Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Slowly, Harry turned around.

The tall greasy man in the spotted robes was leaning against the wall in the same position Harry had occupied.

'A fine invisibility cloak, Potter,' drawled the Potions Master. 'Much is explained.'

Oh, bloody crap.

'And perhaps I have been in Dumbledore's company too long,' said Severus, 'but I cannot help but wonder if that is the Cloak of Invisibility.'

Harry immediately turned into someone who'd never heard of the Cloak of Invisibility and who was exactly as smart as Harry thought Severus thought Harry was.

'Oh, possibly,' said Harry. 'I trust you realize the implications, if it is?'

Severus's voice was condescending. 'You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you, Potter? A rather clumsy try at fishing.'

(Professor Quirrell had remarked over their lunch that Harry really needed to conceal his state of mind better than putting on a blank face when someone discussed a dangerous topic, and had explained about one-level deceptions, two-level deceptions, and so on. So either Severus was in fact modeling Harry as a one-level player, which made Severus himself two-level, and Harry's three-level move had been successful; or Severus was a four-level player and wanted Harry to think the deception had been successful. Harry, smiling, had asked Professor Quirrell what level he played at, and Professor Quirrell, also smiling, had responded, One level higher than you.)

'So you were watching this whole time,' said Harry. 'Disillusionment, I think it's called.'

A thin smile. 'It would have been foolish of me to take the slightest risk that you came to harm.'

'And you wanted to see the results of your test firsthand,' said Harry. 'So. Am I like my father?'

A strange sad expression came over the man, one that looked foreign to his face. 'I should sooner say, Harry Potter, that you resemble -'

Severus stopped short.

He stared at Harry.

'Lestrange called you a son of a mudblood,' Severus said slowly. 'It didn't seem to bother you much.'

Harry furrowed his eyebrows. 'Not under those circumstances, no.'

'You'd just helped him,' Severus said. His eyes were intent on Harry. 'And he threw it back in your face. Surely that isn't something you'd just forgive?'

'He'd just been through a pretty harrowing experience,' Harry said. 'And I don't think being rescued by first- years helped his pride much, either.'

'I suppose it was easy enough to forgive,' Severus said, and his voice was odd, 'since Lestrange means nothing to you. Just some strange Slytherin. If it was a friend, perhaps, you would have felt far more injured by what he said.'

'If he were a friend,' Harry said, 'all the more reason to forgive him.'

There was a long silence. Harry felt, and he couldn't have said why or from where, that the air was filling up with a dreadful tension, like water rising, and rising, and rising.

Then Severus smiled, looking suddenly relaxed once more, and all the tension vanished.

'You are a very forgiving person,' Severus said, still smiling. 'I suppose your stepfather, Michael Verres-Evans, was the one who taught it to you.'

'More like Dad's science fiction and fantasy collection,' said Harry. 'Sort of my fifth parent, really. I've lived the lives of all the characters in all my books, and all their mighty wisdom thunders in my head. Somewhere in there was someone like Lesath, I expect, though I couldn't say who. It wasn't hard to put myself in his shoes. And it was my books that told me what to do about it, too. The good guys forgive.'

Severus gave a light, amused laugh. 'I'm afraid I wouldn't know much about what good people do.'

Harry looked at him. That was kind of sad, actually. 'I'll lend you some novels with good people in them, if you like.'

'I should like to ask your advice about something,' Severus said, his voice casual. 'I know of another fifth-year Slytherin who was being bullied by Gryffindors. He was wooing a beautiful Muggleborn girl, who came across him being bullied, and tried to rescue him. And he called her a mudblood, and that was the end for them. He apologized, many times, but she never forgave him. Have you any thoughts for what he could have said or done, to win from her the forgiveness you gave Lestrange?'

'Erm,' Harry said, 'based on only that information, I'm not sure he was the main one who had a problem. I'd have told him not to date someone that incapable of forgiveness. Suppose they'd gotten married, can you imagine life in that household?'

There was a pause.

'Oh, but she could forgive,' Severus said with amusement in his voice. 'Why, afterward, she went off and became the girlfriend of the bully. Tell me, why would she forgive the bully, and not the bullied?'

Harry shrugged. 'At a wild guess, because the bully had hurt someone else very badly, and the bullied had hurt her just a little, and to her that just felt far more unforgivable somehow. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, was the bully handsome? Or for that matter, rich?'

There was another pause.

'Yes to both,' said Severus.