Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (34 page)

There was more laughter, with an undertone of nervousness. Harry clenched his jaw tightly shut and said nothing. A denial would accomplish nothing.

“But no. The
first
item was, ‘I will not go around provoking strong, vicious enemies.’ The history of the world would be very different if Mornelithe Falconsbane or Hitler had grasped that elementary point. Now
if,
Mr. Potter - just
if
by some chance you harbor an ambition similar to the one I held as a young Slytherin - even so, I hope it is not your ambition to become a
stupid
Dark Lord.”

“Professor Quirrell,” Harry said, gritting his teeth, “I am a
Ravenclaw
and it is not my ambition to be stupid, period. I know that what I did today was dumb. But it wasn’t
Dark!
I was
not
the one who threw the first punch in that fight!”

“You, Mr. Potter, are an idiot. But then so was I at your age. Thus I anticipated your answer and altered today’s lesson plan accordingly. Mr. Gregory Goyle, if you would come forward, please?”

There was a surprised pause in the classroom. Harry hadn’t been expecting that.

Neither, from the looks of it, had Mr. Goyle, who looked rather uncertain and worried as he mounted the marble stage and approached the dais.

Professor Quirrell straightened from where he was leaning on the desk. He looked suddenly stronger, and his hands formed fists and he drew himself up into a clearly recognizable martial arts stance.

Harry’s eyes widened at the sight, and he realized why Mr. Goyle had been called up.

“Most wizards,” Professor Quirrell said, “do not bother much with what a Muggle would term martial arts. Is not a wand stronger than a fist? This attitude is stupid. Wands are held in fists. If you want to be a great fighting wizard you
must
learn martial arts to a level which would impress even a Muggle. I will now demonstrate a certain vitally important technique, which I learned in a
dojo,
a Muggle school of martial arts, of which I shall speak more shortly. For now…” Professor Quirrell took several steps forward, still in stance, advancing on where Mr. Goyle stood. “Mr. Goyle, I will ask you to attack me.”

“Professor Quirrell,” said Mr. Goyle, his voice now amplified as the professor’s was, “can I ask what level -”

“Sixth
dan
. You will not be hurt and neither will I. And if you see an opening, please take it.”

Mr. Goyle nodded, looking much relieved.

“Note,” Professor Quirrell said, “that Mr. Goyle was afraid to attack someone who did not know martial arts to an acceptable level, for fear that I, or he, would be hurt. Mr. Goyle’s attitude is exactly correct and he has earned three Quirrell points for it. Now, fight!”

The young boy blurred forward, fists flying, and the Professor blocked every blow, dancing backward, Quirrell kicked and Goyle blocked and spun and tried to trip Quirrell with a sweeping leg and Quirrell hopped over it and it was all happening too fast for Harry to make sense of what was going on and then Goyle was on his back with his legs pushing and Quirrell was actually
flying through the air
and then he hit the ground shoulder first and rolled.

“Stop!” cried Professor Quirrell from the ground, sounding a little panicked. “You win!”

Mr. Goyle pulled up so sharply he staggered, almost tripping and falling from the aborted momentum of his headlong charge toward Professor Quirrell. His face showed utter shock.

Professor Quirrell arched his back and bounced to his feet using a peculiar springing motion that made no use of his hands.

There was a silence in the classroom, a silence born of total confusion.

“Mr. Goyle,” said Professor Quirrell, “what vitally important technique did I demonstrate?”

“How to fall correctly when someone throws you,” said Mr. Goyle. “It’s one of the very first lessons you learn -”

“That too,” said Professor Quirrell.

There was a pause.

“The vitally important technique which I demonstrated,” said Professor Quirrell, “was how to lose. You may go, Mr. Goyle, thank you.”

Mr. Goyle walked off the platform, looking rather bewildered. Harry felt the same way.

Professor Quirrell walked back to his desk and resumed leaning on it. “Sometimes we forget the most basic things, since it has been too long since we learned them. I realized I had done the same with my own lesson plan. You do not teach students to throw until you have taught them to fall. And I must not teach you to fight if you do not understand how to lose.”

Professor Quirrell’s face hardened, and Harry thought he saw a hint of pain, a touch of sorrow, in those eyes. “I learned how to lose in a
dojo
in Asia, which, as any Muggle knows, is where all the good martial artists live. This
dojo
taught a style which had a reputation among fighting wizards as adapting well to magical dueling. The Master of that
dojo
- an old man by Muggle standards - was that style’s greatest living teacher. He had no idea that magic existed, of course. I applied to study there, and was one of the few students accepted that year, from among many contenders. There might have been a tiny bit of special influence involved.”

There was some laughter in the classroom. Harry didn’t share it. That hadn’t been right at all.

“In any case. During one of my first fights, after I had been beaten in a particularly humiliating fashion, I lost control and attacked my sparring partner -”

Yikes.

“- thankfully with my fists, rather than my magic. The Master, surprisingly, did not expel me on the spot. But he told me that there was a flaw in my temperament. He explained it to me, and I knew that he was right. And then he said that I would learn how to lose.”

Professor Quirrell’s face was expressionless.

“Upon his strict orders, all of the students of the
dojo
lined up. One by one, they approached me. I was
not
to defend myself. I was only to beg for mercy. One by one, they slapped me, or punched me, and pushed me to the ground. Some of them spat on me. They called me awful names in their language. And to each one, I had to say, ‘I lose!’ and similar such things, such as ‘I beg you to stop!’ and ‘I admit you’re better than me!’”

Harry was trying to imagine this and simply failing. There was no way something like that could have happened to the dignified Professor Quirrell.

“I was a prodigy of Battle Magic even then. With wandless magic alone I could have killed everyone in that dojo. I did not do so. I learned to lose. To this day I remember it as one of the most unpleasant hours of my life. And when I left that dojo eight months later - which was not nearly enough time, but was all I could afford to spend - the Master told me that he hoped I understood why that had been necessary. And I told him that it was one of the most valuable lessons I had ever learned. Which was, and is, true.”

Professor Quirrell’s face turned bitter. “You are wondering where this marvelous
dojo
is, and whether you can study there. You cannot. For not long afterward, another would-be student came to that hidden place, to that remote mountain. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

There was the sound of many breaths being drawn in simultaneously. Harry felt sick to his stomach. He knew what was coming.

“The Dark Lord came to that school openly, without disguise, glowing red eyes and all. The students tried to bar his way and he simply Apparated through. There was terror there, but discipline, and the Master came forth. And the Dark Lord demanded - not asked, but demanded - to be taught.”

Professor Quirrell’s face was very hard. “Perhaps the Master had read too many books telling the lie that a true martial artist could defeat even demons. For whatever reason, the Master refused. The Dark Lord asked why he could not be a student. The Master told him he had no patience, and that was when the Dark Lord ripped his tongue out.”

There was a collective gasp.

“You can guess what happened next. The students tried to rush the Dark Lord and fell over, stunned where they stood. And then…”

Professor Quirrell’s voice faltered for a moment, then resumed.

“There is an Unforgiveable Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, which produces unbearable pain. If the Cruciatus is extended for longer than a few minutes it produces permanent insanity. One by one, the Dark Lord Crucioed the Master’s students into insanity, and then finished them off with the Killing Curse, while the Master was forced to watch. When all his students had died in this way, the Master followed. I learned this from the single surviving student, whom the Dark Lord had left alive to tell the tale, and who had been a friend of mine…”

Professor Quirrell turned away, and when he turned back a moment later, he once again seemed calm and composed.

“Dark Wizards cannot keep their tempers,” Professor Quirrell said quietly. “It is a nearly universal flaw of the species, and anyone who makes a habit of fighting them soon learns to rely on it. Understand that the Dark Lord did
not
win that day. His goal was to learn martial arts, and yet he left without a single lesson. The Dark Lord was foolish to wish that story retold. It did not show his strength, but rather an exploitable weakness.”

Professor Quirrell’s gaze focused on a single child in the classroom.

“Harry Potter,” Professor Quirrell said.

“Yes,” Harry said, his voice hoarse.

“What
precisely
did you do wrong today, Mr. Potter?”

Harry felt like he was going to throw up. “I lost my temper.”

“That is
not
precise,” said Professor Quirrell. “I will describe it more exactly. There are many animals which have what are called dominance contests. They rush at each other with horns - trying to knock each other down, not gore each other. They fight with their paws - with claws sheathed. But why with their claws sheathed? Surely, if they used their claws, they would stand a better chance of winning? But then their enemy might unsheathe their claws as well, and instead of resolving the dominance contest with a winner and a loser, both of them might be severely hurt.”

Professor Quirrell gaze seemed to come straight out at Harry from the repeater screen. “What you demonstrated today, Mr. Potter, is that - unlike those animals who keep their claws sheathed and accept the results - you do not know how to lose a dominance contest. When a
Hogwarts professor
challenged you, you did not back down. When it looked like you might lose, you unsheathed your claws, heedless of the danger. You
escalated,
and then you escalated
again.
It started with a slap at you from Professor Snape, who was obviously dominant over you. Instead of losing, you slapped back and lost ten points from Ravenclaw. Soon you were talking about leaving Hogwarts. The fact that you escalated even further in some unknown direction, and somehow won at the end, does not change the fact that you are an idiot.”

“I understand,” Harry said. His throat was dry. That
had
been precise.
Frighteningly
precise. Now that Professor Quirrell had said it, Harry could see in hindsight that it was an
exactly
accurate description of what had happened. When someone’s model of you was that good, you had to wonder whether they were right about other things too, like your intent to kill.

“The
next
time, Mr. Potter, that you choose to escalate a contest rather than lose, you may lose
all
the stakes you place on the table. I cannot guess what they were today. I can guess that they were far, far too high for the loss of ten House points.”

Like the fate of magical Britain. That was what he’d done.

‘‘You will protest that you were trying to help all of Hogwarts, a much more important goal worthy of great risks. That is a
lie.
If you had been -”

“I would have taken the slap, waited, and picked the best possible time to make my move,” Harry said, his voice hoarse. “But that would have meant
losing
. Letting him be dominant over me. It was what the Dark Lord couldn’t do with the Master he wanted to learn from.”

Professor Quirrell nodded. “I see that you have understood perfectly. And so, Mr. Potter, today you are going to learn how to lose.”

“I -”

“I will not hear any objections, Mr. Potter. It is evident both that you need this and that you are strong enough to take it. I assure you that your experience will not be so harsh as what I went through, though you may well remember it as the worst fifteen minutes of your young life.”

Harry swallowed. “Professor Quirrell,” he said in a small voice, “can we do this some other time?”

“No,” Professor Quirrell said simply. “You are five days into your Hogwarts education and already this has happened. Today is Friday. Our
next
defense class is on Wednesday. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… No, we do
not
have time to wait.”

There were a few laughs at this, but very few.

“Please consider it an order from your professor, Mr. Potter. What I would like to say is that otherwise I will not teach you any offensive spells, because I would then hear that you had severely hurt or even killed someone. Unfortunately I am told that your fingers are already powerful weapons. Do not snap them at any time during this lesson.”

More scattered laughter, sounding rather nervous.

Harry felt like he might cry. “Professor Quirrell, if you do anything like what you talked about, it’s going to make me angry, and I really would rather not get angry again today -”

“The point is
not
to avoid getting angry,” Professor Quirrell said, his face looking grave. “Anger is natural. You need to learn how to lose even when you are angry. Or at least
pretend
to lose so that you can
plan
your vengeance. As I did with Mr. Goyle today, unless of course any of you think he really
is
better -”

“I’m not!” shouted Mr. Goyle from his desk, sounding a little frantic. “I know you didn’t really lose! Please don’t plan any vengeances!”