"There will be no second date," said the green-lit silhouette in a voice so fearsome that it sounded, not only like a Death Eater, but like Amycus Carrow that one time just before Father told him to stop it, he wasn't the Dark Lord.
Of course it was still a young boy's high unbroken voice and when you combined that with the actual words, well, it just didn't work. If Harry Potter did become the next Dark Lord someday, Draco would use a Pensieve to store a copy of this memory somewhere safe, and Harry Potter would never dare betray him.
"But let us talk of happier matters," said the green-shadowed figure. "Let us talk of knowledge and of power. Draco Malfoy, let us talk of Science."
"Yes," said Draco. "Let us speak."
Draco wondered how much of his own face could be seen, and how much was in shadow, in that eerie green light.
And though Draco kept his face serious, there was a smile in his heart.
He was finally having a real grownup conversation.
"I offer you power," said the shadowy figure, "and I will tell you of that power and its price. The power comes from knowing the shape of reality and so gaining control over it. What you understand, you can command, and that is power enough to walk upon the Moon. The price of that power is that you must learn to ask questions of Nature, and far more difficult, accept Nature's answers. You will do experiments, perform tests and see what happens. And you must accept the meaning of those results when they tell you that you are mistaken. You will have to learn how to lose, not to me, but to Nature. When you find yourself arguing with reality, you will have to let reality win. You will find this painful, Draco Malfoy, and I do not know if you are strong in that way. Knowing the price, is it still your wish to learn the human power?"
Draco took a deep breath. He'd thought about this. And it was hard to see how he could answer any other way. He'd been instructed to take every avenue of friendship with Harry Potter. It was just learning, he wasn't promising to do anything. He could always stop the lessons at any time...
There were certainly any number of things about the situation which made it look like a trap, but in all honesty, Draco didn't see how this could go wrong.
Plus Draco did kind of want to rule the world.
"Yes," said Draco.
"Excellent," said the shadowy figure. "I have had something of a crowded week, and it will take time to plan your curriculum -"
"I've got a lot of things I need to do myself to consolidate my power in Slytherin," said Draco, "not to mention homework. Maybe we should just start in October?"
"Sounds sensible," said the shadowy figure, "but what I meant to say is that to plan your curriculum, I need to know what I will be teaching you. Three thoughts come to me. The first is that I teach you of the human mind and brain. The second option is that I teach you of the physical universe, those arts which lie on the pathway to visiting the Moon. This involves a great deal of numbers, but to a certain kind of mind those numbers are more beautiful than anything else Science has to teach. Do you like numbers, Draco?"
Draco shook his head.
"Then so much for that. You will learn your mathematics eventually, but not right away, I think. The third option is that I teach you of genetics and evolution and inheritance, what you would call blood -"
"That one," said Draco.
The figure nodded. "I thought you might say as much. But I think it will be the most painful path for you, Draco. What if your family and friends, the blood purists, say one thing, and you find that the experimental test says another?"
"Then I'll figure out how to make the experimental test say the right answer!"
There was a pause, as the shadowy figure stood there with its mouth open for a short while.
"Um," said the shadowy figure. "It doesn't really work like that. That's what I was trying to warn you about here, Draco. You can't make the answer come out to be anything you like."
"You can always make the answer come out your way," said Draco. That had been practically the first thing his tutors had taught him. "It's just a matter of finding the right arguments."
"No," said the shadowy figure, voice rising in frustration, "no, no, no! Then you get the wrong answer and you can't go to the Moon that way! Nature isn't a person, you can't trick them into believing something else, if you try to tell the Moon it's made of cheese you can argue for days and it won't change the Moon! What you're talking about is rationalization, like starting with a sheet of paper, moving straight down to the bottom line, using ink to write 'and therefore, the Moon is made of cheese', and then moving back up to write all sorts of clever arguments above. But either the Moon is made of cheese or it isn't. The moment you wrote the bottom line, it was already true or already false. Whether or not the whole sheet of paper ends up with the right conclusion or the wrong conclusion is fixed the instant you write down the bottom line. If you're trying to pick between two expensive trunks, and you like the shiny one, it doesn't matter what clever arguments you come up with for buying it, the real rule you used to choose which trunk to argue for was 'pick the shiny one', and however effective that rule is at picking good trunks, that's the kind of trunk you'll get. Rationality can't be used to argue for a fixed side, its only possible use is deciding which side to argue. Science isn't for convincing anyone that the blood purists are right. That's politics! The power of science comes from finding out the way Nature really is that can't be changed by arguing! What science can do is tell us how blood really works, how wizards really inherit their powers from their parents, and whether Muggleborns are really weaker or stronger -"
"Stronger!" said Draco. He had been trying to follow this, a puzzled frown on his face, he could see how it sort of made sense but it certainly wasn't like anything he'd ever heard before. And then Harry Potter had said something Draco couldn't possibly let pass. "You think mudbloods are stronger?"
