Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The Defense Professor was laughing, and it sounded even odder than his smile.

"Professor Quirrell?" Harry said.

"All excellent suggestions," said Professor Quirrell. "But tell me, Mr. Potter, why those exact five?"

"Huh?" said Harry. "They just seemed like the obvious sorts of ideas."

"Oh?" said Professor Quirrell. "But there is an interesting pattern to them, you see. One might say it sounds like something of a riddle. I must admit, Mr. Potter, that although it has had its ups and downs, on the whole, this has been a surprisingly good day."

And they continued walking down the path that led to the gates of Hogwarts, quite some distance apart; as Harry, without even thinking about it, automatically stayed far enough away from the Defense Professor not to trigger that sense of doom, which for some reason seemed unusually strong right now.

Aftermath, Daphne Greengrass:

Hermione had refused to answer any questions, and as soon as they'd passed the split leading to the Slytherin dungeons, Daphne and Tracey had peeled off at once, walking as quickly as they could. Rumor traveled fast in Hogwarts, so they'd have to go to the dungeons right away if they wanted to be the first to tell everyone the story.

"Now remember," said Daphne, "don't just blurt out about the kiss as soon as we walk in, okay? It works better if we tell the whole story in order."

Tracey nodded excitedly.

And as soon as they burst into the Slytherin common room, Tracey Davis took a deep breath and shouted, " Everyone! Harry Potter couldn't cast the Patronus Charm and the Dementor almost ate him and Professor Quirrell saved him but then Potter was all evil until Granger brought him back with a kiss! It's true love for sure! "

It was ordered storytelling of a sort, Daphne supposed.

The news failed to produce the expected reaction. Most of the girls glanced over and then stayed in their couches, or the boys simply kept reading in their chairs.

"Yes," said Pansy sourly, from where she was sitting with Gregory's feet in her lap, leaning back and reading what seemed to be a coloring book, "Millicent already told us."

How -

"Why didn't you kiss him first, Tracey?" said Flora and Hestia Carrow from their own chairs. "Now Potter's going to marry a mudblood girl! You could've been his true love and gotten into a rich Noble House and everything if you'd just kissed him first!"

Tracey's face was a picture in stunned realization.

" What? " shrieked Daphne. "Love does not work like that!"

"Of course it does," stated Millicent from where she was practicing some sort of Charm while looking out a window at the swirling waters of the Hogwarts Lake. "First kiss gets the prince."

" It wasn't their first kiss! " shouted Daphne. "Hermione was already his true love! That's why she could bring him back!" Then Daphne realized what she'd just said and winced internally, but as the saying went, you had to fit the tongue to the ear.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?" said Gregory, swinging his feet off Pansy's lap. "What's this? Miss Bulstrode didn't tell that part."

Everyone else was also looking at Daphne, now.

"Oh, yeah," said Daphne, "Harry shoved her away and shouted, 'I told you, no kissing!' Then Harry screamed like he was dying and Fawkes started singing to him - I'm not sure which one of those happened first, actually -"

"That doesn't sound like true love to me, " said the Carrow twins. "That sounds like the wrong person kissed him."

"It was supposed to be me ," whispered Tracey. Her face was still stunned. " I was supposed to be his true love. Harry Potter was my general. I should've, I should've fought Granger for him -"

Daphne spun on Tracey, incensed. " You? Take Harry away from Hermione?"

"Yeah!" said Tracey. "Me!"

"You're nuts," Daphne stated with conviction. "Even if you had kissed him first, you know what that would make you? The sad little lovestruck girl who dies at the end of Act Two."

" You take that back! " shouted Tracey.

Meanwhile, Gregory had crossed the room to where Vincent was doing his homework. "Mr. Crabbe," Gregory said in a low voice, "I think Mr. Malfoy needs to know about this."

Aftermath, Hermione Granger:

Hermione stared at the wax-sealed paper, on the surface of which was inscribed simply the number 42.

I figured out why we couldn't cast the Patronus Charm, Hermione, it doesn't have anything to do with us not being happy enough. But I can't tell you. I couldn't even tell the Headmaster. It needs to be even more secret than partial Transfiguration, for now, anyway. But if you ever need to fight Dementors, the secret is written here, cryptically, so that if someone doesn't know it's about Dementors and the Patronus Charm, they won't know what it means...

She'd told Harry about seeing him dying, her parents dying, all her friends dying, everyone dying. She hadn't told him about her terror of dying alone, somehow that was still too painful.

Harry had told her about remembering his parents dying, and that he'd thought it was funny.

There's no light in the place the Dementor takes you, Hermione. No warmth. No caring. It's somewhere that you can't even understand happiness. There's pain, and fear, and those can still drive you. You can hate, and take pleasure in destroying what you hate. You can laugh, when you see other people hurting. But you can't ever be happy, you can't even remember what it is that isn't there anymore... I don't think there's any way I can ever explain just what you saved me from. I'm usually ashamed to put people to trouble, I usually can't stand it when people make sacrifices for me, but this one time I'll say that no matter what it ends up costing you to have kissed me, don't ever doubt for a second that it was the right thing to do.

Hermione hadn't realized how little the Dementor had touched her, how small and shallow had been the darkness into which it had taken her.

She'd seen everyone dying, and that had still been able to hurt.

Hermione put the paper back into her pouch, like a good girl ought to.

She'd really wanted to read it, though.

She was frightened of Dementors.

Aftermath, Minerva McGonagall:

She felt frozen; she shouldn't have been so shocked, she shouldn't have found Harry so hard to face, but after what he'd been through... She had searched the young boy in front of her for any signs of Dementation, and failed to find them. But something about the calm with which he had asked such a foreboding question seemed deeply worrying. "Mr. Potter, I can't possibly speak of such matters without the Headmaster's permission!"

The boy in her office took this in without changing expression. "I would prefer not to disturb the Headmaster over this matter," Harry Potter said calmly. "I insist on not disturbing him, in fact, and you did promise that our conversation would be kept private. So let me put it this way. I know that there was, in fact, a prophecy. I know that you are the one who originally heard it from Professor Trelawney. I know that the prophecy identified the child of James and Lily as someone dangerous to the Dark Lord. And I know who I am, indeed everyone now knows who I am, so you are revealing nothing new or dangerous, if you tell me only this: What was the exact wording which identified me, the child of James and Lily?"

Trelawney's hollow voice echoed in her mind -

BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM,

BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES...

"Harry," said Professor McGonagall, "I can't possibly tell you that!" It chilled her to the bone that Harry knew so much already, she couldn't imagine how Harry had learned -