Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

I must overthrow or reform your own government as well. Hm.

An aged goblin appeared before them, and Harry inclined his head with careful courtesy, a gesture that the aged goblin returned with an abrupt half-nod. There was no wild train ride; instead the aged goblin ushered them into a short hallway that terminated in a small waiting room, with three goblin-sized benches and one wizard-sized chair, within which nobody sat.

"Do not sign anything that Lucius Malfoy gives you," Mad-Eye Moody said. "Nothing, do you understand me, lad? If Malfoy hands you a copy of The Wonderful Adventures of the Boy-Who- Lived and asks you for an autograph, tell him that you've sprained a finger. Don't pick up a quill for a single second while you're in Gringotts. If someone hands you a quill, break the quill and then break your own fingers. Do I need to explain further, son?"

"Not particularly," Harry said. "We also have lawyers in Muggle Britain, and they'd think your lawyers are cute."

A short time later Harry Potter handed his wand over to an armored goblin guard who frisked him with all manner of interesting-looking probes, and gave his pouch to Moody to keep.

And then Harry stepped through another door, and a brief waterfall of Thief's Downfall, which evaporated from his skin as soon as he stepped out.

On the other side of the door was a larger room, richly paneled and appointed, with a great golden table stretching across it; two huge leather chairs on one side of the table, and a small wooden stool on the other, the debtor's perch. Two goblins in full armor, wearing ornate earpieces and glasses, stood watch around the room. Neither side would have wands or any other device of magic, and the goblin guards would attack immediately if anyone dared to use wandless magic within this peaceable meeting supervised by Gringotts Bank. The ornate earpieces would prevent the goblin guards from hearing the conversation unless directly addressed, the eyepieces would leave the wizards' faces as blurs. It was, in short, something along the lines of actual security, at least if you were an Occlumens.

Harry climbed up onto his uncomfortable wooden stool, thinking Subtle in a tone of some mental sarcasm, and awaited his creditors.

It was only a brief interval later, much shorter than the time a debtor could legally be made to wait, when Lucius Malfoy entered into the room, taking up his leather chair with motions worn smooth by practice. His snake- headed cane was missing from his hands, his long white mane drifted behind him the same as ever, his face could not be read.

Quietly following behind him was a young boy with white-blonde hair, now wearing black robes far finer than any Hogwarts uniform, who followed in his father's footsteps with a controlled face. A boy who was also Harry's creditor to the tune of forty Galleons, and also of House Malfoy, and therefore, technically, covered by the Wizengamot resolution enabling this meeting.

Draco. Harry didn't say it aloud, didn't let his own expression change. He could not think of what to say. Not even I'm sorry seemed appropriate. Harry hadn't dared say any of that to Draco's Patronus either, when they had set up this meeting in a few brief exchanges; and not only because Lucius might be listening. It had been enough to know that Draco's happy thought was still happy, and that he had still been able to want Harry to know it.

Lucius Malfoy spoke first, his voice level, his face set. "I do not understand what is happening at Hogwarts, Harry Potter. Would you care to explain it to me?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "If I understood these events I would not have let them happen, Lord Malfoy."

"Then answer me this question. Who are you?"

Harry gazed evenly at the face of his creditor. "I'm not You-Know-Who, like you thought I was," Harry said. Not being a complete idiot, he'd eventually worked out who Lucius Malfoy had thought he was talking to in front of the Wizengamot. "Obviously I'm not a normal boy. Equally obviously, that probably has something to do with the Boy-Who-Lived business. But I don't know what, or why, any more than you do. I asked the Sorting Hat and it didn't know either."

Lucius Malfoy nodded distantly. "I could not think of any reason why you would pay a hundred thousand Galleons to save a mudblood's life. No reason save one, which would account for her power and bloodthirst alike; but then she died at the hands of a troll, and yet you lived. And also my son has told me much of you, Harry Potter, which did not make the tiniest bit of sense, I have heard the ravings of the mad in St. Mungo's and they were more sensible by far than the events which my son told me under Veritaserum that you enacted, and that portion of this raving lunacy, which you personally carried out, I would have you explain to me, and now."

Harry turned to look at Draco, who looked back at him with a face that was screwing up, being controlled, and then tensing up again.

"I'd also," Draco Malfoy said in a high and wavering voice, "like, to know, why, Potter."

Harry closed his eyes, and spoke without looking. "A boy raised by Muggles who thought he was clever. You saw me, Draco, and you thought of how very useful it would be if the Boy-Who-Lived, out of all the other children in your year, could be shown the truth of things, if we could be friends. And I thought the same thing about you. Only, you and I believed different things were true. Not that I'm saying that there are different truths, I mean, there's different beliefs but there's only one reality, only one universe that can make those beliefs true or false -"

"You lied to me."

Harry opened his eyes and looked at Draco. "I would prefer to say," Harry said, not quite with a steady voice, "that the things I told you were true from a certain point of view."

"A certain point of view?" Draco Malfoy looked every bit as angry as Luke Skywalker'd had the right to be, and not in a mood to accept Kenobi's excuses, either. "There's a word for things that are true from a certain point of view. They're called lies!"

"Or tricks," Harry said evenly. "Statements which are technically true but which deceive the listener into forming further beliefs which are false. I think it's worth making that distinction. What I told you was a self-fulfilling prophecy; you believed that you couldn't deceive yourself, so you didn't try. The skills you've learned are real, and it would have been very bad for you to start fighting against them internally. People can't make themselves believe that blue is green by an act of will, but they think they can, and that can be almost as bad."