Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

To this place Lord Voldemort had come, silently, making less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement...

Remus Lupin put a hand upon Harry's shoulder. "Touch the gate," Mr. Lupin urged.

Harry reached out a hand and did so.

Like a fast-growing flower a sign burst from the tangled weeds in the ground behind the gate, a wooden sign with golden letters, and it said:

On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981,

Lily and James Potter lost their lives.

They were survived by their son, Harry Potter,

the only wizard ever to withstand the Killing Curse,

the Boy-Who-Lived, who broke You-Know-Who's power.

This house has been left in its ruined state,

as a monument to the Potters,

as a reminder of their sacrifice.

In a blank space below the golden letters were written other messages, dozens of them, magical ink that rose to the surface and gleamed brightly enough to be read before fading and giving way to other messages.

So my Gideon is avenged.

Thank you, Harry Potter. Fare well wherever you are.

We will always be in the Potters' debt.

Oh James, oh Lily, I am sorry.

I hope you're alive, Harry Potter.

There is always a price.

I wish our last words had been kinder, James. I'm sorry.

There is always a dawn after the night.

Rest well, Lily.

Bless you, Boy-Who-Lived. You were our miracle.

"I guess -" Harry said. "I guess that's what people do - instead of trying to make it better -" Harry stopped. The thought seemed unworthy of this place. He looked up, and saw Remus Lupin gazing at him with a look so gentle that Harry wrenched his eyes away to the blasted and broken roof.

You were our miracle. Harry had always heard the word 'miracle' in the context of how, in the natural universe, there was no such thing. And yet looking at the ruined house, he suddenly knew exactly what the word meant, the note of grace all unexplained, the blessing inexplicable. The Dark Lord had almost won, and then in one night all the darkness and terror had ended, salvation without justification, a sudden dawn from out of the darkness and even now nobody knew why -

If Lily Potter had lived beyond her confrontation with Lord Voldemort, she would have felt that way when she saw her baby alive, afterward.

"Let's go," whispered the baby boy, ten years later.

They went.

The graveyard's entrance was guarded by a lockless gate of the sort that kept out animals, with a place to stand while you moved the door from one side of the standing-place to the other. Remus took out his wand (Harry was already holding his) and there was a brief blur as they stepped through.

Some of the stones rising up from the ground looked as old as the wall in Oxford that his father had said was around a thousand years old.

Hallie Fleming, said the first stone that Harry saw, in a carving almost invisibly faded with the erosion of time. Vienna Wood, said another.

It had been a long time since Harry had visited a graveyard. His mind had still been childlike the last time he'd come to one, long before he'd seen within Death's shadow. Coming here now was... strange, and sad, and puzzling, and this has been happening for so long, why haven't wizards tried to stop it, why aren't they putting all their strength into that like Muggles do with medical research, only more so, wizards have more reason to hope...

"The Dumbledores lived in Godric's Hollow too?" Harry said, as they walked past a pair of relatively new stones saying Kendra Dumbledore and Ariana Dumbledore.

"For a long, long time," Mr. Lupin said.

They walked further into the graveyard, far toward the end, past many deaths that had been mourned.

Then Mr. Lupin pointed at a linked double headstone, of marble still white and unaged.

"Are there going to be messages there?" Harry said. He didn't want to deal any more with the way that other people dealt with death.

Mr. Lupin shook his head.

They walked toward the linked white stones.

And stood before -

"What is this?" Harry whispered. "Who... who wrote this?"

JAMES POTTER

BORN 27 MARCH 1960

DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981