The Unbreakable Vow

Ancient Runes was a joint class for Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

The difference between the two Houses was obvious in this class. The Ravenclaw students listened with rapt attention, while the Hufflepuff students did their own things—writing letters, doing homework, sleeping, reading books unrelated to the lesson. As long as they did not make any noise, Sinistra did not bother with them. He enthusiastically explained the greatness of runic studies to the Ravenclaws, making people almost forget that he was an Astronomy professor.

Considering that Ravenclaw also had Muggle-born wizards, he taught runes today. This set of characters was mainly used for divination, though it occasionally had other uses. As for what else it could do, "read more books" and one would find out. Those books were generally obscure and difficult to understand, though, and only Ravenclaw bookworms could get through them.

Newt Scamander's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them introduced a creature called the Runespoor, native to the small African country of Burkina Faso and rated Level Four dangerous by the Ministry of Magic. It was not an especially vicious animal itself, but it had once been a beloved pet of dark wizards, mainly because they liked its eye-catching and frightening appearance. It had three heads and a bright orange body striped with black, making it look like it was covered in runes. Its eggs were worth a fortune and could be used to make potions that supposedly stimulated the brain. As a result, the species had nearly gone extinct and became protected. For several centuries, the black market for Runespoors and their eggs had remained extremely prosperous.

This was the only known use of runes Pomona currently knew of. Beyond that, she had heard that certain special items, such as mirrors and rings, could be inscribed with ancient runes, and the things made this way possessed all manner of magical effects. The Black family was said to have a two-way mirror so old that no one knew what era it had come from. Ravenclaws excelled at making spatial magic or similarly headache-inducing magical tools.

They were geniuses, there was no doubt about that. But they always stood beside the victors. In some ways, they resembled House-elves: immensely capable, yet not particularly passionate about their own rights. They served those in power. If they disliked the person in power, they would not think of overthrowing them; instead, they would retreat into the wilderness and continue their research.

Using force was an unwise decision. Hufflepuffs secretly called them the Raven House, and it was not slander. Ravenclaw meant "raven's claw." These people were all extremely self-centered. Although Ravenclaw girls looked down on Hufflepuff girls for their foolish habit of daydreaming all day, the people they truly despised were Gryffindors—a group of arrogant fools with little thirst for knowledge, who preferred solving problems with their muscles instead of their brains.

The moment Dark magic was mentioned, Gryffindors immediately associated the other person with dark wizards. Such people were targets to be overthrown and denounced with roars of outrage. Not only could one not study it, one was not even allowed to think about it. It was precisely this prejudice that had hindered the progress of modern magic, causing many spells to lose their inheritors.

And as Muggle technology became more and more advanced, many wizards simply moved into Muggle communities. Such a waste of "talent" was intolerable.

The Dark Lord, Tom Riddle, intended to change that. He excavated many spells buried beneath the dust of history and taught them to his followers. The spell Bella had used at Madam Malkin's robe shop that day to turn into black smoke and vanish was one he had taught. They could truly fly through the air, without relying on magical tools as foolish-looking as brooms, and without the age restrictions of Apparition. It perfectly embodied the character of ancient wizards: elegant, mysterious, powerful, and confident. Coupled with his incomparably handsome appearance, countless people became infatuated with him.

Unlike the Minister for Magic, he never printed his photograph on the front page of the Daily Prophet. If one wanted to see him, one had to wait for his summons. Otherwise, one had to do something that would make him take notice. As for what could make him take notice? Let those beneath him guess.

He and Grindelwald were two completely different kinds of people. The Dark Lord taught ancient spells, while Grindelwald developed his followers' talents and let them find their own paths of development. His direction was innovation.

Pomona had never understood why Madam Sprout always talked to her about the differences between Grindelwald and the Dark Lord. Now that she had left the place where she had lived in seclusion and returned to the world of ordinary people, she looked back on her life and finally sensed that something was wrong.

Ollivander had once said that when Pete went to Hogwarts to enroll, Madam Sprout had taken him to buy his wand. At the time, her husband Henry was still alive, though he never went out and spent all day in his attic making magical tools.

Later, Henry died, and Madam Sprout became the one who never left the house. Even something as important as buying Pomona's wand had been handled by Pete, a minor, taking her there. Two minors carrying such a large bag of Galleons—was she not worried at all that something might happen to them?

At the beginning of this Ancient Runes lesson, when Sinistra introduced the course material, he said that some ancient spells required extremely ancient languages to cast. One of them was called the Fidelius Charm, an exceedingly complicated spell that used magic to conceal someone's secret forever within the soul of a living person. That person was the Secret Keeper. As long as the Secret Keeper remained inside the house that needed protecting and was not discovered, no one would ever find the house he protected. If the Secret Keeper left the house, it would remain invisible as long as the secret was not revealed. But once he betrayed the secret, the protected place would be exposed, and the secret he guarded would be discovered.

Pomona now needed to use the money her father had given her to buy bezoars. At the moment, the only person outside the school she could trust was Madam Sprout, but when she prepared to address an envelope, she realized that she did not even know where Madam Sprout lived.

She had always used the Floo Network to get to Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. There was wilderness everywhere around her home anyway; no bus could possibly reach that place.

They usually had no visitors. Madam Sprout only occasionally received letters by owl, and every time she read one, she would shut herself in her room for a while. When she came out, she would always talk about Grindelwald. Who in the wizarding world did not know who Grindelwald was? Yet Madam Sprout, this witch who was only slightly better than a Squib and lived in the wilderness, knew him very well. She even knew that he and Albus Dumbledore had once been friends. Now, if she casually asked anyone what relationship Dumbledore and Grindelwald had, everyone would say that Grindelwald had killed Dumbledore's family, and that Dumbledore had killed the first Dark Lord only to avenge them and uphold justice.

That morning by the lake, he had told her the stories of the Sorcerer's Stone and the Resurrection Stone. Would anyone really confuse something from a fairy tale with the Elixir of Life made by Nicolas Flamel using the Sorcerer's Stone?

He had said that he and Grindelwald had made a blood oath. Sinistra had just said that wizards could make a kind of Unbreakable Vow, cast in runes. In Norse mythology, Tyr, the god of war, was the god of justice and the guardian of oaths. He was the son of Odin, chief god of the Aesir. After Loki betrayed the Aesir, he and the giantess Angrboda gave birth to the giant wolf Fenrir, the world serpent Jormungandr, and Hel, goddess of death. At first, Fenrir was not large. It was furry like a little puppy. But it grew bigger and bigger, causing the gods to panic. The gods tried three times to bind it with different shackles. It broke free the first two times, and only succeeded on the third attempt after Tyr sacrificed one of his hands.

During Ragnarok, it bit Odin to death in a single bite, before Odin's son Vidar killed it. At the same time, Jormungandr raised great waves and drowned the world, while Hel arrived with an army of the dead to lend support. When making an Unbreakable Vow, the person entering the contract had to offer up one arm. Fire dragons would emerge from the tip of the wand, and each vow made would add another fire dragon. There also had to be a witness. No one required that witness to be a woman, but an Unbreakable Vow witnessed by a woman was more powerful. Generally, the price of breaking the oath was the death of the one who swore it. But Pomona felt that if that madwoman Bella were the witness, the ways she could think of to torture someone would be more painful than death.

An oath was not something one made casually, idiot.

Pomona was frantic. How was she supposed to warn him...

She held her quill and scribbled on the desk. After so many years, it was already covered in graffiti; a little more would make no difference. The sharp metal scratched into the wood with a dull sound, and several letters gradually appeared before her...

"Professor!" That woman was shouting again.

"Pomona, are you waking up? Pomona!"

She felt her body being shaken, but her eyelids were too heavy to open.

"Repeat after me." Sinistra was clearly not reciting runes, yet he made the entire class repeat after him. Strangely, everyone else did, so Pomona followed along too.

"What did you say?! I can't hear you!"

I think I made myself quite clear. Why can't you understand?

Pomona sighed in frustration. Ancient Runes was truly boring. She was going to sleep.

"Don't sleep, Pomona!" Mary shook her. "Class is over. Aren't you going to dinner?"

"I am!" She wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth and sat up. Then she saw the graffiti she had just drawn: a small Dragon without wings.