Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (86 page)

“It’s not just Ron,” Hermione said in almost a whisper. “Lots of people are saying it, Harry. Even Mandy is giving me worried looks when she thinks I’m not looking. Isn’t it funny? I keep worrying that Professor Quirrell is sucking
you
into the darkness, and now people are warning me just the same way I try to warn you.”

“Well,
yeah,
” said Harry. “Doesn’t that reassure you a bit about me and Professor Quirrell?”

“In a word,” said Hermione, “no.”

There was a silence that lasted long enough for Hermione to turn another page, and then her voice, in a real whisper this time, “And, and Padma is going around telling everyone that, that since I couldn’t cast the P-Patronus Charm, I must only be p-pretending to be n-nice…”

“Padma didn’t even
try
herself!” Harry said indignantly. “If you
were
a Dark Witch who was just pretending, you wouldn’t have
tried
in front of everyone, do they think you’re
stupid?
”

Hermione smiled a little, and blinked a few times.

“Hey,
I
have to worry about
actually
going evil.
Here
the worst case scenario is that people think you’re more evil than you really are. Is that going to kill you? I mean, is it all
that
bad?”

The young girl nodded, her face screwed up tight.

“Look, Hermione… if you worry that much about what other people think, if you’re unhappy whenever other people don’t picture you exactly the same way you picture yourself, that’s
already
dooming yourself to always be unhappy. No one ever thinks of us just the same way we think of ourselves.”

“I don’t know how to explain to you,” Hermione said in a sad soft voice. “I’m not sure it’s something you could ever understand, Harry. All I can think of to say is, how would you feel if
I
thought you were evil?”

“Um…” Harry visualized it. “Yeah, that
would
hurt. A lot. But you’re a good person who thinks about that sort of thing intelligently, you’ve
earned
that power over me, it would
mean
something if you thought I’d gone wrong. I can’t think of a single other student, besides you, whose opinion I’d care about the same way -”

“You can live like that,” whispered Hermione Granger. “I can’t.”

The girl had gone through another three pages in silence, and Harry had returned his eyes to his own book and was trying to regain his focus, when Hermione finally said, in a small voice, “Are you really sure I mustn’t know how to cast the Patronus Charm?”

“I…” Harry had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat. He suddenly saw himself
not
knowing why the Patronus Charm didn’t work for him,
not
being able to show Draco, just being told that there was a reason, and nothing more. “Hermione, your Patronus would shine with the same light but it wouldn’t be
normal,
it wouldn’t look like people think Patronuses should look, anyone who saw it would know there was something strange going on. Even if I told you the secret you couldn’t
demonstrate
to anyone, unless you made them face the other way so they could only see the light, and… and the most important part of any secret is the knowledge that a secret exists, you could only show one or two friends if you swore them to secrecy…” Harry’s voice trailed off helplessly.

“I’ll take it.” Her voice was still small.

It was very hard not to just blurt out the secret, right there in the library.

“I, I shouldn’t, I
really
shouldn’t, it’s
dangerous,
Hermione, it could do a lot of harm if that secret got out! Haven’t you heard the saying, three can keep a secret if two are dead? That telling just your closest friends is the same as telling everyone, because you’re not just trusting them, you’re trusting everyone they trust? It’s too important, too much of a risk, it’s not the sort of decision that should be made for the sake of fixing someone’s reputation at school!”

“Okay,” Hermione said. She closed the book and put it back on the shelf. “I can’t concentrate right now, Harry, I’m sorry.”

“If there’s
anything
else I can do -”

“Be nicer to everyone.”

The girl didn’t look back as she walked out of the stacks, which might have been a good thing, because the boy was frozen in place, unmoving.

After a while, the boy started turning pages again.

A boy waits at a small clearing at the edge of the non-forbidden forest, beside a dirt trail that runs back to the gates of Hogwarts in one direction, and off into the distance in another. There is a carriage nearby, and the boy is standing well away from it, looking at it, his eyes seldom wavering from its direction.

In the distance, a figure is approaching along the dirt path: A man wearing professorial robes, trudging slowly with his shoulders slumped low, his formal shoes kicking up small clouds of dust as he walks.

Half a minute later, the boy darts another quick glance before returning to his surveillance; and this glimpse shows that the man’s shoulders have straightened, his face unslackened, and that his shoes are now walking lightly across the dirt, leaving not a trace of dust in the air behind.

“Hello, Professor Quirrell,” Harry said without letting his eyes move again from the direction of their carriage.

“Salutations,” said the calm voice of Professor Quirrell. “You seem to be keeping your distance, Mr. Potter. I don’t suppose you see something odd about our conveyance?”

“Odd?” Harry echoed. “Why no, I can’t say I see anything odd. There seem to be even numbers of everything. Four seats, four wheels, two huge skeletal winged horses…”

A skin-wrapped skull turned to look at him and flashed teeth, solid and white in that black cavernous mouth, as though to indicate that it was just about as fond of him as he was of it. The other black leathery horse-skeleton tossed its head like it was whickering, but there was no sound.

“They are Thestrals, and they have always drawn the carriage,” Professor Quirrell said, sounding quite undisturbed as he climbed into the front bench of the carriage, sitting down as far to the right as possible. “They are visible only to those who have seen death and comprehended it, a useful defense against most animal predators. Hm. I suppose that the first time you went in front of the Dementor, your worst memory proved to be the night of your encounter with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?”

Harry nodded grimly. It was the right guess, even if for the wrong reasons.
Those who have seen Death…

“Did you recall anything of interest, thereby?”

“Yes,” Harry said, “I did,” only that and nothing more, for he was not ready as yet to make accusations.

The Defense Professor smiled one of his dry smiles, and beckoned with an impatient finger.

Harry closed the distance and climbed into the carriage, wincing. The sense of doom had grown significantly stronger after the day of the Dementor, even though it had been slowly weakening before then. The greatest distance that the carriage allowed him from Professor Quirrell no longer seemed like nearly far enough.

Then the skeletal horses trotted forward and the carriage started in motion, taking them toward the outer bounds of Hogwarts. As it did, Professor Quirrell slumped back down into zombie-mode, and the sense of doom retreated, though it still hovered at the edge of Harry’s perceptions, unignorable…

The forest scrolled by as the carriage rolled along, the trees moving past at a speed that seemed positively glacial by comparison to broomsticks or even cars. There was something oddly relaxing, Harry thought, about traveling that slowly. It had certainly relaxed the Defense Professor, who was slumped over with a small stream of drool coming out of his slack mouth and puddling on his robes.

Harry still hadn’t decided what he was allowed to eat for lunch.

His library research hadn’t turned up any sign of wizards speaking to nonmagical plants. Or any other nonmagical animals besides snakes, although
Spell and Speak
by Paul Breedlove had recounted the probably-mythical tale of a sorceress called the Lady of Flying Squirrels.

What Harry
wanted
to do was ask Professor Quirrell. The problem was that Professor Quirrell was
too smart
. Judging by what Draco had said, the Heir of Slytherin business was a major bombshell, and Harry wasn’t sure he wanted anyone else to know. And the instant Harry asked about Parseltongue, Professor Quirrell would fix him with those pale blue eyes and say, ‘I see, Mr. Potter, so you taught Mr. Malfoy the Patronus Charm and accidentally spoke to his snake.’

It wouldn’t
matter
that it shouldn’t be enough evidence to locate the true explanation as a hypothesis, let alone overcome its burden of prior improbability. Somehow the Defense Professor would deduce it
anyway
. There were times when Harry suspected that Professor Quirrell had way more background information than he was telling, his priors were simply too good. Sometimes he got his amazing deductions right even when his
reasons
were wrong. The problem was that Harry couldn’t see how Professor Quirrell could’ve snuck in an extra clue about half the stuff he guessed. Just
once
Harry would have liked to make some sort of incredible deduction from something Professor Quirrell said which would catch
him
completely off guard.

“I shall have a bowl of green lentil soup, with soy sauce,” Professor Quirrell said to the waitress. “And for Mr. Potter, a plate of Tenorman’s family chili.”

Harry hesitated in sudden dismay. He’d resolved to stick to vegetarian dishes for the moment, but he’d forgotten in his deliberations that Professor Quirrell did the
actual ordering
- and it would be awkward if he protested now -

The waitress bowed to them, and turned to go -

“Erm, excuse me, any meat in that from snakes or flying squirrels?”

The waitress didn’t so much as blink an eye, only turned back to Harry, shook her head, bowed politely to him again, and resumed her walk toward the door.

(The other parts of Harry were snickering at him. Gryffindor was making sardonic comments about how a little social discomfort was enough to get him to resort to
Cannibalism!
(shouted by Hufflepuff), and Slytherin was remarking on how nice it was that Harry’s ethics were flexible when it came to important goals like maintaining his relationship with Professor Quirrell.)

After the waitress had closed the door behind her, Professor Quirrell waved a hand to slide home the locking bar, spoke the usual four Charms to ensure privacy, and then said, “An interesting question, Mr. Potter. I wonder why you asked it?”

Harry kept his face steady. “I was looking up some facts about the Patronus Charm earlier,” he said. “According to
The Patronus Charm: Wizards Who Could and Couldn’t,
it turns out that Godric couldn’t and Salazar could. I was surprised, so I looked up the reference, in
Four Lives of Power.
And
then
I discovered that Salazar Slytherin could supposedly talk to snakes.” (Temporal sequence wasn’t the same as causation, it wasn’t Harry’s fault if Professor Quirrell missed that.) “Further research turned up an old story about a mother goddess type who could talk to flying squirrels. I was a bit worried about the prospect of eating something that could talk.”

And Harry took a casual sip of his water -

- just as Professor Quirrell said, “Mr. Potter, would I be correct in guessing that you are also a Parselmouth?”

When Harry was done coughing, he set his glass of water back down on the table, fixed his gaze on Professor Quirrell’s chin rather than looking him in the eyes, and said, “So you are able to perform Legilimency through my Occlumency barriers, then.”

Professor Quirrell was grinning widely. “I shall take that as a compliment, Mr. Potter, but no.”

“I’m not buying this anymore,” Harry said. “There’s no
way
you came to that conclusion based on that evidence.”

“Of course not,” Professor Quirrell said equably. “I had planned to ask you that question today in any case, and simply chose an opportune moment. I have suspected since December, in fact -”

“
December?
” said Harry. “I found out
yesterday!
”

“Ah, so you did not realize the Sorting Hat’s message to you was in Parseltongue?”

The Defense Professor had timed it exactly right the second time, too, just as Harry was taking a gulp of water to clear out his throat from the first coughing fit.

Harry
hadn’t
realized, not until just now. Of course it was obvious the instant Professor Quirrell said it. Right, Professor McGonagall had even
told
him not to talk to snakes where anyone could see him, but he’d thought she’d meant not to be seen talking to any statues or architectural features in Hogwarts that looked like snakes. Double illusion of transparency, he’d thought he understood her, she’d thought he understood her - but
how
the
hell -

“So,” Harry said, “you performed Legilimency on me during my first Defense class, to find out what happened with the Sorting Hat -”

“Then I would not have found out in December.” Professor Quirell leaned back, smiling. “This is not a puzzle you can solve on your own, Mr. Potter, so I will reveal the answer. Over the winter holiday, I was alerted to the fact that the Headmaster had filed a request for a closed judicial panel to review the case of one Mr. Rubeus Hagrid, whom you know as the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts, and who was accused of the murder of Abigail Myrtle in 1943.”

“Oh, of course,” said Harry, “that makes it downright
obvious
that I’m a Parselmouth. Professor,
what
the sweet slithering snakes -”

“The
other
suspect for that murder was Slytherin’s Monster, the legendary inhabitant of Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets. Which is why certain sources alerted me to the fact, and why it caught my attention sufficiently that I spent a good deal of bribe money to learn the details of the case. Now in point of fact, Mr. Potter, Mr. Hagrid is innocent. Ridiculously obviously innocent. He is the most blatantly innocent bystander to be convicted by the magical British legal system since Grindelwald’s Confunding of Neville Chamberlain was pinned on Amanda Knox. Headmaster Dippet prompted a student puppet to accuse Mr. Hagrid because Dippet needed a scapegoat to take the blame for the death of Miss Myrtle, and our marvelous justice system agreed that this was plausible enough to warrant Mr. Hagrid’s expulsion and the snapping of his wand. Our current Headmaster needs merely provide some new item of evidence significant enough to reconvene the case; and with Dumbledore applying pressure instead of Dippet, the result is a foregone conclusion. Lucius Malfoy has no particular reason to fear Mr. Hagrid’s vindication; thus Lucius Malfoy will only resist to the extent that he can do so costlessly in order to impose costs on Dumbledore, and Dumbledore is clearly willing to prosecute the case regardless.”

Professor Quirrell took a sip of his water. “But I digress. The new evidence that the Headmaster promises to provide is to exhibit a previously undetected spell on the Sorting Hat, which, the Headmaster asserts, he has personally determined to respond only to Slytherins who are also Parselmouths. The Headmaster further argues that this favors the interpretation that the Chamber of Secrets was indeed opened in 1943, approximately the right time frame for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, a known Parselmouth, to have attended Hogwarts. It is a rather questionable logic, but a judicial panel may rule that it swings the case far enough to bring Mr. Hagrid’s guilt into doubt, if they can manage to keep a straight face as they say it. And now we come to the key question:
how
did the Headmaster discover this hidden spell on the Sorting Hat?”

Professor Quirrell was smiling thinly now. “Well now, let us suppose that there was a Parselmouth in this year’s crop of students, a potential Heir of Slytherin. You must admit, Mr. Potter, that you stand out as a possibility whenever extraordinary people are considered. And if I then further ask myself which new Slytherin would be most likely to have his mental privacy invaded by the Headmaster, specifically hunting the memories of his Sorting, why, you stand out even more.” The smile vanished. “So you see, Mr. Potter, it was not
I
who invaded your mind, though I will not ask you to apologize. It is not your fault that you believed Dumbledore’s protestations of respecting your mental privacy.”

“My sincere apologies,” Harry said, keeping his face expressionless. The rigid control was a confession in its own right, as was the sweat beading his forehead; but he didn’t think the Defense Professor would take any evidence from that. Professor Quirrell would just think Harry was nervous at having been discovered as the Heir of Slytherin. Rather than being nervous that Professor Quirrell might realize that Harry had deliberately betrayed Slytherin’s secret… which itself was no longer seeming like such a smart move.

“So, Mr. Potter. Any progress on finding the Chamber of Secrets?”

No,
thought Harry. But to maintain plausible deniability, you needed a general policy of sometimes evading questions even when you had nothing to hide… “With respect, Professor Quirrell, if I had made such progress, it is not
quite
obvious to me that I should tell you about it.”

Professor Quirrell sipped from his own waterglass again. “Well then, Mr. Potter, I shall freely tell you what I know or suspect. First, I believe the Chamber of Secrets is real, as is Slytherin’s Monster. Miss Myrtle’s death was not discovered until hours after her demise, even though the wards should have alerted the Headmaster instantly. Therefore her murder was performed either by Headmaster Dippet, which is unlikely, or by some entity which Salazar Slytherin keyed into his wards at a higher level than the Headmaster himself. Second, I suspect that contrary to popular legend, the purpose of Slytherin’s Monster was
not
to rid Hogwarts of Muggleborns. Unless Slytherin’s Monster were powerful enough to defeat the Headmaster of Hogwarts and all the teachers, it could not triumph by force. Multiple murders in secrecy would result in the school’s closure, as nearly happened in 1943, or in the placing of new wards. So why Slytherin’s Monster, Mr. Potter? What true purpose does it serve?”

“Ah…” Harry dropped his gaze to his waterglass and tried to think. “To kill anyone who got into the Chamber and didn’t belong there -”