Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (173 page)

“Harry,” the man said, kneeling down again, “I need you to start over from the beginning and explain that much more slowly.”

The boy spoke.

The parents listened.

Some time later, the father stood up.

The boy looked up at him, grimacing in bitter anticipation.

“Harry,” the man said, “Petunia and I are going to get you out of here as quickly as possible -”

“Don’t,” the boy said warningly. “I mean it, Dad. The Ministry of Magic isn’t something you can stand up to. Pretend they’re the tax office or the dean or something else that won’t brook any challenge to their dominance. In magical Britain you’re only allowed to remember what the government thinks you should remember, and remembering the existence of magic or that you have a son named Harry is a privilege, not a right. And if they did that I’d crack and turn the Ministry into a giant flaming crater. Mum, you know the score, you absolutely have to stop Dad from trying anything stupid.”

“And son -” The man rubbed at his temples. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this now… but are you sure that what you’re talking about is really a magical dark side, and not something normal for a boy your age?”

“Normal,” the boy said with elaborate patience. “Normal how, exactly? I could check again, but I’m reasonably sure there wasn’t anything about this in
Childcraft: A Guide For Parents.
My dark side isn’t just an emotional state, it
makes me smarter.
In some ways, anyhow. You can’t just
pretend
yourself smarter.”

The man rubbed at his head again. “Well… there’s a certain well-known phenomenon wherein children undergo a biological process which can sometimes make them angry and dark and grim, and this process also significantly increases their intelligence and their height -”

The boy slumped back against the wall. “No, Dad, it’s not that I’m turning into a teenager. I checked with my brain and it still thinks that girls are icky. But if that’s what you want to pretend, then fine. Maybe I’m better off with you not believing me. I just -” The boy’s voice choked. “I just couldn’t stand lying about it.”

“Adolescence doesn’t necessarily work like that, Harry. It may still take a while for you to notice girls. If, in fact, you haven’t noticed one alrea-” and the man abruptly stopped.

“I didn’t like Hermione in that way,” the boy whispered. “Why does everyone keep thinking it has to be about that? It’s disrespectful to her, to think someone could only like her in that way.”

The man swallowed visibly. “Anyway, son, you keep yourself safe while we work on getting you out of here, is that understood? Don’t you go actually thinking that you’ve turned to the dark side. I know you’ve had, ah, what I used to call your Ender Wiggin moments -”

“I think we are now
well
past Ender and on to Ender after the buggers kill Valentine.”

“Language!” said the woman, and then her hand flew to cover her mouth.

The boy spoke wearily. “Not that kind of bugger, Mum. They’re insectoid aliens - never mind.”

“Harry, that’s exactly what I’m saying you shouldn’t think,” Professor Verres-Evans said firmly. “You’re not to go believing that you’re turning evil. You are not to hurt anyone, place yourself in harm’s way, or mess around with any sort of black magic whatsoever, while your Mum and I work on extracting you from this situation. Is that clear, son?”

The boy closed his eyes. “That’d be wonderful advice, Dad, if only I were in a comic book.”

“
Harry -
” the man began.

“Police can’t do that. Soldiers can’t do that. The most powerful wizard in the world couldn’t do that, and he tried. It’s not fair to the innocent bystanders to play at being Batman if you can’t actually protect everyone under that code. And I’ve just proven that I can’t.”

Beads of sweat were glistening on Professor Michael Verres-Evans’s forehead. “Now you listen to me. No matter what you’ve read in books, you aren’t
supposed
to be protecting anyone! Or involving yourself in anything dangerous! Absolutely anything dangerous whatsoever! Just stay out of the way of
everything,
every bit of craziness going on in this madhouse, while we get you out of here the first instant we possibly can!”

The boy looked searchingly at his father, then his mother. Then he looked at his wristwatch again.

“Excellent point,” said the boy.

The boy marched over to the door leading outward, and flung it open.

The door flew open with a crack that caused Minerva to startle where she stood, and before she had time to think, Harry Potter marched out of the room, glaring directly at her.

“You brought my parents
here
,” the Boy-Who-Lived said. “To
Hogwarts.
Where You-Know-Who or
someone
is lurking around, targeting my friends. What exactly were you thinking?”

She did not reply that she had been thinking about Harry sitting in front of the door to the storeroom containing Hermione’s body, refusing to move.

“Who else knows about this?” Harry Potter demanded. “Did anyone see them with you?”

“The Headmaster brought them here -”

“I want them out of here
immediately
before anyone else notices, especially You-Know-Who, but also including Professor Quirrell or Professor Snape. Please send your Patronus to the Headmaster and tell him that he needs to bring it back at once. Do not mention my parents by name, or as people, in case somebody else is listening.”

“Indeed,” said Professor Verres-Evans, nodding sternly along with this from where he stood directly behind the boy, Petunia a step behind him. His hand rested firmly on Harry’s shoulder. “We’ll finish talking to our son at home.”

“A moment, please,” Minerva said in reflexive politeness. Her first try at casting the Patronus failed, a disadvantage of that Charm under certain circumstances. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it so, but she seemed to have lost some of the knack -

Minerva shut the thought down and concentrated.

When the message was sent, she turned back to Professor Verres-Evans. “Sir,” she said, “I’m afraid that Mr. Potter must not leave the Hogwarts School -”

By the time Albus finally arrived, there was shouting, the Muggle man having given up on dignity. At least there was shouting on one side of the argument. Minerva’s heart wasn’t in it. The truth was that she couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.

When the Professor turned to argue with the Headmaster, Harry Potter, who had remained silent through this, spoke up. “Not here,” said Harry. “You can argue with him anywhere but Hogwarts, Dad. Mum, please, please make sure that Dad doesn’t try anything that will get him in trouble with the Ministry.”

Michael Verres-Evans’s face screwed up. He turned, looked at Harry Potter. When his voice came out it was hoarse, accompanied by water in his eyes. “Son - what are you doing?”

“You know perfectly well what I’m doing,” Harry Potter said. “You read those comic books long before you gave them to me. I’ve been through a bunch of crap, matured a bit, and now I’m protecting my relatives. Actually, it’s simpler than that, you know what I’m doing because you tried to do the same thing. I’m having my loved ones taken out of Hogwarts immediately, that’s what I’m doing. Headmaster, please get them out of here before You-Know-Who discovers their presence and marks them for death.”

Michael Verres-Evans began a frantic dash toward Harry, and then all motion stopped with the Muggle man leaning forward in his flight.

“I am sorry,” the Headmaster said quietly. “We shall speak more soon. Minerva, I was with the others when you called, they are waiting in your office.”

The Headmaster passed forwards like he was gliding, until he stood in the midst of where the man and woman stood frozen; and there was another flash of flame.

Motion resumed.

Minerva looked at Harry.

Words did not come to her.

“Clever move, bringing them here,” Harry Potter said. “Probably damaged our relationship permanently. All I wanted was to be bloody left alone until bloody dinnertime. Which,” the boy looked at his wristwatch, “it now is
anyway
. I’m going to go say goodbye to Hermione by myself, which I promise will take less than two minutes, and then after that I’ll come out and go eat something like I would have done regardless. Do
not
disturb me for those two bloody minutes or I will snap and try to kill someone, I mean it, Professor.”

The boy turned and strode into the small room, opened the rear door to where Hermione Granger’s body was being kept, and strode inside before she could think to speak. Through the doorway she saw a flash of a sight she knew no child ought to see -

The door slammed shut.

She started forwards, unthinking.

Halfway to the door, she stopped herself.

Her mind was still slow, and hurting, and the part of her that Harry Potter would have called
the picture of a stern disciplinarian
was lifelessly mouthing words about inappropriate behavior from children. The rest of her didn’t think it was a good idea to leave any child, even Harry Potter, alone in a room with the bloody corpse of his best friend. But the act of opening the door, or asserting any sort of authority, did not seem to her wise. There was no right thing to do, and no right thing to say; or if there was any right path, she did not know it.

Very slowly, a minute and a half passed.

When the door opened again, Harry seemed to have changed, as though that minute and a half had passed over the course of lifetimes.

“Seal up the room,” Harry said quietly, “and let’s go, Professor McGonagall.”

She walked over to the storeroom door. She wasn’t quite able to stop herself from looking in, and saw the dried blood, the sheet covering the lower half, the upper body waxy and doll-like, and a glimpse of Hermione Granger’s closed eyes. Something inside her began its weeping all over again.

She closed the door.

Her fingers moved upon her wand, her mouth spoke words without thought, Charms and wards to seal the room against entry.

“Professor McGonagall,” Harry said in a strange voice, as if by rote, “do you have the rock? The rock that the Headmaster gave me? I should Transfigure it into a jewel again, since it did prove useful.”

Automatically her eyes went to the ring on Harry’s left pinky finger, noting the emptiness of the setting where the jewel should have been. “I shall mention it to the Headmaster,” her tongue replied.

“Is that a usual tactic, by the way?” Harry said, voice still odd. “Carrying something large Transfigured into something small to use as a weapon? Or is that a usual exercise for Transfiguration practice?”

Distantly, she shook her head.

“Well, let’s go, then.”

“I have -” her voice stopped. “I’m afraid I have something else which I must do, now. Will you be all right on your own, and will you promise to go to the Great Hall directly and eat something, Mr. Potter?”

The boy promised (barring exceptional and unforeseen circumstances, a clause with which she did not argue) and then walked out of the room.

What lay ahead of her… would be no easier, certainly, and might well be harder.

Minerva walked to her office at a swift pace; not slowly, for that would have been a discourtesy.

Professor McGonagall opened the door to her office.

“Madam Granger,” her voice said, “Mr. Granger, I am so terribly sorry for -”

There was nothing left to do.

There was nothing left to plan.

There was nothing left to think.

Into that emptiness rose the new worst memory -

The Boy-Who-Lived-Unlike-His-Best-Friend trudged the long, echoing corridors toward the Great Hall. With all his energies of thought exhausted, his mind was starting to throw out thoughts like an image of Hermione walking beside him and wordless concepts like
That will never happen again
until another part yelled
No
and shouted it down with determination to bring her back, only that part’s voice was getting tired and the other part seemed tireless. Another part of his mind insisted on reviewing what he’d said to Professor McGonagall and Dad and Mum, even though he’d only been trying to get them out of there as quickly as possible and had been running on limited mental energy. As though somehow he could have done better, by an act of his defective will. What would be left of his relationship with his parents now, Harry couldn’t guess.

He came finally to a junction where there waited a older boy in green-fringed black robes, silently reading a textbook, on the path that anyone would pick if they wanted to intercept someone going from the healer’s chambers to the Great Hall.

Harry was wearing the Cloak of Invisibility, of course, he’d put it on after leaving the office, rendering himself immune to almost all forms of magical detection. There was no point in making it easy for anyone trying to find him and kill him. And Harry was almost set to continue past without bothering to find out what was going on, when he recognized the Slytherin boy’s face.

Realization dawned on Harry then. Of course, one of the students who had stayed in school over the Easter holiday would naturally have been -

“You were waiting for me,” Harry said out loud, without removing the Cloak.

The Slytherin boy jerked back, hitting his head against the wall, his fifth-year Charms textbook dropping from his hands, before he looked up with wide eyes.

“You’re -”

“Invisible. Yes. Say what you mean to say.”

Lesath Lestrange scrambled to his feet, a position of attention, then blurted out, “My lord, did I do the right thing - I thought you would not wish me to step forward before all those others, that they might suspect our connection - I thought, surely if you wished my help you would call on me -”

It was amazing how many different ways there were to kill your best friend by being stupid.

“I -” Lesath hesitated, then said in a small voice, “I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

“You acted exactly as you should have, under the circumstances. It is I who was a fool.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” whispered Lesath.

“If you
had
come with me, would you have been able to kill the troll?” It wasn’t even the correct question, the correct question was whether Harry himself would have considered Lesath as sufficient and flown out sixty seconds earlier, but still…

“I… I’m not sure, my lord… I am not much welcome to duelling practices in Slytherin, I have not learned the gestures to the Killing Curse - should I study those arts to better serve you, my lord?”

“I continue to insist that I am not your lord,” Harry said.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Although,” Harry said, “and this is not any kind of order, just a remark, anyone ought to know how to defend themselves, especially you. I’m sure the Defense Professor would help you with that on general principles, if you asked.”

Lesath Lestrange bowed and said, “Yes, my lord, I will follow your orders if I can, my lord.”

Harry would have complained about being misunderstood, if he hadn’t been understood perfectly.

Lesath left.

Harry stared at the wall.

He’d honestly thought that he’d already figured out all the different ways that he’d been stupid, after spending half a day thinking about it.

Apparently this had just been more overconfidence on his part.

Do we understand what we did wrong?
his Slytherin side said coldly.

Yes,
Harry thought.

Your ethical qualms don’t even make sense. You’re not tricking Lesath. You did exactly what Lesath thinks you did. You wouldn’t have to make excuses for why Lesath was helping you, you could just say you were calling in the debt from rescuing him from bullies, there were six witnesses to that. Hermione died because you forgot about an extremely valuable resource, and you forgot about Lesath because… why?

Because having Lesath Lestrange for a minion seemed sort of Dark-Lordish?
Hufflepuff said in a small mental voice.
I mean… that decision was probably mostly me…

Harry’s Slytherin side didn’t answer that in words, just radiated contempt and flashed an image of Hermione’s corpse.

Stop it!
Harry screamed internally.

Next time,
Slytherin said icily,
I suggest that we spend more time worrying about what is efficient and effective, and less time worrying about what seems sort of Dark-Lordish.

Point made,
Harry thought,
I will.

No, you won’t,
said Slytherin.
You’ll come up with more rationalisations for your petty qualms. You’ll start listening to me after your
next
friend dies.

Harry was starting to worry that he was going insane. The conversations he had with the voices in his head weren’t usually like this.

The Boy-Who-Lived

pain

Harry Verres trudged on alone

hurts

Harry walked on through the silent corridors.

“How is Mr. Potter doing?” demanded Professor Quirrell. There was a tension about the man, you could not quite call it
concern,
more like an ambusher measuring the time to strike. The Grangers had hardly left with Madam Pomfrey before the Defense Professor had knocked upon the door to her office and then entered without waiting for her answer, and spoken before she could say a word. Part of Minerva wondered distantly whether Harry Potter had picked up that habit from his Defense Professor, being unaware of others’ pain when there was something else on his mind, or if it was only a childish flaw which this man had somehow failed to grow out of.

“Mr. Potter has ceased guarding Miss Granger’s body,” she said, putting some of the chill she felt into her voice. She felt certain that the Defense Professor was not experiencing as much grief as she was, the man had spoken not a single word of Hermione Granger. For
him
to put demands on her - “I believe he has gone down to dinner.”

“I am not asking after the boy’s
physical
state! Have you - has he -” Professor Quirrell made a sharp gesture, as though to indicate a concept for which he had no words.

“Not particularly,” she said. She was around thirty seconds away from ordering the Defense Professor out of her office.

Professor Quirrell began to pace within the small confines of her office. “Miss Granger was the only one whose worries he truly heeded - with her gone - all checks on the boy’s recklessness are removed. I see it now. Who else is there? Mr. Longbottom? Mr. Potter does not pretend that they are peers. Flitwick? His goblin blood would only cry for vengeance. Mr. Malfoy, if he were returned? To what end? Snape? A walking disaster. Dumbledore? Pfah. Events are already set for catastrophe, they must be steered along some course they would not naturally go. Who might Mr. Potter heed, who would not ordinarily speak to him? Cedric Diggory has taught him, but what would Mr. Diggory say in advice? An unknown. Mr. Potter spent long in speech with Remus Lupin. To him I have paid little heed. Would Lupin know the words to speak, the act which must be done, the sacrifice which must be made to change the boy’s course?” Professor Quirrell whirled on her. “Did Remus Lupin comfort those in grief or stay those moved to rash deeds, during his time with the Order of the Phoenix?”

“It is not a poor thought,” she said slowly. “I believe that Mr. Lupin was often a voice of restraint to James Potter in his Hogwarts days.”

“James Potter,” said Professor Quirrell, his eyes narrowing. “The boy is not much like James Potter. Are you confident in the success of this plan? No, that is the wrong question, we are not limited to a single plan. Are you certain that this plan will be
enough,
that we need essay no others? Asked in such fashion, the question answers itself. The path leading to disaster must be averted along every possible point of intervention.” The Defense Professor had resumed pacing the confines of her office, reaching one wall, turning on his heel, pacing to the other.

“My apologies, Professor,” she did not bother keeping the sharpness from her voice, “but I have quite reached my limits for the day. You may go.”

“
You
.” Professor Quirrell spun, and she found herself gazing directly into eyes of icy blue. “
You
would be the first one I would think of after Miss Granger, to stay the boy from a folly. Have you already done your utmost? Of course you have not.”

How
dare
he suggest that. “If you have nothing more to say, Professor, then you
will
go.”

“Has your confederacy deduced who I really am?” The words were spoken with deceptive mildness.

“Yes, in fact. Now -”

Pure magic, pure power crashed into the room like a flash of lightning, like a thunderclap echoing about her ears that deafened her other senses, the papers on her desk blown aside not by any conjured wind but by the sheer raw force of arcane might.

Then the power subsided, leaving only Hermione Granger’s death certificates drifting down through the air to the floor.

“I am David Monroe, who fought Voldemort,” the man said, still in mild tones. “Heed my words. The boy cannot be allowed to continue in this state of mind. He will become
dangerous
. It is possible that you have already done everything you can. Yet I find this a very rare event indeed, and more often said than done. I suspect rather that you have only done what you customarily do. I cannot truly comprehend what drives others to break their bounds, since I never had them. People remain surprisingly passive when faced with the prospect of death. Fear of public ridicule or losing one’s livelihood is more likely to drive men to extremes and the breaking of their customary habits. On the other side of the war, the Dark Lord had excellent results from the Cruciatus Curse, judiciously used on Marked servants who cannot escape punishment except by success, with no reasonable efforts accepted. Imagine their state of mind within yourself, and ask yourself whether you have truly done
all that you can
to wrench Harry Potter from his course.”

“I am a Gryffindor and not much given to being moved by fear,” she snapped back. “
You
will exercise courtesy within my office!”

“I find fear an excellent motivation, and indeed it is fear that moves me now. You-Know-Who, for all his horror, still abided by certain boundaries. It is my professional judgment, speaking as a learned wizard almost on par with Dumbledore or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, that the boy could join the ranks of those whose rituals are inscribed upon the tombstones of countries. This is not an idle worry, McGonagall, I have already heard words to produce the gravest apprehensions.”

“Are you mad? You think that Mr. Potter could - this is ridiculous. Mr. Potter cannot possibly -”

A wordless image crossed her mind of a patch of glass on a steel ball.

“- Mr. Potter
would
not do such a thing!”

“His deliberate choice is not required. Wizards rarely set out to invoke their own dooms. Mr. Potter may not strike you as malicious. Does he strike you as reckless once he is resolved upon a goal? I say again that I have specific reason for the gravest
possible
concerns!”

“Have you spoken to the Headmaster of this?” she said slowly.

“That would be worse than pointless. Dumbledore cannot reach the boy. At best he is wise enough to know this and make things no worse. I lack the requisite frame of mind.
You
are the one who - but I see that you still look for others to save you.” The Defense Professor turned from her, and strode to the door. “I think I shall consult with Severus Snape. The man may be a walking disaster, but he knows the fact, and he may possess a greater understanding of that boy’s mood. As for you, madam, imagine yourself at the end of your life, knowing that Britain - but no, Britain is not your true country, is it? Imagine yourself at the end of your life as the darkness eats through the fading walls of Hogwarts, knowing that your students will die with you, remembering this day and realizing there was something else you could have done.”