Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (210 page)

With my passing, there is none left to oppose Voldemort as an equal save you. His shadow will fall long and terrible over magical Britain, and many will suffer and die for it. That shadow will not lift until you destroy its source, until you cleanse the heart of the darkness. How you are to do this, I do not know. If Voldemort knows not the power you bear, then neither do I. You must find that power within yourself, you must learn to wield it, you must become Voldemort’s final judge, and I beg you not to make the error of showing him mercy.

My wand, which I have left to you in Moody’s keeping, you must not dare to wield against Voldemort. For when that wand’s master is defeated, it passes to the victor in turn. When you have conquered my conqueror, then the wand will answer truly to your hand; but if you try to turn it against Voldemort before then, it will betray you for certain. Keep it out of Voldemort’s grasp at all costs. I should advise you not to wield that wand at all, yet it is a device of great power, which you might need in some desperate case. But if you pick it up you must fear its treachery at all times.

In my absence, the Wizengamot will inevitably fall to Malfoy. The Line of Merlin Unbroken I have passed to you, with Amelia Bones as your regent, until you come of age or come into your power. But she cannot oppose Malfoy for long, not with myself gone and Voldemort returned to advise him. Soon, I think, the Ministry will fall, and Hogwarts will become the last fortress. To Minerva I have left Hogwarts’s keys, but you alone are its prince, and she will help you however she can.

Alastor now leads the Order of the Phoenix. Heed his words well, both his advice and his confidences. It is one of my life’s greatest regrets that I did not heed Alastor more and sooner.

That you will in the end defeat Voldemort, I have no doubt.

For that will be only the beginning of your life’s destiny. Of that, too, I am certain.

When you have vanquished Voldemort, when you have saved this country, then, I hope, you may embark upon the true meaning of your days.

Hurry then to begin.

Yours in death (or in whatever),

Dumbledore.

P.S. The passwords are ‘phoenix’s price’, ‘phoenix’s fate’, and ‘phoenix’s egg’, spoken within my office. Minerva can move those rooms to where you can reach them more easily.

Harry folded up the parchment and put its back into the envelope, frowning thoughtfully, then took the grey-ribboned scroll from the Headmistress. When the long grey wand in Harry’s hand touched the ribbon, it fell away at once; and Harry unrolled the scroll, and read it.

Dear Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres:

If you are reading this, you have defeated Voldemort.

Congratulations on that.

I hope you had some time in which to celebrate before you opened this scroll, because the news in it is not cheerful.

During the First Wizarding War, there came a time when I realised that Voldemort was winning, that he would soon hold all within his hand.

In that extremity, I went into the Department of Mysteries and I invoked a password which had never been spoken in the history of the Line of Merlin Unbroken, did a thing forbidden and yet not utterly forbidden.

I listened to every prophecy that had ever been recorded.

And so I learned that my troubles were far worse than Voldemort.

From certain seers and diviners have come an increasing chorus of foretellings that this world is doomed to destruction.

And you, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, are one of those foretold to destroy it.

By rights I should have ended your line of possibility, stopped you from ever being born, as I did my best to end all the other possibilities I discovered on that day of terrible awakening.

Yet in your case, Harry, and in your case alone, the prophecies of your apocalypse have loopholes, though those loopholes be ever so slight.

Always ‘he will end the world’, not ‘he will end life’.

Even when it was said that you would tear apart the very stars in heaven, it was not said that you would tear apart the people.

And so, it being clear that this world is not meant to last, I have gambled literally everything upon you, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. There were no prophecies of how the world might be saved, so I found the prophecies that offered loopholes in the destruction; and I brought about the strange and complex conditions for those prophecies to come to pass. I ensured that Voldemort discovered a certain one of those prophecies, and so (even as I had feared) condemned your parents to death and made you what you are. I wrote a strange hint in your mother’s Potions textbook, having no idea why I must; and this proved to show Lily how to help her sister, and ensured you would gain Petunia Evans’s heartfelt love. I snuck invisibly into your bedroom in Oxford and administered the potion that is given to students with Time-Turners, to extend your day’s cycle by two hours. When you were six years old I smashed a rock that was on your windowsill, and to this day I cannot imagine why.

All in the desperate hope that you can pass us through the eye of the storm, somehow end this world and yet bring out its people alive.

Now that you have passed the preliminary test of defeating Voldemort, I place my all in your hands, all the tools I can possibly give you. The Line of Merlin Unbroken, the command of the Order of the Phoenix, all my wealth and all my treasures, the Elder Wand out of the Deathly Hallows, the loyalty of such of my friends as may heed me. I have left Hogwarts in Minerva’s care, for I do not think you will have time for it, but even that is yours if you demand it from her.

One thing I do not give you, and that is the prophecies. Upon the moment of my departure, they will be destroyed, and no future ones will be recorded, for it was said that you must not look upon them. If you think this frustrating, believe me when I say that even your wit cannot comprehend what frustration you have been spared. I will die, or be lost by you, or in some other way be taken from you - the prophecies are unclear, naturally - without ever once knowing what the future truly holds, or why I must do what I do. It is all cryptic madness and you are well rid of it.

There can only be one king upon the chessboard.

There can only be one piece whose value is beyond price.

That piece is not the world, it is the world’s peoples, wizard and Muggle alike, goblins and house-elves and all.

While survives any remnant of our kind, that piece is yet in play, though the stars should die in heaven.

And if that piece be lost, the game ends.

Know the value of all your other pieces, and play to win.

- Albus

Harry held the parchment scroll for a long time, staring at nothing.

So.

There were times when the phrase ‘That explains it’ didn’t really seem to cover it, but nonetheless, that explained it.

Absently Harry rolled up the parchment scroll in his fist, still staring at nothing.

“What does it say?” said Amelia Bones.

“It’s a confession letter,” Harry said. “Turns out Dumbledore’s the one who killed my pet rock.”

“
This is not a time for jokes!
” cried the elder witch. “Are you the true holder of the Line of Merlin Unbroken?”

“Yes,” Harry said absently, his mind occupied with thoughts that were, by any objective quantification, overwhelmingly more important.

The old witch was sitting very still in her chair. She turned her head, and locked eyes with Minerva McGonagall.

Meanwhile Harry’s brain, which was juggling way too many possibilities over way too many time horizons, some of them involving literally billions of years and stellar disassembly procedures, declared cognitive bankruptcy and started over.
All right, what’s the
first
thing I have to do to save the world… no, make it even more local, what do I have to do
today…
besides figuring out what to do, that is, and I’d better not delay before looking at whatever Dumbledore left me in the Phoenix’s Egg room…

Harry raised his eyes from the rolled-up parchment and looked at Professor- at Headmistress McGonagall, at Mad-Eye Moody, and at the leathery-looking old witch, as though seeing them for the first time. Though he was in fact seeing Amelia Bones for mostly the first time.

Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, whom Albus Dumbledore had thought worthy to lead the Wizengamot at least temporarily. Her cooperation would be invaluable, maybe
necessary,
for… for whatever was headed Harry’s way. Dumbledore had chosen her, and he’d read prophecies Harry hadn’t seen.

Amelia Bones, who had thought she’d been appointed regent over the Line of Merlin Unbroken and made the next Chief Warlock, only to find that instead the position had gone to, apparently, an eleven-year-old boy.

You will now,
said the voice of Hufflepuff inside his head,
you will now be polite. You will not be your usual brand of bloody idiot. Because the fate of the world might just depend on it. Or not. We don’t even know.

“I’m terribly sorry about all this,” Harry Potter said, then paused to see what effect, if any, this polite statement had produced.

“Minerva seems to think,” the old witch said, “that you will not take offense to honest words.”

Harry nodded. His Ravenclaw part wanted to include the disclaimer about that being different from people blatantly trying to push you down while crying that you were intolerant of criticism, but Hufflepuff vetoed. Whatever she had to say, Harry would hear.

“I do not wish to speak ill of the departed,” the old witch said. “But since time immemorial, the Line of Merlin Unbroken has passed to those who have
thoroughly
demonstrated themselves to be, not only good people, but wise enough to distinguish successors who are themselves both good and wise. A single break, anywhere along the chain, and the succession might go astray and never return! It was a mad act for Dumbledore to pass the Line to you at such a young age, even having made it conditional upon your defeat of You-Know-Who. A tarnish upon Dumbledore’s legacy, that is how it will be seen.” The old witch hesitated, her eyes still watching Harry. “I think it best that nobody outside this room ever learn of it.”

“Um,” Harry said. “You… don’t think very much of Dumbledore, I take it?”

“I thought…” said the old witch. “Well. Albus Dumbledore was a better wizard than I, a better
person
than I, in more ways than I can easily count. But the man had his faults.”

“Because, um. I mean. Dumbledore
knew
everything you just said. About my being young and how the Line works. You’re acting like you think Dumbledore was unaware of those facts, or just ignoring them, when he made his decision. It’s true that sometimes stupid people, like me, make decisions that crazy. But not Dumbledore. He was
not
mad.” Harry swallowed, forcing a sudden moisture away from his eyes. “I think… I’m beginning to realize… Dumbledore was the only sane person, in all of this, all along. The
only
one who was doing the right things for anything like the right reasons…”

Madam Bones was cursing under her breath, low dire imprecations that were making Minerva McGonagall twitch.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said helplessly.

Mad-Eye was grinning, the scarred face twisting up in a smile. “Always knew Albus was up to
something
he never told the rest of us. Lad, you have no idea how hard it is for me not to use my Eye on that scroll.”

Harry quickly shoved the scroll into his mokeskin pouch.

“Alastor,” Amelia said. The old witch’s voice was rising. “You are a man of sense, you cannot think the lad is able to fill Dumbledore’s socks! Not
today!
”

“Dumbledore,” Harry said, the name tasting strange on his tongue, “did make one wrong assumption, when he made his decisions. He thought we’d be fighting Voldemort for years, all of us together. He didn’t know I’d vanquish Voldemort immediately. It was the right thing for me to do, it saved a lot of lives compared to fighting a long battle. But Dumbledore thought you would have years to learn me, trust me… and instead it was all over in an evening.” Harry inhaled. “Can’t you just
pretend
we’ve been fighting Voldemort for years and I earned your trust and everything? So that I’m not penalised for winning more quickly than Dumbledore expected?”

“You are still a first-year in Hogwarts!” the old witch said. “You
cannot
take Dumbledore’s place, whatever his intentions!”

“Right, that whole ‘looking like an eleven-year-old’ thing.” Harry’s hand came up, rubbed at his nose where his glasses lay.
I suppose I could just use the Stone, change myself to look like ninety…

“I am not a fool,” the old witch said. “I know you are no ordinary child. I have seen you speak to Lucius Malfoy, watched you frighten off a Dementor, and witnessed Fawkes grant your plea. Anyone with wisdom who saw you before the Wizengamot - by which I mean myself and at most two others - could guess that you had absorbed some portion of You-Know-Who’s shredded soul on the night of his undeath, but subdued it and turned his knowledge to good ends.”

There was a slight pause in the room.

“Well, yes, of course,” said Minerva McGonagall. She sighed, slumped a bit in the Headmistress’s chair. “As Albus clearly knew
from the very beginning,
but thoughtfully declined to warn me about
in any way whatsoever
.”

“Right,” Moody said. “I knew that. Yep. Perfectly obvious. Wasn’t confused at all.”

“I guess that’s close enough to the truth,” said Harry. “So, um. What’s the problem, exactly?”

“The problem,” Amelia Bones said, her voice perfectly even, “is that you are a bubbling, unstable blend of a Hogwarts first-year and You-Know-Who.” She paused, as though waiting for something.