Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (120 page)

“You may take a moment to think, if you like,” said Professor Quirrell. “Pretend it is a homework essay, six inches due Thursday. I hear you are quite eloquent in them.”

Everyone was looking at her.

“I -” said Hermione. “I don’t agree with one single thing you just said, anywhere.”

“Well spoken,” came Professor McGonagall’s crisp voice.

Professor Quirrell’s gaze did not waver. “That is not six inches, Miss Granger.
Something
drives you to defy the Headmaster’s verdict and gather followers about yourself. Perhaps it is something you prefer not to speak aloud?”

Hermione knew the correct answer wouldn’t impress Professor Quirrell, but it was the correct answer, so she said it. “I don’t think you need ambition to be a hero,” Hermione said. Her voice wavered but it didn’t crack. “I think you just have to do what’s right. And they’re not my followers, we’re friends.”

Professor Quirrell leaned back against the wall again. The half-smile had faded from his face. “Most folk tell themselves they are doing right, Miss Granger. They do not thereby rise above the ordinary.”

Hermione took a couple of deep breaths, trying to be brave. “It’s not
about
being not ordinary,” she said as stoutly as she could. “But I think if someone just tries to do what’s right, over and over again, and they’re not too lazy to do all the work it takes, and they think about what they’re doing, and they’re brave enough to do it even when they’re scared -” Hermione paused for an instant, her eyes darting to Tracey and Daphne, “- and they cleverly plan how to do it - and they don’t just do what other people do - then I think someone like that would already get into enough trouble.”

Some of the girls and boys chuckled, as did Professor McGonagall, who looked wry and proud at the same time.

“You may be right about that,” said the Defense Professor, his eyes half-lidded. He tossed Hermione the button, and she caught it without thinking. “My donation to your cause, Miss Granger. I understand that they are worth two Sickles.”

The Defense Professor turned and walked away without another word.

“I thought I was going to faint!” gasped Hannah after his footsteps had faded, and she heard some of the other girls letting out their breath or putting down their signs for a moment.

“I do
too
have an ambition!” said Tracey, who seemed to be almost on the verge of tears. “I’m - I’m - I’ll figure out what it is by tomorrow, but I have one, I’m sure!”

“If you really can’t think of anything,” Daphne said, giving Tracey a comforting pat on the shoulder, “just go with the oldie but goodie and try to take over the world.”

“Hey!” said Susan sharply. “You’re supposed to be heroes now! That means you have to be
good!
”

“No, it’s all right,” said Lavender, “I’m pretty sure General Chaos wants to take over the world and
he’s
sort of a good guy.”

More conversation was going on behind the picket line. “My goodness,” said Penelope Clearwater. “I think that’s the most
overtly
evil Defense Professor we’ve ever had.”

Professor McGonagall coughed warningly, and the Head Boy said, “You weren’t around for Professor Barney,” which made several people twitch.

“Professor Quirrell just
talks
like that,” said Harry Potter, though he sounded less certain than before. “I mean, think about it, he doesn’t
do
anything like what Professor Snape does -”

“Mr. Potter,” squeaked Professor Flitwick, voice polite and face stern, “why did you ask me to stay silent?”

“Professor Quirrell was testing Hermione to see if he wanted to be her mysterious old wizard,” Harry said. “Which totally would not have worked out in any way, shape, or form, but she had to answer for herself.”

Hermione blinked.

Then Hermione blinked again, as she realized that it was Professor Quirrell who was Harry Potter’s mysterious old wizard, and not Dumbledore at all, and that
really wasn’t a good sign -

A rumbling noise filled the small stone vestibule, and Hermione, her nerves already on edge, spun rapidly around, almost dropping her protest sign as her other hand darted toward her wand.

The gargoyles were stepping aside, the Flowing Stone rumbling like rock as it moved like flesh. The huge ugly figures waited only briefly, dead gray eyes staring out in silent vigil. Then the great gargoyles folded their wings back into place and stepped back into their former positions, the Flowing Stone not changing its outward appearance at all as it returned from flexibility to motionlessness, and the brief gap in the stone of Hogwarts was solid once more.

And before them all, wearing robes of bright purple that probably only looked hideous if you were Muggleborn, stood the towering form of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, the vanquisher of the Dark Lord Grindelwald and protector of Britain, the rediscoverer of the fabled Twelve Uses of Dragon’s Blood, the most powerful wizard alive; and he was looking at
her,
Hermione Jean Granger, General of the recently expanded Sunshine Regiment, who was getting the best grades in the first year of Hogwarts classes, and who had declared herself a heroine.

Even her
name
was shorter than his.

The Headmaster smiled benevolently at her, his wrinkle-lined eyes twinkling cheerfully beneath their half-circles of glass, and said, “Hello, Miss Granger.”

The odd thing was that it wasn’t nearly as scary as talking to Professor Quirrell. “Hello, Headmaster Dumbledore,” Hermione said with only a slight quaver in her voice.

“Miss Granger,” said Dumbledore, now looking more serious, “I think you and I may have had a bit of a misunderstanding. I did not mean to imply that you could not, or should not be a hero. I certainly did not mean to imply that witches in general should not be heroes. Only that you were… a bit young, to be thinking of such things.”

Hermione, unable to help herself, glanced at Professor McGonagall and saw that Professor McGonagall was giving her an encouraging smile - or she was giving the two of them
some
kind of smile, anyway - so Hermione looked back at the Headmaster and said, the small quaver in her voice a little larger now, “Since you became Headmaster forty years ago, there’ve been eleven students to graduate Hogwarts who became heroes, I mean people like Lupe Cazaril and so on, and
ten
of those were boys. Cimorene Linderwall was the only witch.”

“Hm,” said the Headmaster. There was a thoughtful expression on his face; he at least
seemed
to be thinking about it. “Miss Granger, I have never been one for tallying such numbers. Often it is too much easier to count than to understand. Many good people have come out of Hogwarts, witches and wizards both; those famed as heroes are only one kind of good person, and perhaps not the highest. You did not include Alice Longbottom or Lily Potter in your reckoning… But leave that aside. Tell me, Miss Granger, did you tally how many heroes came out of Hogwarts in the forty years before me? For in that time I can recall only three now called heroes; and among those three, no witches at all.”

“I’m not trying to say it’s
just
you!” Hermione said. “Only I think maybe a
lot
of people, like the Headmasters before you too, maybe even your whole society and everything, might be discouraging girls.”

The old wizard sighed. His half-glasses eyes looked only at her, as though they were the only two people present. “Miss Granger, it might be possible to discourage witches from becoming Charms Mistresses, or Quidditch players, or even Aurors. But not heroes. If someone is meant to be a hero then a hero they will be. They will walk through fire and swim through ice. Dementors will not stop them, nor the deaths of friends, and not discouragement either.”

“Well,” Hermione said, and paused, struggling with the words. “Well, I mean… what if that’s not
actually
true? I mean, to
me
it seems that if you want more witches to be heroes, you ought to teach them heroing.”

“Many boys and girls are heroes in their dreams,” Dumbledore said quietly. He did not look at any of the other girls, only at her. “Fewer in the waking world. Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them. It is a hard life, sometimes lonely, often short. I have told none to refuse that calling, but neither would I wish to increase their number.”

Hermione hesitated; there was something in the lined face that stopped her, like a hint to all the emotion that wasn’t being displayed, years and years of it…

Maybe if there were more heroes, their lives wouldn’t be so lonely, or so short.

She couldn’t bring herself to say that, though, not to him.

“But the point is moot,” said the old wizard. He smiled, a bit ruefully she thought. “Miss Granger, you cannot teach heroism like you would teach Charms. You cannot assign twelve inches on how to carry on when all hope seems lost. You cannot rehearse students on when to stand up and tell the Headmaster he has done wrong. Heroes are born, not taught. And for whatever reason, more of them are born boys than girls.” The Headmaster shrugged, as if to say that
he
was helpless to do anything about that.

“Um,” Hermione said. She couldn’t help it, she glanced behind her.

Professor Sinistra was looking a bit indignant. And it
wasn’t
true that everyone was staring at her like she’d just been silly, the way she’d started to imagine while she was listening to Dumbledore.

Hermione turned back to face Dumbledore again, took a deep breath, and said, “Well, maybe people who are going to be heroes, will be heroes no matter what. But I don’t see how anyone could really
know
that, aside from just saying it afterward. And when
I
told you that I wanted to be a hero, you weren’t very encouraging.”

“Mr. Potter,” the Headmaster said mildly. His eyes didn’t leave hers. “Please tell Miss Granger your impression of our own first meeting. Would you say that I was encouraging? Speak the truth.”

There was a pause.

“Mr. Potter?” said Professor Vector’s voice from behind her, sounding puzzled.

“Um,” Harry’s voice said from further back, sounding extremely reluctant. “Um… well, actually in my case the Headmaster set fire to a chicken.”

“He
what?
” Hermione blurted, only there were several other people exclaiming things at around the same time so she wasn’t sure anyone heard her.

Dumbledore went on gazing at her, looking perfectly serious.

“I didn’t know about Fawkes,” Harry’s voice said rapidly, “so he told me that Fawkes was a phoenix, while he was pointing to a chicken on Fawkes’s stand so I’d think
that
was Fawkes, and then he set the chicken on fire - and also he gave me this big rock and told me it had belonged to my father and I ought to carry it everywhere -”

“But that’s
crazy!
” Susan blurted out.

There was a sudden hush.

The Headmaster slowly turned his head to stare at Susan.

“I -” said Susan. “I mean - I -”

The Headmaster leaned down until he was face-to-face with the young girl.

“I didn’t -” said Susan.

Dumbledore put a finger to his lips and twiddled them, making a
bweeble-bweeble-bweeble
sound.

The Headmaster straightened up again and said, “Well, my good heroines, it has been pleasant speaking to you, but alas, much else remains to do this day. Still, rest assured that I am inscrutable at everyone, not just witches.”

The gargoyles stepped aside, the Flowing Stone rumbling like rock as it moved like flesh.

The huge ugly figures waited briefly with dead gray eyes staring out in silent vigil, as Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, smiling as benevolently as when he’d first emerged from his office, stepped back into the Enchantment of the Endless Stair.

Then the great gargoyles folded their wings back into place and stepped back into their former positions, only one last brief “Bwa-ha-ha!” echoing out before the gap closed.

There was a long silence.

“He
really
set a chicken on fire?” said Hannah.

The eight of them had continued protesting even after that, but to be honest their heart had gone out of it.

It
had
been established, after some careful questions from Professor Flitwick, that Harry Potter hadn’t smelled the chicken burning. Which meant that it had probably been a pebble or something, Transfigured into a chicken and then enclosed in a Boundary Charm to make sure that no smoke escaped into the air - both Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall had been very emphatic about nobody trying that without their supervision.

But still…

But still… what?

Hermione didn’t even
know
but still what.

But
still
.

After a lot of glances exchanged between girls none of whom had wanted to be first to say it, Hermione had declared the protest over, and the adults and boys had drifted off.

“You don’t think we were being unfair to Dumbledore, do you?” said Susan as the heroines walked away to the sound of eight pairs of feet trodding on the stone paving of Hogwarts’s corridors. “I mean, if he
is
crazy at everyone and not just at witches then it’s not discrimination, right?”

“I don’t want to protest against the Headmaster any more,” Hannah said weakly. The Hufflepuff girl seemed a bit unsteady on her feet. “I don’t care what Professor McGonagall says about him not holding it against us, it’s just too much for my nerves.”

Lavender snorted. “I guess
you
won’t be slaying armies of Inferi anytime soon -”

“Stop that!” Hermione said sharply. “Look, all of us have got to
learn
to be heroines, right? It’s okay if someone doesn’t know right away.”

“The Headmaster doesn’t think it
can
be learned,” Padma said. The Ravenclaw girl’s face was thoughtful, her steps measured as she strode through the corridor. “The Headmaster doesn’t even think that’s a good idea.”