Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Slowly the anger crept over Harry, slowly the wrath, something terrible beginning to boil his blood, in just a few moments he would say something that he really shouldn't say while the two of them were alone in a deserted warehouse -

'But she was innocent,' said the Defense Professor. He was not smiling. 'And the degree to which all her choices were taken away from her, so that she never had a chance to suffer for her own mistakes... it struck me as excessive, Mr. Potter. If she tells you nothing of use -' The Defense Professor gave another small shrug. 'I shall not consider this day's work a waste.'

'How altruistic of you,' Harry said coldly. 'So if all wizards are like You-Know-Who inside, are you an exception to that, then?'

The Defense Professor's eyes were still in shadow, dark pits that could not be met. 'Call it a whim, Mr. Potter. It has sometimes amused me to play the part of a hero. Who knows but that You-Know-Who would say the same.'

Harry opened his mouth a final time -

And found that he couldn't say it, he couldn't ask the last question, the last and most important question, he couldn't make the words come out. Even though a refusal like that was forbidden to a rationalist, for all that he'd ever recited the Litany of Tarski or the Litany of Gendlin or sworn that whatever could be destroyed by the truth should be, in that one moment, he could not bring himself to say his last question out loud. Even though he knew he was thinking wrongly, even though he knew he was supposed to be better than this, he still couldn't say it.

'Now it is my turn to inquire of you.' Professor Quirrell's back straightened from where it had leaned back against the glacier wall of painted concrete. 'I was wondering, Mr. Potter, if you had anything to say about nearly killing me and ruining our mutual endeavor. I am given to understand that an apology, in such cases, is considered a sign of respect. But you have not offered me one. Is it just that you have not yet gotten around to it, Mr. Potter?'

The tone was calm, the quiet edge so fine and sharp that it would slice all the way through you before you realized you were being murdered.

And Harry just looked at the Defense Professor with cool eyes that would never flinch from anything; not even death, now. He was no longer in Azkaban, no longer fearful of the part of himself that was fearless; and the solid gemstone that was Harry had rotated to meet the stress, turning smoothly from one facet to another, from light to darkness, warm to cold.

A calculated ploy on his part, to make me feel guilty, put me in a position where I must submit?

Genuine emotion on his part?

'I see,' said Professor Quirrell. 'I suppose that answers -'

'No,' said the boy in a cool, collected voice, 'you do not get to frame the conversation that easily, Professor. I went to considerable lengths to protect you and get you out of Azkaban safely, after I thought you had tried to kill a police officer. That included facing down twelve Dementors without a Patronus Charm. I wonder, if I had apologized when you demanded it, would you have said thank-you in turn? Or am I correct in thinking that it was my submission you demanded there, and not only my respect?'

There was a pause, and then Professor Quirrell's voice came in reply, openly icy with danger no longer veiled. 'It seems you still cannot bring yourself to lose, Mr. Potter.'

Darkness stared out of Harry's eyes without flinching, the Defense Professor himself reduced to a mortal thing within them. 'Oh, and are you pondering now, whether you should pretend to lose to me, and pretend to humble yourself before my own anger, in order to preserve your own plans? Did the thought of a calculated false apology even cross your mind? Me neither, Professor Quirrell.'

The Defense Professor laughed, low and humorless, emptier than the void between the stars, dangerous as any vacuum filled with hard radiation. 'No, Mr. Potter, you have not learned your lesson, not at all.'

'I thought of losing many times, in Azkaban,' said the boy, his voice level. 'That I ought to simply give up, and turn myself over to the Aurors. Losing would have been the sensible thing to do. I heard your voice saying it to me, in my mind; and I would have done it, if I had been there by myself. But I could not bring myself to lose you.'

There was silence, then, for a time; as though even the Defense Professor could not quite think of what to say to that.

'I am curious,' said Professor Quirrell at last. 'What do you think that I should apologize for, precisely? I gave you explicit instructions in the event of a fight. You were to stay down, stay out of the way, cast no magic. You violated those instructions and brought down the mission.'

'I made no decision,' the boy said evenly, 'there was no choice in it, only a wish that the Auror should not die, and my Patronus was there. For that wish to have never occurred, you should have warned me that you might bluff using a Killing Curse. By default, I assume that if you point your wand at someone and say Avada Kedavra, it is because you want them dead. Shouldn't that be the first rule of Unforgivable Curse Safety?'

'Rules are for duels,' said the Defense Professor. Some of the coldness had returned to his voice. 'And dueling is a sport, not a branch of Battle Magic. In a real fight, a curse which cannot be blocked and must be dodged is an indispensable tactic. I would have thought this obvious to you, but it seems I misjudged your intellect.'

'It also seems to me imprudent,' said the boy, continuing as though the other had not spoken, 'to not tell me that my casting any spell on you might kill us both. What if you had suffered some mishap, and I had tried an Innervate, or a Hover Charm? That ignorance, which you permitted for purposes I cannot guess, played also some part in this catastrophe.'

There was another silence. The Defense Professor's eyes had narrowed, and there was a faintly puzzled look on his face, as though he had encountered some completely unfamiliar situation; and still the man spoke no word.

'Well,' said the boy. His eyes had not wavered from the Defense Professor's. 'I certainly regret hurting you, Professor. But I do not think the situation calls for me to submit to you. I never really did understand the concept of apology, still less as it applies to a situation like this; if you have my regrets, but not my submission, does that count as saying sorry?'