Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (23 page)

Professor McGonagall shook her head. “Mr. Potter, even inanimate objects undergo small internal changes over time. There would be no visible changes to your body afterwards, and for the first minute, you would notice nothing wrong. But in an hour you would be sick, and in a day you would be dead.”

“Erm, excuse me, so if I’d read the first chapter I could have
guessed
that the desk was originally a desk and not a pig,” Harry said, “but only if I made the
further
assumption that you didn’t want to kill the pig, that might
seem
highly probable but -”

“I can foresee that marking your tests will be an endless source of delight to me, Mr. Potter. But if you have other questions can I please ask you to wait until after class?”

“No further questions, professor.”

“Now repeat after me,” said Professor McGonagall. “I will never try to Transfigure any living subject, especially myself, unless specifically instructed to do so using a specialised Charm or potion.”

“If I am not sure whether a Transfiguration is safe, I will not try it until I have asked Professor McGonagall or Professor Flitwick or Professor Snape or the Headmaster, who are the only recognised authorities on Transfiguration at Hogwarts. Asking another student is
not
acceptable, even if they say that they remember asking the same question.”

“Even if the current Defence Professor at Hogwarts tells me that a Transfiguration is safe, and even if I see the Defence Professor do it and nothing bad seems to happen, I will not try it myself.”

“I have the absolute right to refuse to perform any Transfiguration about which I feel the slightest bit nervous. Since not even the Headmaster of Hogwarts can order me to do otherwise, I certainly will not accept any such order from the Defence Professor, even if the Defence Professor threatens to deduct one hundred House points and have me expelled.”

“If I break any of these rules I will not further study Transfiguration during my time at Hogwarts.”

“We will repeat these rules at the start of every class for the first month,” said Professor McGonagall. “And now, we will begin with matches as subjects and needles as targets… put away your wands, thank you, by ‘begin’ I meant that you will begin taking notes.”

Half an hour before the end of class, Professor McGonagall handed out the matches.

At the end of the class Hermione had a silvery-looking match and the entire rest of the class, Muggleborn or otherwise, had exactly what they’d started with.

Professor McGonagall awarded her another point for Ravenclaw.

After the Transfiguration class was dismissed, Hermione came over to Harry’s desk as Harry was putting away his books into his pouch.

“You know,” Hermione said with an innocent expression on her face, “I earned two points for Ravenclaw today.”

“So you did,” Harry said shortly.

“But that wasn’t as good as your
seven
points,” she said. “I guess I’m just not as intelligent as you.”

Harry finished feeding his homework into the pouch and turned to Hermione with his eyes narrowed. He’d actually forgotten about that.

She
batted her eyelashes
at him. “We have lessons every day, though. I wonder how long it will take you to find some more Hufflepuffs to rescue? Today is Monday. So that gives you until Thursday.”

The two of them stared into each other’s eyes, unblinking.

Harry spoke first. “Of course you realise this means war.”

“I didn’t know we’d been at peace.”

All of the other students were now watching with fascinated eyes. All of the other students, plus, unfortunately, Professor McGonagall.

“Oh, Mr. Potter,” sang Professor McGonagall from the other side of the room, “I have some good news for you. Madam Pomfrey has approved your suggestion for preventing breakage in her Spimster wickets, and the plan is to finish the job by the end of next week. I’d say that deserves… let’s call it ten points for Ravenclaw.”

Hermione’s face was gaping in betrayal and shock. Harry imagined his own face didn’t look much different.

“
Professor…
” Harry hissed.

“Those ten points are
unquestionably
deserved, Mr. Potter. I would not hand out House points on a whim. To you it might have been a simple matter of seeing something fragile and suggesting a way to protect it, but Spimster wickets are expensive, and the Headmaster was
not
pleased the last time one broke.” Professor McGonagall looked thoughtful. “My, I wonder if any other student has ever earned seventeen House points on his first day of lessons. I’ll have to look it up, but I suspect that’s a new record. Perhaps we should have an announcement at dinnertime?”

“
PROFESSOR!
” Harry shrieked. “This is
our
war! Stop meddling!”

“Now you have until Thursday of
next
week, Mr. Potter. Unless, of course, you engage in some sort of mischief and
lose
House points before then. Addressing a professor disrespectfully, for example.” Professor McGonagall put a finger on her cheek and looked reflective. “I expect you’ll hit negative numbers before the end of Friday.”

Harry’s mouth snapped shut. He sent his best Death Glare at McGonagall but she only seemed to find it amusing.

“Yes, definitely an announcement at dinner,” Professor McGonagall mused. “But it wouldn’t do to offend the Slytherins, so the announcement should be brief. Just the number of points and the fact of the record… and if anyone comes to you for help with their schoolwork and is disappointed that you haven’t even started reading your textbooks, you can always refer them to Miss Granger.”

“
Professor!
” said Hermione in a rather high-pitched voice.

Professor McGonagall ignored her. “My, I wonder how long it will take before Miss Granger does something deserving of a dinnertime announcement? I look forward to seeing it, whatever it may be.”

Harry and Hermione, by unspoken mutual consent, turned and stormed out of the classroom. They were followed by a trail of hypnotised Ravenclaws.

“Um,” Harry said. “Are we still on for after dinner?”

“Of course,” said Hermione. “I wouldn’t want you to fall further behind on your studying.”

“Why, thank you. And let me say that as brilliant as you are already, I can’t help but wonder what you’ll be like once you have some elementary training in rationality.”

“Is it really that useful? It didn’t seem to help you with Charms or Transfiguration.”

There was a slight pause.

“Well, I only got my schoolbooks four days ago. That’s why I had to earn those seventeen House points without using my wand.”

“Four days ago? Maybe you can’t read eight books in four days but you might have at least read
one
. How many days will it take to finish at that rate? You know all that mathematics, so can you tell me what’s eight, times four, divided by zero?”

“I’ve got classes now, which you didn’t, but weekends are free, so… limit of eight times four divided by epsilon as epsilon approaches zero plus… 10:47AM on Sunday.”

“I did it in
three
days actually.”

“2:47PM on Saturday it is, then. I’m sure I’ll find the time somewhere.”

And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

The enemy’s gate is Rowling.

I’m not a psychopath, I’m just very creative.

As soon as he walked into the Defence classroom on Wednesday, Harry knew that
this
subject was going to be
different
.

It was, for a start, the largest classroom he had yet seen at Hogwarts, akin to a major university classroom, with layered tiers of desks facing a gigantic flat stage of white marble. The classroom was high up in the castle - on the fifth floor - and Harry knew that was as much explanation as he’d get for where a room like this was supposed to fit. It was becoming clear that Hogwarts simply did not
have
a geometry, Euclidean or otherwise; it had connections, not directions.

Unlike a university hall, there weren’t rows of folding seats; instead there were quite ordinary Hogwarts wooden desks and wooden chairs, lined up in a curve across each level of the classroom. Except that each desk had a flat, white, rectangular, mysterious object propped up on it.

In the center of the gigantic platform, on a small raised dais of darker marble, was a lone teacher’s desk. At which Quirrell sat slumped over in his chair, head lolled back, drooling slightly over his robes.

Now what does that remind me of…?

Harry had arrived at the lesson so early that no other students were there yet. (The English language was defective when it came to describing time travel; in particular, English lacked any words capable of expressing how convenient it was.) Quirrell didn’t seem to be… functional… at the moment, and Harry didn’t particularly feel like approaching Quirrell anyway.

Harry selected a desk, climbed up to it, sat down, and retrieved the Defence textbook. He was around seven-eighths of the way through - he’d planned on finishing the book before this lesson, actually, but he was running behind schedule and had already used the Time-Turner twice today.

Soon there were sounds as the classroom began to fill up. Harry ignored them.

“Potter? What are
you
doing here?”

That
voice didn’t belong here. Harry looked up. “Draco? What are
you
doing in oh my god you have
minions
.”

One of the lads standing behind Draco seemed to have rather a lot of muscle for an eleven-year-old, and the other was poised in a suspiciously balanced-looking stance.

The white-blonde-haired boy smiled rather smugly and gestured behind him. “Potter, I introduce to you Mr. Crabbe,” his hand moved from Muscles to Balance, “Mr. Goyle. Vincent, Gregory, this is Harry Potter.”

Mr. Goyle tilted his head and gave Harry a look that was probably supposed to mean something but ended up just looking squinty. Mr. Crabbe said “Please to meetcha” in a tone that sounded like he was trying to lower his voice as far as it could go.

A fleeting expression of consternation crossed Draco’s face, but was quickly replaced by his superior grin.

“You have
minions!
” Harry repeated. “Where do
I
get minions?”

Draco’s smirk grew wider. “I’m afraid, Potter, that the first step is to be Sorted into Slytherin -”

“What? That’s not fair!”

“- and then for your families to have an arrangement from before you were born.”

Harry looked at Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle. They both seemed to be trying very hard to loom. That is, they were leaning forwards, hunching over their shoulders, sticking their necks out and staring at him.

“Um… hold on,” said Harry. “This was arranged
years
ago?”

“Exactly, Potter. I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

Mr. Goyle produced a toothpick and began cleaning his teeth, still looming.

“And,” said Harry, “Lucius insisted that you were
not
to grow up knowing your bodyguards, and that you were only to meet them on your first day of school.”

That wiped the grin from Draco’s face. “Yes, Potter, we all know you’re brilliant, the whole school knows by now, you can stop showing off -”

“So they’ve been told their
whole lives
that they’re going to be your minions and they’ve spent
years
imagining what minions are supposed to be like -”

Draco winced.

“- and what’s worse, they
do
know
each other
and they’ve been
practising
-”

“The boss told ya to shut it,” rumbled Mr. Crabbe. Mr. Goyle bit down on his toothpick, holding it between his teeth, and used one hand to crack the knuckles on the other.

“I told you not to do this in front of Harry Potter!”

The two looked a bit sheepish and Mr. Goyle quickly put the toothpick back in a pocket of his robes.

But the moment Draco turned away from them to face Harry again, they went back to looming.

“I apologise,” Draco said stiffly, “for the insult which these
imbeciles
have offered you.”

Harry gave a meaningful look to Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle. “I’d say you’re being a little harsh on them, Draco.
I
think they’re acting exactly the way I’d want
my
minions to act. I mean, if I had any minions.”

Draco’s jaw dropped.

“Hey, Gregory, you don’ think he’s tryna lure us away from the boss, do ya?”

“I’m sure Mr. Potter wouldn’t be that foolish.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Harry said smoothly. “It’s just something to keep in mind if your current employer seems unappreciative. Besides, it never hurts to have other offers while you’re negotiating your working conditions, right?”

“What’s
he
doin’ in Ravenclaw?”

“I can’t imagine, Mr. Crabbe.”

“Both of you
shut up
,” Draco said through gritted teeth. “That’s an
order
.” With a visible effort, he transferred his attention to Harry again. “Anyway, what’re you doing in the Slytherin Defence class?”

Harry frowned. “Hold on.” His hand went into his pouch. “Timetable.” He looked over the parchment. “Defence, 2:30pm, and right now it’s…” Harry looked at his mechanical watch, which read 11:23. “2:23, unless I’ve lost track of time. Did I?” If he had, well, Harry knew how to get to whatever lesson he was
supposed
to be at. God he loved his Time-Turner and someday, when he was old enough, they would get married.

“No, that sounds right,” Draco said, looking puzzled. His gaze turned to look over the rest of the auditorium, which was filling with green-trimmed robes and…

“
Gryffindorks!
” spat Draco. “What’re
they
doing here?”

“Hm,” Harry said. “Professor Quirrell did say… I forget his exact words… that he would be ignoring some of the Hogwarts teaching conventions. Maybe he just combined all his classes.”

“Huh,” said Draco. “You’re the first Ravenclaw in here.”

“Yup. Got here early.”

“What’re you doing all the way in the back row, then?”

Harry blinked. “I dunno, seemed like a good place to sit?”

Draco made a scoffing sound. “You couldn’t get any further away from the teacher if you tried.” The blonde-haired boy leaned slightly closer. “Anyway, is it true about what you said to Derrick and his crew?”

“Who’s Derrick?”

“You hit him with a pie?”

“Two pies, actually. What am I supposed to have said to him?”

“That he wasn’t doing anything cunning or ambitious and he was a disgrace to Salazar Slytherin.” Draco was staring intently at Harry.

“That… sounds about right,” Harry said. “I think it was more like, ‘is this some kind of incredibly clever plot that will gain you a future advantage or is it really as much of a disgrace to the memory of Salazar Slytherin as it looks like’ or something like that. I don’t remember the exact words.”

“You’re confusing everyone, you know,” said the blonde-haired boy.

“Huh?” Harry said in honest confusion.

“Warrington said that spending a long time under the Sorting Hat is one of the warning signs of a major Dark Wizard. Everyone was talking about it, wondering if they should start sucking up to you just in case. Then you went and protected a bunch of
Hufflepuffs,
for Merlin’s sake.
Then
you told Derrick he’s a disgrace to Salazar Slytherin’s memory! What’s anyone
supposed
to think?”

“That the Sorting Hat decided to put me in the House of ‘Slytherin! Just kidding! Ravenclaw!’ and I’ve been acting accordingly.”

Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle both giggled, causing Mr. Goyle to quickly clap a hand to his mouth.

“We’d better go get our seats,” Draco said. He hesitated, straightened a bit, spoke a bit more fomally. “But I do want to continue our last conversation and I accept your conditions.”

Harry nodded. “Would you mind terribly if I waited until Saturday afternoon? I’m in a bit of a contest right now.”

“A contest?”

“See if I can read all my textbooks as fast as Hermione Granger did.”

“Granger,” Draco echoed. His eyes narrowed. “The mudblood who thinks she’s Merlin? If you’re trying to show
her
up then all Slytherin wishes you the
very
best luck, Potter, and I won’t bother you ‘til Saturday.” Draco inclined his head respectfully, and wandered off, tailed by his minions.

Oh, this is going to be
so
much fun to juggle, I can already tell.

The classroom was filling up rapidly now with all four colors of trim: green, red, yellow, and blue. Draco and his two friends seemed to be in the midst of trying to acquire three contiguous front-row seats - already occupied, of course. Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle were looming vigorously, but it didn’t seem to be having much effect.

Harry bent over his Defence textbook and continued reading.

At 2:35PM, when most of the seats were taken and no one else seemed to be coming in, Professor Quirrell gave a sudden jerk in his chair and sat up straight, and his face appeared on all the flat, white rectangular objects that were propped up on the students’ desks.

Harry was taken by surprise, both by the sudden appearance of Professor Quirrell’s face and by the resemblance to Muggle television. There was something both nostalgic and sad about that, it seemed so much like a piece of home and yet it wasn’t really…

“Good afternoon, my young apprentices,” said Professor Quirrell. His voice seemed to come from the desk screen and to be speaking directly to Harry. “Welcome to your first lesson in Battle Magic, as the founders of Hogwarts would have put it; or, as it happens to be called in the late twentieth century, Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

There was a certain amount of frantic scrabbling as students, taken by surprise, reached for their parchment or notebooks.

“No,” Professor Quirrell said. “Don’t bother writing down what this subject was once called. No such pointless question will count toward your marks in any of my lessons. That is a promise.”

Many students sat straight up at that, looking rather shocked.

Professor Quirrell was smiling thinly. “Those of you who have wasted time by reading your useless first-year Defence textbooks -”

Someone made a choking sound. Harry wondered if it was Hermione.

“- may have gotten the impression that although this subject is called Defence Against the Dark Arts, it is actually about how to defend against Nightmare Butterflies, which cause mildly bad dreams, or Acid Slugs, which can dissolve all the way through a two-inch wooden beam given most of a day.”

Professor Quirrell stood up, shoving his chair back from the desk. The screen on Harry’s desk followed his every move. Professor Quirrell strode towards the front of the classroom, and bellowed:

“The Hungarian Horntail is taller than a dozen men! It breathes fire so quickly and so accurately that it can melt a Snitch in midflight! One Killing Curse will bring it down!”

There were gasps from the students.

“The Mountain Troll is more dangerous than the Hungarian Horntail! It is strong enough to bite through steel! Its hide is resistant enough to withstand Stunning Hexes and Cutting Charms! Its sense of smell is so acute that it can tell from afar whether its prey is part of a pack, or alone and vulnerable! Most fearsome of all, the troll is unique among magical creatures in continuously maintaining a form of Transfiguration on itself - it is always transforming into its own body. If you somehow succeed in ripping off its arm it will grow another within seconds! Fire and acid will produce scar tissue which can temporarily confuse a troll’s regenerative powers - for an hour or two! They are smart enough to use clubs as tools! The mountain troll is the third most perfect killing machine in all Nature! One Killing Curse will bring it down.”

The students were looking rather shocked.

Professor Quirrell was smiling rather grimly. “Your sad excuse for a third-year Defence textbook will suggest to you that you expose the mountain troll to sunlight, which will freeze it in place. This, my young apprentices, is the sort of useless knowledge you will never find in my lessons. You do not encounter mountain trolls in open daylight! The idea that you should use sunlight to stop them is the result of foolish textbook authors trying to show off their mastery of minutia at the expense of practicality. Just because there is a ridiculously obscure way of dealing with mountain trolls does not mean you should actually try to use it! The Killing Curse is unblockable, unstoppable, and works every single time on anything with a brain. If, as an adult wizard, you find yourself incapable of using the Killing Curse, then you can simply Apparate away! Likewise if you are facing the second most perfect killing machine, a Dementor. You just Apparate away!”

“Unless, of course,” Professor Quirrell said, his voice now lower and harder, “you are under the influence of an anti-Apparition jinx. No, there is exactly one monster which can threaten you once you are fully grown. The single most dangerous monster in all the world, so dangerous that nothing else comes close. The Dark Wizard. That is the only thing that will still be able to threaten you.”

Professor Quirrell’s lips were set in a thin line. “I will reluctantly teach you enough trivia for a passing mark on the Ministry-mandated portions of your first-year finals. Since your exact mark on these sections will make no difference to your future life, anyone who wants more than a passing mark is welcome to waste their own time studying our pathetic excuse for a textbook. The title of this subject is not Defence Against Minor Pests. You are here to learn how to defend yourselves against the Dark Arts. Which means, let us be very clear on this, defending yourselves against Dark Wizards. People with wands who want to hurt you and who will likely succeed in doing so unless you hurt them first! There is no defence without offence! There is no defence without fighting! This reality is deemed too harsh for eleven-year-olds by the fat, overpaid, Auror-guarded politicians who mandated your curriculum. To the abyss with those fools! You are here for the subject that has been taught at Hogwarts for eight hundred years! Welcome to your first year of Battle Magic!”