Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

(That didn't used to happen in the ancestral environment, Harry's brain complained, and disoriented him.)

Harry staggered as his feet adjusted to the brick of the street instead of the dirt of the forest corridor they had been traversing. He straightened, still dizzy, with the bustling witches and wizards seeming to sway slightly, and the cries of the shopkeepers seeming to move around in his hearing, as his brain tried to place a world to be located in.

Moments later, there was a sort of sucking-popping sound from a few paces behind Harry, and when Harry turned to look Professor Quirrell was there.

'Do you mind -' said Harry, at the same time as Professor Quirrell said, 'I'm afraid I -'

Harry stopped, Professor Quirrell didn't.

'- need to go off and set something in motion, Mr. Potter. As it has been thoroughly explained to me that I am responsible for anything whatsoever that happens to you, I'll be leaving you with -'

'Newsstand,' Harry said.

'Pardon?'

'Or anywhere I can buy a copy of the Daily Prophet. Put me there and I'll be happy.'

Shortly after, Harry had been delivered into a bookstore, accompanied by several quietly spoken, ambiguous threats. And the shopkeeper had gotten less ambiguous threats, judging by the way he had cringed, and how his eyes now kept darting between Harry and the entrance.

If the bookstore burned down, Harry was going to stick around in the middle of the fire until Professor Quirrell got back.

Meanwhile -

Harry took a quick glance around.

The bookstore seemed rather small and shoddy, with only four rows of bookcases visible, and the nearest shelf Harry's eyes had jumped to seemed to deal with narrow, cheaply bound books with grim titles like The Massacre of Albania in the Fifteenth Century.

First things first. Harry stepped over to the seller's counter.

'Pardon me,' said Harry, 'One copy of the Daily Prophet, please.'

'Five Sickles,' said the shopkeeper. 'Sorry, kid, I've only got three left.'

Five Sickles dropped onto the counter. Harry had the feeling he could have bargained him down a couple of points, but at this point he didn't really care.

The shopkeeper's eyes widened and he seemed to really notice Harry for the first time. 'You! '

'Me!'

'Is it true? Are you really -'

'Shut up! Sorry, I've been waiting all day to read this in the original newspaper instead of hearing about it secondhand, so please just hand it over, all right?'

The shopkeeper stared at Harry for a moment, then wordlessly reached under the counter and passed over one folded copy of the Daily Prophet.

The headline read:

HARRY POTTER

SECRETLY BETROTHED

TO GINEVRA WEASLEY

Harry stared.

He lifted the newspaper off the counter, softly, reverently, like he was handling an original Escher artwork, and unbent it to read...

...about the evidence that had convinced Rita Skeeter.

...and some interesting further details.

...and yet more evidence.

Fred and George had cleared it with their sister first, surely? Yes, of course they had. There was a picture of Ginevra Weasley sighing longingly over what Harry could see, looking closely, was a photo of himself. That had to have been staged.

But how on Earth...?

Harry was sitting in a cheap folding chair, rereading the newspaper for the fourth time, when the door whispered softly and Professor Quirrell came back into the shop.

'My apologies for - what in Merlin's name are you reading?'

'It would seem,' said Harry, awe in his voice, 'that one Mr. Arthur Weasley was placed under the Imperius Curse by a Death Eater whom my father killed, thus creating a debt to the Noble House of Potter, which my father demanded be repaid by the hand in marriage of the recently born Ginevra Weasley. Do people actually do that sort of thing around here?'

'How could Miss Skeeter possibly be fool enough to believe -'

And Professor Quirrell's voice cut off.