Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (167 page)

Harry winced, and said, “Probably not
quite
what you’re thinking, but…”

The horror scaled and scaled within her, and finally broke loose.

“
You were doing SCIENCE with him?
”

“Well -”

“
You were doing SCIENCE with him? You were supposed to be doing science with ME!
”

“It wasn’t like that! It’s not like I was doing
real
science with him! I was just, you know,
teaching
him some harmless bits of Muggle science, like elementary physics with algebra and so on - it’s not like I was doing original magical research with him, the way I was with you -”

“And I suppose you didn’t tell
him
about
me,
either?”

“Um, of course not?” Harry said. “I’ve been doing science with him since October, and he wasn’t exactly ready to hear about you then -”

The inexpressible sense of betrayal inside her was welling and welling, taking over everything, her rising voice, her glaring eyes, her nose that she was certain was starting to run, the burning in her throat. She shoved herself up from the table and took a step back, the better to look down on her betrayer, and her voice was very nearly screeching as she yelled, “
That is not okay! You can’t do science with two people at once!
”

“Er -”

“I mean, you can’t do science with two different people and
not tell them about each other!
”

“Ah…” Harry said cautiously. “I
did
think of that, and I was very careful not to get your research mixed together with anything I did with him -”

“You were being
careful.”
She would have
hissed
it, if it had contained any Ss.

Harry raised a hand and rubbed at his messy hair, and somehow that made her want to scream at him even
more.
“Miss Granger,” said Harry, “I think this conversation has become
metaphorical
on a level that’s, um…”

“What?
” she screeched at him, at the top of her lungs inside their Quieting barrier.

Then she realized and got so red that if she’d had an adult level of magical power her hair would have spontaneously caught on fire.

The lone other patron in the library, the Ravenclaw boy sitting in the far opposite corner, was staring wide-eyed at both of them while making a rather sad attempt to conceal it by holding up a book just below his face.

“Right,” Harry said with a small sigh. “So, keeping
firmly in mind
that it was just a bad metaphor, and that
real scientists
collaborate with each other
all the time,
I don’t think that I was cheating. Scientists often keep quiet about projects they’re working on. You and I are doing research that we’re keeping secret, and there were reasons not to tell Draco Malfoy in particular - he wouldn’t have stayed around me at all, in the beginning, if he’d known I was your friend and not your rival. And Draco would’ve been the one at risk if I’d told anyone else about
him
-”

“Is that really all?” she said. “
Really,
Harry? You didn’t want both of us to
feel special,
like we were the
only
ones you wanted to be with and the
only
ones who got to be with you?”

“That was
not
why I -”

Harry paused.

Harry looked at her.

All the blood was rushing back into her face, there probably should’ve been steam coming out of her ears, which in turn should’ve been melting off her head with the liquid flesh running down into her neck, as she realized what she’d just blurted out.

Harry was staring at her in dawning and complete terror.

“Well…” she said in a rather high-pitched voice, “it’s… oh, I don’t know, Harry!
Is
it just a metaphor? When a boy spends a hundred thousand Galleons to save a girl from certain doom, she’s entitled to wonder, don’t you think? It’s like being bought flowers, only, you see, rather
more
so -”

Harry shoved himself up from the table and took a staggering step back, even as he brought up his arms to wave frantically.
“That’s not why I did it! I did it because we’re friends!
”

“Just friends?”

Harry Potter’s breathing was starting to scale up toward hyperventilation. “Very good friends! Extra-special friends, even! Best friends forever, possibly! But not
that
kind of friends!”

“Is it really that awful to think about?” she said with a catch in her voice. “I mean - I’m not saying
I’m
in love with
you,
but -”

“Oh, you’re not? Thank
goodness.
” Harry brought up the sleeve of his robe and wiped across his forehead. “Look, Hermione, please don’t misunderstand, I’m sure you’re a wonderful person -”

She took a staggering step back.

“- but - even with my dark side -”

“Is
that
what this is about?” said Hermione. “But I - I wouldn’t -”

“No, no, I mean, I have a mysterious dark side and probably other weird magic stuff going on, you
know
I’m not a normal child, not really -”

“It’s okay to not be normal,” she said, feeling increasingly desperate and confused.
“I’m
okay with it -”

“But
even with all that weird magical stuff
letting me be more adult than I should be, I haven’t gone through puberty yet and there’s no hormones in my bloodstream and my brain is
physically incapable
of falling in love with anyone. So I’m not in love with you! I couldn’t possibly be in love with you! For all I know at this point, six months from now my brain is going to wake up and decide to fall in love with Professor Snape! Er, can I take it from this that you
have
been through puberty?”

“Eep,” said Hermione in a high-pitched sound. She swayed where she stood, and a moment later Harry was rushing over to her side and helping lower her to sit on the ground, bracing her body with firm hands.

The fact was that she
had
staggered over to Professor McGonagall’s office back in December, not in total surprise because she’d done her reading, but still rather
queasily
and it was with great relief that she’d learned that witches had Charms to deal with the inconveniences and
what was Harry even doing asking a poor innocent girl a question like that -

“Look, I’m
sorry
,” Harry said frantically. “I really didn’t mean most of that the way it sounded! I’m sure that anyone taking the outside view of the whole situation and offering betting odds on who I finally married would assign a higher probability to you than anyone else I can think of -”

Her intelligence, which had barely been starting to pull itself together, promptly exploded into sparks and flame.

“- though not necessarily a probability higher than fifty percent, I mean, from the outside view there’s a lot of other possibilities, and who I like before I hit puberty probably isn’t all that strongly
diagnostic
of who I’ll be with seven years later - I don’t want to sound like I’m
promising
anything -”

Her throat was making some sort of high-pitched sounds and she wasn’t really listening to exactly what. All her universe had narrowed to Harry’s terrible, terrible voice.

“- and besides I’ve been reading about evolutionary psychology, and, well, there are all these suggestions that one man and one woman living together happily ever afterward may be more the exception rather than the rule, and in hunter-gatherer tribes it was more often just staying together for two or three years to raise a child during its most vulnerable stages - and, I mean, considering how many people end up horribly unhappy in traditional marriages, it seems like it might be the sort of thing that needs some clever reworking - especially if we actually do solve immortality -”

Tano Wolfe, of fifth-year Ravenclaw, slowly stood up from his library desk, from which vantage point he’d just watched Granger flee the library, sobbing. He hadn’t been able to hear the argument, but it had clearly been one of
those.

Slowly and with his knees trembling, Tano approached the Boy-Who-Lived, who was staring in the direction of the library doors, still vibrating from the force of how they’d been slammed.

Tano didn’t particularly want to do this, but Harry Potter
had
been Sorted into Ravenclaw. The Boy-Who-Lived was, technically, his fellow Ravenclaw. And that meant there was a Code.

The Boy-Who-Lived didn’t say anything as Tano approached him, but his gaze wasn’t friendly.

Tano swallowed, laid a hand on Harry Potter’s shoulder, and recited, his voice cracking only slightly, “Witches! Go figure, huh?”

“
Remove your hand before I cast it into the outer darkness.
”

The library doors slammed open again in the wake of another departure.

April 16th, 1992.

12:07pm.

Lunchtime.

Harry stomped over to the mostly-deserted Gryffindor table, determining at a glance that lunch today was breen and Roopo balls. The ambient conversation, Harry could likewise hear, was Quidditch-related; an auditory environment which rated somewhat worse than the sound of rusty chainsaws, but better than what the Ravenclaw table was still
blithering
about Hermione. Gryffindor House, at least, had started out less sympathetic to Draco Malfoy and had more political incentive to wish that everyone would just forget certain unfortunate facts; and if that wasn’t the right reason for silence, it was at least silence. Dean and Seamus and Lavender were all gone for the holidays, but at least that left…

“What was all that ruckus at the Head Table?” Harry said to the Weasley-twin group-mind, as he began to serve himself his own plate. “It looked like it was just ending as I walked in.”

“Our beloved, but clumsy Professor Trelawney -”

“Seems to have gone and dropped an entire soup tureen on herself -”

“Not to mention Mr. Hagrid.”

A quick glance at the Head Table confirmed that the Divination Professor was waving her wand frantically as the half-Giant dabbed at his clothes. Nobody else seemed to be paying much attention, even Professor McGonagall. Professor Flitwick was standing on his chair as usual, the Headmaster seemed to be absent again (he’d been gone most days of the holiday), Professors Sprout and Sinistra and Vector were eating in their usual grouping, and -

“You know,” Harry said, as he turned his head away to stare at the ceiling illusion of a clear blue sky, “that still creeps me out sometimes.”

“What does?” said Fred or George.

The powerful and enigmatic Defense Professor was ‘resting’ or whatever-the-heck-was-wrong-with-him, his hands making fumbling, hesitant grabs at a chicken-leg that seemed to be eluding him on the plate.

“Eh, nothing,” said Harry. “I’m not quite used to Hogwarts, yet.”

Harry continued to eat in moderate silence, as various Weasleys discussed some bizarre mind-affecting substance called Chudley Cannons.

“What sort of deep mysterious thoughts are you thinking?” said a young-looking witch with short hair, sitting nearby. “I mean, just curious. I’m Brienne, by the way.” She was gazing at him with one of those looks which Harry had firmly decided to just ignore until he was older.

“So,” Harry said, “you know those really simple Artificial Intelligence programs like ELIZA that are programmed to use words in syntactic English sentences only they don’t contain any understanding of what the words mean?”

“Of course,” the witch said. “I have a dozen of them in my trunk.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure my understanding of girls is somewhere around that level.”

A sudden hush fell.

It took a few seconds for Harry to realize that, no, the entire Great Hall wasn’t staring at
him,
and then Harry twisted his head around to look.

The figure who’d just staggered into the Great Hall appeared to be Mr. Filch, Hogwarts’s token hallway monitor; who, along with his predatory cat Mrs. Norris, constituted a low-level random encounter whom Harry often breezed past wearing his epic-level Deathly Hallow. (Harry had once consulted the Weasley twins about pulling some sort of prank on this deserving target, whereupon Fred or George had quietly pointed out that Mr. Filch was never seen to use a wand, which was odd, really, considering how many spells would be useful in that position, and it made you wonder why Dumbledore had given the man a position at Hogwarts, and Harry had shut up.)

Right now Mr. Filch’s brown clothing was disarrayed and soaked with sweat, his shoulders were visibly heaving as he breathed, and his everpresent cat was missing.

“Troll -” gasped Mr. Filch. “In the dungeons -”

Minerva McGonagall stood up from the Head Table so quickly that her chair fell to the ground behind her.

“
Argus!
” she cried. “What happened to you?”

Argus Filch staggered forward from the huge doors, his upper body streaked and dotted with small crimson dots as though someone had spattered steak sauce over his face. “Troll - grey - twice as tall as me - it - it -” Argus Filch covered his face with his hands. “It ate Mrs. Norris - ate her all up, in just one bite -”

Minerva felt a stab of dismay in her other self, she hadn’t liked the other cat very much but the two of them had still been felines.

An uproar started from the Great Hall. Severus stood up from the Head Table, somehow doing so without drawing any visible attention to himself, and strode out the huge doors without another word.

Of course,
Minerva thought,
the third-floor corridor - this could be a distraction -

She mentally consigned all such matters to Severus’s care, drew her wand, raised it high, and let out five sharp cracks of purple fire.

There was stunned silence but for Argus’s broken sobs.

“It seems we have a dangerous creature loose in Hogwarts,” she said to the faculty at the Head Table. “I will ask you all to aid in searching the halls.” Then she turned to the stunned and watching students, and raised her voice.
“Prefects - lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!”

Percy Weasley leaped up from the Gryffindor table. “Follow me!” he said in a high voice. “Stick together, first-years! No, not
you
-” but by that time the other prefects were raising their own voices as a renewed babble sprang up.

Then a clear, cool voice spoke under the sudden rush of sound.

“Deputy Headmistress.”

She turned.

The Defense Professor was calmly wiping off his hands on a napkin as he stood up from the Head Table. “With respect,” said the man of unknown identity, “you are not expert in battle tactics, madam. In this situation, it would be wiser to -”

“I do apologize, Professor,” said Professor McGonagall, as she turned toward the great doors. Filius and Pomona had already risen to follow her, with Rubeus Hagrid towering over all of them as the half-giant stood up. She’d been through similar experiences too many times, at this point. “Sad experience has taught me that on occasions such as these, it is not a good time to take any advice the current Defense Professor may offer. Indeed, I think it wise that the two of us search for the troll together, so that no suspicions may be cast upon you for any untoward events which occur during that time.”

Without any hesitation, the Defense Professor swung smoothly on the Gryffindor table and clapped his hands with a sound like a floor cracking through.

“Michelle Morgan of House Gryffindor, second in command of Pinnini’s Army,” the Defense Professor said calmly into the resulting quiet. “Please advise your Head of House.”

Michelle Morgan climbed up onto her bench and spoke, the tiny witch sounding far more confident than Minerva remembered her being at the start of the year. “Students walking through the hallways would be spread out and impossible to defend. All students are to remain in the Great Hall and form a cluster in the center…
not
surrounded by tables, a troll would jump right over tables… with the perimeter defended by seventh-year students. From the armies only, no matter how good they are at
duelling,
so they don’t get in each other’s lines of fire.” Michelle hesitated. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hagrid, but - it wouldn’t be safe for you, you should stay behind with the students. And Professor Trelawney shouldn’t confront a troll on her own either,” Michelle sounded much less apologetic about this part, “but if she’s paired with Professor Quirrell the two of them together can form an additional trusted and effective battle unit. That concludes my analysis, Professor.”

“Adequate, for being put on the spot,” the Defense Professor said. “Twenty Quirrell points to you. But you neglect the still simpler point that
home
does not mean
safe,
and a troll is strong enough to rip a portrait door off its hinges -”

“Enough,” Minerva snapped. “Thank you, Miss Morgan.” She looked to the watching tables. “Students, you will do as she said.” Turned back to the Head Table. “Professor Trelawney, you will accompany the Defense Professor -”

“Ah,” Sybill said falteringly. Beneath her overdone makeup and mess of shawls, the woman looked rather pale. “I’m afraid - I’m not entirely well today - indeed, I feel rather faint -”

“You won’t have to fight the troll,” Minerva said sharply, her patience taxed as usual when dealing with the woman. “Just stay with the Defense Professor and do not let him out of your sight for an instant, you must be able to testify afterward that you were with him at all times
.
” She turned to Rubeus. “Rubeus, I am leaving you in charge here. Keep them safe.” The huge man straightened at this, losing his glum look and nodding proudly to her.

Then Minerva looked at the students, and raised her voice. “It should go entirely without saying that anyone leaving the Great Hall
for any reason,
will be expelled. No excuses will be accepted. Am I understood?”

The Weasley twins, with whom she’d been making direct eye contact, nodded respectfully.

She turned without another word and marched off toward the hall doors with the other Professors behind her.

On the far side of the room, unnoticed on the wall, a clock showed 12:14pm.

…and he still didn’t realize.

Tick.

As Harry stared with narrowed eyes at where the Professors had gone out, wondering what was actually going on and what it meant, as the students came together into a more defensible mass and wands flicked to levitate the tables out of their way, Harry still didn’t realize.

Tick.

“Shouldn’t the Professors
all
have formed up into pairs?” said an older Gryffindor student whose name Harry didn’t know. “I mean - it’d be slower, but it’d be safer, I think -”

Tick.

Someone else replied to this, raising her voice, but Harry didn’t catch much of it, the gist was that mountain trolls were highly magic-resistant and incredibly strong and could regenerate but they were still
noisy
so if you heard them coming, it shouldn’t be that hard for a Hogwarts Professor to wrap them up in Vadim’s Unbreakable something something.

Tick.

And Harry still didn’t realize.

Tick.

The crowd noises were subdued, people were talking in low voices to each other while they glanced around, listening for the sound of a crashing door or an angry roar.

Tick.

Some students were speculating in whispers about what the Defense Professor could possibly be trying to achieve by smuggling in a troll, and whether he was angry that Professor McGonagall had caught on to his attempted distraction, and what it was a distraction
from.

Tick.

And the thought still didn’t come to Harry, not until after all the students had formed a mass of perhaps a hundred bodies patrolled by proudly grim-looking seventh-year-students with their wands all pointed outward, and somebody suggested doing a headcount, and someone else replied sarcastically that this might have made sense on some other day, but right now practically everyone was gone for the spring holiday and nobody really knew how many students were supposed to be in the room, let alone if any were missing.

Tick.

That was when Harry wondered where Hermione was.

Tick.

Harry looked over at where the Ravenclaws had clustered, he didn’t see Hermione but then everyone was packed tightly-enough together that you wouldn’t expect to see smaller students through the crowd, amid the upper-years.

Tick.

Harry then looked over at the Hufflepuffs to see if he could spot Neville, and even though Neville was standing behind a much taller student, Harry’s visual processing managed to spot him almost immediately. Hermione wasn’t with the Hufflepuffs either, not that Harry could see - and she certainly wouldn’t be with the Slytherins -

Tick.

Harry pushed his way through the packed crowd, stepping beside or around older students and in one case just ducking between their legs, until he was standing among the Ravenclaws and could definitely verify that, nope, no Hermione.

Tick.

“Hermione Granger!” Harry said loudly. “Are you here?”

Nobody answered.

Tick.

Somewhere in the back of his mind was a rising sense of horror, as other parts of him tried to decide exactly how much to panic. The first Defense class of the year was rather fuzzy in Harry’s mind, but he distantly remembered something about trolls being able to track prey that was alone and undefended.

Tick.

Another track of thought searched frantically through inchoate possibilities, what could he
do
exactly? It wasn’t 3pm yet so he couldn’t reach this
now
using his Time-Turner. Even if he could sneak out of the room - there had to be some way to put on his Cloak without being noticed, some sort of distraction he could use - he had no idea
where
Hermione was, and Hogwarts was huge.

Tick.

Another part of his mind tried to model possibilities. From what that other student had said, trolls weren’t
silent
predators, they were noisy -

Hermione won’t have any idea it’s a troll, so she’ll go investigate the noise. She’s a heroine, isn’t she?

- but Hermione now had an invisibility cloak and a broomstick in her pouch. Harry had insisted on that part for both her and Neville, and Professor McGonagall had told him it’d been done. That ought to be enough to let Hermione get away, even if she was lousy on a broomstick. All she had to do was get onto a section of roof, it was a clear day and sunlight was supposed to be bad for trolls somehow, Harry remembered that part and therefore Hermione would remember it exactly. And surely, even if Hermione wanted to prove herself again, she couldn’t possibly be dumb enough to attack a mountain troll.

Tick.

She wouldn’t.

Tick.