Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (87 page)

“A monster powerful enough to defeat a team of wizards that had broken past the best wards Salazar could place on his Chamber? Unlikely.”

Harry was feeling a bit pressured now. “Well, it’s called the Chamber of Secrets, so maybe the Monster has a secret, or
is
a secret?” For that matter, just what sort of secrets were in the Chamber of Secrets in the first place? Harry hadn’t done a lot of research on the subject, in part because he’d gotten the impression that nobody knew anything -

Professor Quirrell was smiling. “Why not just write the secret down?”

“Ahhh…” said Harry. “Because if the Monster spoke Parseltongue, that would ensure that only a true descendant of Slytherin could hear the secret?”

“Easy enough to key the wards on the Chamber to a phrase spoken in Parseltongue. Why go to the trouble of creating Slytherin’s Monster? It cannot have been easy to create a creature with a lifespan of centuries. Come, Mr. Potter, it should be obvious; what are the secrets that can be told from one living mind to another, but never written down?”

Harry saw it then, with a burst of adrenaline that started his heart racing, his breath coming faster. “
Oh.
”

Salazar Slytherin had been very cunning indeed. Cunning enough to come up with a way to bypass the Interdict of Merlin.

Powerful wizardries couldn’t be transmitted through books or ghosts, but if you could create a long-lived enough sentient creature with a good enough memory -

“It seems very probable to me,” said Professor Quirrell, “that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named began his climb to power with secrets obtained from Slytherin’s Monster. That Salazar’s lost knowledge is the source of You-Know-Who’s extraordinarily powerful wizardry. Hence my interest in the Chamber of Secrets and the case of Mr. Hagrid.”

“I
see
,” Harry said. And if
he,
Harry, could find Salazar’s Chamber of Secrets… then all of the lost knowledge that Lord Voldemort had obtained would be
his
as well.

Yes. That was
just
how the story should go.

Add in Harry’s superior intelligence and some original magical research and some Muggle rocket launchers, and the resulting fight would be completely one-sided, which was exactly how Harry wanted it.

Harry was grinning now, a very evil grin.
New priority: Find everything in Hogwarts that looks remotely like a snake and try speaking to it. Starting with everything you’ve already tried, only this time be sure to use Parseltongue instead of English - get Draco to let you into the Slytherin dorms -

“Don’t become too excited, Mr. Potter,” said Professor Quirrell. His own face had become expressionless, now. “You must
continue
thinking. What were the Dark Lord’s parting words to Slytherin’s Monster?”

“
What?
” Harry said. “How could either of us possibly know that?”

“Visualize the scene, Mr. Potter. Let your imagination fill in the details. Slytherin’s Monster - probably some great serpent, so that only a Parselmouth may speak to it - has finished imparting all of the knowledge it possesses to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It conveys to him Salazar’s final benediction, and warns him that the Chamber of Secrets must now remain closed until the next descendant of Salazar should prove cunning enough to open it. And he who will become the Dark Lord nods, and says to it -”

“Avada Kedavra,” said Harry, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach.

“Rule Twelve,” Professor Quirrell said quietly. “Never leave the source of your power lying around where someone else can find it.”

Harry’s gaze dropped to the tablecloth, which had decorated itself in a mournful pattern of black flowers and shadows. Somehow that seemed… too sad to be imagined, Slytherin’s great snake had only wanted to help Lord Voldemort, and Lord Voldemort had just… there was something unbearably sorrowful about it, what sort of person would
do
that to a being who’d offered them nothing but friendship… “
Do
you think the Dark Lord would have -”

“Yes,” Professor Quirrell said flatly. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named left quite a trail of bodies behind him, Mr. Potter; I doubt he would have omitted that one. If there were any artifacts left there that could be moved, the Dark Lord would have taken those with him as well. There might still be something worth seeing in the Chamber of Secrets, and to find it would prove yourself the true Heir of Slytherin. But do not raise your hopes too high. I suspect that all you will find is the remains of Slytherin’s Monster resting quietly in its grave.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“I could be wrong,” said Professor Quirrell. “In the end it is only a guess. But I did wish to warn you, Mr. Potter, so that you would not be too sorely disappointed.”

Harry nodded shortly.

“One might even regret your infant self’s victory,” said Professor Quirrell. His smile twisted. “If only You-Know-Who had lived, you might have persuaded him to teach you some of the knowledge that would have been your heritage, from one Heir of Slytherin to another.” The smile twisted further, as though to mock the obvious impossibility, even given the premise.

Note to self,
thought Harry, with a slight chill and an edge of anger,
make sure to extract my heritage out of the Dark Lord’s mind, one way or another.

There was another silence. Professor Quirrell was looking at Harry as though waiting for him to ask something.

“Well,” said Harry, “so long as we’re on the topic, can I ask how you think the whole Parselmouth business actually -”

There came a knock at the door, then. Professor Quirrell raised a cautionary finger, then opened the door with a wave. The waitress entered, balancing a huge platter with their meals as though the whole assembly weighed nothing (which was in fact probably the case). She gave Professor Quirrell his bowl of green soup, and a glass of his usual Chianti; and set down before Harry a plate of small meat strips smothered in a heavy-looking sauce, plus a glass of his accustomed treacle soda. Then she bowed, managing to make it seem like sincere respect rather than perfunctory acknowledgment, and departed.

When she was gone, Professor Quirrell held up a finger for silence again, and drew his wand.

And then Professor Quirrell began performing a certain series of incantations that Harry recognized, making him take a sharp breath. It was the series and ordering that Mr. Bester had used, the full set of twenty-seven spells that you would perform before discussing anything of truly great import.

If the discussion of the Chamber of Secrets
hadn’t
counted as important -

When Professor Quirrell was done - he’d performed
thirty
spells, three of which Harry hadn’t heard before - the Defense Professor said, “Now we shall not be interrupted for a time. Can you keep a secret, Mr. Potter?”

Harry nodded.

“A serious secret, Mr. Potter,” Professor Quirrell said. His eyes were intent, his face grave. “One which could potentially send me to Azkaban. Think about it before you reply.”

For a moment Harry didn’t even see why the question should be hard, given his growing collection of secrets. Then -

If this secret could send Professor Quirrell to Azkaban, that means he’s done something illegal…

Harry’s brain performed a few calculations. Whatever the secret, Professor Quirrell did not think his illegal act would reflect badly on him in Harry’s eyes. There was no advantage to be gained from
not
hearing it. And if it did reveal something wrong with Professor Quirrell, then it was very much to Harry’s advantage to know it, even if he had promised not to tell anyone.

“I never had very much respect for authority,” Harry said. “Legal and governmental authority included. I will keep your secret.”

Harry didn’t bother asking whether the revelation was worth the danger it would pose to Professor Quirrell. The Defense Professor wasn’t stupid.

“Then I must test whether you are truly a descendant of Salazar,” said Professor Quirrell, and stood up from his chair. Harry, prompted more by reflex and instinct than calculation, shoved himself up out of his own chair as well.

There was a blur, a shift, a sudden motion.

Harry aborted his panicked backward leap halfway through, leaving him windmilling his arms and trying not to fall over, a frantic flush of adrenaline running through him.

At the other end of the room swayed a snake a meter high, bright green and intricately banded in white and blue. Harry didn’t know enough snakelore to recognize it, but he knew that ‘brightly colored’ meant ‘poisonous’.

The constant sense of doom had diminished, ironically enough, after the Defense Professor of Hogwarts had turned into a venomous snake.

Harry swallowed hard and said, “Greetings - ah, hssss, no, ah,
greetingss.
”

“
Sso,
” hissed the snake. ”
You sspeak, I hear. I sspeak, you hear?
”

“
Yess, I hear,
” hissed Harry. ”
You are an Animaguss?
”

“
Obvioussly,
” hissed the snake. ”
Thirty-sseven ruless, number thirty-four: Become Animaguss. All ssensible people do, if can. Thuss,
very rare.
” The snake’s eyes were flat surfaces ensconced within dark pits, sharp black pupils in dark gray fields. ”
This iss mosst ssecure way to sspeak. You ssee? No otherss undersstand uss.
”

“
Even if they are ssnake Animagi?
”

“
Not unlesss heir of Sslytherin willss.
” The snake gave a series of short hisses which Harry’s brain translated as sardonic laughter. ”
Sslytherin not sstupid. Ssnake Animaguss not ssame as Parsselmouth. Would be huge flaw in sscheme.
”

Well
that
definitely argued that Parseltongue was personal magic, not snakes being sentient beings with a learnable language -

“
I am not regisstered,
” hissed the snake. The dark pits of its eyes stared at Harry. ”
Animaguss musst be regisstered. Penalty is two yearss imprissonment. Will you keep my ssecret, boy?
”

“
Yess,
” hissed Harry. ”
Would never break promisse.
”

The snake seemed to hold still, as though in shock, and then began to sway again. “
We come here next in sseven dayss. Bring cloak to passs unsseen, bring hourglasss to move through time -
”

“
You know?
” hissed Harry in shock. ”
How -
”

Again the series of short quick hisses that translated as sardonic laughter. “
You arrive in my firsst classs while sstill in other classs, sstrike down enemy with pie, two ballss of memory -
”

“
Never mind,
” hissed Harry. ”
Sstupid question, forgot you were ssmart.
”

“
Foolissh thing to forget,
” said the snake, but the hiss did not seem offended.

“
Hourglasss is resstricted,
” Harry said. ”
Cannot usse until ninth hour.
”

The snake twitched its head, a snakish nod. “
Many resstrictionss. Locked to your usse only, cannot be sstolen. Cannot transsport other humanss. But ssnake carried in pouch, I ssuspect will go with. Think posssible to hold hourglasss motionlesss within sshell, without dissturbing wardss, while you turn sshell around it. We will tesst in sseven dayss. Will not sspeak of planss beyond thiss. You ssay nothing, to no one. Give no ssign of expectancy, none. Undersstand?
”

Harry nodded.

“
Ansswer in sspeech.
”

“
Yess.
”

“
Will do as I ssaid?
”

“
Yess. But,”
Harry gave a wobbling rasp that was how his mind had translated a hesitant ‘Ahhh’ into snakish, ”
I do not promisse to do whatever thiss iss, you have not ssaid -
”

The snake performed a shiver that Harry’s mind translated as a severe glare. “
Of coursse not. Will disscusss sspecificss at next meeting.
”

The blur and motion reversed itself, and Professor Quirrell was standing there once more. For a moment the Defense Professor himself seemed to sway, as the snake had swayed, and his eyes seemed cold and flat; and then his shoulders straightened and he was human once more.

And the aura of doom had returned.

Professor Quirrell’s chair scooted back for him, and he sat down in it. “No sense in letting this go to waste,” Professor Quirrell said as he picked up his spoon, “though at the moment I would much prefer a live mouse. One can never quite disentangle the mind from the body it wears, you see…”

Harry slowly took his seat and began eating.

“So the line of Salazar did not die with You-Know-Who after all,” said Professor Quirrell after a time. “It would seem that rumors have already begun to spread, among our fine student body, that you are Dark; I wonder what they would think, if they knew that.”

“Or if they knew that I had destroyed a Dementor,” Harry said, and shrugged. “I figure all the fuss will blow over over the next time I do something interesting. Hermione is having trouble, though, and I was wondering if you might have any suggestions for her.”

The Defense Professor ate several spoonfuls of soup in silence, then; and when he spoke again, his voice was oddly flat. “You really care about that girl.”

“Yes,” Harry said quietly.

“I suppose that is why she was able to bring you out of your Dementation?”

“More or less,” Harry said. The statement was true in a way, just not exact; it was not that his Demented self had cared, but that it had been confused.

“I did not have any friends like that when I was young.” Still the same emotionless voice. “What would have become of you, I wonder, if you had been alone?”

Harry shivered before he could stop himself.

“You must be feeling grateful to her.”

Harry just nodded. Not quite exact, but true.

“Then here is what I might have done at your age, if there had been anyone to do it for -”