Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The old wizard looked at the angry young hero for a long moment. Then, slowly enough not to alarm the boy, those wizened fingers drew open one of the manifold drawers of the desk, lifted out a sheet of parchment, laid it upon the desk. "Fourteen," the old wizard said. "It is not the number of all the owls sent last night. Only the owls sent to families with a seat on the Wizengamot, or families of great wealth, or families already allied with your foes. Or, in the case of Robert Jugson, all three; for his father, Lord Jugson, is a Death Eater, and his grandfather a Death Eater who died by Alastor Moody's wand. What the letters said, I do not know, but I can guess. Do you still not understand, Harry Potter? Each time Hermione Granger won, as you put it, the danger to her from Slytherin grew again, and yet again. But now the Slytherins have triumphed over her, easily and safely, without violence or lasting harm. They have won, and need fight no more..." The old wizard sighed. "So I had planned. So I had hoped. So it would have been, if the Defense Professor had not taken it upon himself to intervene. Now the dispute goes to the Board of Governors, where Severus will seem to conquer the Defense Professor; but that will not feel the same to the Slytherins, it will not have been over and finished in a moment, to their satisfaction."

The boy advanced further into the room, his head tilting back further to look up at the half-moon glasses; and somehow it was like the boy was looking down at the Headmaster, rather than up. "So this Lord Jugson is a Death Eater?" the boy said softly. "Good. His life is already bought and paid for, then, and I can do anything I want to him without ethical problems -"

"Harry!"

The boy's voice was clear as ice, frozen of purest water from some untouched spring. "You seem to think that the Light should live in fear of the darkness. I say it should be the other way around. I'd prefer not to kill this Lord Jugson, even if he is a Death Eater. But one hour of brainstorming with the Defense Professor would be plenty of time to come up with some creative way to wreck him financially, or get him exiled from magical Britain. That would serve to make the point, I think."

"I confess," the old wizard said slowly, "that the thought of ruining a five-hundred-year-old House, and challenging a Death Eater to war to the finish, over a scuffle in a Hogwarts hallway, had not occurred to me, Harry." The old wizard lifted a finger to push back his half-moon glasses from where they had slid a little down his nose, during his sudden motion earlier. "I daresay it would not occur to Miss Granger either, nor to Professor McGonagall, nor to Fred and George."

The boy shrugged. "It wouldn't be about the hallways," the boy said. "It would be justice for his past crimes, and I'd only do it if Jugson made the first move. The point isn't to make people scared of me as a wild card, after all. It's to teach them that neutrals are perfectly safe from me, and poking me with a stick is incredibly dangerous." The boy smiled in a way that didn't reach his eyes. "Maybe I'll buy an ad in the Daily Prophet, saying that anyone who wants to carry on this dispute with me will learn the true meaning of Chaos, but anyone who leaves me alone will be fine."

"No," the old wizard said. His voice was deeper now, showing something of his true age and power. "No, Harry, that must not be. You have not yet learned the meaning of fighting, what truly happens when foes meet in battle. And so you dream, as young boys do, of teaching your foes to fear you. It frightens me that you, at far too young an age, might already have enough power to make some part of your dreams into reality. There is no turning of that road which does not lead into darkness, Harry, none. That is the way of a Dark Lord, for certain."

The boy hesitated, then, and his eyes flickered to the empty golden platform where Fawkes sometimes rested his wings. It was a gesture that few would have caught, but the old wizard knew it very well.

"All right, forget the part about teaching them to fear me," the boy said then. His voice was no less hard, but some of the cold had gone from it. "I still don't think you should let children get hurt out of fear of what someone like Lord Jugson might do. Protecting them is the whole point of your job. If Lord Jugson really does try to get in your way, then do whatever it takes to stop him. Give me full access to my vaults, and I'll take personal responsibility for dealing with any fallout from banning bullies in Hogwarts, whether it's Lord Jugson or anyone else."