Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (187 page)

Harry started to rise from his seat, then hesitated. His Hufflepuff side was remarking something about leaving the Auror escorts behind and not telling Professor McGonagall anything, and wondering if his future self was being
stupid.

Harry unfolded the parchment again, and took another glance at the contents.

On closer examination, the riddle-verse didn’t say that Harry couldn’t bring
anyone
along. Draco Malfoy… was he missing from the Quidditch game because future-Harry, hours in the past, had brought Draco with him as backup? But that didn’t make sense, there wasn’t much marginal improvement in safety from bringing along another first-year…

…Draco Malfoy would certainly have been present, regardless of his personal feelings about Quidditch, to watch Slytherin clinch the House Cup. Had something happened to him?

Suddenly Harry didn’t feel as tired anymore.

A trickle of adrenaline was starting to rise in Harry, but no, this wouldn’t be like the troll. The message had
told
Harry when to arrive. Harry wouldn’t be too late, not this time.

Harry glanced over at where Cedric Diggory was looking back and forth, visibly torn between a clutch of Ravenclaws arguing that the Snitch had to be kept because it was traditional and rules were rules, and a pack of Hufflepuffs saying that it wasn’t fair for the Seeker to be more important than the other players.

Cedric Diggory had been an excellent dueling tutor to Harry and Neville, and Harry had thought they’d established a good relationship. More importantly, a student taking literally all of the electives would have his own Time-Turner. Maybe Harry could try to get Cedric to go back in time with him? The Super Hufflepuff seemed like a good spare wand to have by your side in any sort of sticky situation…

Later, and earlier:

Harry’s watch now said 11:45, which translated into 6:45pm after looping back five hours.

“It’s time,” Harry murmured to the empty air, and began walking down the third-floor corridor above the grand staircase, on the right-hand side.

‘The place that is prohibited’ would ordinarily mean the Forbidden Forest; that was probably what someone intercepting the message was meant to think. But the Forbidden Forest was huge, and there was more than one distinguished location inside it. No obvious Schelling Point at which to rendezvous, or find some event that needed intervention.

But when you added the ‘bloody stupid’ modifier, there was only one prohibited place in Hogwarts that fit.

And so Harry set forth on that outlawed path where, if rumor spoke true, all the first-year Gryffindors had gone before. The third-floor corridor, on the right-hand side. A mysterious door leading to a series of rooms filled with dangerous and potentially lethal traps that nobody could possibly get through, especially if they were only in their first year.

Harry didn’t know himself what sort of traps awaited. Which, on reflection, meant that the students who’d gone through had been surprisingly scrupulous about not ruining the puzzle for others. Maybe there was a sign down there saying
Don’t give it away, just as a favor to me, sincerely Headmaster Dumbledore
. All Harry knew so far was that the outer door would open to
Alohomora,
and that the final room contained a magic mirror that would show your reflection in some situation you found highly appealing, which was apparently the big payoff.

The third-floor corridor was illuminated by dim blue light that seemed to come from nowhere, and the arches were covered with cobwebs, as though the corridor hadn’t been used in centuries rather than just the last year.

Harry’s pouch was loaded with useful Muggle things, and useful wizarding things, and everything he’d found that could possibly be a quest item. (Harry had asked Professor McGonagall to recommend someone who could expand the pouch’s capacity, and she’d just done it herself.) Harry had applied the Charm he’d learned for battles that made his eyeglasses stick to his face, regardless of how his head moved. Harry had refreshed the Transfigurations he was maintaining, both the tiny jewel in the ring on his hand and the other one, in case he was knocked unconscious. He wasn’t literally ready for anything, but Harry was as ready as he thought he could be.

The five-sided floor tiles creaked beneath Harry’s shoes and vanished behind him like the future becoming the past. It was almost 6:49-
six, and seven in a square.
Obvious if you thought in Muggle math, otherwise not so much.

Just as Harry was about to round another corner, something tickled at the back of his mind, and he heard a soft voice talking.

“…sensible person… wait until later… after certain faculty had departed…”

Harry stopped, then crept forward as lightly as he could, not going around the corner, trying to hear Professor Quirrell’s voice better.

There came a louder cough, and then the soft voice spoke again from around the corner. “But if they were also… to depart themselves… at that time…” murmured the voice, “they might think… this final game… makes for the best distraction… left in this year… a predictable distraction. So I looked… to see what people of significance… were not at the game… and I saw the Headmaster missing… but for all my magic can tell me… he could be in another… realm of existence… I also saw your own absence… so I decided to go… where you were. That is what I am doing here… now… what are
you
doing here?”

Harry breathed shallowly, and listened.

“And just how did you know where I was?” drawled the voice of Severus Snape, so much louder that Harry nearly jumped.

A small, coughing laugh. “Check your wand… for Trace.”

Severus said something in magical pseudo-Latin, and then, “You dared tamper with my wand? You
dared?
”

“You are a suspect… just like myself… so your false indignation is wasted… however finely crafted it may be… now tell me… what are you doing?”

“I am watching this door,” said the voice of Professor Snape. “And I will ask you to be off from it!”

“On whose authority… are you ordering me… my fellow Professor?”

There was a pause, then, “Why, the Headmaster’s,” came the smooth voice of Severus Snape. “I was ordered by him to watch this door during the Quidditch match, and as a Professor I must obey his whims. I shall have words about it with the Board of Governors later, but for now I am doing as I must. Now be off with you, as the Headmaster desires.”

“What? You mean I am to believe… that you abandoned your Slytherins… during their most important… game of the year… and leapt up like a dog… at Dumbledore’s word? Well that… I must say… is entirely plausible. Even so… I think it would be wise… if I kept my own watch over you.. while you watch this fine door.” There was a sound of rustling cloth and a soft thud, as if someone had sat down hard upon the ground, or maybe just fallen.

“Oh, for the love of Merlin -” Severus Snape’s voice now sounded angry. “Get up, you!”

“Ba-blu-a-bu-bluh -” said the Defense Professor’s zombie-mode.

“Get up!” said Severus Snape, and there was a soft thud.

Help the watcher of stars -

Harry stepped around the corner, though it was possible that he’d have done so even without an intertemporal message. Had Professor Snape just
kicked
Professor Quirrell? That would have been foolhardy if Professor Quirrell had been dead and
buried.

A round-topped door of dark wood was framed within a stone arch, set within the dusty marble bricks of Hogwarts. Where a Muggle would have set a doorknob there was only a handle of polished metal; there were no visible locks, or visible keyholes. Set upon the wall to either side, a pair of torches burned, sending forth an ominous orange glow. Before the door stood the Potions Master in his customary stained robes. Beside the door, to the left side beneath the orange torch, slumped the form of the Defense Professor, back against the wall, head staring out at the surroundings. The eyes seemed to flicker, as if halfway between awareness, and emptiness.

“
What
,” said the towering form of the Potions Master, “are you doing here,
Potter?
”

Going by facial expressions and tone of voice, the Potions Master was quite angry with Harry; and certainly was not Harry’s co-conspirator in councils to which the Defense Professor had never been invited.

“I’m not sure,” Harry said. He wasn’t sure what role he should be playing, and was, in desperation, falling back on simple honesty. “I think perhaps I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on the Defense Professor.”

The Potions Master stared at him coldly. “Where’s your
escort,
Potter? Students are not to wander these halls alone!”

Harry’s mind was genuinely blank. The game was afoot, and nobody had told him the rules. “I’m not sure how to answer that…”

The cold expression on Professor Snape’s face flickered. “Perhaps I should call the Aurors,” he said.

“Wait!” Harry blurted.

The Potions Master’s hand hovered about his robes. “Why?” said the Potions Master.

“I… I just think you probably shouldn’t call them…”

In a blur, the Potions Master’s wand was in his hand. “
Nullus confundio!”
A black jet darted out and hit Harry, striking in the direction Harry had already started to evade. There followed four other spells, containing words like
Polyfluis
and
Metamorphus;
and for those Harry politely stood still.

After all of those spells had failed to produce any effect, Severus Snape was staring at Harry with a dark glitter that now seemed genuine. “I suggest,” the Potions Master said softly, “that you explain yourself, Potter.”

“I can’t explain myself,” Harry said. “I don’t have the Time, not yet.”

Harry looked directly into the Potions Master’s gaze as he said the words
myself
and
time
, widening his own eyes to try to convey the key information, and the Potions Master hesitated.

Harry was frantically trying to work out who was pretending to be what. Since Professor Quirrell wasn’t in on Dumbledore’s conspiracy, Severus was pretending to be the evil Potions Master of Hogwarts, who’d been sent here by the Headmaster… and might or might not have actually been sent here by Dumbledore… but Professor Quirrell either thought, or was pretending to think, that someone needed to keep an eye on Professor Snape… and Harry himself had been sent here by future-Harry and had no idea why… and why were they all standing outside the Headmaster’s forbidden door in the first place?

And then…

From behind where Harry stood…

Came the growing sound of another set of footsteps, rapid and manyfold.

Professor Snape stabbed his wand once, creating a burst of darkness that shrouded where the Defense Professor was lying. “
Muffliato,
” the Potions Master hissed. “Mr. Potter, if you must be here, then hide! Put on your invisibility cloak! My duty is to guard this door in case
he
comes here. And there has been - a
disturbance
, meant to draw the Headmaster, he thinks -”

“Who -”

Severus took a long stride forward and snapped his wand against the side of Harry’s head. There was a trickling sensation like an egg had been cracked over him, the feeling of a Disillusionment Charm; and Harry’s hands faded out, followed by the rest of him.

The darkness shrouding one side of the wall dissipated like slow mist, and there was again visible the huddled form of the Defense Professor, who said nothing.

Harry tiptoed away quietly as he could, then turned to watch.

The approaching footsteps rounded the corner -

“What are you doing here?” came many simultaneous cries.

Trimmed in three sets of Slytherin green and one Hufflepuff yellow stood Theodore Nott, Daphne Greengrass, Susan Bones, and Tracey Davis.

“
Where,
” said Professor Snape with mounting wrath, “are your
escorts,
children? First-years must be accompanied by a sixth or seventh-year student at all times! Especially you!”

Theodore Nott raised his hand. “We’re, um,” said Theodore Nott. “We’re doing what the Chaos Legion calls a team-building exercise… see, we realized just now that none of us had tried the Headmaster’s forbidden chamber yet, and there wasn’t much time left… and Harry Potter has authorized it, Professor, he said specifically that
you
mustn’t interfere.”

Severus Snape turned to glance over at where Harry Potter had tiptoed; a storm seemed to be gathering on his brow, and a dark fury in his eyes.

I… maybe?
There was still one hour left on Harry’s Time-Turner, so it was possible.

“Harry Potter does not have that authority,” the Potions Master said in a deceptively mild tone. “Explain yourselves, now.”

“Really?” said the form of Susan Bones. “Really? You’re telling Professor Snape that Harry Potter authorized the mission, that’s your idea of a bluff?” The young Hufflepuff turned to Professor Snape and spoke, her voice strangely firm. “Professor, this is the truth and it’s urgent. Draco Malfoy is missing and we think he went down there -”

“If Mr. Malfoy is missing,” said Professor Snape, “
why have the Aurors not been notified?
”

“Because of, because of
reasons!
” cried Daphne Greengrass. “There’s no time, you’ve got to let us through!”

Professor Snape’s voice was now as sardonic as Harry had ever heard it. “Are you four morons under the impression that you are on some sort of adventure? Well, you are mistaken. I assure you that Mr. Malfoy has not passed through this door.”

“We think Mr. Malfoy has an invisibility cloak,” Susan Bones said rapidly. “Do you remember the door seeming to open for no reason?”

“No,” the Potions Master said. “Now be gone from here. This place is off-limits for today.”

“This is
Dumbledore’s
forbidden corridor,” Tracey said. “The Headmaster himself said nobody was to come here. Who do you think you are, forbidding it too?”

“Miss Davis,” said the Potions Master, “you need to stop associating with Gryffindors, especially those named Lavender Brown. And if you are still here in one minute, I will file papers requesting your transfer into that House.”