Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Harry gave another sad-looking shrug. "Everyone in the second year and above, since they don't know you. Everyone in Dragon Army. All of Slytherin, of course. And, well, most of the rest of magical Britain too, I think. Remember, Lucius Malfoy controls the Daily Prophet."

"Everyone?" she whispered. Her limbs had started to feel cold, like she'd just gotten out of an unheated swimming pool.

"What people really believe doesn't feel like a belief, it feels like the way the world is. You and I are standing in a private little bubble of the universe where Hermione Granger got Memory-Charmed. Everyone else is living in the world where Hermione Granger tried to murder Draco Malfoy. If Ernie Macmillian -"

Her breath caught in her throat. Captain Macmillian -

"- thinks he's ethically prohibited from being your friend now, well, he's trying to do the right thing as he understands it, in the world he thinks he lives in." Harry's eyes were very serious. "Hermione, you've told me a lot of times that I look down too much on other people. But if I expected too much of them - if I expected people to get things right - I really would hate them, then. Idealism aside, Hogwarts students don't actually know enough cognitive science to take responsibility for how their own minds work. It's not their fault they're crazy." Harry's voice was strangely gentle, almost like an adult's. "I know it's going to be harder on you than it would be on me. But remember, eventually the real culprit gets nailed. The truth comes out, everyone who was confidently wrong gets embarrassed."

"And if the real culprit doesn't get caught?" she said in a trembling voice.

...or if it turns out to be me after all?

"Then you can leave Hogwarts and go to the Salem Witches' Institute in America."

"Leave Hogwarts?" She'd never even thought of that possibility except as an ultimate punishment.

"I... Hermione, I think you might want to do that anyway. Hogwarts isn't a castle, it's insanity with walls. You have got other options."

"I'll..." she stammered. "I'll have... to think about it..."

Harry nodded. " At least nobody's going to try hexing you, not after what the Headmaster said at dinner tonight. Oh, and Ron Weasley came up to me, looking very serious, and told me that if I saw you first, I should tell you that he's sorry for having thought badly of you, and he'll never speak ill of you again."

"Ron believes I'm innocent?" said Hermione.

"Well... he doesn't think you're innocent, per se..."

The whole Ravenclaw dorm went silent as the two of them walked in.

Staring at them.

Staring at her.

(She'd had nightmares like this.)

And then, one by one, people looked away from her.

Penelope Clearwater, the 5th-year prefect in charge of first-years, looked away slowly and deliberately, turning her head to face in another direction.

Su Li and Lisa Turpin and Michael Corner, all sitting at a table together, all of whom she'd helped with their homework at one time or another, all looked away, their faces suddenly nervous, the moment she tried to catch their eyes.

A third-year witch named Latisha Randle, whom S.P.H.E.W. had twice saved from Slytherin bullies, quickly bent back over her desk and started doing homework again.

Mandy Brocklehurst looked away from her.

If Hermione didn't burst into tears, then, it was only because she'd expected it, had played it out in her mind over and over again. At least people weren't screaming at her or shoving her or hexing her. They were just looking away -

Hermione walked very straight up to the staircaise that led toward the first-year girl's dorms. (She didn't see Padma Patil or Anthony Goldstein looking at her, those two lone heads turning to track her as she left.) From behind her, she heard Harry Potter saying in a very calm tone, "Now eventually the truth's going to come out, you all. So if you're all that confident she's guilty, can I ask you all to sign this paper right here, saying that if she later turns out to be innocent, she gets to say 'I told you so' and then hold it over you for the rest of your lives? Step on up, one and all, don't be cowards, if you really believe you shouldn't be afraid to bet -"

She was halfway up the stairs when she realized that there would be other girls inside her dorm room, too.

The stars hadn't quite come out yet, only one or two of the brightest ones visible through the reddish-purple haze of the horizon, though the sun had fully sunk.

Hermione's hands dug into the harsh stone of the parapet guarding the small balcony, where she'd ducked out of the stairwell after realizing that -

- she couldn't just go back to bed -

- the words echoed in her mind like 'You can't go home again' ought to sound.

She stared out at the empty grounds, the fading sunset, the sprouting grass so far below.