There were countless stories in old wizarding tales about people having their lives held in someone else's hands.
A Thousand and One Wizards' Bedtime Stories had one such tale. It was about a pirate who took his heart out of his chest to achieve Immortality and make his life last forever.
It worked remarkably well: the pirate wizard became an immortal living corpse. There was just one major problem: an evil witch had control of his heart.
Well, perhaps the story was a roundabout way of teaching Young Wizards some twisted lessons about love and marriage.
There was a reason most traditional Witchcraft had been classified as Dark Magic by the Modern Magical System. Just look at this book. The Professors at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry could never put it on a bookshelf.
Not even in the Restricted Section, which was set aside for students who wanted to sneak in at night to read and study.
Mr. McGonagall's book, Believe Your Eyes, Idiot, was even more of a trap than Secrets of the Darkest Art, which recorded how to make a Horcrux.
"Hey, look at this one! 'Diviner's Crystal Eyeballs.' Is this what Goyle wanted you to find?"
Anton was pondering the lessons about life and Fate that Mr. McGonagall had laid out in the book when Anna's voice drew him back to the pages.
The Diviner's Crystal Eyeballs were meant to imitate a Diviner's ability to peer into Fate.
It sounded impressive, but in practice, it was utterly useless.
A wizard could use the pair of Crystal Balls, each about the size of an eyeball, to divine anything within their field of vision. But they couldn't see the future; they could only glimpse the present.
They might as well have been toys.
The magical principles behind them