How did Fred and George get so close to making an Unbreakable Vow?

Question

"Fred and George tried to get me to make [an Unbreakable Vow] when I was about five. I nearly did too, I was holding hands with Fred and everything when Dad found us. He went mental, only time I've ever seen Dad as angry as Mum. Fred reckons his left buttock has never been the same since."

Since Ron was five, Fred and George would only have been seven years old. How would they have been capable of (nearly) getting Ron to make an Unbreakable Vow? Their parents would certainly not have told them about Unbreakable Vows, and the Weasleys were not the sort of wizards to own a book on the subject, let alone to leave it lying around where the twins could get hold of it. Possibly they could have learned from one of their older brothers, but I doubt that either one would have been older than thirteen or so--not old enough to know much advanced magic (if an Unbreakable Vow is actually advanced magic). In any case, Unbreakable Vows were not taught at Hogwarts, much less how to make them. How would the twins have figured it out?

Vishvesh · Answer

Fred and George were very intelligent in their own way. They created a lot of things when they were in school like Extendable Ears, Patented Daydream Charms etc.
There are instance in the book which indicates that the twins were very well informed for their age.

“It’s not funny,” said Ron, fiercely. “If you must know, when I was three, Fred turned my — my teddy bear into a great big filthy spider because I broke his toy broomstick... You wouldn’t like them either if you’d been holding your bear and suddenly it had too many legs and...”
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Chapter 9, The Writing on the Wall

You must understand that they come from a wizarding family and add to that they were very mischievous. It is possible that they would have overheard conversation about "Unbreakable Vow" from other family members and learnt whatever they could about it from their elder brothers. Or it could have been a prank on Ron.

vap78 · Answer

One possibility would be: they were NOT capable of performing the unbreakable vow spell. They were only pretending to do so just to make a joke on Ron.

Since Ron was five it was very unlikely that he would recognize a real spell from a fake one.

Why did their father go mad whey he found them do it? One plausible explanation is that it is a dangerous game to play. Is it fake or not - Ron, Fred and George ARE wizards. So there could be a tiny little chance that the spell actually WORKS which could cause the death of Ron.

It's like finding a kid pointing a locked and empty weapon at someone. You know that there is no ammunition inside, you know that the kid probably would not be able to unlock the weapon but nevertheless you must not allow the kid to play with such a thing.

Heaven · Answer

Knowing Fred and George they overheard someone talking about it one day and decided to manipulate more information about it out of whoever they could and then stole a family members wand (there were at least 4 laying around the house by that point after all). Those two have been known to perform magic beyond their years and be very intelligent; They only got poor grades in school because they chose to.

Answered by Heaven on February 18, 2021

How did Fred and George get so close to making an Unbreakable Vow?

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