Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

It was then that Harry Potter had said, rather frustrated, that he couldn't imagine Draco was really this bad at considering different viewpoints, surely there'd been Death Eaters who'd posed as enemies of blood purism and had come up with much more plausible- sounding arguments against their own side than Draco was offering. If Draco had been trying to pose as a member of Dumbledore's faction, and come up with the house elf hypothesis, he wouldn't have fooled anyone for a second.

Draco had been forced to admit this was a point.

Hence the Potter Method.

"Please, Dr. Malfoy," whined Harry Potter, "why won't you accept my paper?"

Harry Potter had needed to repeat the phrase "just pretend to be pretending to be a scientist" three times before Draco had understood.

In that moment Draco had realized that there was something deeply wrong with Harry Potter's brain, and anyone who tried Legilimency on it would probably never come back out again.

Harry Potter had then gone into further and considerable detail: Draco was to pretend to be a Death Eater who was posing as the editor of a scientific journal, Dr. Malfoy, who wanted to reject his enemy Dr. Potter's paper "On the Heritability of Magical Ability", and if the Death Eater didn't act like a real scientist would, he would be revealed as a Death Eater and executed, while Dr. Malfoy was also being watched by his own rivals and needed to appear to reject Dr. Potter's paper for neutral scientific reasons or he would lose his position as journal editor.

It was a wonder the Sorting Hat wasn't gibbering madly in St. Mungo's.

It was also the most complicated thing anyone had ever asked Draco to pretend and there was no possible way he could have refused the challenge.

Right now they were, as Harry Potter had put it, getting in the mood.

"I'm afraid, Dr. Potter, that you wrote this in the wrong color of ink," Draco said. "Next!"

Dr. Potter's face did an excellent job of crumpling in despair, and Draco couldn't help but feel a flash of Dr. Malfoy's glee, even though the Death Eater was only pretending to be Dr. Malfoy.

This part was fun. He could have done this all day long.

Dr. Potter got up from the chair, slumped over in dismay, and trudged off, and turned into Harry Potter, who gave Draco a thumbs-up, and then turned back into Dr. Potter again, now approaching with an eager smile.

Dr. Potter sat down and presented Dr. Malfoy with a piece of parchment on which was written:

On the Heritability of Magical Ability

Dr. H. J. Potter-Evans-Verres, Institute for Sufficiently Advanced Science

My observation:

Today's wizards can't do things as impressive as

what wizards used to do 800 years ago.

My conclusion:

Wizardkind has become weaker by mixing

their blood with Muggleborns and Squibs.

"Dr. Malfoy," said Dr. Potter with a hopeful look, "I was wondering if the Journal of Irreproducible Results could consider for publication my paper entitled 'On the Heritability of Magical Ability'."

Draco looked at the parchment, smiling while he considered possible rejections. If he was a professor, he would have refused the essay as too short, so -

"It's too long, Dr. Potter," said Dr. Malfoy.

For a moment there was genuine incredulity on Dr. Potter's face.

"Ah..." said Dr. Potter. "How about if I get rid of the separate lines for observations and conclusions, and just put in a therefore -"

"Then it'll be too short. Next!"

Dr. Potter trudged off.

"All right," said Harry Potter, "you're getting too good at this. Two more times to practice, and then third time is for real, no interruptions between, I'll just come in straight at you and that time you'll reject the paper based on the actual content, remember, your scientific rivals are watching."

Dr. Potter's next paper was perfect in every way, a marvel of its kind, but unfortunately had to be rejected because Dr. Malfoy's journal was having trouble with the letter E. Dr. Potter offered to rewrite it without those words, and Dr. Malfoy explained that it was really more of a vowel problem.

The paper after that was rejected because it was Tuesday.

It was, in fact, Saturday.

Dr. Potter tried to point this out and was told "Next!"

(Draco was starting to understand why Snape had used his hold over Dumbledore just to get a position that let him be awful to students.)

And then -

Dr. Potter was approaching with a superior smirk on his face.

"This is my latest paper, On the Heritability of Magical Ability," Dr. Potter stated confidently, and thrust out the parchment. "I have decided to allow your journal to publish it, and have prepared it