started S.P.E.W. she could already see the smug smile in Ron's face when it came out that she owned slaves.
Maybe it wasn't too late to just get expelled. Her new order or priority was certainly: "Exposed as slave owner, expelled, killed."
A.N.
Wow was planned as one shot. But I'm starting to have fun with it. So I might expand it at least into GoF. As always if one likes the general premise in this case Hermione being the unwilling mistress of such a life debt bond just take it.