Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The pipe branched in a Y-shape, then branched again. The Dark Lord went left, then right.

The pipe came to a solid metal wall. “ Open, ” the Dark Lord hissed, and a crack appeared in the metal; it seemed to fold into itself.

Beyond was the middle of a long, stone tunnel.

“We shall be walking a while,” said the Dark Lord. “Did you have more questions to ask, little child?”

“I—I can’t think of any—right now—”

Another cold laugh replied to this, and they walked into the tunnel, turning right.

Harry didn’t know, then or ever, how long he walked; the light of burning spiderwebs was too dim to read his mechanical watch, and Harry had not thought to look at the time before entering. It felt like they walked for miles, miles beneath the ground.

Slowly, Harry’s mind tried to recover itself a final time. Very possibly final, if he was right about the Dark Lord killing him after this… though the Dark Lord had said that he would resurrect Hermione, which seemed pointless if that was true… was that simply the Dark Lord following through on a promise he would not otherwise have been able to make in Parseltongue… why had he not just shot Harry on the spot…

Seriously, some last functioning part of his brain said to all the other parts, this would be a good time to think of something, something that the Dark Lord has not already thought of, something we can do without our pouch or our wand or our Time-Turner, something that Professor Quirrell has not imagined we can do… think, think, pretty pretty please think of something? Don’t shut down now, even if you’re scared, even if we’ve never really really faced death before in the sense of being about to die in the next hour, THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO

SHUT DOWN—

Harry’s mind stayed blank.

Suppose, said that last remaining part, suppose we try to condition on the fact that we win this, or at least get out of this alive. If someone TOLD YOU AS A FACT that you had survived, or even won, somehow made everything turn out okay, what would you think had happened—

Not legitimate procedure, whispered Ravenclaw, the universe doesn’t work like that, we’re just going to die.

Someone realises we’re missing, thought Hufflepuff, and Mad-Eye Moody shows up with a squad of Aurors and rescues us. I think the time has come to admit

we’re not more competent than the standard authorities.

The saving factor does have to be something we do somehow, said the last voice. Otherwise there’s no point in our thinking about it.

Problem two, said Gryffindor. Harry Potter isn’t missing, he’s right there at the Quidditch match where everyone can see him. Professor Quirrell thought of that too, it’s part of why he sent that fake note. Problem three. I don’t think MadEye Moody and an Auror squad can beat the Dark Lord, and certainly not before he kills us. I’m not sure the entire DMLE can beat the Dark Lord if he’s fighting seriously and Dumbledore is gone. Problem four. The Quidditch match was not disrupted, that’s probably the only reason why Professor Quirrell was willing to try something as complicated as bringing us along on this trip in the first place.

Thinking along different lines, ventured Slytherin, maybe Professor Quirrell calls in someone else to Memory-Charm us . Legilimency, Imperius, Confundus, who knows what else, we’re not a perfect Occlumens. Then the Dark Lord would have a smart—well, sort-of smart lieutenant that he could use. That could be another reason why Professor Quirrell was so willing to tell us secrets, if he knew that the memory would disappear. It’s also a reason to leave the Hogwarts wards, so the Dark Lord can call Bellatrix to Apparate in and do the work…

This entire reasoning process is illegitimate and I refuse to participate, said Ravenclaw.

What lovely last words, said the last voice. Now shut up and think.

Rough stone tunnel went by underfoot, Harry’s shoes sometimes dipping into moisture or nearly slipping on a curved surface. The neurons in his brain, which kept on firing, imagined voices talking to each other, yelling at each other, even as the Listener stayed numb with horror and shame.

Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were conducting a debate about suicide by charging the Dark Lord’s gun, or by swallowing the little jewel on Harry’s steel ring. It seemed unclear whether the fate of the world was better or worse if the Dark Lord had Harry as a mind-slave; if the Dark Lord was going to win anyway, it might be better if he won faster.

And the last voice kept talking through it all; even in the depths of failure that last voice remained. What else did the Dark Lord always say in human speech and never in Parseltongue? Do we remember? Anything like that, anything at all?

It was all too distant in time, too distant in time even though it had all happened this very day. The Dark Lord had told him in Parseltongue just now that it was time to revive Hermione, and then he’d said other things all in English, Harry could hardly remember for all that they’d just been spoken. Before then… before then there’d been the Circle of Concealment, when Professor Quirrell had hissed that the barrier would explode if touched. And the Defense Professor had said in English for Harry not to take off his Cloak or try crossing the Circle, said in English that the resonance might strike Professor Quirrell afterwards but Harry would be dead. Said in English that if Harry touched the magic and Professor Quirrell didn’t remember how to halt the resonance, it would kill them both…

Suppose it doesn’t kill us both, said the last voice. On Halloween in Godric’s Hollow, the Dark Lord’s body was burned and we only ended up with a scar on our forehead. Suppose the resonance between us is deadlier to the Dark Lord than to us. What if this entire time we’ve been able to kill the Dark Lord at any time, just by dashing forward and touching our hands to any part of his exposed skin? And then it makes our scar bleed again, but that’s all. The sense of ‘stop, don’t do that’ is inherited from the Dark Lord’s worst memory of his mistake in Godric’s Hollow, it may not actually apply to the Boy-Who-Lived.

A small note of hope rose.

Rose, and was quashed.

The Dark Lord can just throw away his wand, droned Ravenclaw. Professor Quirrell can turn into his Animagus form. Even if he dies the Dark Lord will possess someone else and return, and then torture our parents, to punish us.

We might be able to get to our parents in time, said the last voice. We might

be able to hide them. We might be able to get the Philosopher’s Stone away from the Dark Lord if we killed his current body now, and that Stone could provide the nucleus of a counter-army.

The Dark Lord was moving on through the stony corridor. His hand still held the gun. He was at least four meters away from Harry.

If we dart forward, he will sense us approaching through the resonance, said Hufflepuff. He will fly forward rapidly, he can do that, he has the broomstickenchantments that let him fly. He will fly forward, turn around, and fire the gun. He knows about the resonance, he’s thought of this already. This is not something the Dark Lord has failed to consider. He will be ready for it, and waiting.

Continuing the same line of argument, said the last voice. Suppose we can freely cast magic on Professor Quirrell but he can’t cast it on us.

Why would that be true? demanded Ravenclaw. In fact, we have evidence that it’s false. In Azkaban, when Professor Quirrell’s Avada Kedavra hit our Patronus Charm, it felt like our head was splitting apart—