Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

But Professor McGonagall shook her head. "I'm not sure," the Transfiguration Professor whispered. "I don't know if it was the right choice even then. I'm sorry. I can't decide such awful things!"

"But you'll do something if it happens again," Harry said. "Indecision is also a choice. You can't just imagine having to make an immediate decision?"

"No," Professor McGonagall said, sounding a little stronger; and Harry realized that he'd accidentally offered a way out. The Professor's next words confirmed Harry's fears. "Such a dreadful choice as that, Mr. Potter - I think I should not make it until I must."

Harry gave an internal sigh. He supposed he had no right to expect Professor McGonagall to say anything else. In a moral dilemma where you lost something either way, making the choice would feel bad either way, so you could temporarily save yourself a little mental pain by refusing to decide. At the cost of not being able to plan anything in advance, and at the cost of incurring a huge bias toward inaction or waiting until too late... but you couldn't expect a witch to know all that. "All right," Harry said.

Though it wasn't right at all, not really. Dumbledore might want that debt removed, Professor Quirrell would also want Harry out of that debt. And if the Defense Professor was David Monroe, or could convincingly appear to be David Monroe, then Lord Voldemort technically hadn't exterminated the House of Monroe. In which case somebody might be able to pass a Wizengamot resolution revoking the Noble status of House Potter, which had been granted for avenging the Most Ancient House of Monroe.

In which case Hermione's vow of service to a Noble House might be null and void.

Or maybe not. Harry didn't know anything about the legalities, especially not whether House Potter got the money back if someone managed to send Hermione to Azkaban. Just because you lost something might not mean the payment was returned, legally speaking. Harry wasn't sure and he didn't dare ask a magical solicitor...

...it would have been nice to be able to trust at least one adult to take Hermione's side instead of Dumbledore's, if an issue like that threatened to come up.

The stairs they were upon ceased rotating, and they were before the backs of the great stone gargoyles, which rumbled aside, revealing the hallway.

Harry stepped out -

A hand caught at Harry's shoulder.

"Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said in a low voice, "why did you to tell me to keep watch over Professor Snape?"

Harry turned around again.

"You told me to keep watch, and see if he'd changed," Professor McGonagall went on, her tone urgent. "Why did you say that, Mr. Potter?"

It took a moment, at this point, for Harry to think back and remember why he had said that. Harry and Neville had rescued Lesath Lestrange from bullies, and then Harry had confronted Severus in the hallway and, at least according to the Potions Master's own words, 'almost died' -

"I learned something that made me worry," Harry said after a moment. "From someone who made me promise not to tell anyone else." Severus had made Harry swear that their conversations wouldn't be shared with anyone, and Harry was still bound by it.

"Mr. Potter -" began Professor McGonagall, and then exhaled, the flash of sharpness disappearing as quickly as it had come. "Never mind. If you cannot say, you cannot say."

"Why do you ask?" Harry said.

Professor McGonagall seemed to hesitate -

"All right, let me be more specific," Harry said. After Professor Quirrell had done it to him several times, Harry was starting to get the hang of it. "What change have you already observed in Professor Snape that you're trying to decide whether to tell me about?"

"Harry -" the Transfiguration Professor said, and then closed her mouth.

"I obviously know something you don't," Harry said helpfully. "See, this is why we can't always put off trying to decide our awful moral dilemmas."

Professor McGonagall closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed it several times. "All right," she said. "It's a subtle thing... but worrying. How can I put this... Mr. Potter, have you read many books that young children are not meant to read?"

"I've read all of them."

"Of course you have. Well... I don't quite understand it myself, but for so long as Severus has been employed in this school, stalking about in that awful stained cloak, there has been a certain sort of girl that stares at him with longing eyes -"

"You say that like it's a bad thing?" Harry said. "I mean, if there's one thing I did understand from those books, it's that you're not supposed to question people's preferences."

Professor McGonagall gave Harry a very strange look.

"I mean," Harry said again, "from what I've read, when I'm a bit older there's something like a 10% chance that I'll find Professor Snape attractive, and the important thing is for me to just accept whatever I -"

"In any case, Mr. Potter, Severus has always been entirely indifferent to the stares of those young girls. But now -" Professor McGonagall seemed to realize something, and hastily said, her hands rising in warding, "Please don't mistake me, Professor Snape certainly has not taken advantage of any young witches! Absolutely not! He has never even so much as smiled at one, not that I ever heard. He has told the young girls to stop gaping at him. And if they stare at him regardless, he looks away. That I have seen with my own eyes."