Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

"Is that everything, then?" said Harry's trembling voice. Later he would think about this, later he would think of some cunning countermeasure, later he would ask Professor Quirrell if there was any way to convince the Headmaster he was mistaken. Right now, maintaining the mask was taking all of Harry's attention.

"Voldemort used a Muggle artifact to escape Azkaban," the old wizard said. "He is watching you and learning from you, Harry Potter. Soon a man named Arthur Weasley at the Ministry will issue an edict that all use of Muggle artifacts must cease in the Defense Professor's battles. In the future, when you have a good idea, keep it closer about yourself."

It didn't seem important by comparison. Harry just nodded, and said again, "Is that everything?"

There was a pause.

"Please," said the old wizard in a whisper. "I have no right to ask your forgiveness, Harry James Potter-Evans- Verres, but please, at least say that you understand why." There was water in the old wizard's eyes.

"I understand," said the voice of the outer Harry who did understand, "I mean... I was sort of thinking about it anyway... wondering whether I could get you and my parents to let me stay over at Hogwarts during the summer like the orphans, so I could read the library here, it's just more interesting at Hogwarts anyway..."

A choking sound came from Albus Dumbledore's throat.

Harry turned again toward the door. It wasn't escape unscathed, but it was escape.

He took a step forward.

His hand reached to the door-handle.

A piercing cry split the air -

As though in slow motion, as Harry spun, he saw the phoenix already launched through the air and winging toward him.

From the true Harry, the one who knew his own guilt, came a flash of panic, he hadn't thought of that, hadn't anticipated it, he'd prepared to face Dumbledore but he'd forgotten about Fawkes -

Flap, flap, and flap, three times the phoenix's wings flapped like the flaring up and dying down of a fire, duration seemed to pass too slowly as Fawkes soared over the mysterious devices toward where Harry stood.

And the red-golden bird was hovering in front of him with gentle wing-sweeps, bobbing in the air like a candle- flame.

"What is it, Fawkes?" said the false Harry in puzzlement, looking the phoenix in the eyes, as he would if he were innocent. The real Harry, feeling the same awful sickness inside as when Professor McGonagall had expressed her trust in him, thought, Did I turn evil today, Fawkes? I didn't think I was evil... Do you hate me now? If I've become something a phoenix hates, maybe I should just give it up now, give up everything now and confess -

Fawkes screamed, the most terrible cry Harry had ever heard, a scream that set all the devices vibrating and made all the sleeping figures start within their portraits.

It pierced through all of Harry's defenses like a white-hot sword through butter, collapsed all his layers like a punctured balloon popping, reshuffled his priorities in an instant as he remembered the one most important thing; the tears began pouring freely from Harry's eyes, down his cheeks, his voice choked as the words came out of his throat like coughing up lava -

"Fawkes says," Harry's voice said, "he wants me, to do, something, about, the prisoners, in Azkaban -"

"Fawkes, no!" said the old wizard. Dumbledore strode forward, reaching out to the phoenix with a pleading hand. The old wizard's voice was almost as desperate as the phoenix's scream had been. "You cannot ask that of him, Fawkes, he's only a boy still!"

"You went to Azkaban," Harry whispered, "you took Fawkes with you, he saw - you saw - you were there, you saw - WHY DIDN'T YOU DO ANYTHING? WHY DIDN'T YOU LET THEM OUT?"

When the instruments stopped vibrating, Harry realized that Fawkes had screamed at the same time as his own scream, that the phoenix was now flying next to Harry and facing Dumbledore at his side, the red-golden head level with his own.

"Can you," whispered the old wizard, "can you truly hear the voice of the phoenix so clearly?"

Harry was sobbing almost too hard to speak, for all the metal doors he'd passed, the voices he'd heard, the worst memories, the desperate begging as he walked away, all of it had burst into his mind like fire at the phoenix's scream, all the inner bulwarks smashed. Harry didn't know whether he could truly hear the voice of the phoenix so clearly, whether he would have understood Fawkes without already knowing. All Harry knew was that he had a plausible excuse to say the things Professor Quirrell had told him he must never raise in conversation from this day forth; because this was just what an innocent Harry would have said, would have done, if he had heard so clearly. "They're hurting - we have to help them -"

"I can't!" cried Albus Dumbledore. "Harry, Fawkes, I can't, there's nothing I can do!"

Another piercing scream.

"WHY NOT? JUST GO IN AND TAKE THEM OUT!"

The old wizard wrenched his gaze from the phoenix, his eyes meeting Harry's instead. "Harry, tell Fawkes for me! Tell him it's not that simple! Phoenixes aren't mere animals but they are animals, Harry, they can't understand -"

"I don't understand either," Harry said, his voice trembling. "I don't understand why you're feeding people to Dementors! Azkaban isn't a prison, it's a torture chamber and you're torturing those people to DEATH! "

"Percival," said the old wizard hoarsely, "Percival Dumbledore, my own father, Harry, my own father died in Azkaban! I know, I know it is a horror! But what would you have of me? To break Azkaban by force? Would you have me declare open rebellion against the Ministry?"