Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

"And the true fight, the fight against Voldemort?" the old wizard said in an unsteady voice. "What will you do to win that, Harry? Will you break the whole world? Even if someday you gain such power, you are not yet beyond prices, and perhaps you never will be! For you to act this way now is nothing short of madness!"

"I asked Professor Quirrell why he'd laughed," the boy said evenly, "after he awarded Hermione those hundred points. And Professor Quirrell said, these aren't his exact words, but it's pretty much what he said, that he'd found it tremendously amusing that the great and good Albus Dumbledore had been sitting there doing nothing as this poor innocent girl begged for help, while he had been the one to defend her. And he told me then that by the time good and moral people were done tying themselves up in knots, what they usually did was nothing; or, if they did act, you could hardly tell them apart from the people called bad. Whereas he could help innocent girls any time he felt like it, because he wasn't a good person. And that I ought to remember that, any time I considered growing up to be good."

The old wizard did not show the force of the blow. Only a slight widening of his eyes would have betrayed it, if you had been watching him very closely.

"Don't worry, Headmaster," said the boy. "I haven't gotten my wires crossed. I know that I'm supposed to learn goodness from Hermione and Fawkes, not from Professor Quirrell and you. Which brings me to the actual reason why I came here. Hermione's time is too valuable to waste in detentions. Professor Snape will revoke it, claiming that I blackmailed him."

After a hesitation the old wizard nodded his head, the silver beard swaying slowly beneath. "That would not be best for her, Harry," the old wizard said. "But the detention can be put down as being served with Professor Binns, and you and she can study together in his classroom."

"Fine," the boy said. "I think that was all the business we had together, in the end. You may expect, the next time you seem to be working on the side of the bad guys or letting them win, that I will do whatever I think Fawkes would tell me to, regardless of how much trouble comes of it. I hope we're both clear on that."

Without another word, the boy turned and walked out of the room, through the open door of black metal, the words "Lumos!" and the light of his wand following a moment later.

The old wizard stood there silent, silent amid the ruins of the lives which his own life had left behind. His wrinkled hand rose, shaking, to touch at his half-moon glasses -

The boy poked his head back in. "Would you mind switching on the stairs, Headmaster? I'd rather not go through all the work again to leave the same way I came."

"Go, Harry Potter," the old wizard said. "The stairs will receive you."

(Some time later, an earlier version of Harry, who had invisibly waited next to the gargoyles since 9PM, followed the Deputy Headmistress through the opening that parted for her, stood quietly behind her on the turning stairs until they came to the top, and then, still under the Cloak, spun his Time-Turner thrice.)

Aftermath: Professor Quirrell and -

In a shadowy clearing the Defense Professor waited, his back leaned negligently against the rough grey bark of a towering beech tree as yet unleaved in the late March days, so that its trunk and crown seemed like a pale arm reaching up from the ground and exploding into a hand of a thousand fingers. Around the Defense Professor and above him were branches so dense that even in the earliest spring, with few trees so much as budding, you could have hardly seen the sky from the ground. The strands of the wooden net crossed and proliferated so many times that if you were on a broomstick above, searching for someone below, you would have found it easier to follow your ears than your eyes. Nor would it have helped that it was almost dark amid the prohibited woods, the unseen sun almost set, so that only a few glows of fading sunlight illuminated the tops of the tallest trees.

Then came the faintest sound of footsteps, almost inaudible even on the forest ground; the gait of a man accustomed to passing unseen. No twig snapped, nor leaf rustled -

"Good afternoon," said Professor Quirrell. The Defense Professor did not trouble to move his eyes, or his hands from where they rested negligently at his side.

A figure clad in a black cloak shimmered into existence, his head turning to look left and then right. In the figure's right hand, gripped low, was a wand of wood so grey it was almost silver.

"I do not know why you wished to meet here of all places," said Severus Snape, his voice cool.

"Oh," Professor Quirrell said idly, as though the whole matter was of the least importance, "I thought you would prefer privacy. The walls of Hogwarts have ears, and you would not wish the Headmaster to know of your role in yesterday's affair, would you?"