Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (164 page)

“Shut your mouth!” Moody said sharply. “Someone might take it the wrong way, your saying that incantation. You
look
too young to cast it, but there’s such a thing as Polyjuice. And to answer your question, boy, there’s two reasons why that spell’s in the blackest book. The first is that the Killing Curse strikes directly at the soul, and it’ll just keep going until it hits one. Straight through shields. Straight through
walls.
There’s a
reason
why even Aurors fighting Death Eaters weren’t allowed to use it before the Monroe Act.”

“Ah,” said Harry. “That does seem like an excellent reason to ban -”

“I’m not finished, son. The second reason is that the Killing Curse doesn’t
just
take a powerful bit of magic. You’ve got to
mean
it. You’ve got to
want
someone dead, and not for the greater good, either. Killing Grice didn’t bring back Blair Roche, or Nathan Rehfuss, or David Capito. It wasn’t for justice, or to stop him doing it again.
I wanted him dead.
You understand now, lad? You don’t have to be a Dark Wizard to use that spell - but you can’t be Albus Dumbledore, either. And if you’re arrested for killing with it, there’s no possible defense.”

“I… see,” murmured the Boy-Who-Lived.
You can’t want the person dead as an instrumental value on the way to some positive future consequence, you can’t cast it if you believe it’s a necessary evil, you have to actually want them dead for the sake of being dead, as a terminal value in your utility function.
“A magically embodied preference for death over life, striking within the plane of pure life force… that does sound like a difficult spell to block.”

“Not difficult,” Moody snapped. “
Impossible
.”

Harry nodded gravely. “But David Monroe - or whoever - used the Killing Curse against a couple of Death Eaters even
before
they wiped out his family. Does that mean he already had to hate them? Like, the martial arts story was probably true?”

Moody shook his head slightly. “One of the dark truths of the Killing Curse, son, is that once you’ve cast it the first time, it doesn’t take much hate to do it again.”

“It damages the mind?”

Again Moody shook his head. “No. It’s the killing that does that. Murder tears the soul - but that’s just the same if it’s a Cutting Hex. The Killing Curse doesn’t crack your soul. It just takes a cracked soul to cast.” If there was a sad expression on the scarred face, it could not be read. “But that doesn’t tell us much about Monroe. The ones like Dumbledore who’ll never be able to cast the Curse all their lives, because they never crack no matter what - they’re the rare ones, very rare. It only takes a little cracking.”

There was a strange heavy feeling in Harry’s chest. He’d wondered what exactly it had meant, that Lily Potter had tried to cast the Killing Curse at Lord Voldemort with her last breath. But surely it was forgiveable, it was
right
and
proper
for a mother to hate the Dark Wizard who was coming to kill her baby, mocking her for how she couldn’t stop him. There was something wrong with you as a parent if you
couldn’t
cast Avada Kedavra, in that situation. And no other spell could’ve gone past the Dark Lord’s shields; you’d have to at least
try
to hate the Dark Lord enough to want him dead for the sake of dead, if that was the only way to save your baby.

It only takes a little cracking…

“Enough,” said Professor McGonagall. “What would you have us do?”

Moody’s smile twisted. “Get rid of the Defense Professor and see if all your troubles mysteriously clear up. Bet you a Galleon they do.”

Professor McGonagall looked like she was in pain. “Alastor - but - will
you
teach the classes, if -”

“Ha!” said Moody. “If I ever say yes to that question, check me for Polyjuice, because it’s not me.”

“I’ll test it experimentally,” Harry said. And then, as everyone looked at him, “I’ll ask Professor Quirrell a question that the real David Monroe would know - like who else was in the Slytherin class of 1945, or something like that - hopefully without making it obvious. It won’t be definitive proof, he could’ve studied the role, but it would be evidence. Still, Mr. Moody, even if Professor Quirrell isn’t the original Monroe, I’m not sure that getting rid of him is a free action. He saved my life twice -”

“
What?
” demanded Moody. “When? How?”

“Once when he knocked down a bunch of witches who were summoning me toward the ground, once when he figured out that the Dementor was draining me through my wand. And if Professor Quirrell
wasn’t
the one who set up Draco Malfoy in the first place, then he saved Draco Malfoy’s life, and things would be a lot worse if he hadn’t. If the Defense Professor
isn’t
behind it all - he’s not someone we can afford to just get rid of.”

Professor McGonagall nodded firmly.

Hypothesis: Severus Snape
(April 8th, 1992, 9:03pm)

Harry and Professor McGonagall now stood on the slowly turning stairs, turning without descending; or at least
one
Harry stood upon those stairs - his other three selves had been left behind in the Headmaster’s office.

“Can I ask you a private question?” Harry said, when he thought they were far enough away not to be heard. “And in particular, private from the Headmaster.”

“Yes,” Professor McGonagall said, not quite sighing. “Though I hope you realize that I cannot
do
anything which conflicts with my duties to -”

“Yes,” Harry said, “that’s exactly what I need to ask you about. In front of the Wizengamot, when Lucius Malfoy was saying that Hermione was no part of House Potter and that he wouldn’t take the money, you told Hermione how to swear that oath. I want to know, if something like that comes up again, if your first duty is to the Hogwarts student Hermione Granger, or to the head of the Order of the Phoenix, Albus Dumbledore.”

Professor McGonagall looked like someone had hit her in the face with a cast-iron frying-pan, a few minutes earlier, and now she’d been told that somebody was about to do it again, and not to flinch.

Harry flinched a little himself. Somewhere along the line he needed to pick up the knack of
not
phrasing things to hit as hard as he possibly could.

The walls rotated around them, behind them, and somehow, they descended.

“Oh, Mr. Potter,” Professor McGonagall said with a low exhalation. “I…
wish
you wouldn’t ask me such questions… oh, Harry, I wasn’t thinking then, not at all. I only saw a chance to help Miss Granger and… I
was
Sorted into Gryffindor, after all.”

“You’ve got a chance to think now,” Harry said. It was all coming out wrong, but he had to say it
anyway,
because - “I’m not asking you to be loyal to
me.
But if you do know - if you
are
sure - what you’ll do if it comes down to an innocent Hogwarts student versus the Order of the Phoenix a second time…”

But Professor McGonagall shook her head. “I’m
not
sure,” the Transfiguration Professor whispered. “I don’t know if it was the right choice even then. I’m sorry. I can’t decide such awful things!”

“But you’ll do
something
if it happens again,” Harry said. “Indecision is also a choice. You can’t just
imagine
having to make an immediate decision?”

“No,” Professor McGonagall said, sounding a little stronger; and Harry realized that he’d accidentally offered a way out. The Professor’s next words confirmed Harry’s fears. “Such a dreadful choice as that, Mr. Potter - I think I should not make it until I must.”

Harry gave an internal sigh. He supposed he had no right to expect Professor McGonagall to say anything else. In a moral dilemma where you lost something either way, making the choice would
feel
bad either way, so you could temporarily save yourself a little mental pain by refusing to decide. At the cost of not being able to plan anything in advance, and at the cost of incurring a huge bias toward inaction or waiting until too late… but you couldn’t expect a witch to know all that. “All right,” Harry said.

Though it wasn’t right at all, not really. Dumbledore might want that debt removed, Professor Quirrell would also want Harry out of that debt. And if the Defense Professor
was
David Monroe, or could convincingly
appear
to be David Monroe, then Lord Voldemort technically hadn’t
exterminated
the House of Monroe. In which case somebody might be able to pass a Wizengamot resolution revoking the Noble status of House Potter, which had been granted for avenging the Most Ancient House of Monroe.

In which case Hermione’s vow of service to a Noble House might be null and void.

Or maybe not. Harry didn’t know anything about the legalities, especially not whether House Potter got the money
back
if someone managed to send Hermione to Azkaban. Just because you lost something might not mean the payment was returned, legally speaking. Harry wasn’t sure and he didn’t dare ask a magical solicitor…

…it would have been nice to be able to trust at least one adult to take Hermione’s side instead of Dumbledore’s, if an issue like that threatened to come up.

The stairs they were upon ceased rotating, and they were before the backs of the great stone gargoyles, which rumbled aside, revealing the hallway.

Harry stepped out -

A hand caught at Harry’s shoulder.

“Mr. Potter,” Professor McGonagall said in a low voice, “why did you to tell me to keep watch over Professor Snape?”

Harry turned around again.

“You told me to keep watch, and see if he’d changed,” Professor McGonagall went on, her tone urgent. “
Why
did you say that, Mr. Potter?”

It took a moment, at this point, for Harry to think back and remember why he
had
said that. Harry and Neville had rescued Lesath Lestrange from bullies, and then Harry had confronted Severus in the hallway and, at least according to the Potions Master’s own words, ‘almost died’ -

“I learned something that made me worry,” Harry said after a moment. “From someone who made me promise not to tell anyone else.” Severus had made Harry swear that their conversations wouldn’t be shared with anyone, and Harry was still bound by it.

“
Mr.
Potter -” began Professor McGonagall, and then exhaled, the flash of sharpness disappearing as quickly as it had come. “Never mind. If you cannot say, you cannot say.”

“Why do
you
ask?” Harry said.

Professor McGonagall seemed to hesitate -

“All right, let me be more specific,” Harry said. After Professor Quirrell had done it to
him
several times, Harry was starting to get the hang of it. “What change have you
already
observed in Professor Snape that you’re trying to decide whether to tell me about?”

“Harry -” the Transfiguration Professor said, and then closed her mouth.

“I obviously know
something
you don’t,” Harry said helpfully. “See, this is why we can’t always put off trying to decide our awful moral dilemmas.”

Professor McGonagall closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed it several times. “All right,” she said. “It’s a subtle thing… but worrying. How can I put this… Mr. Potter, have you read many books that young children are not meant to read?”

“I’ve read
all
of them.”

“Of course you have. Well… I don’t quite understand it myself, but for so long as Severus has been employed in this school, stalking about in that awful stained cloak, there has been a
certain sort of girl
that stares at him with longing eyes -”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing?” Harry said. “I mean, if there’s one thing I
did
understand from those books, it’s that you’re not supposed to question people’s preferences.”

Professor McGonagall gave Harry a
very
strange look.

“I mean,” Harry said again, “from what I’ve read, when I’m a bit older there’s something like a 10% chance that
I’ll
find Professor Snape attractive, and the important thing is for me to just accept whatever I -”

“
In any case, Mr. Potter,
Severus has always been entirely indifferent to the stares of those young girls. But now -” Professor McGonagall seemed to realize something, and hastily said, her hands rising in warding, “Please don’t mistake me, Professor Snape
certainly
has not taken advantage of any young witches! Absolutely not! He has never even so much as smiled at one, not that I ever heard. He has told the young girls to stop gaping at him. And if they stare at him regardless, he looks away. That I have seen with my own eyes.”

“Er…” Harry said. “Sorry, but just because I’ve
read
those books doesn’t mean I understood them. What does all that
mean?
”

“That he is
noticing
,” Professor McGonagall said in a low voice. “It is a subtle thing, but now that I have seen it, I am certain. And
that
means… I am very much afraid… that the bond which held Severus to Albus’s cause… may have weakened, or even broken.”

2 + 2 = …

“Snape and Dumbledore?
” Then Harry heard the words that had just come out of his mouth, and hastily added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that -”

“No!”
said Professor McGonagall. “Oh, for pity’s sake - I can’t explain it to you, Mr. Potter!”

The other shoe finally dropped.

He was
still
in love with my mother?

This seemed somewhere between beautifully sad, and pathetic, for around five seconds before the
third
shoe dropped.

Of course, that was before I gave him my helpful relationship advice.

“I see,” Harry said carefully after a few moments. There were times when saying ‘Oops’ didn’t fully cover it. “You’re right, that’s not a good sign.”

Professor McGonagall put both hands over her face. “Whatever you’re thinking right now,” she said in a slightly muffled voice, “which I assure you is
also
wrong, I don’t want to hear about it, ever.”