Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (194 page)

This had not in fact been a question that had come into Harry’s mind.

Professor Quirrell continued to speak. “The answer is that Perenelle had foreseen and forestalled the ambitions of Dark Wizards like myself. ‘Nicholas Flamel’ publicly took Unbreakable Vows not to be coerced by any means into relinquishing his Stone - to guard immortality from the covetous, he claimed, as if that were a public service. I was afraid the Stone would be lost forever, if Perenelle died without saying where it was hidden, and her Vow prevented attempts at torture. Further, I had hopes of gaining Perenelle’s knowledge, if I could find the right strategy to extract it from her. Though Perenelle began with little lore of her own, she has held hostage the lives of wizards greater than herself, holding out dribs and drabs of healing in exchange for secrets, and small reversals of age in exchange for power. Perenelle does not condescend to bestow any real youth upon others - but if you hear of a wizard who lived, greybearded, to the age of two hundred and fifty, you may be sure that her hand was in play. By my own generation, the centuries had given Perenelle enough of an advantage that she could raise up Albus Dumbledore as a counterweight to the Dark Lord Grindelwald. When I appeared as Lord Voldemort, Perenelle raised up Dumbledore yet further, parceling out another drop of her hoarded lore whenever Lord Voldemort seemed to gain an advantage. I felt like I ought to be able to figure out something clever to do with that situation, but I never did. I did not attack her directly, for I was not sure of my great creation; it was not impossible that I would someday need to go begging to her for a dollop of reversed age.” Professor Quirrell dropped two bellflowers at once into the potion, and they seemed to merge as they touched the bubbling liquid. “But now I am sure of my creation, and so I have decided that the time has come to take the Stone by force.”

Harry hesitated. “I would like to hear you answer in Parseltongue, was all of that true?”

“
None of it iss known to me to be falsse,
” said Professor Quirrell. “Telling a tale implies filling in certain gaps; I was not present to observe when Perenelle seduced Baba Yaga.
The bassicss sshould be mosstly correct, I think.
”

Harry had noticed a trace of confusion
.
“Then I don’t understand why the Stone is here in Hogwarts. Wouldn’t the best defense just be hiding it under an anonymous rock in Greenland?”

“Perhaps she respected my abilities as a particularly good finder,” said the Defense Professor. He appeared focused on his cauldron as he dipped a bellflower into a jar of liquid labeled with the Potions symbol for rainwater.

We are very much alike, the Defense Professor and I, in some ways if not others. If I imagine what I’d do, given his problem…

“Did you bluff everyone into
believing
you had some way of finding the Stone?” Harry said aloud. “So that Perenelle would put it inside Hogwarts, where Dumbledore could guard it?”

The Defense Professor sighed, not looking up from the cauldron. “I suppose that strategem would be futile to conceal from you. Yes, after I possessed Quirrell and returned, I implemented a strategy I had conceived while gazing at the stars. First I made sure to be accepted as Defense Professor at Hogwarts, for it would not do to have suspicions raised while I was still seeking employment. When that was done, I arranged for one of Perenelle’s curse-breaking expeditions to discover a falsified but credible inscription describing how the Crown of the Serpent could be used to seek out the Stone wherever it was hidden. Immediately after, before Perenelle could buy up the Crown, it was stolen; furthermore I left clear indications that the thief had possessed the power to speak to snakes. So Perenelle thought that I could infallibly find the Stone’s location, and that it needed a guardian powerful enough to defeat me. That is how the Stone came to be held in Hogwarts, in Dumbledore’s domain. Just as I intended, naturally, since I had already gained access to Hogwarts for the year. I think that is all of this that concerns you, if I speak not of future plans.”

Harry frowned. Professor Quirrell should not have told him that. Unless the strategy had somehow become irrelevant to any future deception of Perenelle…? Or unless, by answering so quickly, the Defense Professor had hoped to have people conclude that it was a double-bluff, and that the Crown of the Serpent really could find the Stone…

Harry decided not to question this answer in Parseltongue.

Another lock of bright hair, seeming white but not with age, was gently dribbled into the cauldron, again reminding Harry that they were on a time limit. Harry considered, but he couldn’t see any further path to pursue this line of questioning; there was no known way to manufacture more Philosopher’s Stones and no obvious way to invent such, which was probably the
objectively
worst news Harry had heard all day.

Harry took a deep breath. “I ask my third question,” Harry said. “What’s the truth behind this entire school year? All the plots you ran, all the plots you know about.”

“Hm,” said Professor Quirrell, dropping another bellflower into the potion, accompanied by a plant-shape like a tiny cross. “Let me see… the most shocking twist is that the Defense Professor turns out to be secretly Voldemort.”

“Well, obviously,” Harry said, with a good deal of self-directed bitterness.

“Then where do you wish me to start?”

“Why did you kill Hermione?” The question just slipped out.

Professor Quirrell’s pale eyes glanced up from the potion, watched him intently. “One would think that should be evident - but I suppose I cannot blame you for distrusting what seems evident. To understand the object of an obscure plot, observe its consequences and ask who might have intended them. I killed Miss Granger to improve your position relative to that of Lucius Malfoy, since my plans did not call for him to have so much leverage over you. I admit I am impressed by how far you managed to parlay that opening.”

Harry unclenched his teeth, which took an effort. “That’s after your failed attempt to
frame
Hermione for the attempted murder of Draco and
send her to Azkaban
because of
why?
Because you didn’t like the influence she was having on me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Professor Quirrell said. “If I had only wished to remove Miss Granger, I would not have brought the Malfoys into it. I observed your game with Draco Malfoy and found it amusing, but I knew it could not continue for very long before Lucius learned and intervened; and then your folly would have brought you great trouble, for Lucius would not take it lightly. Had you just been able to
lose
during the Wizengamot trial,
lose
as I had taught you, then in only two more weeks, ironclad evidence would have shown that Lucius Malfoy, after discovering his son’s seeming perfidy, had Imperiused Professor Sprout into using the Blood-Cooling Charm on Mr. Malfoy and casting the False Memory Charm on Miss Granger. Lucius would have been swept off the political gameboard, sent to exile if not Azkaban; Draco Malfoy would have inherited the wealth of House Malfoy, and your influence over him would have been unchallenged. Instead I had to abort that plot in mid-course. You managed to completely disrupt the real plan in the course of sacrificing double your entire fortune, by giving Lucius Malfoy the perfect opportunity to prove his true concern for his son. You have an incredible anti-talent for meddling, I must say.”

“And you also thought,” Harry said, even with his dark side’s patterns he had to work to keep his voice level and cool, “that two weeks in Azkaban would improve Miss Granger’s disposition, and get her to stop being a bad influence on me. So you somehow arranged for there to be newspaper stories calling for her to be sent to Azkaban, rather than some other penalty.”

Professor Quirrell’s lips drew up in a thin smile. “Good catch, boy. Yes, I thought she might serve as your Bellatrix. That particular outcome would also have provided you with a constant reminder of how much respect was due the law, and helped you develop appropriate attitudes toward the Ministry.”

“Your plot was stupidly complicated and had no chance of working.” Harry knew he ought to be more tactful, that he was engaging in more of what Professor Quirrell called
folly,
but in that instant he could not bring himself to care.

“It was less complicated than Dumbledore’s plot to have the three armies tie in the Christmas Battle, and not much more complicated than my own plot to make you think Dumbledore had blackmailed Mr. Zabini. The insight you are missing, Mr. Potter, is that these were not plots that
needed
to succeed.” Professor Quirrell continued to casually stir the potion, smiling. “There are plots that
must
succeed, where you keep the core idea as simple as possible and take every precaution. There are also plots where it is acceptable to fail, and with those you can indulge yourself, or test the limits of your ability to handle complications. It was not as if something going wrong with any of those plots would have killed me.” Professor Quirrell was no longer smiling. “Our journey into Azkaban was of the first type, and I was less amused by your antics there.”

“What
exactly
did you do to Hermione?” Some part of Harry wondered at the evenness of his voice.

“Obliviations and False Memory Charms. I could not trust anything else to go undetected by the Hogwarts wards and the scrutiny I knew her mind would undergo.” A flicker of frustration crossed Professor Quirrell’s face. “Part of what you rightly call complication is because the first version of my plot did not go as planned, and I had to modify it. I came to Miss Granger in the hallways wearing the appearance of Professor Sprout, to offer her a conspiracy. My first attempt at suasion failed. I Obliviated her and tried again with a new presentation. The second bait failed. The third bait failed. The
tenth
bait failed. I was so frustrated that I began going through my entire library of guises, including those more appropriate to Mr. Zabini.
Still
nothing worked. The child
would not
violate her childish code.”

“
You
do not get to call her childish, Professor.” Harry’s voice sounded strange in his own ears. “Her code
worked.
It prevented you from tricking her. The whole point of having deontological ethical injunctions is that arguments for violating them are often much less trustworthy than they look. You don’t get to criticize her rules when they worked exactly as intended.” After they resurrected Hermione, Harry would tell her that Lord Voldemort himself hadn’t been able to tempt her into doing wrong, and that was why he’d killed her.

“Fair enough, I suppose,” said Professor Quirrell. “There is a saying that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and I do not think Miss Granger was actually being reasonable. Still, Rule Ten: one must not rant about the opposition’s unworthiness after they have foiled you. Regardless. After two full hours of failed attempts, I realized that I was being over-stubborn, and that I did not need Miss Granger to carry out the exact part I had planned for her. I gave up on my original intent, and instead imbued Miss Granger with False Memories of watching Mr. Malfoy plotting against her under circumstances that implied she should not tell you or the authorities. In the end it was Mr. Malfoy who gave me the opening I needed, entirely by luck.” Professor Quirrell dropped a bellflower and a scrap of parchment into the cauldron.

“Why did the wards show the Defense Professor as having killed Hermione?”

“I wore the mountain troll as a false tooth while Dumbledore was identifying me to the Hogwarts wards as the Defense Professor.” A slight smile. “Other living weapons cannot be Transfigured; they will not survive the disenchantment for the requisite six hours to avoid being traced by Time-Turner. The fact that a mountain troll was used as a weapon of assassination was a clear sign that the assassin had needed a proxy weapon that could be Transfigured safely. Combined with the evidence of the wards, and Dumbledore’s own knowledge of how he had identified me to Hogwarts, you could have deduced who was responsible - in theory. However, experience has taught me that such puzzles are far harder to solve when you do not already know the solution, and I considered it a small risk. Ah, that reminds me, I have a question of my own.” The Defense Professor was now giving Harry an intent look. “What gave me away at the last, in the corridor outside these chambers?”

Harry put aside other emotions to weigh up the cost and benefit of answering honestly, came to the conclusion that the Defense Professor was giving away far more information than he was getting (
why?
) and that it was best not to give the appearance of reticence. “The main thing,” Harry said, “was that it was too improbable that everyone had arrived in Dumbledore’s corridor at the same time. I tried running with the hypothesis that everyone who arrived had to be coordinated, including you.”

“But I had said that I was following Snape,” the Defense Professor said. “Was that not plausible?”

“It was, but…” Harry said. “Um. The laws governing what constitutes a good explanation don’t talk about plausible excuses you hear afterward. They talk about the probabilities we assign in advance. That’s why science makes people do advance predictions, instead of trusting explanations people come up with afterward. And I wouldn’t have predicted in advance for you to follow Snape and show up like that. Even if I’d known in advance that you could put a trace on Snape’s wand, I wouldn’t have
expected
you to do it and follow him just then. Since your explanation didn’t make me feel like I would have predicted the outcome in advance, it remained an improbability. I started to wonder if Sprout’s mastermind might have arranged for you to show up, too. And then I realised the note to myself hadn’t really come from future-me, and that gave it away completely.”

“Ah,” said the Defense Professor, and sighed. “Well, I think it is all working out for the best. You did understand only too late; and there would have been inconveniences as well as benefits to you remaining unaware.”