"Ladies and gentlemen, listen up! Harry has to go back to Hogwarts. Want to know why?"
George and Fred Weasley sat composedly across from the Dursleys and asked.
The situation was beyond their control. Under the pressure of the twins' wands, the three of them shook their heads in unison.
"Because he needs the school's guidance. He needs to learn how to use his magic at Hogwarts. If Harry isn't properly guided, something terrible called the Quietude will develop inside his magic. It's a monster born from the pain and repression a wizard experiences when they suppress their magical power. Once it appears, it means disaster.
"To put it more directly — you know King's Cross Station, right? That's where we catch the train to Hogwarts. If the Quietude forms inside Harry and then erupts, it could, in a very short time, destroy the entire King's Cross Station. I mean destroyed into powder — that sort of annihilation. The wizarding world has seen many such cases before.
"Most importantly, wizards who become Quietudes usually suffered physical or psychological abuse in childhood."
In fact, almost every Quietude didn't live past ten. At Harry's age, it was basically impossible for one to form. But the Dursleys didn't know that.
Hearing the twins, their faces drained of color. Panic and fear filled them — the feeling of almost having created a ticking time bomb with their own hands.
After they recovered a little, the twins asked, "Now that we've broken the spell on you, can we have a proper conversation?"
When Vernon nodded, the two waved their wands and lifted the enchantments from the Dursleys.
"How do I know you're not lying to me?" Vernon asked suspiciously. He wasn't willing to give face so easily.
"Ah-ha! That depends on whether you're willing to bet your life on it." The twins shot back. Vernon was taken aback and began weighing the pros and cons in his head.
To Vernon, letting Harry go back to school brought no obvious benefit. If he released him, he feared Harry might learn and someday come back for revenge. If he kept him, he worried Harry might suddenly erupt and send the whole family away. Seeing Vernon wavering, the twins followed Arthur's plan — after swinging the big stick, it was time to offer a sweet date.
"Of course — we can make Harry sign an agreement with you. You'll have custody of him during Hogwarts holidays; once Harry graduates and is independent, we'll give you a considerable sum. You know, the inheritance Harry's parents left him is quite substantial."
At the mention of "a considerable sum," Vernon's eyes gleamed with greed. He thought for a moment and finally nodded in agreement.
Vernon pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket, went upstairs, and opened Harry's door, letting him out.
Harry had recognized the twins' voices from his room; he'd been worried they might get into trouble with his uncle, so when Vernon opened the door he was relieved.
"Come out, Harry. Your friends are here." Vernon said, then turned and went back to his own room without another word. His wound on his stomach hadn't been bandaged properly yet and had been hurting him for some time.
Not entirely sure what had happened but knowing his friends were downstairs, Harry hurried down.
"Harry!" Ron, who had hardly spoken the whole time, shouted excitedly when he saw him and ran over to hug him.
"Ron!" Harry opened his arms and hugged him back.
"What are you doing here?" Harry asked curiously.
The twins stepped forward and recounted what had happened earlier. After listening, Harry nodded.
"I'll sign that agreement."
Just then Vernon finished bandaging his wound. The twins produced a sheet of parchment from their robes and wrote the terms of the agreement on it, inviting Harry and Vernon to sign.
After they signed, the parchment suddenly burst into flames. The flames turned into two red beams of light that struck Harry and Vernon in the chest. It felt as if their hearts had been struck.
"All right — the contract is sealed. If either of you fails to comply with the terms, you will suffer the torment of being pierced by a thousand arrows." George said in a grave tone.
Vernon nodded repeatedly, swearing he would never break the agreement. Harry, however, felt that something was off — that red light looked familiar to him.
"Now we're going to take Harry back to our house for a while. When term starts we'll go straight to Hogwarts. We won't bother you further. Where are Harry's things?" Fred asked. Vernon brightened at the question. He called his wife and son to help pack Harry's luggage, even enthusiastically rummaging through the junk in the stairwell to find Harry's summer homework, which he dusted off himself and put into Harry's trunk.
Having been through such a fright, he was more than happy to see those freaks gone from his sight. Only after the Weasleys took Harry and left did the family finally breathe a collective sigh of relief. He still couldn't understand why underage wizards could use magic so freely — this would haunt his family for the foreseeable future.
…
On the flying car, Harry first marveled at the wonder of the vehicle, then asked, "That magic on the parchment earlier — was that a Disarming Charm?"
Harry remembered last term when Hermione was practising and her wand went out of control; Arthur used the Disarming Charm, which knocked the wand away. The red light he'd just seen looked almost identical.
Fred and George exchanged a look and burst out laughing. Harry was right — it really was the light of the Disarming Charm, only a version weakened by many, many degrees. The parchment held no real contractual power. It had simply been set up so that when someone wrote their name on it, it would spontaneously self-immolate, and the faint, weakened Disarming Charm encoded within would be triggered and strike the person who'd written their name. Contract magic does exist in the wizarding world, of course, and genuine contractual parchments are precious — they're protected by strong magic to make breaking them difficult. Spells of that type exist; for example, the Unbreakable Charm and the Oath of Absolute Loyalty are of that nature, but the twins clearly didn't use those — and those two spells wouldn't have fit this situation anyway.
The scroll in the twins' hands was actually a casually-made product by Arthur. As for the effect — it had already been demonstrated. The purpose was simply to change Harry's treatment at the Dursleys'. Everything that happened tonight had been part of his plan.
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