Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Professor Quirrell finished, and moved on to Tracey Davis, then the three Aurors, and finally Professor McGonagall. Harry waited, but future Harry made no protest. It was possible that even Professor McGonagall, if she’d been awake, wouldn’t have protested. It was not yet the Ides of May, and apparently there would be a surprisingly good explanation.

With a gesture, Draco’s stunned body was lifted, and sent a short distance into the woods, before being carefully deposited on the ground. Then a final gesture from Professor Quirrell ripped a huge chunk out of the unicorn’s side, leaving behind ragged edges; the raw meat hovered in the air, then wavered in Vanishment and was gone.

“Done,” Professor Quirrell said. “I must depart this place now, Mr. Potter. Come with me, and remain here.”

Professor Quirrell strode away, and Harry followed and remained behind.

They walked through the woods in silence for a time, before Harry heard faint voices in the distance. The next set of Aurors, presumably, after the first set had fallen out of contact. What his future self was saying, Harry didn’t know.

“They won’t detect us, nor hear our speech,” said Professor Quirrell. The sense of power and doom around the Defense Professor was still strong. The man seated himself on a tree stump, one where the light of the almost-full moon fell full on him. “I should first say that when you speak to the Aurors, in the future, you should tell them that you frightened away the seething dark, the same as you did that Dementor. It is what Mr. Malfoy will remember seeing.” Professor Quirrell gave a small sigh. “It may cause some alarm, if they conclude that some horror kin to Dementors, and strong enough to break the Aurors’ shields, is loose in the Forbidden Forest. But I could not think of what else to do. If the forest is better-guarded after this—but with any luck I have already consumed what I need. Would you mind telling me how you arrived so quickly? How did you know Mr. Malfoy was in trouble?”

After Captain Brodski had learned that Draco Malfoy was in the Forbidden Forest, seemingly in the company of Rubeus Hagrid, Brodski had begun inquiring to find out who had authorized this, and had still been unable to find out when Draco Malfoy had missed check-in. Despite

Harry’s protests, the Auror Captain, who was authorized to know about

Time-Turners, had refused to allow deployment to before the time of the missed check-in; there were standard procedures involving Time. But Brodski had given Harry written orders allowing him to go back and deploy an Auror trio to arrive one second after the missed check-in time. There had been a Patronus Charm to locate Draco, which Harry had successfully willed to take the form of a ball of pure silver light, and the flight of Aurors had arrived on time to the second.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t say,” Harry replied evenly. Professor Quirrell was still a major suspect, and it was good for him not to know the details.

“Now why are you eating unicorns?”

“Ah,” Professor Quirrell said. “As to that…” The man hesitated. “I was drinking the blood of unicorns, not eating them. The missing flesh, the ragged marks upon the body—those were to obscure the case, to make it seem like some other predator. The use of unicorn’s blood is too wellknown.”

“I don’t know it,” Harry said.

“I know you do not,” the Defense Professor said sharply. “Or you would not be pestering me about it. The power of unicorn’s blood is to preserve your life for a time, even if you are on the very verge of death.”

There was a stretch of time when Harry’s brain claimed to be refusing to process the words, which was of course a lie, because you couldn’t know the meaning you weren’t allowed to process, without having already processed it.

A strange sense of blankness overtook Harry, an absence of reaction, maybe this was what other people felt like when someone went off-script, and they couldn’t say or think of anything to do.

Of course Professor Quirrell was dying, not just occasionally ill.

Professor Quirrell had known he was dying. He’d volunteered to take the Defense Professor position at Hogwarts, after all.

Of course he’d been getting worse the whole school year. Of course illnesses which kept getting worse had a predictable destination at their end.

Harry’s brain had surely known already, somewhere in the safe back of his mind where he could refuse to process things he’d already processed.

Of course that was why Professor Quirrell wouldn’t be able to teach Battle Magic next year. Professor McGonagall wouldn’t even have to fire him. He would just be— —dead.

“No,” Harry said, his voice a little shaky. “There has to be a way—”

“I am not stupid nor particularly eager to die. I have already looked. I had to go this far simply to last out my lesson plans, having less time than I had thought, and—” The head of the dark moonlit figure turned away.

“I think I do not want to hear about it, Mr. Potter.”

Harry’s breath hitched. Too many emotions were bubbling up in him at once. After denial came anger, according to a ritual someone had just made up. And yet it seemed surprisingly appropriate.

“And why—” Harry’s breath hitched again. “Why isn’t unicorn’s blood standard in healer’s kits, then? To keep someone alive, even if they’re on the very verge of dying from their legs being eaten?”

“Because there are permanent side effects,” Professor Quirrell said quietly.

“Side effects? Side effects? What kind of side effect is medically worse than DEATH? ” Harry’s voice rose on the last word until he was shouting.

“Not everyone thinks the same way we do, Mr. Potter. Though, to be fair, the blood must come from a live unicorn and the unicorn must die in the drinking. Would I be here otherwise?”

Harry turned, stared at the surrounding trees. “Have a herd of unicorns at St. Mungos. Floo the patients there, or use portkeys.”

“Yes, that would work.”

Harry’s face tightened, the only outward sign behind his trembling hands of everything that was welling up inside him. He needed to scream, needed some outlet, needed something he couldn’t name and finally Harry leveled his wand at a tree and shouted “ Diffindo! ”

There was a sharp tearing sound, and a cut appeared across the wood.

“ Diffindo! ”

Another cut. Harry had learned the Charm only ten days previously, after he’d started getting serious about self-defense. It was theoretically a second-year Charm, but the anger pouring through him seemed to know no bounds, he knew enough now not to exhaust himself and he still had power yet.

“ Diffindo! ” Harry had aimed at a branch this time, and it plummeted to the ground with a sound of twigs and leaves.

There didn’t seem to be any tears inside him, only pressure with no outlet.

“I shall leave you to it,” Professor Quirrell said quietly. The Defense Professor rose from his tree stump, the unicorn’s blood still moonlit on the black cloak he wore, and drew his hood back over his head.

Harry stood, panting, in the midst of a brief wasted circle amid the forest, more destruction than a first-year should have been able to reach, by himself. The Severing Charm wouldn’t bring down a tree, so he’d started partially Transfiguring cross-sections through the wood. It hadn’t let out what was inside him, bringing down a small circle of trees hadn’t made him feel any better, all the emotions were still there but while he was destroying trees he at least wasn’t thinking about how the feelings couldn’t be let out.