Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

'I don't suppose Gobstones?' said Harry.

'Don't know the rules and they spit at you. Those are boy games, Harry!'

There was a pause. Harry ground his hands against his face to wipe it, and then took his hands away; and then he was looking at her, looking a little helpless. 'Well,' Harry said, 'what do wizards and witches our age do, when they play, you know, the kind of pointless silly games we're supposed to play at this age?'

'Hopscotch?' said Hermione. 'Jump-rope? Unicorn attack? I don't know, I read books!'

Harry started laughing, and Hermione started giggling along with him even though she didn't know quite why, but it was funny.

'I guess that helped a little,' said Harry. 'Actually I think it helped more than playing Gobstones for an hour could've possibly helped, so thanks for being you. And no matter what, I'm not having anyone Obliviate everything I know about calculus. I'd sooner die.'

'What?' said Hermione. 'Why - why would you ever want to do that?'

Harry stood up from the table, and there was a rush of restored background noise as his rise broke the Quieting Charm. 'I'm a tad sleepy so I'm going off to bed,' Harry said, now his voice was ordinary and wry, 'I've got some lost time to make up for, but I'll see you at breakfast, and then at Herbology, if that's all right. Not to mention it wouldn't be fair to dump all my depression on you. G'night, Hermione.'

'Good night, Harry,' she said, feeling very confused and alarmed. 'Pleasant dreams.'

Harry stumbled a little as she said that, and then he continued on toward the stairs that led to the first-year- boys' dorms.

Harry turned the Quieting Charm all the way up, on the head of his bedboard, so that he wouldn't wake anyone else up if he screamed.

Set his alarm to wake him up for breakfast (if he wasn't up already by that hour, if indeed he slept at all).

Got into bed, laid down -

- felt the lump beneath his pillow.

Harry stared up at the canopy above his bed.

Hissed under his breath, 'Oh, you've got to be kidding me...'

It took a few seconds before Harry could muster the heart to sit up in bed, pull the blanket over himself and his pillow to obscure the deed from the other boys, cast a low-intensity Lumos and see what was under his pillow.

There was a parchment, and a deck of playing cards.

The parchment read,

A little bird told me that Dumbledore has shut the door of your cage.

I must admit, on this occasion, that Dumbledore may have a point. Bellatrix Black is loosed upon the world once more, and that is not good news for any good person. If I stood in Dumbledore's place, I might well do the same.

But just in case... The Salem Witches' Institute in America accepts boys as well, despite the name. They are good people and would protect you even from Dumbledore, if you needed it. Britain holds that you need Dumbledore's permission to emigrate to magical America, but magical America disagrees. So in the final extremity, get outside the wards of Hogwarts and tear in half the King of Hearts from this deck of cards.

That you should resort to it only in the final extremity goes without saying.

Be well, Harry Potter.

- Santa Claus

Harry stared down at the pack of cards.

It couldn't take him anywhere else, not right now, portkeys didn't work here.

But he still felt unnerved about the prospect of picking it up, even to hide it inside his trunk...

Well, he'd already picked up the parchment, which could just as easily have been enchanted with a trap, if a trap was involved.

But still.

'Wingardium Leviosa,' Harry whispered, and Hovered the packet of cards to lie next to where his alarm clock rested in a pocket of the headboard. He'd deal with it tomorrow.

And then Harry lay back in bed, and closed his eyes, to dream without any phoenix to protect him, and pay his reckoning.

He came awake with a gasp of horror, not a scream, he'd yet to scream this night, but his blanket was all tangled around him from where his sleeping form had jerked as he dreamed of running, trying to get away from the gaps in space that were pursuing him through a corridor of metal lit by dim gaslight, an endlessly long corridor of metal lit by dim gaslight, and he hadn't known, in the dream, that touching those voids meant he would die horribly and leave his still-breathing body empty behind him, all he'd known was that he had to run and run and run from the wounds in the world sliding after him -

Harry started to cry again, it wasn't for the horror of the chase, it was that he'd run away while someone behind him was screaming for help, screaming for him to come back and save her, help her, she was being eaten, she was going to die, and in the dream Harry had run away instead of helping her.

'DON'T GO!' The voice came in a scream from behind the metal door. 'No, no, no, don't go, don't take it away, don't don't don't -'