Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (131 page)

“So in other words,” Hermione said in her calmest voice ever, “you’re not really in trouble with me, I’m still talking to you, we’re still friends, and we’re still studying together. We’re
not
having a fight. Right?”

Somehow this only seemed to increase Harry Potter’s apprehension. “Right,” said the Boy-Who-Lived.

“Great!” said Hermione. “So,
have
you worked out why I was upset, Mr. Potter?”

There was a pause. “You wanted me to keep out of your affairs?” Harry said cautiously. “I mean - I know you wanted to do things on your own. And I
was
staying out of your way, until I’d heard you’d gotten ambushed by three junior Death Eaters and, honestly, I wasn’t expecting that.
Professor Quirrell
wasn’t expecting that. I started to worry you’d gotten in over your head and then, no offense Hermione, forty-four bullies in a massed ambush is way beyond what
anyone
could handle without help. That’s why I thought you really needed help just that once -”

“No, that part’s fine,” said Hermione. “We
were
in over our heads, honestly. Please guess again, Mr. Potter.”

“Um,” said Harry. “What Tracey did… startled you?”

“Startled me, Mr. Potter?” There might have been a touch of acidity in her voice. “No, Mr. Potter, I was
scared.
I was
frightened.
I wouldn’t want to admit to being afraid of just
dragons
or something, people might think I was
cowardly
, but when you can hear distant voices crying ‘Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!’ and there’s pools of blood seeping out from under all the doors, then it’s okay to be scared.”

“I
am
sorry,” Harry said with what sounded like genuine regret. “I thought you’d realize it was me.”

“And the
reason
we all got scared like that, Mr. Potter, was that
you didn’t ask first!
” Despite her intentions, Hermione found her voice was rising again. “You should’ve
asked
me before you did something like that, Harry! You should’ve said very specifically, ‘Hermione, can I make blood come out from under the doors?’ It’s important to be specific when you’re asking about that sort of thing!”

The boy rubbed the back of his neck as he walked. “I… honestly, I just thought you’d
have
to say no.”

“Yes, Mr. Potter,
I could’ve said no
. That’s
the whole point of asking first
, Mr. Potter!”

“No, I mean you’d have
had
to say no, whether or not it was what you
really
wanted. And then all of you would’ve gotten beaten up and it would’ve been
my
fault for asking first.”

Hermione’s eyebrows went up in a bit of surprise, and she kept walking for a few steps while she tried to understand this. “What?” she said.

“Well…” the boy said a bit slowly. “I mean… you’re the Sunshine General, aren’t you? You
couldn’t
say yes to me scaring people, not even bullies, not even to save your friends from getting beaten up. You would’ve
had
to say no, and then you would’ve gotten hurt. This way, you can tell people honestly that you had no idea and that it wasn’t your fault. That’s why I didn’t warn you.”

Hermione stopped walking, turned to face Harry full on instead of just turning her head. Her voice was carefully even as she said, “Harry, you’ve
got
to stop coming up with clever reasons for doing stupid things.”

Harry’s eyebrows flew up. After a moment he said, “Look… I know what you mean, of course, but there’s still the question of whether it’s actually
is
a good idea, not just a clever one -”

“I understand why you did what you did today,” Hermione said. “But I want you to promise that from now on, you’ll ask me first, always, even if you can come up with a reason why you shouldn’t.”

There was a pause that stretched, and Hermione could feel her heart sinking.

“Hermione -” Harry started to say.

“
Why?
” The frustration burst out into her voice. ”
Why is it so awful? All you have to do is ask!”

Harry’s eyes were very serious. “Who in S.P.H.E.W. do you try hardest to defend, Hermione? Who are you most afraid for, when you fight?”

“Hannah Abbott,” Hermione said without having to think about it, and then felt a little bad, because Hannah
was
trying hard and she
had
improved a lot -

“Would you feel okay about trusting someone else, like Tracey, with
final
responsibility for protecting Hannah? If you knew Hannah was about to walk into an ambush, and you came up with a plan for protecting her, would you feel good about letting Tracey say whether or not you were allowed to do it?”

“Well… no?” said Hermione, puzzled.

The green eyes of the Boy-Who-Lived were steady on hers. “Would you trust
Hannah
to have the final say in whether she needed protecting?”

“I -” said Hermione, and then paused. It was strange, she knew the right answer and she also knew the right answer wasn’t actually true. Hannah was trying so hard to prove she wasn’t afraid, even though she
was,
and it was easy to see how the Hufflepuff girl might try
too
hard -

Then Hermione realized the implication. “You think I’m like
Hannah?
”

“Not… exactly…” Harry ran his hands through his mess of hair. “Listen, Hermione, what would
you
have suggested doing, if I’d warned you about an ambush by forty-four bullies?”

“I would’ve done the
responsible
thing and told
Professor McGonagall
and let
her
take care of it,” Hermione said promptly. “And
then
there wouldn’t have been darkness and people screaming and horrible blue light -”

But Harry just shook his head. “That’s
not
the responsible thing to do, Hermione. It’s what someone playing the
role
of a responsible girl would do.
Yes
, I thought of going to Professor McGonagall. But she would’ve only stopped the disaster
once.
Probably before any disturbance happened in the first place, like by telling the bullies she knew. If the bullies got punished just for plotting, it would be by losing House points, or at worst a day’s detention, not anything that would really scare them. And then the bullies would have
tried again
. Fewer of them, with better operational security so I didn’t hear about it. They would probably ambush
one
of you, alone. Professor McGonagall doesn’t have the
authority
to do something scary enough to protect you - and
she
wouldn’t have overstepped her authority, because she’s not really responsible.”

“
Professor McGonagall
isn’t responsible?” Hermione said incredulously. She jammed her hands on her hips, now openly glaring at him. “Are you
nuts?”

The boy didn’t blink. “You could call it heroic responsibility, maybe,” Harry Potter said. “Not like the usual sort. It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it’s
always
your fault. Even if you tell Professor McGonagall, she’s not responsible for what happens,
you
are. Following the school rules isn’t an excuse, someone else being in charge isn’t an excuse, even trying your best isn’t an excuse. There just aren’t any excuses, you’ve got to
get the job done no matter what
.” Harry’s face tightened. “That’s why I say you’re not thinking responsibly, Hermione. Thinking that your job is done when you tell Professor McGonagall - that isn’t heroine thinking. Like Hannah being beat up is
okay
then, because it isn’t
your fault
anymore. Being a heroine means your job isn’t finished until you’ve done
whatever it takes
to protect the other girls,
permanently.
” In Harry’s voice was a touch of the steel he had acquired since the day Fawkes had been on his shoulder. “You can’t think as if just following the rules means you’ve done your duty.”

“I think,” Hermione said evenly, “that you and I might disagree about some things, Mr. Potter. Like whether you or Professor McGonagall is more
responsible
, and whether being
responsible
usually involves people running around and screaming, and how much it’s a good idea to follow school rules. And just because we disagree, Mr. Potter, doesn’t mean that
you
get the final say.”

“Well,” said Harry, “you asked what was
so
awful about having to ask you first, and it was a surprisingly good question, so I examined my mind and that’s what I found. I think my real fear is that if Hannah is in trouble and I come up with a way to save her that seems weird or dark or something, you might not weigh the consequences to Hannah. You might not accept the heroine’s responsibility of coming up with
some
way to save her, somehow, no matter what. Instead you’d just carry out the
role
of Hermione Granger, the sensible Ravenclaw girl; and the
role
of Hermione Granger automatically says no, whether or not she has a better plan in mind. And then forty-four bullies will take turns beating up Hannah Abbott, and it’ll all be my fault because I
knew,
even if I didn’t want reality to be that way, I knew that was how it would go. I’m pretty sure that was my secret, wordless, unutterable fear.”

The frustration was building up inside her again. “It’s
my
life!” Hermione burst out. She could imagine what it would be like with Harry messing with her all the time, constantly inventing justifications not to ask her first and not to listen to her objections. She shouldn’t have to
win an argument
just to - “There’ll
always
be some reason, you can
always
say I’m not thinking right! I want my
own life!
Otherwise I’ll walk away, I really will, I mean it Harry.”

Harry sighed. “This is exactly where I didn’t want things to end up, and here we are. You’re afraid of just the same thing I am, aren’t you? Afraid that if
you
let go of the steering wheel, we’ll crash.” The corners of his lips twisted, but it didn’t look like a real smile. “That’s something I can understand.”

“I don’t think you understand
at all!
” Hermione said sharply. “You said we’d be
partners,
Harry!”

That stopped him, she could see it stop him.

“How about this?” Harry said at last. “I’ll promise to ask you first before I do anything that could be interpreted as meddling in your affairs. Only
you’ve
got to promise
me
to be reasonable, Hermione. I mean
really
, genuinely, stop and think for twenty seconds first, treat it as a real choice. The sort of reasonableness where you realize I’m offering a way to protect the other girls, and that if you automatically say
no
without considering it properly, there’s this
actual consequence
where Hannah Abbott ends up in the hospital.”

Hermione stared at Harry, as his recitation wound down.

“Well?” said Harry.

“I shouldn’t have to make promises,” she said, “just to be
consulted
about
my own life.
” She turned from Harry and began walking toward the Ravenclaw tower, not looking at him. “But I’ll think about it, anyway.”

She heard Harry sigh, and after that they walked in silence for a while, passing through an archway of some reddish metal like copper, into a corridor that was just like the one they’d left except that it was tiled in pentagons instead of squares.

“Hermione…” said Harry. “I’ve been watching you and thinking, since the day you said you were going to be a hero. You’ve
got
the courage. You’ll fight for what’s right, even in the face of enemies that would scare other people away. You’ve certainly got the raw intelligence for it, and you’re probably a better person inside than I am. But even so… well, to be honest, Hermione… I can’t quite see you filling Dumbledore’s shoes, leading magical Britain’s fight against You-Know-Who. Not yet, anyway.”

Hermione had turned her head to stare at Harry, who just went on walking, as though lost in thought. Fill
those
shoes? She’d never tried to imagine herself that way. She’d never
imagined
imagining herself that way.

“And maybe I’m wrong,” Harry said as they walked. “Maybe I’ve just read too many stories where the heroes never do the sensible thing and follow the rules and tell their Professor McGonagalls, so my brain doesn’t think you’re a proper storybook hero. Maybe it’s you who’s the sane one, Hermione, and me who’s just being silly. But every time you talk about following rules or relying on teachers, I get that same feeling, like it’s bound up with this one last thing that’s stopping you, one last thing that puts your PC self to sleep and turns you into an NPC again…” Harry let out a sigh. “Maybe that’s why Dumbledore said I should have wicked stepparents.”

“He said
what?
”

Harry nodded. “I still don’t know whether the Headmaster was joking or… the thing is, he was
right
in a way. I
had
loving parents, but I never felt like I could trust their decisions, they weren’t
sane
enough. I always knew that if I didn’t think things through myself, I might get hurt. Professor McGonagall will do whatever it takes to get the job done
if
I’m there to nag her about it, she doesn’t break rules on her own without heroic supervision. Professor Quirrell really
is
someone who gets things done no matter what, and he’s the only other person I know who notices stuff like the Snitch ruining Quidditch. But
him
I can’t trust to be
good
. Even if it’s sad, I think that’s part of the environment that creates what Dumbledore calls a hero - people who don’t have anyone else to shove final responsibility onto, and that’s why they form the mental habit of tracking everything themselves.”

Hermione didn’t say anything to that, but she was thinking back to something Godric Gryffindor had written near the end of his very short autobiography. Briefly and without any explanation, because the scroll had been meant to be copied by hand, centuries before the Muggle printing press had inspired wizards to invent the Reading-Writing Quill.