Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

“Yes, Master,” came the thirty-four-fold chorus.

Harry was chilled, and shivering, and not only because he was naked in the night. He didn’t understand why Voldemort was not just killing him. There seemed to be only a single line leading into the future, and it was Voldemort’s chosen line, and Harry did not know what came after this.

“Mr. White,” said Voldemort. “Touch your wand to Harry Potter’s hand, and repeat these words. Magic that flows in me, bind this Vow.”

Mr. White spoke those words. Even through the distortion effect of his mask, it sounded as though his heart were breaking.

Behind Voldemort the obelisks chanted, a language that Harry did not know; three times they repeated their words, then fell silent.

“Mr. Grim,” said Voldemort. “Think of the reasons why you might trust this boy, if he had given this oath freely. Think of that potential for trust, and sacrifice it as you say…”

“By my trust that I hold for you,” said Mr. Grim, “be you held.”

And then it was Harry Potter’s turn to repeat Lord Voldemort’s words, and Harry did so.

“I vow…” Harry said. His voice shook, but he spoke. “That I shall not… by any act of mine… destroy the world… I shall take no chances… in not destroying the world… if my hand is forced… I may take the course… of lesser destruction over greater destruction… unless it seems to me that this Vow itself… leads to the world’s end… and the friend… in whom I have confided honestly… agrees that this is so. By my own free will…” Harry could feel it, as the rite was invoked, the shining cords of power wrapping around his wand and Mr. Grim’s wand, wrapping around his hand where Mr. White’s wand touched it, wrapping around his self on some disturbingly abstract level. Harry could feel himself invoking his power of free choice, and he knew that his next words would sacrifice it, that this was absolutely the last chance to turn back.

“…so shall it be,” said the coldly precise voice of Lord Voldemort.

“…so shall it be,” Harry repeated, and he knew in that moment that the content of the Vow was no longer something he could decide whether or not to do, it was simply the way in which his body and mind would move. It was not a vow he could break even by sacrificing his life in the process. Like water flowing downhill or a calculator summing numbers, it was just a thing-Harry-Potter-would-do.

“Did the Vow take, Mr. White?”

Mr. White sounded like he was weeping. “Yes, Master… I have lost so much, please, I have been punished enough.”

“Return to your places…” said Voldemort. “Good. All eyes on the Potter child, prepare to fire the instant he tries to flee, or raise his wand, or speak any word…” The Dark Lord floated high in the air, the black-clad figure overlooking the graveyard. Again he held a gun in his left hand, and his wand in his right. “Better. Now we shall kill the Boy-Who-Lived.”

Mr. White staggered. Mr. Grim was laughing again, and so were others.

“I did not do that to be funny,” Voldemort said coldly. “We are dealing with a prophecy , fools. We are snipping the threads of destiny one by one; carefully, carefully, not knowing when we may first encounter resistance. This is the order in which the next acts shall be done. First Harry Potter shall be stunned, then his limbs severed and the wounds cauterized. Mr. Friendly and Mr. Honor will examine him for any trace of unusual magics. One of you shall shoot the boy many times with my

Muggle weapon, and then as many of you as can shall strike him with the Killing Curse. Only then will Mr. Grim crush his skull and brains with the mundane substance of a tombstone. I shall verify his corpse, then his corpse shall be burned with Fiendfyre, then we will exorcise the surrounding area in case he has left a ghost. I myself will guard this place until six hours have passed, for I do not fully trust the wards I have set against Time’s looping; and four of you shall search the surroundings for signs of anything noteworthy. Even after that we must remain vigilant for any sign of Harry Potter’s renewed presence, in case Dumbledore has left some unimagined trick in play. If you can think of any trick that I have missed in being sure that Harry Potter’s threat is ended, speak now and I shall reward you handsomely… speak now, in Merlin’s name!”

There was stunned silence amid the cemetery; no one made to speak.

“Useless, the lot of you,” Voldemort said with bitter scorn. “Now I shall ask Harry Potter one final question, and he is to answer that question for my ears alone, in Parseltongue. Strike the boy down at once if he answers with anything but hisses, if he tries to speak one word of human speech.” Then Voldemort hissed, “ Power I know not, it wass ssaid that you would have. The Muggle Artss I have now learned of from you, and I am already sstudying them. Your power over life-eaterss musst be comprehended for onesself, or sso you ssay. If there iss any other power you posssesss, that I may come to have, tell me of it now. Elsse, I intend to torment certain of thosse you care for. Ssome livess I have already promissed you, but otherss I did not. Your mudblood sservantss in your little army. Your preciouss parentss. All sshall ssuffer for what will sseem to them like eternitiess; and then I sshall ssend them, broken, into the life-eater prisson to remember it, until they wasste and die. For each unknown power you tell me how to masster, or other ssecret you tell me that I desire to know, you may name one more of thosse to insstead be protected and honored under my reign. Thiss alsso I promisse and intend to keep. ” Voldemort’s smiling expression now came through as if it were a snake’s gaping fangs, and the meaning that expression bore among snakes, a promise that whoever beheld the teeth was to be consumed by them. “ Wasste not time in thoughtss of esscape, if you care for thosse oness. You have ssixty ssecondss to begin telling me ssomething I wissh to know, and then your death beginss. ”

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 shone down upon the graveyard to bear witness from their unimaginable distances.

In the instant when Harry had realised there was no way at all left to save everyone, his mind’s voices had fallen away, become one, a single purpose taking up every fraction of his mind.

Fifty seconds.

Forty seconds.

Harry’s eyes tracked slowly across the air, until his gaze landed on the first Death Eater, the one closest to him.

Thirty seconds?

Twenty seconds?

“ Time'ss almosst up— ” hissed Voldemort.

“ I do know ssecretss you would like to know, ” Harry hissed. He didn’t look directly at the Dark Lord as he spoke. “ But mosst valuable knowledge to you, I think, would be my ideass ass to how world might be desstroyed. Yet, to tell you ssuch thoughtss might lead to desstruction of world. Do not know prophecy, but if there iss prophecy, that makess it more than ussually probable that any action I take might have that effect. Or to tell you ssuch might prevent desstruction of world, ssince you do sseem motivated to avoid it. Not allowed to make ssuch a decission mysself. Would need to awaken and conssult girl-child friend. Vow requiress. ”

There was a long pause. The Dark Lord, floating above and behind the curve of Death Eaters with leveled wands, began to laugh as Salazar Slytherin had thought a snake would laugh, cold amusement in the form of a hiss. “ Do you know how to desstroy world, then? ”