Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  ...it would have been nice to be able to trust at least one adult to take Hermione's side instead of Dumbledore's, if an issue like that threatened to come up.

  The stairs they were upon ceased rotating, and they were before the backs of the great stone gargoyles, which rumbled aside, revealing the hallway.

  Harry stepped out -

  A hand caught at Harry's shoulder.

  "Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said in a low voice, "why did you to tell me to keep watch over Professor Snape?"

  Harry turned around again.

  "You told me to keep watch, and see if he'd changed," Professor McGonagall went on, her tone urgent. "Why did you say that, Mr. Potter?"

  It took a moment, at this point, for Harry to think back and remember why he had said that. Harry and Neville had rescued Lesath Lestrange from bullies, and then Harry had confronted Severus in the hallway and, at least according to the Potions Master's own words, 'almost died' -

  "I learned something that made me worry," Harry said after a moment. "From someone who made me promise not to tell anyone else." Severus had made Harry swear that their conversations wouldn't be shared with anyone, and Harry was still bound by it.

  "Mr. Potter -" began Professor McGonagall, and then exhaled, the flash of sharpness disappearing as quickly as it had come. "Never mind. If you cannot say, you cannot say."

  "Why do you ask?" Harry said.

  Professor McGonagall seemed to hesitate -

  "All right, let me be more specific," Harry said. After Professor Quirrell had done it to him several times, Harry was starting to get the hang of it. "What change have you already observed in Professor Snape that you're trying to decide whether to tell me about?"

  "Harry -" the Transfiguration Professor said, and then closed her mouth.

  "I obviously know something you don't," Harry said helpfully. "See, this is why we can't always put off trying to decide our awful moral dilemmas."

  Professor McGonagall closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed it several times. "All right," she said. "It's a subtle thing... but worrying. How can I put this... Mr. Potter, have you read many books that young children are not meant to read?"

  "I've read all of them."

  "Of course you have. Well... I don't quite understand it myself, but for so long as Severus has been employed in this school, stalking about in that awful stained cloak, there has been a certain sort of girl that stares at him with longing eyes -"

  "You say that like it's a bad thing?" Harry said. "I mean, if there's one thing I did understand from those books, it's that you're not supposed to question people's preferences."

  Professor McGonagall gave Harry a very strange look.

  "I mean," Harry said again, "from what I've read, when I'm a bit older there's something like a 10% chance that I'll find Professor Snape attractive, and the important thing is for me to just accept whatever I -"

  "In any case, Mr. Potter, Severus has always been entirely indifferent to the stares of those young girls. But now -" Professor McGonagall seemed to realize something, and hastily said, her hands rising in warding, "Please don't mistake me, Professor Snape certainly has not taken advantage of any young witches! Absolutely not! He has never even so much as smiled at one, not that I ever heard. He has told the young girls to stop gaping at him. And if they stare at him regardless, he looks away. That I have seen with my own eyes."

  "Er..." Harry said. "Sorry, but just because I've read those books doesn't mean I understood them. What does all that mean?"

  "That he is noticing," Professor McGonagall said in a low voice. "It is a subtle thing, but now that I have seen it, I am certain. And that means... I am very much afraid... that the bond which held Severus to Albus's cause... may have weakened, or even broken."

  2 + 2 = ...

  "Snape and Dumbledore?" Then Harry heard the words that had just come out of his mouth, and hastily added, "Not that there's anything wrong with that -"

  "No!" said Professor McGonagall. "Oh, for pity's sake - I can't explain it to you, Mr. Potter!"

  The other shoe finally dropped.

  He was still in love with my mother?

  This seemed somewhere between beautifully sad, and pathetic, for around five seconds before the third shoe dropped.

  Of course, that was before I gave him my helpful relationship advice.

  "I see," Harry said carefully after a few moments. There were times when saying 'Oops' didn't fully cover it. "You're right, that's not a good sign."

  Professor McGonagall put both hands over her face. "Whatever you're thinking right now," she said in a slightly muffled voice, "which I assure you is also wrong, I don't want to hear about it, ever."

  "So..." Harry said. "If, like you said, the bond that held Professor Snape to the Headmaster has broken... what would he do then?"

  There was a long silence.

  What would he do then?

  Minerva lowered her hands, gazing down at the upturned face of the Boy-Who-Lived. One simple question shouldn't have caused her so much dismay. She'd known Severus for years; the two of them bound, in some strange way, by the prophecy they'd both heard. Though Minerva suspected, from what she knew of the rules of prophecy, that she had only overheard it herself. It had been Severus's acts which had brought about the prophecy's fulfillment. And the guilt, the heartbreak which had come of that choice, had been tormenting the Potions Master for years. She couldn't imagine who Severus would be without it. Her mind went blank, trying to imagine; her thoughts an empty parchment.

  Surely Severus was no longer the man he'd once been, that angry and terribly foolish young man who'd brought the prophecy before Voldemort in exchange for being admitted into the Death Eaters. She'd known him for years, and surely Severus was no longer that man...

  Did she really know him at all?

  Had anyone ever seen the real Severus Snape?

  "I don't know," Professor McGonagall finally said. "I truly don't know at all. I can't even imagine. Do you know anything of this, Mr. Potter?"

  "Er..." Harry said. "I think I can say that my own evidence points in the same direction as yours. I mean, it increases the probability that Professor Snape isn't in love with my mother anymore."

  Professor McGonagall closed her eyes. "I give up."

  "I don't know of anything wrong he's done apart from that, though," Harry added. "I assume the Headmaster cleared you to ask me about this?"

  Professor McGonagall looked away from him, staring at the wall. "Please don't, Harry."

  "All right," Harry said, and turned and hurried out into the hallways, hearing Professor McGonagall more slowly walking after, and the rumbling sound of the gargoyles moving into place.

  It was the morning after next, during Potions class, that Harry's potion of cold resistance boiled over his cauldron with a green froth and mildly nauseating smell, and Professor Snape, looking more resigned than disgusted, told Harry to stay after class. Harry had his own suspicions about this affair, and as soon as class let out - Hermione, as usual for the last few days, being the first to flee out the door - the door swung shut and locked behind the departing students.

  "I apologize for ruining your potion, Mr. Potter," Severus Snape said quietly. There was upon his face the strange sad look that Harry had seen only once before, in a hallway some time ago. "It will not be reflected in your grades. Please, sit down."

  Harry sat back down at his desk, filling up the time by scrubbing a bit more at the green stain on the wooden surface, as the Potions Master incanted a few privacy spells.

  When the Potions Master was done, he spoke again. "I... do not know how to broach this topic, Mr. Potter, so I will simply say it... before the Dementor, you recovered your memory of the night your parents died?"

  Harry silently nodded.

  "If... I know it must not be a pleasant memory, but... if you could tell me what happened...?"

  "Why?" Harry said. His voice was solemn, definitely
not mocking the pleading look that Harry had never expected to see from that person. "I wouldn't think that would be a pleasant thing for you to hear either, Professor -"

  The Potions Master's voice was almost a whisper. "I have imagined it every night these last ten years."

  You know, said Harry's Slytherin side, it might not be such a good idea to give him closure, if his guilt-based loyalties are already wavering -

  Shut up. Overruled.

  It wasn't something that Harry could actually bring himself to deny. He took one suggestion from his Slytherin side, and that was it.

  "Will you tell me exactly how you came to learn about the Prophecy?" Harry said. "I'm sorry to make this a trade, I will tell you afterward, only, it could be really important -"

  "There is little to say. I had come to be interviewed by the Deputy Headmistress for the position of Potions Master, and so I was waiting outside the room of the Hog's Head Inn when the applicant before me, Sybill Trelawney, came to seek the position of Professor of Divination. As soon as Trelawney finished speaking her words, I fled, forsaking my chance at Hogwarts's Mastery, and went to the Dark Lord." The Potions Master's face was drawn and tight. "I did not even pause to consider why that riddle might have come to me, before I sold it to another."

  "A job interview?" Harry said. "Where you and Professor Trelawney both happened to be applying, and Professor McGonagall was interviewing? That seems... like rather a large coincidence..."

  "Seers are the pawns of time, Mr. Potter. Coincidence is beneath them, and they are above it. I was the one meant to hear that prophecy and become its fool. Minerva's presence made no final difference to how it came about. There was no Memory Charm as you supposed, I do not know why you thought that, but there was no Memory-Charm, there could have been no Memory-Charm. The voice of a seer has a quality, an enigma which even Legilimency cannot share, how could that be imbued in a false memory? Do you think the Dark Lord would believe my mere words? The Dark Lord seized my mind and saw the mystification there, even if he could not seize the mystery, and so he knew the prophecy had been true. The Dark Lord could have killed me then, having taken what he wanted - I was a fool indeed to go to him - but he saw something in me I do not know, and took me into the Death Eaters, though on his terms rather than mine. That is how I brought it about, brought it all about, from beginning to end, always my own doing." Severus's voice had gone rather hoarse, and his face was filled with naked pain. "Now tell me, please, how did Lily die?"

  Harry swallowed twice, and began his recounting.

  "James Potter shouted for Lily to run away with me, that he would hold off You-Know-Who."

  "You-Know-Who said -" Harry stopped, the chills going all over his own skin, his own muscles tightening as if in preparing for a seizure. The memory was returning strongly, now, accompanied by cold and darkness in association. "He used... the Killing Curse... and then he came upstairs somehow, I think he must have flown, I don't remember any footsteps on stairs or anything like that... and then my mother said, 'No, not Harry, please not Harry!' or something like that. And the Dark Lord - his voice was so high, like water whistling out of a teakettle only cold - the Dark Lord said -"

  Stand aside, woman! For you I am not come, only the boy.

  The words were very clear in Harry's memory.

  "- he told my mother to get out of his way, that he was only there for me, and my mother begged him to have mercy, and the Dark Lord said -"

  I give you this rare chance to flee.

  "- that he was being generous and giving her a chance to run, but he wouldn't bother fighting her, and even if she died, she couldn't save me -" Harry's voice was unsteady, "- and so she ought to get out of his way. And that was when my mother begged the Dark Lord to take her life instead of mine - and the Dark Lord - the Dark Lord said to her - and his voice was lower this time, like he was dropping a pose -"

  Very well, I accept the bargain.

  "- he said that he accepted her offer, and that she should drop her wand so he could kill her. And then the Dark Lord waited, just waited. I, I don't know what Lily Potter was thinking, it hadn't even made sense in the first place, what she said, it wasn't like the Dark Lord would kill her and then just leave, when he'd come there for me. Lily Potter didn't say anything, and then the Dark Lord started laughing at her and it was horrible and - and she finally tried the only thing left that wasn't abandoning me or just giving up and dying. I don't know if she even could've, if the spell would've worked for her, but when you think about, she had to try. The last thing my mother said was 'Avada Ke-' but the Dark Lord started his own curse as soon as she said 'Av' and he said it in less than half a second and there was a flash of green light and then - and then - and then -"

  "That's enough."

  Slowly, like a body floating to the surface of water, Harry returned from wherever he'd been.

  "That's enough," the Potions Master said hoarsely. "She died... Lily died without pain, then? The Dark Lord... did not do anything to her, before she died?"

  She died thinking that she'd failed, and that the Dark Lord was going to kill her baby next. That's pain.

  "He - the Dark Lord didn't torture her -" Harry said. "If that's what you're asking."

  Behind Harry, the door unlocked itself and swung open.

  Harry left.

  It was Friday, April 10th, of 1992.

  Chapter 87: Hedonic Awareness

  Thursday, April 16th, 1992.

  The school was almost deserted now, nine-tenths of the students having gone home for the Easter holiday, just about everyone she knew missing. Susan had stayed behind, her grand-aunt being quite busy, as had Ron for reasons she didn't know - maybe the Weasley family was poor enough that feeding all the children for an extra week would've been a noticeable strain? It all worked out well enough, since Ron and Susan were just about the only ones left who'd still talk to her. (At least that she wanted to talk back to. Lavender was still nice to her, and Tracey was, um, Tracey, but neither of them were quite relaxing to spend a free hour around; and in any case, neither of those two had stayed over for the Easter hols.)

  If she couldn't go home - and she wasn't allowed to go home, her parents had been lied-to and told she'd had Glowpox - then an almost-empty Hogwarts was the next best thing.

  She could even visit the library without people staring at her, since there were no lessons and nobody was trying to do schoolwork.

  It would be a mistake to think that Hermione drooped about the corridors weeping all day long. Oh, she'd cried a lot the first two days, of course, but two days had been enough. There were parts of Harry's borrowed books about that, how even people who were paralyzed in car accidents weren't nearly as unhappy as they'd expected to be, six months later, just like lottery winners weren't nearly as happy as they'd expected. People adjusted, their happiness levels went back to their happiness set point, life went on.

  A shadow fell over where Hermione was reading her current book and she whirled around, the wand hidden on her lap coming up to point directly at the surprised face of -

  "Sorry!" Harry Potter said, hastily holding up his palms to show his left hand empty, and his right hand holding a small red-velvet pouch. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you."

  There was an awful silence, her heartbeat increasing and her palms starting to sweat as Harry Potter just looked at her. She'd almost talked to him, on the first morning of the rest of her life; but when she'd come down to breakfast Harry Potter had looked so awful - so she hadn't sat down beside him at the breakfast-table, just quietly eaten in her own little bubble of nobody else sitting next to her, and it had been horrible, but Harry hadn't come to her, and... she just hadn't talked to him, since then. (It wasn't hard to avoid everyone, if you stayed out of the Ravenclaw common room, and ran out of classes before anyone could talk to you.)

  And ever since she'd been wondering what Harry thought of her now - if he hated her for having lost all his money - or if he really was in love with her and that's why
he'd done it - or if he'd given up on her keeping pace with him because she couldn't frighten Dementors - she couldn't face him now, she just couldn't, she spent sleepless nights worrying what Harry thought of her now, and she was afraid, and she'd been avoiding the boy who'd spent all his money to save her, and she was a horrible ungrateful wretch, and a terrible person and -

  Then her eyes glanced down to see that Harry was reaching into the red-velvet pouch and taking out a heart-shaped red-foil-wrapped sweet, and her brain melted down like chocolate left out in the sun.

  "I was going to give you more space," said Harry Potter, "only I was reading up on Critch's theories about hedonics and how to train your inner pigeon and how small immediate positive and negative feedbacks secretly control most of what we actually do, and it occurred to me that you might be avoiding me because seeing me made you think of things that felt like negative associations, and I really didn't want to let that run any longer without doing something about it, so I got ahold of a bag of chocolates from the Weasley twins and I'm just going to give you one every time you see me as a positive reinforcement if that's all right with you -"

  "Breathe, Harry," Hermione said without thinking about it.

  It was the first word she'd spoken to him since the day of the trial.

  The two of them stared at each other.

  The books stared at them from the surrounding shelves.

  They stared some more at each other.

  "You're supposed to eat the chocolate," Harry said, holding out the heart-shaped sweet like a Valentine. "Unless just being given a chocolate feels good enough to count as a positive reinforcement, in which case you probably need to put it in your pocket or something."

  She knew that if she tried speaking again she'd fail, so she didn't try.

  Harry's head slumped a bit. "Do you hate me now?"