Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (197 page)

And that was when Harry knew what was going to happen at the end of this, after the Philosopher’s Stone had been retrieved.

At the end of this, Professor Quirrell was going to kill him.

Professor Quirrell didn’t want to kill him. It was possible that Harry was the only person in the world against whom Professor Quirrell
wouldn’t
be able to use a Killing Curse. But Professor Quirrell thought he had to do it, for whatever reason.

That was why Professor Quirrell had decided that it was necessary to brew the
potion of effulgence
the long way. That was why Professor Quirrell had been so easily negotiated into answering these questions, into finally talking about his life with someone who might understand. Just like Lord Voldemort had delayed the end of the Wizarding War to play longer against Dumbledore.

Harry couldn’t exactly recall what Professor Quirrell had said earlier about not killing Harry. It hadn’t been anything straightforward along the lines of ‘I am absolutely not planning to kill you in any way, shape, or form unless you positively insist on doing something stupid’. Harry had been reluctant himself to push the promise too far and insist on unambiguous terms because Harry had already known that he would need to neutralize Lord Voldemort and had expected more precise language to reveal that fact, if they tried to exchange truly binding promises. So there certainly would have been loopholes, whatever had been said.

There was no particular shock to the realization, just an increased sense of urgency; some part of Harry had already known this, and had simply been waiting for an excuse to make it known to deliberation. There had been too many things said here that Professor Quirrell would not reveal to anyone with an expected lifespan measured in more than hours. The overwhelming isolation and loneliness of the life Professor Quirrell had described might explain why he was willing to violate his Rules and talk with Harry,
given
that Harry was going to die soon and that the world did not actually work like a play where the villain disclosing his plans would always fail to kill the hero afterward. But Harry’s death certainly had to be in those future plans somewhere.

Harry swallowed, controlling his breathing. Professor Quirrell had just added a tuft of horsehair to the
potion of effulgence,
and that was very late in the potion, if Harry remembered correctly. There weren’t many bellflowers left in the heap to be added, either.

It was probably time to stop worrying so much about risk and play this conversation less conservatively, all things considered.

“If I point out one of Lord Voldemort’s mistakes,” Harry said, “does he punish me for it?”

Professor Quirrell lifted his eyebrows. “Not if the mistake is a real one. I do not suggest that you moralise at me. But I would not curse the bearer of bad news, nor the subordinate who makes an honest attempt to point out a problem. Even as Lord Voldemort I could never bring myself to that stupidity. Of course, there were some fools who mistook my policy for weakness, who tried to thrust themselves forward by pushing me down in their public counsel, thinking me obliged to tolerate it as criticism.” Professor Quirrell smiled reminiscently. “The Death Eaters were better off without them, and I do not advise you make the same mistake.”

Harry nodded, a slight shiver going through him. “Um, when you told me about what happened in Godric’s Hollow, on Halloween night, in 1981 I mean, um… I thought I saw another flaw in your reasoning. A way you could have avoided disaster. But, um, I think you have a blind spot, a class of strategies you don’t consider, so you didn’t see it even afterward-”

“I hope you are not about to say anything stupid along the lines of ‘don’t try to kill people’,” Professor Quirrell said. “I shall be unhappy if that is the case.”

“
Not valuess difference. True misstake, given your goalss. Will you hurt me, if I act the part of the teacher toward you, and teach lessson? Or if misstake is ssimple and obviousss, and makess you feel sstupid?”

“
No,
” hissed Professor Quirrell. ”
Not if lessson iss true.
”

Harry swallowed. “Um. Why didn’t you test the horcrux system before you actually had to use it?”

“Test it?” said Professor Quirrell. He looked up from the brewing potion, and indignation came into his voice. “What do you mean,
test it?
”

“Why didn’t you test if the horcrux system was working correctly, before you needed it on Halloween?”

Professor Quirrell looked disgusted. “You ridiculous - I didn’t want to
die,
Mr. Potter, and that was the only way to test my great creation! What good would it have done to risk my life sooner rather than later? How would I have been better off?”

Harry swallowed a lump in his throat. “
There wass way for you to tesst your horcrux ssysstem without dying.
The general lesson is important. Do you see it now?”

“No,” Professor Quirrell said after a while. The Defense Professor gently crumbled one of the last bellflowers together with a strand of long blonde hair and then dropped it into the potion, which was bubbling brighter, now. Only two more bellflowers remained on the Potions table. “And I do hope your lesson is a sensible one, for your sake.”

“Suppose, Professor, that I learned how to cast the improved horcrux spell and I was willing to use it. What would I do with it?”

Professor Quirrell answered at once. “You would find some person whom you found morally abhorrent and whose death you could convince yourself would save other lives, and murder them to create a horcrux.”

“And then what?”

“Make more horcruxes,” said the Defense Professor. He picked up a jar of what looked like dragon scales.

“Before that,” Harry said.

After a time the Defense Professor shook his head. “I still do not see it, and you will cease this game and tell me.”

“I would make horcruxes for my friends. If you’d ever really cared about one single other person in the entire world, if there’d been just one person who gave your immortality
meaning,
someone that you wanted to live forever
with
you -” Harry’s throat choked. “Then, then the idea of making a horcrux for someone else wouldn’t have been such a counterintuitive thought.” Harry was blinking hard. “You have a blind spot around strategies that involve doing nice things for other people, to the point where it stops you from achieving your selfish values. You think… it’s not your style, I suppose. That… particular part of your self-image… is what cost you those nine years.”

The dropper of mint oil that the Defense Professor was holding added liquid to the cauldron, drip by drip.

“I see…” the Defense Professor said slowly. “I see. I should have taught Rabastan the advanced horcrux ritual, and forced him to test the invention. Yes, that is supremely obvious in retrospect. For that matter, I could have ordered Rabastan to try marking himself onto some disposable infant, to see what happened, before I took myself to Godric’s Hollow to create you.” Professor Quirrell shook his head bemusedly. “Well. I am glad I am realizing this now and not ten years earlier; I had enough to chide myself for at that time.”

“You don’t see nice ways to do
the things you want to do,
” Harry said. His ears heard a note of desperation in his own voice. “Even when a nice strategy would be
more effective
you don’t see it because you have a self-image of
not being nice.
”

“That is a fair observation,” said Professor Quirrell. “Indeed, now that you have pointed it out, I have just now thought of some nice things I can do this very day, to further my agenda.”

Harry just looked at him.

Professor Quirrell was smiling. “Your lesson is a good one, Mr. Potter. From now on, until I learn the trick of it, I shall keep diligent watch for cunning strategies that involve doing kindnesses for other people. Go and practice acts of goodwill, perhaps, until my mind goes there easily.”

Cold chills ran down Harry’s spine.

Professor Quirrell had said this without the slightest visible hesitation.

Lord Voldemort was absolutely certain that he could never be redeemed. He wasn’t the tiniest bit afraid of it happening to him.

The second-to-last bellflower was dropped into the potion, gently.

“Any other valuable lessons you would like to teach to Lord Voldemort, boy?” said Professor Quirrell. He was looking up from the potion, and grinning as though he knew exactly what Harry was thinking.

“Yes,” Harry said, his voice almost breaking. “If your goal is to obtain happiness, then doing nice things for other people feels better than doing them for yourself-”

“Do you
really
think I never thought of that, boy?” The smile had vanished. “Do you think I am stupid? After graduating Hogwarts I wandered the world for years, before I returned to Britain as Lord Voldemort. I have put on more faces than I bothered counting. Do you think I never tried to play the hero, just to see how it would feel? Have you come across the name of Alexander Chernyshov? Under that guise, I sought out a forlorn hellhole ruled over by a Dark Wizard, and I freed the wretched inhabitants from their bondage. They wept tears of gratitude for me. It did not feel like anything in particular. I even stayed about and killed the next five Dark Wizards to try taking command of the place. I spent my own Galleons - well, not my own Galleons, but the same principle applies - to prettify their little country and introduce a semblance of order. They groveled all the more, and named one in three of their infants Alexander. I still felt nothing, so I nodded to myself, wrote it off as a fair try, and went upon my way.”

“And were you happy as Lord Voldemort, then?” Harry’s voice had risen, grown wild.

Professor Quirrell hesitated, then shrugged. “It appears you already know the answer to that.”

“Then
why?
Why be Voldemort if it
doesn’t even make you happy?
” Harry’s voice broke. “I’m
you
, I’m based on you, so
I know
that Professor Quirrell isn’t just a mask! I
know
he’s somebody you really could have been! Why not just stay that way? Take your curse off the Defense Position and just
stay here
, use the Philosopher’s Stone to take David Monroe’s shape and let the real Quirinus Quirrell go free, if you say you’ll stop killing people I’ll swear not to tell anyone who you really are, just
be Professor Quirrell,
for always! Your students
would
appreciate you, my father’s students appreciate
him
-”

Professor Quirrell was chuckling over the cauldron as he stirred it. “There are perhaps fifteen thousand wizards living in magical Britain, child. There used to be more. There’s a reason they’re afraid to speak my name. You’d forgive me that because you liked my Battle Magic lessons?”

Seconded,
said Harry’s inner Hufflepuff.
Seriously, what the hell?

Harry kept his head raised, though it was trembling. “It’s not my place to forgive anything you’ve done. But it’s better than another war.”

“Ha,” said the Defense Professor. “If you ever find a Time-Turner that goes back forty years and can alter history, be sure to tell Dumbledore that before he rejects Tom Riddle’s application for the Defense position. But alas, I fear that Professor Riddle would not have found lasting happiness in Hogwarts.”

“
Why not?
”

“Because I still would’ve been surrounded by idiots, and I wouldn’t have been able to kill them,” Professor Quirrell said mildly. “Killing idiots is my great joy in life, and I’ll thank you not to speak ill of it until you’ve tried it for yourself.”

“There’s
something
that would make you happier than that,” Harry said, his voice breaking again. “There has to be.”

“Why?” said Professor Quirrell. “Is this some scientific law I have not yet encountered? Tell me of it.”

Harry opened his mouth, but couldn’t find any words, there had to be something
had to be something
if he could just find the right thing to say -

“And
you
,” said Professor Quirrell, “have no right to speak of happiness either. Happiness is not what you hold precious above all. You decided that in the beginning, all the way back in the beginning of this year, when the Sorting Hat offered you Hufflepuff. Which I know about, because I received a similar offer and warning all those years ago, and I refused it just as you did. Beyond this there is little more to say, between Tom Riddles.” The Defense Professor turned back to the cauldron.

Before Harry could think of any way to reply, Professor Quirrell dropped in the last bellflower, and a burst of glowing bubbles boiled up from the cauldron.

“I believe we are done here,” Professor Quirrell said. “If you have further questions, they must wait.”

Harry shakily rose to his feet; even as Professor Quirrell took up the cauldron and poured out a ridiculously huge volume of effulgent liquid, more than seemed like it could fit in a dozen cauldrons, onto the purple fire that guarded the doorway.

The purple fire winked out.

“Now for the Mirror,” said Professor Quirrell, and he drew forth the Cloak of Invisibility from his robes, and floated it to drop before Harry’s shoes.

Even the greatest artifact can be defeated by a counter-artifact that is lesser, but specialized.

That was what the Defense Professor had told Harry, after dropping the True Cloak of Invisibility to pool in fuliginous folds near Harry’s shoes.

The Mirror of Perfect Reflection has power over what is reflected within it, and that power is said to be unchallengeable. But since the True Cloak of Invisibility produces a perfect absence of image, it should evade this principle rather than challenging it.

There had followed a series of questions in Parseltongue establishing that Harry currently did not intend to do anything stupid or try to run away, and further reminders that Professor Quirrell could sense him and had spells to detect the Cloak and was holding hostage hundreds of lives plus Hermione.

Then Harry was told to don the Cloak, open the door that lay beyond the quenched fires, and advance through the door into the final chamber; as Professor Quirrell stood well back, outside of that door’s sight.

The last chamber was illuminated in lights of soft gold, and the stone walls were of gentle white and faced with marble.

In the center of the room stood a simple and unornamented golden frame, and within the frame was a portal to another gold-illuminated room, beyond whose door which lay another Potions chamber; that was what Harry’s brain told him. The Mirror’s transformation of light was so perfect that conscious thought was required to deduce that the room inside the frame was only a reflection, rather than a portal. (Though it might have been easier to intuit if Harry hadn’t been invisible, just then.)

The Mirror did not touch the ground; the golden frame had no feet. It didn’t look like it was hovering; it looked like it was fixed in place, more solid and more motionless than the walls themselves, like it was nailed to the reference frame of the Earth’s motion.

“Is the Mirror there? Is it moving?” came Professor Quirrell’s commanding voice from the Potions Chamber.

“
Iss there,
” Harry hissed back. ”
Not moving.
”

Again tones of command rang forth. “Walk around to the back of the Mirror.”

From behind, the golden frame appeared solid, showing no reflections, and Harry said so in Parseltongue.

“Now take off your Cloak,” commanded Professor Quirrell’s voice still from within the Potions room. “Report to me at once if the Mirror moves to face you.”

Harry took off his Cloak.

The Mirror remained nailed to the reference frame of Earth’s motion; and Harry reported this.

Shortly after there came a hissing and seething, and a balefire phoenix melted through the marble wall behind Harry, the ambient light in the room taking on a red tinge as it entered. Professor Quirrell followed behind it, walking out of the new-made corridor that had been carved, his black formal shoes unharmed by the red-glowing molten surface beneath. “Well,” Professor Quirrell said, “that is one possible trap averted. And now…” Professor Quirrell exhaled. “Now we will think of possible strategies for retrieving the Stone from the Mirror, and you will try them; for I prefer not to let my own image be reflected. I give you fair warning, this is the part that may prove tedious.”

“I take it this isn’t a problem you can solve with Fiendfyre?”

“Ha,” said Professor Quirrell, and gestured.

The balefire phoenix moved forward in a rush of crimson terror, the red light casting writhing shadows on the remaining marble walls. Harry jumped back before he could think.

The dreadful dark-red blaze rushed past Professor Quirrell, surged into the golden back of the Mirror, and disappeared as fast as it touched the gold.

Then the fire was gone, and the room was tinged scarlet no more.

There was no scratch upon the golden surface, no glow to mark the absorption of heat. The Mirror had simply remained in place, untouched.

Chills went down Harry’s spine. If he’d been playing Dungeons and Dragons and the dungeon master had reported that result, Harry would have suspected a mental illusion, and rolled to disbelieve.

Upon the center of the golden back had appeared a sequence of runes in no known alphabet, black absences of light in small lines and curves, arranged in a level horizontal row. The thought occurred to Harry that some minor concealing illusion had been consumed in the Fiendfyre, a far lesser enchantment that had been added to prevent children from seeing those letters…

“How old is this Mirror?” Harry said in almost a whisper.

“Nobody knows, Mr. Potter.” The Defense Professor reached out his fingers toward the runes, a look of something like reverence on his face; but his fingers did not touch the gold. “But my guess is the same as yours, I think. It is said, in certain legends that may or may not be fabrications, that this Mirror reflects
itself
perfectly and therefore its existence is absolutely stable. So stable that the Mirror was able to survive when every other effect of Atlantis was undone, all its consequences severed from Time. You can see why I was amused when you suggested Fiendfyre.” The Defense Professor let his hand fall.

Even in the middle of everything else, Harry felt the awe, if that was true. The golden frame gleamed no brighter than before, for all the revelation; but you could imagine it going back, and back, into a civilization that had been made to never be… “What - does the Mirror
do,
exactly?”

“An excellent question,” said Professor Quirrell. “The answer is in the runes that are written upon the Mirror’s golden frame. Read them to me.”

“They’re not in any alphabet I recognize. They look like randomly oriented chicken-scratches drawn by Tolkien elves.”

“Read them anyway.
Iss not dangerouss.
”

“The runes say,
noitilov detalo partxe tnere hoc ruoy tu becafruoy ton wo hsi -
” Harry stopped, feeling more prickles at his spine.

Harry knew what the rune for noitilov
meant
. It meant noitilov. And the next runes said to detalo the noitilov until it reached partxe, then keep the part that was both tnere and hoc. That belief felt like knowledge, like he could have answered ‘Yes’ with confident authority if somebody asked him whether the ton wo was ruoy or becafruoy. It was just that when Harry tried to relate those concepts to any other concepts, he drew a blank.

“Do you undersstand what wordss mean, boy?”

“Don’t think sso.”

Professor Quirrell gave a soft exhalation, his eyes not leaving the golden frame. “I had wondered if perhaps the Words of False Comprehension might be understandable to a student of Muggle science. Apparently not.”

“Maybe -” Harry began.

Really, Ravenclaw?
said Slytherin.
You’re pulling this
NOW?

“Maybe I could try again to understand the words if I knew more about the Mirror?” said Harry’s Ravenclaw part, which had assumed direct control.

Professor Quirrell’s lips quirked up. “As with most ancient things, scholars have written down enough lies that it is hard to be sure of anything by now. It is definite that the Mirror is at least as old as Merlin, for it is known that Merlin used it as a tool. It is also known that after his death, Merlin left written instructions that the Mirror did not need to be sealed away, despite it having certain powers that might normally cause one to worry. He wrote that, given how painstakingly the Mirror had been crafted to not destroy the world, it would be easier to destroy the world using a lump of cheese.”

This statement struck Harry as not entirely reassuring.

“Certain other facts about the Mirror are attested by famous wizards who were reasonably skeptical, and whose word has otherwise proven reliable. The Mirror’s most characteristic power is to create alternate realms of existence, though these realms are only as large in size as what can be seen within the Mirror; it is known that people and other objects can be stored therein. It is claimed by several authorities that the Mirror alone of all magics possesses a true moral orientation, though I am not sure what that could mean in practical terms. I would expect moralists to call the Cruciatus Curse by their name of ‘evil’ and the Patronus Charm by their name of ‘good’; I cannot guess what a moralist would think was any
more
moral than that. But it is claimed, for example, that phoenixes came into our world from a realm that was evoked inside this Mirror.”

Words like
Jeepers
and what his parents would have termed inappropriate language were all running through Harry’s head, none very coherently, as he stared at the golden back of the Mirror.

“I have wandered the world and encountered many stories that are not often heard,” said Professor Quirrell. “Most of them seemed to me to be lies, but a few had the ring of history rather than storytelling. Upon a wall of metal in a place where no one had come for centuries, I found written the claim that some Atlanteans foresaw their world’s end, and sought to forge a device of great power to avert the inevitable catastrophe. If that device had been completed, the story claimed, it would have become an absolutely stable existence that could withstand the channeling of unlimited magic in order to grant wishes. And also - this was said to be the vastly harder task - the device would somehow avert the inevitable catastrophes any sane person would expect to follow from that premise. The aspect I found interesting was that, according to the tale writ upon those metal plates, the rest of Atlantis ignored this project and went upon their ways. It was sometimes praised as a noble public endeavor, but nearly all other Atlanteans found more important things to do on any given day than help. Even the Atlantean nobles ignored the prospect of somebody other than themselves obtaining unchallengeable power, which a less experienced cynic might expect to catch their attention. With relatively little support, the tiny handful of would-be makers of this device labored under working conditions that were not so much dramatically arduous, as pointlessly annoying. Eventually time ran out and Atlantis was destroyed with the device still far from complete. I recognise certain echoes of my own experience that one does not usually see invented in mere tales.” A twist in the dry smile. “But perhaps that is merely my own preference for one tale among a hundred other legends. You perceive, however, the echo of Merlin’s statement about the Mirror’s creators shaping it to not destroy the world. Most importantly for our purposes, it may explain why the Mirror would have the previously unknown capability that Dumbledore or Perenelle seems to have evoked, of showing any person who steps before it an illusion of a world in which one of their desires has been fulfilled. It is the sort of sensible precaution you can imagine someone building into a wish-granting creation meant to not go horribly wrong.”

“Wow,” Harry whispered, and meant it. This was Magic with a capital M, the sort of Magic that appeared in
So You Want To Be A Wizard,
not just a collection of random physics-violating things you could do with a wand.

Professor Quirrell gestured at the golden back. “The final property upon which most tales agree, is that whatever the unknown means of commanding the Mirror - of that Key there are no plausible accounts - the Mirror’s instructions cannot be shaped to react to individual people. So it is not possible for Perenelle to command this Mirror, ‘only give the Stone to Perenelle’. Dumbledore cannot state, ‘Only give the Stone to one who wishes to give it to Nicholas Flamel’. There is in the Mirror a blindness such as philosophers have attributed to ideal justice; it must treat all who come before it by the same rule, whatever rule may be in force. Thus, there must be some rule for reaching the Stone’s hiding-place which anyone can invoke. And now you see why
you
, called the Boy-Who-Lived, shall implement whatever strategies the two of us devise. For it was said that this thing possesses a moral orientation, and it may have been given commands reflecting the same. I am well aware that on conventional terms you are said to be Good, just as I am said to be Evil.” Professor Quirrell smiled, rather darkly. “So as our first attempt - though not our last, rest assured-let us see what this Mirror makes of your attempt to retrieve the Stone in order to save the life of Hermione Granger and hundreds of your fellow students.”

“And the
first
version of that plan,” said Harry, who was beginning to finally understand, “the one you invented on Friday in my first week of Hogwarts, called for the Stone to be retrieved by Dumbledore’s golden child, the Boy-Who-Lived, making a selfless and noble attempt to save the life of his dying Defense teacher, Professor Quirrell.”

“Of course,” said Professor Quirrell.

It was a poetical sort of plot, Harry supposed, but his appreciation of that elegance was being hampered by the surrounding circumstances.

Then another thought occurred to Harry.

“Um,” Harry said. “You think that this Mirror is a trap for you -”

“There is no way beneath the heavens that it is not meant as a trap.”

“That is to say, it’s a trap for Lord Voldemort. Only it can’t be a trap for him personally. There has to be a general rule that underlies it, some generalizable quality of Lord Voldemort that triggers it.” Without conscious awareness, Harry was frowning hard at the Mirror’s golden back.

“As you say,” said Professor Quirrell, who was beginning to frown at Harry’s frowning.

“Well, on the first Thursday of this year, the mad Headmaster Dumbledore, who I’d just seen incinerate a chicken, told me that I had no chance whatsoever of getting into his forbidden corridor, since I didn’t know the spell
Alohomora.
”

“I
see,
” said Professor Quirrell. “Oh, dear. I wish you had thought to mention this to me a good deal earlier.”

Neither of them needed to state aloud the obvious, that this bit of reverse reverse psychology had successfully ensured that Harry would stay the heck away from Dumbledore’s forbidden corridor.

Harry was still concentrating. “Do you think Dumbledore suspects that I am, in his terms, a horcrux of Lord Voldemort, or more generally, that some aspects of my personality were copied off Lord Voldemort?” Even as Harry asked this aloud, he realized what a dumb question it was, and how much completely blatant evidence he’d already seen that -