Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (84 page)

The fury boiling inside Draco was so great that he could barely stop himself from storming out of the room; all that halted him was the recognition of a critical moment; and a small remnant of friendship, a tiny flash of sympathy, for he had forgotten, he’d
forgotten,
that Harry’s mother
and
father were dead by the Dark Lord’s hand.

The silence stretched.

“You can talk,” Harry said, “Draco, talk to me, I won’t get angry - are you thinking, I don’t know, that Narcissa dying was much worse than Lily dying? That it’s wrong for me even to make the comparison?”

“I guess I was stupid too,” Draco said. “All this time, all this time I forgot that you must hate the Death Eaters for killing your parents, hate Death Eaters the way I hate Dumbledore.” And Harry had never said anything, never reacted when Draco talked about Death Eaters, kept it
hidden
- Draco was a fool.

“No,” Harry said. “It’s not - it’s not like that, Draco, I, I don’t even know how to explain to you, except to say that a thought like that, wouldn’t,” Harry’s voice choked, “you wouldn’t ever be able to use it, to cast the Patronus Charm…”

Draco felt a sudden wrench in his heart, unwanted but he felt it. “Are you pretending you’re just going to
forget
about your own parents? Are you saying I should just
forget
about Mother?”

“So you and I
have
to be enemies then?” Now Harry’s voice was growing equally wild. “What have
we
ever done to
each other
that means we have to be enemies? I refuse to be trapped like that! Justice can’t mean that
both
of us should attack
each other,
it doesn’t make sense!” Harry stopped, took a deep breath, ran his fingers back through the deliberate mess of his hair - the fingers came away sweaty, Draco could see it. “Draco, listen, we can’t expect to meet on everything right away, you and I. So I won’t ask you to say that the Dark Lord was
wrong
to kill my mother, just say that it was…
sad
. We won’t talk about whether or not it was
necessary
, whether it was
justified
. I’ll just ask you to say that it was sad that it happened, that my mother’s life was valuable too, you’ll just say that for now. And I’ll say it was sad that Narcissa died, because her life was also worth something. We can’t expect to agree on everything right away, but if we start out by saying that every life is precious, that it’s sad when
anyone
dies, then I know we’ll meet someday. That’s what I want you to say. Not who was right. Not who was wrong. Just that it was sad when your mother died, and sad when my mother died, and it would be sad if Hermione Granger died, every life is precious, can we agree on that and let the rest go by for now, is it enough if we just agree on that? Can we, Draco? That seems… more like a thought someone could use to cast the Patronus Charm.”

There were tears in Harry’s eyes.

And Draco was getting angry again. “Dumbledore
killed
Mother, it’s not enough to just say it’s
sad!
I don’t understand what you think
you
have to do, but the Malfoys
have
to take revenge!” Not avenging the deaths of family went
beyond
weakness, beyond dishonor, you might as well not
exist.

“I’m not arguing with that,” Harry said quietly. “But will you say that Lily Potter’s death was sad? Just say that one thing?”

“That’s…” Draco was having difficulty finding words again. “I know, I know how you feel, but don’t you see Harry, even if I just say that Lily Potter’s death was
sad,
that’s
already
going against the Death Eaters!”

“Draco, you’ve
got
to be able to say the Death Eaters were wrong about some things! You
have
to, you can’t progress as a scientist otherwise, there’ll be a roadblock in your way, an authority you can’t contradict. Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change, you can’t do anything
better
unless you can manage to do it
differently
,
you’ve got to let yourself do better than other people!
Even your father, Draco, even him. You’ve got to be able to point to something your father did and say it was mistaken, because he wasn’t
perfect
, and if you can’t say that, you can’t do better.”

Father had warned him, every night before he went to sleep for a month before he went to Hogwarts, that there would be people with this goal.

“You’re trying to break me loose of Father.”

“Trying to break a
part
of you loose,” said Harry. “Trying to let you fix some things your father got mistaken. Trying to let you
do better
. But not… trying to break your
Patronus!
” Harry’s voice got softer. “I wouldn’t want to break something bright like that. Who knows, fixing Slytherin House might need
that
, too…”

It was getting to Draco, that was the thing, despite everything it was getting to him, you had to be really careful around Harry because his arguments sounded so convincing
even when he was wrong.
“And what you’re
not
admitting is that Dumbledore told you that you could avenge your parents’ deaths by taking Lord Malfoy’s son from him -”

“
No.
No. That part’s just wrong.” Harry took a deep breath. “I did not know who Dumbledore was, or who the Dark Lord was, or who the Death Eaters were, or how my parents died, until three days before I came to Hogwarts. The day you and I first met in the clothes shop, that was the day I learned. And Dumbledore doesn’t even
like
Muggle science, or he says he doesn’t, I got a chance to probe him on it once. The thought of taking revenge on the Death Eaters through you has
never
crossed my mind, not even
once
until now. I didn’t know who the Malfoys were when I met you in the clothes shop, and then I
liked
you.”

There was a long silence.

“I wish I could trust you,” Draco said. His voice was shaking. “If I could just
know
you were telling the truth, everything would be so much simpler -”

And then suddenly it came to Draco.

The way to know whether Harry Potter really meant everything he said, about wanting to fix Slytherin House, about being sad that Mother had died.

It would be illegal, and since he’d have to do it without Father’s help, it would be
dangerous
, he couldn’t even trust Harry Potter to
help,
but…

“All right,” Draco said. “I’ve thought of a definitive experiment.”

“What is it?”

“I want to give you a drop of Veritaserum,” Draco said. “Just one drop, so you can’t lie, but not enough to
make
you answer anything. I don’t know where I’ll get it, but I’ll make
certain
it’s safe -”

“Um,” Harry said. There was a helpless look on his face. “Draco, um -”

“Don’t say it,” Draco said. His voice was firm and calm. “If you say no, that’s my experimental result right there.”

“Draco, I’m an Occlumens -”

“
OH THAT IS SUCH A LIE -
”

“I was trained by Mr. Bester. Professor Quirrell set it up. Look, Draco, I’ll
take
one drop of Veritaserum if you can get it, I’m just
warning
you that I’m an Occlumens. Not a perfect Occlumens, but Mr. Bester said I was putting up a complete block, and I could probably beat Veritaserum.”

“
You’re in your first year at Hogwarts! That’s just crazy!
”

“Know a Legilimens you can trust? I’ll be happy to demonstrate - look, Draco, I’m sorry, but doesn’t the fact that I
told
you count for something? I
could
have just let you do it, you know.”

“
WHY? Why are you always like this, Harry? Why do you have to mess everything up even when it’s IMPOSSIBLE? And stop smiling, this isn’t funny!
”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I
know
it’s not funny, I -”

It took a while for Draco to get himself under control.

But Harry was right. Harry
could
have just let Draco administer the Veritaserum.
If
he really was an Occlumens… Draco didn’t know who he could ask to try Legilimency, but he could at least ask Professor Quirrell if it was true… Could Draco trust
Professor Quirrell?
Maybe Professor Quirrell would just say anything Harry asked him to.

Then Draco remembered the other thing Harry had told him to ask Professor Quirrell, and thought of a different test.

“You
know
,” said Draco. “You
know
what it costs me, if I agree that the poison in Slytherin’s House is hating Muggleborns, and say that Lily Potter’s death was sad. And that’s
part of your plan,
don’t tell me it’s not.”

Harry said nothing, which was wise of him.

“There’s something I want from you in return,” said Draco. “And before then, an experimental test I want to try -”

Draco pushed open the door to which the portraits had directed them, and this time it was the right door. Before them was a small empty place of stone set against the night sky. Not a roof like the one he’d dropped Harry from, but a tiny and proper courtyard, far above the ground. With proper railings, elaborate traceries of stone that flushed seamlessly into the stone floor… How so much
artistry
had been infused into the creation of Hogwarts was something that still awed Draco every time he thought about it. There must have been some way to do it all at once, no one could have detailed so much piece by piece, the castle
changed
and every new piece was like that. It was so far beyond the wizardry of these fading days that no one would have believed it if they hadn’t seen the proof in Hogwarts itself.

Cloudless and cold, the winter night sky; it got dark long before students’ curfew, in the final days of January.

The stars shining brightly, in the clear air.

Harry had said that being under the stars would help him.

Draco touched his chest with his wand, slid his fingers in a practiced motion, and said, “
Thermos.
” A warmth spread through him, starting from his heart; the wind went on blowing on his face, but he was no longer cold.

“
Thermos,
” Harry’s voice said behind him.

They went together to the railing, to look down at the ground a long way below. Draco tried to figure if they were in one of the towers that could be seen from outside, and found that right now he couldn’t quite seem to picture how Hogwarts looked from outside. But the ground below was always the same; he could see the Forbidden Forest as a vague outline, and moonlight glittering from the Hogwarts Lake.

“You know,” Harry’s voice said quietly from beside him where his arms leaned on the railing next to Draco’s, “one of the things that Muggles get really wrong, is that they don’t turn all their lights out at night. Not even for one hour every month, not even for fifteen minutes once a year. The photons scatter in the atmosphere and wash out all but the brightest stars, and the night sky doesn’t look the same at all, not unless you go far away from any cities. Once you’ve looked up at the sky over Hogwarts, it’s hard to imagine living in a Muggle city, where you wouldn’t be able to see the stars. You certainly wouldn’t want to spend your whole life in Muggle cities, once you’d seen the night sky over Hogwarts.”

Draco glanced at Harry, and found that Harry was craning his neck to stare up at where the Milky Way arched across the darkness.

“Of course,” Harry went on, his voice still quiet, “you can’t ever see the stars properly from
Earth,
either, the air always gets in the way. You have to look from somewhere else, if you want to see the real thing, the stars burning hard and bright, like their true selves. Have you ever wished that you could just whisk yourself up into the night sky, Draco, and go look at what there is to see around other Suns than ours? If there were no limit to the power of your magic, is that one of the things you would do, if you could do anything?”

There was a silence, and then Draco realized that he was expected to answer. “I didn’t think of it before,” Draco said. Without any conscious decision, his voice came out as soft and hushed as Harry’s. “Do you really think anyone would ever be able to do that?”

“I don’t think it’ll be that easy,” said Harry. “But I know I don’t mean to spend my whole life on Earth.”

It would have been something to laugh at, if Draco hadn’t known that some Muggles had already left, without even using magic.

“To pass your test,” Harry said, “I’m going to have to say what it means to
me,
that thought, the whole thing, not the shorter version I tried to explain to you before. But you should be able to see it’s the same idea, only more general. So
my
version of the thought, Draco, is that when we go out into the stars, we might find other people there. And if so, they certainly won’t look like we do. There might be things out there that are grown from crystal, or big pulsating blobs… or they might be made of magic, now that I think about it. So with all that strangeness, how do you recognize a
person?
Not by the shape, not by how many arms or legs it has. Not by the sort of substance it’s made out of, whether that’s flesh or crystal or stuff I can’t imagine. You would have to recognize them as people from their
minds
. And even their minds wouldn’t work just like ours do. But anything that lives and thinks and knows itself and doesn’t want to die, it’s sad, Draco, it’s sad if that person has to die, because it doesn’t want to. Compared to what might be out there, every human being who ever lived, we’re all like brothers and sisters, you could hardly even tell us apart. The ones out there who met
us,
they wouldn’t see British or French, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, they’d just see a human being. Humans who can love, and hate, and laugh, and cry; and to
them
, the ones out there, that would make us all as alike as peas in the same pod.
They
would be different, though.
Really
different. But that wouldn’t stop us, and it wouldn’t stop them, if we both wanted to be friends together.”