Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  "But Lucius Malfoy," Severus said tonelessly, "certainly will not be satisfied with only snapping her wand."

  "All right," Harry said commandingly. "As I see it, we've got two essential lines of attack. Line one, find the real culprit. Line two, other leverage over Lucius. Professor Quirrell saved Draco's life, does that create a blood debt from House Malfoy to him that he could redeem to cancel Hermione's?"

  Minerva blinked in startlement again.

  "No," Dumbledore said. The old wizard shook his head. "It was a clever thought - but no, Harry, I'm afraid not. There is an exception when the Wizengamot suspects that the circumstances of a life-debt may have been created deliberately. And the Defense Professor is hardly above suspicion. Thus Lucius would argue."

  Harry nodded once, face set. "Headmaster, I know I said I wouldn't - but under the circumstances - that time Draco cast that torture hex on me, is that debt enough -"

  "No," the old wizard said (even as she blurted "What?" and Severus lifted an eyebrow). "It would not have been enough, and now it is no debt at all. You are an Occlumens and cannot testify under Veritaserum. Draco Malfoy could be Obliviated of his own memory before he could testify -" Albus hesitated. "Harry... whatever you have done with Draco, you must assume that Lucius Malfoy will soon know of it."

  Harry's head sank into his hands. "He'll give Draco Veritaserum."

  "Yes," Albus said quietly.

  The Boy-Who-Lived didn't say anything, as he sat with his head in his hands.

  The Potions Master looked genuinely shocked. "Draco really was trying to help Miss Granger," Severus said. "You - Potter, you actually -"

  "Turned him?" Harry said from between his hands. "I was about three-quarters done. Taught him the Patronus Charm and everything. I don't know what will happen now, though."

  "Voldemort has struck a grave blow against us, this day," Albus said. The sound of old wizard's voice was like the look of the boy with his head in his hands. "He has taken two of our pieces, with one... No. I should have seen it earlier. He has taken two of Harry's pieces with one move. Voldemort has begun his game again, not against myself, but against Harry. Voldemort knows the prophecy, he knows who his last foe shall be. He is not waiting to face Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy at Harry's side when they are grown. He is striking at them now."

  "Maybe it's You-Know-Who and maybe it isn't," Harry said, his voice sounding a little unsteady. "Let's not narrow down the hypothesis space prematurely." Harry took a breath and lowered his hands. "The other thing we can try is to nail the real culprit before the trial - or at least find solid evidence that someone else did it."

  "Mr. Potter," said Minerva, "Professor Quirrell told the Aurors that he knew of someone with a motive to harm Mr. Malfoy. Do you know who he was talking about?"

  "Yes," Harry said, after a hesitation. "But I think I shall conduct that part of my investigation with the Defense Professor - just as I would not have Professor Quirrell in the room while we were discussing how to investigate him."

  "He suspects me?" Severus said, then gave a short laugh. "Why, of course he does."

  "My own plan," said Harry, "is to go look at the trophy room where the supposed duel took place and see if I can discover anything anomalous. If you can tell the investigating Aurors to let me through -"

  "What investigating Aurors?" Severus said tonelessly.

  Harry Potter took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and then spoke again. "In mystery books it usually takes longer than one day to solve a crime, but twenty-four hours is - no, thirty hours is eighteen hundred minutes. And I can think of at least one other important place to look for clues - though it'll have to be someone who can get into the Ravenclaw girls' dorm. Back when Hermione was fighting bullies, she was finding notes under her pillow each morning, telling her where to go -"

  "Albus..." ground out Minerva.

  "I did not send them," said the old wizard. His white eyebrows had lifted in surprise. "I knew nothing of this. You think she was being played, Harry?"

  "It's a possibility," Harry said. "More so, because there's a part of this puzzle that you don't know about yet." Harry's voice lowered, grew more intense. "Headmaster, you already know that I got my father's invisibility cloak from someone who left a note under my pillow, saying it was an early Christmas present. I think we have to assume that's the same person who left notes for Hermione -"

  "Harry," the old wizard said, and hesitated momentarily. "Returning your father's cloak to you, does not seem to me like the act of a villain -"

  "Listen," Harry Potter said urgently. "The part you don't know is that after Bellatrix Black escaped from Azkaban, I found another note under my pillow, signed 'Santa Claus', saying that they'd heard you were shutting me up inside Hogwarts, and that they were giving me an escape route to the Salem Witches' Institute in America. That note came with a deck of cards, in which the King of Hearts was supposedly a portkey -"

  "Mr. Potter!" cried Professor McGonagall, she hadn't even thought before she spoke. "That could well be a kidnapping attempt! You should have told - "

  "Yes, Professor, I did the sensible thing," the boy said levelly. "As adapted to the circumstances, I did the sensible thing. I told Professor Quirrell. And according to Professor Quirrell, that portkey goes to somewhere in London - it's definitely not strong enough to be an international portkey. Now it's possible that the person who sent the note is honest, and that the point in London is just a way station." The boy reached into his robes and took out a deck of cards, along with a folded paper note. "I will trust you not to go in guns blazing - I mean wands blazing - just in case the sender is an ally of mine, if not yours. But if this is a trap, I say we spring it now. And whoever it is, take them alive so we can exhibit them before the Wizengamot, I cannot overemphasize that part."

  Severus rose from his chair, his eyes now intent, and moved toward Harry. "I'll need a hair of yours for Polyjuice, Mr. Potter -"

  "Let us not be hasty!" said Albus. "We have not yet examined the notes sent to Miss Granger; there may be no resemblance after all. Severus, would you enter her dorm room and see if you can find those?"

  Harry Potter's eyebrows had raised, even as he stood to offer the Potions Master better access to his mess of hair. "You think two different people are running around Hogwarts leaving notes beneath pillows?"

  Severus gave a brief sardonic laugh, as his hand moved forward and plucked a hair, which soon was being carefully wrapped in silk. "Quite possibly. If I have learned anything in my tenure as Head of Slytherin, I have learned what ridiculous messes arise when there is more than one plotter and more than one plan. But Headmaster - I think Mr. Potter is correct that I should follow this portkey and see where it leads."

  Albus hesitated, and then nodded reluctantly. "I will speak to you before you go, then."

  Even as Harry Potter left the room for his own investigations, Severus spun on his heel and strode swiftly toward the jar of Floo powder, his cloak rising behind him with his speed. "I'll get some raw Polyjuice, add the hair, and go. Headmaster, will you stand by to -"

  "Albus," Minerva said, surprised at how steady her own voice was, "did you leave those notes under Mr. Potter's pillow?"

  Severus's hand halted an instant before casting Floo powder into the fire.

  Dumbledore nodded to her, though the accompanying smile seemed a bit hollow. "You know me far too well, my dear."

  "And I suppose the portkey goes to a friendly home where Mr. Potter would be kept safe and sound until you arrived to pick him up and return him to Hogwarts?" Her voice tight - it was sensible, she could not deny it was sensible, but somehow it seemed a little cruel.

  "It would depend on the circumstances," the old wizard said quietly. "If Harry had gone so far - I might have let him make good his escape, for a time. Better to know where he was going, and ensure it was somewhere safe, with friends -"

  "And to think," said Professor McGonagall, "that I had thought to reprimand Mr. Potter for not telling us about th
is important matter! Upbraid him for not having the sense to trust us!" Her voice had risen in volume. "I shall skip that lecture, I suppose!"

  Severus was gazing at the Headmaster with narrowed eyes. "And the notes to Miss Granger -"

  "The Defense Professor, very likely," the old wizard said. "Still - that is only a guess."

  "I shall go look for them," Severus said. "And then, I suppose, start looking for You-Know-Who." A frown crossed the Potions Master's face. "A task at which I haven't the faintest idea of where to start. Do you know of any magics to find a soul, Headmaster?"

  The Divination classroom was lit by the dim red light of a hundred small fires where burned a hundred kinds of incense, so that if you were to ask in one word what the room looked like, the answer would be 'smoke'. (Assuming you bothered to look at anything, when your nose was threatening to overload and die.) If your gaze could pierce those dank mists, you would see a tiny, cluttered room in which forty stuffed armchairs, most of them unused, were crammed around a small open space in the center of the room, where a circular trapdoor waited on your escape.

  "The grim!" Professor Trelawney said in a quavering voice, as she peered into George Weasley's teacup. "The grim! It is a sign of death! One whom you know, George - someone you know is to die! And soon - yes, it shall be quite soon, I think - unless of course it is later -"

  It would have been a good deal scarier, thought Fred and George, if she hadn't said the same thing to every single other student in their Divination class. They were hardly even thinking about it at this point; all their thoughts were on today's disaster -

  The trapdoor in the floor flew open with a bang that caused Professor Trelawney to shriek and spill George's tea all over his robes, and then an instant later Dumbledore was whooshing up out of the floor with a bird of fire upon his shoulder.

  "Fred!" the old wizard said commandingly. His robes were the black of a moonless night, his eyes hard like blue diamonds. "George! With me, now!"

  There was an collective gasp and by the time Fred and George were climbing down the ladder after the Headmaster, the entire class was already speculating what role they'd played in the attempted murder of Draco Malfoy.

  The trapdoor had hardly slammed shut above them before all nearby sounds muted and the old wizard spun on them and held out a hand and commanded, "Give me the map!"

  "M-map?" said Fred or George in total shock. They'd never even suspected that Dumbledore suspected. "Why, w-we don't know what you're -"

  "Hermione Granger is in trouble," said the old wizard.

  "The Map is in our dorm," George or Fred said immediately. "Just give us a few minutes to get it and we'll -"

  The wizard's arms swept them up as if they were hugging-pillows, there was a piercing cry and a flash of fire and then the three of them were in the third-year Gryffindor's boys' dorm.

  A few moments later, Fred and George were handing over the Map to the Headmaster, wincing only slightly at the sacrilege of giving their precious piece of the Hogwarts security system to the person who actually owned it, and the old wizard was frowning at the apparent blankness.

  "You've got to say," they explained, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good -"

  "I decline to lie," said the old wizard. He held the Map high and bellowed, "Hear me, Hogwarts! Deligitor prodi!" An instant later the Headmaster was wearing the Sorting Hat, which looked scarily right upon his head, as though Dumbledore had always been waiting for a patchwork pointed hat to complete his existence.

  (Fred and George immediately memorized this phrase, just in case it would work for somebody besides the Headmaster, and began trying to think of pranks that would involve the Sorting Hat.)

  The old wizard wasted not a moment before sweeping the Sorting Hat off his head and turning it upside-down - it was hard to tell with the Hat upside-down, but it looked a bit cross at the treatment - and then plunged in his hand and drew out a crystal rod. With this instrument he began tracing rune-like patterns on the Map, muttering strange incantations that sounded not quite like Latin and echoed in their ears in an unusually creepy fashion. In the midst of tracing one rune he looked up at both of them, fixing them with a sharp glare. "I will return this to you later, sons of Weasley. Go back to class."

  "Yes, Headmaster," they said, and hesitated. "Ah - about Hermione Granger, is she really going to be bound to serve Draco Malfoy forever as his -"

  "Go," said the old wizard.

  They went.

  When he was alone in the room, the old wizard looked down at the map, which had now written upon itself a fine line drawing of the Gryffindor dorms in which they stood, the small handwritten Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore the only name left therein.

  The old wizard smoothed the map, bent over it, and whispered, "Find Tom Riddle."

  The interrogation room at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was usually lit by a small orange light, so that the Auror interrogating you would be leaning toward your uncomfortable metal chair with most of their face in shadow, preventing you from reading their expression, even as they read yours.

  As soon as Mr. Quirrell had entered the room, the small orange light had dimmed and begun flickering like a candle about to be blown out by the wind. The room was now lit by a sourceless ice-colored glow which illuminated all of Mr. Quirrell's pale skin like alabaster, except, somehow, his eyes, which stayed in darkness.

  The Auror on duty outside had surreptitiously tried to dispel this effect four times without the slightest success, despite the fact that Mr. Quirrell had politely surrendered his wand upon being detained for interrogation, and had shown no sign of speaking any incantations nor exerting any other power.

  "Quirinus... Quirrell," drawled the man now sitting across from where the Defense Professor had waited courteously. The interrogator had tawny hair that swept back like a lion's mane, with yellowish eyes set into the sternly lined face of a man late in his tenth decade. The man was, at this moment, leafing through a large folder of parchments that he had taken from a black and very solid-looking briefcase after he had limped into the room and sat down, seeming not to look at the face of the man he was interrogating. He had not introduced himself.

  After some further leafing through parchments, carried out in silence, the Auror spoke again. "Born the 26th of September, 1955, to Quondia Quirrell, of an acknowledged tryst with Lirinus Lumblung..." intoned the Auror. "Sorted into Ravenclaw... O.W.L.S. quite good... N.E.W.T.S. in Charms, Transfiguration... an Outstanding in Muggle Studies, impressive... Ancient Runes, and ah yes, Defense. An Outstanding in that as well. Went on to become quite the tourist, visiting all sorts of places. Portkey visas for Transylvania, the Forbidden Empire, the City of Endless Night... my my, Texas." The man looked up from the portfolio, eyes narrowed. "What were you doing there, Mr. Quirrell?"

  "Sightseeing, mostly in the Muggle areas," the Defense Professor said easily. "As you say, I am quite the tourist."

  The man listened to this with a frown, then looked back down, then up again. "I also see that you visited Fuyuki City in 1983."

  The Defense Professor lifted an eyebrow in mild puzzlement. "What of it?"

  "What did you do in Fuyuki City?" The question snapped out razor-sharp.

  The Defense Professor frowned slightly. "Nothing of any account. I visited some better-known sights, some less-known sights, and aside from that, kept to myself."

  "Really?" the Auror said softly. "I find that reply rather interesting."

  "How so?" said the Defense Professor.

  "Because there was no visa listed for Fuyuki City." The man slammed the folder shut. "You're not Quirinus Quirrell. Who the hell are you?"

  The Potions Master walked quietly into the Ravenclaw girls' dorm, the first-year dorm room, a festive place where bronze and blue competed to be the color of stuffed animals, scarves and dresses, small bits of inexpensive jewelry, and posters of famous people. Hermione Granger's bed was easy to identify; it was the one that had been attacked by a book monster.

/>   Nobody else seemed to be around, at that time of day, and a number of spells verified this.

  The Potions Master searched under Hermione Granger's pillow, and beneath her bed, and then began going through her trunk, sorting through mentionable and unmentionable items without change of expression, and finally succeeded in drawing forth a set of papers describing places and times where bullies would be found, all of the papers signed only with an elaborate 'S'.

  A brief burst of fire later, the papers were gone, and the Potions Master left to report the failure of his mission.

  The Defense Professor was sitting calmly with his hands still folded in his lap. "If you consult Headmaster Dumbledore," said the Defense Professor, "you will find that he is well aware of this matter, and that I agreed to teach his Defense class on the explicit condition that no inquiry be made into my -"

  In a lightning motion, the interrogator whipped out his wand and spat "Polyfluis Reverso!" at the same time that the Defense Professor sneezed, which somehow caused the mirror-silvered ray to disrupt in a shower of white sparks.

  "Pardon me," the Defense Professor said politely.

  The smile that the Auror gave had absolutely no mirth in it. "So where's the real Quirinus Quirrell, eh? Under an Imperius in the bottom of a trunk somewhere, while you take a hair now and then for your illegal Polyjuice?"

  "You are making highly questionable assumptions," the Defense Professor said with an edged voice. "What makes you think I did not steal his body outright using incredibly Dark magic?"

  This was followed by a certain pause.

  "I suggest," the Auror said, "that you take this seriously, Mr. Whoever-You-Are."

  "I'm sorry," said the Defense Professor, leaning back in his chair, "but I see little reason to humble myself on this particular occasion. What are you going to do, kill me?"

  "I don't appreciate your humor," the Auror said softly.

  "How unfortunate for you, Rufus Scrimgeour," said the Defense Professor. "You have my deepest sympathy." He tilted his head, seeming to study the interrogator; and even within the shadow of the ice-light, the eyes glinted.