UNBREAKABLE CURSE
CHAPTER 21
They sat on the roof of the Potter's Manor, over what was the sunroom of the large house. Around them were skylights shedding beams of warmth from the lit home. They wore band tee memorabilia, on patterned cotton sleeping pants over top their beaten shoes. Peter wore a matching set of teddy baby blue pjs like the ones in children's storybook illustrations. They wrapped themselves in vintage family heirlooms of quilts, to face the cool summer nights.
James carried a sack fashioned from the invisibility cloak his father had given him, filled with contraband; the juvenile choice of firewhiskey, a pack of half smoken Rothmans, matches, used wax candles, a first year textbook- 10 Most Powerful Spells, Bertie Bott's Beans, the map, a compact cassette desk, with sheer heart attack, Ramones, Bowie, Simon & Garfunkel, and Eagles.
"Looks like we're doing a seance out here. Bit gay isn't it." Sirius chuckled to himself, taking the Russian match box and lighting the pre-loved skim candles, sitting them to drip on the flat shackles around their twilight picnic.
"Basically is one. Feels like we're doing dark magic." Peter grumbled, huddling tighter in his quilt.
"Oh cheer up Wormy, think of it as a pledge to eachother." James stated opening up the callow first year bold lettered book.
"Thats ga-" Remus raised to lean on his elbows from laying on his back looking up at the cancer skies.
"I heard it the second it my mouth Moony." James cut Remus off, turning to the used page of number 3- The unbreakable vow.
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The Cup had ended the day after their trip to the fair, with Wales winning in glory. And three days later the first crump trail of war left by the now lingering Grim Reaper had befell, the first scents of a path leading the last supper.
Dolores Tollwalker a second year muggle born Hufflepuff's family was killed. Her mother, father, her grandmother, even the girls' owl. And the twelve-year-old was not kept alive for her tender age, but left orphaned as a mere example, a statement. Only left breathing so the civic could not ignore. You cannot see the dead but the affected, the child, she breathed as a voice for the murder.
Prejudice against non-blood magic wizards and witches had dwelled in the air since the beginning of the dying 'pure' blood lines. There had been past decades of violent discrimination turned into microaggressions because of the growth in morality and reason, and that the so called 'dirty-blooded' now outnumbered the clean.
Though the imbalance in population was apparent, the pure-bloods still came from the first, their ancestors, and having been in the society longer gave them an overwhelming amount of power, connections, and sharp conspiracy.
Talks of a dark wizard charming his way into the minds of the groomed sacred families had been heard from the most attentive, but now with the acts of murder it was heard from all.
A body of the osmotic ego fulled had formed with a mission of 'restoring' the wizarding world to those who deserved it- the blood mixing families who won the lottery of being born with a forgiving last name and a likely neglectful home. The truth was the concept of being within something 'exclusive' had a cruel way of stripping away the most dulled's honor.
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In breath of the murders, trust had waned. Nobody knew who was a part of the ommiting group, but the members themselves. The boys had heard their parents talks of war and lackluster trust.And in feelings of naivety or fear, it had made them cope with action. A sense of helplessness was the worst feeling to a Gryffindor and dumb or not, they were kids just wanting to be able to do something.
James had mentioned it idely in one of their 'letters'. The boys each carried a piece of paper charmed to act as a dry erase board, as well as whatever one of them wrote. Their words would show on the other three's parchment. Sirius had come up with the idea in second year when his parents forbid him from using the family's owl.
James jokingly said he remembered reading about it in a thin children's 10 *insert extreme* things book. His father had gotten him. But Sirius had taken James' comment as an impulse of curiosity to the subject, and even with the possibility of death, he was eager.'
The unbreakable vow, a spell, that takes at least two wizards or witches, making an oath to another. If the terms of the oath are broken, the person who breaks it will die. Simple as that, with so little detail into the retractions.
"But what does betrayal even intel?" Peter asked, sitting forward, in fear.
"It only means what we want it to. True betrayal directly to another, not something petty or accidental." James seemed so sure of it, though his voice still heald a little tremble.
"Common Moony tell him, you know Pete- Wha- Are you carving that wood again?" Sirius spoke, turning his head to catch the Welsh boy with a piece of wood in his hands and a small switch blade hunting knife.
"I told you to stop. You've got callouses all over." James interjected.
Remus looked up sheeply, sliding the wood and knife into his pocket. "Messed up the last one."
Remus grabbed Peters' shoulders, his hands up and down the boy's arms. "It's alright Pete, this is powerful magic, we probably won't even be able to do it."
Peter turned his head to James, watching the spectacled boy before nodding his head. Yes.At first, Remus was against the idea. The peril of death seamed far to daunting, though he had no doubt or fear that any of the boys would betray the other. After careful readings, a stop to Flourish and Blotts, he had agreed.
James was the second hardest to convince. He didn't hold qualms of dubiety, only trepidation for the lives of his closest brothers, and the monster of guilt that would consume him whole if one had died due to his flip comment of something he had read when he was eleven.
Peter was the most fearful. He felt the least confident in himself. Betrayal? He was the most loyal, but he felt the most likely of rejection. When he thought of completing the vow, his mind would wander to the first day of Hogwarts. And the sorting hat making keen mention of his pull to the Slytherin house, how that's what he was, but he was needed elsewhere. But Sirius, Remus, and James had all agreed, so he felt he had no choice but to do so as well.
It was July 9th a day they decided to sign away their lives. They gathered that weekend, playing it off as a sleepover. They would arrive Saturday morning, spend their night awake and leave that Sunday's dusk.
It got quiet after they had settled on the roof. The streets were empty, even the wind seemed to stall, the stars dimmed, and the candles' flames stopped dancing. With nothing to do, it was as if all of them were waiting for another to start, bail, or speak reason.
"I'll start. I mean, hell, I've been sixteen for like eight months and I haven't even tried magic outside of school." Sirius pulled out his black wand with the carvings "more or less human" down the side. The legal age to use magic outside of school was sixteen in the seventies, and by 1976 there were already bills trying to up that age.
Nobody smiled or laughed. They got quiet, with Remus moving first to hold James' hand, and James taking Peters.
"Alright the terms are no marauder shall directly and deliberately betray another marauder." Sirius said as a stall or chance for someone to speak, but they all nodded.
Sirius said the words to the binding contract without a stutter or a whimper of withdrawal, and nothing happened for a moment. There was a breath of relief that the boy was just a boy, that he wasn't willed enough to complete such magic. But no Sirius and the word 'just' didn't fit.
A thin whip of bright red flames emerged from his wand, snaking its way around the three boys' hands intertwining them together before the three stated their conditions and the flames faded into what appeared to be veins around their wrist and palms.
"Safe to say that worked." Peter grumbled, glad it was dark enough the boys couldn't see the pricks of tears hitting his eyes. He had a horrible feeling about this. Not one of anxiety, but pure intuition.
Each boy took their turn mustering the magic. Remus next, the red flames seemed brighter coming from his wand. James next the whip seemed thicker. And Peter last, he had to say the charm twice before it worked, stumbling over the words. The flames came out a pure white and left darker etchings on the three others' arms.
They barely slept that night, all of them wondering in the back of their heads- Had the terms been right, had it meant what we wanted it to?
That night, two new orbs of fate were placed on the shelves in the Hall of Prophecy.
Date Posted: August 25th 2023