A Pact

He saw Baron again after the Christmas holidays.

Throughout the ten-odd days of the break, Avada had been on edge. The only thing he could do was visit the Room of Requirement every day to check on Professor Baker and make sure nothing else had gone wrong.

At last, when he saw the palm-sized piece of parchment Baron had brought back, with its few rough clauses, Avada couldn't help asking:

"This is the 'absolutely airtight contract' you told me about?"

"Oh, this is just the table of contents."

Baron replied calmly, then lightly tapped the parchment with his wand. With a bang, it suddenly grew much thicker out of thin air. Baron began unfolding it, and unfolding it, and unfolding it...

In the end, a sheet of parchment the size of a carpet lay fully spread before Avada. The dense, tiny writing made his scalp prickle with dread at a single glance. And through his Magic Sense, he could tell that the contract's magical structure was many times more stable, vast, and complex than the one he had signed at the Department of Mysteries.

"Besides doing the usual household chores, the House-elves in my family also help with some of the family business. They're absolutely loyal and won't leak secrets; even Legilimency and Veritaserum are hard to use on them. Some of them have studied magical contracts in great depth, and with my supervision, there shouldn't be any problems. Read through it."

"You have several House-elves at home?" Avada asked in surprise. Even old, prestigious families like the Malfoy Family and the Black Family only had one House-elf each!

"Yeah. Is there a problem?"

Baron seemed confused by Avada's question, then pushed the contract toward him and urged him to read it. Avada had no choice but to lie facedown on the floor, turn a quill into a magnifying glass, and start examining it word by word. There was no other way: to ensure a magical contract's completeness and durability, it could usually only be written on a single sheet of paper.

It took him several hours to finish reading the contract. When he finally looked up, his vision swam, and he nearly passed out from the rush of blood leaving his head.

The contract placed comprehensive restrictions on Professor Baker's identity, history, conduct, and intentions. If Professor Baker had never deliberately harmed an innocent person since becoming an adventurer, if the task he needed Avada and Baron to perform posed no great danger to them and would absolutely not endanger anyone besides Professor Baker himself and the "fake Baker," and if he did not threaten them, silence them, or erase or alter their memories after the goal was achieved... along with a long list of other conditions, then the contract would not harm Professor Baker in the slightest.

In turn, the contract also placed certain restrictions on Avada and Baron's conduct. For instance, without permission, they could not deliberately reveal anything that at least two of the three considered "not for outsiders to know." And until Professor Baker was free, they were required to do their best to help him accomplish his goal, provided the risks remained manageable.

Page after page of definitions and restrictions made the contract airtight. Once signed, there would be no loopholes to exploit or way to use its rules to achieve anything beyond what they had agreed to.

Avada felt that even if the Horcrux Diary showed up, he'd dare help it possess Voldemort's body as long as he signed this contract!

So that evening, after Avada finished reading the contract, he and Baron returned to the Room of Requirement and presented it to Professor Baker.

Half an hour later.

"I've finished reading it."

Maybe it was just his imagination, but Professor Baker's voice sounded a little tired, and even his mental energy seemed somewhat depleted. "Very detailed... no, downright exhaustive. Even the Dark wizards who specialize in contract fraud usually can't come up with terms this thorough!"

"But it's reasonable. If you're willing, we can sign it together right now. You know how to sign a Mental Imprint Contract, don't you?"

"Of course."

Avada and Baron nodded. Baron had already explained how to sign it to Avada.

"Good. Shall we begin?"

Professor Baker said lightly. Blue starlight began to shimmer inside the black Crystal Ball, as if it held an entire universe. Avada sensed Professor Baker's mental energy projecting through the Crystal Ball onto the contract, where it waited quietly for the two of them.

Baron held his breath, staring at a complex, wondrous rune on the contract. Guided by the rune, his mental energy projected onto the parchment and merged with Professor Baker's. Seeing this, Avada followed suit and projected his own mental energy onto it.

At once, the parchment blazed with light. A powerful, strange magic surged from within the contract, followed the three streams of mental energy into their minds, and left behind an almost imperceptible imprint. If any of them contemplated breaking the contract, the imprint would warn the others; if anyone actually violated it, the imprint would turn on them.

The backlash against Avada and Baron would be bad enough, leaving them severely injured. But for Professor Baker, it would be fatal!

Feeling the magical imprint firmly embedded in his mind, Avada couldn't help marveling at the power of a Mental Imprint Contract. Even with his Magic Sense, he couldn't think of a way to break it—not right away, at least!

As the light on the parchment gradually faded, Avada, Baron, and Professor Baker all let out long sighs of relief. It was clear they had relaxed—the three of them were now a team that could trust one another.

"Now that we've signed the contract, we can finally speak freely and lay everything out in the open."

Professor Baker sounded noticeably more cheerful. "Mr. K, Mr. Shafiq, your magical abilities are already far beyond the level of first-years, aren't they?"

"To work out the best plan for you, I'd like you to show me your full abilities, without holding anything back."

"I've mastered all the spells from first to third year, along with the related knowledge in Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts," Baron said first. "Besides that, I know two pieces of Dark Magic. One is a variation of the Freezing Charm, and the other can quickly heal any physical injury, but causes a severe backlash a few hours later."

"You know Dark Magic?" Avada asked, glancing sideways at him.

"My family taught me. They said it wasn't safe for me to be out on my own."

"..."

Avada suspected there was a Seer in the Shafiq Family. Most people believed Hogwarts was the safest place in the United Kingdom—and before Harry Potter enrolled, that had indeed been true.

"As for me,"

Avada began, "besides all the magic from first to third year, I've also mastered the Shield Charm, Stunning Spell, Confundus Charm, and Impediment Jinx. I also have a Mental Link spell that lets me communicate directly with someone in my mind."

"Excellent!"

Professor Baker was delighted. "You're even more capable than I expected! That means the 'other me' won't be very wary of you, which will give you plenty of opportunities to make things easier!"

"Thank goodness it was the two of you who found me. If it had been some other wizard who was older but still weak, I might have had to go to a lot more trouble..."

"Now, let me tell you my plan. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I can adjust it to suit your needs—after all, you've given me plenty of leeway."