Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

“I don’t understand what is happening,” Harry said. There was nothing else left. “Please explain to me.”

The Dark Lord was now regarding Harry with a grim look. “ When girl-child died, wass in company of sschool'ss Sseer, heard prophecy sspoken that you

would become force of vasst desstruction. You would become threat beyond imagina-

tion, beyond apocalypsse. That iss why I went to ssuch lengthss to undo my killing of girl-child, keep it undone. ”

“Are,” what “are you sure,” what.

“ Dare not ssay sspecificss to you. Prophecy I heard of mysself led me to fulfill it.

Have not forgotten that dissasster. ” Voldemort backed further away from Harry, red slitted eyes fixed upon the Boy-Who-Lived, gun unwavering in the left hand. “ All thiss, all I have done, iss to ssmassh that desstiny at every point of intervention. If ssome fate makess me fail in what comess next, idiot-child of foretold desstruction, then you musst kill yoursself to ssave girl-child. Elsse all you claim to value diess by your own hand. ”

“I,” Harry’s voice went up an octave, “I,” another octave, “I really really wouldn’t do that, seriously! ”

“ Ssilence, fool. Remain ssilent unlesss given leave by me to sspeak. Keep your wand pointed down and do not raisse it unlesss told. Elsse you die upon the sspot, and mark that I ssaid that in Parsseltongue. ” Voldemort reached into the altar again.

For a second Harry’s mind couldn’t process what he was seeing, and then he saw that Voldemort was holding a human arm, severed near the shoulder; it seemed too thin, that arm.

The Dark Lord pressed his wand to the flesh above the severed arm’s elbow, and the fingers twitched, twitched like they were alive; by dim moonlight Harry saw a darker mark appear on that flesh, just above the elbow.

Seconds later the first hooded figure appeared inside the graveyard with the popping sound of an Apparition. A moment after that came another pop, and then another.

The hooded figures wore silver skull masks, and moonlight fled from the robes beneath them.

“Master!” cried one of the black robes, the third to arrive. The voice was of peculiar timbre, from behind the silver skull mask. “Master—it has been so long—we had lost hope—”

“Silence!” shouted the high voice of the Dark Lord Voldemort. Every trace of Professor Quirrell was now gone from the too-tall figure. “Train your wand upon the Boy-Who-Lived, and watch him! Do not be distracted, not by anything! Stun him at once if he moves, if he begins to speak!”

More pops. Between graves, behind a tree, in all the shadowy spaces, more black robes were Apparating, all hooded and masked. Some of them voiced exclamations of joy, many of those sounding rather forced; others moved forwards as though to greet their Master. Voldemort gave them all the same instruction, except that some were commanded to Cruciate Harry Potter if he moved, others to restrain the Boy-Who-Lived if he moved, others told to fire hexes and curses, others told to cancel his magic.

Thirty-seven pops, Harry counted before the black robes and skull masks seemed to stop arriving.

All of them were now holding their wands pointed at Harry, aligned in a semicircle before him, where they wouldn’t get into each other’s lines of fire.

Harry continued pointing his wand downward, insofar as he had been told that, if he tried to raise it, he would die. He remained silent, insofar as he had been told that if he tried to speak, he would die. He tried not to shiver in the falling night temperatures, for he was naked, and it was getting colder.

You know, said the last voice within Harry, the voice of hope, I think this is getting pretty bad even by my standards.

The gibbous moon riding higher in the cloudless sky, the stars and wash of the Milky Way visible in all their majesty within the darkness: All these illuminated thirty-seven skull masks gleaming above black robes, and the darker-clad Lord Voldemort, whose eyes shone red.

“Welcome, my Death Eaters,” spoke Lord Voldemort’s voice, smooth and high and terrible. “No, do not look at me, you fools! Eyes upon the Potter child! Ten years, it has been, ten years since we last met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday…” The Dark Lord Voldemort came near to one hooded figure, tapped fingers upon the mask. “In a hastily Transfigured mockery of a Death Eater’s true armor, with a childish Charm to distort your voice. Explain, Mr. Honor.”

“Our old masks and robes…” said the robe whose mask the Dark Lord had tapped. Even through the distorting timbre of the mask, the fear in it was audible. “We… we were not fighting in them, Master, with you gone… so I did not maintain their enchantments… and then you summoned me to appear here, masked, and I… I always held faith in you, Master, but I did not know you would return this very day… I am truly sorry to have displeased you…”

“Enough.” The Dark Lord moved on to stand behind another figure, that seemed to tremble, though it kept its mask facing the Boy-WhoLived, and its wand held level. “I might think more kindly of such neglect, if you had pursued my agenda by other means… Mr. Counsel. Yet I return to find—what? A country conquered in my name?” The high voice climbed higher. “No! I find you playing ordinary politics in the Wizengamot! I find your brothers still abandoned in Azkaban! It is a disappointment to me… I confess myself disappointed… You thought

I was gone, the Dark Mark dead, and you forsook my purpose. Is that right, Mr. Counsel?”

“No, Master!” cried that masked figure. “We knew you would return— but, but we could not fight Dumbledore without you—”

“ Crucio. ”

A horrible scream tore out of the mask, piercing the night, it continued for long, long seconds.

“Get up,” the Dark Lord said to the figure that had collapsed upon the ground. “Keep your wand on Harry Potter. Do not lie to me again. ” “Yes, Master,” sobbed the figure, as it pushed itself to its feet.

Voldemort resumed pacing behind the black-robed figures. “I suppose you are also wondering what Harry Potter is doing here… Why he is a guest at my rebirthing party.”

“I know, Master!” said one of the robes. “You mean to prove your power by killing him, in front of us all, to leave no doubt as to which of you is stronger! To show how your Killing Curse can slay even this socalled Boy-Who-Lived!”

There was a pause. None of the cloaked figures dared to speak.

Slowly, the Dark Lord Voldemort, in his high-collared shirt and dark robes, turned to face the Death Eater who had spoken.

“That,” whispered Voldemort in a voice chill as death, “is a little too much folly for me to credit, Mr. Sallow. You heard that theory of how I died, and tried to provoke me into repeating a mistake?” Lord Voldemort was floating, rising high off the ground. “I suppose you came to prefer your laziness to my mastery, Macnair? ”

The Death Eater who’d spoken was suddenly surrounded by a blue haze. He spun, slashed his wand at the Dark Lord, and cried “ Avada Kedavra! ”

Voldemort simply tilted to one side in midair, dodging the green bolt.

“ Avada Kedavra! ” cried the Death Eater. His hand that didn’t hold a wand was making other gestures, further colors and layers building up in his shielding haze with each gesture completed. “Help me, my brothers! If we all—”

The Death Eater fell in seven flaming pieces to the ground, chunks of flesh with the cauterized edges still glowing.