Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (48 page)

Harry stood up, smiling, and turned to go while Fred and George were still gaping in shock. He strode a few steps away, and then turned back.

“Oh, one last thing,” Harry said. “Leave Professor Quirrell out of whatever you do. He doesn’t like publicity. I know it’d be easier to get people to believe weird things about the Defense Professor than anyone else, and I’m sorry to have to get in your way like that, but please, leave Professor Quirrell out of it.”

And Harry turned again and took a few more steps -

Looked back one last time, and said, softly, “Thank you.”

And left.

There was a long pause after he’d departed.

“So,” said one.

“So,” said the other.

“The Defense Professor doesn’t like publicity, does he.”

“Harry doesn’t know us very well, does he.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“But we won’t use his money for that, of course.”

“Of course not, that wouldn’t be right. We’ll do the Defense Professor separately.”

“We’ll get some Gryffindors to write Skeeter, and say…”

“…his sleeve lifted up one time in Defense class, and they saw the Dark Mark…”

“…and he’s probably teaching Harry Potter all sorts of dreadful things…”

“…and he’s the worst Defense Professor anyone remembers even in Hogwarts, he’s not just
failing
to teach us, he’s getting everything wrong, the complete opposite of what it should be…”

“…like when he claimed that you could only cast the Killing Curse using love, which made it pretty much useless.”

“I like that one.”

“Thanks.”

“I bet the Defense Professor likes it too.”

“He does have a sense of humor. He wouldn’t have called us what he did if he didn’t have a sense of humor.”

“But are we really going to be able to do Harry’s job?”

“Harry said to discuss the problem before trying to solve it, so let’s do that.”

The Weasley twins decided that George would be the enthusiastic one while Fred doubted.

“It all seems sort of contradictory,” said Fred. “He wants it to be ridiculous enough that everyone laughs at Skeeter and knows it’s wrong, and he wants Skeeter to believe it. We can’t do both things at the same time.”

“We’ll have to fake up some evidence to convince Skeeter,” said George.

“Was that a solution?” said Fred.

They considered this.

“Maybe,” said George, “but I don’t think we should be all
that
strict about it, do you?”

The twins shrugged helplessly.

“So then the fake evidence has to be good enough to convince Skeeter,” said Fred. “Can we really do that on our own?”

“We don’t have to do it on our own,” said George, and pointed to the pile of money. “We can hire other people to help us.”

The twins got a thoughtful look on their face.

“That could use up Harry’s budget pretty fast,” said Fred. “This is a lot of money for us, but it’s not a lot of money for someone like Flume.”

“Maybe people will give discounts if they know it’s for Harry,” said George. “But most importantly of all, whatever we do, it has to be
impossible
.”

Fred blinked. “What do you mean,
impossible?
”

“So impossible that we don’t get in trouble, because no one believes we could have done it. So impossible that even Harry starts wondering. It has to be surreal, it has to make people doubt their own sanity, it has to be…
better than Harry.
”

Fred’s eyes were wide in astonishment. This happened sometimes, between them, but not often. “But why?”

“They were pranks. They were
all
pranks. The pie was a prank. The Remembrall was a prank. Kevin Entwhistle’s cat was a prank.
Snape
was a prank.
We’re
the best pranksters in Hogwarts, are we going to roll over and give up without a fight?”

“He’s the Boy-Who-Lived,” said Fred.

“And
we’re
the Weasley twins! He’s
challenging
us. He said we could do what he does. But I bet he doesn’t think we’ll ever be as good as
him.
”

“He’s right,” said Fred, feeling rather nervous. The Weasley twins did
sometimes
disagree even when they had all the same information, but every time they did it seemed unnatural, like at least one of them must be doing something wrong. “This is
Harry Potter
we’re talking about. He can do the impossible. We can’t.”

“Yes we can,” said George. “And we have to be
more
impossible than him.”

“But -” said Fred.

“It’s what Godric Gryffindor would do,” said George.

That settled it, and the twins snapped back into… whatever it was that was normal for them.

“All right, then -”

“- let’s think about it.”

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Professor Quirrell’s office hours consisted of 11:40 to 11:55 AM on Thursday. That was for all of his students in all years. It cost a Quirrell point just to knock on the door, and if he didn’t think your reason was worth his time, you would lose another fifty.

Harry knocked on the door.

There was a pause. Then a biting voice said, “I suppose you may as well come in, Mr. Potter.”

And before Harry could touch the doorknob, the door slammed open, hitting the wall with a sharp crack that sounded like something might have broken in the wood, or the stone, or both.

Professor Quirrell was leaning back in his chair and reading a suspiciously old-looking book, bound in night-blue leather with silver runes on the spine. His eyes had not moved from the pages. “I am not in a good mood, Mr. Potter. And when I am not a good mood, I am not a pleasant person to be around. For your own sake, conduct your business quickly and depart.”

A cold chill seeped from the room, as though it contained something that cast darkness the way lamps cast light, and which hadn’t been fully shaded.

Harry was a bit taken aback.
Not in a good mood
didn’t quite seem to cover it. What could be bothering Professor Quirrell this much…?

Well, you didn’t just walk out on friends when they were feeling down. Harry cautiously advanced into the room. “Is there anything I can do to help -”

“No,” said Professor Quirrell, still not looking up from the book.

“I mean, if you’ve been dealing with idiots and want someone sane to talk to…”

There was a surprisingly long pause.

Professor Quirrell slammed the book shut and it vanished with a small whispering sound. He looked up, then, and Harry flinched.

“I suppose an intelligent conversation would be pleasant for
me
at this point,” said Professor Quirrell in the same biting tone that had invited Harry to enter. “
You
are not likely to find it so, be warned.”

Harry drew a deep breath. “I promise I won’t mind if you snap at me. What happened?”

The cold in the room seemed to deepen. “A sixth-year Gryffindor cast a curse at one of my more promising students, a sixth-year Slytherin.”

Harry swallowed. “What… sort of curse?”

And the fury on Professor Quirrell’s face was no longer contained. “Why bother to ask an unimportant question like that, Mr. Potter? Our friend the sixth-year Gryffindor did not think it was important!”

“Are you
serious?
” Harry said before he could stop himself.

“No, I’m in a terrible mood today for no particular reason.
Yes I’m serious, you fool!
He didn’t know. He
actually didn’t know.
I didn’t believe it until the Aurors confirmed it under Veritaserum. He is in his
sixth year at Hogwarts
and he cast a high-level Dark curse
without knowing what it did.
”

“You don’t mean,” Harry said, “that he was
mistaken
about what it did, that he somehow read the wrong spell description -”

“All he knew was that it was meant to be directed at an enemy. He
knew
that was all he knew.”

And that had been enough to cast the spell. “I do not understand how anything with that small a brain could walk upright.”

“Indeed, Mr. Potter,” said Professor Quirrell.

There was a pause. Professor Quirrell leaned forward and picked up the silver inkwell from his desk, turning it around in his hands, staring at it as though wondering how he could go about torturing an inkwell to death.

“Was the sixth-year Slytherin seriously hurt?” said Harry.

“Yes.”

“Was the sixth-year Gryffindor raised by Muggles?”

“
Yes.
”

“Is Dumbledore refusing to expel him because the poor boy didn’t know?”

Professor Quirrell’s hands whitened on the inkwell. “
Do you have a point, Mr. Potter, or are you just stating the obvious?
”

“Professor Quirrell,” said Harry gravely, “all the Muggle-raised students in Hogwarts need a safety lecture in which they are told the things so ridiculously obvious that no wizardborn would ever think to mention them. Don’t cast curses if you don’t know what they do, if you discover something dangerous don’t tell the world about it, don’t brew high-level potions without supervision in a bathroom, the reason why there are underage magic laws, all the basics.”

“Why?” said Professor Quirrell. “Let the stupid ones die before they breed.”

“If you don’t mind losing a few sixth-year Slytherins along with them.”

The inkwell caught fire in Professor Quirrell’s hands and burned with a terrible slowness, hideous black-orange flames tearing at the metal and seeming to take tiny bites from it, the silver twisting as it melted, as though it were trying and failing to escape. There was a tinny shrieking sound, as though the metal were screaming.

“I suppose you are right,” Professor Quirrell said with a resigned smile. “I shall design a lecture to ensure that Muggleborns who are too stupid to live do not take anyone valuable with them as they depart.”

The inkwell went on screaming and burning in Professor Quirrell’s hands, tiny droplets of metal, still on fire, now dripping to the desk, as though the inkwell were crying.

“You’re not running away,” observed Professor Quirrell.

Harry opened his mouth -

“If you’re about to say you’re not scared of me,” said Professor Quirrell, “
don’t.
”

“You are the scariest person I know,” Harry said, “and one of the top reasons for that is your control. I simply can’t imagine hearing that you’d hurt someone you had not made a deliberate decision to hurt.”

The fire in Professor Quirrell’s hands winked out, and he carefully placed the ruined inkwell on his desk. “You say the nicest things, Mr. Potter. Have you been taking lessons in flattery? From, perhaps, Mr. Malfoy?”

Harry kept his expression blank, and realized one second too late that it might as well have been a signed confession. Professor Quirrell didn’t care what your expression looked like, he cared which states of mind made it likely.

“I see,” said Professor Quirrell. “Mr. Malfoy is a useful friend to have, Mr. Potter, and there is much he can teach you, but I hope you have not made the mistake of trusting him with too many confidences.”

“He knows nothing which I fear becoming known,” said Harry.

“Well done,” said Professor Quirrell, smiling slightly. “So what was your original business here?”

“I think I’m done with the preliminary exercises in Occlumency and ready for the tutor.”

Professor Quirrell nodded. “I shall conduct you to Gringotts this Sunday.” He paused, looking at Harry, and smiled. “And we might even make it a little outing, if you like. I’ve just had a pleasant thought.”

Harry nodded, smiling back.

As Harry left the office, he heard Professor Quirrell humming a small tune.

Harry was glad he’d been able to cheer him up.

That Sunday there seemed to be a rather large number of people whispering in the hallways, at least when Harry Potter walked past them.

And a lot of pointed fingers.

And a great deal of female giggling.

It had started at breakfast, when someone had asked Harry if he’d heard the news, and Harry had quickly interrupted and said that if the news was written by Rita Skeeter then he didn’t want to
hear
about it, he wanted to read it in the paper himself.

It had then developed that not many students at Hogwarts got copies of the
Daily Prophet,
and that the copies which had not already been bought up from their owners were being passed around in some sort of complicated order and nobody really knew who had one at the moment…

So Harry had used a Quieting Charm and gone on to eat his breakfast, trusting to his seat-mates to wave off the many, many questioners, and doing his best to ignore the incredulity, the laughter, the congratulatory smiles, the pitying looks, the fearful glances, and the dropped plates as new people came down for breakfast and heard.

Harry was feeling
rather
curious, but it
really
wouldn’t have done to spoil the artistry by hearing it secondhand.

He’d done homework in the safety of his trunk for the next couple of hours, after telling his dormmates to come get him if anyone found him an original newspaper.

Harry was still ignorant at 10AM, when he’d left Hogwarts in a carriage with Professor Quirrell, who was in the front right, and currently slumped over in zombie-mode. Harry was sitting diagonally across, as far away as the carriage allowed, in the back left. Even so, Harry had a constant feeling of doom as the carriage rattled over a small path through a section of non-forbidden forest. It made it a bit hard to read, especially since the material was difficult, and Harry suddenly wished he was reading one of his childhood science fiction books instead -

“We’re outside the wards, Mr. Potter,” said Professor Quirrell’s voice from the front. “Time to go.”

Professor Quirrell carefully disembarked from the carriage, bracing himself as he stepped down. Harry, on his own side, jumped off.

Harry was wondering exactly how they’d get there when Professor Quirrell said “Catch!” and threw a bronze Knut at him, and Harry caught it without thinking.

A giant intangible hook caught at Harry’s abdomen and yanked him back, hard, only without any sense of acceleration, and an instant later Harry was standing in the middle of Diagon Alley.

(
Excuse me, what?
said his brain.)

(
We just teleported,
explained Harry.)

(
That didn’t used to happen in the ancestral environment,
Harry’s brain complained, and disoriented him.)

Harry staggered as his feet adjusted to the brick of the street instead of the dirt of the forest corridor they had been traversing. He straightened, still dizzy, with the bustling witches and wizards seeming to sway slightly, and the cries of the shopkeepers seeming to move around in his hearing, as his brain tried to place a world to be located in.

Moments later, there was a sort of sucking-popping sound from a few paces behind Harry, and when Harry turned to look Professor Quirrell was there.

“Do you mind -” said Harry, at the same time as Professor Quirrell said, “I’m afraid I -”

Harry stopped, Professor Quirrell didn’t.

“- need to go off and set something in motion, Mr. Potter. As it has been thoroughly explained to me that I am responsible for anything whatsoever that happens to you, I’ll be leaving you with -”

“Newsstand,” Harry said.

“Pardon?”

“Or anywhere I can buy a copy of the
Daily Prophet.
Put me there and I’ll be happy.”

Shortly after, Harry had been delivered into a bookstore, accompanied by several quietly spoken, ambiguous threats. And the shopkeeper had gotten
less
ambiguous threats, judging by the way he had cringed, and how his eyes now kept darting between Harry and the entrance.

If the bookstore burned down, Harry was going to stick around in the middle of the fire until Professor Quirrell got back.

Meanwhile -

Harry took a quick glance around.

The bookstore seemed rather small and shoddy, with only four rows of bookcases visible, and the nearest shelf Harry’s eyes had jumped to seemed to deal with narrow, cheaply bound books with grim titles like
The Massacre of Albania in the Fifteenth Century.

First things first. Harry stepped over to the seller’s counter.

“Pardon me,” said Harry, “One copy of the
Daily Prophet,
please.”

“Five Sickles,” said the shopkeeper. “Sorry, kid, I’ve only got three left.”

Five Sickles dropped onto the counter. Harry had the feeling he could have bargained him down a couple of points, but at this point he didn’t really care.

The shopkeeper’s eyes widened and he seemed to really notice Harry for the first time. “
You!
”

“
Me!
”

“Is it
true?
Are you
really
-”

“
Shut up!
Sorry, I’ve been waiting
all day
to read this in the original newspaper instead of hearing about it secondhand, so please just
hand it over
, all right?”

The shopkeeper stared at Harry for a moment, then wordlessly reached under the counter and passed over one folded copy of the
Daily Prophet
.

The headline read:

HARRY POTTER
SECRETLY BETROTHED
TO GINEVRA WEASLEY

Harry stared.

He lifted the newspaper off the counter, softly, reverently, like he was handling an original Escher artwork, and unbent it to read…

…about the evidence that had convinced Rita Skeeter.

…and some interesting further details.

…and yet more evidence.

Fred and George had cleared it with their sister first, surely? Yes, of course they had. There was a picture of Ginevra Weasley sighing longingly over what Harry could see, looking closely, was a photo of himself. That had to have been staged.

But
how
on
Earth…?

Harry was sitting in a cheap folding chair, rereading the newspaper for the fourth time, when the door whispered softly and Professor Quirrell came back into the shop.

“My apologies for -
what
in Merlin’s name are you reading?”

“It would seem,” said Harry, awe in his voice, “that one Mr. Arthur Weasley was placed under the Imperius Curse by a Death Eater whom my father killed, thus creating a debt to House Potter, which my father demanded be repaid by the hand in marriage of the recently born Ginevra Weasley. Do people actually do that sort of thing around here?”

“How could Miss Skeeter
possibly
be fool enough to believe -”

And Professor Quirrell’s voice cut off.

Harry had been reading the newspaper held vertically and unfolded, which meant that Professor Quirrell, from where he was standing, could see the text underneath the headline.