Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

She was heading toward the infirmary, and Harry Potter was leaving it, when they passed each other.

The look he gave her wasn't angry.

It wasn't sad.

It didn't say much at all.

It was like... like he was looking at her just long enough to make it clear that he wasn't deliberately avoiding looking at her.

And then he looked away before she could figure out what look to give him in return; as though he wanted to spare her that, as well.

He didn't say anything as he walked past her.

Neither did she.

What could there possibly be to say?

Aftermath, Fred and George Weasley:

They actually yelped out loud, when they turned the corner and saw Dumbledore.

It wasn't that the Headmaster had popped up out of nowhere and was staring at them with a stern expression. Dumbledore was always doing that.

But the wizard was dressed in formal black robes and looking very ancient and very powerful and he was giving the two of them a SHARP LOOK.

"Fred and George Weasley!" spake Dumbledore in a Voice of Power.

"Yes, Headmaster!" they said, snapping upright and giving him a crisp military salute they'd seen in some old pictures.

"Hear me well! You are the friends of Harry Potter, is this so?"

"Yes, Headmaster!"

"Harry Potter is in danger. He must not go beyond the wards of Hogwarts. Listen to me, sons of Weasley, I beg you listen: you know that I am as Gryffindor as yourselves, that I too know there are higher rules than rules. But this, Fred and George, this one thing is of the most terrible importance, there must be no exception this time, small or great! If you help Harry to leave Hogwarts he may die! Does he send you on a mission, you may go, does he ask you to bring him items, you may help, but if he asks you to smuggle his own person out of Hogwarts, you must refuse! Do you understand?"

"Yes, Headmaster!" They said it without even thinking, really, and then exchanged uncertain looks with each other -

The bright blue eyes of the Headmaster were intent upon them. "No. Not without thinking. If Harry asks you to bring him out, you must refuse, if he asks you to tell him the way, you must refuse. I will not ask you to report him to me, for that I know you would never do. But beg him on my behalf to go to me, if it is of such importance, and I will guard him as he walks. Fred, George, I am sorry to strain your friendship so, but it is his life."

The two of them looked at each other for a long while, not communicating, only thinking the same things at the same time.

They looked back at Dumbledore.

They said, with a chill running through them as they spoke the name, "Bellatrix Black."

"You may safely assume," said the Headmaster, "that it is at least that bad."

"Okay -"

"- got it."

Aftermath, Alastor Moody and Severus Snape:

When Alastor Moody had lost his eye, he had commandeered the services of a most erudite Ravenclaw, Samuel H. Lyall, whom Moody mistrusted slightly less than average because Moody had refrained from reporting him as an unregistered werewolf; and he had paid Lyall to compile a list of every known magical eye, and every known hint to their location.

When Moody had gotten the list back, he hadn't bothered reading most of it; because at the top of the list was the Eye of Vance, dating back to an era before Hogwarts, and currently in the possession of a powerful Dark Wizard ruling over some tiny forgotten hellhole that wasn't in Britain or anywhere else he'd have to worry about silly rules.

That was how Alastor Moody had lost his left foot and acquired the Eye of Vance, and how the oppressed souls of Urulat had been liberated for a period of around two weeks before another Dark Wizard moved in on the power vacuum.

He'd considered going after the Left Foot of Vance next, but had decided against it after he realized that would be just what they were expecting.

Now Mad-Eye Moody was turning slowly, always turning, surveying the graveyard of Little Hangleton. It should have been a lot gloomier, that place, but in the broad daylight it seemed like nothing but a grassy place marked by ordinary tombstones, demarcated by the chained twists of fragile, easily climbable metal that Muggles used instead of wards. (Moody could not comprehend what the Muggles were thinking on that score, if they were pretending to have wards, or what, and he had decided not to ask whether Muggle criminals respected the pretense.)

Moody didn't actually need to turn to survey the graveyard.

The Eye of Vance saw the full globe of the world in every direction around him, no matter where it was pointing.

But there was no particular reason to let a former Death Eater like Severus Snape know that.