Unbreakable Vow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Unbreakable Vow is a voluntary agreement made between two or more wizards or witches in the Harry Potter series of novels by J. K. Rowling. It is always performed with a witness on hand (called a Bonder), holding their wand on the agreeing persons' linked hands to bind them with a tongue of flame.^[HP6]^{(p. 29 US/41 UK)} The vow-taker appears to retain free will to break the vow, but to do so would result in their death.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Professor Severus Snape, the once Potions master and later Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, takes the Unbreakable Vow while at Spinner's End to prove his sincerity to Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Bellatrix doubted Snape's loyalty since he has been working for Albus Dumbledore ever since Lord Voldemort was first defeated. Since Narcissa's son, Draco Malfoy, has been assigned a task by Voldemort that is far above his ability to accomplish, Narcissa wants Snape to help him and do it for him if Malfoy fails. Snape takes the vow to show his support. Nothing in the scene makes it explicitly clear that Snape really knows what he is swearing to do.

It is unclear whether or not Snape knew what Draco's task was when he took the vow. He told Narcissa and Bellatrix that he did, but was later seen trying to get Draco to tell him what it was (it is likely he knew of the objective, but not how Draco intended to fulfil it). It was ultimately revealed that Draco's task was to murder Dumbledore. When it became clear that Draco was unable to do so, even with the help of his fellow Death Eaters, Snape arrived at the scene and paused to take in the situation. Dumbledore pleaded -- though there is debate over whether he was pleading for his life, death, or something else. Snape gazed at Dumbledore for several moments with "a look of revulsion and hatred on his face" (The same was felt by Harry towards Dumbledore when he had to feed him the unknown potion, igniting debate) ^[HP6]^{(p. 595 US/556 UK)} and then used the killing curse on him, thereby fulfilling his vow.