Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

" St. Mungos? "

"- which said he had probably been overworking himself for weeks before he collapsed, such was his state of exhaustion. Your precious Defense Professor is fine, Minerva, the stunner may have helped him by forcing him to take a few days off. Afterward I declined the offer of a Floo to Hogwarts, and went back to Diagon Alley and wandered; but no one seems to have wanted Mr. Potter's blood today."

"Our Defense Professor is in the best of hands, I am sure," said Albus. "Greater matters command our attention, Minerva."

It took considerable effort for her to wrench her attention back, but she sat back down, and Severus gestured up a chair for himself as well, and the three of them drew together to begin their council.

She felt like a Polyjuiced impostor, sitting with those two. War was not her art, nor plotting. She had to strain to keep one step ahead of the Weasley twins, and sometimes she failed at that. She was sitting here, ultimately, only because she had heard the prophecy...

"We are faced," the Headmaster spoke first, "with a rather alarming mystery. I can think of only two wizards who might have engineered this escape."

Minerva drew in her breath sharply. "There is a chance it is not You-Know-Who?"

"I'm afraid so," said the Headmaster.

She glanced to her side and saw that Severus looked as puzzled as herself. Afraid the Dark Lord was not rising again? She would have given almost anything for that to be true.

"So," Albus said heavily. "Our first suspect is Voldemort, risen again and seeking to resurrect himself. I have studied many books I wish I had not read, seeking his every possible avenue of return, and I have found only three. His strongest road to life is the Philosopher's Stone, which Flamel assures me that not even Voldemort could create on his own; by that road he would rise greater and more terrible than ever before. I would not have thought Voldemort able to resist the temptation of the Stone, still less because such an obvious trap is a challenge to his wit. But his second avenue is nearly as strong: The flesh of his servant, willingly given; the blood of his foe, forcibly taken; and the bone of his ancestor, unknowingly bequeathed. Voldemort is a perfectionist -" Albus glanced at Severus, who nodded agreement, "- and he would certainly seek the most powerful combination: the flesh of Bellatrix Black, the blood of Harry Potter, and the bone of his father. Voldemort's final avenue is to seduce a victim and drain the life from them over a long period; in which case Voldemort would be weak compared to his former power. His motive to spirit away Bellatrix is clear. And if he is keeping her in reserve, to use only in case he cannot attain the Stone, that would explain why no kidnap attempt was made on Harry this day."

Minerva glanced again at Severus, saw him listening attentively but without surprise.

"What is not clear," the Headmaster continued, "is how Voldemort could have engineered this escape. A death doll was left in Bellatrix's place, her escape was meant to be undetected; and even though that went wrong, the Dementors could not find her after their first warning. Azkaban has stood impenetrable for centuries, and I cannot imagine any means by which Voldemort could have accomplished this."

"That may mean little," Severus said, expressionless. "For the Dark Lord to do what we cannot imagine requires only that he has a better imagination."

Albus nodded grimly. "Unfortunately there is now another wizard who laughs at impossibilities. A wizard who, not long ago, developed a new and powerful Charm which could have blinded the Dementors to Bellatrix Black's escape. And he is implicated for other reasons, as well."

Minerva's heart was skipping beats, she didn't know how, or why, but a terrible apprehension was dawning on her as to who -

"Who would that be?" said Severus, sounding puzzled.

Albus leaned back and said the fatal words, even as she had feared them: "Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres."

" Potter? " demanded the Potions Master, as much shock in that usually-silken voice as she had ever heard from him. "Headmaster, is this one of your jokes? He is in his first year at Hogwarts! A temper tantrum and a few childish pranks with an invisibility cloak does not make him -"

"It is no joke," said Minerva, her voice barely above a whisper. "Harry is already making original discoveries in Transfiguration, Severus. Though I did not know he was researching Charms as well."

"Harry is no ordinary first-year," the Headmaster said solemnly. "He is marked as the Dark Lord's equal, and he has power the Dark Lord knows not."

Severus was looking at her, and you would have needed to know him well to recognize that his glance was pleading. "Am I to take this seriously?"

Minerva simply nodded.

"Does anyone else know of this... new and powerful Charm?" Severus demanded.

The Headmaster glanced at her apologetically -

Somehow she knew, she knew before he even said it, and she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs.

- and said, "Quirinus Quirrell."

" Why, " she said, in a voice that should have melted half the devices in the office, " did Mr. Potter even TELL our Defense Professor about his brilliant new Charm for breaking out of prisons - "

The Headmaster passed a weary wrinkled hand across his equally wrinkled forehead. "Quirinus just happened to be there, Minerva. Even I saw no harm in it at the time." The Headmaster hesitated. "And Harry said his Charm was too dangerous to be explained to either of us; and when I asked him again, this day, he insisted he had still not explained it to Quirinus, nor had he ever dropped his Occlumency barriers in the Defense Professor's presence -"

"Mr. Potter is an Occlumens? You gave him an invisibility cloak and he is immune to Veritaserum and he is friends with the Weasley twins? Albus, do you have any idea what you have unleashed upon this school?" Her voice was nearly shrieking, now. "By his seventh year there won't be anything left of Hogwarts but a smoking hole in the ground!"

Albus leaned back in his great cushioned chair, and said, smiling, "Don't forget the Time-Turner."

She did scream then, but quietly.

Severus drawled, "Should I teach him to brew Polyjuice, Headmaster? I ask only for the sake of completeness, in case you are not satisfied with the magnitude of your pet disaster."

"Perhaps next year," said Albus. "My dearest friends, the question before us is whether Harry Potter has spirited Bellatrix Black out of Azkaban, which is more than youthful high spirits even by my tolerant standards."

"Excuse me, Headmaster," Severus said with one of the dryer smiles she had ever seen him deliver to Albus, "but I will register my opinion that the answer is no. This is the Dark Lord's work, pure and simple."

"Then why," Albus said, and now there was no humor at all in his voice, "when I planned to retrieve Harry immediately after his arrival in Diagon Alley, did I find that this would result in paradox?"

Minerva sank further back into her chair, dropped her left elbow onto the hard uncushioned armrest, leaned her head into her hand, and shut her eyes in despair.

There was a narrowly circulated proverb to the effect that only one Auror in thirty was qualified to investigate cases involving Time-Turners; and that of those few, the half who weren't already insane, soon would be.

"So you suspect," Severus's voice was saying, "that Potter went from Diagon Alley to Azkaban, then looped back to Diagon Alley afterward to be picked up by us -"

"Precisely," said Albus's voice. "Though it is also possible that Voldemort or his servants watched to make sure Harry did arrive in Diagon Alley, before they began their attempt on Azkaban. And that they had someone with a Time-Turner who would send back the message of their success, to trigger the abduction. Indeed, it was my suspicion of this possibility that caused me to dispatch you and Minerva on your own mission, before I myself went to Azkaban. I thought then that their breakout would fail, but if retrieving Harry Potter meant observing the fact of their eventual failure, then I myself could not have gone to Azkaban after I had interacted with him, for Azkaban's future cannot touch its past. When, in Azkaban, I received no report from you or Minerva, nor from Flitwick whom I told to try contacting you, I knew that your interaction with Harry Potter had been an interaction with Azkaban's future, meaning that someone was sending messages through Time -"