Magic Harry Potter: Encyclopedia II - Magic Harry Potter - Spell-like effects

Magic Harry Potter - Spell-like effects

Magic Harry Potter - Unbreakable Vow

The Unbreakable Vow is a voluntary agreement made between two (or more) wizards or witches. It must be performed with a witness on hand, holding their wand on the agreeing persons' linked hands to bind them with a tongue of flame. The Vow is not literally "unbreakable" as the person taking it is still able to go back on their word, but doing so will cause instant death. The Unbreakable Vow was first introduced in Half-Blood Prince, in which Severus Snape made a promise to Narcissa Malfoy to protect her son, Draco Malfoy.

Magic Harry Potter - Priori Incantatem

Priori Incantatem, or the Reverse Spell Effect, is caused by forcing two wands that share the source of their cores to compete. The tips of the two wands will connect with a thick golden thread, and one wand will regurgitate shadows of spells that it has cast in reverse order. These shadows generally appear as thick smoky replicas.

This should not be confused with Prior Incantato, a spell that forces a wand to recall the last spell it has cast with a similar smoky effect.

The Priori Incantatem effect has only been encountered during the duel between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort at the end of Goblet of Fire. Their simultaneous spells triggered the threads, and as Voldemort lost a battle of wills his wand regurgitated a shadowy form of the silver hand he had just created for Wormtail, as well as echoes of the people his wand had murdered: Cedric Diggory; Frank Bryce; Bertha Jorkins; and James and Lily Potter. Albus Dumbledore later revealed to Harry that both his and Lord Voldemort's wands shared a tailfeather core from Dumbledore's pet Phoenix, Fawkes.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Spell-like effects", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki