Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Roberta took in her first sight of Professor and Mrs. Verres, who were both looking rather nervous, just as the boy with the legendary scar on his forehead turned to her daughter and said, now in a lower voice, "Well met on this fairest of evenings, Miss Granger." His hand stretched back, as though offering his parents on a silver platter. "I present to you my father, Professor Michael Verres-Evans, and my mother, Mrs. Petunia Evans-Verres."

And as Roberta's mouth was gaping open, the boy turned back to his parents and said, now in that bright voice again, "Mum, Dad, this is Hermione! She's really smart!"

"Harry!" hissed her daughter. "Stop that!"

The boy swiveled again to regard Hermione. "I'm afraid, Miss Granger," the boy said gravely, "that you and I have been exiled to the labyrinthine recesses of the basement. Let us leave them to their adult conversations, which would no doubt soar far above our own childish intellects, and resume our ongoing discussion of the implications of Humean projectivism for Transfiguration."

"Excuse us, please," said her daughter in a very firm tone, and grabbed the boy by his left sleeve, and dragged him into the hallway - Roberta swiveled helplessly to track them as they went past her, the boy gave her a cheery wave - and then Hermione pulled the boy into the basement access and slammed the door behind her.

"I, ah, I apologize for..." said Mrs. Verres in a faltering voice.

"I'm sorry," said the Professor, smiling fondly, "Harry can be a bit touchy about that sort of thing. But I expect he's right about us not being interested in their conversation."

Is he dangerous? Roberta wanted to ask, but she kept her silence and tried to think of subtler questions. Her husband beside her was chuckling, as if he'd found what they'd just seen funny, rather than frightening.

The most terrible Dark Lord in history had tried to kill that boy, and the burnt husk of his body had been found next to the crib.

Her possible future son-in-law.

Roberta had been increasingly apprehensive about giving her daughter over to witchcraft - especially after she'd read the books, put the dates together, and realized that her magical mother had probably been killed at the height of Grindelwald's terror, not died giving birth to her as her father had always claimed. But Professor McGonagall had made other visits after her first trip, to "see how Miss Granger is doing"; and Roberta couldn't help but think that if Hermione said her parents were being troublesome about her witching career, something would be done to fix them...

Roberta put her best smile on her face, and did what she could to spread some pretended Christmas cheer.

The dining room table was much longer than six people - er, four people and two children - really needed, but all of it was draped with a tablecloth of fine white linen, and the dishes had been needlessly transferred to fancy serving plates, which at least were of stainless steel rather than real silver.

Harry was having a bit of trouble concentrating on the turkey.

The conversation had turned to Hogwarts, naturally; and it'd been obvious to Harry that his parents were hoping that Hermione would trip up and say more about Harry's school life than Harry had been telling them. And either Hermione had realized this, or she was just automatically steering clear of anything that might prove troublesome.

So Harry was fine.

But unfortunately Harry had made the mistake of owling his parents with all sorts of facts about Hermione that she hadn't told her own parents.

Like that she was general of an army in their after-school activities.

Hermione's mother had looked very alarmed, and Harry had quickly interrupted and done his best to explain that all the spells were stunners, Professor Quirrell was always watching, and the existence of magical healing meant that lots of things were much less dangerous than they sounded, at which point Hermione had kicked him hard under the table. Thankfully Harry's father, who Harry had to admit was better than him at some things, had announced with firm professorial authority that he hadn't worried at all, since he couldn't imagine children being allowed to do it if it was dangerous.

That wasn't why Harry was having trouble enjoying dinner, though.

...the problem with feeling sorry for yourself was that it never took any time at all to find someone else who had it worse.

Dr. Leo Granger had asked, at one point, whether that nice teacher who'd seemed to like Hermione, Professor McGonagall, was awarding her lots of points in school.

Hermione had said yes, with an apparently genuine smile.

Harry had managed, with some effort, to stop himself from icily pointing out that Professor McGonagall would never show favoritism to any Hogwarts student, and that Hermione was getting lots of points because she'd earned every, single, one.

At another point, Leo Granger had offered the table his opinion that Hermione was very smart and could have gone to medical school and become a dentist, if not for the whole witch business.

Hermione had smiled again, and a quick glance had prevented Harry from suggesting Hermione might also have been an internationally famous scientist, and asking whether that thought would've occurred to the Grangers if they'd had a son instead of a daughter, or if it was unacceptable either way for their offspring to do better than them.

But Harry was rapidly reaching his boiling point.

And becoming a lot more appreciative of the fact that his own father had always done everything he could to support Harry's development as a prodigy and always encouraged him to reach higher and never belittled a single one of his accomplishments, even if a child prodigy was still just a child. Was this the sort of household he could have ended up in, if Mum had married Vernon Dursley?

Harry was doing what he could, though.