CHAPTER 91: UPDATING BELIEFS, PT 3 – AFTERMATH

"And so you are telling me that I actually employed Lord Voldemort to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Dumbledore had his head buried in his hands, and was looking very old. Harry thought he had never seen the man look so broken.

"Well... yes," he said. There was no milder way of putting it.

"And I suppose it would be too much to ask that this broke the curse he put on the Defense position in the first place." Dumbledore sighed deeply, pushed himself out behind his desk, and stepped over to a faded shield on the wall. After several incantations, he returned.

"I have fired him," he answered Harry's unasked question. "The wards will no longer permit him access without giving alarm. Hogwarts will be safe once more. Safer, at least, than anywhere else in the country."

"Can you bring my parents here?" There hadn't been much time for thinking during his mad run towards the Headmaster's office, just for a few wordless concepts to pop into his head, but that had been enough.

"I do not believe that is necessary, although they are of course invited to visit you for the Easter holidays. As I have told you before, Voldemort and his allies have learned, during the last war, not to attack the Order's families."

"Yes, you taught them by burning Narcissa Malfoy to death, right?" Dumbledore didn't respond.

Harry continued, not quite managing to keep the edge from his voice: "I am not in the Order of the Phoenix, nor do I think that Quirrell is using his old Death Eaters at the moment – certainly not Malfoy, at any rate. Besides... I think I might have undone some of that work when I was prepared to pay a hundred thousand Galleons for Hermione Granger's life. He won't be fighting you, he will be fighting me, and he knows perfectly well that it would affect me a lot if he took my parents. So can we please not go from guesses, and just keep them safe?"

Dumbledore sighed. "Very well. I shall send Minerva, Alastor and some others to guard them invisibly, and then bring them here tomorrow to visit you. That, we can do without even giving them any alarm. And while they are here, I can strengthen the protections on them."

"That just seems nowhere near enough, Professor!

"How much do you think Voldemort expects to gain from attacking your parents? If he has to fight his way through several members of the Order, it doesn't seem like the effort would be worth it. If I put my strongest protections on them, which it would take a full day of work to tear through, it also doesn't seem worth it. You can uproot their lives and ask them to stay here while your father loses his job and your mother is terrified – I know she fears magic and would not appreciate being trapped here – but you must ask yourself whether it would be in their best interest to do so."

Harry almost roared in frustration. "Inconveniences don't compare to dying! Quirrell is insanely powerful. I... I saw him fight an Auror who looked pretty old and very tough, and it was just no match. He could take down several of your precious Order members at once while standing on his head with one hand tied behind his back! Bring my parents here now, and then we can talk about what else to do with them later."

"If that is the way it must be." The Phoenix Patronus blazed into existence. "Tell Minerva to take what help she can from the Order, and bring Mr. Potter's parents to Hogwarts immediately. Be quick, but do not give them undue alarm." The Patronus disappeared, and he turned his eyes back to Harry, looking severe. "And now, Mr. Potter, tell me." The usual warmth had gone from his voice. "When did you see the Defense Professor fight an Auror?"

Harry sighed. "I guess at this point it would be completely stupid if I didn't tell you about the Azkaban breakout."

"So basically," Harry summarized. "Quirrell planned the whole thing, and I screwed it up. But I ended up getting out anyway, learning a lot about myself in the process. And I do think Quirrell probably told the truth, that she was originally innocent, because everything she said matched with what he had told me – at least she did love him, and did not expect to be loved in return. Even if she was never innocent, I'm still glad that she's no longer suffering there, because no one deserves that." He paused for a moment. "On the other hand, this whole thing was a huge mess-up with terrible consequences, and now she will end up serving You-Know-Who again and doing horrible things for him... I'm not so happy about that."

"I see." Dumbledore was frowning, although he no longer looked threatening like he had at the beginning of this talk. "You have made an enormous mistake, Harry, and I wish you had decided to trust me, then. Death would have been the merciful way out for Bellatrix, and that much, I could have offered."

"I don't think I would have been happy with that," Harry said, looking at the floor. It would have been the sensible thing to do, but that was just hindsight. And if Bellatrix could have lived, not as a slave to some Dark Lord but actually get therapy and be free... That would have been worth the other costs.

"At least my understanding of that day is now improved," the Headmaster sighed. "Thank you for that, Mr. Potter."

"Are you going to turn me in?" He didn't think the Headmaster would, but it wouldn't hurt to check.

"No. This crime was Voldemort's, even if he misled you into participating. Besides, we shall need you, now more than ever. I will speak to Amelia and inform her of matters regarding our Defense Professor, and I shall say that other magic than the Animagus transformation was used to break out of Azkaban, but leave it at that."

"Professor... I think I should warn you. You think you and the Order have held off You-Know-Who for years. But that's just... he wasn't fighting you, he was playing with you. If he had fought all-out, he would have won, if not instantly then at least within the first year. I've known him since September, and I've known you, and I am... absolutely convinced of that, Professor."

Dumbledore's brow creased into a deep frown, but he didn't outright reject the statement. "If that is the case, then what do you propose he was doing?"

"I don't know." Certainly Voldemort's lack of effort made sense in the first two years, when Monroe was gaining prestige and followers from fighting him, but what about the eight years of terror afterwards?

"He's smarter than I am. I don't know what he was doing, he never dropped a hint, or if he did, I didn't understand it. I could make up many random guesses, but it would be like... like the old Greek philosophers saying stuff like 'all is fire'. I'd have no way of knowing that the hypothesis was actually true."

"I am glad that you at least acknowledge Lord Voldemort as a threat now. So let me ask you another question. What was he doing this year? The thing that was hidden in this school is still hidden; if he made an attempt on it, I would have known."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Absolutely. Merlin himself might have broken through the defenses, but even he would not have been able to do so without alarm."

"All right." Harry decided to accept that as plausible for now. So what else could Voldemort, coming to teach at Hogwarts disguised as Professor Quirrell, achieve?

He said he always wanted to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, Hufflepuff pointed out. And that might be true. Voldemort applied to the position years ago, which is how it got cursed in the first place.

It seems unlikely to the extreme, his Slytherin side said, that he would go to the effort of possessing a victim's body and hiding right under Albus Dumbledore's nose just for the pleasure of teaching. There has to have been an ulterior motive.

So what has happened this year? Ravenclaw asked. Did anything out of the ordinary happen that could be best explained by an evil genius executing some kind of plot?

And that was the baffling thing. As far as Harry could see, nothing dark had happened this year, except for the Azkaban breakout, which Quirrell could not have been planning from the beginning (as Harry only discovered the required power in February) and the attack on Draco and Hermione. That had almost certainly been Quirrell, trying to push Harry into following his plan to "defeat Voldemort", and conveniently taking away the two people who caused Harry to think before doing stupid things. He might also have been involved in protecting Hermione and the other heroines, and sending her those messages, but to what purpose? And other than that, what had Quirrell done, or potentially done, other than just teaching? What had he even shown an interest in?

Me.

"He's been mentoring me," Harry said, his mouth dry, his voice sounding hollow even to himself. "He... had plans for me. He said he wanted me to rule, and every thing he did when interacting with me, publicly and privately, seemed to be pointing in that direction."

"I may have been around Alastor for too long," the old wizard responded, "but the obvious rebuttal that comes to mind is that he might just want you to think that."

"But what would the point of that be? To stop me from seeking power, because it might be playing into his hands?"

"Perhaps."

Harry shook his head. "There are some things I need to do whether or not there is a Dark Lord I need to fight. And he knows that. He knows perfectly well that I will want to take down Azkaban no matter what – in fact, he made sure of that, by taking me there. He knows me through and through, Professor. It's pointless to conjecture him planning things which involve me acting unlike I normally would."

"But you think he wanted to make his prophesied enemy stronger? To get you to rule, so you will have followers at your back and call to destroy him?"

"Yeah, about that prophecy... Can you please make preparations to take me to the Department of Mysteries? I need to hear it for myself. It couldn't possibly be a false memory planted by You-Know-Who so everyone would think I was his destined enemy, while really I was just some random kid?"

"There is a prophecy, for I saw the orb float to your parents' hand. And if it said something different, I expect they would have told me. But very well. I shall make plans to let you visit that place."

Would it take eight years to break into the Department of Mysteries, and insert a fake prophecy?

"I think I also want to know... what happened the night my parents died? How do we know that he tried to cast the Killing Curse on me?"

The old wizard shrugged helplessly. "It was the one spell he used above all. Why should he use something else?"

"That's all? I'm known as the only person ever to survive the Killing Curse, and we don't even know for sure whether he in fact cast the Killing Curse on me?"

"No, there's another piece of evidence. There is a spell, priori incantatem, which forces a wand to reveal the last magic performed with it. I cast it on Voldemort's wand, just in case, and can confirm that his final spell was the Killing Curse."

"Wait." Harry's head was buzzing. "You found You-Know-Who's wand?"

"Of course. It was left by his corpse. When Hagrid alerted me that the house was in ruins, I came instantly, and took all three wands. I have destroyed Voldemort's wand afterwards, of course." He didn't mention what had happened to Lily and James's wands, but Harry had a distinct feeling that he already knew.

"The thing is... Bellatrix told me where to find my wand, when she believed I was her master. I thought she had visited the house and taken it from his body."

"If she had, she would hardly have left you alive. But no, no Death Eater has been in your house. Even after their deaths, the Fidelius Charm on the Potters' house was still active. It seems unlikely that Sirius Black also passed the secret to her. Why would he, unless the Dark Lord was planning to take her with him? I have no guess of what she could have meant." [In case of confusion, see Footnote]

"He left his real wand with her." Harry was staring into space. "And he took a spare wand himself. He was planning to die, or to leave his wand behind, or for something unusual to happen."

The Headmaster gave him a piercing stare. "What on earth could be his motive for dying? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing he would be overly fond of."

"You are convinced he was already immortal, aren't you? So leaving the burnt husk of his body behind wouldn't hurt him as much as it would most other people. I don't know why he would do that, but that might just mean I'm not creative enough. And in fact, what if he never did cast the Killing Curse on me, but cast it on himself? It doesn't make sense that a small baby would be the first to survive the Killing Curse."

"That would require a rather extraordinary amount of self-loathing." There was no twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes, only sadness and exhaustion. "And I can think of several reasons why the Killing Curse might have bounced."

Harry quirked his eyebrows. "Like what? The harmonizing of our magics?"

"That could certainly have caused unexpected problems," the old wizard nodded, "although I have never heard of such an effect and cannot imagine why you would have been born with it. I suspect the reason is rather the other way around."

"Would you care to elaborate?"

"I would have preferred to wait longer, but... I know there is little point in treating you as a child." He stood up, and took an ancient-looking book from a shelf. The pages were grayed and brittle, and it shed paperdust as Dumblefore carefully opened it.

"I found this old grimoire in the ruins of an ancient structure of what was once the capital city of magical Italy. I have made copies, of course, but with magical books, the original often has a kind of integrity that copying cannot preserve. So too with this one. There is a lot of knowledge contained in its pages, even if most of it is half-faded, but what is most relevant to you is found in chapter nine." The pages rustled, and turned themselves towards somewhere around the middle of the book.

"Here," he pointed to the left page, which featured a faded picture of a girl, somewhere between six and fifteen years old, but it was hard to tell, "the author, a werewolf who lived some nine hundred years ago, describes a child, who seemed to be possessed by a dark wizard that was terrorizing the country at the time. She did his bidding, remembered things that only the dark wizard would know, and even had the same kind of walk and peculiar facial expressions. Sometimes, very rarely, the child acted differently, more child-like, and did not remember what it had been doing. The author says he believes that there were two spirits in the child, one the original, and one the possessor.

"The interesting thing, the extremely interesting thing, was that the dark wizard in question was alive, and functioning, at the same time. This is the only tale I have ever found of a possession which did not require the possessor to be dead or unconscious. I do not know how he managed the feat, but I have not read all the ancient works that still exist, and Lord Voldemort might well have found different stories. Since learning of your dark side I have come back to this tale, and while the explanation I have pieced together is far from complete, it seems likely that there is some kind of connection. I suspect that, unlike what we might normally expect, he did not try to kill you immediately. If he knew the dark magic to take over another's body, he might have used that on you. Your dark side is really the remainder of his spirit."

Harry frowned. "That doesn't make sense. One, why would he do that, rather than killing me? Two, we know that his last spell was the Killing Curse, why would he go to that effort and then try to kill me afterwards? Three, my dark side is not a separate entity, it is a way I sometimes am. I asked the sorting hat, and it did say that there was only one person under its brim. So it seems that this has little to do with me."

"Do not forget the words of the prophecy, Harry. Either must destroy all but a remnant of the other. That, I think, might have been what motivated him. Should one seek to prevent a prophecy in the obvious way, the invariable outcome is that they end up fulfilling it regardless. Voldemort might have realized that the prophecy would not have been fulfilled if he killed you, and fate would intercede to have something go wrong. Something that would mark you as his equal, which might refer to a transfer of power. When I learned of your dark side, I realized that it was obvious that Voldemort would not have made that mistake. Preventing a prophecy is hard; fulfilling it is easier. If he used this dark ritual on you, it would mark you as his equal, as you would essentially share a part of his magic. And he might then be able to use the Killing Curse, which strikes directly at the soul, but is known to leave the body intact... That would leave only a remnant of you behind, your body, preserved by the possession."

"That seems... extremely convoluted. And rather far-fetched."

"If it were only intended to leave a remnant of you behind, the process would certainly be unnecessarily complicated. However, there are other advantages to this course of action. He would have a child in his power – a child believed by others to be harmless, and moreover a herald of the light – and could use the body to come close enough to his enemies to strike. He might have been contemplating such a possession before, and simply taken an opportunity to win two battles in a single move. It seems unwise to use the body of such a young child, but perhaps the method only works on children? I do not know, but I must beg you not to disregard the possibility merely for my lack of knowledge – I cannot provide details, but what I do know is that your dark side seems like a reflection of Voldemort's personality, and this is the best hint I could find to a process which might have caused such an effect. Undoubtedly there is far more to this tale that I simply do not yet comprehend."

"Right. But that still doesn't address the problem that my dark side simply does not behave like that. Nor does it explain why You-Know-Who died."

"It might. The Killing Curse is not an easy spell, and I am not certain how it behaves in situations outside the obvious. If he was possessing your body at the time, it is conceivable that he accidentally hit that part of himself. Even the most powerful wizards can make mistakes, especially when they attempt magic that has never been done before. An accident like this could well make the spell backfire. And while we have exceedingly little data as to what a botched Killing Curse might do, it does not seem inconceivable that it caused a part of his personality to be blown into you – his personality only, not his consciousness, so the sorting hat would not see it. Perhaps, when his spirit was flung from his and your body, it passed through your soul, leaving part of itself behind? Or the possession itself warped what had already developed of your own personality? You were very young at the time, your mind and soul still growing, so that might be why you subsumed this part of him inside yourself. However it may be, it is still obviously a somewhat separate part of you."

"Hold on."

Was there any chance that this insane story was really true? Leaving aside all the guesswork and unstated assumptions about souls in the explanation, could Voldemort have caused some kind of spell effect that blasted his own personality in a part of Harry's brain?

Dumbledore is generally hailed as wise, his Gryffindor side pointed out. He is also probably insane, but he has read many ancient texts, knows of many dark rituals. In matters of myth and legend he is certainly schooled. I would not disregard his theory just because it seems somewhat wild – if he takes the possibility seriously, things like this might have happened before. Even disregarding the rest, his words suggest that there are multiple sources referring to possession – what would something like that do to the developing brain of a baby?

But if it is true, how could we know that? Ravenclaw asked. It does fit the data somewhat, but Dumbledore had most of this data when he constructed the hypothesis, so we cannot really use the fact that it seems to fit as proof. Is there an additional experiment that could confirm some of these ideas?

We do not need to believe it to acknowledge the possibility that our dark side was originally a part of Voldemort, Slytherin pointed out. And act accordingly.

Act how? Ravenclaw rebutted. If we do not know the extent or the method of the possession, the possibilities to account for are endless. If even half of this story is true, it could mean that something more than his personality is still there – what if he is still possessing us? What if he can take us over any time he likes, read our mind, or perhaps even have us drop dead on command?

I don't think he read our thoughts... Hufflepuff pointed out timidly. He didn't really seem to know about Draco's Patronus, or about the fake spell we gave Tracey.

Or that's just what he wants you to think, said the voice of Moody.

There was a brief pause as the other imaginary personalities stared at the newcomer, but then Ravenclaw gave a mental shrug, and added: This is Quirrell we're talking about. There's really no telling with him. But it would explain why he so often seems to know exactly what we aren't telling him, and manages to deduce the right conclusion even when there is no way he could possibly figure that out from just the information he has.

"All right. I guess it is possible, or parts of it are. I'll think about it some more."

Dumbledore nodded. "Then I guess I shall go and inform Amelia, and the Order now." He sighed. "And I suppose you would like me to formally introduce you into the Order, and keep you involved in its activities?

"Well..." Harry shifted awkwardly. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Professor, but I don't think I really want to be part of the Order of the Phoenix –"

Dumbledore gazed at him tiredly. "Oh? That seems uncharacteristic of you. Would you not normally ask to be included and kept in the loop for such activities? I have been trying to treat you less like a child."

"Well, yes, and I appreciate it, but that's not it..." There was no tactful way of putting this. He wasn't quite ready to take Dumbledore as his enemy – the old man didn't seem evil. In fact, he was obviously well-intentioned, or Fawkes would leave him; what little he knew about phoenixes at least agreed on that. Nor was it certain that he had tortured Narcissa Malfoy to death. But still... "I just don't like your methods, Professor."

"Ah." The old wizard looked very ancient indeed, as he stared sadly at Harry. "And you believe that you can do better? That you can fight your war without making sacrifices, without taking losses?"

"I don't know. But at least I want to try."

The old wizard sighed. "Very well. I cannot say that this is entirely unexpected. Even so, however, as I told you on the first day we spoke, I do believe that you and I are game-pieces of the same color, Harry. You do oppose Voldemort, do you not, even if he is the wizard who mentored you, and you have come to think of him as a friend?"

Harry nodded. There was no way he could even consider taking Albus Dumbledore as his enemy without being slightly more offended about a dark wizard who nailed the skins of Yermy Wibble and his family to a wall, or who had made Hermione believe that she would turn to cold-blooded murder, or who had bound Bellatrix Black to him with dark magic, or who had mocked Lily in her final moments, or who had done all those other acts of torture, murder and general terrorism by comparison with which merely murdering Harry's parents was not even worth mentioning... It was painful to think that it would have been Professor Quirrell behind all that, and some part of him still didn't believe that he and the late Dark Lord were the same person, but regardless of that, Lord Voldemort was his enemy, plain and simple. Whether that meant he had to die was a different question, but should he stand in the way of Dumbledore killing him if there was an opening? Could he be that sure of himself?

"He is my enemy," Harry simply replied.

"Would you like me to relinquish command of the Order to you?"

Harry blinked, taken aback. "What?"

"Minerva has already shown that, when pressed on the point, her first loyalty is with you rather than me. Others might make the same choice. You are our symbol of hope, Harry, and if anyone can defeat him, it is you. You might turn out to be a better leader than I was, or have become now."

"No, I... I don't think I'm ready for... no."

"Very well." The old wizard stood up, and was suddenly dressed in formal black robes. Despite the look of sadness his face was still wearing, he seemed formidable. "Then I shall continue to oppose Voldemort in any way I can, until you tell me to back off and get out of your way. I expect that you shall form your own plans, but do not hesitate to call on me when you need me for any purpose. You may have lost faith in me, Harry, and you may even be right in that. However, my loyalty will always be with you."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Author's Footnote: this text may seem to contradict chapter 53, where Bellatrix says she got the wand from the Potters' house. In fact, it was based on an earlier version of the text, where Bellatrix said this instead:

"Your wand," murmured Bellatrix, "I hid it in the graveyard, my lord, before I left... under the tombstone to the right of your father's grave... will you kill me, now, if that was all you wished of me... I think I must have always wanted you to be the one to kill me... but I can't remember now, it must have been a happy thought..."

This paragraph was altered afterwards, probably to clarify the question where she would have got the wand. Which is unfortunate for me, as I took the different interpretation for this spin-off. :) So, please pretend that Bellatrix left ambiguous where she got the wand!

As for the Fidelius Charm: this charm is not the same as in the original Harry Potter books, where its use is somewhat inconsistent (and would be overpowered if used rationally). Most importantly, you cannot be your own secret-keeper, the protection simply breaks when the secret-keeper dies, and the spell can only be used on a location, not on other secrets. I've written up some musings below of how I roughly envision it could work (and still be mostly consistent with all but the last Harry Potter book), but these details will not be important.

The Fidelius Charm is actually not a charm, but rather a piece of ritual magic (hence why it gets to be so powerful). The ritual is performed by a witch or wizard of great power (the caster), targeting a not-too-large location (the secret), and using one or more volunteers (the secret-keepers). The key to the ritual is trust: the location stays safe as long as a trusted person (or multiple trusted people) chooses to jeopardize their own safety over betraying the secret location (and presumably the people within).

* Once performed, the location is hidden from sight, plotting, charms, divinations or any other magical or mundane means. There are no known ways to get around the protection. Even if you know for a fact that there are people hidden in 12 Grimmauld Place, you have no way of reaching the place unless you are explicitly told about the location by a secret-keeper.

* Only the secret-keepers can tell other people about the secret. The people who are told do NOT become secret-keepers, so they cannot give other parties access. Secret-keepers must be witches or wizards, and cannot be added after the completion of the ritual. Sharing the secret can only be done willingly: if it is spoken under Veritaserum or Imperius, or plucked from their mind using Legilimency, the person in question will still not be able to find the location. This does not preclude torture, however, as a tortured secret-keeper still has a choice whether or not to reveal the secret of the location. To stay in keeping with the novels, let us say that the caster does not need to identify the secret-keepers by name, but they are for instance identified as the people inside the location at the time of the ritual; if anyone wanted extra safety by deceiving the caster about the identity of the secret-keepers, the volunteer could use polyjuice potion. Or, say, carry a certain rat in their pocket to get multiple secret-keepers. :)

* If a secret-keeper is inside a location under the Fidelius Charm – any location, not just their own – their secret-keeper magic starts stressing until it reaches breaking point after one hour and they are removed as a secret-keeper (see next point). When they leave the Fideliused locations, this stress starts slowly decreasing again. So they can visit the people whose location they are keeping secret, but never for more than an hour, and afterwards they have to stay away for a day or so before it's safe to visit for an hour again; they cannot just step out for a second to reset the timer.

* A person is removed as a secret-keeper if they are (a) dead, (b) inside a location hidden by the Fidelius Charm for too long, (c) unable to share the secret willingly for too long (with a similar "stress" timer as above) – where "unable" could for instance be because they are insane, in a coma, under Imperius, in a magical sleep or imprisoned, or if they have sworn an unbreakable vow that would interfere with having a choice in the matter.

* The spell breaks if the location has been abandoned by humans for over a day, if the caster dies, or if there are no secret-keepers left. When the protection starts fading, everyone inside the location will be aware of this, and they will have several minutes before they are exposed.

* Temporary sacrifices (for as long as the protection is active – note that for the unbreakable vow, as described in chapter 74, two out of three sacrifices are of this temporary nature): the location sacrifices accessibility. The secret-keepers sacrifice their own safety (they run a severe risk of getting captured and tortured while they're keeping the secret) and cannot strongly protect themselves from magical tests to verify whether or not they are a secret-keeper. Finally, the caster sacrifices a small portion of their magic to keep the protection active.

* Permanent sacrifices: the caster sacrifices three months of their life (sacrificing "life" will be explained in later chapters). The secret-keepers permanently sacrifice a portion of safety, in that they lose the power to be subjected to powerful personal wards (e.g. blood wards or wards that stop you from getting traced by name). Since this must be an actual sacrifice, this implies that you can only be a secret-keeper for one place in your life. For someone in Dumbledore's position, this sacrifice is simply too dangerous, which is why he could never be a secret-keeper.

So, you can have multiple secret-keepers, but you'd better trust every single one of them not to betray you even under torture. There's no point being your own secret-keeper; if you stay inside the hidden location for more than an hour (for example to sleep), the spell breaks. It makes sense for an enemy to kill a secret-keeper in the hope to break the spell, but then the people in the hidden location will have warning (and it won't work if there are other secret-keepers), so persuading them to speak would be preferable. You could hide a family by persuading a good person completely unrelated to them to be a secret-keeper (without telling them who's in the location they're hiding), which mitigates the risk to the secret-keeper, but then they will have little reason to suffer and/or die for you if their secret-keeperness should be discovered (plus, since the secret-keeper can access the location, they can probably check who's inside it without being noticed, and then they might just choose to betray you for money or other gains).

(I hope I made this watertight. However, I have little doubt that the munchkins among you will figure out further ways to break this. :) Edit: thanks to reviewers for pointing out the "step outside for a second" loophole.)