Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  "Hannah Abbott," Hermione said without having to think about it, and then felt a little bad, because Hannah was trying hard and she had improved a lot -

  "Would you feel okay about trusting someone else, like Tracey, with final responsibility for protecting Hannah? If you knew Hannah was about to walk into an ambush, and you came up with a plan for protecting her, would you feel good about letting Tracey say whether or not you were allowed to do it?"

  "Well... no?" said Hermione, puzzled.

  The green eyes of the Boy-Who-Lived were steady on hers. "Would you trust Hannah to have the final say in whether she needed protecting?"

  "I -" said Hermione, and then paused. It was strange, she knew the right answer and she also knew the right answer wasn't actually true. Hannah was trying so hard to prove she wasn't afraid, even though she was, and it was easy to see how the Hufflepuff girl might try too hard -

  Then Hermione realized the implication. "You think I'm like Hannah?"

  "Not... exactly..." Harry ran his hands through his mess of hair. "Listen, Hermione, what would you have suggested doing, if I'd warned you about an ambush by forty-four bullies?"

  "I would've done the responsible thing and told Professor McGonagall and let her take care of it," Hermione said promptly. "And then there wouldn't have been darkness and people screaming and horrible blue light -"

  But Harry just shook his head. "That's not the responsible thing to do, Hermione. It's what someone playing the role of a responsible girl would do. Yes, I thought of going to Professor McGonagall. But she would've only stopped the disaster once. Probably before any disturbance happened in the first place, like by telling the bullies she knew. If the bullies got punished just for plotting, it would be by losing House points, or at worst a day's detention, not anything that would really scare them. And then the bullies would have tried again. Fewer of them, with better operational security so I didn't hear about it. They would probably ambush one of you, alone. Professor McGonagall doesn't have the authority to do something scary enough to protect you - and she wouldn't have overstepped her authority, because she's not really responsible."

  "Professor McGonagall isn't responsible?" Hermione said incredulously. She jammed her hands on her hips, now openly glaring at him. "Are you nuts?"

  The boy didn't blink. "You could call it heroic responsibility, maybe," Harry Potter said. "Not like the usual sort. It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it's always your fault. Even if you tell Professor McGonagall, she's not responsible for what happens, you are. Following the school rules isn't an excuse, someone else being in charge isn't an excuse, even trying your best isn't an excuse. There just aren't any excuses, you've got to get the job done no matter what." Harry's face tightened. "That's why I say you're not thinking responsibly, Hermione. Thinking that your job is done when you tell Professor McGonagall - that isn't heroine thinking. Like Hannah being beat up is okay then, because it isn't your fault anymore. Being a heroine means your job isn't finished until you've done whatever it takes to protect the other girls, permanently." In Harry's voice was a touch of the steel he had acquired since the day Fawkes had been on his shoulder. "You can't think as if just following the rules means you've done your duty."

  "I think," Hermione said evenly, "that you and I might disagree about some things, Mr. Potter. Like whether you or Professor McGonagall is more responsible, and whether being responsible usually involves people running around and screaming, and how much it's a good idea to follow school rules. And just because we disagree, Mr. Potter, doesn't mean that you get the final say."

  "Well," said Harry, "you asked what was so awful about having to ask you first, and it was a surprisingly good question, so I examined my mind and that's what I found. I think my real fear is that if Hannah is in trouble and I come up with a way to save her that seems weird or dark or something, you might not weigh the consequences to Hannah. You might not accept the heroine's responsibility of coming up with some way to save her, somehow, no matter what. Instead you'd just carry out the role of Hermione Granger, the sensible Ravenclaw girl; and the role of Hermione Granger automatically says no, whether or not she has a better plan in mind. And then forty-four bullies will take turns beating up Hannah Abbott, and it'll all be my fault because I knew, even if I didn't want reality to be that way, I knew that was how it would go. I'm pretty sure that was my secret, wordless, unutterable fear."

  The frustration was building up inside her again. "It's my life!" Hermione burst out. She could imagine what it would be like with Harry messing with her all the time, constantly inventing justifications not to ask her first and not to listen to her objections. She shouldn't have to win an argument just to - "There'll always be some reason, you can always say I'm not thinking right! I want my own life! Otherwise I'll walk away, I really will, I mean it Harry."

  Harry sighed. "This is exactly where I didn't want things to end up, and here we are. You're afraid of just the same thing I am, aren't you? Afraid that if you let go of the steering wheel, we'll crash." The corners of his lips twisted, but it didn't look like a real smile. "That's something I can understand."

  "I don't think you understand at all!" Hermione said sharply. "You said we'd be partners, Harry!"

  That stopped him, she could see it stop him.

  "How about this?" Harry said at last. "I'll promise to ask you first before I do anything that could be interpreted as meddling in your affairs. Only you've got to promise me to be reasonable, Hermione. I mean really, genuinely, stop and think for twenty seconds first, treat it as a real choice. The sort of reasonableness where you realize I'm offering a way to protect the other girls, and that if you automatically say no without considering it properly, there's this actual consequence where Hannah Abbott ends up in the hospital."

  Hermione stared at Harry, as his recitation wound down.

  "Well?" said Harry.

  "I shouldn't have to make promises," she said, "just to be consulted about my own life." She turned from Harry and began walking toward the Ravenclaw tower, not looking at him. "But I'll think about it, anyway."

  She heard Harry sigh, and after that they walked in silence for a while, passing through an archway of some reddish metal like copper, into a corridor that was just like the one they'd left except that it was tiled in pentagons instead of squares.

  "Hermione..." said Harry. "I've been watching you and thinking, since the day you said you were going to be a hero. You've got the courage. You'll fight for what's right, even in the face of enemies that would scare other people away. You've certainly got the raw intelligence for it, and you're probably a better person inside than I am. But even so... well, to be honest, Hermione... I can't quite see you filling Dumbledore's shoes, leading magical Britain's fight against You-Know-Who. Not yet, anyway."

  Hermione had turned her head to stare at Harry, who just went on walking, as though lost in thought. Fill those shoes? She'd never tried to imagine herself that way. She'd never imagined imagining herself that way.

  "And maybe I'm wrong," Harry said as they walked. "Maybe I've just read too many stories where the heroes never do the sensible thing and follow the rules and tell their Professor McGonagalls, so my brain doesn't think you're a proper storybook hero. Maybe it's you who's the sane one, Hermione, and me who's just being silly. But every time you talk about following rules or relying on teachers, I get that same feeling, like it's bound up with this one last thing that's stopping you, one last thing that puts your PC self to sleep and turns you into an NPC again..." Harry let out a sigh. "Maybe that's why Dumbledore said I should have wicked stepparents."

  "He said what?"

  Harry nodded. "I still don't know whether the Headmaster was joking or... the thing is, he was right in a way. I had loving parents, but I never felt like I could trust their decisions, they weren't sane enough. I always knew that if I didn't think things through myself, I might get hurt. Professor McGonagall will do whatever it takes to get the job done if I'm there to nag her abo
ut it, she doesn't break rules on her own without heroic supervision. Professor Quirrell really is someone who gets things done no matter what, and he's the only other person I know who notices stuff like the Snitch ruining Quidditch. But him I can't trust to be good. Even if it's sad, I think that's part of the environment that creates what Dumbledore calls a hero - people who don't have anyone else to shove final responsibility onto, and that's why they form the mental habit of tracking everything themselves."

  Hermione didn't say anything to that, but she was thinking back to something Godric Gryffindor had written near the end of his very short autobiography. Briefly and without any explanation, because the scroll had been meant to be copied by hand, centuries before the Muggle printing press had inspired wizards to invent the Reading-Writing Quill.

  No rescuer hath the rescuer, Godric Gryffindor had written. No Lord hath the champion, no mother and no father, only nothingness above.

  If that was the price of being a hero, Hermione wasn't sure she wanted to pay it. Or maybe - though it wasn't the sort of thing she would have thought, before she started hanging around Harry - maybe Godric Gryffindor had gotten it wrong.

  "Do you trust Dumbledore?" Hermione said. "I mean, he's right here in our school and he's the most legendary hero in the whole world -"

  "He was the most legendary hero," said Harry. "Now he sets chickens on fire. Honestly, does Dumbledore seem reliable to you?"

  Hermione didn't answer.

  Side by side, the two of them began to climb huge wide spiral stairs, the steps alternating between bronze metal and blue stone; the final approach to where the Ravenclaw portrait waited to guard their dorm with silly riddles.

  "Oh, and I just thought of something I should tell you," Harry said when they were about halfway up. "Since it affects your life and all. Think of it as a sort of down payment -"

  "What is it?" said Hermione.

  "I predict S.P.H.E.W. is about to retire."

  "Retire?" Hermione said, almost stumbling on one of the stairs.

  "Yeah," Harry said. "I mean, I could be wrong, but I suspect the teachers are about to clamp down hard on fighting in the corridors." Harry was grinning as he spoke, a glint in his eyes behind the glasses hinting at secret knowledge. "Cast new wards to detect offensive hexes, or start verifying reports of bullying using Veritaserum - I can think of several ways they might shut it down. But if I'm right, it's something to celebrate, Hermione, you and all of you. You kicked up enough public ruckus that you got them to actually do something about the bullying. All the bullying."

  Slowly, then, a smile began to creep up her lips, and as she reached the top of the stairs and began walking toward the Ravenclaw portrait for her riddle, Hermione felt rather lighter on her feet, a wonderful lifting feeling spreading through her like she'd been pumped full of helium.

  Somehow, despite all the effort the eight of them had put in, she hadn't expected that much, she hadn't expected it to actually work.

  They'd made a difference...

  It was the end of breakfast-time on the next morning.

  The students from every year sat very still in their benches, all heads turned in the same direction, toward the Head Table, before which one lone first-year girl stood rigid and motionless, her head tilted back to stare up at the Head of House Slytherin.

  Professor Snape's face was twisted with fury and triumph, vindictive as any painting of a Dark Wizard; and behind him the other Professors sat at the Head Table, watching with faces as though carved from stone.

  "- permanently disbanded," spat the Potions Master. "Your self-proclaimed Society is outlawed within Hogwarts, by my decision as a Professor! If your Society or any member of it is discovered fighting in the hallways again, Granger, you will be personally held responsible and expelled, by me, from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"

  That first-year girl stood there, before the Head Table where she'd been called before only to receive commendations and smiles; stood there with her spine held tall and upright in its curve like a centaur's bow, giving nothing to the enemy.

  That first-year witch stood there with all tears and anger bottled, her face still, nothing changing of her outward appearance, while something slowly broke inside her, she could feel it breaking.

  It broke further when Professor Snape gave her two weeks detention for the crime of violence in school, sneering with the contemptuous face he'd shown them all on the first day of Potions, and with a little twist in the corner of his smile that said the Potions Master knew exactly how unfair he was being.

  Whatever-it-was inside her cracked all the way through, from top to bottom, when Professor Snape took one hundred points from Ravenclaw.

  It ended, then, and Snape told her she was dismissed.

  She turned around and saw that at the Ravenclaw table, Harry Potter was sitting still in his place, she couldn't see his expression from here, she saw his fists on the table but she couldn't see if they were clenched white like her own. She had whispered to him, when Professor Snape had called her, that he wasn't to do anything without asking first.

  Hermione wheeled back again to look at the Head Table, just as Snape was turning away from her to resume his place.

  "I said you're dismissed, girl," said the sneering voice, but there was a pleased smile on Snape's face, like he was waiting for her to do something -

  Hermione strode forward another five steps toward the Head Table and said in a breaking voice, "Headmaster?"

  Utter silence filled the Great Hall.

  Headmaster Dumbledore said nothing, didn't move. It was as though he, too, was just carved from stone.

  Hermione turned her gaze to look at Professor Flitwick, whose head, barely visible above the table, seemed to be staring down into his lap. Beside him, Professor Sprout's face was very tight, she seemed to be forcing herself to watch, and her lips were trembling, but she said nothing.

  Professor McGonagall's chair was empty, the Deputy Headmistress hadn't shown up to breakfast that morning.

  "Why aren't any of you saying anything?" said Hermione Granger. Her voice was trembling with the last of her hope, the last desperate reach for help from that place inside her. "You know what he's doing is wrong!"

  "Two more weeks' detention, for insolence," Snape said silkily.

  It shattered.

  She looked at the Head Table for a few seconds longer, at Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout and the empty place where Professor McGonagall should've been. Then Hermione Granger turned and began walking toward the Ravenclaw table.

  There was a babble of voices starting up, as the students came unfrozen from where they'd sat.

  And then, as she was almost to the Ravenclaw table -

  The dry voice of Professor Quirrell cut through everything, and that voice said, "One hundred points to Miss Granger for doing what is right."

  Hermione almost fell over her own feet; and then she continued forward, even as Snape shouted something furious, even as Professor Quirrell leaned back in his chair and began to laugh, even as Dumbledore's voice was saying something she didn't catch and then she was sitting down at the Ravenclaw table again next to Harry Potter.

  Harry Potter was frozen beside her, he looked like someone who didn't dare move.

  "It's all right," her voice said to him, automatically without there being any choice or thought involved, although really it wasn't right at all. "But can you see if you can get me out of Snape's detentions, like you did yourself that time?"

  Harry Potter nodded, a single jerky motion of his head. "I -" said Harry. "I - I'm sorry, this - this is all my fault -"

  "Don't be ridiculous, Harry." It was odd how her voice was coming out all normal, and without her thinking about what to say. Hermione looked down at her breakfast plate, but eating seemed to be clearly out of the question, there was a roiling and churning in her stomach which suggested that she was already on the verge of throwing up, which was odd because she could have sworn her whole body felt nu
mb, like she wasn't feeling anything, at the same time.

  "And," her voice said, "if you want to break school rules or something, you can ask me about it, I promise I won't just say no."

  Non est salvatori salvator,

  neque defensori dominus,

  nec pater nec mater,

  nihil supernum.

  - Godric Gryffindor,

  1202 C.E.

  Chapter 76: Interlude with the Confessor: Sunk Costs

  Rianne Felthorne descended the stairs of roughened stone and crude mortar, keeping a Lumos lit through the distances between fire-sconces, holding aloft her wand through the gaps from light to light.

  She came to the empty rock cavern pierced by many dark openings, lit by a torch of ancient style that fired as she entered.

  There was no one else there, as yet, and after long minutes of nervous standing, she began the spell to Transfigure a cushioned sofa large enough for two people to sit, or maybe even lie down on. A simple wooden stool would have been easier, she could have done that in fifteen seconds, but - well -

  Even when the sofa was fully conjured, Professor Snape still hadn't arrived, and she sat down on the left side of her sofa with her pulse hammering in her throat. Somehow she was only becoming more nervous, not less, as the delay stretched.

  She knew this was the last time.

  The last time before all these memories went away, and Rianne Felthorne found herself in a mysterious cavern, wondering what was going on.

  There was something about it that felt like dying.

  The books said a properly done Obliviation wasn't harmful, people forgot things all the time. People dreamed, and then woke up without remembering their dreams. Obliviation didn't even involve that much discontinuity, just a brief instant of disorientation; it was like being distracted by a loud noise and losing track of a thought you couldn't seem to remember afterward. That was what the books said, and why Memory Charms were fully approved by the Ministry for all authorized governmental purposes.