Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The old wizard's eyes widened where he stared at the boy with a phoenix upon his shoulder. "Harry... are those your words, or the Defense Professor's -"

"Because there has to be some point, doesn't there? And if it's not Azkaban, where is it, then?"

"Harry, listen, please, hear me! Wizards could not live together if they each declared rebellion against the whole, every time they differed! Always there will be something -"

" Azkaban is not just something! It's evil! "

"Yes, even evil! Even some evils, Harry, for wizards are not perfectly good! And yet it is better that we live in peace, than in chaos; and for you and I to break Azkaban by force would be the beginning of chaos , can you not see it?" The old wizard's voice was pleading. "And it is possible to oppose the will of your fellows openly or in secret, without hating them, without declaring them evil and enemy! I do not think the people of this country deserve that of you, Harry! And even if some of them did - what of the children, what of the students in Hogwarts, what of the many good people mixed in with the bad?"

Harry looked on his shoulder at where Fawkes had perched, saw the phoenix's eyes gazing back at him, they did not glow and yet they blazed, red flames in a sea of golden fire.

What do you think, Fawkes?

"Caw?" said the phoenix.

Fawkes didn't understand the conversation.

The young boy looked at the old wizard, and said in a thick voice, "Or maybe the phoenixes are wiser than us, smarter than us, maybe they follow us around hoping that someday we'll listen to them, someday we'll get it, someday we'll just take , the prisoners, out, of their cells - "

Harry spun and pulled open the oaken door and stepped onto the staircase and slammed the door behind him.

The stairwell began rotating, Harry began descending, and he put his face in his hands, and began to weep.

It wasn't until he was halfway to the bottom that he noticed the difference, noticed the warmth still spreading through him, and realized that -

"Fawkes?" Harry whispered.

- the phoenix was still on his shoulder, perched there as he had seen him a few times upon Dumbledore's.

Harry looked again into the eyes, red flames in golden fire.

"You're not my phoenix now... are you?"

Caw!

"Oh," Harry said, his voice trembling a little, "I'm glad to hear that, Fawkes, because I don't think - the Headmaster - I don't think he deserves -"

Harry stopped, took a breath.

"I don't think he deserves that, Fawkes, he was trying to do the right thing..."

Caw!

"But you're angry at him and trying to make a point. I understand."

The phoenix nestled his head against Harry's shoulder, and the stone gargoyle walked smoothly aside to let Harry pass back into the corridors of Hogwarts.

Aftermath, Hermione Granger:

She was just starting to close up her books and put away her homework in preparation for sleep, Padma and Mandy stacking up their own books across the table from her, when Harry Potter walked into the Ravenclaw common room; and it was only then that she realized, she hadn't seen him at all since breakfast.

That realization was rapidly stomped-on by a much more startling one.

There was a golden-red winged creature on Harry's shoulder, a bright bird of fire.

And Harry looked sad and worn and really tired like the phoenix was the only thing keeping him on his feet, but there was still a warmth about him, if you crossed your eyes you might have thought you were looking at the Headmaster somehow, that was the impression that went through Hermione's mind even though it didn't make any sense.

Harry Potter trudged across the Ravenclaw common room, past sofas full of staring girls, past cardgame-circles of staring boys, heading for her.

In theory she wasn't talking to Harry Potter yet, his week wasn't up until tomorrow, but whatever was going on was clearly a whole lot more important than that -

"Fawkes," Harry said, just as she was opening her mouth, "that girl over there is Hermione Granger, she's not talking to me right now because I'm an idiot, but if you want to be on a good person's shoulder she's better than me."

So much exhaustion and hurt in Harry Potter's voice -

But before she could figure out what to do about it, the phoenix had glided off Harry's shoulder like a fire creeping up a matchstick on fast-forward, flashing toward her; there was a phoenix flying in front of her and staring at her with eyes of light and flame.

" Caw? " asked the phoenix.

Hermione stared at it, feeling like she was facing a question on a test she'd forgotten to study for, the one most important question and she'd gone her whole life without studying for it, she couldn't find anything to say.

"I'm -" she said. "I'm only twelve, I haven't done anything yet -"

The phoenix just glided gently around, rotating around one wingtip like the being of light and air that it was, and soared back to Harry Potter's shoulder, where it settled down quite firmly.

"You silly boy," said Padma across from her, looking like she was deciding whether to laugh or grimace, "phoenixes aren't for smart girls who do their homework, they're for idiots who charge straight at five older Slytherin bullies. There's a reason why the Gryffindor colors are red and gold, you know."

There was a lot of friendly laughter in the Ravenclaw common room.

Hermione wasn't one of the laughing ones.

Neither was Harry.

Harry had put a hand over his face. "Tell Hermione I'm sorry," he said to Padma, his voice almost fallen to a whisper. "Tell her I forgot that phoenixes are animals, they don't understand time and planning, they don't understand people who are going to do good things later - I'm not sure they understand really the notion of there being something that a person is , all they see is what people do. Fawkes doesn't know what twelve means. Tell Hermione I'm sorry - I shouldn't have - it just all goes wrong, doesn't it?"

Harry turned to go, the phoenix still on his shoulder, began slowly trudging toward the staircase that led up to his dorm.

And Hermione couldn't leave it at that, she just couldn't leave it at that. She didn't know if it was her competition with Harry or something else. She just couldn't leave it with the phoenix turning away from her.

She had to -

Her mind keyed a frantic question to the entirety of her excellent memory, found just one thing -

"I was going to run in front of the Dementor to try and save Harry!" she shouted a little desperately at the red-golden bird. "I mean, I actually did start running and everything! That was stupid and courageous, right?"

With a warbling cry the phoenix launched itself from Harry's shoulder again, back toward her like a spreading blaze, it circled her three times like she was the center of an inferno, and for just a moment its wing brushed against her cheek, before the phoenix soared back to Harry.

There was a hush in the Ravenclaw common room.

"Told you so," Harry said aloud, and then he started climbing the stairs up to his bedroom; he seemed to climb very quickly, like he was very light on his feet for some reason, so that in just a moment he and Fawkes were gone.

Hermione held up a trembling hand to her cheek where Fawkes had brushed her with his wing, a spot of warmth lingering there like that one small patch of skin had been very gently set on fire.

She'd answered the question of the phoenix, she supposed, but it felt to her like she'd just barely squeaked by on the test, like she'd gotten a 62 and she could've gotten 104 if she'd tried harder.