Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

correlate to morality in any way. Only in Disney movies were ugly people more likely to be evil and vice versa; and those movies were probably scripted by writers who'd never been ugly. He'd give her a chance, everyone in this room deserved one chance...

'Because I got rid of the Dark Lord?' the boy said, and pointed at the Dementor where it was hovering behind Hermione's chair. 'There's something in this room that's Darker.'

The woman's face narrowed, growing a little stern. 'I realize a young boy like yourself may be scared by them, Mr. Potter, but the Dementors are quite obedient to the Ministry of Magic. And they would, of course, be necessary to guard -'

'A twelve-year-old girl?' the boy yelled. 'Those are the Darkest creatures in the whole world, I could feel it coming here even through the Patronus - the wrongness coming nearer - it's horribly evil and it - it'd eat everyone in this room, if it could! It shouldn't be let near any child, ever! Not me, not her, not anyone! You ought to vote to send it away!'

'We'll certainly have no such vote -' the toad-woman snapped.

'That's enough, Madam Umbridge, Mr. Potter,' came Dumbledore's stern voice from high above. And then after a short pause, the old wizard went on, 'Although, of course, the boy is correct on every count.'

Some of the members of the Wizengamot were looking abashed at the Boy-Who-Lived's admonition, and a few others were nodding violently to the old wizard's words. But they were too few. Harry could see it. They were too few.

The Veritaserum was brought in then, and Hermione looked for a brief moment like she was about to sob, she was looking at Harry - no, at Professor McGonagall - and Professor McGonagall was mouthing words that Harry couldn't make out from his angle. Then Hermione swallowed three drops of Veritaserum and her face grew slack.

'Gawain Robards,' said the smooth voice of Lucius Malfoy. 'Your probity is known to all of us. If you would do the honors?'

One of the three Aurors stepped forward.

After the first few questions Harry looked away and stared off to one side with his fingers in his ears, as Hermione's brain played back the contents of the False Memory Charm. He couldn't handle the drug-dulled anguish in Hermione's voice as she recounted the false memories, and his dark side couldn't handle it either, and he'd already heard the contents summarized.

Harry's mind flashed back to another day of horror, and even though Harry had been on the verge of writing off Lord Voldemort's continued existence as the senility of an old wizard, it suddenly seemed horribly and uniquely plausible that the entity who'd Memory-Charmed Hermione was the very same mind that had - made use of - Bellatrix Black. The two events had a certain signature in common. To choose that this should happen, plan for this to happen - it would take more than evil, it would take emptiness.

Harry looked up for a moment, then, and saw that the plum-colored robes were watching, just watching.

Some time later, after all the stars in the night sky had gone cold and dark and the last light in the Universe had sputtered down to embers and gone black, the questioning of Hermione ended.

'If it pleases my Lords,' said the voice of Lord Malfoy, 'I should like to have the testimony of my son Draco, witnessed under two drops of Veritaserum, read aloud at this time.'

Until she went after me in that battle, I wasn't plotting anything against Granger. But after that day I really was feeling insulted, I'd helped her all those times -

The sound that came from Hermione's throat was like she'd just been crushed under a falling stone, so huge that she couldn't cry or breathe, just a small sad gasp.

'Pardon me,' said one witch from what seemed to be the Malfoy-aligned side of the room. 'But Lord Malfoy, why would your son help this mudblood girl?'

'My son,' Lucius Malfoy said in a heavy voice, 'seems to have been listening to certain misguided ideas. He is young - and he has learned, now, we have all seen as a country, what such folly brings in repayment.'

A few steps down along the visitor's benches, a man wearing a newsman's cap and a badge identifying him as belonging to the Daily Prophet was avidly scribbling with a long quill.

The few people who'd nodded along to Dumbledore earlier had rather sick looks on their faces. One witch in plum-colored robes quite deliberately stood up from what had seemed like Dumbledore's side of the room, and made her way over toward the Malfoy side.

The Auror went on reading, his voice monotone.

I'd been so tired from casting all those locking wards, I was weak when I cast the last one. I thought I was stronger than Granger but I wasn't certain, so I tested it empirically by challenging her to a duel, that's why I d-d-did it and also because if I'd won I was planning to beat her again the next day where everyone could see. Stupid Veritaserum. But she didn't know about that when she tried to kill me! And I really was insulted by what she'd done, I really had helped her before and I hadn't been planning anything against her then, only she went after me in front of everyone!'

When all the witness testimony was done, the deliberations of the Wizengamot began.

If you could call them that.

It seemed that many members of the Wizengamot were of the strong opinion that murder was bad.

The plum-colored robes on Dumbledore's side of the room were silent, the supposed forces of good saving their political capital for more winnable battles. And Harry could hear, as though Professor Quirrell were standing next to him, a dry voice in his mind; explaining to him that it would hardly have been to the politicians' own advantage to speak, just then.

But there was one wizard in the room whose status was high enough that he had, it seemed, transcended his caution against losing face; one wizard alone whose status was high enough that he could speak a word of sanity and escape unscathed. He alone spoke to defend Hermione, the man with a phoenix flaming bright upon his shoulder.