Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (71 page)

Madam Longbottom gave a chuckle. “I shall, young man, thank you.” Her voice lowered. “Mr. Potter… the speech given by Professor Quirrell is something our nation has long needed to hear. I cannot say as much of your comment on it.”

“I will take your opinion under advisement,” Harry said mildly.

“I dearly hope that you do,” said Madam Longbottom, and turned back to her grandson. “Do I still need to -”

“It’s okay for you to go, Granma,” said Neville. “I’ll be fine on my own, this time.”

“Now
that
I approve of,” she said, and popped and vanished like a soap bubble.

The two boys sat quietly for a moment.

Neville spoke first, his voice weary. “You’re going to try to fix all the changes she
approves
of, right?”

“Not
all
of them,” Harry said innocently. “I just want to make sure I’m not corrupting you.”

Draco looked
very
worried. His head kept darting around, despite the fact that Draco had insisted on them going down into Harry’s trunk, and using a true Quieting Charm and not just the sound-blurring barrier.

“
What
did you say to Father?” blurted Draco, the moment the Quieting Charm went up and the sounds of Platform 9 3/4 vanished.

“I… look, can you tell me what he said to
you,
before he dropped you off?” said Harry.

“That I should tell him right away if you seemed to be threatening me,” said Draco. “That I should tell him right away if there was anything
I
was doing that could pose a threat to
you!
Father thinks you’re
dangerous,
Harry, whatever you said to him today it
scared
him!
It’s not a good idea to scare Father!
”

Oh, hell…

“
What
did you talk about?” demanded Draco.

Harry leaned back wearily in the small folding chair that sat at the bottom of his trunk’s cavern. “You know, Draco, just as the fundamental question of rationality is ‘What do I think I know and how do I think I know it?’, there’s also a cardinal sin, a way of thinking that’s the opposite of that. Like the ancient Greek philosophers. They had no clue what was going on, so they’d go around saying things like ‘All is water’ or ‘All is fire’, and they never asked themselves, ‘Wait a minute, even if everything
is
water, how could I possibly
know
that?’ They didn’t ask themselves if they had evidence which discriminated
that
possibility from all the
other
possibilities you could imagine, evidence they’d be very unlikely to encounter if the theory
wasn’t
true -”

“
Harry
,” Draco said, his voice strained, “
What did you talk about with Father?
”

“I don’t know, actually,” said Harry, “so it’s very important that I
not
just make stuff up -”

Harry had never heard Draco shriek in horror in quite that high a pitch before.

Whistle. Tick. Bzzzt. Ding. Glorp. Pop. Splat. Chime. Toot. Puff. Tinkle. Bubble. Beep. Thud. Crackle. Whoosh. Hiss. Pffft. Whirr.

Professor Flitwick had silently passed Harry a folded parchment during Charms class that Monday, and the note had said that Harry was to visit the Headmaster at his convenience and in such fashion that no one else would notice, especially not Draco Malfoy or Professor Quirrell. His one-time password for the gargoyle would be “squeamish ossifrage”. This had been accompanied by a remarkably artistic ink drawing of Professor Flitwick staring at him sternly, the eyes of which occasionally blinked; and at the bottom of the note, underlined three times, was the phrase DON’T GET INTO TROUBLE.

And so Harry had finished up Transfiguration class, and studied with Hermione, and eaten dinner, and spoken with his lieutenants, and finally, when the clock struck nine, turned himself invisible and dropped back to 6PM and wearily trudged off toward the gargoyle, the turning spiral stairs, the wooden door, the room full of little fiddly things, and the silver-bearded figure of the Headmaster.

This time, Dumbledore looked quite serious, the customary smile absent; and he was dressed in pajamas of a darker and more sober purple than usual.

“Thank you for coming, Harry,” said the Headmaster. The old wizard rose from his throne, began to slowly pace through the room and the strange devices. “First, do you have with you the notes of yesterday’s encounter with Lucius Malfoy?”

“Notes?” blurted Harry.

“
Surely
you wrote it down…” said the old wizard, and his voice trailed off.

Harry felt rather embarrassed. Yes, if you’d just fumbled through a mysterious conversation full of significant hints you didn’t understand, the
bloody obvious
thing to do would be to write it all down immediately afterward, before the memory faded, so you could try to figure it out later.

“All right,” said the Headmaster, “from memory then.”

Harry sheepishly recited as best he could, and got almost halfway through before he realized that it wasn’t smart to just go around telling the possibly-crazy Headmaster everything, at least not without
thinking
about it first, but then Lucius was
definitely
a bad guy and Dumbledore’s opponent so it probably
was
a good idea to tell him, and Harry had already started talking and it was too late to try and calculate things out now…

Harry finished his recollections honestly.

Dumbledore’s face had grown more remote as Harry went on, and at the end there was a look of ancientness about him, a sternness in the air.

“Well,” said Dumbledore. “I suggest you take the best of care that the heir of Malfoy does
not
come to harm, then. And I will do the same.” The Headmaster was frowning, his fingers drumming soundlessly through the inky black surface of a plate inscribed with the word
Leliel.
“And I think it would be most extremely wise for you to avoid
all
interaction with Lord Malfoy henceforth.”

“
Did
you intercept owls from him to me?” said Harry.

The Headmaster gazed at Harry for a long moment, then reluctantly nodded.

For some reason Harry wasn’t feeling as outraged as he should have been. Maybe it was just that Harry was finding it very easy to sympathize with the Headmaster’s point of view right now. Even Harry could understand why Dumbledore wouldn’t want him to interact with Lucius Malfoy; it didn’t seem like an
evil
deed.

Not like the Headmaster blackmailing Zabini… for which they had only Zabini’s word, and Zabini was wildly untrustworthy, in fact it was hard to see why Zabini
wouldn’t
just tell the story that got him the most sympathy from Professor Quirrell…

“How about if, instead of protesting, I say that I understand your point of view,” said Harry, “and you go on intercepting my owls, but you tell me who from?”

“I have intercepted a great many owls to you, I am afraid,” Dumbledore said soberly. “You are a celebrity, Harry, and you would receive dozens of letters a day, some from far outside this country, did I not turn them back.”

“
That
,” Harry said, now starting to feel a bit of indignation, “seems like going a little too far -”

“Many of those letters,” the old wizard said quietly, “will be asking you for things you cannot give. I have not read them, of course, only turned them back to their senders undelivered. But I know, for I receive them too. And you are too young, Harry, to have your heart broken six times before breakfast each morning.”

Harry looked down at his shoes. He
should
insist on reading the letters and judging for himself, but… there was a small voice of common sense inside him, and it was screaming very loudly right now.

“Thank you,” Harry muttered.

“The other reason I asked you here,” said the old wizard, “was that I wished to consult your unique genius.”

“Transfiguration?” said Harry, surprised and flattered.

“No, not
that
unique genius,” said Dumbledore. “Tell me, Harry, what evil could you accomplish if a Dementor were allowed onto the grounds of Hogwarts?”

It developed that Professor Quirrell had asked, or rather demanded, that his students test their skills against an actual Dementor after they learned the words and gestures to the Patronus Charm.

“Professor Quirrell is unable to cast the Patronus Charm himself,” said Dumbledore, as he paced slowly through the devices. “Which is never a good sign. But then, he
volunteered
that fact to me in the course of demanding that outside instructors be brought in to teach the Patronus Charm to every student who wished to learn; he offered to pay the expense himself, if I would not. This impressed me greatly. But now he insists on bringing in a Dementor -”

“Headmaster,” Harry said quietly, “Professor Quirrell believes
very
strongly in live-fire tests under realistic combat conditions. Wanting to bring in an actual Dementor is
completely
in character for him.”

Now the Headmaster was giving Harry a strange look.

“
In character?
” said the old wizard.

“I mean,” said Harry, “it’s entirely consistent with the way Professor Quirrell usually acts…” Harry trailed off. Why
had
he put it that way?

The Headmaster nodded. “So you have the same sense I do; that it is an excuse. A very
reasonable
excuse, to be sure; more so than you may realize. Often, wizards seemingly unable to cast a Patronus Charm will succeed in the presence of an actual Dementor, going from not a single flicker of light to a full corporeal Patronus. Why this should be, no one knows; but it is so.”

Harry frowned. “Then I really don’t see why you’re suspicious -”

The Headmaster spread his hands as though in helplessness. “Harry, the
Defense Professor
has asked me to pass the darkest of all creatures through the gates of Hogwarts. I
must
be suspicious.” The Headmaster sighed. “And yet the Dementor will be guarded, warded, in a mighty cage, I will be there myself to watch it at all times - I cannot think of what ill
could
be done. But perhaps I am merely unable to see it. And so I am asking you.”

Harry stared at the Headmaster with his mouth open. He was so shocked he couldn’t even feel flattered.

“
Me?
” said Harry.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore, smiling slightly. “I try my best to anticipate my foes, to encompass their wicked minds and predict their evil thoughts. But
I
would never have imagined sharpening a Hufflepuff’s bones into weapons.”

Was Harry
ever
going to live that down?

“Headmaster,” Harry said wearily, “I know it doesn’t sound good, but in all seriousness: I’m not evil, I’m just very creative -”

“I did not say that you were evil,” Dumbledore said seriously. “There are those who say that to comprehend evil is to become evil; but they are merely pretending to be wise. Rather it is evil which does not know love, and dares not imagine love, and cannot ever understand love without ceasing to be evil. And I suspect that you can imagine your way into the minds of Dark Wizards better than I ever could, while still knowing love yourself. So, Harry.” The Headmaster’s eyes were intent. “If you stood in Professor Quirrell’s shoes, what misdeeds could you accomplish after you tricked me into allowing a Dementor onto the grounds of Hogwarts?”

“Hold
on
,” said Harry, and in something of a daze trudged over to the chair in front of the Headmaster’s desk, and sat down. It was a large and comfortable chair this time, not a wooden stool, and Harry could feel himself enveloped as he sank into it.

Dumbledore was asking him to outwit Professor Quirrell.

Point one: Harry was rather fonder of Professor Quirrell than of Dumbledore.

Point two: The hypothesis was that the Defense Professor was planning to do something evil, and in that subjunctive case, Harry
ought
to be helping the Headmaster prevent it.

Point three…

“Headmaster,” Harry said, “if Professor Quirrell
is
up to something, I’m not sure I
can
outwit him. He’s got a lot more experience than I do.”

The old wizard shook his head, somehow managing to appear very solemn despite his smile. “You underestimate yourself.”

That was the first time anyone had ever said
that
to Harry.

“I remember,” the old wizard continued, “a young man in this very office, cold and controlled as he faced down the Head of House Slytherin, blackmailing his own Headmaster to protect his classmates. And I believe that young man is more cunning than Professor Quirrell, more cunning than Lucius Malfoy, that he will grow to be the equal of Voldemort himself. It is he who I wish to consult.”

Harry suppressed the chill that went through him at the name, frowned thoughtfully at the Headmaster.

How much does he know…?

The Headmaster had seen Harry in the grip of his mysterious dark side, as deep as Harry had ever sunk into it. Harry still remembered what it had been like to watch, invisibly Time-Turned, as his past self faced down the older Slytherins; the boy with the scar on his forehead who didn’t act like the others.
Of course
the Headmaster would have noticed something odd about the boy in his office…

And Dumbledore had concluded that his pet hero had cunning to match his destined foe, the Dark Lord.

Which wasn’t asking for very much, considering that the Dark Lord had put a clearly visible Dark Mark on all of his servants’ left arms, and that he’d slaughtered the entire monastery that taught the martial art he’d wanted to learn.

Enough cunning to match
Professor Quirrell
would be a
whole
different order of problem.

But it was also clear that the Headmaster wouldn’t be satisfied until Harry went all cold and darkish, and came up with some sort of answer that sounded impressively cunning… which had better not
actually
get in the way of Professor Quirrell’s teaching Defense…

And of course Harry
would
go over to his dark side and think it through from that direction, just to be honest, and just in case.

“Tell me,” Harry said, “everything about how the Dementor is to be brought in, and how it is to be guarded.”

Dumbledore’s eyebrows rose for a moment, and then the old wizard began to speak.

The Dementor would be transported to the grounds of Hogwarts by an Auror trio, all three personally known to the Headmaster, and all three able to cast a corporeal Patronus Charm. They would be met at the edge of the grounds by Dumbledore, who would pass the Dementor through the Hogwarts wards -

Harry asked if the pass was permanent or temporary - whether someone could just bring in the same Dementor again the next day.

The pass was temporary (replied the Headmaster with an approving nod), and the explanation went on: The Dementor would be in a cage of solid titanium bars, not Transfigured but true-forged; in time a Dementor’s presence would corrode that metal to dust, but not in a single day.

Students awaiting their turn would stay well back of the Dementor, behind two corporeal Patronuses maintained by two of the three Aurors at any given time. Dumbledore would wait by the Dementor’s cage with his Patronus. A single student would approach the Dementor; and Dumbledore would dispel his Patronus; and the student would attempt to cast their own Patronus Charm; and if they failed, Dumbledore would restore his Patronus before the student could suffer any permanent damage. Past dueling champion Professor Flitwick would also be present while there were students near, just to add safety margin.

“Why just
you
waiting by the Dementor?” said Harry. “I mean, shouldn’t it be you plus an Auror -”

The Headmaster shook his head. “They could not withstand the repeated exposure to the Dementor, each time I dispel my Patronus.”

And if Dumbledore’s Patronus did fail for some reason, while one of the students was still near the Dementor, the third Auror would cast another corporeal Patronus and send it to shield the student…

Harry poked and prodded, but he couldn’t see a flaw in the security.

So Harry took a deep breath, sank further into the chair, closed his eyes, and remembered:

“And that will be… five points? No, let us make it an even ten points from Ravenclaw for backchat.”

The cold came more slowly now, more reluctantly, Harry hadn’t been calling much on his dark side lately…

Harry had to run through that entire session in Potions in his mind, before his blood chilled into something approaching deadly crystalline clarity.

And then he thought of the Dementor.

And it was obvious.

“The Dementor is a distraction,” Harry said. The coldness clear in his voice, since that was what Dumbledore wanted and expected. “A large, salient threat, but in the end straightforward, and easy to defend against. So while all your attention is focused on the Dementor, the real plot will be happening elsewhere.”