...the portkey would send the user somewhere in London, but he couldn't pinpoint it any nearer than that.
Harry had shown Professor Quirrell the note that had accompanied the deck of cards, saying nothing of the earlier notes.
Professor Quirrell had taken it in at a glance, given a dry chuckle, and observed that if you read the note carefully, it did not explicitly say that the portkey would take him to the Salem Witches' Institute.
You needed to learn to pay attention to that kind of subtlety, Professor Quirrell said, if you wanted to be a powerful wizard when you grew up; or, indeed, if you wanted to grow up at all.
The boy sighed again as he trudged off to class.
He was starting to wonder if all the other wizarding schools were also like this, or if it was only Hogwarts that had a problem.
Chapter 66: Self Actualization, Pt 1
Hessitation iss alwayss eassy, rarely usseful.
So the Defense Professor had told him; and while you could quibble about the details of the proverb, Harry understood the weaknesses of Ravenclaws well enough to know that you had to try answering your own quibbles. Did some plans call for waiting? Yes, many plans called for delayed action; but that was not the same as hesitating to choose. Not delaying because you knew the right moment to do what was necessary, but delaying because you couldn't make up your mind - there was no cunning plan which called for that.
Did you sometimes need more information to choose? Yes, but that could also turn into an excuse for delaying; and it would be tempting to delay, when you were faced with a choice between two painful alternatives, and not choosing would avoid the mental pain for a time. So you would pick a piece of information you couldn't easily obtain, and claim that you couldn't possibly decide without it; that would be your excuse. Although if you knew what information you needed, knew when and how you would obtain that information, and knew what you would do depending on each possible observation, then that was less suspicious as an excuse for hesitating.
If you weren't just hesitating, you ought to be able to choose in advance what you would do, once you had the extra information you claimed you needed.
If the Dark Lord were really out there, would it be smart to go along with Professor Quirrell's plan to have someone impersonate the Dark Lord?
No. Definitely no. Absolutely not.
And if Harry knew for a fact that the Dark Lord wasn't really out there... in that case...
The Defense Professor's office was a small room, at least today; it had changed since the last time Harry had seen it, the stone of the room becoming darker, more polished. Behind the Defense Professor's desk stood the single empty bookcase that always decorated the room, a tall bookcase stretching almost from the floor to the ceiling, with seven empty wooden shelves. Harry had only once seen Professor Quirrell take a book from those empty shelves, and never seen him put a book back.
The green snake swayed above the seat of the chair behind the Defense Professor's desk, the lidless eyes staring unblinking at Harry from close to his own eye level.
They were warded now by twenty-two spells, all that could be cast within Hogwarts without attracting the Headmaster's attention.
"No," hissed Harry.
The green snake cocked its head, tilting it slightly; no emotion was conveyed by the gesture, not that Harry's Parselmouth talent conveyed to him. "Reasson not?" said the green snake.
"Too rissky," Harry said simply. That was true whether or not the Dark Lord was out there. Forcing himself to decide in advance had made him realize that he'd just been using the unanswered question as an excuse to hesitate; the sane decision was the same, either way.
For a moment the dark pitted eyes seemed to gleam blackly, for a moment the scaled mouth gaped to expose the fangs. "Think you have learned wrong lessson, boy, from previouss failure. My planss are not in habit of failing, and lasst one would have gone flawlesssly, but for your own foolisshnesss. Correct lessson iss to follow ssteps laid down for you by older and wisser Sslytherin, tame your wild impulssess."
"Lessson I learned is not to try plotss that would make girl-child friend think I am evil or boy-child friend think I am sstupid," Harry snapped back. He'd been planning a more temporizing response than that, but somehow the words had just slipped out.
The sssss-ing sound that came from the snake was not heard by Harry as words, only as pure fury. A moment later, "You told them -"
"Of coursse not! But know what they would ssay."
There was a long pause as the snake-head swayed, staring at Harry; again no detectable emotion came through, and Harry wondered what Professor Quirrell could be thinking that would take Professor Quirrell that long to think.
"You sserioussly care what thosse two think?" came the snake's final hiss. "True younglingss thosse two are, not like you. Could not weigh adult matterss."
"Might have done better than me," Harry hissed. "Boy-child friend would have assked after ssecret motivess before asssenting to resscue woman -"
"Glad you undersstand that now," the snake hissed coldly. "Alwayss assk after other'ss advantage. Next learn to alwayss assk after your own. If my plan iss not to your tasste, what iss yours?"
