~*~



Stephanie Malfoy, at the age of seventeen, was walking swiftly down Diagon Alley with a small package under her arm. Her long blonde hair floated behind her in the wind as her storm gray eyes searched for the entrance to Knockturn Alley.





Upon turning onto the road, she swept down Knockturn Alley. Any of the very few venders on the street who attempted to sell her their wares were shot a menacing glare, and they immediately backed away, gibbering like a monkey. A minute later, she located her final destination: Borgin and Burkes.





The bell on the door tinkled as she pushed it open. She strode up to the counter where an ancient wizard was hunched over, writing a label for a bag of cursed marbles. When the bell rang, the wizard looked up. Once he saw the girl he straightened up as best he could and set aside the marble bag and its label.





“Ah, Miss Stephanie,” he greeted her. “How may I help you?”





“Mr. Borgin,” she began. “I have another of my father’s treasures. It took me a month to find it, you should know of it though, and I do believe he bought it from you eighteen years ago.”





His interest piqued, Stephanie smiled and placed the little lumpy package on the countertop. Fishing out a pair of gloves from her pocket, she pulled them on and unwrapped the package. Borgin pulled out a pair of pince-nez to examine the now unveiled bracelet on its wrappings better. The bracelet was pure gold and was studded with rubies and diamonds. There was also a little charm, so to say, hanging from the bracelet. It was another ruby, this one about the size of a cherry, fashioned into a heart, which reflected an unseen light source, spangling the shop with fiery light.





“Ah yes, now I remember,” the old proprietor proclaimed pulling on a glove himself and lifting the bracelet up to eye level. “Your father did indeed purchase this here. Told me it was a present for his fiancée, Drusilla Rosier-”





“Can you tell me about it?” interrupted Stephanie. “Its name, what it does…”





“Hmm…let’s see,” Borgin said thinking hard. “The owner before your father called it the Over-Passionate Heart. An unusual story behind this bracelet too, the former owner was Matt Agry, the right-hand man to Lynn Morris, the leader of the Shadow Riders, though everyone knows her by her pseudonym, the Black Rose. He told me the whole story when he sold it to me twenty years ago. Black Rose had a lovely bracelet from a boyfriend. She cherished it until she caught him having an affair. She then came up with a plot to make it so the wearer would be so deeply obsessed (though she called it being so deeply in love) with their partner, they would be able to catch a cheating partner instantly. She took her bracelet and soaked it in Amortentia for a week. Once a week passed, she cast an Obsession Charm on the bracelet while it was still in the potion. Once she finished it she gave it to Agry. Apparently, she didn’t want to be the one to test it.





Borgin paused and set the bracelet back down on the counter. He looked up at the teenager and found her watching him intently, clearly sending him a silent message, begging him to continue.





“What does the combination of Amortentia and an Obsession Charm do?” Stephanie inquired, breaking the brief silence.





“Well, you know the effects of Amortentia, right?” Borgin asked her.





She nodded.





“The combined effect of the potion and the charm will not only have the effects of the strongest love potions, but they will be magnified with some extra side effects,” Borgin continued. “As you well know, the Amortentia will cause obsessive love to a certain degree. However, by adding an Obsession Charm, that obsession will break the average boundaries. The wearer of that bracelet will become so obsessed by what their partner is doing, they may become overly jealous. Mr. Agry, unaware at the time of the enchantments on the bracelet, gave it to his girlfriend. He told me she had wanted to know where he went every time he left the house. In a sense, the bracelet possessed her. She was so suspicious of his every move that she forbade him to meet with any other woman, co-workers and friends alike, she even watched him like a hawk when he was with his sisters and other female relations.”





“What happened to her and Mr. Agry?” Stephanie asked him a hushed voice.





“The young woman became so overwhelmed by her constant suspicions that she hung herself three weeks after having received the bracelet,” Borgin answered shaking his head mournfully. “Poor Mr. Agry was grief-stricken for a year then he finally sold it to me. Two years later your father bought it for-”





“My mother,” Stephanie finished bitterly. “If he knew what that damned bracelet did to that other woman, why would he get it for my mother?”





“He asked me if I carried anything which would work in the matters of love. I told him I did, but he silenced me when I attempted to warn him of its dangers,” Borgin explained showing the tiniest hint of disdain. “From what I can guess now, he gave the bracelet to your mother some time around your birth. Then something inflicted by the bracelet caused her to visit her parents and kill them before her wand on herself. Oh yes, I remember that article in the Daily Prophet. It will have been eighteen years in one month’s time I do believe.”





Tears had sprung into Stephanie’s deep gray eyes. She hastily wiped them away with her shirtsleeve and sniffled.





“Can you just take this please?” she requested. “I need to get home before my father realizes I’m gone. As usual, If you see him, I’d prefer you don’t tell him I was here. After all, I don’t think he’d approve of my ‘summer job’. Then again, when was the last time he was in here?”





“Of course Miss Stephanie,” he responded courteously. “By the way, the last time Master Draco was in here was before the new Minister of Magic, Harry Potter, began his scourge of Dark items in the United Kingdom. Have a nice day.”





He opened the old register next to him and handed her thirty galleons. She nodded in quick thanks and left the shop.





Once she had disappeared from view, old Mr. Borgin picked up the bracelet again and carried it over to a broken cabinet holding countless other items Stephanie Malfoy had smuggled from her family manor. Borgin found himself feeling a tiny bit proud of the girl for wanting to take out any trace of Dark magic from her home, and slightly ashamed of himself for carrying such items and others that have caused so much damage to peoples’ lives and selling them to others, knowing full well what they did. The emotions quickly passed, however, when he opened the ancient register and pulled out the little yellowing information card for the bracelet out of the mess of other cards from items that had been sold. Once the card was set by the bracelet once more, he went back to making room on the other shelves in the broken cabinet for more of Stephanie’s finds.





~*~





A/N: This one shot challenge was a tribute to my totally awesome Beta, dracoslovebunny. I must say it was rather fun to do, even if it didn't win. br />