Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (209 page)

Harry stood now before the gargoyles that guarded the Headmaster’s - no, the Headmistress’s office. He had been summoned by Professor Sinistra, told that it was an emergency, but the gates were not opening for him.

Experiment had showed that the Stone made one Transfiguration permanent every three minutes and fifty-four seconds, irrespective of the size of object Transfigured. Just once, holding the Philosopher’s Stone up to the light of Harry’s most powerful flashlight in an otherwise darkened closet, Harry had thought he’d seen an array of tiny points inside the chunk of crimson glass; but Harry hadn’t been able to see it again, and now suspected himself of having imagined it. The Stone had no other powers that Harry could detect, nor did it respond to any attempted mental commands.

Harry had given himself until noon tomorrow to figure out how to begin using the Stone without it being grabbed by someone else, trying not to think about what was still happening, what had always been happening, in the meanwhile.

Ten minutes late, Minerva McGonagall approached, moving in a swift stride. Her arms were full of papers, she was once again wearing the Sorting Hat.

The gargoyles, with a brief sound of grinding stone, bowed low before her.

“The new password is ‘Impermanence’,” Minerva said to the gargoyles, and they stepped aside. “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter, I was delayed -”

“Understood.”

Minerva mounted the long spiral stairs, climbing instead of waiting to be carried, Harry following behind her.

“We are meeting with Amelia Bones, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; with Alastor Moody, whom you have met; and with Bartemius Crouch, Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation,” Minerva said as she climbed. “They are Dumbledore’s heirs as much as you or I.”

“How - how’s Hermione doing?” Harry hadn’t had a chance to ask until now.

“Filius said she seemed rather in shock, which I suppose is not surprising. She asked where you were, was told you were at a Quidditch game, asked where you really were, and refused to speak with anyone about what happened until she was allowed to talk with you. She was taken to St. Mungo’s, where,” the Headmistress now sounded slightly perturbed, “a standard diagnostic Charm showed Miss Granger as a healthy unicorn in excellent physical condition except that her mane needs combing. Charms to detect active magic have each time detected her as being in the process of transforming into another shape. There was an Unspeakable who showed up before Filius, ah, removed him. He performed certain spells he probably ought not to have known, and declared that Hermione’s soul was in healthy condition but at least a mile away from her body. At that point the senior healers gave up. She’s currently alone in a cell with the rats and flies -”

“She’s what?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Potter, that’s Transfiguration jargon. Miss Granger is in an isolation chamber with a cage of tame rats, and a box of flies that will bear offspring in a single day. Logic suggests that whatever mystery underlies her resurrection, it left behind an emanation that is causing the healers’ Charms to produce gibberish. But if nothing happens to the rats or to the flies’ offspring, Miss Granger will be declared safe to return to Hogwarts after she wakes up again tomorrow morning.”

Harry still wasn’t sure… wasn’t sure at
all
, what Hermione would think of having been resurrected, at least under these particular circumstances. He didn’t actually think Hermione would yell at him for doing it wrong. That was just Harry’s brain trying to imagine her as a stereotype. Harry had been legitimately exhausted and not thinking very straight when he’d come up with that cover story, and Hermione would probably understand that part. But he couldn’t imagine what Hermione
would
think…

“I wonder how Miss Granger will feel about having also vanquished You-Know-Who,” Minerva said reflectively, climbing the moving stairs fast enough that Harry felt out of breath trying to keep up. “And people believing the most interesting things about her.”

“You mean, because she’s always self-identified as a normal academic genius, and now a bunch of people think of her as the Girl-Who-Revived and everyone wants to shake her hand?” Harry said.
Even though she doesn’t remember doing anything to earn it. Even though it was all someone else’s work and other people’s sacrifices, and she’s getting the credit. Even though she doesn’t feel like she’s actually done anything worthy of the way other people treat her, and she’s not sure if she can ever live up to the person they imagine.
“Gosh, I don’t know, I can’t imagine what that feels like.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have subjected her to it. But people had to be given
something
to believe or heaven knows what they’d have made up. Feeling guilty about this would be stupid. I think.

The two of them reached the top of the stairs, and came into the office filled with dozens of strange objects, all facing a great desk and a mighty throne behind it.

Minerva’s hand passed over one of those objects, the one with golden wibblers, her eyes closing briefly. Then Minerva took off the Sorting Hat and put it on a hatrack that held three slippers for left feet. She transformed the mighty throne into a simple cushioned chair and the great desk into a round table, around which four other chairs rose up.

Harry watched it all with a strange pang in his throat. He knew, without either of them saying anything, that there should have been more ceremony for the changing of the chairs, the changing of the table. Much more ceremony, for the first time the Headmistress sat down in her new office. But for whatever reason, there wasn’t time, and Minerva McGonagall was discarding all that for speed.

A wave of Minerva’s wand lit the Floo-fire in the fireplace, even as Minerva sat down into the chair that had been Dumbledore’s.

Harry quietly took one of the chairs around the table, sitting at Minerva’s left.

Almost at once, the Floo-fire burned emeraldine and whirled out Alastor Moody, who spun around with his wand raised, taking in the whole room at a seeming glance, and then pointed his wand directly at Harry and said “Avada Kedavra.”

It happened so fast, and took him so completely by surprise, that Harry’s wand wasn’t even half-raised by the time Alastor Moody finished the incantation.

“Just checking,” Alastor said to the Headmistress, whose own wand was now pointed at Alastor, her mouth open as if to say words she couldn’t find. “Voldie would’ve tried to dodge, if he’d taken over the boy’s body last night. I’ll still need to check the Granger girl, though.” Alastor Moody went to Minerva’s right and sat down.

Harry had thought, in that split second, to try producing a wordless silver Patronus glow from his wand; but his wand hadn’t been in place to intercept in time, not even close.

Well, if I was feeling invincible before, that does for that. What a valuable life lesson, Mr. Moody.

Then the Floo-fire burned green again, and spat out the oldest, grimmest, toughest-looking witch Harry had ever seen, like beef jerky given human shape. The old witch did not have her wand in her hand, but she projected an air of authority that was stronger and stricter than Dumbledore’s.

“This is Director Amelia Bones, Mr. Potter,” said Headmistress McGonagall, who’d regained her poise. “We are still waiting on Director Crouch -”

“The corpse of Bartemius Crouch Jr. was identified among the dead Death Eaters,” the old witch said without preamble, even as she continued toward the chairs. “It took us entirely by surprise, and I’m afraid Bartemius is in considerable grief about it, on both counts. He will not be with us today.”

Harry kept the flinch inward.

Amelia Bones sat down in a chair, sitting to Moody’s own right.

“Headmistress McGonagall,” said the elder witch, still without hesitation or delay, “The Line of Merlin Unbroken, which Dumbledore left to me in regency, is not responding to my hand. The Wizengamot must have a Chief Warlock who is trustworthy,
at once;
matters are in great flux in Britain. I must know what Dumbledore has done, immediately!”

“Crap,” muttered Moody. His mad-eye was rolling wildly. “That’s not good, not good at all.”

“Yes, well,” said Minerva McGonagall, who looked rather apprehensive. “I cannot say that for certain. Albus - well, he clearly had an intimation that he might not survive this war. But I do not think he was expecting Miss Granger to come back from the dead and kill Voldemort only hours later. I do not think Albus was expecting that at all. I am not quite sure what his legacies will make of that -”

Amelia Bones rose half out of her chair. “You mean to imply that the
Granger
girl may have inherited the Line of Merlin Unbroken? This is a
catastrophe!
She is twelve years old, untested - surely Albus would not be so irresponsible as to leave the Line to whoever happened to defeat Voldemort, without knowing
who!”

“Well, putting it simply,” Minerva said. Her fingers squared the paperwork she’d taken with her, now lying on the desk. “Albus
did
think he knew who would defeat Voldemort. There was a prophecy concerning it, a verified one, which now seems to be in abeyance, or - I don’t know, Madam Bones! I have one letter for Mr. Potter that I am to give him in the event of Albus’s death or other departure, and then another letter that Albus said Mr. Potter would be able to open only after he defeated Voldemort. I am not sure what will happen to it now. Perhaps Miss Granger will be able to open it, or perhaps it can never be opened -”

“Hold up,” Mad-Eye Moody said. He reached into his robes, drew out a long, grey-knobbed wand that Harry recognized; it was Dumbledore’s wand, of a form and style not like any other wand in Hogwarts. Moody laid the wand on the table. “Before we go any further, Albus left me an instruction or two of his own. Pick up this wand, boy.”

Harry hesitated, thinking.

Albus Dumbledore sacrificed himself for me. He trusted Moody. This probably isn’t a trap.

Then Harry began to reach for the wand.

It leaped up and flew across the table, into Harry’s hand. And the moment that Harry’s fingers grasped the handle it was like he heard a song, a paean of glory and battle that resonated in his mind. A wave of white fire ran up the handle and over the wood, magnifying as it moved, bursting from the end in a tremendous spray of sparks. Through the wood beneath his fingers ran a sense of strength and constrained danger, like a leashed wolf.

Harry was also receiving an impression of distinct skepticism, as if the wand had some level of awareness, and it was wondering how the hell it had ended up being held by a Hogwarts first-year.

“Right,” said Mad-Eye Moody into the puzzled stares. “So it wasn’t Miss Granger who defeated Voldie, then. Didn’t think so.”

“What.” Amelia Bones spoke the word flatly.

Mad-Eye Moody gave her a respectful nod. “Albus said this wand goes to whoever defeats its previous master. Took it off old Grindie, he did. Then Voldie defeated Albus, yesterday. Do I need to spell it out, Amelia?”

Amelia Bones was staring at Harry, her mouth wide open.

“That might not be right,” Harry said. He swallowed another pang of the awful guilt. “I mean, Voldemort used me as a hostage because I, I was stupid, and Dumbledore gave himself up to save me, maybe the wand thinks that counts as my defeating Dumbledore. Um, I did defeat Voldemort, though. Vanquished him. But I think it’s better if nobody has any idea I was there.”

Beep. Tick. Whirr. Ding. Poot.

“
That
must have taken
some
doing,” Mad-Eye said. The scarred man inclined his head slowly, a gesture of profound respect. “Don’t feel too guilty about losing Albus and David and Flamel, son, no matter how stupid you were. You won in the end. All of us put together never could. Just to check, son, you and David also destroyed Voldie’s horcrux? And you’re
certain
it was the real thing?”

Harry hesitated, weighing up the probable consequences of trust, the possible disasters of silence, and then shook his head to Moody in reply. He’d been planning to tell at least McGonagall about what was now inside her school, anyway. “Voldemort had… rather a lot of horcruxes, actually. So instead I Obliviated most of his memories, then Transfigured him into this.” Harry raised his hand, and silently pointed to the emerald on his ring.

Splat. Boing. Splat. Splat.

“Huh,” Moody said, leaning back in his chair. “Minerva and I will be putting some alarms and enchantments on that ring of yours, son, if you don’t mind. Just in case you forget to sustain that Transfiguration one day. And don’t go hunting any other Dark wizards, ever, just live a quiet and peaceful life.” The scarred man took a handkerchief and wiped at the beads of sweat that had now appeared on his forehead. “But well done, lad, you and David both, may he rest in peace. This was his idea, I’m guessing? Well done, I say.”

“Indeed,” said Amelia Bones, who had now regained her composure. “We all owe the both of you a tremendous debt of gratitude. But I say again that there is urgent business regarding the Line of Merlin Unbroken.”

“I believe,” Minerva McGonagall said slowly, “that I had best give Albus’s letters to Mr. Potter, right now.” At the top of her stack of papers now lay a parchment envelope, and a rolled-up parchment scroll sealed with a grey ribbon.

The Headmistress gave Harry the parchment envelope, first, and Harry opened it.

If you are reading this, Harry Potter, then I have fallen to Voldemort, and the quest now lies in your hands.

Though it may shock you to learn, this was the end that I wished in my heart would come to pass. For as I write this, it yet seems possible that Voldemort may fall by my own hand. And then, in time, I shall myself become the darkness you must overcome, to enter fully into your power. For it was said once that you might need to raise your hand against your mentor, the one who made you, who you loved; it was said that you might be my downfall. If you are reading this, then that shall never come to pass, and I am glad of it.

Even so, Harry, I would spare you this, the lonely fight against Voldemort. I write this, vowing to shelter you as long as I can, no matter the final cost to myself. But if I have failed, then know that I am glad of it, in my own selfish way.