Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (132 page)

No rescuer hath the rescuer,
Godric Gryffindor had written.
No Lord hath the champion, no mother and no father, only nothingness above.

If
that
was the price of being a hero, Hermione wasn’t sure she wanted to pay it. Or maybe - though it wasn’t the sort of thing she would have thought, before she started hanging around Harry - maybe Godric Gryffindor had gotten it
wrong
.

“Do you trust
Dumbledore?”
Hermione said. “I mean, he’s right here in our school and he’s the most legendary hero in the whole world -”

“He
was
the most legendary hero,” said Harry. “Now he sets chickens on fire. Honestly, does Dumbledore seem reliable to
you?
”

Hermione didn’t answer.

Side by side, the two of them began to climb huge wide spiral stairs, the steps alternating between bronze metal and blue stone; the final approach to where the Ravenclaw portrait waited to guard their dorm with silly riddles.

“Oh, and I just thought of something I should tell you,” Harry said when they were about halfway up. “Since it affects your life and all. Think of it as a sort of down payment -”

“What is it?” said Hermione.

“I predict S.P.H.E.W. is about to retire.”

“
Retire?
” Hermione said, almost stumbling on one of the stairs.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I mean, I could be wrong, but I suspect the teachers are about to clamp down hard on fighting in the corridors.” Harry was grinning as he spoke, a glint in his eyes behind the glasses hinting at secret knowledge. “Cast new wards to detect offensive hexes, or start verifying reports of bullying using Veritaserum - I can think of several ways they might shut it down. But if I’m right, it’s something to celebrate, Hermione, you and all of you. You kicked up enough public ruckus that you got them to actually
do
something about the bullying.
All
the bullying.”

Slowly, then, a smile began to creep up her lips, and as she reached the top of the stairs and began walking toward the Ravenclaw portrait for her riddle, Hermione felt rather lighter on her feet, a wonderful lifting feeling spreading through her like she’d been pumped full of helium.

Somehow, despite all the effort the eight of them had put in, she hadn’t expected
that
much, she hadn’t expected it to actually
work
.

They’d made a
difference…

It was the end of breakfast-time on the next morning.

The students from every year sat very still in their benches, all heads turned in the same direction, toward the Head Table, before which one lone first-year girl stood rigid and motionless, her head tilted back to stare up at the Head of House Slytherin.

Professor Snape’s face was twisted with fury and triumph, vindictive as any painting of a Dark Wizard; and behind him the other Professors sat at the Head Table, watching with faces as though carved from stone.

“- permanently disbanded,” spat the Potions Master. “Your self-proclaimed Society is
outlawed
within Hogwarts, by my decision as a Professor! If your Society or any member of it is discovered fighting in the hallways again, Granger, you will be
personally
held responsible and expelled, by me, from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!”

That first-year girl stood there, before the Head Table where she’d been called before only to receive commendations and smiles; stood there with her spine held tall and upright in its curve like a centaur’s bow, giving nothing to the enemy.

That first-year witch stood there with all tears and anger bottled, her face still, nothing changing of her outward appearance, while something slowly broke inside her, she could feel it breaking.

It broke further when Professor Snape gave her two weeks detention for the crime of violence in school, sneering with the contemptuous face he’d shown them all on the first day of Potions, and with a little twist in the corner of his smile that said the Potions Master knew exactly how unfair he was being.

Whatever-it-was inside her cracked all the way through, from top to bottom, when Professor Snape took one hundred points from Ravenclaw.

It ended, then, and Snape told her she was dismissed.

She turned around and saw that at the Ravenclaw table, Harry Potter was sitting still in his place, she couldn’t see his expression from here, she saw his fists on the table but she couldn’t see if they were clenched white like her own. She had whispered to him, when Professor Snape had called her, that he wasn’t to do anything without asking first.

Hermione wheeled back again to look at the Head Table, just as Snape was turning away from her to resume his place.

“I said you’re dismissed, girl,” said the sneering voice, but there was a pleased smile on Snape’s face, like he was waiting for her to do something -

Hermione strode forward another five steps toward the Head Table and said in a breaking voice, “Headmaster?”

Utter silence filled the Great Hall.

Headmaster Dumbledore said nothing, didn’t move. It was as though he, too, was just carved from stone.

Hermione turned her gaze to look at Professor Flitwick, whose head, barely visible above the table, seemed to be staring down into his lap. Beside him, Professor Sprout’s face was very tight, she seemed to be forcing herself to watch, and her lips were trembling, but she said nothing.

Professor McGonagall’s chair was empty, the Deputy Headmistress hadn’t shown up to breakfast that morning.

“Why aren’t any of you saying anything?” said Hermione Granger. Her voice was trembling with the last of her hope, the last desperate reach for help from that place inside her. “You
know
what he’s doing is wrong!”

“Two more weeks’ detention, for insolence,” Snape said silkily.

It shattered.

She looked at the Head Table for a few seconds longer, at Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout and the empty place where Professor McGonagall should’ve been. Then Hermione Granger turned and began walking toward the Ravenclaw table.

There was a babble of voices starting up, as the students came unfrozen from where they’d sat.

And then, as she was almost to the Ravenclaw table -

The dry voice of Professor Quirrell cut through everything, and that voice said, “One hundred points to Miss Granger for doing what is right.”

Hermione almost fell over her own feet; and then she continued forward, even as Snape shouted something furious, even as Professor Quirrell leaned back in his chair and began to laugh, even as Dumbledore’s voice was saying something she didn’t catch and then she was sitting down at the Ravenclaw table again next to Harry Potter.

Harry Potter was frozen beside her, he looked like someone who didn’t dare move.

“It’s all right,” her voice said to him, automatically without there being any choice or thought involved, although really it wasn’t right at all. “But can you see if you can get me out of Snape’s detentions, like you did yourself that time?”

Harry Potter nodded, a single jerky motion of his head. “I -” said Harry. “I - I’m sorry, this - this is all my fault -”

“Don’t be
ridiculous
, Harry.” It was odd how her voice was coming out all normal, and without her thinking about what to say. Hermione looked down at her breakfast plate, but eating seemed to be clearly out of the question, there was a roiling and churning in her stomach which suggested that she was already on the verge of throwing up, which was odd because she could have sworn her whole body felt numb, like she wasn’t feeling anything, at the same time.

“And,” her voice said, “if you want to break school rules or something, you can ask me about it, I promise I won’t just say no.”

Non est salvatori salvator,
neque defensori dominus,
nec pater nec mater,
nihil supernum.

- Godric Gryffindor,
1202 C.E.

Rianne Felthorne descended the stairs of roughened stone and crude mortar, keeping a
Lumos
lit through the distances between fire-sconces, holding aloft her wand through the gaps from light to light.

She came to the empty rock cavern pierced by many dark openings, lit by a torch of ancient style that fired as she entered.

There was no one else there, as yet, and after long minutes of nervous standing, she began the spell to Transfigure a cushioned sofa large enough for two people to sit, or maybe even lie down on. A simple wooden stool would have been easier, she could have done that in fifteen seconds, but - well -

Even when the sofa was fully conjured, Professor Snape still hadn’t arrived, and she sat down on the left side of her sofa with her pulse hammering in her throat. Somehow she was only becoming more nervous, not less, as the delay stretched.

She knew this was the last time.

The last time before all these memories went away, and Rianne Felthorne found herself in a mysterious cavern, wondering what was going on.

There was something about it that felt like dying.

The books said a properly done Obliviation wasn’t harmful, people forgot things all the time. People dreamed, and then woke up without remembering their dreams. Obliviation didn’t even involve that much discontinuity, just a brief instant of disorientation; it was like being distracted by a loud noise and losing track of a thought you couldn’t seem to remember afterward. That was what the books said, and why Memory Charms were fully approved by the Ministry for all authorized governmental purposes.

But still,
these thoughts,
the thoughts she was thinking right now; soon nobody would have them anymore. When she looked ahead in the future, there was nobody to complete the thoughts she wasn’t finished thinking. Even if she managed to tie up all the loose ends in her mind over the next minute, there wouldn’t be anything left of it afterward. Wasn’t that exactly what you would find yourself reflecting on, if you were going to die in the next minute?

There came the sound of muffled steps…

Severus Snape emerged into the cavern.

His eyes moved to her sitting on the sofa, and a strange expression crossed his face; strange because it wasn’t sardonic, or angry, or cold.

“Thank you, Miss Felthorne,” Snape said quietly, “that was considerate of you.” The Potions Master took out his wand and performed the usual privacy Charms, and then he moved toward her, and sat down heavily beside her on the Transfigured sofa.

Her pulse was now pounding for another reason entirely.

She slowly turned to look at Professor Snape, and saw that his head was leaning back against the sofa, and his eyes were closed. Not sleeping, though. His face appeared tense, unrelaxed, bearing pain.

She knew - she was suddenly certain - that she was only allowed to see this sight because she wouldn’t remember it afterward; and that nobody before her had ever been allowed to see it.

The frantic conversation going on inside Rianne Felthorne’s mind sounded something like this:
I could just lean over and kiss him, you are completely out of your tiny mind, his eyes are closed I bet he wouldn’t stop me in time, I bet it would be years before anyone found your body -

But Professor Snape opened his eyes then (to her inner disappointment and relief), and said, in a more normal voice, “Your payment, Miss Felthorne.” From his robe he took a ruby, cut to Gringotts standard, and held it out toward her. “Fifty facets. I will not mind if you count them.”

She held out a trembling hand, hoping that Snape would press the ruby into her fingers, that she would feel a touch of his skin alive against hers -

But instead Snape raised his hand slightly and dropped the ruby into her hand, then leaned back against the couch. “You will remember finding it lying on the ground of this cavern, where you came exploring,” said Snape. “And since nobody except you will actually believe that, you will remember thinking that it would be less troublesome if you deposited the money into a separate box in Gringotts.”

For a stretch there was only the faint crackling of the torch.

“Why -” Rianne Felthorne said.
He knows I won’t remember.
“Why
did
you do it? I mean - you said to tell you where bullies would be, and who they would be, but not whether Granger would be there. And I know, the way the Time-Turner works, if you want to
make
Granger be there, you can’t be told whether it’s already happened. So I did work out that
we
were the ones telling her where to go. We were, weren’t we?”

Snape nodded without speaking. He had closed his eyes again.

“But,” said Rianne, “I didn’t understand
why
you were helping her. And now - after what you did to Granger in the Great Hall - I just don’t understand at all.” Rianne had never thought of herself as particularly nice. She’d taken little notice of the controversy over the Sunshine General. But something about
helping
Granger fight bullies had… well, she’d gotten used to thinking of that as the good side, and thinking of
herself
as being on the good side. And she’d found she actually liked it. It was hard, to just let that go. “Why’d you do that, Professor Snape?”

Snape shook his head, his face tightened.

“Is -” Rianne said falteringly. “I mean - so long as we’re here - is there anything you do want to talk about?” There was something
she
wanted to say, but she couldn’t make the words pass her own lips.

“I can think of one matter,” Snape said after a pause. “If you are interested, Miss Felthorne.”

Snape’s eyes were still shut, so she couldn’t just nod her head. Her voice almost broke, when she forced herself to say “Yes.”

“There’s a certain boy in your class who likes you, Miss Felthorne,” Snape said from behind his closed eyes. “I won’t say his name. But he watches you every time you walk across the room, when he thinks you aren’t looking. He dreams about you and desires to possess you, but he’s never asked you for so much as a kiss.”

Her heart started hammering even harder.

“Please tell me the honest truth, Miss Felthorne. What do you think of that boy?”

“Well -” she said. She was stumbling over her words. “I think - to never even ask for one kiss - would be -”

Sad.

Just too p
itiful.

“Weakness,” she said, her voice trembling.

“I agree,” said Snape. “Suppose that boy had helped you, though. Would you think that you owed him a kiss, if he asked?”

She inhaled sharply -

“Or would you think,” Snape continued, his eyes still closed, “that he was just being bothersome?”

The words stabbed into her like a knife and she couldn’t help gasping out loud.

Snape’s eyes flew open, and his gaze met hers across the sofa.

Then the Potions Master began to laugh, small sad chuckles.

“No, not
you,
Miss Felthorne!” Snape said. “Not
you!
We really
are
talking about a boy. One who attends your Potions class, in fact.”

“Oh,” she said. She tried to remember what Snape had said before, now feeling rather unnerved as she thought of some boy watching her, always silently watching. “Well, um, in that case. That’s kind of
creepy
, actually. Who is it?”

The Potions Master shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” said Snape. “Out of curiosity, what would you think if that boy were still in love with you years later?”

“Um,” she said, feeling a bit confused, “that would be totally pathetic?”

The torch crackled a bit in the cavern.

“It’s strange,” Snape said quietly. “I have had two mentors, over the course of my days. Both were extraordinarily perceptive, and neither one ever told me the things I wasn’t seeing. It’s clear enough why the first said nothing, but the second…” Snape’s face tightened. “I suppose I would have to be naive, to ask why he stayed silent.”

The quiet stretched, while Rianne tried frantically to think of something to say.

“It is an odd thing,” Snape said, his voice still softer, “to look back after only thirty-two years, and wonder when your life was ruined past all rescuing. Was it determined when the Sorting Hat cried ‘Slytherin!’ for me? It seems unfair, since I was offered no choice; the Sorting Hat spoke the moment it touched upon my head. Yet I cannot claim it named me untruly. I never treasured knowledge for its own sake. I was not loyal to the one person I called friend. I was never one for righteous fury, then or now. Courage? There is no bravery in risking a life already ruined. My little fears have always mastered me, and I never turned aside from any of the paths I walked down, for those little fears. No, the Sorting Hat could never have put me in her House. Perhaps my final loss was determined, even then. Is that fair, I ask, even if the Sorting Hat speaks truly? Is it fair that some children should possess more courage than others, and thus a man’s life be judged?”

Rianne Felthorne was starting to realize that she’d never had the tiniest inkling of who her Potions Master was inside, and unfortunately all these dark hidden depths weren’t helping her with her problem.

“But no,” Snape said. “I know where it went wrong for the last time. I could point to the very day and hour I missed my final chance. Miss Felthorne, did the Sorting Hat offer you Ravenclaw?”

“Y-yes,” she said without thinking.

“Have you ever been any good at riddles?”

“Yes,” she said again, because whatever Professor Snape was about to say, she wouldn’t hear it if she said
no.

“I am terrible at riddles,” Snape said in a distant voice. “I was once given a riddle to solve, and I did not understand even the simplest part until too late. I did not even realize the riddle was meant for
me
until too late. I thought I had merely happened to overhear it, when in truth it was I who was overheard. So I sold my riddle to another, and that is when the wreckage of my life passed beyond retrieval.” Snape’s voice was still distant, sounding more abstracted than sorrowful. “And even now, I understand nothing of importance. Tell me, Miss Felthorne, suppose a man were carrying a knife, and he tripped over a baby and stabbed himself. Would you say that the baby had,” Snape’s voice lowered, as though he were imitating some still deeper voice, “
THE POWER TO VANQUISH
him?”

“Um… no?” she said hesitantly.

“Then what
does
it mean to have the power to vanquish someone?”

Rianne considered the puzzle. (Wishing, not for the first time in her life, that she had chosen Ravenclaw and to perdition with her parents’ disapproval; but the Sorting Hat had never offered her Gryffindor.) “Well…” Rianne said. She was having trouble putting her thoughts into words. “It means you’ve got the
power
, but you don’t
have
to do it. It means you could do it if you tried -”

“Choice,” the Potions Master said in the same faraway voice, as though he wasn’t really talking to her at all. “There will be a choice. That is what the riddle seems to imply. And that choice is not a foregone conclusion to the chooser, for the riddle does not say,
will vanquish,
but rather
the power to vanquish.
How would a grown man mark a baby as his equal?”

“What?” said Rianne. She didn’t understand that at all.

“
Marking
a baby is simple. Any strong Dark curse would produce a lasting scar. But such may be done to any child. What mark would signify that a baby was your
equal?
”

She answered with the first thought that came to mind. “If you signed a betrothal contract, that would mean you’d be equals with them someday, when they grew up and you got married.”

“That…” said Snape. “That’s probably not it, Miss Felthorne, but thank you for trying.” The long delicate fingers, honed by stirring potions to unimaginably fine tolerances, reached up and rubbed at the temples of the man’s forehead. “It is enough to drive me to madness, so much hinging on such fragile words. Power he knows not… it
must
be more than some unknown spell. Not something
he
could acquire simply by practice and study. Some innate talent? No one can learn to be a Metamorphmagus… and yet that hardly seems like a power he
knows not
. Nor can I see how
either
could destroy all but a remnant of the other; I can see it in one direction, but not the reverse…” The Potions Master sighed. “And none of this means anything to you, does it, Miss Felthorne? The words are nothing. The words are shadows. It is her
intonation
which carries the meaning and that is something I’ve never been able to…”

The Potions Master trailed off, while Rianne stared at him.

“A
prophecy?
” Rianne said in a high squeak. “You heard a
prophecy?
” She’d taken Divination for a couple of months before dropping it in disgust, and she knew that much about how it worked.

“I will try one last thing,” said Snape. “Something I have not tried before. Miss Felthorne, listen to the
sound
of my voice, the
way
I say it
,
not the words themselves, and tell me what you think it means. Can you do that? Good,” said Snape, as she nodded obediently, though she wasn’t sure at all what she was supposed to do.

And Severus Snape drew a breath, and intoned, “
FOR THOSE TWO DIFFERENT SPELLETS CANNOT EXIST IN THE SAME VULD.
”

It sent shivers down her spine, all the worse for knowing the hollow words had been spoken in imitation of a true prophecy. Unnerved, she blurted out the first thing which came to mind, which might have been influenced by her present company. “Those two different ingredients cannot exist in the same cauldron?”

“But why
not
, Miss Felthorne? What is the
meaning
of a statement like that? What are we really being told?”

“Ah…” she hazarded. “If the two ingredients mix, they’ll catch fire and burn the cauldron?”

Snape’s face did not change expression in the slightest.

“Perhaps,” Snape finally said, after they’d sat on the sofa in awful silence for what seemed like minutes. “It would explain the word
must
. Thank you, Miss Felthorne. Once again you have been most helpful.”