Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

should do -"

Hermione left the classroom in something of a daze. Zabini's plan hadn't been the obvious one, it had been strange and complicated and layered and the sort of thing she would've expected Harry to come up with, not Zabini. It felt wrong just for her to be able to understand a plan like that. Young girls shouldn't be able to understand plans like that. The Hat would've Sorted her into Slytherin, if it'd seen that she could understand plans like that...

The awesome thing was how fast he'd been able to escalate the chaos once he started doing it deliberately.

Harry sat in his office; he'd been given the authority to order furniture from the house elves, so he'd ordered a throne, and curtains in a black and crimson pattern. Scarlet light like blood, mixed with shadow, poured over the floor.

Something in Harry felt like he'd finally come home.

Before him stood the four Lieutenants of Chaos, his most trusted minions, one of whom was a traitor.

This. This was what life should be like.

"We are gathered," said Harry.

"Let Chaos reign," chorused his four Lieutenants.

"My hovercraft is full of eels," said Harry.

"I will not buy this record, it is scratched," chorused his four Lieutenants.

"All mimsy were the borogroves."

"And the mome raths outgrabe!"

That concluded the formalities.

"How goes the confusion?" Harry said in a dry whisper like Emperor Palpatine.

"It goes well, General Chaos," said Neville in the tone he always used for military matters, a tone so deep that the boy often had to stop and cough. The Chaotic Lieutenant was neatly dressed in his black school robes, trimmed in the yellow of Hufflepuff House, and his hair was parted and combed in the usual look for an earnest young boy. Harry had liked the incongruity better than any of the cloaks they'd tried. "Our Legionnaires have begun five new plots since yesterday evening."

Harry smiled evilly. "Do any of them have a chance of working?"

"I don't think so," said Neville of Chaos. "Here's the report."

"Excellent," said Harry, and laughed chillingly as he took the parchment from Neville's hand, trying his best to make it sound like he was choking on dust. That brought the total to sixty.

Let Draco try to handle that. Let him try.

And as for Blaise Zabini...

Harry laughed again, and this time it didn't even take an effort to sound evil. He really needed to borrow someone's pet Kneazle for his staff meetings, so he'd have a cat to stroke while he did this.

"Can the Legion stop making plots now?" said Finnigan of Chaos. "I mean, don't we have enough already -"

"No," Harry said flatly. "We can never have enough plots."

Professor Quirrell had put it perfectly. They were pushing the boundaries further, perhaps, than they had ever been pushed; and Harry wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he'd turned back now.

There came a knock at the door.

"That will be the Dragon General," Harry said, smiling with evil prescience. "He arrives precisely as I expected. Do show him in, and yourselves out."

And the four Lieutenants of Chaos shuffled out, casting dark looks at Draco as the enemy general entered into Harry's secret lair.

If he wasn't allowed to do this when he was older, Harry was just going to stay eleven forever.

The sun was dripping through the red curtains, sending rays of blood dancing across the floor from behind Harry Potter's grownup-sized cushioned chair, which he had covered in gold and silver glitter and insisted on referring to as his throne.

(Draco was beginning to feel a lot more confident that he'd done the right thing in deciding to overthrow Harry Potter before he could take over the world. Draco couldn't even imagine what it would be like to live under his rule.)

"Good evening, Dragon General," said Harry Potter in a chill whisper. "You have arrived just as I expected."

This was not surprising, considering that Draco and Harry had agreed on the meeting time in advance.

And it also wasn't evening, but by now Draco knew better than to say anything.

"General Potter," Draco said with as much dignity as he could manage, "you know that our two armies have to work together for either of us to win Professor Quirrell's wish, right?"

"Yesss," hissed Harry, like the boy thought he was a Parselmouth. "We must cooperate to destroy Sunshine, and only then fight it out between us. But if one of us betrays the other earlier on, that one could gain an advantage in the later fight. And the Sunshine General, who knows all this, will try to trick each of us into thinking the other has betrayed them. And you and I, who know that, will be tempted to betray the other and pretend that it is Granger's trickery. And Granger knows that, as well."

Draco nodded. That much was obvious. "And... both of us only want to win, and there's no one else who'll punish either of us if we defect..."