Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Wands rose in many hands. There came a series of blinding flashes of green light, a massive volley of shieldbreakers, at the end of which there was no more protective blue dome surrounding them, and Susan had fallen to her knees, clutching her head.

  Barriers of solid blackness had sprung into being at both ends of the corridor. Behind the double doors that Hermione could see into, there were only unused classrooms, very dead ends.

  "No," said the male voice with that buzz overlaid, "she can't. In case you haven't noticed, you've gotten quite a lot of people very angry at you and we have no intention of losing this time. All right everyone, prepare to fire."

  The wands around the perimeter aimed again, low enough that their enemies wouldn't hit each other if they missed.

  And then another male voice, with a similar buzz accompanying it, suddenly said "Homenum Revelio!"

  An instant later there was another massive volley of shieldbreakers and hexes, fired on reflex at the suddenly revealed figure, shattering the shields which had almost immediately begun to form around it -

  And then, as that same figure fell to the ground, a stunned silence.

  "Professor Snape?" said the second voice. "He's the one who's been interfering?"

  It was the Potions Master of Hogwarts who now lay unconscious on the stone floor, the dirt-spotted robes stirring for a final moment before they settled in place, his fallen hand outstretched toward where his wand was slowly rolling away.

  "No," said the first male voice, now sounding a bit more uncertain. Then it rallied, "No, that can't possibly be it. He heard us passing the word, of course, and came along to make sure nobody screwed it up again. We'll wake him up afterward and apologize and he'll Memory-Charm the children so they don't remember, he's a Professor so he can do that. Anyway, we should make sure we're really alone now. Veritas Oculum!"

  Fully two dozen different Charms must have been spoken, then, but no more invisible people showed up. One of them in particular made Hermione's heart sink; she recognized it as the Charm which had been listed alongside the description of the True Cloak of Invisibility, which would not reveal the Cloak, but would tell you whether it or certain other artifacts were nearby.

  "Girls?" whispered Susan. She was slowly pushing herself to her feet, though Hermione could see her limbs swaying and quivering. "Girls, I'm sorry for what I said before. If you've got anything clever and heroic to try, you might as well try it."

  "Oh, yeah," Tracey Davis said then, her voice trembling. "I almost forgot." The Slytherin girl raised her voice, and spoke.

  "Hey, all of you!" yelled Tracey in a high-pitched shaky shout. "Hey, are you planning to hurt me too?"

  "Yes, actually," said the buzzing voice of the leader. "We are."

  "I'm under Harry Potter's protection, you know! Anyone who tries to hurt me will learn the true meaning of Chaos! So are you going to let me go?" It should have sounded defiant. It came out sounding terrified.

  There was a pause. Some of the hoods of the robes turned to face each other, then turned back to face the girls.

  "Hm..." said the buzzing male voice. "Hm... no."

  Tracey Davis put her wand away into her robes.

  Slowly, deliberately, she raised her right hand high in the air, and pressed her thumb and forefingers together.

  "Go ahead," said that voice.

  Tracey Davis snapped her fingers.

  There was a long, awful pause.

  Nothing happened.

  "Yes, well," said the voice -

  Tracey said, her voice sounding even higher and shakier, "Acathla, mundatus sum." Her hand, stretching up still further, snapped its fingers a second time.

  A nameless chill went down Hermione's spine then, a frisson of fear and disorientation like she'd just felt the floor tilt beneath her, threatening to spill her into some darkness lying beneath.

  "What's she -" began a buzzing female voice.

  Tracey's face looked pale, twisted with fear, but her lips moved, spilled forth sound in a high chant, "Mabra, brahoring, mabra..."

  A chill wind seemed to spring up within the confines of the corridor, a dark breath that caressed their faces and touched their hands with ice.

  "Fire at her on my count!" shouted the leading voice. "One, two, three!" and maybe-forty voices roared spells, creating a huge concentric array of fiery bolts that lit the wide corridor brighter than the Sun -

  - for the short moment before the bolts struck and vanished upon a dark red octagon that appeared in the air around the girls, and then disappeared a moment later.

  Hermione saw it, she saw it but she still couldn't imagine it; she couldn't imagine a Shielding Charm that powerful, a spell that would withstand an army.

  And Tracey's voice went on chanting, her voice sounding louder and more confident, and her face screwed up like she was trying to remember something very exactly.

  "Shuffle, duffle, muzzle, muff.

  Fista, wista, mista-cuff."

  Now all those present could feel it, heroines and bullies alike, the sensation of some dark will pressing down on them, a tingling in the air as something built and built and built. All the blue hazes around the white robes, all the shielding spells, had died out without any visible hex touching them. There were more flashes of light as more desperate spells were fired, but they fizzled out in midair like candle-flames touching water.

  The black barriers at the two ends of the corridor had dissipated like smoke beneath the growing pressure, but their evaporation revealed the exits sealed, blocked by tiled slats of dark metal that looked stained as though with blood; and as Tracey chanted "Lemarchand, Lament, Lemarchand," a dreadful blue light began to shine out from beneath the metal slats and between them; and the six sets of double doors slammed shut all at once, as panicked white-robed bullies began to pound on them and howl.

  Then Tracey's hand slashed to her left, and she cried "Khornath!", then her hand pointed below her and "Slaaneth!", above her "Nurgolth!", and then, to her right, "TZINTCHI!"

  Tracey paused, took a deep breath; and Hermione found her voice and cried, "Stop! Tracey, stop!"

  But there was a strange wild smile on Tracey's face. She raised her hand still higher, and snapped her fingers a third time; and when she spoke again, beneath her high girlish voice there was an undertone as though some lower chorus were chanting along with her.

  "Darkness beyond darkness, deeper than pitchest black.

  Buried beneath the flow of time...

  From darkness to darkness, your voice echoes in the emptiness,

  Unknown to death, nor known to life."

  "What are you doing?" shrieked Parvati, and the Gryffindor girl stretched out a hand as though to pull down the Slytherin, who was now starting to float upward into the air; and both Daphne and Susan grabbed Parvati's arm at the same time and Daphne cried out, "Don't, we don't know what will happen if the ritual is interrupted!"

  "Well what happens if it gets COMPLETED?" screamed Hermione, as close as she'd ever come to total brain meltdown.

  Susan's face was white as chalk, and she whispered, "I'm sorry, Mad-Eye..."

  And Tracey spoke on, her body floating higher and higher off the floor, her black hair whipping wildly around her in the chill winds.

  "You who know the gate, who are the gate, the key and guardian of the gate:

  I bid you open the way for him, and manifest his power before me!"

  The corridor was plunged then into utter darkness and silence, so that only Tracey could be seen and heard, like there was nothing left in the universe except her and the light illuminating her from some nameless source.

  The shining girl raised her hand one final time, and with dreadful gravity, pressed her thumb and forefinger together.

  And within the darkness Hermione looked at Tracey's face and saw that the Slytherin girl's eyes were now, to the exact shade, the green of Harry Potter's.

  "Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres!

  Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres! />
  HARRY JAMES POTTER-EVANS-VERRES!"

  There was a snap like thunder, and then -

  Harry had chosen to assume a rather relaxed posture, as he sat in a low chair before the mighty desk of the Headmaster of Hogwarts: one leg cocked over his knee, and his arms sprawling casually to either side. Harry was doing his best to disregard the noise from the surrounding devices, although the one directly behind him that sounded like an owl hooting desperately as it was put through a woodchipper was pretty difficult to ignore.

  "Harry," the old wizard said from behind the desk, the aged voice level as the blue eyes stared out at him from beneath the shining half-moon spectacles. Headmaster Dumbledore had garbed himself in robes of midnight purple; not true formal black, but dark enough to come close indeed to deadly seriousness, as the wizarding world counted the meaning of fashions. "Were you... responsible for this?"

  "I cannot deny that my influence was at work," Harry said.

  The old wizard took off his glasses, leaned forward to stare at Harry directly, blue eyes to green. "I will ask you one question," the Headmaster said in a quiet voice. "Do you think that what you did today was - appropriate?"

  "They were bullies and they came to that hallway with the direct intent of hurting Hermione Granger and seven other first-year children," Harry said levelly. "If I am not too young for moral judgment, then neither are they. No, Headmaster, they didn't deserve to die. But they did deserve to be stripped naked and glued to the ceiling."

  The old wizard put his glasses back on. For the first time that Harry had seen of him, the Headmaster seemed to be at a loss for words. "As Merlin himself is my witness," said Dumbledore, "I haven't the faintest notion of how I ought to react to this."

  "That's pretty much the effect I was aiming for," said Harry. He felt like he ought to be whistling a merry tune, but unfortunately he had never learned how to whistle reliably.

  "I need not ask you who is directly responsible," said the Headmaster. "Only three wizards within Hogwarts might be powerful enough. I myself did not do it. Severus has assured me he was not involved. And the third..." The Headmaster shook his head in some dismay. "You loaned the Defense Professor your Cloak, Harry. I do not think that was wise. For now that he has escaped detection by simple Charms, he surely knows that it is a Deathly Hallow - if, indeed, he did not know from its first touch upon his flesh."

  "Professor Quirrell had already deduced my possession of an invisibility cloak," Harry said. "And knowing him, he has probably guessed that it is a Deathly Hallow. But in this case, Headmaster, it so happens that Professor Quirrell was under one of those face-concealing white robes."

  There was another pause.

  "How very cunning," said the Headmaster. He leaned back in his throne and sighed. "I have spoken to the Defense Professor. Just before you, indeed. I did not quite know what to say. I told him that this was not the approved Hogwarts policy for dealing with infractions of hallway discipline, and that I did not feel it was appropriate for a Hogwarts professor to do what he had done."

  "And what did Professor Quirrell say to that?" said Harry, who was not impressed with Hogwarts's current policies for enforcing hallway discipline.

  The Headmaster wore a look of resignation. "He said: Fire me."

  Somehow Harry managed not to cheer out loud.

  The Headmaster frowned. "But why did he do it, Harry?"

  "Because Professor Quirrell doesn't like school bullies and I asked very politely," said Harry. And he was feeling bored and I thought this might cheer him up. "Either that or it's part of some incredibly deep plot."

  The Headmaster rose up from behind the desk, began to pace back and forth before the hatstand that held the Sorting Hat and the red slippers. "Harry, do you not feel that all of this has gotten a bit..."

  "Awesome?" offered Harry.

  "Utterly and completely out of hand would say it better," said Dumbledore. "I am not sure there has ever been a time in the whole history of this school when things have become so, so... I don't have a word for this, Harry, because things have never become like this before, and so no one has ever needed to invent a word for it."

  Harry would have tried to invent words to express how deeply complimented he felt, if he hadn't been snerkling too hard to speak.

  The Headmaster was regarding him with increasing graveness. "Harry, do you understand at all why I find these events concerning?"

  "Honestly?" said Harry. "No, not really. I mean, of course Professor McGonagall would object to anything that breaks up the dull monotony of the Hogwarts school experience. But then Professor McGonagall wouldn't set a chicken on fire."

  The frown lines deepened on Dumbledore's wrinkled face. "That, Harry, is not what disturbs me," the Headmaster said quietly. "There was a full battle fought in these halls!"

  "Headmaster," Harry said, trying to keep his voice carefully respectful, "Professor Quirrell and I did not choose for that battle to happen. The bullies did that. We just decided to have the Light side win. I know there are times where the boundaries of morality are uncertain, but in this case the line separating the villains and the heroines was twenty meters tall and drawn in white fire. Our intervention may have been weird, but it certainly wasn't wrong -"

  Dumbledore had gone back to his desk, sat down in his padded throne with a dull thump, and was now covering his face with both his hands.

  "Am I missing something here?" Harry said. "I thought you'd be secretly on our side, Headmaster. It was the Gryffindor thing to do. The Weasley twins would approve, Fawkes would approve -" Harry glanced at the golden perch, but it was empty; either the phoenix had more important things to do, or the Headmaster hadn't invited him to today's meeting.

  "That," said the Headmaster in an old and tired and somewhat muffled voice, "is precisely the problem, Harry. There is a reason why courageous young heroes are not put in charge of schools."

  "All right," Harry said. He couldn't quite keep the skepticism out of his voice. "What am I missing this time?"

  The old wizard lifted his head, his face now solemn, and calmer. "Listen, Harry," said Dumbledore, "hear me well; for all who wield power must learn this in time. Some things in this world are, indeed, truly simple. If you pick up a stone and drop it again, the earth will be no heavier for it, the stars will not move from their paths. I say this, Harry, so that you know I am not pretending to be wise, when I tell you that even as some things are simple, others are complex. There are greater wizardries which leave marks upon the world, and marks upon those who wield them, as a simple Charm would not. Those wizardries demand hesitation, consideration of consequence, a moment to weigh the meaning of their marks. And yet the most intricate magics known to me are simpler than the simplest soul. People, Harry, people are always marked, by what they do and by what is done to them. Do you, then, understand how to say, 'Here is the line between hero and villain!' is not enough to say that what you did was right?"

  "Headmaster," Harry said evenly, "this is not a decision I made at random. No, I don't know what exact effect this will have on every single one of the bullies present. But if I always waited for perfect information before I acted, I would never do anything. When it comes to the future psychological development of, say, Peregrine Derrick, beating up eight first-year girls probably wouldn't have been good for him. And it wasn't enough to just stop them quietly and quickly, since then they would just try again later; they had to see that there was a protective power worth fearing." Harry's voice stayed level. "But of course, since I am a good guy, I didn't want to permanently injure them or even cause them any pain; and yet the penalty had to be enough to weigh on the minds of anyone thinking about trying it again. So, after weighing the expected outcomes as best I could with my boundedly rational intellect, I thought it would be wisest to strip the bullies naked and glue them to the ceiling."

  The young hero stared directly into the old wizard's gaze, unflinching green eyes locked with the blue behind the spectacles.

  And since
I wasn't there and didn't do anything personally, there's no lawful way to punish me under the Hogwarts school rules; the only one who acted was Professor Quirrell, and he's fireproof. And just breaking the rules to get at me wouldn't be a wise thing to do to the hero you're grooming to fight Lord Voldemort... This time Harry actually had tried to think through all the ramifications in advance, before he'd made the suggestion to Professor Quirrell; and for once the Defense Professor hadn't called him a fool, just slowly smiled and then begun to laugh.

  "I understand your intentions, Harry," the old wizard said. "You think you have taught the bullies of Hogwarts a lesson. But if Peregrine Derrick could learn that lesson, he would not be Peregrine Derrick. He will only be provoked more by what you do - it is not fair, it is not right, but that is the way it is." The old wizard closed his eyes, as though in brief pain, and then opened them again. "Harry, the most painful truth any hero must learn is that the right cannot, should not, must not win every battle. All of this began when Miss Granger fought three older enemies and won. If she had been content with this, the echoes of her deed would have died away in time. Yet instead she banded together with her classmates and raised her wand in open challenge to Peregrine Derrick and all his kind; and his kind cannot but raise their own wands in answer. So Jaime Astorga went hunting her, and in the natural course he would have beaten her; it would have been a sad day, but it would have ended there. There is not enough magic in eight first-year witches all together to defeat such a foe. But you could not accept that, Harry, could not let Miss Granger learn her own lessons; and so you sent the Defense Professor to watch over them invisibly, and pierce Astorga's shields when Daphne Greengrass struck at him -"

  What? thought Harry.

  The old wizard went on speaking. "Each time you intervened, Harry, it escalated matters further and yet further. Soon Miss Granger was facing Robert Jugson himself, the son of a Death Eater, with two strong allies at his side. Painful indeed it would have been for her, if Miss Granger had lost that battle. And yet again by your will and Quirinus's hand, this time shown more openly, she won."