Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  "All right, point taken," said Harry. "Professor, I am well aware that if I save Hermione at the price of two other people's lives, I've lost on total points from a utilitarian standpoint. I am extremely aware that Hermione would not want me to risk destroying a whole country just to save her. That's just common sense."

  "Child who destroys Dementors," said that soft voice, "if it were only one country I feared you might ruin, I would be less concerned. I did not at first credit that your knowledge of Muggle science and Muggle practices would be a source of great power. I now credit it more. I am, in complete sincerity, concerned for the safety of that golden plaque."

  "Well, if science fiction has taught me anything," said Harry, "it's taught me that destroying the Solar System is not morally acceptable, especially if you do it before humanity has colonized any other star systems."

  "Then will you give up this -"

  "No," Harry said without even thinking before he opened his mouth. After a moment, he added, "But I do understand what you're trying to tell me."

  Silence. The stars had not shifted, not even as they would have in an Earthly night sky, over time.

  A very slight rustle, as of someone shifting their body. Harry realized that he had been standing for a while in the same position, and dropped down to the almost unseeable circle of grass that still stayed beneath him, careful not to touch the edges of the spell.

  "Tell me this," said the soft voice. "Why does that girl matter to you so much?"

  "Because she is my friend."

  "In the English language as it is customarily used, Mr. Potter, the word 'friend' is not associated with a desperate effort to raise the dead. Are you under the impression that she is your true love, or some such?"

  "Oh, not you too," Harry said wearily. "Not you of all people, Professor. Fine, we're best friends, but that's all, okay? That's enough. Friends don't let friends stay dead."

  "Ordinary folk do not do as much, for those they call friends." The voice sounded more distant now, abstracted. "Not even for those they say they love. Their companions die, and they do not go in search of power to resurrect them."

  Harry couldn't help himself. He looked over again, despite knowing it would be futile, and saw only more stars. "Let me guess, from this you deduce that... people don't actually care as much about their friends as they pretend."

  A brief laugh. "They would scarcely pretend to care less."

  "They care, Professor, and not just for their true loves. Soldiers throw themselves on grenades to save their friends, mothers run into burning houses to save their children. But if you're a Muggle you don't think there's any such thing as magic to bring someone back to life. And normal wizards don't... think outside the box like that. I mean, most wizards aren't searching for power to make themselves immortal. Does that prove they don't care about their own lives?"

  "As you say, Mr. Potter. Certainly I myself would consider their lives pointless and without a shred of value. Perhaps, somewhere in their hidden hearts, they also believe that my opinion of them is the correct one."

  Harry shook his head, and then, in annoyance, cast back the hood of his Cloak, and shook his head again. "That seems like a rather contrived view of the world, Professor," said the dim-lit head of a boy, floating unsupported on a circle of dark grass amid stars. "Trying to invent a resurrection spell just isn't something normal people would think of, so you can't deduce anything from their not taking the option."

  A moment later, the dim-lit outline of a man sitting on the circle of grass was visible as well.

  "If they truly cared about their supposed loved ones," the Defense Professor said softly, "they would think of it, would they not?"

  "Brains don't work that way. They don't suddenly supercharge when the stakes go up - or when they do, it's within hard limits. I couldn't calculate the thousandth digit of pi if someone's life depended on it."

  The dim-lit head inclined. "But there is another possible explanation, Mr. Potter. It is that people play the role of friendship. They do just as much as that role requires of them, and no more. The thought occurs to me that perhaps the difference between you and them is not that you care more than they do. Why would you have been born with such unusually strong emotions of friendship, that you alone among wizardkind are driven to resurrect Hermione Granger after her death? No, the most likely difference is not that you care more. It is that, being a more logical creature than they, you alone have thought that playing the role of Friend would require this of you."

  Harry stared out at the stars. He would have been lying if he'd claimed not to be shaken. "That... can't be true, Professor. I could name a dozen examples in Muggle novels of people driven to resurrect their dead friends. The authors of those stories clearly understood exactly how I feel about Hermione. Though you wouldn't have read them, I guess... maybe Orpheus and Eurydice? I didn't actually read that one but I know what's in it."

  "Such tales are also told among wizardkind. There is the story of the Elric brothers. The tale of Dora Kent, who was protected by her son Saul. There is Ronald Mallett and his doomed challenge to Time. In Italy before its fall, the drama of Precia Testarossa. In Nippon they tell of Akemi Homura and her lost love. What these stories have in common, Mr. Potter, is that they are all fiction. Real-life wizards do not attempt the same, even though the notion is clearly not beyond their imagination."

  "Because they don't think they can!" Harry's voice rose.

  "Shall we go and tell the good Professor McGonagall about your intention to find a way to resurrect Miss Granger, and see what she thinks of it? Perhaps it has simply never occurred to her to consider that option... Ah, but you hesitate. You already know her answer, Mr. Potter. Do you know why you know it?" You could hear the cold smile in the voice. "A lovely technique, that. Thank you for teaching it to me."

  Harry was aware of the tension that had developed in his face, his words came out as though bitten off. "Professor McGonagall has not grown up with the Muggle concept of the increasing power of science, and nobody's ever told her that when a friend's life is at stake is a time when you need to think very rationally -"

  The Defense Professor's voice was also rising. "The Transfiguration Professor is reading from a script, Mr. Potter! That script calls for her to mourn and grieve, that all may know how much she cared. Ordinary people react poorly if you suggest that they go off-script. As you already knew!"

  "That's funny, I could have sworn I saw Professor McGonagall going off-script at dinner yesterday. If I saw her go off-script another ten times I might actually try to talk to her about resurrecting Hermione, but right now she's new to that and needs practice. In the end, Professor, what you're trying to explain away by calling love and friendship and everything else a lie is just human beings not knowing any better."

  The Defense Professor's voice rose in pitch. "If it were you who had been killed by that troll, it would not even occur to Hermione Granger to do as you are doing for her! It would not occur to Draco Malfoy, nor to Neville Longbottom, nor to McGonagall or any of your precious friends! There is not one person in this world who would return to you the care that you are showing her! So why? Why do it, Mr. Potter?" There was a strange, wild desperation in that voice. "Why be the only one in the world who goes to such lengths to keep up the pretense, when none of them will ever do the same for you?"

  "I believe you are factually mistaken, Professor," Harry returned evenly. "About a number of things, in fact. At the very least, your model of my emotions is flawed. Because you don't understand me the tiniest bit, if you think that it would stop me if everything you said was true. Everything in the world has to start somewhere, every event has to happen for a first time. Life on Earth had to start with some little self-replicating molecule in a pool of mud. And if I were the first person in the world, no -"

  Harry's hand swept out, to indicate the terribly distant points of light.

  "- if I were the first person in the universe who ever really cared about someone else
, which I'm not by the way, then I'd be honored to be that person, and I'd try to do it justice."

  There was a long silence.

  "You truly do care about that girl," the man's dim outline said softly. "You care about her in the way that none of them are capable of caring for their own lives, let alone each other." The Defense Professor's voice had become strange, filled with some indecipherable emotion. "I do not understand it, but I know the lengths you will go to because of it. You will challenge death itself, for her. Nothing will sway you from that."

  "I care enough to make an actual effort," Harry said quietly. "Yes, that is correct."

  The starlight slowly began to fracture, the world shining through the cracks; slashes through the night showing treetrunks and leaves glowing in the sunlight. Harry raised a hand, blinking hard, as the returning brightness smashed into his dark-adjusted eyes; and his eyes automatically went to the Defense Professor, just in case an attack occurred while he was blinded.

  When all the stars had gone and only daylight remained, Professor Quirrell was still sitting on the grass. "Well, Mr. Potter," he said in his normal voice, "if that is so, then I shall give you what help I can, while I can."

  "You'll what?" Harry said involuntarily.

  "My offer as I made it yesterday still stands. Ask and I will answer. Show me the same science books you deemed suitable for Mr. Malfoy, and I shall look them over and tell you what comes to mind. Don't look so surprised, Mr. Potter, I would hardly leave you to your own devices."

  Harry stared, tear ducts still watering from the sudden light.

  Professor Quirrell looked back at him. Something strange glinted in the pale eyes. "I have done what I can, and now I fear I must take my leave of you. Good -" and the Defense Professor hesitated. "Good day, Mr. Potter."

  "Good -" Harry began.

  The man sitting on the grass fell over, his head impacting the ground with a light thud. At the same time the sense of doom diminished so sharply that Harry leapt to his feet, his heart suddenly in his throat.

  But the figure on the ground slowly pushed back up to a crawling position. Turned to look at Harry, eyes empty, mouth slack. Tried to stand, fell back to the ground.

  Harry took a step forward, sheer instinct telling him to offer a hand, although that was incorrect; the apprehension that rose up in him, however faint, spoke of continued danger.

  But the fallen figure flinched away from Harry, and then slowly began crawl to away from him, in the general direction of the distant castle.

  The boy standing amid the forest gazed after.

  Chapter 96: Roles, Pt 7

  A/N: For those who have not read canon: The wooden sign has somewhat changed, but the inscription here is the same as in J.K. Rowling's original.

  The fourth meeting:

  (4:38pm, April 17th, 1992)

  The man wearing the worn, warm coat, with three faint scars etched forever into his cheek, observed Harry Potter as closely as he could while the boy looked around politely at the rows of cottages. For someone whose best friend had died yesterday, Harry Potter seemed strangely composed, though not in any way reminiscent of unfeelingness, or normality. I don't wish to talk about that, the boy had said, with you or anyone. Saying 'wish' and not 'want', as though to emphasize that he was able to use grownup words and make grownup decisions. There had been only one thing Remus Lupin had thought of that might help, after he'd received the owls from Professor McGonagall and that strange man Quirinus Quirrell.

  "There's a lot of empty houses," the boy said, glancing around again.

  Godric's Hollow had changed, in the decade since Remus Lupin had been a frequent visitor. Many of the old, peaked cottages looked deserted, with green leafy vines growing across their windows and their doors. Britain had contracted noticeably, in the aftermath of the Wizarding War, having lost not only the dead but the fled. Godric's Hollow had been hard-hit. And afterward still more families had moved elsewhere, to Hogsmeade or magical London, the deserted houses too uncomfortable a reminder.

  Others had remained. Godric's Hollow was older than Hogwarts, older than Godric Gryffindor whose name it had taken, and there were families which would reside here until the end of the world and its magic.

  The Potters had been one such family, and would be again, if the last Potter so chose.

  Remus Lupin tried to explain all that, simplifying it as best he could for the young boy. The Ravenclaw nodded thoughtfully and said nothing, as though he had understood it all without need of questions. Perhaps that was so; the child of James Potter and Lily Evans, the Head Boy and Head Girl of Hogwarts, would hardly be stupid. The child had certainly seemed highly intelligent, for the little time that they had spoken in January, though at that time Remus had done most of the talking.

  (There was also that business with the Wizengamot which Remus had heard rumors about, but Remus didn't believe a single word of that, any more than he'd believed it about James betrothing his son to Molly's youngest.)

  "There's the monument," Remus said, pointing ahead of them.

  Harry walked beside Mr. Lupin toward the black marble obelisk, thinking silently. It seemed to Harry that this adventure was essentially misguided; he had no use for grief counseling, that was not Harry's chosen path. So far as Harry was concerned, the five stages of grief were Rage, Remorse, Resolve, Research, and Resurrection. (Not that the usual 'five stages of grief' had any experimental evidence whatsoever that Harry had ever heard about.) But Mr. Lupin had seemed too sincere to refuse; and visiting James and Lily's home was something Harry felt he ought not to turn down. So Harry walked, feeling oddly detached; walking silently through a play whose script he was not interested in reading.

  Harry had been told that he wasn't to wear the Cloak of Invisibility for this journey, so that Mr. Lupin could keep track of him.

  Harry was morally certain that Dumbledore, or both Dumbledore and Mad-Eye Moody, were following them invisibly to see if anyone tried for the bait. There was no way Harry would have been let out of Hogwarts with only Remus Lupin for a guard. Harry didn't expect anything to happen, though. He'd seen nothing to contradict the hypothesis that all the danger centered on Hogwarts and only Hogwarts.

  As the two of them walked closer toward the center of town, the marble obelisk transformed into -

  Harry drew in a breath. He'd been expecting a heroic pose of James Potter with wand leveled against Lord Voldemort, and Lily Potter with arms outstretched in front of the crib.

  Instead there was a man with untidy hair and glasses, and a woman with her hair let down and a baby in her arms, and that was all.

  "It looks very... normal," Harry said, feeling an odd catch in his throat.

  "Madam Longbottom and Professor Dumbledore put their foot down hard," said Mr. Lupin, who was looking more at Harry than at the monument. "They said that the Potters should be remembered as they had lived, not as they had died."

  Harry looked at the statue, thinking. Very strange, to see himself as a baby of stone, with no scar upon his forehead. It was a glimpse at an alternate universe, one where Harry James Potter (no Evans-Verres to his name) became an intelligent but ordinary wizarding scholar, maybe Sorted into Gryffindor like his parents. A Harry Potter who grew up a proper young wizard, knowing little of science for all that his mother was Muggleborn. Ultimately changing... not much. James and Lily wouldn't have raised their son with what Professor Quirrell would have called ambition and what Professor Verres-Evans would have called the common endeavor. His birth parents would have loved him very much, and that would not have been much help to anyone in the world except Harry. If someone had undone their death -

  "You were their friend," Harry said, turning to look at Lupin. "For a long time, since you were children."

  Mr. Lupin nodded silently.

  Professor Quirrell's voice resounded in Harry's approximate memory: The most likely difference is not that you care more. Rather it is that, being a more logical creature than they, only you are aware that
the role of Friend ought to require this of you...

  "When Lily and James died," Harry said, "did you think at all of whether there might be some magical way to get them back? Like Orpheus and Eurydice? Or the, what was it, Elrin brothers?"

  "There is no magic which can undo death," Mr. Lupin said quietly. "There are some mysteries which wizardry cannot touch."

  "Did you do a mental check of what you thought you knew, how you thought you knew it, and how high the probability was of that conclusion?"

  "What?" said Mr. Lupin. "Could you repeat that, Harry?"

  "I'm saying, did you think about it anyway?"

  Mr. Lupin shook his head.

  "Why not?"

  "Because it was already done, and over," Remus Lupin said gently. "Because wherever James and Lily are now, they would wish me to act for the sake of the living, not the dead."

  Harry nodded silently. He'd been pretty sure of the answer to that question before he'd asked. He'd already read that script. But he'd asked anyway, just in case Mr. Lupin had spent a week obsessing about it, because Harry could have been wrong.