Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (147 page)

The woman’s face was puffy and overweight, visibly pale beneath the makeup. Almost inevitably, a certain word came to mind, and that word was
toad.
Which, said Harry’s logical part, shouldn’t correlate to morality in any way. Only in Disney movies were ugly people more likely to be evil and vice versa; and those movies were probably scripted by writers who’d never been ugly. He’d give her a chance, everyone in this room deserved one chance…

“Because I got rid of the Dark Lord?” the boy said, and pointed at the Dementor where it was hovering behind Hermione’s chair. “There’s something in this room that’s Darker.”

The woman’s face narrowed, growing a little stern. “I realize a young boy like yourself may be scared by them, Mr. Potter, but the Dementors are quite obedient to the Ministry of Magic. And they would, of course, be necessary to guard -”

“A twelve-year-old girl?” the boy yelled. “Those are the Darkest creatures in the whole world, I could feel it coming here even through the Patronus - the
wrongness
coming nearer - it’s horribly evil and it - it’d eat everyone in this room, if it could! It shouldn’t be let near any child, ever! Not me, not her, not anyone! You ought to vote to send it away!”

“We’ll
certainly
have no such vote -” the toad-woman snapped.

“That’s enough, Madam Umbridge, Mr. Potter,” came Dumbledore’s stern voice from high above. And then after a short pause, the old wizard went on, “Although, of course, the boy is correct on every count.”

Some of the members of the Wizengamot were looking abashed at the Boy-Who-Lived’s admonition, and a few others were nodding violently to the old wizard’s words. But they were too few. Harry could see it. They were too few.

The Veritaserum was brought in then, and Hermione looked for a brief moment like she
was
about to sob, she was looking at Harry - no, at Professor McGonagall - and Professor McGonagall was mouthing words that Harry couldn’t make out from his angle. Then Hermione swallowed three drops of Veritaserum and her face grew slack.

“Gawain Robards,” said the smooth voice of Lucius Malfoy. “Your probity is known to all of us. If you would do the honors?”

One of the three Aurors stepped forward.

After the first few questions Harry looked away and stared off to one side with his fingers in his ears, as Hermione’s brain played back the contents of the False Memory Charm. He couldn’t handle the drug-dulled anguish in Hermione’s voice as she recounted the false memories, and his dark side couldn’t handle it either, and he’d already heard the contents summarized.

Harry’s mind flashed back to another day of horror, and even though Harry had been on the verge of writing off Lord Voldemort’s continued existence as the senility of an old wizard, it suddenly seemed horribly and uniquely plausible that the entity who’d Memory-Charmed Hermione was the very same mind that had -
made use of
- Bellatrix Black. The two events had a certain signature in common. To choose that this should happen,
plan
for this to happen - it would take more than evil, it would take
emptiness
.

Harry looked up for a moment, then, and saw that the plum-colored robes were watching, just watching.

Some time later, after all the stars in the night sky had gone cold and dark and the last light in the Universe had sputtered down to embers and gone black, the questioning of Hermione ended.

“If it pleases my Lords,” said the voice of Lord Malfoy, “I should like to have the testimony of my son Draco, witnessed under two drops of Veritaserum, read aloud at this time.”

Until she went after me in that battle, I wasn’t plotting anything against Granger. But after that day I really was feeling insulted, I’d helped her all those times -

The sound that came from Hermione’s throat was like she’d just been crushed under a falling stone, so huge that she couldn’t cry or breathe, just a small sad gasp.

“Pardon me,” said one witch from what seemed to be the Malfoy-aligned side of the room. “But Lord Malfoy, why would your son
help
this mudblood girl?”

“My son,” Lucius Malfoy said in a heavy voice, “seems to have been listening to certain misguided ideas. He is young - and he has learned, now, we have all seen as a country, what such folly brings in repayment.”

A few steps down along the visitor’s benches, a man wearing a newsman’s cap and a badge identifying him as belonging to the
Daily Prophet
was avidly scribbling with a long quill.

The few people who’d nodded along to Dumbledore earlier had rather sick looks on their faces. One witch in plum-colored robes quite deliberately stood up from what had seemed like Dumbledore’s side of the room, and made her way over toward the Malfoy side.

The Auror went on reading, his voice monotone.

I’d been so tired from casting all those locking wards, I was weak when I cast the last one. I thought I was stronger than Granger but I wasn’t certain, so I tested it empirically by challenging her to a duel, that’s why I d-d-did it and also because if I’d won I was planning to beat her again the next day where everyone could see. Stupid Veritaserum. But
she
didn’t know about that when she tried to
kill
me! And I really was insulted by what she’d done, I really had helped her before and I hadn’t been planning anything against her then, only
she
went after
me
in front of everyone!”

When all the witness testimony was done, the deliberations of the Wizengamot began.

If you could call them that.

It seemed that many members of the Wizengamot were of the strong opinion that murder was bad.

The plum-colored robes on Dumbledore’s side of the room were silent, the supposed forces of good saving their political capital for more winnable battles. And Harry could hear, as though Professor Quirrell were standing next to him, a dry voice in his mind; explaining to him that it would hardly have been to the politicians’ own advantage to speak, just then.

But there was one wizard in the room whose status was high enough that he had, it seemed, transcended his caution against losing face; one wizard alone whose status was high enough that he could speak a word of sanity and escape unscathed. He alone spoke to defend Hermione, the man with a phoenix flaming bright upon his shoulder.

Only Albus Dumbledore spoke.

The Chief Warlock didn’t raise the possibility that Hermione Granger was entirely innocent. That, the Headmaster had explained to Harry, would not be believed, would only make it worse.

But Albus Dumbledore said, in one gentle reminder after another, that the perpetrator was a first-year girl in Hogwarts; that many had done foolish things during their youth; that a first-year in Hogwarts was simply too young to comprehend the consequences of her acts. He himself (the Chief Warlock said quietly) had attempted certain foolish things during his childhood, when he was well older than she.

Albus Dumbledore said that Hermione Granger had been beloved of all the Hogwarts faculty, and helped four Hufflepuff girls with their Charms homework, and had scored one hundred and three points for Ravenclaw over the course of the school year.

Albus Dumbledore said that nobody who knew Hermione Granger would be anything but shocked by these events. That they had, all of them, heard the horror in her voice as she recounted her testimony. And if some unusual madness had temporarily possessed her, then - his voice rising in stern command - she deserved nothing from them except sympathy and a healer’s attentions.

And at the last, Albus Dumbledore reminded the Wizengamot, over cries of protest, that the charge was
attempted
murder and not murder. Albus Dumbledore said, over a rising storm of objections, that no lasting harm had come to anyone. And Albus Dumbledore begged them not to do worse themselves than anything that had yet been done -

“
Enough!
” bellowed Lucius Malfoy, and a show of hands ended the deliberations. The white-maned man stood tall and terrible, his silver cane held high in one hand like a gavel about to fall. “For what this mad woman has tried to do to my son - for the blood debt that she owes for trying to end the line of a Noble and Most Ancient House - I say that she will -”

“Azkaban!” roared a man with a scarred face, seated at Lord Malfoy’s right hand. “Send the mad mudblood to Azkaban!”

“Azkaban!” cried another plum-colored robe, and then another, and another -

A click from the rod in Dumbledore’s hand silenced the room. “You are out of order,” the old wizard said sternly. “And your proposal is barbaric, beneath the dignity of this assembly. There are things we do not do. Lord Malfoy?”

Lucius Malfoy had listened to this with an impassive face. “Well,” Lord Malfoy said after a few moments. A cold gleam lit his eyes. “I had not planned to ask it. But if that is the will of the Wizengamot - then let her pay as any in her place would pay. Let it be Azkaban.”

A great cheer of rage went up -

“Are you all
lost?
” cried Albus Dumbledore. “She is too young! Her mind would not withstand it! Not in three centuries has such a thing been done in Britain!”

“What will the other countries think of us?” said the sharp voice of a woman that Harry recognized as Neville’s grandmother.

“Will
you
guard Azkaban after she goes there, Lord Malfoy?” said a stern old witch that Harry didn’t know. “For my Aurors may decline to guard it, I fear, if small children are kept within.”

“The deliberations are ended,” Lucius Malfoy said coldly. “But if you are incapable of finding Aurors who can obey the vote of the Wizengamot, Madam Bones, you may relinquish the position; we can easily find another to serve in your place. The will of this Hall is clear. For the monstrosity of her crimes, the girl is to be tried as an adult and punished accordingly; ten years in Azkaban, the justice for attempted murder.”

When the old wizard spoke again, his voice was lower. “Is there no alternative to this, Lucius? We may retire to my chambers to discuss it, if need be.”

The tall man of the long white hair turned, then, to regard where the old wizard stood at the podium; and the two stared at each other for a long moment.

When Lucius Malfoy spoke again his voice seemed to tremble ever so slightly, as though the stern control on it was failing. “Blood calls for repayment, the blood of my family. Not for any price will I sell the blood debt owed my son. You would not understand that, who never had love or child of your own. Still, there is more than one debt owed to House Malfoy, and I think that my son, if he stood among us, would rather be repaid for his mother’s blood than for his own. Confess your own crime to the Wizengamot, as you confessed it to me, and I shall -”

“Don’t even think about it, Albus,” said the stern old witch who had spoken before.

The old wizard stood at the podium.

The old wizard stood at the podium, his face twisting, untwisting -

“Stop it,” said the old witch. “You know the answer you must give, Albus. It will not change for agonizing over it.”

The old wizard spoke.

“No,” said Albus Dumbledore.

“And you, Malfoy,” continued the stern old witch, “I suppose all you really wanted this whole time was to ruin -”

“Hardly,” said Lucius Malfoy, his lips now twisting into a bitter smile. “No, I have no purpose here but my son’s vengeance. I only wished to show the Wizengamot the truth behind this old man’s pretended heroism and his praise of that girl - that he would hardly think of sacrificing himself to save her.”

“Cruelty worthy of a Death Eater indeed,” said Augusta Longbottom. “Not that I’m implying anything, of course.”

“Cruelty?” said Lucius Malfoy, the bitter smile still on his face. “I think not. I knew what his answer would be. I have ever warned you that he only plays his pretended part. If you believe in his hesitation, the more fool you. Remember that his answer was the same.” The man raised his voice. “Let us vote, my friends. I think a show of hands will suffice for it. I do not imagine there will be many who choose to align themselves with murderers.” The voice went cold, on the last note, the promise in it very clear.

“Look at the girl,” said Albus Dumbledore. “See her, see the horror you are committing! She is -” The old wizard’s voice broke. “She is afraid -”

The Veritaserum must have been wearing off, because Hermione Granger’s face was twisting beneath the slackness, her limbs trembling visibly beneath the chains, as though she were trying to run, run from that chair, but was pressed down by weights larger than the enchanted metal links that bound her. Then there was a convulsive effort and Hermione’s neck moved, her head twisted, enough to bring her eyes into line -

She looked at Harry Potter and though she didn’t speak, it was absolutely clear what she was saying.

Harry

help me

please -

And in the Most Ancient Hall of the Wizengamot an icy voice rang out, speech the color of liquid nitrogen, pitched too high for that it came from too young a throat, and that voice said, “
Lucius Malfoy.
”

In the ancient and hallowed halls of the Wizengamot, people looked around and it took their eyes too long to find what they sought. It might have been high in pitch, it might have been under-loud for the words being spoken; and yet even so, you wouldn’t have expected to hear that voice from a child.

It wasn’t until Lord Malfoy spoke in return that people even realized where they should be looking.

“Harry Potter,” said Lucius Malfoy. He did not incline his head.

Heads spun, eyes moved, and people focused on the messy-haired young boy standing near the weeping older witch. The boy stood merely chest-high with his shoes on, dressed in short robes of formal black. Though unless your eyes were keen indeed, you couldn’t have seen, from all the way across the Hall, that famous and deadly scar beneath his messy hair.

“This folly does not become you, Lucius,” said the boy. “Twelve-year-old girls do not go around committing murders. You are a Slytherin and an intelligent one. You know this is a plot. Hermione Granger was placed on this gameboard by force, by whatever hand lies behind that plot.
You
were surely intended to act just as you are acting now - except that Draco Malfoy was meant to be dead, and you were meant to be beyond all reason. But he is alive and you are sane. Why are you cooperating with your intended role, in a plot meant to take the life of your son?”