Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (76 page)

“Sometimes it still hurts to think of him in Azkaban,” Remus finished, his voice almost a whisper. “I am glad, Harry, that Death Eaters are not allowed visitors. It means I do not have to feel ashamed of not going.”

Harry had to swallow hard several times before he could speak. “Can you tell me about Peter Pettigrew? He was my father’s friend, and it seems - that I should know, that I should remember -”

Remus nodded, water glittering in his own eyes now. “I think, Harry, that if Peter had known it would end that way -” the man’s voice choked up. “Peter was more afraid of the Dark Lord than any of us, and if he’d known it would end that way, I don’t think he would have done it. But Peter knew the
risk
, Harry, he knew the risk was real, that it
could
happen, and yet he stayed by James and Lily’s side. All through Hogwarts I used to wonder why Peter hadn’t been sorted into Slytherin, or maybe Ravenclaw, because Peter so adored secrets, he couldn’t resist them, he would find out things about people, things they wanted kept hidden -” A brief wry look crossed Remus’s face. “But he didn’t
use
those secrets, Harry. He just wanted to know. And then the Dark Lord’s shadow fell over everything, and Peter stood by James and Lily and put his talents to good use, and I understood why the Hat had sent him to Gryffindor.” Remus’s voice was fierce now, and proud. “It’s
easy
to stand by your friends if you’re a hero like Godric, bold and strong like people think Gryffindors should be. But if Peter was more afraid than any of us, doesn’t that also make him the most brave?”

“It does,” Harry said. His own voice was choked to where he almost couldn’t talk. “If you could, Mr. Lupin, if you have time, there’s someone else who I think should hear Peter Pettigrew’s story, a student in first-year Hufflepuff, named Neville Longbottom.”

“Alice and Frank’s boy,” said Remus, his voice turning sad. “I see. It is not a happy story, Harry, but I can tell it again, if you think it will help him.”

Harry nodded.

A brief silence fell.

“Did Black have
any
unfinished business with Peter Pettigrew?” Harry said. “
Anything
that would make him seek out Mr. Pettigrew, even if it wasn’t a killing matter? Like a secret Mr. Pettigrew knew, that Black wanted to know himself, or wanted to kill him to hide?”

Something flickered in Remus’s eyes, but the older man shook his head, and said, “Not really.”

“That means there
is
something,” said Harry.

That wry smile appeared again beneath the salt-and-pepper mustache. “You have a bit of Peter in you yourself, I see. But it’s not important, Harry.”

“I’m a Ravenclaw, I’m not
supposed
to resist the temptation of secrets. And,” Harry said more seriously, “if it was worth Black getting caught, I can’t help but think it might matter.”

Remus looked quite uncomfortable. “I suppose I could tell you when you’re older, but really, Harry, it’s
not
important! Just something from our school days.”

Harry couldn’t have put his finger on exactly what tipped him off; it might have been something about the exact tone of nervousness in Remus’s voice, or the way the man had said
when you’re older
, that sparked the sudden leap of Harry’s intuition…

“Actually,” said Harry, “I think I’ve sort of guessed it already, sorry.”

Remus raised his eyebrows. “Have you?” He sounded a bit skeptical.

“They were lovers, weren’t they?”

There was an awkward pause.

Remus gave a slow, grave nod.

“Once,” Remus said. “A long time ago. A sad affair, ending in vast tragedy, or so it seemed to us all when we were young.” The unhappy puzzlement was plain on his face. “But I had thought that long since over and done and buried beneath adult friendship, until the day that Black killed Peter.”

The gentle sun of January shone on the cold fields outside Hogwarts.

For some of the students it was a study hour, and others had been let out of class. The first-years who’d signed up for it were practicing a certain spell, a spell that was most advantageously learned outdoors, beneath the bright sun and a clear blue sky, rather than within the confines of any classroom. Cookies and lemonade were also considered helpful.

The early gestures of the spell were complex and precise; you twitched your wand once, twice, thrice, and four times with small tilts at exactly the right relative angles, you shifted your forefinger and thumb exactly the right distances…

The Ministry thought this meant it was futile to try and teach anyone the spell before their fifth year. There had been a few known cases of younger children learning it, and this had been dismissed as “genius”.

It might not have been a very polite way of putting it, but Harry was beginning to see why Professor Quirrell had claimed that the Ministry Committee of Curriculum would have been of greater benefit to wizardkind if they had been used as landfill.

So the gestures were complicated and delicate. That didn’t stop you from learning it when you were eleven. It meant you had to be extra careful and practice each part for a lot longer than usual, that was all.

Most Charms that could only be learned by older students were like that because they required more strength of magic than any young student could muster. But the Patronus Charm
wasn’t
like that, it wasn’t difficult because it needed too much magic, it was difficult because it took
more
than mere magic.

It took the warm, happy feelings that you kept close in your heart, the loving memories, a different kind of strength that you didn’t need for ordinary spells.

Harry twitched his wand once, twice, thrice and four times, shifted his fingers exactly the right distances…

“Good luck at school, Harry. Do you think I bought you enough books?”

“You can never have enough books… but you certainly tried, it was a really, really, really good try…”

It had brought tears to his eyes, the first time Harry had remembered and tried to put it into the spell.

Harry brought the wand up and around and brandished it, a gesture that didn’t have to be precise, only bold and defiant.

“
Expecto Patronum!
” cried Harry.

Nothing happened.

Not a single flicker of light.

When Harry looked up, Remus Lupin was still studying the wand, a rather troubled look on his faintly scarred face.

Finally Remus shook his head. “I’m sorry, Harry,” the man said quietly. “Your wandwork was exactly right.”

And there wasn’t a flicker of light anywhere else, either, because all the other first-years who were supposed to be practicing their Patronus Charms had been glancing out of the corners of their eyes at Harry instead.

The tears were threatening to come back into Harry’s eyes, and they weren’t happy tears. Of all the things, of all the things, Harry had never expected this.

There was something horribly humiliating about being informed that you weren’t happy enough.

What did Anthony Goldstein have inside him that Harry didn’t, that made Anthony’s wand shine with that bright light?

Did Anthony love his own father more?

“What thought were you using to cast it?” said Remus.

“My father,” Harry said, his voice trembling. “I asked him to buy me some books before I came to Hogwarts, and he did, and they were expensive, and then he asked me if they were enough -”

Harry didn’t try to explain about the Verres family motto.

“Take a rest before you try a different thought, Harry,” said Remus. He gestured toward where some other students were sitting on the ground, looking disappointed or embarrassed or regretful. “You won’t be able to cast a Patronus Charm while you’re feeling ashamed of not being grateful enough.” There was a gentle compassion in Mr. Lupin’s voice, and for a moment, Harry felt like hitting something.

Instead Harry turned around, and stalked to where the other failures were sitting. The other students whose wandwork had also been proclaimed perfect, and who were now supposed to be searching for happier thoughts; by the looks of them they weren’t making much progress. There were many robes there trimmed in dark blue, and a handful of red, and one lone Hufflepuff girl who was still crying. The Slytherins hadn’t even bothered showing up, except for Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis, who were still trying to get the gestures.

Harry plopped down on the cold dead grass of winter, next to the student whose failure had surprised him the most.

“So you couldn’t do it either,” Hermione said. She’d fled the field at first, but she’d come back after that, and you had to look closely at her reddened eyes to see that she’d been crying.

“I,” Harry said, “I, I’d probably feel a lot worse about that if you hadn’t failed, you’re the nicest, person I know, that I’ve ever met, Hermione, and if
you
also can’t do it, it means I might still be, be good…”

“I should have gone to Gryffindor,” Hermione whispered. She blinked hard a few times, but she didn’t wipe her eyes.

The boy and the girl walked forward together, definitely not holding hands, but each drawing a kind of strength from the other’s presence, something that let them ignore the whispers of their year-mates, as they walked through the hallway approaching the great doors of Hogwarts.

Harry hadn’t been able to cast the Patronus Charm no matter what happy thought he tried. People hadn’t seemed surprised by that, which made it even worse. Hermione hadn’t been able to do it either. People had been
very
surprised by that, and Harry had seen her starting to get the same sidelong looks as him. The other Ravenclaws who’d failed weren’t getting those looks. But Hermione was the Sunshine General, and her fans were treating it like she’d failed them, somehow, like she’d betrayed a promise she’d never made.

The two of them had gone to the library to research the Patronus Charm, which was Hermione’s way of dealing with distress, as it was sometimes also Harry’s. Study, learn, try to understand
why…

The books had confirmed what the Headmaster had told Harry; often, wizards who couldn’t cast the Patronus Charm in practice would be able to do so in the presence of a real Dementor, going from flat failure all the way to a full corporeal Patronus. It defied all logic, the Dementor’s aura of fear ought to make it
harder
to wield a happy thought; but that was the way it was.

So the two of them were both going to give it one last try, there was no way either of them wouldn’t give it one last try.

It was the day the Dementor came to Hogwarts.

Earlier, Harry had unTransfigured his father’s rock from where it usually rested on his pinky ring in the form of a tiny diamond, and placed the huge gray stone back into his pouch. Just in case Harry’s magic failed entirely, when he confronted the darkest of all creatures.

Harry had already started to feel pessimistic, and he wasn’t even in front of a Dementor yet.

“I bet you can do it and I can’t,” Harry said in a whisper. “I bet that’s what happens.”

“It felt wrong to me,” Hermione said, her voice even quieter than his. “I tried it this morning and I realized. When I was doing the brandish at the end, even before I said the words, it felt wrong.”

Harry didn’t say anything. He’d felt the same thing, right from the start, though it had taken another five attempts using five other happy thoughts before he’d been able to acknowledge it to himself. Every time he tried to brandish his wand, it had felt hollow; the spell he was trying to learn didn’t fit him.

“It doesn’t mean we’re going to be Dark Wizards,” said Harry. “Lots of people who can’t cast the Patronus Charm aren’t Dark Wizards. Godric Gryffindor wasn’t a Dark Wizard…”

Godric had defeated Dark Lords, fought to protect commoners from Noble Houses and Muggles from wizards. He’d had many fine friends and true, and lost no more than half of them in one good cause or another. He’d listened to the screams of the wounded, in the armies he’d raised to defend the innocent; young wizards of courage had rallied to his calls, and he’d buried them afterward. Until finally, when his wizardry had only just begun to fail him in his old age, he’d brought together the three other most powerful wizards of his era to raise Hogwarts from the bare ground; the one great accomplishment to Godric’s name that wasn’t about war, any kind of war, no matter how just. It was Salazar, and not Godric, who’d taught the first Hogwarts class in Battle Magic. Godric had taught the first Hogwarts class in Herbology, the magics of green growing life.

To his last day he’d never been able to cast the Patronus Charm.

Godric Gryffindor had been a good man, not a happy one.

Harry didn’t believe in angst, he couldn’t stand reading about whiny heroes, he knew a billion other people in the world would have given anything to trade places with him, and…

And on his deathbed, Godric had told Helga (for Salazar had abandoned him, and Rowena passed before) that he didn’t regret any of it, and he was
not
warning his students not to follow in his footsteps, no one was
ever
to say he’d told anyone not to follow in his footsteps. If it had been the right thing for
him
to do, then he wouldn’t tell anyone else to choose wrongly, not even the youngest student in Hogwarts. And yet for those who
did
follow in his footsteps, he hoped they would remember that Gryffindor had told his House that it was all right for them to be happier than him. That red and gold would be bright warm colors, from now on.

And Helga had promised him, weeping, that when she was Headmistress she would make sure of it.

Whereupon Godric had died, and left no ghost behind him; and Harry had shoved the book back to Hermione and walked away a little, so she wouldn’t see him crying.

You wouldn’t think that a book with an innocent title like “The Patronus Charm: Wizards Who Could and Couldn’t” would be the saddest book Harry had ever read.

Harry…

Harry didn’t want that.

To be in that book.

Harry didn’t want that.

The rest of the school just seemed to think that
No Patronus
meant
Bad Person,
plain and simple. Somehow the fact that Godric Gryffindor also hadn’t been able to cast the Patronus Charm seemed not to get repeated. Maybe people didn’t talk about it to respect his last wish, Fred and George probably didn’t know and Harry certainly wasn’t about to tell them. Or maybe the other failures didn’t mention it because it was less shameful, the smaller loss of pride and status, to be thought Dark rather than unhappy.

Harry saw that Hermione, beside him, was blinking hard; and he wondered if she was thinking of Rowena Ravenclaw, who’d also loved books.

“Okay,” Harry whispered. “Happier thoughts. If you do go to a full corporeal Patronus, what do you think your animal will be?”

“An otter,” Hermione said at once.

“An
otter?
” Harry whispered incredulously.

“Yes, an otter,” said Hermione. “What about yours?”

“Peregrine falcon,” Harry said without hesitation. “It can dive faster than three hundred kilometers per hour, it’s the fastest living creature there is.” The peregrine falcon had been Harry’s favorite animal since forever. Harry was determined to become an Animagus someday, just to get that as his form, and fly by the strength of his own wings, and see the land below with sharper eyes… “But why an
otter?
”

Hermione smiled, but didn’t say anything.

And the vast doors of Hogwarts swung open.

They walked for a time, the children, over a pathway that led toward the unforbidden forest, and continued through the forest itself. The Sun was lowering to near the horizon, the shadows long, the sunlight filtered through the bare branches of the winter trees; for it was January, and the first-years the last to learn, that day.

Then the path swerved and took a new direction, and they all saw it in the distance, the clearing in the forest, and the sere winter grounds, yellowing dried grass whitened by a few small remnants of snow.

The human figures still small at that range. The two spots of dim white light from the Aurors’ Patronuses, and the brighter spot of silver light from the Headmaster’s, next to something…

Harry squinted.

Something…

It must have been purely Harry’s imagination, because there shouldn’t have been any way for a Dementor to reach past three corporeal Patronuses, but he thought he could feel a touch of emptiness brushing at his mind, brushing straight at the soft inner center of himself without any respect for Occlumency barriers.

Seamus Finnigan was ashen and trembling as he rejoined the students milling about on the withered and snow-spotted grass. Seamus’s Patronus Charm had been successful, but there was still that interval between when the Headmaster dispelled his own Patronus and when you were supposed to cast your own, when you faced the Dementor’s fear unshielded.

Up to twenty seconds of exposure at five paces was certainly safe, even for an eleven-year-old wizard with weak resistance and a still-maturing brain. There was a lot of variance in how hard the Dementor’s power hit people, which was another thing not quite understood; but twenty seconds was definitely safe.

Forty seconds of Dementor exposure at five paces might
possibly
have been enough to cause permanent damage, though only to the most sensitive subjects.

It was harsh training even by the standards of Hogwarts, where the way you learned to fly on a hippogriff was by being tossed on one and told to get going. Harry was no fan of overprotectiveness, and if you looked at the difference in maturity between a fourth-year in Hogwarts and a fourteen-year-old Muggle, it was clear that Muggles were smothering their children… but even Harry had started to wonder if this was pushing it. Not every hurt could be healed afterward.

But if you couldn’t cast the spell under those conditions, it meant you couldn’t rely on using the Patronus Charm to defend yourself; overconfidence was even more dangerous to wizards than to Muggles. Dementors could drain your magic and your physical vitality, not just your happy thoughts, which meant you might
not
be able to Apparate away if you waited too long, or if you didn’t recognize the approaching fear until the Dementor was within range for its attack. (During his reading, Harry had discovered with considerable horror that some books claimed the Dementor’s Kiss would
eat your soul
and that this was the reason for the permanent mindless coma into which it put the victims. And that wizards who
believed this
had deliberately used the Dementor’s Kiss to
execute criminals.
It was a certainty that some called criminals were innocent, and even if they weren’t,
destroying their souls?
If Harry had believed in souls, he would have… drawn a blank, he just couldn’t think of an appropriate response to that.)