Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Harry slowly took his seat and began eating.

"So the line of Salazar did not die with You-Know-Who after all," said Professor Quirrell after a time. "It would seem that rumors have already begun to spread, among our fine student body, that you are Dark; I wonder what they would think, if they knew that."

"Or if they knew that I had destroyed a Dementor," Harry said, and shrugged. "I figure all the fuss will blow over over the next time I do something interesting. Hermione is having trouble, though, and I was wondering if you might have any suggestions for her."

The Defense Professor ate several spoonfuls of soup in silence, then; and when he spoke again, his voice was oddly flat. "You really care about that girl."

"Yes," Harry said quietly.

"I suppose that is why she was able to bring you out of your Dementation?"

"More or less," Harry said. The statement was true in a way, just not exact; it was not that his Demented self had cared, but that it had been confused.

"I did not have any friends like that when I was young." Still the same emotionless voice. "What would have become of you, I wonder, if you had been alone?"

Harry shivered before he could stop himself.

"You must be feeling grateful to her."

Harry just nodded. Not quite exact, but true.

"Then here is what I might have done at your age, if there had been anyone to do it for -"

Padma Patil had finished her dinner a little late, getting on toward seven-thirty, and was now striding quickly out of the Great Hall on her way to the Ravenclaw dorm and the study rooms. Gossiping was fun and destroying Granger's reputation was more fun, but it could distract from schoolwork. She'd put off a six-inch essay on lomillialor wood due in next morning's Herbology class, and she needed to finish it tonight.

It was while she was passing through a long, twisting, narrow stone corridor that the whisper came, sounding like it was coming from right behind her.

" Padma Patil... "

She spun around quick as lightning, her wand already snatched up from a pocket of her robes and leaping into her hands, if Harry Potter thought he could sneak up on and scare her that easily -

There was no one there.

Instantly Padma spun around and looked in the other direction, if it had been a Ventriloquism Charm -

There was no one there, either.

The whispering sigh came again, soft and dangerous with a slight hissing undertone.

" Padma Patil, Slytherin girl... "

"Harry Potter, Slytherin boy," she said out loud.

She'd fought Potter and his Chaos Legion a dozen times over, and she knew that this was Harry Potter doing this somehow...

...even though the Ventriloquism Charm was only line-of-sight, and in the winding corridor, she could easily see all the way to the nearest twist both forward and backward, and there was no one there...

...it didn't matter. She knew her enemy.

There was a whispery chuckle, now coming from beside her, and she spun around and pointed her wand at the whisper and shouted " Luminos! "

The red bolt of light shot out and struck the wall, which lit with a crimson glow that soon faded.

She hadn't really expected it to work. Harry Potter couldn't possibly be invisible, not really invisible, that was magic most grownups couldn't do, and she'd never believed nine-tenths of the stories about him.

The whispery voice laughed again, now on her other side.

"Harry Potter stands on the precipice," whispered the voice, now sounding very close to her ear, "he is wavering, but you, you are already falling, Slytherin girl..."

"The hat never called out Slytherin for my name, Potter!" She backed up against the wall, so she wouldn't have to watch behind herself, and raised her wand in an attack stance.

Again the soft laugh. "Harry Potter has been in the Ravenclaw common room for the last half-hour, helping Kevin Entwhistle and Michael Corner rehearse Potions recipes. But it matters not. I am here to deliver a warning to you, Padma Patil, and if you choose to ignore it, that is your own affair."

"Fine," she said coldly. "Go ahead and warn me, Potter, I'm not afraid of you."

"Slytherin was a great House, once," said the whisper; it sounded sadder, now. "Slytherin was once a House you would have been proud to choose, Padma Patil. But something turned wrong, something turned sour; do you know what went awry in Slytherin House, Padma Patil?"

"No, and I don't care!"

"But you should care," said the whisper, now sounding like it was coming from just behind her head where it stood almost pressed against the wall. "For you are still that girl whom the Sorting Hat offered that choice. Do you think that just choosing Ravenclaw means that you are not Pansy Parkinson, and will not ever become Pansy Parkinson, no matter how you conduct yourself otherwise?"

Despite everything, now, small chills of fear were spreading out from her spine and running over her skin. She'd heard those stories about Harry Potter too, that he was a secret Legilimens. But she still stood straight, and she put all the bite she could into her voice when she said, "The Slytherins went Dark to get power, just like you did, Potter. And I won't, not ever."

"But you'll spread vicious rumors about an innocent girl," whispered the voice, "even though it will not help you attain any of your own ambitions, and without considering that she has powerful allies who might take offense. That is not the proud Slytherin of the old days, Padma Patil, that is not the pride of Salazar, that is Slytherin gone rotten, Padma Parkinson not Padma Malfoy..."

She was getting more creeped out than she ever had been in her life, and the possibility was starting to occur to her that this might really be a ghost. She hadn't ever heard that ghosts could hide themselves like this, but maybe they just didn't usually do it - not to mention that most ghosts weren't this eerie, they were just dead people after all - "Who are you? The Bloody Baron?"

"When Harry Potter was bullied and beaten," the voice whispered, "he commanded all his allies to refrain from vengeance; do you remember that, Padma Patil? For Harry Potter is wavering, but not yet lost; he is struggling, he knows himself to be in peril. But Hermione Granger made no such request of her own allies. Harry Potter is angered with you now, Padma Patil, more angered than he would ever be on his own behalf... and he has allies of his own."

A shudder went through her, she knew that it was visible and she hated herself for it.

"Oh, don't be afraid," breathed the voice. "I will not hurt you. For you see, Padma Patil, Hermione Granger truly is innocent. She does not stand on the precipice, she is not falling. She did not ask her allies to refrain from hurting you, because the thought did not even occur to her as a possibility. And Harry Potter knows very well that if he hurt you or caused you to be hurt, for Hermione Granger's sake, then she would never speak to him again until the Sun burned low and the last star failed in the night sky." The voice was very sad now. "She truly is a kindly girl, a person such as I could only wish to be..."

"Granger can't cast the Patronus Charm!" said Padma. "If she was really as nice as she pretends to be -"

"Can you cast the Patronus Charm, Padma Patil? You dared not even attempt it, you feared what the result would be."

"That's not true! I didn't have time, that was all!"

The whisper continued. "But Hermione Granger did try, openly before her friends, and when her magic failed she was surprised and dismayed. For there are secrets to the Patronus Charm that few ever knew, and maybe none now know but I." A soft, whispery chuckle. "Let it stand that it is no stain of her spirit that halts her light from coming forth. Hermione Granger cannot cast the Patronus Charm for the very same reason that Godric Gryffindor, who raised these halls, never could."