Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

'General Granger looked up at him,' Millicent said dramatically, 'and she said, 'Draco! You've got to let go of me! Don't worry about me, Draco, I promise I'll be all right! And what do you suppose Malfoy did then?'

'He said 'Never!',' shouted Charlotte Wiland, 'and held on even tighter!'

All the listening girls except Pansy Parkinson nodded.

'Nope!' said Millicent. 'He dropped her. And then he jumped up and shot General Potter. The end.'

There was a stunned pause.

'You can't do that!' said Charlotte.

'She's a mudblood,' said Pansy, sounding confused. 'Of course he let go!'

'Well, Malfoy shouldn't have grabbed her in the first place, then!' said Charlotte. 'But once he grabbed her, he had to hang on! Especially in the face of approaching certain doom!' Tracey Davis, sitting next to Daphne, was nodding along in firm agreement.

'I don't see why,' said Pansy.

'That's because you don't have the tiniest smidgin of romance in you,' said Tracey. 'Besides, you can't just go dropping girls. A boy who'd drop a girl like that... he'd drop anyone. He'd drop you, Pansy.'

'What d'you mean, drop me?' Pansy said.

Daphne couldn't resist any more. 'You know,' Daphne said darkly, 'you're eating breakfast one day at our table, and the next thing you know, Malfoy lets go of you, and you're falling off the top of Hogwarts! That's what!'

'Yeah!' said Charlotte. 'He's a witch dropper!'

'You know why Atlantis fell?' said Tracey. ''Cause someone like Malfoy dropped it, that's why!'

Daphne lowered her voice. 'In fact... what if Malfoy's the one who made Hermione, I mean General Granger, slip in the first place? What if he's out to make all the Muggleborns trip and fall?'

'You mean - ?' gasped Tracey.

'That's right!' Daphne said dramatically. 'What if Malfoy is - the heir of Slipperin? '

'The next Drop Lord!' said Tracey.

Which was far too good a line for anyone to keep to themselves, so by nightfall it was all over Hogwarts, and the next morning it was the Quibbler's headline.

Aftermath, 2:

Hermione made sure she got to their usual classroom nice and early that evening, just so that she would be by herself, in a chair, peacefully reading a book, when Harry got there.

If there was any way for a door to creak open apologetically, that was how the door was creaking open.

'Um,' said Harry Potter's voice.

Hermione kept reading.

'I'm, um, kinda sorry, I didn't mean for you to actually fall off the roof or anything...'

It had been quite an entertaining experience, in fact.

'I, ah... I don't have much experience apologizing, I'll fall to my knees if you want, or buy you something expensive, Hermione I don't know how to apologize to you for this what can I do just tell me? '

She kept reading the book in silence.

It wasn't as if she had any idea how Harry could apologize, either.

Right now she was just feeling a sort of odd curiosity as to what would happen if she kept reading her book for a while.

Chapter 42: Courage

'Romantic?' Hermione said. 'They're both boys!'

'Wow,' Daphne said, sounding a little shocked. 'You mean Muggles really do hate that? I thought that was just something the Death Eaters made up.'

'No,' said an older Slytherin girl Hermione didn't recognize, 'it's true, they have to get married in secret, and if they're ever discovered, they get burned at the stake together. And if you're a girl who thinks it's romantic, they burn you too.'

'That can't be right!' objected a Gryffindor girl, while Hermione was still trying to sort out what to say to that. 'There wouldn't be any Muggle girls left!'

She'd kept on reading quietly, and Harry Potter had kept on trying to apologize, and it had soon dawned on Hermione that Harry had realized, possibly for the first time in his life, that he'd done something annoying; and that Harry, definitely for the first time in his life, was terrified that he'd lost her as a friend; and she'd started to feel (a) guilty and (b) worried about the direction Harry's increasingly desperate offers were going. But she still had no idea what sort of apology was appropriate, so she'd said that the Ravenclaw girls should vote on it - and this time she wouldn't fix the outcome, though she hadn't mentioned that part - to which Harry had instantly agreed.