Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (9 page)

“Okay, Harry,” Ron said uncertainly.

The Force is not particularly strong in this one.
“Call… me… Mister… Spoo.”

“Okay, Mister Spoo -” Ron stopped. “I can’t do that, it makes me feel stupid.”

That’s not just a feeling.
“Okay.
You
pick a name.”

“Mr. Cannon,” Ron said at once. “For the Chudley Cannons.”

“Ah…” Harry knew he was going to terribly regret asking this. “Who or what are the Chudley Cannons?”

“
Who’re the Chudley Cannons?
Only the most brilliant team in the whole history of Quidditch! Sure, they finished at the bottom of the league last year, but -”

“What’s Quidditch?”

Asking this was also a mistake.

“So let me get this straight,” Harry said as it seemed that Ron’s explanation (with associated hand gestures) was winding down. “Catching the Snitch is worth
one hundred and fifty points?
”

“Yeah -”

“How many ten-point goals does one side usually score
not
counting the Snitch?”

“Um, maybe fifteen or twenty in professional games -”

“That’s just wrong. That violates every possible rule of game design. Look, the rest of this game sounds like it might make sense, sort of, for a sport I mean, but you’re basically saying that catching the Snitch overwhelms almost any ordinary point spread. The two Seekers are up there flying around looking for the Snitch and usually not interacting with anyone else, spotting the Snitch first is going to be mostly luck -”

“It’s not luck!” protested Ron. “You’ve got to keep your eyes moving in the right pattern -”

“That’s not
interactive,
there’s no back-and-forth with the other player and how much fun is it to watch someone incredibly good at moving their eyes? And then whichever Seeker gets lucky swoops in and grabs the Snitch and makes everyone else’s work moot. It’s like someone took a real game and grafted on this pointless extra position so that you could be the Most Important Player without needing to really get involved or learn the rest of it. Who was the first Seeker, the King’s idiot son who wanted to play Quidditch but couldn’t understand the rules?” Actually, now that Harry thought about it, that seemed like a surprisingly good hypothesis. Put him on a broomstick and tell him to catch the shiny thing…

Ron’s face pulled into a scowl. “If you don’t like Quidditch, you don’t have to make fun of it!”

“If you can’t criticise, you can’t optimise. I’m suggesting how to
improve the game.
And it’s very simple. Get rid of the Snitch.”

“They won’t change the game just ‘cause
you
say so!”

“I
am
the Boy-Who-Lived, you know. People will listen to me. And maybe if I can persuade them to change the game at Hogwarts, the innovation will spread.”

A look of absolute horror was spreading over Ron’s face. “But, but if you get rid of the Snitch, how will anyone know when the game ends?”

“
Buy… a… clock.
It would be a lot fairer than having the game sometimes end after ten minutes and sometimes not end for hours, and the schedule would be a lot more predictable for the spectators, too.” Harry sighed. “Oh, stop giving me that look of absolute horror, I probably won’t
actually
take the time to destroy this pathetic excuse for a national sport and remake it stronger and smarter in my own image. I’ve got way, way,
way
more important stuff to worry about.” Harry looked thoughtful. “Then again, it wouldn’t
take
much time to write up the Ninety-Five Theses of the Snitchless Reformation and nail it to a church door -”

“Potter,” drawled a young boy’s voice, “
what
is that on your face and
what
is standing next to you?”

Ron’s look of horror was replaced by utter hatred. “
You!
”

Harry turned his head; and indeed it was Draco Malfoy, who might have been forced to wear standard school robes, but was making up for that with a trunk looking at least as magical and far more elegant than Harry’s own, decorated in silver and emeralds and bearing what Harry guessed to be the Malfoy family crest, a beautiful fanged serpent over crossed ivory wands.

“Draco!” Harry said. “Er, or Malfoy if you prefer, though that kind of sounds like Lucius to me. I’m glad to see you’re doing so well after, um, our last meeting. This is Ron Weasley. And I’m trying to go incognito, so call me, eh,” Harry looked down at his robes, “Mister Black.”

“
Harry!
” hissed Ron. “You can’t use
that
name!”

Harry blinked. “Why not?” It
sounded
nicely dark, like an international man of mystery -

“I’d say it’s a
fine
name,” said Draco, “but it belongs to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. I’ll call you Mr. Silver.”

“
You
get away from… from Mr. Gold,” Ron said coldly, and took a forward step. “He doesn’t need to talk to the likes of you!”

Harry raised a placating hand. “I’ll go by Mr. Bronze, thanks for the naming schema. And, Ron, um,” Harry struggled to find a way to say this, “I’m glad you’re so… enthusiastic about protecting me, but I don’t particularly mind talking to Draco -”

This was apparently the last straw for Ron, who spun on Harry with eyes now aflame with outrage. “
What?
Do you
know
who this is?”

“Yes, Ron,” Harry said, “you may remember that I called him Draco without him needing to introduce himself.”

Draco sniggered. Then his eyes lit on the white owl on Ron’s shoulder. “Oh, what’s
this?
” Draco said in a drawl rich with malice. “Where’s the famous Weasley family rat?”

“Buried in the backyard,” Ron said coldly.

“Aw, how sad. Pot… ah, Mr. Bronze, I should mention that the Weasley family is widely agreed to have
the best pet story ever
. Want to tell it, Weasley?”

Ron’s face contorted. “You wouldn’t think it was funny if it happened to
your
family!”

“Oh,” Draco purred, “but it wouldn’t ever
happen
to the Malfoys.”

Ron’s hands clenched into fists -

“That’s enough,” Harry said, putting as much quiet authority into the voice as he could manage. It was clear that whatever this was about, it was a painful memory for the red-haired kid. “If Ron doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t have to talk about it, and I’d ask that you not talk about it either.”

Draco turned a surprised look on Harry, and Ron nodded. “That’s right, Harry! I mean Mr. Bronze! You see what kind of person he is? Now tell him to go away!”

Harry counted to ten inside his head, which for him was a very quick
12345678910
- an odd habit left over from the age of five when his mother had first instructed him to do it, and Harry had reasoned that his way was faster and ought to be just as effective. “I’m not telling him to go away,” Harry said calmly. “He’s welcome to talk to me if he wants.”

“Well, I don’t intend to hang around with anyone who hangs around with Draco Malfoy,” Ron announced coldly.

Harry shrugged. “That’s up to you.
I
don’t intend to let anyone say who I can and can’t hang around with.” Silently chanting,
please go away, please go away…

Ron’s face went blank with surprise, like he’d actually expected that line to work. Then Ron spun about, yanked his luggage’s lead and stormed off down the platform.

“If you didn’t like him,” Draco said curiously, “why didn’t you just walk away?”

“Um… his mother helped me figure out how to get to this platform from the King’s Cross Station, so it was kind of hard to tell him to get lost. And it’s not that I
hate
this Ron guy,” Harry said, “I just, just…” Harry searched for words.

“Don’t see any reason for him to exist?” offered Draco.

“Pretty much.”

“Anyway, Potter… if you really were raised by Muggles -” Draco paused here, as if waiting for a denial, but Harry didn’t say anything “- then you mightn’t know what it’s like to be famous. People want to take up
all
of our time. You
have
to learn to say no.”

Harry nodded, putting a thoughtful look on his face. “That sounds like good advice.”

“If you try to be nice, you just end up spending the most time with the pushiest ones. Decide who you
want
to spend time with and make everyone else leave. You’re just getting here, Potter, so everyone’s going to judge you by who they see you with, and you don’t want to be seen with the likes of Ron Weasley.”

Harry nodded again. “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you recognise me?”

“
Mister Bronze
,” Draco drawled, “I
have
met you, remember. I saw someone going around with a scarf wrapped around his head, looking absolutely ridiculous. So I took a
guess.
”

Harry bowed his head, accepting the compliment. “I’m
terribly
sorry about that,” Harry said. “Our first meeting, I mean. I didn’t mean to embarrass you in front of Lucius.”

Draco waved it off while giving Harry an odd look. “I just wish Father could have come in while
you
were flattering
me
-” Draco laughed. “But thank
you
for what you said to Father. If not for that, I might’ve had a harder time explaining.”

Harry swept a deeper bow. “And thank
you
for reciprocating with what you said to Professor McGonagall.”

“You’re welcome. Though one of the assistants must’ve sworn her closest friend to absolute secrecy, because Father says there’re
weird rumors
going around, like you and I got in a fight or something.”

“Ouch,” Harry said, wincing. “I’m
really
sorry -”

“No, we’re used to it, Merlin knows there’s lots of rumors about the Malfoy family already.”

Harry nodded. “I’m glad to hear you’re not in trouble.”

Draco smirked. “Father has, um, a
refined
sense of humor, but he
does
understand making friends. He understands it
very
well. He made me repeat that before I went to bed every night for the last month, ‘I will make friends at Hogwarts.’ When I explained everything to him and he saw that’s what I was doing, he bought me an ice-cream.”

Harry’s jaw dropped. “
You managed to spin that into an ice-cream?
”

Draco nodded, looking every bit as smug as the feat deserved. “Well, father
knew
what I was doing, of course, but he’s the one who taught me
how
to do it, and if I grin the right way
while
I’m doing it, that makes it a father-son thing and then he
has
to buy me an ice-cream or I’ll give him this sort of sad look, like I think I must have disappointed him.”

Harry eyed Draco calculatingly, sensing the presence of another master. “You’ve had
lessons
on how to manipulate people?”

“Of course,” Draco said proudly. “I’m a
Malfoy.
Father bought me tutors.”

“Wow,” Harry said. Reading Robert Cialdini’s
Influence: Science and Practice
probably didn’t stack up very high compared to that (though it was still one heck of a book). “Your dad is almost as awesome as my dad.”

Draco’s eyebrows rose loftily. “Oh? And what does
your
father do?”

“He buys me books.”

Draco considered this. “That doesn’t sound very impressive.”

“You had to be there. Anyway, I’m glad to hear all that. The way Lucius was looking at you, I thought he was going to c-crucify you.”

“My father really loves me,” Draco said firmly. “He wouldn’t ever do that.”

“Um…” Harry said. He remembered the black-robed, white-haired figure of elegance that had stormed through Madam Malkin’s, wielding that beautiful, deadly silver-handled cane. It wasn’t easy to visualise him as a doting father. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but how do you
know
that?”

“Huh?” It was clear that this was a question Draco did not commonly ask himself.

“I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it? What makes you think Lucius wouldn’t sacrifice you the same way he’d sacrifice anything else for power?”

Draco shot Harry another odd look. “Just what do
you
know about Father?”

“Um… seat on the Wizengamot, seat on Hogwarts’ Board of Governors, incredibly wealthy, has the ear of Minister Fudge, has the confidence of Minister Fudge, probably has some highly embarrassing photos of Minister Fudge, most prominent blood purist now that the Dark Lord’s gone, former Death Eater who was found to have the Dark Mark but got off by claiming to be under the Imperius Curse, which was ridiculously implausible and pretty much everyone knew it… evil with a capital ‘E’ and a born killer… I think that’s it.”

Draco’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “McGonagall told you that, did she.”

“No, she wouldn’t say
anything
to me about Lucius afterwards, except to stay away from him. So during the Incident at the Potions Shop, while Professor McGonagall was busy yelling at the shopkeeper and trying to get everything under control, I grabbed one of the customers and asked
them
about Lucius.”

Draco’s eyes were wide again. “Did you
really?
”

Harry gave Draco a puzzled look. “If I lied the first time, I’m not going to tell you the truth just because you ask twice.”

There was a certain pause as Draco absorbed this.

“You’re so completely going to be in Slytherin.”

“I’m so completely going to be in Ravenclaw, thank you very much. I only want power so I can get books.”

Draco giggled. “Yeah, right. Anyway… to answer what you asked…” Draco took a deep breath, and his face turned serious. “Father once missed a Wizengamot vote for me. I was on a broom and I fell off and broke a lot of ribs. It really hurt. I’d never hurt that much before and I thought I was going to die. So Father missed this really important vote, because he was there by my bed at St. Mungo’s, holding my hands and promising me that I was going to be okay.”