Magical Contracts

Note As stated in Points of Divergence, Mrs. Rowling has set up a world in which magical contracts exist, and in which they can have unwilling participants. This has been explored in a number of other fan fiction works,¹ and while I do not want to rehash them, the idea is far too useful and tempting for me to avoid. I am at heart more of a world builder than a story teller, so I am going to define magical contracts rather more than Mrs. Rowling did.

Definition, Scope, and Limitations

As has been stated in other works on the nephilim, with rare exceptions all modern nephilim have a widely mixed heritage that includes powers that we believe to be derived from fallen angels that can be classified as belonging to the order of Thrones. This inheritance makes these nephilim subject to what we call, for lack of a better term, "contract magic." Despite this naming, it is imperative that one not let the word "contract" limit or misdirect one's thinking. This is in fact a fairly large body of magic that pervades nephilim social life in a variety of ways. For example, the so called Unbreakable Vow is not really a contract, but clearly falls in this category. These are contracts in the sense that at least one party agrees

• to do something
• to not do something
• to be something

for, or with the other party, possibly, but not necessarily, in exchange for something.

A magical contract can thus be an unilateral, bilateral or multilateral exchange of goods, actions, and/or persons.

For obvious reasons it is difficult, even with the cooperation of one or more of the nephilim, to perform any real testing in a controlled way on the bounds of contract magic. Any such testing would quickly cross the lines of what could be ethically considered permissible, as ample observational data exists to demonstrate that these contracts can be subtle in their implications, brutal in their self-enforcement, and thus the risk to the test subjects would be very very real. This document then is largely the result of the Church's collected observations on the ways in which the nephilim have used this magic, the ways they have attempted to do so and failed, and what we know of the situations that distinguish each case. The theories advanced here are those that fit all known observational data, every effort has been made to exclude any theory for which there is any contradictory evidence, no matter how small or unlikely. This is done to give the highest level of assurance to what we can put forth, even though the end result is that we know very limited amounts. Far too frequently the theories advanced raise more questions than they answer.

All magical contracts are originated by one or more of the nephilim, their descendant races, or some combination thereof. The individual or individuals creating the contract are called the "originating participants." All magical contracts are created to effect some end. This end must be considered a net good by at least one of the originating participants, or the magic of the contract will fail. The end to be achieved must be possible, however it may require additional participants. If additional participants are required to achieve a proposed end, the additional participants are contractees. Originating participants cannot contract arbitrary persons as contractees, only those related to the originating participants in certain ways can be bound. All contractees must themselves also be of the nephilim or one of their descendant races. Researchers speculate that these restrictions represent laws enforced by either direct Divine action or indirect action mediated via that angelic choir known as the Powers.

Originating Participants and Contractees

When the set of Originating Participants represents either a distinct set from the set of Contractees, a subset of Contractees, or when the full set of Participants can only be represented as the union of the Originating Participants and the Contractees, there must exist one of a limited number of relationships between at least one Originating Participant and each Contractee.

That is, for each Contractee, an Originating Participant must be identifiable that meets the following conditions.

• No full human may act either
  • as Originating Participant including both,
    • directly acting on his/her own behalf
    • acting via delegated authority (see below)
  • as Contractee
• Any attempt by an Originating Participant to effect an end known to be contrary to natural law will fail.
  • This restriction does not apply retroactively. Situations have been observed where a Contractee has been bound by two or more contracts such that performing any one of them would, under the dictates of natural law, preclude the others. Careful consideration has in each such case demonstrated that each Contract was possible at the time of creation. The conflict arose only once one began execution.
  • The key phrasing in this restriction is "known to be." Several examples of immoral contracts have been identified where sufficient evidence exists that the Originating Participants had a deficit of understanding, and did in fact believe the contract to intend a good end. Researchers speculate that this restriction has been left intentionally weak because of its interaction with free will. This may seem odd given that this magic is by its very nature restricting free will. We can only remind the reader that we have previously stated that these answers frequently raise more questions than they answer.
• Contractees may be related to Originating Participates with a parent -> child relationship, such that the Contractee is the child of the Originating Participant.
  • The inverse of the preceding rule does not work, and any such attempt will fail.
  • Contractees may not be related to Originating Participants with a sibling relationship.
• Contractees may be descended from the Originating Participant to the N^th degree, that is there may be any number of generations of parent->child relationships between the Originating Participant and the Contractee.
  • This is a super set of the first rule.
  • This allows only for strait lines. Uncles/Aunts cannot act as Originating Participant for a nephew/niece of any degree.
  • Many nephilim have adopted clan-line "houses." Despite this, the head of house/clan can act as Originating Participant only as biologically related, not based on this legal/social authority over the extended family. However, these contracts may work under the next rule.
• Authorised Originating Participants under the first two rules may delegate their authority so long as all of the following are true:
  • the delegation relationship is recognised by
    • the nephil delegating the authority
    • the nephil receiving the authority
    • the nephil who will be the Contractee
  • delegated authority is limited/scoped
    • the Delegated Originating Participant is in fact acting within the scoped limits
    • the Delegated Originating Participant believes him/herself to be acting within the scoped limits
    • the Contractee believes the Delegated Originating Participant to be acting within the scoped limits.
  • certain delegations are implicit:
    • these implicit delegations are scoped by natural law and societal law - whichever is more restrictive on the Delegated Originating Participant
    • parents to teachers
    • parents to governments

Delegated Originating Participant may be the most interesting of these. Many examples exist of these contracts behaving unexpectedly.

• A contract failed when for a good end, by a recognised teacher for a student. The student recognised the teacher as his teacher, however the law of the land restricted teachers such that they could act with delegated authority only during defined hours, and the contract was made outside those hours.
• A contract failed when for a good end, made by a government authority, for a person within the the borders of that country, however, the nephil proposed as contractee did not recognise the government as his own. The proposed contractee was a so called "muggle-born" and did not recognise the "magical government" as legitimate.
• The following worked: A contract for an objectively bad end, thought to be good by the government official acting as Delegated Originating Participant, for a Contractee who recognised her authority as a government official. The contract was within the scope of her authority as a government official.

Needless to say, these are only a minuscule subset of the numerous data points examined that, overtime, has lead to the above formulation of the delegated authority rule.

Other Restrictions

Magical contracts need not be written on special paper, or even written at all, but they must be formalised agreements in some way. There are many ways to formalise an agreement. Common ones include, but are not limited to:

• full legal signature on a paper (or parchment) contract
• formal statement of agreement using ritualised language with intent: "I, , agree to xyz"
• repeated statements of agreement
  • using significant numbers (three, seven and ten are common)
  • in short duration's.
• acting as if bound to the contract (IE common law marriage) for either magically significant duration's or contractually significant events/actions that are distinctly related to contract and clearly not part of your non-contract/pre-contract normal life
  • marriages are consummated
  • the TriWizard champions processed out of the room
  • engagement rings
  • being sorted by the Sorting Hat
• As noted in the definition, contracts effect something. Person A agrees to do something or be something for Person B. The contract may or may not be one sided. The contract may or may not have penalties. However, a contract in which neither party is obligated to perform or not perform some action cannot bind.
• No contract may require a nephil to perform the marital act before the age of 14.² This would be a violation of natural law.
• 'Contract Magic' works only on nephilim. It does not work on pure humans. Remember that contract magic works by inducing your own magic to act against you.
  • the more powerful the nephil, the more powerfully he/she can be bound.
  • The less powerful the nephil, the less powerful any binding.
  • Contracts cannot require the use of a type of magic you do not have, either for their performance, or in their penalties.³
• Contracts cannot act as an Imperius curse or similar. That would come too close to a manipulation of the Will.⁴
  • Normally contracts operate through applying force.
    • Do something and you become ill, or even die immediately (the ritual of the Unbreakable Vow creates a contract which, if the contract is violated, results in the death of the violator).
    • Once contracted, and no matter your will, your body does not operate against the contract. This is a bit of a gray area - it is relatively easy for a nephil to contract something not to happen. It is next to impossible to contract something to happen. It will not absorb food, or your hand will not close (or your libido will not react).
  • There is some moral ambiguity here that the Church struggles with.
    • A contract signed by a proxy does not make the bound person morally culpable for the existence of the contract, the (sometimes incredibly strong) temptations it creates, or in some cases, even for the situations it creates.
    • A contract can trigger consequences that pressure but do not force the nephil's Will.
    • The contract or contracts can create all sorts of conditions where the Contractee is making decisions with impaired freedom. They can even (and have been known to) create situations where the only known options are between formal participation with evil and immediate material participation with evil, neither of which are actually acceptable.⁵

The key here is that Originating Participant (or their delegates) must intend to contract, even if they do not fully understand the scope or significance of the penalties or terms.

Effects

As noted above, magical contracts cannot force you to do something the way the Imperius curse does. Rather, they force behaviour through the existence of penalties. You can break an "Unbreakable Vow" but you die as a result. When a secret keeper "contracts" to keep a secret, in a sense everyone else is bound not to know that something.⁶

Contracts can force you feel things. Your emotions are just chemical effects, a contract can make you unnaturally happy or sad, incite or suppress physical attraction, make you hungry or nauseous, so on. A contract can also cause a coma or prevent restful sleep, as these are also physical reactions and do not (directly) involve the will. However, a contract is not going to (for example) magically transport you like a port key.⁷

Implications

Sin

In summary, a contract can, effectively, coerce, but not force sin. But in Catholic theology, the level of coercion a contract can easily induce is easily more than sufficient to meet the bar for impairing free will. Thus a contract can cause serious, but not mortal sin. That being said, the Church has struggled with this topic, some of which is summarised in Appendix G.

Marriage Contracts

A nephil entered into a marriage contract could be coerced to be faithful by magically suppressing his/her physical reactions to anyone except the intended spouse. This would not force you to actually go through with the marriage, but would provide a strong incentive to do so. A stronger contract might make you physically ill or even die if you failed to go through with the marriage.

This becomes problematic when a nephil finds himself/herself bound to multiple different marriage contracts each of which requires that the contractee live and act on the marriage. With penalties that can and frequently do include death for non-compliance, and contracts written in ways that do not include the monogamy proper to a true marriage, but rather allow for the pagan concept of multiple spouses, the contractee frequently experiences severe temptation. Careful and prudential judgement is needed to determine if, in any individual case, any of the nephilim in these relationships are operating under sufficient duress due to the contracts as to impair their free choice. Part of this prudential judgement must include the reality that one or more of the participants may be poorly catechised or even entirely uncatecised as regards to a true and proper understanding of marriage. They may have approached the Church having grown in this understanding only after having been in relationship for some time, or because some subset of the participants is more catechised than other participants and desires guidance. Each situation will present unique challenges and careful consideration will need to be made of the particular participants, the precise contract(s) involved, and the pressures on them.

The TriWizard Contract and the Goblet of Fire

Historically three of the biggest European schools of magic have used an artefact they name "the Goblet of Fire" to conduct a magical lottery of student volunteers who are entered into a contract by virtue of winning this lottery. The nephilim strongly believe that this contract involves, if violated, the loss of magic. They are inaccurate, the actual loss of being nephil is not a possible consequence of a contract. What it can do is prevent a Contractee who violates its terms from using their magic, or rather, cause their own magic to bind itself that way. The nature of the selection, built into the Goblet, ensures that the Contractee has the necessary magic, inherited from the Thrones, to be able to self-bind this way. Those without sufficient magic of this type are ineligible for selection. It is worth noting that the nephilim community has an inaccurate understanding of precisely how magic works, and thus how strength in magic is evaluated by magic, this is a large part of why the selections made by the Goblet are such a mystery to them.

Debt

This is the other very interesting situation that leads to all sorts of weird societal issues. Alice accepts, in some formal way, that she owes Bob. This can be thought of in one of two ways, either of which can lead to a magical contract. Alice has agreed to be in a state of debt until x occurs or alternately, Alice has agreed to pay Bob back. The first is a contract to be something, the second a contract to do something. If the debt can be paid, well and good. Alice pays her debt, and is free of the contract.

However, what if the debt cannot be paid? If Alice owes her life, or the life of her child (in extreme but still realistic cases)? Or in less extreme cases, what if she simply owes more money than she can earn while keeping herself alive?

Because these are unstated contracts, if they form at all, they form because of expectations that the nephil themselves have formed over the centuries. Some of these date back to times and places like the Roman Empire where debt slavery was a common legal practice. While the laws of the societies that the nephil live in have changed, the nephil have come to expect that magic can and does create these contracts for these situations. The terms of these contracts then are set unconsciously by the principles, in accord with these norms passed down as part of the body of folk lore, legend, history, and myth that they are raised with.

This kind of contract thus operates somewhat differently from other formal contracts that a nephil might carelessly or unwittingly enter into. In this modern era, someone outside the nephilim society, one of the so-called "muggle-born", raised with no thought of slavery, would be incapable of unconsciously binding himself/herself into slavery by accepting a debt. One of the so-called "pure-blood" nephilim however, whose family lore is filled with stories of using debts in precisely this manner, is actually himself at greater risk of being so bound.

Occasionally one comes across a family of so-called "blood traitors" - nephilim whose genetic heritage is such that one would expect them to be raised steeped in and adhering to the lore, mythology, and traditions common to the nephilim society of their geographic locality, but who act more like the "muggle-born" in most practical ways. A family like this would fall somewhere in the middle. They are (at least peripherally) aware of the traditions they reject, and more, probably even aware that this magic does in fact work, but not predisposed to think in those terms. The fact that it is an outside their common patterns of thought gives them some level of protection from being bound while their knowledge that they can be bound raises their susceptibility to it.

Lastly, children, because they are more absolute in their thinking, more accepting of the idea that anything is possible, are more easily bound this way than adults. Thus nephil societies almost universally have a tendency to isolate their children from all but the most trusted of friends and relations. A nephil child aware of his/her heritage will frequently grow up knowing only his/her own extended family and one or two other families until it is time to enter an apprenticeship, join a magical secondary school (such as Hogwarts), or (if home schooled) join the workforce as an adult. This is because the nephilim have learned, through bitter experience, that children will do all sorts of foolish and unfortunately irreversible things if not carefully protected.

Spontaneous Magical Marriage

Note this does not always lead to slavery. It can also lead to what some call Spontaneous Magical Marriage (SMM), a form of marriage contract in which both parties may or may not have any power imbalance at all, but which old nephil families have learned, generally the hard way, usually caries particularly harsh penalties. One rather famous (in nephilim society) example of in recent times comes from magical Britain. A SSM event occurred between then 13 year old Pollux Black and his cousin Irma Crabbe.⁸ These two families with their history of dark dealings rightly feared the imaginations that the children might have had in creating penalties for their ill-defined contract. Neither family wanted to risk these possibilities.

This contract is famous in part due to the ages of the two contractees - both 13 at the time. A close observer might object that in our rules above, we said that a contract would fail if it required the marital act before the age of 14. Interestingly, this contract did not fail. Effectively, the children were contractually betrothed until the second child's 14th birthday, they were not required to act before this. However, under the then (and still) current laws in magical Britain, there was (is) no legal distinction between a marriage and a betrothal - thus from a legal perspective the children were married. This fact probably actually contributed to the notoriety of the situation, as the families insisted the marriage remained unconsummated, and thus that they could break it but were holding back out of concern for the children's welfare. While there is no reason to doubt the veracity of either family, researchers have expressed considerable doubt over whether or not any such attempt to break the contract would in fact have worked.

The SSM contract differs from other marriage contracts in several ways that make it a distinct category of event worth separate consideration.

• In an SSM, the contract terms are unknown to everyone, including the Originating Participants.
• The SSM is always created verbally, generally in the form of promises exchanged.
• The SSM always produces a detectable effect, that is there is always a societally recognised sign produced that the Participants are in fact now married.
  • Where the SSM happens in modern European society, this typically takes the form of wedding rings spontaneously appearing on the participants' fingers. These rings resist being removed.
  • There are records of one or both families trying to suppress the signs associated with the SSM. There are no records of this ever working for more than a few hours. There seems to be a compulsion to return anything taken to the participants, to allow them to live together, and to otherwise act as married.
  • This is not universally true of normal contractual marriages, where examples exist of contracts that operated for years without anyone other than the participants being aware that a contract was in place.