Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

"And, um," Hermione said. "That's not the Cloak of Invisibility, is it? The one we read about in the library on page eighteen of Paula Vieira's translation of Gottschalk's An Illustrated Scroll of Lost Devices?"

Harry turned his head back, grinning slightly, and said in exactly the same tone of voice he'd used earlier with the other students at dinner, "I cannot confirm or deny that I possess magical artifacts of incredible power."

When Hermione climbed into bed that night she was still trying to decide. Her life had been simpler at dinnertime, back when there hadn't been any practical way for them to find bullies; and now she had to choose again; not for herself, this time, but for her friends. In her mind's eye she kept seeing Dumbledore's lined face and the pain it hadn't quite hidden, and in her mind's ears she kept hearing Harry's voice saying 'That's their choice, Hermione, just like it's yours.'

And her hand kept remembering the sensation of the cloak against her fingers, replaying it over and over in her mind. There was a power to the feeling that compelled her thoughts to return to it, and to the song she'd heard / hadn't heard in a part of her mind and magic which now lay silent once more.

Harry had spoken to the cloak like it was a person, telling it to take good care of her. Harry had said the cloak had belonged to his father, that he couldn't replace it if it was lost...

But... Harry wouldn't really do that, would he?

Just hand her one of the three Deathly Hallows created centuries before Hogwarts?

She could say that she felt flattered, but this went way beyond feeling flattered, into making her wonder just what she was to Harry, exactly.

Maybe Harry was the sort of person who went around loaning ancient lost magical artifacts to anyone he considered a friend, but -

But when she thought about which part of his life Harry had said he'd skipped over, the part where he tried to keep her safe and protected...

Hermione stared up at the ceiling of the Ravenclaw dorm. Somewhere beyond her bed, Mandy and Su were talking. She'd turned up her Quieting Charm to where she couldn't hear the exact words, but could still hear their faint murmur; there was something comforting about sleeping in a dorm with the other girls. Harry kept his own Quieter turned up all the way, she knew.

She was starting to wonder if maybe Harry actually did, well...

You know...

Like her.

It took Hermione Granger a long time to fall asleep that night.

And when she woke up the next morning there was a small slip of parchment peeking out from under her pillow which said At half-past ten you will find a bully in the fourth passageway to the left of the hall leaving the Potions classroom - S.

When Hermione entered the Great Hall that morning, her stomach was filled with flying butterflies the size of Hippogriffs; even as she approached the Ravenclaw breakfast table she still hadn't decided what to do.

There was an empty place next to Padma, she saw. That would be where to sit down, if she was going to tell Padma and then ask Padma to tell Daphne and Tracey.

Hermione walked toward the empty place next to Padma.

There were words waiting in her throat, Padma, I got a mysterious message -

And she could feel a huge brick wall inside her, stopping the words from coming out. She'd be putting Hannah and Susan and Daphne in danger. Taking them and leading them by the hand straight into trouble. That was Wrong.

Or she could just go try to handle the bully herself, without telling her friends anything, and that, quite obviously, was also Wrong.

Hermione knew she was being faced with a Moral Dilemma, just like all those wizards and witches she'd read about in stories. Only in stories people always got a right choice and a wrong choice, not two wrong ones, which seemed a bit unfair. But she had the sense, somehow - maybe it came from the way Harry always talked about how the history books would see them - that she was faced with a Heroic Decision, and that her whole life might end up going one way or another, depending on what she chose right now, this morning.

Hermione sat down at the table without looking to either side, just gazing at the plate and silverware like they might have answers hidden inside, thinking as hard as she ever had, and a few seconds later she heard Padma's voice whispering almost in her ear, "Daphne says she knows where a bully's going to be at ten-thirty today."

Doomed.

They were all doomed, in Susan Bones's opinion.

Auntie sometimes told stories which started out like this, people doing something they knew was stupid, and the stories usually ended with someone being doomed all over the floor and all over the walls and getting on Auntie's shoes.

"Hey, Padma," muttered Parvati, her voice just barely audible over the soft impacts of eight girls tiptoeing through the corridor leading to the Potions classroom, "d'you know why Hermione's been sighing all morning -"

"No talking!" hissed Lavender, the harsh whisper sounding much louder than Parvati's mutter. "You never know when Evil might be listening!"

"Shhh!" said three other girls even more loudly.

Utterly, totally, quite extremely doomed.

As they approached the fourth passageway to the left of the Potions classroom, where Daphne's mysterious informant had said the bullying would take place, the eight of them moved slower, the sound of their feet got softer, and finally General Granger made the gesture that meant Halt, I'll look ahead.