Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (33 page)

“The song of the phoenix,” said Minerva, not really aware of what she was saying, her attention was all on that strange quiet music. “It, too, heals.”

Harry turned his face from her, but she caught a glimpse of something agonized.

The descent seemed to take a very long time, or maybe it was only that the music seemed to take a very long time, and when they stepped out through the gap where a gargoyle had been, she was holding Harry’s hand firmly in hers.

As the gargoyle stepped back into place, Fawkes left her shoulder, and swooped to hover in front of Harry.

Harry stared at Fawkes like someone hypnotized by the ever-changing light of a fire.

“What am I to do, Fawkes?” whispered Harry. “I couldn’t have protected them if I hadn’t been angry.”

The phoenix’s wings continued flapping, it continued hovering in place. There was no sound but the beating of the wings. Then there was a flash like a fire flaring up and going out, and Fawkes was gone.

Both of them blinked, like waking up from a dream, or maybe like falling asleep again.

Minerva looked down.

Harry Potter’s bright young face looked up at her.

“Are phoenixes people?” said Harry. “I mean, are they smart enough to count as people? Could I talk with Fawkes if I knew how?”

Minerva blinked hard. Then she blinked again. “No,” Minerva said, her voice wavering. “Phoenixes are creatures of powerful magic. That magic gives their existence a weight of meaning which no simple animal could possess. They are fire, light, healing, rebirth. But in the end, no.”

“Where can I get one?”

Minerva leaned down and hugged him. She hadn’t meant to, but she didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter.

When she stood up she found it hard to speak. But she had to ask. “What happened today, Harry?”

“I don’t know the answers to any of the important questions either. Aside from that I’d really rather not think about it for a while.”

Minerva took his hand in hers again, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.

It was only a short trip, since naturally the office of the Deputy was close to the office of the Headmaster.

Minerva sat behind her desk.

Harry sat in front of her desk.

“So,” Minerva whispered. She would have given almost anything not to do this, or not to be the one who had to do it, or for it to be any time but right now. “There is a matter of school discipline. From which you are not exempt.”

“Namely?” said Harry.

He didn’t know. He hadn’t figured it out yet. She felt her throat tighten. But there was work to be done and she would not shirk it.

“Mr. Potter,” said Professor McGonagall, “I need to see your Time-Turner, please.”

All the peace of the phoenix vanished from his face in an instant and Minerva felt like she had just stabbed him.

“
No!
” Harry said. His voice was panicked. “I need it, I won’t be able to attend Hogwarts, I won’t be able to sleep!”

“You’ll be able to sleep,” she said. “The Ministry has delivered the protective shell for your Time-Turner. I will enchant it to open only between the hours of 9PM and midnight.”

Harry’s face twisted. “But - but I -”

“Mr. Potter, how many times have you used the Time-Turner since Monday? How many hours?”

“I…” Harry said. “Hold on, let me add it up -” He glanced down at his watch.

Minerva felt a rush of sadness. She’d thought so. “It wasn’t just two per day, then. I suspect that if I asked your dormmates, I would find that you were struggling to stay up long enough to go to sleep at a reasonable time, and waking up earlier and earlier every morning. Correct?”

Harry’s face said everything she needed to know.

“Mr. Potter,” she said gently, “there are students who cannot be entrusted with Time-Turners, because they become addicted to them. We give them a potion which lengthens their sleep cycle by the necessary amount, but they end up using the Time-Turner for more than just attending their classes. And so we must take them back. Mr. Potter, you have taken to using the Time-Turner as your solution to everything, often very foolishly so. You used it to get back a Remembrall. You vanished from a closet in a fashion apparent to other students, instead of going back after you were out and getting me or someone else to come and open the door.”

From the look on Harry’s face he hadn’t thought of that.

“And more importantly,” she said, “you should have simply sat in Professor Snape’s class. And watched. And left at the end of class. As you would have done if you had not possessed a Time-Turner. There are some students who cannot be entrusted with Time-Turners, Mr. Potter. You are one of them. I am sorry.”

“But I
need
it!” Harry blurted. “What if there are Slytherins threatening me and I have to escape? It keeps me
safe
-”

“Every other student in this castle runs the same risk, and I assure you that they survive. No student has died in this castle for fifty years. Mr. Potter, you will hand over your Time-Turner and do so now.”

Harry’s face twisted in agony, but he drew out the Time-Turner from under his robes and gave it to her.

From her desk, Minerva drew out one of the protective shells that had been sent to Hogwarts. She snapped the cover into place around the Time-Turner’s turning hourglass, and then she laid her wand on the cover to complete the enchantment.

“
This isn’t fair!
” Harry shrieked. “I saved half of Hogwarts from Professor Snape today, is it right that I be punished for it? I saw the look on your face, you
hated
what he was doing!”

Minerva didn’t speak for a few moments. She was enchanting.

When she finished and looked up, she knew that her face was stern. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do. And then again maybe it was the right thing to do. There was an obstinate child in front of her, and that
didn’t
mean the universe was broken.

“
Fair,
Mr. Potter?” she snapped. “I have had to file
two reports
with the Ministry on public use of a Time-Turner in
two successive days!
Be
extremely
grateful you were allowed to retain the Time-Turner even in restricted form! The Headmaster made a Floo call to plead with them personally and if you were not the Boy-Who-Lived even that would not have sufficed!”

Harry gaped at her.

She knew that he was seeing the angry face of Professor McGonagall.

Harry’s eyes filled up with tears.

“I’m, sorry,” he whispered, voice now choked and broken. “I’m sorry, to have, disappointed you…”

“I’m sorry too, Mr. Potter,” she said sternly, and handed him the newly restricted Time-Turner. “You may go.”

Harry turned and fled from her office, sobbing. She heard his feet pattering away down the hall, and then the sound cut off as the door swung closed.

“I’m sorry too, Harry,” she whispered to the quiet room. “I’m sorry too.”

Fifteen minutes into lunch hour.

No one was speaking to Harry. Some of the Ravenclaws were shooting him looks of anger, others of sympathy, a few of the youngest students even had looks of admiration, but no one was talking to him. Even Hermione hadn’t tried to come over.

Fred and George had gingerly stepped near. They hadn’t said anything. The offer was clear, and its optionality. Harry had told them that he would come over when dessert started, no earlier. They had nodded and quickly walked away.

It was probably the utterly expressionless look on Harry’s face that was doing it.

The others probably thought he was controlling anger, or dismay. They knew, because they’d seen Flitwick come and get him, that he’d been called to the Headmaster’s office.

Harry was trying not to smile, because if he smiled, he would start laughing, and if he started laughing, he wouldn’t stop until the nice people in white jackets came to haul him away.

It was too much. It was just all too much. Harry had almost gone over to the Dark Side, his dark side had done things that seemed in retrospect insane, his dark side had won an impossible victory that might have been real and might have been a pure whim of a crazy Headmaster, his dark side had protected his friends. He just couldn’t handle it any more. He needed Fawkes to sing to him again. He needed to use the Time-Turner to go off and take a quiet hour to recover but that wasn’t an option any more and the loss was like a hole in his existence but he couldn’t think about that because then he might start laughing.

Twenty minutes. All the students who were going to eat lunch had arrived, almost none had departed.

The tapping of a spoon rang through the Great Hall.

“If I may have your attention please,” Dumbledore said. “Harry Potter has something he would like to share with us.”

Harry took a deep breath and got up. He walked over to the Head Table, with every eye staring at him.

Harry turned and looked out at the four tables.

It was becoming harder and harder not to smile, but Harry kept his face expressionless as he spoke his brief and memorized speech.

“The truth is sacred,” Harry said tonelessly. “One of my most treasured possessions is a button which reads ‘Speak the truth, even if your voice trembles’. This, then, is the truth. Remember that. I am not saying it because I am being forced to say it, I am saying it because it is true. What I did in Professor Snape’s class was foolish, stupid, childish, and an inexcusable violation of the rules of Hogwarts. I disrupted the classroom and deprived my fellow students of their irreplaceable learning time. All because I failed to control my temper. I hope that not a single one of you will ever follow my example. I certainly intend to try never to follow it again.”

Many of the students gazing at Harry now had solemn, unhappy looks upon their faces, such as one might see at a ceremony marking the loss of a fallen champion. At the younger parts of the Gryffindor table the look was almost universal.

Until Harry raised his hand.

He did not raise it high. That might have appeared preemptory. He certainly did not raise it toward Severus. Harry simply raised his hand to chest level, and softly snapped his fingers, a gesture that was seen more than heard. It was possible that most of the Head Table wouldn’t see it at all.

This seeming gesture of defiance won sudden smiles from the younger students and Gryffindors, and coldly superior sneers from Slytherin, and frowns and worried looks from all others.

Harry kept his face expressionless. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s all.”

“Thank you, Mr. Potter,” said the Headmaster. “And now Professor Snape has something to share with us as well.”

Severus smoothly stood up from his place at the Head Table. “It has been brought to my attention,” he said, “that my own actions played a part in provoking the admittedly inexcusable anger of Mr. Potter, and in the ensuing discussion I realized that I had forgotten how easily injured are the feelings of the young and immature -”

There was the sound of many people emitting muffled chokes at the same time.

Severus continued as if he had not heard. “The Potions classroom is a dangerous place, and I still feel that strict discipline is necessary, but henceforth I will be more aware of the… emotional fragility… of students in their fourth year and younger. My deduction of points from Ravenclaw still stands, but I will revoke Mr. Potter’s detention. Thank you.”

There was a single clap from the direction of Gryffindor and faster than lightning Severus’s wand was in his hand and “
Quietus!
” silenced the offender.

“I will still demand discipline and respect in
all
my classes,” Severus said coldly, “and anyone who trifles with me will regret it.”

He sat down.

“Thank you too!” Headmaster Dumbledore said cheerfully. “Carry on!”

And Harry, still expressionless, began to walk back to his seat in Ravenclaw.

There was an explosion of conversation. Two words were clearly identifiable in the beginning. The first was an initial “What -” beginning many different sentences such as “What just happened -” and “What the hell -” The second was “
Scourgify!
” as students cleaned up the dropped food and spit-out drinks from themselves, the tablecloth, and each other.

Some students were weeping openly. So was Professor Sprout.

At the Gryffindor table, where a cake waited with fifty-one unlit candles, Fred whispered, “I think we may be out of our league here, George.”

And from that day onward, no matter what Hermione tried to tell anyone, it would be an accepted legend of Hogwarts that Harry Potter could make absolutely anything happen by snapping his fingers.

Blood for the blood god! Skulls for J. K. Rowling!

Draco had a stern expression on his face, and his green-trimmed robes somehow looked far more formal, serious, and well-turned-out than the same exact robes as worn by the two boys behind him.

“Talk,” said Draco.

“Yeah! Talk!”

“You heard da boss! Talk!”

“You two, on the other hand,
shut up.
”

The last session of classes on Friday was about to start, in that vast auditorium where all four Houses learned Defense, er, Battle Magic.

The last session of classes on Friday.

Harry was hoping that this class would be non-stressful, and that the brilliant Professor Quirrell would realize this was perhaps not the best time to single out Harry for anything. Harry had recovered a little, but…

…but just in case, it was probably best to get in a bit of stress relief first.

Harry leaned back in his chair and bestowed a look of great solemnity upon Draco and his minions.

“You ask, what is our aim?” Harry declaimed. “I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no -”

“
Talk about Snape,
” Draco hissed. ”
What did you do?
”

Harry wiped away the fake solemnity and gave Draco a more serious look.

“You saw it,” Harry said. “Everyone saw it. I snapped my fingers.”

“
Harry! Stop teasing me!
”

So he’d been promoted to
Harry
now. Interesting. And in fact Harry was fairly sure that he was meant to notice that, and feel bad if he didn’t respond somehow…

Harry tapped his ears and gave a significant glance at the minions.

“They won’t talk,” said Draco.

“Draco,” Harry said, “I’m going to be one hundred percent honest here and say that yesterday I was not particularly impressed with Mr. Goyle’s cunning.”

Mr. Goyle winced.

“Me neither,” said Draco. “I explained to him that I ended up owing you a favor because of it.” (Mr. Goyle winced again.) “But there
is
a big difference between that sort of mistake and being indiscreet. That really is something they’ve been trained from childhood to understand.”

“All right then,” Harry said. He lowered his voice, even though the background noises had gone to blurs in Draco’s presence. “I deduced one of Severus’s secrets and did a bit of blackmail.”

Draco’s expression hardened. “Good, now tell me something you didn’t tell in strict confidence to the idiots in Gryffindor, meaning that was the story you
wanted
to get all over the school.”

Harry grinned involuntarily and he knew that Draco had caught it.

“What is Severus saying?” Harry said.

“That he hadn’t realized how sensitive the feelings of young children were,” Draco said. “Even in Slytherin! Even to
me!
”

“Are you sure,” Harry said, “that you want to know something your Head of House would rather you not know?”

“Yes,” Draco said without hesitation.

Interesting.
“Then you really are going to send your minions away first, because I’m not sure I can believe everything you believe about them.”

Draco nodded. “Okay.”

Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle looked
very
unhappy. “Boss -” said Mr. Crabbe.

“You’ve given Mr. Potter no reason to trust you,” Draco said. “Go!”

They left.

“In particular,” Harry said, lowering his voice even further, “I’m not
entirely
sure that they wouldn’t just report what I said to Lucius.”

“Father wouldn’t
do
that!” Draco said, looking genuinely aghast. “They’re
mine!
”

“I’m sorry, Draco,” Harry said. “I’m just not sure I can believe everything you believe about your father. Imagine it was your secret and me telling you my father wouldn’t do that.”

Draco nodded slowly. “You’re right.
I’m
sorry, Harry. It was wrong of me to ask it of you.”

How did I get
this
promoted? Shouldn’t he hate me now?
Harry had the feeling he was looking at something exploitable… he just wished his brain wasn’t so exhausted. Ordinarily he would have loved to try his hand at some complicated plotting.

“Anyway,” Harry said. “Trade. I tell you a fact that isn’t on the grapevine, and does not
go
on the grapevine, and in
particular
does not go to your father, and in return you tell me what you and Slytherin think about the whole business.”

“Deal!”

Now to make this as vague as possible… something that wouldn’t hurt much even if it did get out… “What I said was true. I did discover one of Severus’s secrets, and I did do some blackmail. But Severus wasn’t the only person involved.”

“
I knew it!
” Draco said exultantly.

Harry’s stomach sank. He had apparently said something very significant and he did not know why. This was not a good sign.

“All right,” Draco said. He was grinning widely now. “So here’s what the reaction was like in Slytherin. First, all the idiots were like, ‘We hate Harry Potter! Let’s go beat him up!’”

Harry choked. “What is
wrong
with the Sorting Hat? That’s not Slytherin, it’s
Gryffindor
-”

“Not all children are prodigies,” Draco said, though he was smiling in a sort of nasty-conspiratorial way, as though to suggest that he privately agreed with Harry’s opinion. “And it took around fifteen seconds for someone to explain to them why this might not be such a favor to Snape, so you’re fine. Anyway, after that was the second wave of idiots, the ones who were saying, ‘Looks like Harry Potter was just another do-gooder after all.’”

“And then?” Harry said, smiling even though he had no idea why
that
was stupid.

“And then the actual smart people started talking. It’s obvious that you found a way to put a
lot
of pressure on Snape. And while that could be more than one thing… the obvious
next
thought is that it has something to do with Snape’s unknown hold over Dumbledore. Am I right?”

“No comment,” Harry said. At least his brain was processing this part correctly. House Slytherin
had
wondered why Severus wasn’t getting fired. And they’d concluded that Severus was blackmailing Dumbledore. Could that actually be true…? But Dumbledore hadn’t seemed to act like it…

Draco went on talking. “And the
next
thing the smart people pointed out was that if you could put enough pressure on Snape to make him leave half of Hogwarts alone, that meant you probably had enough power to get rid of him entirely, if you wanted. What you did to him was a humiliation, just the same way he tried to humiliate you - but you left us our Head of House.”

Harry made his smile wider.

“And then the
really
smart people,” Draco said, his face now serious, “went off and had a little discussion by themselves, and someone pointed out that it would be a very stupid thing to leave an enemy around like that. If you could break his hold over Dumbledore, the obvious thing would be to just do it. Dumbledore would kick Snape out of Hogwarts and maybe even have him killed, he’d be
very
grateful to you, and you wouldn’t have to worry about Snape sneaking into your dorm room at night with interesting potions.”

Harry’s face was now neutral. He had not thought of that and he really, really should have. “And from this you concluded…?”

“Snape’s hold was some secret of Dumbledore’s and
you’ve got the secret!
” Draco was looking exultant. “It can’t be powerful enough to destroy Dumbledore entirely, or Snape would have used it by now. Snape refuses to use his hold for anything except staying king of Slytherin House in Hogwarts, and he doesn’t always get what he wants even then, so it must have limits. But it’s
got
to be really good! Father’s been trying to get Snape to tell him for
years!
”

“And,” Harry said, “now Lucius thinks maybe
I
can tell him. Did you already get an owl -”

“I will tonight,” Draco said, and laughed. “It will say,” his voice took on a different, more formal cadence, “
My beloved son: I’ve already told you of Harry Potter’s potential importance. As you have already realized, his importance has now become greater and more urgent. If you see any possible avenue of friendship or point of pressure with him, you must pursue it, and the full resources of Malfoy are at your disposal if needed.
”

Gosh. “Well,” Harry said, “not commenting on whether or not your whole complicated edifice of theory is true, let me just say that we are not quite such good friends as yet.”

“I know,” Draco said. Then his face turned
very
serious, and his voice grew quiet even within the blur. “Harry, has it occurred to you that if you know something Dumbledore doesn’t want known, Dumbledore might simply have you killed? And it would turn the Boy-Who-Lived from a potential competing leader into a valuable martyr, too.”

“No comment,” Harry said yet again. He hadn’t thought of that last part, either. Didn’t
seem
to be Dumbledore’s style… but…

“Harry,” Draco said, “you’ve obviously got
incredible
talent, but you’ve got no training and no mentors and you do stupid things sometimes and
you really need an advisor who knows how to do this or you’re going to get hurt!
” Draco’s face was fierce.

“Ah,” Harry said. “An advisor like Lucius?”

“Like
me!
” said Draco. “I’ll promise to keep your secrets from Father, from
everyone,
I’ll just help you figure out whatever you want to do!”

Wow.

Harry saw that zombie-Quirrell was staggering in through the doors.

“Class is about to start,” said Harry. “I’ll think about what you said, there’s lots of times I
do
wish I had all your training, it’s just I don’t know how I can trust you so quickly -”

“You shouldn’t,” Draco said, “it’s too soon. See? I’ll give you good advice even if it hurts me. But we should maybe
hurry up
and become closer friends.”

“I’m open to that,” said Harry, who was already trying to figure out how to exploit it.

“Another bit of advice,” Draco said hurriedly as Quirrell slouched toward his desk, “right now everyone in Slytherin’s wondering about you, so if you’re courting us, which I think you are, you should do something that signals friendship to Slytherin.
Soon
, like today or tomorrow.”

“Letting Severus go on awarding extra House points to Slytherin wasn’t enough?” No reason Harry couldn’t take credit for it.

Draco’s eyes flickered with realization, then he said rapidly, “It’s not the same, trust me, it’s got to be something obvious. Push your mudblood rival Granger into a wall or something, everyone in Slytherin will know what that means -”

“That is
not
how it works in Ravenclaw, Draco! If you have to push someone into a wall it means your brain is too
weak
to beat them the right way and everyone in Ravenclaw
knows that
-”

The screen on Harry’s desk flickered on, provoking a sudden wash of nostalgia for television and computers.

“Ahem,” said Professor Quirrell’s voice, seeming to speak personally to Harry out of the screen. “Please take your seats.”

And the children were all seated and staring at the repeater screens on their desks, or looking down directly at the great white marble stage where Professor Quirrell stood, leaning on his desk atop the small dais of darker marble.

“Today,” said Professor Quirrell, “I had planned to teach you your first defensive spell, a small shield that was the ancestor of today’s
Protego.
But on second thought I have changed today’s lesson plan in the light of recent events.”

Professor Quirrell’s gaze searched the rows of seats. Harry winced from where he was sitting, in the back row. He had a feeling he knew who was about to be called on.

“Draco, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy,” said Professor Quirrell.

Whew.

“Yes, Professor?” said Draco. His voice was amplified, seeming to come from the repeater screen on Harry’s desk, which showed Draco’s face as he spoke. Then the screen shifted back to Professor Quirrell, who said:

“Is it your ambition to become the next Dark Lord?”

“That’s an odd question, Professor,” said Draco. “I mean, who’d be dumb enough to admit it?”

A few students laughed, but not many.

“Indeed,” said Professor Quirrell. “So while there’s no point in asking any of you, it would not surprise me in the slightest if there were a student or two in my classes who harbored ambitions of being the next Dark Lord. After all,
I
wanted to be the next Dark Lord when
I
was a young Slytherin.”

This time the laughter was much more widespread.

“Well, it
is
the House of the ambitious, after all,” Professor Quirrell said, smiling. “I didn’t realize until later that what I really enjoyed was Battle Magic, and that my true ambition was to become a great fighting wizard and someday teach at Hogwarts. In any case, when I was thirteen years old, I read through the historical sections of the Hogwarts library, scrutinizing the lives and fates of past Dark Lords, and I made a list of all the mistakes that
I
would never make when
I
was a Dark Lord -”

Harry giggled before he could stop himself.

“Yes, Mr. Potter, very amusing. So, Mr. Potter, can you guess what was the very first item on that list?”

Great.
“Um… never use a complicated way of dealing with an enemy when you can just Abracadabra them?”

“The
term,
Mr. Potter, is
Avada Kedavra,
” Professor Quirrell’s voice sounded a bit sharp for some reason, “and no, that was
not
on the list I made at age thirteen. Would you care to guess again?”

“Ah… never brag to anyone about your evil master plan?”

Professor Quirrell laughed. “Ah, now
that
was number two. My, Mr. Potter, have we been reading the same books?”