Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

the time you have to add up that many excuses in a theory, it can't be at the top of the list anymore. Anything else in particular you think I ought to think about, within the range of all other possibilities?"

There was a long silence. The Defense Professor's eyes dropped down to look at the empty teacup before them, seeming unusually distant.

"I suppose I can think of one final suspect," the Defense Professor said at last.

Harry nodded.

The Defense Professor didn't seem to notice, but only spoke on. "Has the Headmaster has told you anything - even a hint - about Professor Trelawney's prophecy?"

"Huh?" Harry said automatically, converting his own sudden shock into the best dissembling he could manage. It probably was at the wrong level to fool Professor Quirrell but Harry certainly couldn't take time to think before replying - wait, but how on Earth would Professor Quirrell know about that - "Professor Trelawney made a prophecy?"

"You were there to hear its beginning," Professor Quirrell said, frowning. "You called out to the entire school that the prophecy could not be about you, since you were not coming here, you were already here."

HE IS COMING. THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY -

And that was as far as Professor Trelawney had gotten before Dumbledore had grabbed her and vanished.

"Oh, that prophecy," Harry said. "Sorry! It went clear out of my mind."

Harry thought he'd put too much force into the end statement, and was 80%-expecting Professor Quirrell to say, Aha, now Mr. Potter, what is this mysterious other prophecy you went to such lengths to deny -

"That is foolish," the Defense Professor said sharply, "if indeed you are telling me the truth. Prophecies are not trivial things. I have racked my brain much over the little that I heard, but such a small fragment is simply too little."

"You think the one who's coming is the one who might've framed Hermione?" said Harry. As his mind allocated yet another hypothesis, uncertain predicate referent, he-who-is-coming.

"With no offense meant to Miss Granger," the Defense Professor said with another frown, "her life or death does not seem that important. But someone was to come - one who, in your interpretation, was not already there - and someone so significant, and unknown as a player... who knows what else they may have done?"

Harry nodded, and mentally sighed because he was going to have to redo his Lord-Voldemort odds calculation with yet another piece of evidence in the mix.

Professor Quirrell spoke with eyes half-lidded, looking out like through slits. "More than the question of whom the prophecy spoke - who was meant to hear it? It is said that fates are spoken to those with the power to cause them or avert them. Dumbledore. Myself. You. As a distant fourth, Severus Snape. But of those four, Dumbledore and Snape would often be in Trelawney's presence. You and I are the ones who would not have spent much time around her before that Sunday. I think it quite likely that the prophecy was meant for one of us - before Dumbledore took the prophetess away. Did the Headmaster say nothing more to you?" Professor Quirrell's voice was demanding now. "I thought I heard too much force in that denial, Mr. Potter."

"Honestly, no," Harry said. "It had honestly slipped clear out of my mind."

"Then I am rather put out with him," Professor Quirrell said softly. "In fact, I think that I am angry."

Harry said nothing. He didn't even sweat. It might've been a poor reason for confidence, but on this particular score, Harry did happen to be innocent.

Professor Quirrell nodded once, sharply, as though in acknowledgment. "If there is nothing more to say between us, Mr. Potter, you may go."

"I can think of one other suspect," Harry said. "Someone you didn't put on your list at all. Would you analyze him to me, Professor?"

There was another of those moments of silence that was almost a sound in itself.

"As for that suspect," the Defense Professor said softly, "I think you shall prosecute him on your own, Mr. Potter, without help from me. I have heard such requests before, and experience leads me to refuse. Either I will do too good a job of prosecuting myself, and convince you that I am guilty - or else you will decide that my prosecution was too half-hearted, and that I am guilty. I will remark only this in my defense - that I would have needed a very good reason indeed to jeopardize your fragile alliance with the heir to House Malfoy."

Hypothesis: The Defense Professor

(April 8th, 1992, 8:37pm)

"...so I fear I must take my leave," Dumbledore was saying gravely. "I promised Quirinus... that is to say, I promised the Defense Professor... that I would not make any attempt to uncover his true identity, in my own person or any other."

"And why'd you make a fool promise like that, then?" snapped Mad-Eye Moody.

"It was an unalterable condition of his employment, or so he said." Dumbledore glanced at Professor McGonagall, a wry smile briefly flitting over his face. "And Minerva made it clear to me that Hogwarts required a competent Defense Professor this year, even if I had to haul Grindelwald out of Nurmengard and prevail on old affections to persuade him to take the position."

"I did not quite phrase it in that fashion -"

"Your expression said it for you, my dear."

And so soon the four of them - Harry, Professor McGonagall, the Potions Master, and Alastor Moody aka 'Mad- Eye' - were ensconced all by themselves in the Headmaster's office.

It was strange how the Headmaster's office seemed... unbalanced... without the Headmaster in it. If you didn't have the ancient wizened master to make it all seem solemn, you were just four people trying to have a serious meeting while surrounded by