Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

A man lay on the bed.

“Listen carefully,” Professor Quirrell whispered. “I will tell you a conundrum… a riddle of a dangerous spell… when you know the answer to that puzzle… you will also know… the answer to your question… are you listening?”

Harry nodded.

“There is a limitation… to the Killing Curse. To cast it once… in a fight… you must hate enough… to want the other dead. To cast Avada… Kedavra twice… you must hate enough… to kill twice… to cut their throat with your own hands… to watch them die… then do it again. Very few… can hate enough… to kill someone… five times… they would… get bored.” The Defense Professor breathed several times, before continuing. “But if you look at history… you will find some Dark Wizards… who could cast the Killing Curse… over and over. A nineteenth-century witch… who called herself Dark Evangel… the Aurors called her A. K. McDowell. She could cast the Killing Curse… a dozen times… in one fight. Ask yourself… as I asked myself… what is the secret… that she knew? What is deadlier than hate… and flows without limit?”

A second level to the Avada Kedavra spell, just like with the Patronus Charm… “I don’t really care,” Harry answered.

The Defense Professor chuckled wetly. “Good. You are… learning. So you see…” A pause of transformation. “ I did not wissh guard dead, after all.

Casst Killing Cursse, but not with hate. ” And then a man.

Harry swallowed hard. It was both better, and worse, than what Harry had suspected; and characteristic enough of Professor Quirrell. A cracked soul, for certain; but Professor Quirrell had never claimed to be

whole.

“Any else… to say?” said the man in the bed.

“Are you absolutely sure,” Harry said, “that there is nothing you’ve ever heard of that might save you, Professor? In all your lore? Finding and uniting all three Deathly Hallows, an ancient artifact that Merlin sealed behind a riddle nobody’s ever figured out? You’ve seen some of what I can do. That I’m good at solving riddles. You know I can figure things out, sometimes, that other wizards can’t. I—” Harry’s voice broke. “I have a strong preference for your life, over your death, Professor Quirrell.” There was a long pause.

“One thing,” whispered Professor Quirrell. “One thing… that might do it… or it might not… but to obtain it… is beyond your power, or mine…” Oh, it was just the setup for a subquest, said Harry’s Inner Critic.

All the other parts screamed for that part to shut up. Life didn’t work like that. Ancient artifacts could be found, but not in a month, not when you couldn’t leave Hogwarts and were still in your first year.

Professor Quirrell took in a deep breath. Exhaled. “I’m sorry… that came out… too dramatic. Do not… get your hopes up… Mr. Potter. You asked… for anything… no matter how unlikely. There is… a certain object… called…”

A snake lay on the bed.

“ The Philossopher'ss Sstone, ” hissed the snake.

If there’d been a mass-manufacturable means of safe immortality this entire time and nobody had bothered, Harry was going to snap and kill everyone.

“ I read of it in a book, ”Harry hissed. “ Concluded it wass obviouss myth. No reason why ssame device would provide immortality and endlesss gold. Not unlesss ssomeone wass jusst inventing happy sstoriess. Not to mention, every ssane persson sshould have been ressearching wayss to make more Sstoness, or kidnapping maker to produce. Thought of you sspecifically, teacher. ”

A hissing of cold laughter. “ Reassoning iss wisse, but not wisse enough. Like with horcrux sspell, abssurdity hidess true ssecret. True Sstone iss not what that legend ssayss. True power iss not what sstoriess claim. Sstone's ssuppossed maker wass not one who made it. One who holdss it now, wass not born to name now ussed. Yet

Sstone iss powerful healing device in truth. Have you heard it sspoken of ? ”

“ Jusst in the book. ”

“ OnewhoholdssSstoneissrepossitoryofmuchlore. Taughtsschoolmasstermany ssecretss. SschoolmassterhassssaidnothingofSstone'ssholder,nothingofSstone? No hintss? ”

“ Not that I can eassily recall, ” Harry replied honestly.

“ Ah, ”hissed the snake. “ Ah, well. ”

“ Could assk sschoolmasster —”

“ No! Do not assk him, boy. He would not take quesstion well. ”

“ But if the Sstone only healss —”

“ Sschoolmasster doess not believe that, would not believe that. Too many have ssought Sstone, or ssought holder's lore. Do not assk. Musst not assk. Do not try to obtain Sstone yoursself. I forbid. ”

A man lay on the bed once more. “I am at… my limit…” said Professor Quirrell. “I must regain… my strength… before I go… to the forest… with your gift. Leave now… but sustain the Transfiguration… before you go.”

Harry reached out, touched the white pebble lying within the kerchief, renewing the Transfiguration on it. “It should last for one hour and fiftythree minutes after this,” Harry said.

“Your studies… do well.”

It was far longer than Harry’s Transfigurations had lasted at the start of the school year. Second-year spells came to him easily now, without strain; which wasn’t surprising, since he would be twelve in less than two months. Harry could even have cast a Memory Charm, if it had been good for someone to forget every memory involving their left arm. He was climbing the power ladder, slowly, from very far down.

The thought came with a potential for sadness, a thought of one door opening as another closed; which Harry also rejected.

The door to the infirmary closed behind Harry, as the Boy-Who-Lived walked swiftly and with purpose, shrugging on his Invisibility Cloak as he moved. Soon, presumably, Professor Quirrell would call for assistance; and an older student trio would guide the Defense Professor into some quiet place, maybe the forest, with an excuse of viewing the lake or some such. Someplace the Defense Professor could eat a unicorn undetected, after Harry’s Transfiguration wore off.

And then Professor Quirrell would be healthier, for a time. His power would return to him as strong as he’d ever been, for a much shorter time.

It wouldn’t last.

Harry’s fists clenched as he strode, the tension radiating up his arm muscles. If the Defense Professor’s treatment regimen hadn’t been interrupted, by Harry and the Aurors that he had brought to Hogwarts…

It was stupid to blame himself, Harry knew it was stupid and somehow his brain was doing it anyway. Like his brain was searching, carefully finding and selecting some way for this to be his fault, no matter how far it had to stretch.

As if having things be his fault were the only way that his brain knew how to grieve.

A trio of seventh-year Slytherins passed Harry’s invisible form in the hallway, heading for the healer’s offices where the Professor waited, looking deeply serious and concerned. Was that how other people grieved?

Or did they, on some level, not really care, as Professor Quirrell thought?

There is a second level to the Killing Curse.

Harry’s brain had solved the riddle instantly, in the moment of first hearing it; as though the knowledge had always been inside him, waiting to make itself known.

Harry had read once, somewhere, that the opposite of happiness wasn’t sadness, but boredom; and the author had gone on to say that to find happiness in life you asked yourself not what would make you happy, but what would excite you. And by the same reasoning, hatred wasn’t the true opposite of love. Even hatred was a kind of respect that you could give to someone’s existence. If you cared about someone enough to prefer their dying to their living, it meant you were thinking about them.