Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

think? I think she must be mad after all. When ordinary people try to make stuff up, it doesn't come out like this. Something's got to go really wrong with the inside of your head before this is what comes out when you start making stuff up!"

The vendor stared at Harry.

"Seriously," said Harry. "Who reads this stuff?"

"You," said the vendor.

Harry wandered off to read his newspaper.

He didn't sit at the same nearby table he'd sat down at with Draco, the first time he'd prepared to board this train. That seemed like tempting history to repeat itself.

It wasn't just that his first week at Hogwarts had been, judging by the Quibbler, fifty-four years long. It was that, in Harry's humble opinion, his life did not need any new threads of complexity.

So Harry found a small iron chair somewhere else, distant from the main crowd and the occasional muffled cracks of parents Apparating in with their children, and sat down and read the Quibbler to see if it contained any suppressed news.

And besides the obvious craziness (heaven help them all if any of that was real) there was a good deal of snide romantic gossip; but nothing that would really be all that important if it was true.

Harry was just reading about the Ministry's proposed marriage law, to ban all marriages, when -

"Harry Potter," said a silken voice that sent a shock of adrenaline jolting through Harry's blood.

Harry looked up.

"Lucius Malfoy," Harry said, his voice weary. Next time he was going to do the smart thing, and wait outside in the Muggle part of King's Cross until 10:55am.

Lucius inclined his head courteously, sending his long white hair drifting over his shoulders. The man was still carrying that same cane, lacquered in black with a silver snake's head for its handle; and something about his grip silently said this is a weapon of deadly power, not I am feeble and leaning on this. His face was expressionless.

Two men flanked him, their eyes continuously scanning, their wands already gripped low in their hands. The two of them moved like a single organism with four legs and four arms, the senior Crabbe-and-Goyle, and Harry thought he could guess which was which, but then it didn't really matter. They were merely Lucius's appendages, as certainly as if they'd been the two rightmost toes on his left foot.

"I apologize for disturbing you, Mr. Potter," said the smooth, silken voice. "But you have answered none of my owls; and this, I thought, might be my only opportunity to meet you."

"I have received none of your owls," Harry said calmly. "Dumbledore intercepted them, I presume. But I would not have answered them if I had, except through Draco. For me to deal with you directly, without Draco's knowledge, would trespass on our friendship."

Please go away, please go away...

The grey eyes glittered at him. "Is that your pose, then..." said the senior Malfoy. "Well. I shall play along a little. What was your purpose in maneuvering your good friend, my son, into a public alliance with that girl?"

"Oh," Harry said lightly, "that's obvious, right? Draco's working with Granger will make him realize that Muggleborns are human after all. Bwa. Ha. Ha."

A thin trace of a smile moved over Lucius's lips. "Yes, that does sound like one of Dumbledore's plans. Which it is not."

"Indeed," said Harry. "It is part of my game with Draco, and no work of Dumbledore's, and that is all I will say."

"Let us dispense with games," said the senior Malfoy, the grey eyes suddenly hardening. "If my suspicions are true, you would hardly do Dumbledore's bidding in any case, Mr. Potter."

There was a slight pause.

"So you know," Harry said, his voice cold. "Tell me. At which point, exactly, did you realize?"

"When I read your response to Professor Quirrell's little speech," said the white-haired man, and chuckled grimly. "I was puzzled, at first, for it seemed not in your own interest; it took me days to understand whose interest was being served, and then it all finally became clear. And it is also obvious that you are weak, in some ways if not others."

"Very clever of you," said Harry, still cold. "But perhaps you mistake my interests."

"Perhaps I do." A hint of steel came into the silken voice. "Indeed, that is precisely what I fear. You are playing strange games with my son, to a purpose I cannot guess. That is not a friendly act, and you cannot but expect me to be concerned!"

Lucius was leaning upon his cane with both hands now, and both those hands white, and his bodyguards had suddenly tensed.

Some instinct within Harry claimed that it would be a very bad idea to show his fear, to let Lucius see that he could be intimidated. They were in a public train station anyway -

"I find it interesting," Harry said, putting steel into his own voice, "that you think I could benefit from doing Draco harm. But it is irrelevant, Lucius. He is my friend, and I do not betray my friends."

"What?" whispered Lucius. His face showed sheer shock.

Then -