Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

"It is a very strange thing," the Defense Professor said, his voice now soft again, almost inaudible. The man was not looking at Harry, and Harry saw only his back. "A very strange thing... There was a time when I would have sacrificed a finger from my wand hand, to work upon the bullies of Hogwarts as we have worked upon them this day. To make them fear me as they now fear you, to have the deference of all the students and the adoration of many, I would have given my finger for that. You have everything now that I wanted then. All that I know of human nature says that I should hate you. And yet I do not. It is a very strange thing."

It should have been a touching moment, but instead Harry felt a coldness traveling down his spine, as though he were a little fish in the sea, and some vast white shark had just looked him over and decided after a visible hesitation not to eat him.

The man opened the door to Defense Professor's office, and passed within, and was gone.

Aftermath:

Her fellow Slytherins were looking at Daphne like... like they didn't have the faintest idea of how to look at her.

The Gryffindors were looking at her like they didn't have the faintest idea of how to look at her.

Showing no fear, Daphne Greengrass strode into the Potions classroom, wrapped in the imperious dignity of a Noble and Most Ancient House. Inside she was feeling much the same way everyone else probably did.

It had been two hours since the What? when the What? had happened and Daphne's brain was still going: What? What? What?

The classroom was quiet as they all waited for Professor Snape to arrive. Lavender and Parvati sat near a cluster of other Gryffindors, surrounded by silent stares. The two of them were looking over each other's homework before class started, and nobody else was helping them or talking to them. Even Lavender, who Daphne would have sworn could never be fazed by anything, seemed subdued.

Daphne sat down at her desk, and took Magical Draughts and Potions out of her bag, and began looking over her own homework, doing her very best to act normal. People stared at her, and said nothing -

A gasp went through the whole classroom. Girls and boys flinched back, leaning away from the door like they were stalks of wheat touched by a gust of wind.

In the door stood Tracey Davis, wrapped in a black tattered cloak which had been draped over her Hogwarts uniform.

Tracey walked slowly into the classroom, swaying slightly with each step, looking like she was trying to drift. She sat down at her accustomed desk, which happened to be right next to Daphne's.

Slowly Tracey's head turned to stare at Daphne.

"See?" the Slytherin girl said in a low, sepulchral tone. "I told you I'd get him before she did."

"What?" blurted Daphne, who immediately wished she hadn't said anything.

"I got Harry Potter before Granger did." Tracey's voice was still low, but her eyes were gleaming with triumph. "See, Daphne, what General Potter wants in a girl isn't a pretty face or a pretty dress. He wants a girl willing to channel his dread powers, that's what he wants. Now I'm his - and he's mine!"

This announcement produced a frozen silence through the whole classroom.

"Excuse me, Miss Davis," said the cultured voice of Draco Malfoy, who seemed unconcerned as he shuffled through his own Potions parchments. The other scion of a Most Ancient House didn't so much as glance up from his desk, even as everyone else turned to look at him. "Did Harry Potter actually tell you that? Using those words?"

"Well, no..." Tracey said, and then her eyes flashed angrily. "But he'd better take me in, now that I've sacrificed my soul to him and everything!"

"You sacrificed your soul to Harry Potter?" gasped Millicent. There was a clatter from the other side of the room as Ron Weasley dropped his inkwell.

"Well, I'm pretty sure I did," said Tracey, sounding briefly uncertain before she rallied. "I mean, I looked at myself in a mirror and I look paler now, and I can always feel darkness surrounding me, and I was a conduit for his dread powers and everything... Daphne, you also saw my eyes go green, right? I didn't see it myself but that's what I heard afterward."

There was a pause, broken only by the sounds of Ron Weasley trying to clean up his desk.

"Daphne?" said Tracey.

"I don't believe it," said an angry voice. "There's no way the next Dark Lord would take you to be his bride!"

Slowly, and with considerable disbelief, heads turned to stare at Pansy Parkinson.

"Hush, you," said Tracey, "or I'll..." The Slytherin girl paused. Then Tracey's voice went even lower, and she said, "Hush, you, or I'll devour your soul."

"You can't do that," said Pansy, in the confident tones of a hen which had worked out a perfectly good pecking order where she was at the top, and wasn't about to go updating that belief based on mere evidence.