Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The corridor was becoming colder, she was certain of it, as though someone were using the Chilling Charm.

"And Harry Potter is not Hermione Granger's only ally." Now there was an undertone of dry amusement in that whisper, it reminded her suddenly and frighteningly of Professor Quirrell. "Filius Flitwick and Minerva McGonagall are quite fond of her, I do believe. Did it occur to you that if those two learned what you were doing to Hermione Granger, they might become less fond of you? They might not intervene openly, perhaps; but they might be a little slower to award you House Points, a little slower to steer opportunities your way -"

"Potter snarked on me?"

A ghostly chuckle, a dry heh-heh-heh. "Do you think those two are stupid, deaf and blind?" In a sadder whisper, "Do you think Hermione Granger is not precious to them, that they will not see her hurting? As they might have been fond of you once, their bright young Padma Patil, but you are throwing it away..."

Padma's throat was dry. She hadn't thought of that, not at all.

"I wonder how many people will end up caring for you, Padma Patil, on this path that you now tread. Is it worth that much, just to distance yourself further from your sister? To be the shadow to Parvati's light? Your deepest fear has always been to fall into harmony with her, back into harmony with her I should say; but is it worth hurting an innocent girl, just to make yourself that much more different? Must you be the evil twin, Padma Patil, can you not find a different good to pursue?"

Her heart was hammering in her chest. She'd, she'd never talked about that with anyone -

"I have always wondered at how students bully each other," sighed the voice. "How children make life difficult for themselves, how they turn their schools into prisons even with their own hands. Why do human beings make their own lives so unpleasant? I can give you a part of the answer, Padma Patil. It is because people do not stop and think before causing pain, if they do not imagine that they themselves could also be hurt, that they might also suffer from their own misdeeds. But suffer you will, oh, yes, Padma Patil, suffer you will, if you stay on this road. You will suffer the same pain of loneliness, the same pain of others' fear and distrust, that you now inflict on Hermione Granger. Only for you it will be deserved."

Her wand was shaking in her hand.

"You did not choose sides when you went to Ravenclaw, girl. You choose your side by the way you live your life, what you do to other people and what you do to yourself. Will you illuminate others' lives, or darken them? That is the choice between Light and Dark, not any word the Sorting Hat cries out. And the hard part, Padma Patil, is not saying 'Light', the hard part is deciding which is which, and admitting it to yourself when you begin down the wrong road."

There was silence. It went on for a time, and Padma realized that she had been dismissed.

Padma almost dropped her wand, when she tried to put it back into her pocket. She almost fell, when she took a step forward away from the wall, and turned to go -

"I have not always chosen rightly between Light and Dark," the whisper said, now loud and harsh directly into her ear. "Do not take my wisdom as a final word, girl, do not fear to question it, for though I tried I have sometimes failed, oh, yes, I have failed. But you are hurting a true innocent, and you will achieve none of your ambitions by doing so, it is not for any cunning plan. You are inflicting pain purely for the sake of the pleasure it brings you. I have not always chosen rightly between Light and Dark, but that I know for darkness, for certain. You are hurting an innocent girl, and escaping retribution only because she is too kindly to tolerate her allies moving against you. I cannot hurt you for that, so know only that I cannot respect it. You are unworthy of Slytherin; go and do your Herbology homework, Ravenclaw girl!"

The final whisper came out in a louder hiss that sounded almost like a snake, and Padma fled, she fled down the corridors like Lethifolds were chasing her, she ran heedless of the rules about running in the corridors, even when she passed other students who looked at her in surprise, she did not stop, she ran all the way to the Ravenclaw dorms with her pulse pounding in her neck, the door asked her "Why does the Sun shine in the day instead of the nighttime?" and it took her three tries before she could make her answer coherent, and then the door came open and she saw -

- a few girls and boys, some young and some old, all staring at her, and in one corner at the pentagonal table, Harry Potter and Michael Corner and Kevin Entwhistle, looking up from their textbooks.

"Sweet Merlin!" exclaimed Penelope Clearwater, rising from a couch. "What happened to you, Padma?"

"I," she stuttered, "I, I heard - a ghost -"

"It wasn't the Bloody Baron, was it?" said Clearwater. She drew her wand and a moment later she was holding a cup, and then an Aguamenti later the cup was filled with water. "Here, drink this, sit down -"

Padma was already striding toward the pentagonal table. She looked at Harry Potter, who was looking at her with his own gaze, calm and grave and a little sad.

" You did this!" Padma said. "How - you - how dare you!"

There was a sudden hush in the Ravenclaw dorm.

Harry just looked at her.

And said, "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Don't deny it," Padma said, her voice shaking, " you set that ghost on me, it said -"

"I mean it," Harry said. "Can I help you with anything? Get you some food, or go fetch a soda for you, or help you with your homework, or anything like that?"

Everyone was staring at the two of them.

"Why?" Padma said. She couldn't think of anything else to say, she didn't understand.

"Because some of us are standing on the precipice," Harry said. "And the difference is what you do for other people. Will you let me help you with something, Padma, please?"

She stared at him, and knew, in that moment, that he'd gotten his own warning, same as her.

"I..." she said. "I've got to write six inches on lomillialor -"

"Let me run up to my dorm room and get my Herbology stuff," Harry said. He rose from the pentagonal table, looked at Entwhistle and Corner. "Sorry, guys, I'll see you later."

They didn't say anything, just stared, along with everyone else in the dorm room, as Harry Potter walked over to the stairs.

And just as he started up, he said, "And no one's to pester her with questions unless she wants to talk about it, I hope everyone's got that? "

"Got it," said most of the first years and some of the older students, a few of them sounding quite scared.

And she talked about a lot of things with Harry Potter besides lomillialor wood - even her fear of falling back into harmony with Parvati, which she'd never talked about with anyone before, but then Harry's ghostly ally already knew. And Harry had reached into his pouch and pulled out some odd books, loaning them to her on condition of complete secrecy, saying that if she could comprehend those books it would change the pattern of her thinking enough that she'd never fall into harmony with Parvati again...

At nine o' clock, when Harry said he had to go, the essay was only half done.

And when Harry paused, and looked at her on the way out, and said that he thought she was worthy of Slytherin, it made her feel good for a whole minute before she realized what had just been said to her and who had said it.

When Padma got down to breakfast, that morning, she saw Mandy see her and whisper something to the girl sitting beside her at the Ravenclaw table.