Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The light of the hallway died as the door closed and shut behind him, and Draco's eyes began the process of adjusting to the dim glow.

The silhouette slowly turned to behold him, revealing a shadowed face only partially lit by the eerie green light.

Draco liked this meeting already. Keep the chill green light, make them both taller, give them hoods and masks, move them from a classroom to a graveyard, and it would be just like the start of half the stories his father's friends told about the Death Eaters.

"I want you to know, Draco Malfoy," said the silhouette in tones of deadly calm, "that I do not blame you for my recent defeat."

Draco opened his mouth in unthinking protest, there was no possible reason why he should be blamed -

"It was due, more than anything else, to my own stupidity," continued that shadowy figure. "There were many other things I could have done, at any step along the way. You did not ask me to do exactly what I did. You only asked for help. I was the one who unwisely chose that particular method. But the fact remains that I lost the contest by half a book. The actions of your pet idiot, and the favor you asked for, and, yes, my own foolishness in going about it, caused me to lose time. More time than you know. Time which, in the end, proved critical. The fact remains, Draco Malfoy, that if you had not asked that favor, I would have won. And not... instead... lost."

Draco had already heard about Harry's loss, and the forfeit Granger had claimed from him. The news had spread faster than owls could have carried it.

"I understand," Draco said. "I'm sorry." There was nothing else he could say if he wanted Harry Potter to be friends with him.

"I am not asking for understanding or sorrow," said the dark silhouette, still with that deadly calm. "But I have just spent two full hours in the presence of Hermione Granger, dressed in such clothing as was provided me, visiting such fascinating places in Hogwarts as a tiny burbling waterfall of what looked to me like snot, accompanied by a number of other girls who insisted on such helpful activities as strewing our path with Transfigured rose petals. I have been on a date, scion of Malfoy. My first date. And when I call that favor due, you will pay it."

Draco nodded solemnly. Before arriving he had taken the wise precaution of learning every available detail of Harry's date, so that he could get all of his hysterical laughing done before their appointed meeting time, and would not commit a faux pas by giggling continuously until he lost consciousness.

"Do you think," Draco said, "that something sad ought to happen to the Granger girl -"

"Spread the word in Slytherin that the Granger girl is mine and anyone who meddles in my affairs will have their remains scattered over an area wide enough to include twelve different spoken languages. And since I am not in Gryffindor and I use cunning rather than immediate frontal attacks, they should not panic if I am seen smiling at her."

"Or if you're seen on a second date?" Draco said, allowing just a tiny note of skepticism into his voice.

"There will be no second date," said the green-lit silhouette in a voice so fearsome that it sounded, not only like a Death Eater, but like Amycus Carrow that one time just before Father told him to stop it, he wasn't the Dark Lord.

Of course it was still a young boy's high unbroken voice and when you combined that with the actual words, well, it just didn't work. If Harry Potter did become the next Dark Lord someday, Draco would use a Pensieve to store a copy of this memory somewhere safe, and Harry Potter would never dare betray him.

"But let us talk of happier matters," said the green-shadowed figure. "Let us talk of knowledge and of power. Draco Malfoy, let us talk of Science."

"Yes," said Draco. "Let us speak."

Draco wondered how much of his own face could be seen, and how much was in shadow, in that eerie green light.

And though Draco kept his face serious, there was a smile in his heart.

He was finally having a real grownup conversation.