Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Harry was still struggling with the notion of the Defense Professor watching invisibly over S.P.H.E.W., guarding the heroines from harm.

  "And so," the old wizard finished, "that is how we came to today, Harry, to forty-four students attacking eight first-year witches. A full battle in these halls! I know it was not your intent, but you must accept some measure of responsibility. Such things did not happen before you came to this school, not through all my decades in Hogwarts; neither when I was a student nor when I was a Professor."

  "Thank you very much," Harry said evenly. "Though I think Professor Quirrell deserves more credit than me."

  The blue eyes widened. "Harry..."

  "Those bullies were attacking victims long before this year," Harry said. Despite his best efforts, his voice was starting to rise. "But nobody seems to have taught the students that they're allowed to fight back. I know it's much harder to ignore a two-sided fight than some helpless victims getting hexed or almost pushed out of windows, but it's not exactly worse, is it? I wish I'd read more of Godric Gryffindor's writings so I could quote him, there's got to be something in there about this. Open battle may be louder than the victims suffering in silence, it may be harder to pretend that nothing is happening, but the final result is better -"

  "No, it is not," Dumbledore said. "It is not, Harry. To always fight the darkness, to never let evil pass unchallenged - that is not heroism, but simple pride. Even Godric Gryffindor did not think that every war was worth fighting, though he went his whole life from one battle to another." The old wizard's voice went quieter. "In truth, Harry, the words you speak - they are not evil. No, not evil, and yet they have frightened me. You are one who might someday wield great power, over wizardry, over your fellow wizards. And if, come that day, you still think that evil must never pass unchallenged -" Now a note of real worry had entered the Headmaster's voice. "The world has grown more fragile since the age when Hogwarts was raised; I fear it cannot bear the fury of another Godric Gryffindor. And he was slower to his wrath than you." The old wizard shook his head. "You are too ready to fight, Harry. Much too ready to fight, and Hogwarts itself is becoming a more violent place around you."

  "Well," Harry said carefully, after weighing his words. "I don't know if it will help to say this, but I think you're getting the wrong impression of what I'm all about. I don't like real fighting either. It's scary, and violent, and somebody might get hurt. But I didn't fight today, Headmaster."

  The Headmaster frowned. "You sent the Defense Professor in your place -"

  "Professor Quirrell didn't do any fighting either," Harry said calmly. "There wasn't anyone there strong enough to fight him. What happened today wasn't fighting, it was winning."

  It was a while then before the old wizard spoke. "That may be as it may be," the Headmaster said, "but all these conflicts must end. I can hear the strain in the air, and with each of these clashes, it rises. All this must end, decisively and soon; you must not stand in the way of its ending."

  The old wizard gestured toward the great oaken door of his office, and Harry departed through it.

  It was with some surprise that Harry stepped out from between the huge grey gargoyles which had made way for him, and saw that Quirinus Quirrell was still slumped against the stone of the corridor wall, a thick thread of spittle drooling from his slack mouth onto his Professorial robes, in just the same position he'd occupied when Harry had first gone up into the Headmaster's office.

  Harry waited, but the slumped man didn't rise up; and after long awkward seconds, Harry began to walk down the corridor again.

  "Mr. Potter?" came a soft call, after Harry had turned two corners; a quiet voice carrying unnaturally through the halls.

  When Harry had returned he found Professor Quirrell still slumped against the wall, but the pale eyes now watched him with keen intelligence.

  I'm sorry to have tired you out -

  It was something that Harry couldn't say. He'd noticed the correlation between the effort Professor Quirrell expended and the time he had to spend 'resting'. But Harry had reasoned that if the effort was too painful or detrimental, surely Professor Quirrell would just say no. Now Harry was wondering if that reasoning had actually been correct, and if not, how to apologize...

  The Defense Professor spoke in a quiet voice, the rest of the body unmoving. "How went your meeting with the Headmaster, Mr. Potter?"

  "I'm not sure," Harry said. "Not the way I predicted. He seems to believe the Light should lose a lot more often than I'd consider wise. Plus I'm not sure he understands the difference between trying to fight and trying to win. It explains a lot, actually..." Harry hadn't read much about the Wizarding War, but he'd read enough to know that the good guys probably had acquired a pretty accurate picture of who most of the worst Death Eaters were, and hadn't just owled them all hand grenades over the course of five minutes.

  A soft, soft laugh from the pale lips. "Dumbledore does not comprehend the enjoyment of winning, just as he does not comprehend the enjoyment of the game. Tell me, Mr. Potter. Did you suggest this little plan with the deliberate intention of relieving my tedium?"

  "That was among my many motives," Harry said, because some instinct had warned that he couldn't just say Yes.

  "Do you know," the Defense Professor said in soft reflective tones, "there are those who have tried to soften my darker moods, and those who have indeed participated in brightening my day, but you are the first person ever to succeed in doing it deliberately?" The Defense Professor seemed to straighten up from the wall with a peculiar motion which might have included magic as well as muscle; and the Defense Professor began to walk away without a look back in Harry's direction. Only a single small gesture of one finger indicated that Harry was to follow.

  "I particularly enjoyed that chant you composed for Miss Davis," said Professor Quirrell after they had walked a short distance. "Though you might have been wiser to consult me in advance, before giving it to her to memorize." One hand bestirred itself to within the Defense Professor's robes and drew forth a wand, which traced a small gesture in the air, after which all the faraway sounds of the castle Hogwarts fell silent. "Tell me honestly, Mr. Potter, have you somehow acquired a familiarity with the theory of Dark rituals? That is not the same as confessing an intent to cast them; many wizards know the principles."

  "No..." Harry said slowly. He had decided some time ago against trying to sneak into the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library, for much the same reason he'd decided a year earlier not to look up how to make explosives out of common household materials. Harry prided himself on at least having more sense than people thought he did.

  "Oh?" said Professor Quirrell. The man was walking more normally now, and the lips curved about in a peculiar smile. "Why, perhaps you possess a natural talent for the field, then."

  "Yes, well," Harry said wearily. "I suppose Dr. Seuss also has a natural talent for Dark rituals, because the part about shuffle, duffle, muzzle, muff came from a children's book called Bartholomew and the Oobleck -"

  "No, not that part," said Professor Quirrell. His voice grew a little stronger, took on some of its normal lecturing tone. "An ordinary Charm, Mr. Potter, can be cast merely by speaking certain words, making precise motions of the wand, expending some of your own strength. Even powerful spells may be invoked in this way, if the magic is efficient as well as efficacious. But with the greatest of magics, speech alone does not suffice to give them structure. You must perform specific actions, make significant choices. Nor is the temporary expenditure of your own strength sufficient to set them in motion; a ritual requires permanent sacrifice. The power of such a greater spell, compared to ordinary Charms, can be like day compared to night. But many rituals - indeed, most - happen to demand at least one sacrifice which might inspire squeamishness. And so the entire field of ritual magic, containing all the furthest and most interesting reaches of wizardry, is widely regarded as Dark. With a few exceptions carved out by tradition, of course." Profes
sor Quirrell's voice took on a sardonic tinge. "The Unbreakable Vow is too useful to certain wealthy Houses to be outlawed entirely - even though to bind a man's will through all his days is indeed a dread and terrible act, more fearsome than many lesser rituals that wizards shun. A cynic might conclude that which rituals are prohibited is not so much a matter of morality, as habit. But I digress..." Professor Quirrell made a brief coughing sound, a clearing of his throat. "The Unbreakable Vow requires three participants and three sacrifices. The one who receives the Unbreakable Vow must be one who could have come to trust the Vower, but chooses instead to demand the Vow from them, and they sacrifice that possibility of trust. The one who makes the Vow must be someone who could have chosen to do what the Vow demands of them, and they sacrifice that capacity for choice. And the third wizard, the binder, permanently sacrifices a small portion of their own magic, to sustain the Vow forever."

  "Ah," Harry said. "I'd wondered why that spell wasn't used all over the place, every time two people have difficulty trusting each other... although... why don't wizards on their deathbeds charge money to bind Unbreakable Vows, and use that to leave an inheritance for their children -"

  "Because they are stupid," said Professor Quirrell. "There are hundreds of useful rituals which could be performed if men had so much sense; I could name twenty without stopping to draw breath. But in any case, Mr. Potter, the thing about such rituals - whether or not you choose to term them Dark - is that they are shaped to be magically efficacious, not to appear impressive when performed. I suppose there is a certain tendency for the more powerful rituals to require more dreadful sacrifices. Even so, the most terrible ritual known to me demands only a rope which has hanged a man and a sword which has slain a woman; and that for a ritual which promised to summon Death itself - though what is truly meant by that I do not know and do not care to discover, since it was also said that the counterspell to dismiss Death had been lost. The most dread chant I have encountered does not sound even a hundredth as fearsome as the chant you composed for Miss Davis. Those among the bullies who had a passing familiarity with Dark rituals - and I am certain that there were some - must have been terrified beyond the capacity of words to describe. If there existed a true ritual which appeared that impressive, Mr. Potter, it would melt the Earth."

  "Um," said Harry.

  Professor Quirrell's lips twisted further. "Ah, but the truly amusing thing was this. You see, Mr. Potter, the chant of every ritual names that which is to be sacrificed, and that which is to be gained. The chant which you gave to Miss Davis spoke, first, of a darkness beyond darkness, buried beneath the flow of time, which knows the gate, and is the gate. And the second thing spoken of, Mr. Potter, was the manifestation of your own presence. And always, in each element of the ritual, first is named that which is sacrificed, and then is said the use commanded of it."

  "I... see," said Harry, as he trod through the halls of Hogwarts after Professor Quirrell, following him toward the Defense Professor's office. "So my chant, the way I wrote it, implies that the Outer God, Yog-Sothoth -"

  "Was permanently sacrificed in a ritual which but briefly manifested your presence," said Professor Quirrell. "I suppose we will discover tomorrow whether anyone took that seriously, when we read the newspapers and see whether all the magical nations of the world are banding together in a desperate effort to seal off your incursion into our reality."

  They walked on, as the Defense Professor began chuckling, odd throaty sounds.

  The two of them didn't talk after that until they came to the Defense Professor's office, and then the man halted with his hand upon the door.

  "It is a very strange thing," the Defense Professor said, his voice now soft again, almost inaudible. The man was not looking at Harry, and Harry saw only his back. "A very strange thing... There was a time when I would have sacrificed a finger from my wand hand, to work upon the bullies of Hogwarts as we have worked upon them this day. To make them fear me as they now fear you, to have the deference of all the students and the adoration of many, I would have given my finger for that. You have everything now that I wanted then. All that I know of human nature says that I should hate you. And yet I do not. It is a very strange thing."

  It should have been a touching moment, but instead Harry felt a coldness traveling down his spine, as though he were a little fish in the sea, and some vast white shark had just looked him over and decided after a visible hesitation not to eat him.

  The man opened the door to Defense Professor's office, and passed within, and was gone.

  Aftermath:

  Her fellow Slytherins were looking at Daphne like... like they didn't have the faintest idea of how to look at her.

  The Gryffindors were looking at her like they didn't have the faintest idea of how to look at her.

  Showing no fear, Daphne Greengrass strode into the Potions classroom, wrapped in the imperious dignity of a Noble and Most Ancient House. Inside she was feeling much the same way everyone else probably did.

  It had been two hours since the What? when the What? had happened and Daphne's brain was still going: What? What? What?

  The classroom was quiet as they all waited for Professor Snape to arrive. Lavender and Parvati sat near a cluster of other Gryffindors, surrounded by silent stares. The two of them were looking over each other's homework before class started, and nobody else was helping them or talking to them. Even Lavender, who Daphne would have sworn could never be fazed by anything, seemed subdued.

  Daphne sat down at her desk, and took Magical Draughts and Potions out of her bag, and began looking over her own homework, doing her very best to act normal. People stared at her, and said nothing -

  A gasp went through the whole classroom. Girls and boys flinched back, leaning away from the door like they were stalks of wheat touched by a gust of wind.

  In the door stood Tracey Davis, wrapped in a black tattered cloak which had been draped over her Hogwarts uniform.

  Tracey walked slowly into the classroom, swaying slightly with each step, looking like she was trying to drift. She sat down at her accustomed desk, which happened to be right next to Daphne's.

  Slowly Tracey's head turned to stare at Daphne.

  "See?" the Slytherin girl said in a low, sepulchral tone. "I told you I'd get him before she did."

  "What?" blurted Daphne, who immediately wished she hadn't said anything.

  "I got Harry Potter before Granger did." Tracey's voice was still low, but her eyes were gleaming with triumph. "See, Daphne, what General Potter wants in a girl isn't a pretty face or a pretty dress. He wants a girl willing to channel his dread powers, that's what he wants. Now I'm his - and he's mine!"

  This announcement produced a frozen silence through the whole classroom.

  "Excuse me, Miss Davis," said the cultured voice of Draco Malfoy, who seemed unconcerned as he shuffled through his own Potions parchments. The other scion of a Most Ancient House didn't so much as glance up from his desk, even as everyone else turned to look at him. "Did Harry Potter actually tell you that? Using those words?"

  "Well, no..." Tracey said, and then her eyes flashed angrily. "But he'd better take me in, now that I've sacrificed my soul to him and everything!"

  "You sacrificed your soul to Harry Potter?" gasped Millicent. There was a clatter from the other side of the room as Ron Weasley dropped his inkwell.

  "Well, I'm pretty sure I did," said Tracey, sounding briefly uncertain before she rallied. "I mean, I looked at myself in a mirror and I look paler now, and I can always feel darkness surrounding me, and I was a conduit for his dread powers and everything... Daphne, you also saw my eyes go green, right? I didn't see it myself but that's what I heard afterward."

  There was a pause, broken only by the sounds of Ron Weasley trying to clean up his desk.

  "Daphne?" said Tracey.

  "I don't believe it," said an angry voice. "There's no way the next Dark Lord would take you to be his bride!"

  Slowly, and with considera
ble disbelief, heads turned to stare at Pansy Parkinson.

  "Hush, you," said Tracey, "or I'll..." The Slytherin girl paused. Then Tracey's voice went even lower, and she said, "Hush, you, or I'll devour your soul."

  "You can't do that," said Pansy, in the confident tones of a hen which had worked out a perfectly good pecking order where she was at the top, and wasn't about to go updating that belief based on mere evidence.

  Slowly, like she was trying to float, Tracey got up from her desk. There were more gasps. Daphne felt like she'd been Petrified in place within her chair.

  "Tracey?" said Lavender in a small voice. "Please don't do all that again. Please?"

  Now Pansy was showing definite nervousness as Tracey swayed toward her desk. "What d'you think you're doing?" Pansy said, not quite managing to sound indignant.

  "I told you," Tracey said menacingly. "I'm going to devour your soul."

  Tracey bent down over Pansy, who sat frozen at her desk; and, with their lips almost touching, made a loud inhaling noise.

  "There!" said Tracey as she straightened. "I ate your soul."

  "No you didn't!" said Pansy.

  "Did too!" said Tracey.

  There was a very slight pause -

  "Merlin, she did!" cried Theodore Nott. "You look all pale now, and your eyes seem empty!"

  "What?" screeched Pansy, turning pale. The girl leapt up from her desk and began frantically rummaging through her bookbag. After Pansy drew out a mirror and looked at herself, she turned even paler.

  Daphne abandoned all pretense of aristocratic poise and let her head fall to the desk with a dull thud, as she wondered whether going to the same school as all the other important families was really worth going to the same school as the Chaos Legion.

  "Ooh, you're in trouble now, Pansy," said Seamus Finnigan. "I don't know exactly what happens when a Dementor Kisses you, but if Tracey Davis kisses you that's probably even worse."