Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (217 page)

“Harry!” Hermione said. Her hands flew up across her chest, as though to protect herself from the attacking gift. “You don’t have to do this!”

“I
do
have to do this. I’ve left the part of the path that lets me be a hero, I can’t risk myself adventuring, ever. And you… can.” Harry reached up the hand that wasn’t holding the Cloak, and wiped at his eyes. “This was made for you, I think. For the person you’re going to become.”
A weapon to fight Death, in its form as the shadow of despair that falls on human minds and drains away their hope for the future; you will fight that, I expect, in more forms than just Dementors…
“I do not loan you, my Cloak, but give you, unto Hermione Jean Granger. Protect her well forevermore.”

Slowly, Hermione reached out, and took hold of the Cloak, looking like she was trying not to cry herself. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I think… even though I’m done with the notion of heroing… I think that you always were, from the day I met you, my mysterious old wizard.”

“And I think,” Harry said, his own throat half-closed, “even if you deny that way of thinking now, I think that you were always destined to become, from the very beginning of the story, the hero.”
Who must Hermione Granger become, what adult form must she take when she grows up, to pass through Time’s narrow keyhole? I don’t know the answer to that either, any more than I can imagine my own adult self. But her next few steps ahead seem clearer than mine…

Harry let the Cloak go, and it passed from his hands to hers
.

“It sings,” Hermione said. “It’s singing to me.” She reached up, and wiped at her own eyes. “I can’t believe you did that, Harry.”

Harry’s other hand came out of his pouch, now bearing a long golden chain, at the end of which dangled a closed golden shell. “And this is your personal time machine.”

There was a pause, during which the planet Earth rotated a bit further in its orbit, and the True Cloak of Invisibility dropped unnoticed from Hermione’s hands and pooled on the roof.

“What?” said Hermione.

“A Time-Turner, they call it. Hogwarts has a stock they give out to some students, I got one at the start of the year to treat my sleep disorder. It lets the user go backwards in time, in up to six one-hour increments, which I used to get six extra hours per day to study. And to vanish out of Potions class and so on. Don’t worry, a Time-Turner can’t change history or generate paradoxes that destroy the universe.”

“You were keeping up with me in lessons by studying six extra hours per day using a
time machine
.” Hermione Granger seemed to be having trouble with this concept for some unaccountable reason.

Harry made his face look puzzled. “Is there something odd about that?”

Hermione reached out and took the golden necklace. “I guess
not by wizard standards,
” she said. For some reason her voice sounded rather sharp. She arranged the chain around her neck, placing the hourglass inside her shirt. “I do feel better now about keeping up with you though, so thank you for that.”

Harry cleared his throat. “Also, since Voldemort wiped out the House of Monroe and then, so far as everyone believes, you avenged them by killing Voldemort, I got Amelia to railroad a bill through what’s left of the Wizengamot, saying that Granger is now a Noble House of Britain.”

“Excuse me?” said Hermione.

“That also makes you the only scion of a Noble House, which means that to get your legal majority you just need to pass your Ordinary Wizarding Levels, which I’ve set us up to do at the end of the summer so we’ll have some time to study first. If you’re okay with that, I mean.”

Hermione Granger was making some sort of high-pitched noise that would, in a less organic device, have indicated an engine malfunction. “
I have two months to study for my O.W.L.S?”

“Hermione, it’s a test designed so that most fifteen-year-olds can pass.
Ordinary
fifteen year-olds, I mean really. We can get a passing grade with a low third-year’s power level if we learn the right set of spells, and that’s all we need for our majorities. Though you’ll need to come to terms with getting Acceptable scores instead of your usual Outstandings.”

The high-pitched noises coming from Hermione Granger rose in pitch.

“Here’s your wand back.” Harry took it from his pouch. “And your mokeskin pouch, I made sure they put back everything that was there when you died.” That pouch Harry withdrew from a normal pocket of his robes, since he was reluctant to put a
bag of holding
inside a
bag of holding
no matter what was supposed to be harmless so long as both devices had been crafted observing all safety precautions.

Hermione took her wand back, and then her pouch, the motions somehow managing to look graceful even though her fingers were a bit shaky.

“Let’s see, what else… the oath you swore before to House Potter only said you had to serve until ‘the day you die’, so you’re now free and clear. And right after your death I got the Malfoys to publicly declare that you were innocent of all charges in Draco’s attempted murder.”

“Why, thank you again, Harry,” said Hermione Granger. “That was very nice of you, and them too, I guess.” She was repeatedly running her fingers through her chestnut curls, as though, by organizing her hair, she could restore sanity to her life.

“Last but not least, I had the goblins start the process of building a vault in Gringotts for House Granger,” Harry said. “I didn’t put any money into it, because that was something where I could wait and ask you first. But if you’re going to be a superhero who goes around righting certain kinds of wrongs, it will help a lot if people consider you to be part of the upper social strata and, um, I think it may help if they know you can afford lawyers. I can put in as much gold into your vault as you want, since after Voldemort killed Nicholas Flamel, I ended up holding the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“I feel like I ought to be fainting,” Hermione said in a high-pitched voice, “only I can’t because of my superpowers and
why
do I have those again?”

“If it’s all right with you, your Occlumency lessons will start on Wednesday with Mr. Bester, he can work with you once per day. Until then, I think it might be better for the true origin of your powers not to become known just because a Legilimens looks you in the eyes. I mean, obviously there’s a normal magical explanation, nothing
super
-supernatural, but people do tend to worship their own ignorance and, well, I think the Girl-Who-Revived will be more effective if you remain mysterious. Once you can keep out Mr. Bester and beat Veritaserum, I’ll tell you the entire backstory, I promise, including all the secrets you can never tell anyone else.”

“That sounds lovely,” said Hermione Granger. “I’m quite looking forward to it.”

“Though you’ll need to take an Unbreakable Vow to not do anything that might destroy the world before I can tell you the more dangerous parts of the story. I mean, I literally can’t tell you otherwise, because I took an Unbreakable Vow myself. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” said Hermione. “Why shouldn’t it be okay? I wouldn’t want to destroy the world anyhow.”

“Do you need to sit down again?” Harry said, feeling alarmed by the way Hermione was swaying slightly, as though in rhythm with the words being spoken.

Hermione Granger took several deep breaths. “No, I’m perfectly peachy,” she said. “Is there anything else I should know about?”

“That was it. I’m finished, at least for now.” Harry paused. “I do understand that you want to do things for yourself, not just have them done for you. It’s just… you’re going to be a more serious kind of hero, and the only sane choice is for me to give you all the advantages I can manage -”

“I understand that quite well,” Hermione said. “Now that I’ve actually lost a fight and died. I didn’t used to understand, but now I do.” A breeze ruffled Hermione’s chestnut hair and stirred her robes, making her look even more peaceful in the dawn air, as she raised one hand and carefully clenched it into a fist. “If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it
right
. We need to measure how hard I can punch, and how high I can jump, and figure out a safe way to test if my fingernails can kill Lethifolds like a real unicorn’s horn, and I should practice using my speed to dodge spells I can’t let hit me and… and it sounds like you could maybe arrange for me to get Auror training, like from whoever taught Susan Bones.” Hermione was smiling again now, a strange light in her eyes that would’ve puzzled Dumbledore for hours and that Harry understood immediately, not without a twinge of apprehension. “Oh! And I want to start carrying Muggle weapons, maybe hidden so nobody knows I have them. I thought of incendiary grenades when I was fighting the troll, but I knew I couldn’t Transfigure them fast enough, even after I stopped caring about obeying the rules.”

“I have the feeling,” Harry said, imitating Professor McGonagall’s Scottish accent as best he could, “that I ought to be doing something about this.”

“Oh, it’s much, much, MUCH too late for that, Mr. Potter. Say, can you get me a bazooka? The rocket launcher, I mean, not the chewing gum? I bet they won’t be expecting
that
from a young girl, especially if I’m radiating an aura of innocence and purity.”

“All right,” Harry said calmly, “
now
you’re starting to scare me.”

Hermione paused from where she was experimenting with balancing on the tip of her left shoe, her arm reaching in one direction and her right leg stretched in the other, like a ballet dancer. “Am I? I was just thinking that I didn’t see what I could do that a Ministry squad of Hit Wizards couldn’t. They have broomsticks for mobility and spells that hit harder than I possibly could.” She gracefully lowered her leg back down. “I mean, now that I can try a few things without worrying about who’s watching, I’m starting to think that I really really
really
like having superpowers. But I still don’t see how I could win a fight that Professor Flitwick couldn’t, not unless it involves me taking a Dark Wizard by surprise.”

You can take risks other people shouldn’t, and try again with the knowledge of what killed you. You can experiment with new spells, more than anyone else could try without dying for sure.
But Harry couldn’t say any of that yet, so instead he said, “I think it’s okay to think more about the future, not just what you can do this very minute.”

Hermione jumped high in the air, clicked her heels together three times on the way down, and landed on her tiptoes, perfectly posed. “But you said there was something I could do right away. Or were you just testing?”

“
That
part is a special case,” Harry said, feeling the chill of the dawn air against his skin. He was increasingly not looking forward to telling super-Hermione that her Ordeal would involve facing her literal worst nightmare, under conditions where all her newfound physical strength would be useless.

Hermione nodded, then glanced to the east. At once she went to the side of the roof and sat down, her feet dangling over the rooftop ledge. Harry went to her side and sat down too, sitting crosslegged and further back of the roof-edge.

In the distance, a brilliant tinge of red was rising above the hills to the east of Hogwarts.

Watching the tip of the sunrise made Harry feel better, somehow. So long as the Sun was in the sky, things were still all right on some level, e.g., his having not yet destroyed the Sun.

“So,” Hermione said. Her voice rose a bit. “Speaking of the future, Harry. I had time to think about a lot of things while I was waiting to be let out of St. Mungo’s, and… maybe it’s silly of me, but there’s a question I still want to know the answer to. Do you remember the last thing we talked about together? Before, I mean?”

“What?” Harry said blankly.

“Oh…” Hermione said. “It was a month ago for you… I guess you don’t recall, then.”

And Harry remembered.

“Don’t panic!” Hermione said, as a sort of strangled half-gurgle came from Harry’s throat. “I promise no matter what you say, I won’t burst into tears and run away and get eaten by a troll again! I know it’s been less than two days for me, but I think that dying has made a lot of things I used to fret about seem much less important compared to what I’ve been through!”

“Oh,” Harry said, his own voice now high-pitched. “That’s a good use of a major trauma, I guess?”

“Only, see, I
was
still wondering about it, Harry, because for me it hasn’t been very long at all since our last conversation, and we didn’t finish talking which was admittedly all my own fault for losing control of my emotions and then being eaten by a troll which I am definitely not going to do again. I’ve been thinking I ought to reassure you that’s not going to happen every time you say the wrong thing to a girl.” Hermione was fidgeting, leaning from one side to the other where she sat, slightly back and forth. “But, well, even most people who
are
in love don’t do literally one hundredth of what you’ve done for me. So, Mr. Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, if it’s not love, I want to know exactly what I am to you. You never said.”

“That’s a good question,” Harry said in a wobbly voice. “Do you mind if I think about it?”

Hermione nodded.

Bit by bit, more of the searingly brilliant circle became visible beyond the hills.

“Hermione,” Harry said when the Sun was halfway above the horizon, “did you ever invent any hypotheses to explain my mysterious dark side?”

“Just the obvious one,” Hermione said, dangling her legs over the rooftop’s edge. “I thought maybe when You-Know-Who died right next to you, he happened to give off the burst of magic that makes a ghost, and some of it imprinted on your brain instead of the floor. But that never felt right to me, like it was just a clever explanation that wasn’t actually
true,
and it makes even less sense if You-Know-Who didn’t really die that night.”

“Good enough,” Harry said. “Let’s imagine that scenario for now.” His inner rationalist was looking back and facepalming
again
at how he’d managed to not-think-about hypotheses like that one. It wasn’t true but it was
reasonable
and Harry had never thought of any causal model that concrete, just vaguely suspected a connection.