Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  "Yes. Ah... um..."

  Professor McGonagall sighed. "That's a bit strange even for him." She stooped and picked up the stack of parchments. "I'm sorry about this, Mr. Potter. I apologise again for mistrusting you. But now it's my own turn to see the Headmaster."

  "Ah... good luck, I guess. Er..."

  "Thank you, Mr. Potter."

  "Um..."

  Professor McGonagall walked over to the gargoyle, inaudibly spoke the password, and stepped through into the revolving spiral stairs. She began to rise out of sight, and the gargoyle started back -

  "Professor McGonagall the Headmaster set fire to a chicken!"

  "He wha-"

  Chapter 18: Dominance Hierarchies

  Any sufficiently advanced J. K. Rowling is indistinguishable from magic.

  "That does sound like the sort of thing I would do, doesn't it?"

  It was breakfast time on Friday morning. Harry took another huge bite out of his toast and then tried to remind his brain that scarfing his breakfast wouldn't actually get him into the dungeons any faster. Anyway they had a full hour of study time between breakfast and the start of Potions.

  But dungeons! In Hogwarts! Harry's imagination was already sketching the chasms, narrow bridges, torchlit sconces, and patches of glowing moss. Would there be rats? Would there be dragons?

  "Harry Potter," said a quiet voice from behind him.

  Harry looked over his shoulder and found himself beholding Ernie Macmillan, smartly dressed in yellow-trimmed robes and looking a little worried.

  "Neville thought I should warn you," Ernie said in a low voice. "I think he's right. Be careful of the Potions Master in our session today. The older Hufflepuffs told us that Professor Snape can be really nasty to people he doesn't like, and he doesn't like most people who aren't Slytherins. If you say anything smart to him it... it could be really bad for you, from what I've heard. Just keep your head down and don't give him any reason to notice you."

  There was a pause as Harry processed this, and then he lifted his eyebrows. (Harry wished he could raise just one eyebrow, like Spock, but he'd never been able to manage.) "Thanks," Harry said. "You might've just saved me a lot of trouble."

  Ernie nodded, and turned to go back to the Hufflepuff table.

  Harry resumed eating his toast.

  It was around four bites afterward that someone said "Pardon me," and Harry turned around to see an older Ravenclaw, looking a little worried -

  Some time later, Harry was finishing up his third plate of rashers. (He'd learned to eat heavily at breakfast. He could always eat lightly at lunch if he didn't end up using the Time-Turner.) And there was yet another voice from behind him saying "Harry?"

  "Yes," Harry said wearily, "I'll try not to draw Professor Snape's attention -"

  "Oh, that's hopeless," said Fred.

  "Completely hopeless," said George.

  "So we had the house elves bake you a cake," said Fred.

  "We're going to put one candle on it for every point you lose for Ravenclaw," said George.

  "And have a party for you at the Gryffindor table during lunch," said Fred.

  "We hope that'll cheer you up afterward," finished George.

  Harry swallowed his last bite of rasher and turned around. "All right," said Harry. "I wasn't going to ask this after Professor Binns, I really wasn't, but if Professor Snape is that awful why hasn't he been fired?"

  "Fired?" said Fred.

  "You mean, let go?" said George.

  "Yes," Harry said. "It's what you do to bad teachers. You fire them. Then you hire a better teacher instead. You don't have unions or tenure here, right?"

  Fred and George were frowning in much the same way that hunter-gatherer tribal elders might frown if you tried to tell them about calculus.

  "I don't know," said Fred after a while. "I never thought about that."

  "Me neither," said George.

  "Yeah," said Harry, "I get that a lot. See you at lunch, guys, and don't blame me if there aren't any candles on that cake."

  Fred and George both laughed, as if Harry had said something funny, and bowed to him and headed back toward Gryffindor.

  Harry turned back to the breakfast table and grabbed a cupcake. His stomach already felt full, but he had a feeling this morning might use a lot of calories.

  As he ate his cupcake, Harry thought of the worst teacher he'd met so far, Professor Binns of History. Professor Binns was a ghost. From what Hermione had said about ghosts, it didn't seem likely that they were fully self-aware. There were no famous discoveries made by ghosts, or much of any original work, no matter who they'd been in life. Ghosts tended to have trouble remembering the current century. Hermione had said they were like accidental portraits, impressed into the surrounding matter by a burst of psychic energy accompanying a wizard's sudden death.

  Harry had run into some stupid teachers during his abortive forays into standard Muggle education - his father had been a lot pickier when it came to selecting grad students as tutors, of course - but History class was the first time he'd encountered a teacher who literally wasn't sentient.

  And it showed, too. Harry had given up after five minutes and started reading a textbook. When it became clear that "Professor Binns" wasn't going to object, Harry had also reached into his pouch and gotten earplugs.

  Did ghosts not require a salary? Was that it? Or was it literally impossible to fire anyone in Hogwarts even if they died?

  Now it seemed that Professor Snape was going about being absolutely awful to everyone who wasn't a Slytherin and it hadn't even occurred to anyone to terminate his contract.

  And the Headmaster had set fire to a chicken.

  "Excuse me," came a worried voice from behind him.

  "I swear," Harry said without turning around, "this place is almost eight and a half percent as bad as what Dad says about Oxford."

  Harry stamped down the stone corridors, looking affronted, annoyed, and infuriated all at once.

  "Dungeons!" Harry hissed. "Dungeons! These are not dungeons! This is a basement! A basement!"

  Some of the Ravenclaw girls gave him odd looks. The boys were all used to him by now.

  It seemed that the level in which the Potions classroom was located was called the "dungeons" for no better reason than that it was below ground and slightly colder than the main castle.

  In Hogwarts! In Hogwarts! Harry had been waiting his whole life and now he was still waiting and if there was anywhere on the face of the Earth that had decent dungeons it ought to be Hogwarts! Was Harry going to have to build his own castle if he wanted to see one little bottomless abyss?

  A short time later they got to the actual Potions classroom and Harry cheered up considerably.

  The Potions classroom had strange preserved creatures floating in huge jars on shelves that covered every centimeter of wall space between the closets. Harry had gotten far enough along in his reading now that he could actually identify some of the creatures, like the Zabriskan Fontema. Albeit the fifty-centimeter spider looked like an Acromantula but it was too small to be one. He'd tried asking Hermione, but she hadn't seemed very interested in looking anywhere near where he was pointing.

  Harry was looking at a large dust ball with eyes and feet when the assassin swept into the room.

  That was the first thought that crossed Harry's mind when he saw Professor Severus Snape. There was something quiet and deadly about the way the man stalked between the children's desks. His robes were unkempt, his hair spotted and greasy. There was something about him that seemed reminiscent of Lucius, although the two of them looked nothing remotely alike, and you got the impression that where Lucius would kill you with flawless elegance, this man would simply kill you.

  "Sit down," said Professor Severus Snape. "Now."

  Harry and a few other children who had been standing around talking to each other scrambled for desks. Harry had planned on ending up next to Hermione but somehow he found himself sitting down in the nearest empty
desk next to Justin Finch-Fletchley (it was a Doubles session, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff) which put him two desks to the left of Hermione.

  Severus seated himself behind the teacher's desk, and without the slightest transition or introduction, said, "Hannah Abbott."

  "Here," said Hannah in a somewhat trembling voice.

  "Susan Bones."

  "Present."

  And so it went, no one daring to say a word in edgewise, until:

  "Ah, yes. Harry Potter. Our new... celebrity."

  "The celebrity is present, sir."

  Half the class flinched, and some of the smarter ones suddenly looked like they wanted to run out the door while the classroom was still there.

  Severus smiled in an anticipatory sort of way and called the next name on his list.

  Harry gave a mental sigh. That had happened way too fast for him to do anything about it. Oh well. Clearly this man already didn't like him, for whatever reason. And when Harry thought about it, better by far that this Potions professor should pick on him rather than, say, Neville or Hermione. Harry was a lot better able to defend himself. Yep, probably all for the best.

  When full attendance had been taken, Severus swept his gaze over the full class. His eyes were as empty as a night sky without stars.

  "You are here," Severus said in a quiet voice which the students at back strained to hear, "to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins," this in a rather caressing, gloating tone, "bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses," this was just getting creepier and creepier. "I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as great a pack of fools as I usually have to teach."

  Severus somehow seemed to notice the look of skepticism on Harry's face, or at least his eyes suddenly jumped to where Harry was sitting.

  "Potter!" snapped the Potions professor. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

  Harry blinked. "Was that in Magical Drafts and Potions?" he said. "I just finished reading it, and I don't remember anything which used wormwood -"

  Hermione's hand went up and Harry shot her a glare which caused her to raise her hand even higher.

  "Tut, tut," Severus said silkily. "Fame clearly isn't everything."

  "Really?" Harry said. "But you just told us you'd teach us how to bottle fame. Say, how does that work, exactly? You drink it and turn into a celebrity?"

  Three-quarters of the class flinched.

  Hermione's hand was dropping slowly back down. Well, that wasn't surprising. She might be his rival, but she wasn't the sort of girl who would play along after it became clear that the professor was deliberately trying to humiliate him.

  Harry was trying hard to keep control of his temper. The first rejoinder that had crossed his mind was 'Abracadabra'.

  "Let's try again," said Severus. "Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

  "That's not in the textbook either," Harry said, "but in one Muggle book I read that a trichinobezoar is a mass of solidified hair found in a human stomach, and Muggles used to believe it would cure any poison -"

  "Wrong," Severus said. "A bezoar is found in the stomach of a goat, it is not made of hair, and it will cure most poisons but not all."

  "I didn't say it would, I said that was what I read in one Muggle book -"

  "No one here is interested in your pathetic Muggle books. Final try. What is the difference, Potter, between monksblood and wolfsbane?"

  That did it.

  "You know," Harry said icily, "in one of my quite fascinating Muggle books, they describe a study in which people managed to make themselves look very smart by asking questions about random facts that only they knew. Apparently the onlookers only noticed that the askers knew and the answerers didn't, and failed to adjust for the unfairness of the underlying game. So, Professor, can you tell me how many electrons are in the outermost orbital of a carbon atom?"

  Severus's smile widened. "Four," he said. "It is a useless fact which no one should bother writing down, however. And for your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite, as you would know if you had read One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. Thought you didn't need to open the book before coming, eh, Potter? All the rest of you should be copying that down so that you will not be as ignorant as him." Severus paused, looking quite pleased with himself. "And that will be... five points? No, let us make it an even ten points from Ravenclaw for backchat."

  Hermione gasped, along with a number of others.

  "Professor Severus Snape," Harry bit out. "I know of nothing which I have done to earn your enmity. If there is some problem you have with me which I do not know about, I suggest we -"

  "Shut up, Potter. Ten more points from Ravenclaw. The rest of you, open your books to page 3."

  There was only a slight, only a very faint burning sensation in the back of Harry's throat, and no moisture at all in his eyes. If crying was not an effective strategy for destroying this Potions professor then there was no point in crying.

  Slowly, Harry sat up very straight. All his blood seemed to have been drained away and replaced with liquid nitrogen. He knew he'd been trying to keep his temper but he couldn't seem to remember why.

  "Harry," whispered Hermione frantically from two desks over, "stop, please, it's all right, we won't count it -"

  "Talking in class, Granger? Three -"

  "So," said a voice colder than zero Kelvin, "how does one go about filing a formal complaint against an abusive professor? Does one talk to the Deputy Headmistress, write a letter to the Board of Governors... would you care to explain how it works?"

  The class was utterly frozen.

  "Detention for one month, Potter," Severus said, smiling even more broadly.

  "I decline to recognize your authority as a teacher and I will not serve any detention you give."

  People stopped breathing.

  Severus's smile vanished. "Then you will be -" his voice stopped short.

  "Expelled, were you about to say?" Harry, on the other hand, was now smiling thinly. "But then you seemed to doubt your ability to carry out the threat, or fear the consequences if you did. I, on the other hand, neither doubt nor fear the prospect of finding a school with less abusive professors. Or perhaps I should hire private tutors, as is my accustomed practice, and be taught at my full learning speed. I have enough money in my vault. Something about bounties on a Dark Lord I defeated. But there are teachers at Hogwarts who I rather like, so I think it will be easier if I find some way to get rid of you instead."

  "Get rid of me?" Severus said, now also smiling thinly. "What an amusing conceit. How do you suppose you will do that, Potter?"

  "I understand there have been a number of complaints about you from students and their parents," a guess but a safe one, "which leaves only the question of why you're not already gone. Is Hogwarts too financially strapped to afford a real Potions professor? I could chip in, if so. I'm sure they could find a better class of teacher if they offered double your current salary."

  Two poles of ice radiated freezing winter across the classroom.

  "You will find," Severus said softly, "that the Board of Governers is not the slightest bit sympathetic to your offer."

  "Lucius..." Harry said. "That's why you're still here. Perhaps I should chat with Lucius about that. I believe he desires to meet with me. I wonder if I have anything he wants?"

  Hermione frantically shook her head. Harry noticed out of the corner of his eye, but his attention was all on Severus.

  "You are a very foolish boy," Severus said. He wasn't smiling
at all, now. "You have nothing that Lucius values more than my friendship. And if you did, I have other allies." His voice grew hard. "And I find it increasingly unlikely that you were not Sorted into Slytherin. How was it that you managed to stay out of my House? Ah, yes, because the Sorting Hat claimed it was joking. For the first time in recorded history. What were you really chatting about with the Sorting Hat, Potter? Did you have something that it wanted?"

  Harry stared into Severus's cold gaze and remembered that the Sorting Hat had warned him not to meet anyone's eyes while thinking about - Harry dropped his gaze to Severus's desk.

  "You seem oddly reluctant to look me in the eyes, Potter!"

  A shock of sudden understanding - "So it was you the Sorting Hat was warning me about!"

  "What?" said Severus's voice, sounding genuinely surprised, though of course Harry didn't look at his face.

  Harry got up out of his desk.

  "Sit down, Potter," said an angry voice from somewhere he wasn't looking.

  Harry ignored it, and looked around the classroom. "I have no intention of letting one unprofessional teacher ruin my time at Hogwarts," Harry said with deadly calm. "I think I'll take my leave of this class, and either hire a tutor to teach me Potions while I'm here, or if the Board is really that locked up, learn over the summer. If any of you decide that you don't care to be bullied by this man, my sessions will be open to you."

  "Sit down, Potter!"

  Harry strode across the room and grasped the doorknob.

  It didn't turn.

  Harry slowly turned around, and caught a glimpse of Severus smiling nastily before he remembered to look away.

  "Open this door."

  "No," said Severus.