Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

JUST BUY A CLOCK

2 : 06 : 47

Beneath it was a Snitch, with a blinking red X over it.

Second, after second, after second, the time counter incremented.

As that counter rose higher, there seemed to be an awful lot of Hufflepuffs who’d decided that they wanted to sit next to Harry’s banner.

As the game dragged on past nine, there also seemed to be a lot of

Gryffindors.

As the sun set and Harry started using Lumos to read his books—he’d given up on the actual game a long time ago—there were a noticeable number of Ravenclaws who’d betrayed patriotism for sanity.

And Professor Sinistra.

And Professor Vector.

And as the stars began to come out, Professor Flitwick.

The climactic final Quidditch game of the year… dragged on.

One of the things Harry hadn’t planned on, when he’d decided to do this, was that he would still be out here at—Harry glanced at his watch— eleven-oh-four at night. Harry was now reading a sixth-year Transfiguration textbook; or rather he’d weighted the book open, illuminated by a Muggle glowstick, while he did one of the exercises. Last week, when the graduating Ravenclaws were discussing their N.E.W.T. scores, Harry had overheard that upper-year Transfiguration practice involved several ‘shaping exercises’ that relied more on control and precise thinking than raw power; and Harry had promptly set out to learn those, whacking himself hard on the forehead for not trying to read all the later-year textbooks earlier. Professor McGonagall had approved Harry doing a shaping exercise that involved controlling the way in which a Transfiguring object approached its final form—for example, Transfiguring a quill so that the shaft grew out first, then the barbs. Harry was doing an analogous exercise with pencils, growing out the lead first, then surrounding it with wood and finally having the eraser form on top. As Harry had suspected, focusing his attention and magic into a particular part of the pencil’s ongoing transformation had proven similar to the mental discipline used in partial Transfiguration—which could indeed have been used to fake the same effect, by partially Transfiguring only the outer layers of the object. This way was proving relatively easier, though.

Harry finished his current pencil and looked up at the Quidditch game, which was, check, still fantastically boring. Lee Jordan was commentating in a tone of dull disgust, “Another ten points—yay— whoopee—and now someone takes possession of the Quaffle again—ask if I care who.”

Almost nobody remaining in the stands was paying attention either, since everyone who’d remained in the stadium seemed to have discovered a new and more interesting sport, the debate about how to amend the House Cup rules and/or Quidditch. The argument had become heated to the point where all of the nearby Professors were barely keeping order at a level short of open combat. This argument, unfortunately, had considerably more than two factions. Some darned busybodies were proposing sensible-sounding alternatives to eliminating the Snitch entirely, and this was threatening to split the vote and sap the momentum for reform.

In retrospect, Harry thought, it would have been nice to have Draco unfurl his own banner from the Slytherin side saying ‘SNITCHES ARE AWESOME’, to set the polarity of the debate. Harry had squinted over at the Slytherin section earlier, but he hadn’t been able to spot Draco anywhere in the stands. Severus Snape, who could also have been sympathetic enough to play the villainous opposition, was likewise nowhere to be seen.

“Mr. Potter?” said a voice next to him.

Beside Harry’s seat was standing a short but older Hufflepuff boy, someone who’d never before come to Harry’s attention, holding out a blank parchment envelope with wax dripped on the front. The wax was also blank, without impression.

“What is it?” said Harry.

“It’s me ,” said the boy. “With the envelope you gave me. I know you said not to talk to you, but—”

“Then don’t talk to me,” Harry said.

The boy tossed the envelope at Harry and walked away, looking offended. It made Harry wince a little, but it probably hadn’t been the wrong decision considering the temporal issues…

Then Harry broke the unsigned wax seal and drew out the envelope’s contents. It was parchment instead of the Muggle paper that Harry would have expected, but the writing on it was his own handwriting, if done with a quill instead of a pen. The parchment said:

Beware the constellation, and help the watcher of stars.

Pass unseen by the life-eaters’ confederates, and by the wise and the well-meaning.

Six, and seven in a square, in the place that is prohibited and bloody stupid.

Harry took it in at a glance, then folded the paper again and put it back into his cloak with another exhaled sigh. ‘Beware the constellation’, really? Harry would have expected a riddle left by himself, to himself, to have been easier to interpret… though some parts were obvious enough. Clearly future-Harry had been worried about this paper being intercepted, and while present-Harry wouldn’t ordinarily have thought of the local Aurors as ‘the ones in league with the Dementors of Azkaban’, maybe that had been the best way to say ‘Auror’ without potentially tipping off anyone else who read the parchment and did their own best to decrypt it. Translating the idiom back out of the Parseltongue he’d used during the Incident with Azkaban… that worked, Harry supposed.

The note had said that Professor Quirrell needed help, and that whatever was going on needed to pass unnoticed from the Aurors, and from Dumbledore and McGonagall and Flitwick. Since Time-Turning was involved already, the obvious solution was to leave for the loo, travel back in time, and return to the game right after he’d left.

Harry started to rise from his seat, then hesitated. His Hufflepuff side was remarking something about leaving the Auror escorts behind and not telling Professor McGonagall anything, and wondering if his future self was being stupid .

Harry unfolded the parchment again, and took another glance at the contents.

On closer examination, the riddle-verse didn’t say that Harry couldn’t bring anyone along. Draco Malfoy… was he missing from the Quidditch game because future-Harry, hours in the past, had brought Draco with him as backup? But that didn’t make sense, there wasn’t much marginal improvement in safety from bringing along another first-year…

…Draco Malfoy would certainly have been present, regardless of his personal feelings about Quidditch, to watch Slytherin clinch the House Cup. Had something happened to him?

Suddenly Harry didn’t feel as tired anymore.

A trickle of adrenaline was starting to rise in Harry, but no, this wouldn’t be like the troll. The message had told Harry when to arrive.

Harry wouldn’t be too late, not this time.

Harry glanced over at where Cedric Diggory was looking back and forth, visibly torn between a clutch of Ravenclaws arguing that the Snitch had to be kept because it was traditional and rules were rules, and a pack of Hufflepuffs saying that it wasn’t fair for the Seeker to be more important than the other players.

Cedric Diggory had been an excellent dueling tutor to Harry and Neville, and Harry had thought they’d established a good relationship. More importantly, a student taking literally all of the electives would have his own Time-Turner. Maybe Harry could try to get Cedric to go back in time with him? The Super Hufflepuff seemed like a good spare wand to have by your side in any sort of sticky situation…

Later, and earlier:

Harry’s watch now said 11:45, which translated into 6:45pm after looping back five hours.