Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

and hefted a muffin -

Someone tapped Harry on the shoulder, and he turned around and saw an unfamiliar green-trimmed older girl, who handed him a parchment envelope and then quickly strode away.

Harry stared at the envelope for a moment, then started walking toward the nearest wall. That wasn't very private, but it should be private enough, and Harry didn't want to give the impression of having much to hide.

That had been a Slytherin System delivery, what you used if you wanted to communicate with someone without anyone else knowing that the two of you had talked. The sender gave an envelope to someone who had a reputation for being a reliable messenger, along with ten Knuts; that first person would take five Knuts and pass the envelope to another messenger along with the other five Knuts, and the second messenger would open up that envelope and find another envelope with a name written on it and deliver that envelope to that person. That way neither of the two people passing the message knew both the sender and the recipient, so no one else knew that those two parties had been in contact...

When Harry reached the wall, he put the envelope inside his robes, opened it beneath the folds of cloth, and carefully snuck a peek at the parchment he drew forth.

It said,

Classroom to the left of Transfiguration, 8 in the morning.

- LL.

Harry stared at it, trying to remember if he knew anyone with the initials LL.

His mind searched...

Searched...

Retrieved -

"The Quibbler girl?" Harry whispered incredulously, and then shut his mouth. She was only ten years old, she shouldn't be in Hogwarts at all!

Aftermath: Lesath Lestrange.

Harry was standing in the unused classroom next to Transfiguration at 8AM, waiting, he'd at least managed to get some food into himself before facing the next disaster, Luna Lovegood...

The door to the classroom opened, and Harry saw, and gave himself a really hard mental kick.

One more thing he hadn't thought of, one more thing he really should have.

The older boy's green-trimmed formal robes were askew, there were red spots on them looking very much like small dots of fresh blood, and one corner of his mouth had the look of a place that had been cut and healed, by Episkey or some other minor medical Charm that didn't quite erase all the damage.

Lesath Lestrange's face was streaked with tears, fresh tears and half-dried tears, and there was water in his eyes, a promise of still more on the way. "Quietus," said the older boy, and then "Homenum Revelio" and some other things, while Harry thought frantically and without much luck.

And then Lesath lowered his wand and sheathed it in his robes, and slowly this time, formally, the older boy dropped to his knees on the dusty classroom floor.

Bowed his head all the way down, until his forehead also touched the dust, and Harry would have spoken but he was voiceless.

Lesath Lestrange said, in a breaking voice, "My life is yours, my Lord, and my death as well."

"I," Harry said, there was a huge lump in his throat and he was having trouble speaking, "I -" didn't have anything to do with it, he should have been saying, should be saying right now, but then again the innocent Harry would have had trouble speaking too -

"Thank you," whispered Lesath, "thank you, my Lord, oh, thank you," the sound of a choked-off sob came from the kneeling boy, all Harry could see of him was the hair on the back of his head, nothing of his face. "I'm a fool, my Lord, an ungrateful bastard, unworthy to serve you, I cannot abase myself enough, for I - I shouted at you after you helped me, because I thought you were refusing me, and I didn't even realize until this morning that I'd been such a fool as to ask you in front of Longbottom -"

"I didn't have anything to do with it," Harry said.

(It was still very hard to tell an outright lie like that.)

Slowly Lesath raised his head from the floor, looked up at Harry.

"I understand, my Lord," said the older boy, his voice wavering a little, "you do not trust my cunning, and indeed I have shown myself a fool... I only wanted to say to you, that I am not ungrateful, that I know it must have been hard enough to save only one person, that they're alerted now, that you can't - get Father - but I am not ungrateful, I will never be ungrateful to you again. If ever you have a use for this unworthy servant, call me wherever I am, and I will answer, my Lord -"

"I was not involved in any way."

(But it got easier each time.)

Lesath gazed up at Harry, said uncertainly, "Am I dismissed from your presence, my Lord...?"

"I am not your Lord."

Lesath said, "Yes, my Lord, I understand," and pushed himself back up from the floor, stood straight and bowed deeply, then backed away from Harry until he turned to open the classroom door.

As Lesath's hand touched the doorknob, he paused.

Harry couldn't see Lesath's face, as the older boy's voice said, "Did you send her to someone who would take care of her? Did she ask about me at all?"