Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (202 page)

Harry swallowed, and touched the toe-ring. He had to try three times, and clear his mind, before he could push his magic out of the toe-ring, as before he had learned to make a tiny stream of magic flow in.

The breaking of the spell went much more slowly that way than a
Finite Incantatem
, almost like the sped-up reverse of watching something being Transfigured. The toe-ring distorted, flowing together, expanding. Colors changed, textures changed.

Two-thirds of a dead girl lay strewn across the altar, on her side with one arm falling off the altar’s edge, the position in which the reversion had chanced to place her. No blood flowed now from the chewed stumps of her thighs. The dead girl wore Hermione Granger’s face, but twisted and pale. It was as Harry had seen before in the hospital’s back room, the image burned into his brain during thirty long minutes of Transfiguration, the image he had reproduced during four even longer hours to Transfigure the decoy. The dead girl was naked, for her clothes were not part of her, and had not been Transfigured.

The sight brought back flashbacks, of the hours spent in the infirmary room, of the nightmares afterward, all of which Harry suppressed.

“Go back,” said Voldemort’s high voice. “This is my work, now.”

Harry swallowed, and retreated from the altar, to the mouth of the long corridor where he’d stood before. “Her body is, should be, around five Celsius, I cooled her so, so there wouldn’t be brain damage -” Harry’s own voice was wavering in pitch.
Is he really going to do this? Really?
There had to be a catch and Harry just couldn’t see it. Voldemort had said that neither he nor any of his would harm Hermione, that her body and mind would be her own -
why?

Voldemort walked forth to the altar once more, orienting the body before him with a wave of his hand to lie straight across the altar. The Dark Lord spoke with high monotone precision, “Flesh, flesh, flesh so wisely hidden.”

The obelisks began chanting once more.

Apokatastethi, apokatastethi, apokatastethi to soma hou emoi (emoi).

Apokatastethi, apokatastethi, apokatastethi to soma hou emoi (emoi).

New flesh flowed out of the stumps of the girl’s thighs, creeping forward like an ooze and solidifying.

The obelisks ceased chanting. A complete form lay naked upon the altar.

It didn’t look like Hermione. A Hermione Granger should be standing up and talking, she should have her Hogwarts uniform.

Voldemort raised a hand, then hissed, as though in annoyance. With a violent gesture, the robes around Quirinus Quirrell’s sleeping from were torn in half, his purple-and-green tie shredded, and his suit-jacket drawn from him to where Voldemort stood. Some part of Harry flinched, as if seeing the Dark Lord Voldemort attacking Professor Quirrell.

Voldemort plunged his hand deliberately into the suit jacket, which jerked as though something were being broken; then Voldemort shook out the suit jacket onto the ground beside him, emptying out the contents. Harry’s pouch fell from it, and his Time-Turner, and a broomstick, and Voldemort’s gun, and the Cloak, and a number of amulets and rings and stranger devices that Harry did not recognize.

And finally a chunk of red glass, which was laid upon Hermione Granger’s form, and allowed to stay there for a time.

Minutes passed. The Dark Lord donned an amulet from the heap of things beside the altar; also from the heap, Voldemort took four short wooden rods with straps upon them, and reached beneath his robes to attach them, it looked like they went on his upper arms and upper thighs. The Dark Lord rose into the air, moved left, right, up and down, seeming to wobble slightly at first; then his flight stabilized.

The chunk of red glass turned, slightly.

The Dark Lord Voldemort floated to the ground, and prodded Hermione Granger’s body with his wand.

“
There iss an obsstacle,
” hissed Voldemort.

In Harry’s mind the expectation of betrayal or other failure had already been so strong that the confirmation came only as a dull shock, not a sharp one. “
What obsstacle?
”

“
Girl’ss body iss resstored. Ssubstance iss repaired. But not magic, or life… thiss iss body of dead Muggle.”
Voldemort turned from the altar, began to pace. “The full ritual would solve this. But that would require time… time and the blood of Granger’s enemy, and I do not think Draco Malfoy still qualifies, nor can I take my own blood unwillingly… foolish.” Voldemort’s voice was a lower hiss. “Foolish, I should have foreseen this, and prepared. Her brain might awaken with an electrical shock, I know that much of Muggle medicine… but would her magic return to her? That I do not know, and I suspect if she awakens as a Muggle she will be a Muggle forever. Still, I can think of nothing better.” The Dark Lord raised his wand -

“Wait!” Harry blurted, feeling hope return.
She needs a spark of life and magic, just a spark to get her started…

Voldemort turned and looked at him. The snakelike face showed some slight degree of surprise.

“
Think I have ssomething that might work,
” Harry hissed. ”
Needss wand. Have no intentionss to usse it againsst you.
” Harry said nothing about expecting his intentions wouldn’t change; he’d simply blurted out the idea fast enough that he hadn’t formed any specific intentions yet.

“This,” Voldemort hissed, “I desire to see.” The Dark Lord reached into the heap of things by the altar, and picked up the wrapped form of Harry’s wand. It was thrown, gliding through the air and then dropping at Harry’s feet; and then the Dark Lord floated back, the heap of things moving smoothly backwards with him.

Harry unwrapped his wand, and moved forward.

We have our wand back, that’s step one,
said the last voice, the voice of hope.

No part of Harry had any idea what step two might be, but it was still step one accomplished.

And Harry stood before the reformed body of Hermione Granger, who was still naked and dead, on a twilight-lit stone altar.

“Lord Voldemort,” Harry said, “I beg you, please give her some clothes. It might help me do this.”

“Granted,” hissed Voldemort. The pain in Harry’s scar flared as the naked girl’s body lifted into the air, then flared again as dead leaves danced around her and she was clothed in the seeming of a Hogwarts uniform, though the trim was red instead of blue. Hermione Granger’s hands folded over her chest, her legs straightened, and her body drifted back down.

Harry looked at her.

Focused on her, now that she looked human again.

She looks like she is sleeping, not dead.
It took a conscious effort to look for breathing, fail to see it, and make the deduction. So far as naked perception was concerned… Hermione might as well be alive, right now.

That Hermione Granger would not approve of this situation, taken as a whole, seemed beyond question. But it didn’t mean that she would rather stay dead than be alive, other things being equal, though they might not be.

Because you wish to live, because my best guess is that you would wish to live…

Harry reached out his shaking left hand, and touched Hermione’s forehead. It was warm now, not the chill of five degrees Celsius; either Voldemort had increased her body temperature to normal, or the magic of the ritual had done it automatically. Which meant that Hermione’s brain was currently warm and without oxygen, come to think.

That did it, the sense of urgency rising in him.

Harry’s feet assumed the stance, his wand swung up to point at Hermione Granger’s dead body. The
only
thing wrong with Hermione’s body was that it was dead; everything else about that body was right, only one thing needed changing.

You don’t belong here, death.

“Expecto,
” Harry shouted, feeling
the magic and the life
rise up into the Patronus Charm that was fueled by both, ”
PATRONUM!
”

The girl in the Hogwarts uniform was surrounded by a blazing aura of silver fire, as the Patronus was born inside her.

Harry staggered, as he felt a
dip,
a bite. Intuition or Tom Riddle’s memory told Harry that the life and magic that had just flowed into Hermione would never return to him, either one. It hadn’t been all his life or all his magic, not by a long shot, there hadn’t been
time
to expend that much, but whatever he’d just expended was gone forever.

And Hermione Granger was breathing, just like she was sleeping, rhythmic inhalations and exhalations. The twilight sky had dimmed further, and Harry could not see if color was returning to her, but it should have been, it certainly should have been. She looked to be sleeping peacefully, and it wasn’t because being dead looked like sleeping, it was because she was asleep and her body was fine and nothing was hurting her while she slept.

Some part of Harry, that had somehow managed not to speak up earlier, quietly pointed out that they were still in a graveyard, the recently victorious Lord Voldemort was still in control of the situation, and that his guess about Hermione wanting to be alive was just a guess.

Harry was still smiling, as he slowly lowered his wand. The celebratory fireworks going off inside his mind were restrained, Harry wasn’t screaming and running around in little circles like Professor Flitwick, but that -

That -

THAT,
Harry said aloud inside his mind,
THAT is what I call Step Two.

“Interesting,” said the cold high voice. “Your Patronus draws upon your life as well as your magic… I guessed that much, for it was too powerful for a first-year to fuel with magic alone. And yet there must be more to the puzzle, since not just any life-fueled spell would have done… was your happy thought the image of her returning to life? Was that all it took?” Lord Voldemort was again toying with his wand, a dark interest in those red-slitted eyes. “I suspect I will feel quite stupid when I finally comprehend that spell, someday in my eternity. Now step away from the girl.
There iss more work I intend to do, to give her besst chance of continued life.
”

Harry stepped back, reluctantly, the sense of tension starting to return to him. He almost tripped over one haphazard grave marker, as the Dark Lord continued to walk forward.

Standing before the altar, the Dark Lord laid one finger upon Hermione Granger’s forehead.

Then the Dark Lord tapped his finger upon Hermione Granger’s forehead, and said, in a voice so low Harry almost did not hear, “
Requiescus.
”

Voldemort waved his hand at an obelisk, which began to rotate, turning itself to lay flat upon the ground, pointing outward. “Fascinating indeed,” Voldemort hissed. “She is alive, and magical, and not another Tom Riddle as I feared you might have made her.”

The tension was rising again in Harry. He’d put his wand away into the back belt of his pants, he
did not want
to remind Voldemort that he still had the wand on him. “What are you doing to her now?”

Another obelisk turned, lay flat upon the ground. “
There iss old, losst ritual to ssacrifice magical creature, transsfer magical nature to ssubject. Limitationss are great. Transsfer iss temporary, only few hourss. Ssubject ssometimess diess when transsfer wearss off. But Sstone will make permanent.
”

Four obelisks lay flat upon the ground, evenly spaced; the other two obelisks had been floated away.

Voldemort began to reach into his own mouth, checked himself, hissed with annoyance again. He gestured at the sleeping mouth of Quirinus Quirrell, and from Quirrell’s mouth floated up two teeth, almost invisible in the falling night. One of these went to the pile of items, the other floated to before the altar.

Moments later, Harry cried out and took a step back.

Huge and misshapen, lumpy skin, legs thick as tree-trunks, a small head that looked like a coconut perched upon a boulder.

A mountain troll stood within the circle of obelisks, motionless as though asleep while standing.

“
What are you doing?
”

Voldemort’s mouth was stretched in a wide smile; it looked
horrible
on him, like his face had too many teeth.
“Sshall ssacrifice my fallback weapon, and girl-child sshall gain troll’ss power of regeneration. Transsfiguration ssicknesss iss nothing before that, if perchance it wass not fixed by previouss ritual. And no knife sshall sslay girl-child, nor cutting cursse, nor ssicknesss take her.
”

“Why - why are you doing this?” Harry’s voice shook.

“
Have not the tiniesst intention of letting girl-child die again, after going to ssuch lengthss to ressurrect her.”

Harry swallowed. “I’m very confused.” Was Voldemort
practicing being nice?
This hypothesis did not seem like a sufficient explanation.

“Stay well back,” Voldemort said coldly. “This ritual is Darker than the last.” The Dark Lord began a new chant, softer syllables that seemed to seethe through the air like living things; and Harry, feeling a new surge of apprehension, stepped backwards.

Then Harry cried aloud, as pain flared again within his scar. The mountain troll crumbled in on itself, becoming ashes hanging in the air, then dust, and then the dust seemed to blow away without going anywhere; it was gone.

Hermione Granger slept on peacefully, whatever spell of repose Voldemort had cast on her being sufficient to the task.

“Um,” Harry said in a small voice. “Did it work?”

“
Diffindo.
”

Harry stepped forward with a choked yell, and then halted, both as the stupidity of his motion caught up with him, and as the sudden cut that the Severing Charm had opened on Hermione’s leg closed almost as quickly as it had been made. In seconds there was only a light stain of blood on the surrounding flesh.

The Stone was laid again on Hermione, and after a time it turned. Voldemort laughed once more, as he passed his hand over her. “Marvelous.”

Then another tiny tooth was floating within the circle of obelisks; and an instant later, a unicorn stood where the troll had stood before, eyes dull and head lowered.