Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (152 page)

Albus stepped out. The old wizard did not pause on the way out of the infirmary, only kept walking toward Professor Flitwick’s office; and Minerva followed him.

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat. “Is it done, Albus?”

The old wizard nodded in affirmation. “If any hostile magic is cast on her, or any spirit touches her, I shall know, and come.”

“I spoke to Mr. Potter after Transfiguration class,” said Professor McGonagall. “He was of the opinion that Miss Granger should go to Beauxbatons, rather than Hogwarts, from now on.”

The old wizard shook his head. “No. If Voldemort truly desires to strike at Miss Granger - he is tenacious beyond measure. His servants are returning to him, he could not have retrieved Bellatrix alone. Azkaban itself is not safe from his malice, and as for Beauxbatons - no, Minerva. I do not think Voldemort can essay such possessions often, or against stronger targets, or this year would have gone quite differently. And Harry Potter is here, whom Voldemort must fear whether he admits it or no. Now that I have warded her, Miss Granger will be safer within Hogwarts than without.”

“Mr. Potter seemed to doubt that,” Minerva said. She couldn’t quite keep the edge from her voice; there was a part of her that agreed rather strongly. “He seemed to feel that common sense said Miss Granger should continue her education anywhere but Hogwarts.”

The old wizard sighed. “I fear the boy has spent too much time among the Muggles. Always they reach for safety; always they imagine that safety can be reached. If Miss Granger is not safe within the center of our fortress, she shall be no safer for leaving it.”

“Not everyone seems to think so,” said Professor McGonagall. It had been almost the first letter she’d seen when she’d taken a quick look at her desk; an envelope of the finest sheepskin, sealed in greenish-silver wax, pressed into the image of a snake that rose and hissed at her. “I have received Lord Malfoy’s owl withdrawing his son from Hogwarts.”

The old wizard nodded, but did not break stride. “Does Harry know?”

“Yes.” Her voice faltered, for a moment, remembering Harry’s expression. “After class, Mr. Potter complimented Lord Malfoy’s excellent good sense, and said that he would be writing Madam Longbottom advising her to do the same with her grandson, in case he was the next target. In the event that Mr. Longbottom’s guardian was so negligent as to keep him in Hogwarts, Mr. Potter wanted him to have a Time-Turner, an invisibility cloak, a broomstick, and a pouch in which to carry them; also a toe-ring with an emergency portkey to a safe location, in case someone kidnaps Mr. Longbottom and takes him outside Hogwarts’s wards. I told Mr. Potter that I did not think the Ministry would consent to such use of our Time-Turners, and he said that we should not ask. I expect he will want Miss Granger to receive the same, if she stays. And for himself Mr. Potter wants a three-person broomstick to carry in his pouch.” She wasn’t awed by the list of precautions. Impressed with the cleverness, but not awed; she was a Transfiguration Mistress, after all. But it still sent shivers of disquiet through her, that Harry Potter now thought Hogwarts as dangerous as spell research.

“The Department of Mysteries is not lightly defied,” said Albus. “But for the rest -” The old wizard seemed to slump in on himself slightly. “We may as well give the boy what he wishes. And I will ward Neville also, and write Augusta to say that he should stay here over holiday.”

“And finally,” she said, “Mr. Potter says - this is a direct quote, Albus - whatever kind of Dark Wizard attractant the Headmaster is keeping here, he needs to get it out of this school,
now
.” She couldn’t stop the edge in her own voice, that time.

“I asked as much of Flamel,” Albus said, the pain clear in his voice. “But Master Flamel has said - that even
he
can no longer keep safe the Stone - that he believes Voldemort has means of finding it wherever it is hidden - and that he does not consent for it to be guarded anywhere but Hogwarts. Minerva, I am sorry, but it must be done -
must!
”

“Very well,” said Professor McGonagall. “But for myself, I think that Mr. Potter is right on every single count.”

The old wizard glanced at her, and his voice caught as he said, “Minerva, you have known me long, and as well as any soul still living - tell me, have I lost myself to darkness already?”

“What?” said Professor McGonagall in genuine surprise. Then, “Oh, Albus, no!”

The old wizard’s lips pressed together tightly before he spoke. “For the greater good. I have sacrificed so many, for the greater good. Today I almost condemned Hermione Granger to Azkaban for the greater good. And I find myself - today, I found myself - beginning to resent the innocence that is no longer mine -” The old wizard’s voice halted. “Evil done in the name of good. Evil done in the name of evil. Which
is
worse?”

“You are being silly, Albus.”

The old wizard glanced at her again, before turning his eyes back to their way. “Tell me, Minerva - did you pause to weigh the consequences, before you told Miss Granger how to bind herself to the Potter family?”

She took an involuntary breath as she understood what she had done -

“So you did not.” Albus’s eyes were saddened. “No, Minerva, you must not apologize. It is well. For what you have seen of me this day - if your first loyalty is now to Harry Potter, and not to me, then that is right and proper.” She opened her lips to protest, but Albus went on before she could say a word. “Indeed - indeed - that will be necessary and more than necessary, if the Dark Lord that Harry must defeat to come into his power is not Voldemort after all -”

“Not
this
again!” Minerva said. “Albus, it was You-Know-Who, not you, who marked Harry as his equal. There is no
possible
way that the prophecy could be talking about you!”

The old wizard nodded, but his eyes still seemed distant, fixed only on the road ahead.

The holding cell, well to the center of Magical Law Enforcement, was luxuriously appointed; more a remark on what adult wizards took for granted, than any special feeling toward prisoners. There was a self-reclining, self-rocking chair with plush, richly textured, self-warming cushions. There was a bookcase containing random books rescued from a bargain bin, and a full shelf of ancient magazines, including one from 1883. As for toiletries, well, it wasn’t exactly luxurious, but there was a spell on the room which put all that business on hold; you weren’t to go anywhere that the watching Auror couldn’t see you. But aside from that, it was quite a pleasant little cell. The Defense Professor of Hogwarts was being detained, not arrested, not even intimidated. There was no evidence to indict him… except that a terrible and unusual crime had been committed at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and going by previous occasions the odds were five to one that the current Defense Professor was tangled up in it
somehow
. To this must be added the fact that nobody in the D.M.L.E. even knew who the Defense Professor
was
, and that the man had literally
sneezed
at all attempts to uncover his true identity. Why, no, they
hadn’t
released ‘Quirinus Quirrell’ back to Hogwarts just yet.

Let us repeat this for emphasis:

The Defense Professor.

Was being detained.

In a cell.

The Defense Professor was staring at the watching Auror and humming.

The Defense Professor has not spoken a single word since he arrived in this particular cell. He has
only
been humming.

The humming started as a simple children’s lullaby, the one that in Muggle Britain begins,
Lullaby, and goodnight…

This tune was hummed, without variation, over and over, for seven minutes, to establish the underlying pattern.

Then began the elaborations upon the theme. Phrases hummed too slow, with long pauses in between, so that the listener’s mind helplessly waits and waits for the next note, the next phrase. And then, when that next phrase comes, it is so out of key, so unbelievably awfully out of key, not just out of key for the previous phrases but sung at a pitch which does not correspond to
any
key, that you would have to believe this person had spent hours deliberately practicing their humming just to acquire such perfect anti-pitch.

It bears the same semblance to music as the awful dead voice of a Dementor bears to human speech.

And this horrible, horrible humming is
impossible
to ignore. It is similar to a known lullaby, but it departs from that pattern unpredictably. It sets up expectations and then violates them, never in any constant pattern that would permit the humming to fade into the background. The listener’s brain cannot prevent itself from expecting the anti-musical phrases to complete, nor prevent itself from noticing the surprises.

The only possible explanation for how this mode of humming came to exist is that it was deliberately designed by some unspeakably cruel genius who woke up one day, feeling bored with ordinary torture, who decided to handicap himself and find out whether he could break someone’s sanity
just by humming at them
.

The Auror has been listening to this unimaginably dreadful humming for four hours, while being stared at by a huge, cold, lethal presence that feels equally horrible whether he looks at it directly or lets it hover at the corner of his vision -

The humming stopped.

There was a long wait. Time enough for false hope to rise, and be squashed down by the memory of previous disappointments. And then, as the interval lengthened, and lengthened, that hope rose again unstoppably -

The humming began once more.

The Auror cracked.

From his belt, the Auror took a mirror, tapped it once, and then said, “This is Junior Auror Arjun Altunay, I’m calling in code RJ-L20 on cell three.”

“Code RJ-L20?” the mirror said in surprised tones. There was a sound of pages being flipped, then, “You want to be relieved because a prisoner is attempting psychological warfare and succeeding?”

(Amelia Bones really is quite intelligent.)

“What’d the prisoner say to you?” said the mirror.

(This question is
not
part of procedure RJ-L20, but unfortunately Amelia Bones has failed to include an explicit instruction that the commanding officer should not ask.)

“He’s -” said the Auror, and glanced back at the cell. The Defense Professor was now leaning in back in his chair, looking quite relaxed. “He was
staring
at me! And
humming!
”

There was a pause.

The mirror spoke again. “And you’re calling in an RJ-L20 over that? You’re sure you’re not just trying to get out of watching him?”

(Amelia Bones is surrounded by idiots.)

“You don’t understand!” yelled Auror Altunay. “It’s really awful humming!”

The mirror transmitted a sound of muffled laughter in the background, sounding like it was coming from more than one person. Then speech again. “Mr. Altunay, if you don’t want to be busted to Junior Auror Second Class, I suggest you buckle down and get back to work -”

“Strike that,” a crisp voice said, sounding slightly remote due to its distance from the mirror.

(Which is why Amelia Bones often sits in on a coordination center of the D.M.L.E. while doing her Ministry-required paperwork.)

“Auror Altunay,” said the crisp voice, seeming to approach closer to the mirror, “you will be relieved shortly. Auror Ben Gutierrez, the procedure for RJ-L20 does
not
say that you ask why. It says that you relieve the Auror who calls it in.
If
I find that Aurors seem to be abusing it,
I
will modify the procedure to prevent its abuse -” The mirror cut off abruptly.

The Auror turned back to look triumphantly at where the current Defense Professor of Hogwarts was leaning back in his cushioned chair.

That man then spoke the first words that had left his lips since he entered the cell.

“Goodbye, Mr. Altunay,” said the Defense Professor.

A few minutes later, the door to the detention cell opened, and in walked a grey-haired woman, dressed in the crimson-tinged robes of an Auror without any sign of rank or other ornamentation, carrying a black leather folder under her left arm. “You’re relieved,” the old woman said abruptly.

There was a brief delay while Auror Altunay tried to explain what had been happening. This was cut short by a nod and a stark, simple finger pointing out the door.

“Good evening, Madam Director,” said the Defense Professor.

Amelia Bones did not acknowledge this statement, but sat down abruptly in the vacated chair. The old witch opened the black folder and her gaze moved down to the parchments therein. “Possible hints to the identity of the current Hogwarts Defense Professor, as compiled by Auror Robards.” The title parchment was turned, flipped aside. “The Defense Professor said that he was Sorted into Slytherin. Claimed that his family was killed by Voldemort. Said he had studied at a martial arts center in Muggle Asia which was destroyed by Voldemort. A request filed with the Department of International Magical Cooperation identifies this incident as the Oni Affair of 1969.” Another parchment was flipped aside. “It also seems this Defense Professor gave a most stirring speech to his students, just before last Yule, castigating the previous generation for their disunity against the Death Eaters.” The old witch looked up from the leather folder. “Madam Longbottom was rather taken with it, and insisted that I read the entire thing. The argument struck me as familiar, though I could not place it at the time. But then, of course, I had thought you dead.”

The chief law enforcement officer of Magical Britain was now gazing sharply at the current Defense Professor of Hogwarts, across the pane of spell-reinforced glass separating them. The man in the cell returned the gaze equably, without apparent alarm.

“I shall not name any names,” said the old witch. “But I shall tell a story, and see if it sounds familiar.” Amelia Bones looked back down, turning to the next parchment. “Born 1927, entered Hogwarts in 1938, sorted into Slytherin, graduated 1945. Went on a graduation tour abroad and disappeared while visiting Albania. Presumed dead until 1970, when he returned to magical Britain just as suddenly, without any explanation for the missing twenty-five years. He remained estranged from his family and friends, living in isolation. In 1971, while visiting Diagon Alley, he fended off an attempt by Bellatrix Black to kidnap the daughter of the Minister of Magic, and used the Killing Curse to slay two of the three Death Eaters accompanying her. Beyond this all Britain knows the story; need I continue it?” The old witch looked up from her folder again. “Very well. There was a trial in the Wizengamot, during which this young man was exonerated for his use of the Killing Curse, not least due to the efforts of his grandmother, the Lady of his House. He was reconciled with his family, and they held a House gathering to welcome his return. The guest of honor arrived at that gathering to find his entire family slain by Death Eaters, even to the house elves; and that he himself, of cadet line, was now the last remaining scion of a Most Ancient House.”