Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

"I think I'm done with the preliminary exercises in Occlumency and ready for the tutor."

Professor Quirrell nodded. "I shall conduct you to Gringotts this Sunday." He paused, looking at Harry, and smiled. "And we might even make it a little outing, if you like. I've just had a pleasant thought."

Harry nodded, smiling back.

As Harry left the office, he heard Professor Quirrell humming a small tune.

Harry was glad he'd been able to cheer him up.

That Sunday there seemed to be a rather large number of people whispering in the hallways, at least when Harry Potter walked past them.

And a lot of pointed fingers.

And a great deal of female giggling.

It had started at breakfast, when someone had asked Harry if he'd heard the news, and Harry had quickly interrupted and said that if the news was written by Rita Skeeter then he didn't want to hear about it, he wanted to read it in the paper himself.

It had then developed that not many students at Hogwarts got copies of the Daily Prophet, and that the copies which had not already been bought up from their owners were being passed around in some sort of complicated order and nobody really knew who had one at the moment...

So Harry had used a Quieting Charm and gone on to eat his breakfast, trusting to his seat-mates to wave off the many, many questioners, and doing his best to ignore the incredulity, the laughter, the congratulatory smiles, the pitying looks, the fearful glances, and the dropped plates as new people came down for breakfast and heard.

Harry was feeling rather curious, but it really wouldn't have done to spoil the artistry by hearing it secondhand.

He'd done homework in the safety of his trunk for the next couple of hours, after telling his dormmates to come get him if anyone found him an original newspaper.

Harry was still ignorant at 10AM, when he'd left Hogwarts in a carriage with Professor Quirrell, who was in the front right, and currently slumped over in zombie-mode. Harry was sitting diagonally across, as far away as the carriage allowed, in the back left. Even so, Harry had a constant feeling of doom as the carriage rattled over a small path through a section of non-forbidden forest. It made it a bit hard to read, especially since the material was difficult, and Harry suddenly wished he was reading one of his childhood science fiction books instead -

"We're outside the wards, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell's voice from the front. "Time to go."

Professor Quirrell carefully disembarked from the carriage, bracing himself as he stepped down. Harry, on his own side, jumped off.

Harry was wondering exactly how they'd get there when Professor Quirrell said "Catch!" and threw a bronze Knut at him, and Harry caught it without thinking.

A giant intangible hook caught at Harry's abdomen and yanked him back, hard, only without any sense of acceleration, and an instant later Harry was standing in the middle of Diagon Alley.

(Excuse me, what? said his brain.)

(We just teleported, explained Harry.)

(That didn't used to happen in the ancestral environment, Harry's brain complained, and disoriented him.)

Harry staggered as his feet adjusted to the brick of the street instead of the dirt of the forest corridor they had been traversing. He straightened, still dizzy, with the bustling witches and wizards seeming to sway slightly, and the cries of the shopkeepers seeming to move around in his hearing, as his brain tried to place a world to be located in.

Moments later, there was a sort of sucking-popping sound from a few paces behind Harry, and when Harry turned to look Professor Quirrell was there.

"Do you mind -" said Harry, at the same time as Professor Quirrell said, "I'm afraid I -"

Harry stopped, Professor Quirrell didn't.

"- need to go off and set something in motion, Mr. Potter. As it has been thoroughly explained to me that I am responsible for anything whatsoever that happens to you, I'll be leaving you with -"

"Newsstand," Harry said.

"Pardon?"

"Or anywhere I can buy a copy of the Daily Prophet. Put me there and I'll be happy."

Shortly after, Harry had been delivered into a bookstore, accompanied by several quietly spoken, ambiguous threats. And the shopkeeper had gotten less ambiguous threats, judging by the way he had cringed, and how his eyes now kept darting between Harry and the entrance.

If the bookstore burned down, Harry was going to stick around in the middle of the fire until Professor Quirrell got back.

Meanwhile -

Harry took a quick glance around.

The bookstore seemed rather small and shoddy, with only four rows of bookcases visible, and the nearest shelf Harry's eyes had jumped to seemed to deal with narrow, cheaply bound books with grim titles like The Massacre of Albania in the Fifteenth Century.

First things first. Harry stepped over to the seller's counter.

"Pardon me," said Harry, "One copy of the Daily Prophet, please."