020.asc

// 3637
//== Bayes's Theorem

// 3638
//That which can be destroyed by the Rowling should be.

// 3639
//Harry stared up at the gray ceiling of the small room, from where he lay on the
//portable yet soft bed that had been placed there. He’d eaten quite a lot of
//Professor Quirrell’s snacks - intricate confections of chocolate and other
//substances, dusted with sparkling sprinkles and jeweled with tiny sugar gems,
//looking highly expensive and proving, in fact, to be quite tasty. Harry hadn’t
//felt the least bit guilty about it either, __this__ he had
//__earned__.

// 3640
//He hadn’t tried to sleep. Harry had a feeling that he wouldn’t like what
//happened when he closed his eyes.

// 3641
//He hadn’t tried to read. He wouldn’t have been able to focus.

// 3642
//Funny how Harry’s brain just seemed to keep on running and running, never
//shutting down no matter how tired it got. It got stupider but it refused to
//__switch off.__

// 3643
//But there was, there really and truly was a feeling of triumph.

// 3644
//Anti-Dark-Lord-Harry program, +1 point didn’t __begin__ to cover it. Harry
//wondered what the Sorting Hat would say __now__, if he could put it on his
//head.

// 3645
//No __wonder__ Professor Quirrell had accused Harry of heading down the
//path of a Dark Lord. Harry had been too slow on the uptake, he should have seen
//the parallel right away -

// 3646
//__Understand that the Dark Lord did not win that day. His goal was to
//learn martial arts, and yet he left without a single lesson.__

// 3647
//Harry had entered the Potions class with the intent to learn Potions. He’d left
//without a single lesson.

// 3648
//And Professor Quirrell had heard, and understood with frightening precision,
//and reached out and yanked Harry off that path, the path that led to his
//becoming a copy of You-Know-Who.

// 3649
//There was a knock at the door. “Classes are over,” said Professor Quirrell’s
//quiet voice.

// 3650
//Harry approached the door and found himself suddenly nervous. Then the tension
//diminished as he heard Professor Quirrell’s footsteps moving away from the
//door.

// 3651
//__What on Earth is that about? Is it what’s going to get him fired
//eventually?__

// 3652
//Harry opened the door, and saw that Professor Quirrell was now waiting several
//bodylengths away.

// 3653
//__Does Professor Quirrell feel it too?__

// 3654
//They walked across the now-deserted stage to Professor Quirrell’s desk, which
//Professor Quirrell leaned on; and Harry, as before, stopped short of the dais.

// 3655
//“So,” Professor Quirrell said. There was a friendly sense about him somehow,
//even though his face still kept its usual seriousness. “What was it you wanted
//to talk to me about, Mr. Potter?”

// 3656
//__I have a mysterious dark side.__ But Harry couldn’t just blurt it out
//like that.

// 3657
//“Professor Quirrell,” Harry said, “am I off the path to becoming a Dark Lord,
//now?”

// 3658
//Professor Quirrell looked at Harry. “Mr. Potter,” he said solemnly, with only a
//slight grin, “a word of advice. There is such a thing as a performance which is
//too perfect. Real people who have just been beaten and humiliated for fifteen
//minutes do not stand up and graciously forgive their enemies. It is the sort of
//thing you do when you’re trying to __convince__ everyone you’re not Dark,
//not -”

// 3659
//“__I can’t believe this! You can’t have every possible observation
//confirm your theory!__”

// 3660
//“And that was a __trifle__ too much indignation.”

// 3661
//“__What on Earth do I have to do to convince you?__”

// 3662
//“To convince me that you harbor no ambitions of becoming a Dark Lord?” said
//Professor Quirrell, now looking outright amused. “I suppose you could just
//raise your right hand.”

// 3663
//“What?” Harry said blankly. “But I can raise my right hand whether or not I -”
//Harry stopped, feeling rather stupid.

// 3664
//“Indeed,” said Professor Quirrell. “You can just as easily do it either way.
//There is nothing you can do to convince me because I would know that was
//exactly what you were trying to do. And if we are to be even more precise, then
//while I suppose it is barely possible that perfectly good people exist even
//though I have never met one, it is nonetheless __improbable__ that someone
//would be beaten for fifteen minutes and then stand up and feel a great surge of
//kindly forgiveness for his attackers. On the other hand it is __less__
//improbable that a young child would imagine this as the __role to play__
//in order to convince his teacher and classmates that he is not the next Dark
//Lord. The import of an act lies not in what that act __resembles on the
//surface,__ Mr. Potter, but in the states of mind which make that act more or
//less probable.”

// 3665
//Harry blinked. He’d just had the dichotomy between the representativeness
//heuristic and the Bayesian definition of evidence explained to him by a wizard.

// 3666
//“But then again,” said Professor Quirrell, “anyone can want to impress their
//friends. That need not be Dark. So without it being any kind of admission, Mr.
//Potter, tell me honestly. What thought was in your mind at the moment when you
//forbade any vengeance? Was that thought a true impulse to forgiveness? Or was
//it an awareness of how your classmates would see the act?”

// 3667
//__Sometimes we make our own phoenix song.__

// 3668
//But Harry didn’t say it out loud. It was clear that Professor Quirrell wouldn’t
//believe him, and would probably respect him less for trying to utter such a
//transparent lie.

// 3669
//After a few moments of silence, Professor Quirrell smiled with satisfaction.
//“Believe it or not, Mr. Potter,” said the professor, “you need not fear me for
//having discovered your secret. I am __not__ going to tell you to give up
//on becoming the next Dark Lord. If I could turn back the hands of time and
//somehow remove that ambition from the mind of my child self, the self of this
//present time would not benefit from the alteration. For as long as I thought
//that was my goal, it drove me to study and learn and refine myself and become
//stronger. We become what we are meant to be by following our desires wherever
//they lead. That is the insight of Salazar. Ask me to show you to the library
//section which holds those same books I read as a thirteen-year-old, and I will
//happily lead the way.”

// 3670
//“For the love of crap,” Harry said, and sat down on the hard marble floor, and
//then lay back on the floor, staring up at the distant arches of the ceiling. It
//was as close as he could come to collapsing in despair without hurting himself.

// 3671
//“Still too much indignation,” observed Professor Quirrell. Harry wasn’t looking
//but he could hear the suppressed laughter in the voice.

// 3672
//Then Harry realized.

// 3673
//“Actually, I think I know what’s confusing you here,” Harry said. “That was
//what I wanted to talk to you about, in fact. Professor Quirrell, I think that
//what you’re seeing is my mysterious dark side.”

// 3674
//There was a pause.

// 3675
//“Your… dark side…”

// 3676
//Harry sat up. Professor Quirrell was regarding him with one of the strangest
//expressions Harry had seen on anyone’s face, let alone anyone as dignified as
//Professor Quirrell.

// 3677
//“It happens when I get angry,” Harry explained. “My blood runs cold, everything
//gets cold, everything seems perfectly clear… In retrospect it’s been with me
//for a while - in my first year of Muggle school, someone tried to take away my
//ball during recess and I held it behind my back and kicked him in the solar
//plexus which I’d read was a weak point, and the other kids didn’t bother me
//after that. And I bit a math teacher when she wouldn’t accept my dominance. But
//it’s only just recently that I’ve been under enough stress to notice that it’s
//an actual, you know, mysterious dark side, and not just an anger management
//problem like the school psychologist said. And I don’t have any super magical
//powers when it happens, that was one of the first things I checked.”

// 3678
//Professor Quirrell rubbed his nose. “Let me think about this,” he said.

// 3679
//Harry waited in silence for a full minute. He used that time to stand up, which
//was more difficult than he had expected.

// 3680
//“Well,” Professor Quirrell said after a while. “I suppose there __was__
//something you could say that would convince me.”

// 3681
//“I __have__ already guessed that my dark side is really just another part
//of me and that the answer isn’t to never become angry but to learn to stay in
//control by accepting it, I’m not dumb or anything and I’ve seen this story
//enough times to know where it’s going, but it’s hard and you seem like the
//person to help me.”

// 3682
//“Well… yes… very perspicacious of you, Mr. Potter, I must say… that side of you
//is, as you seem to have already surmised, your intent to kill, which as you say
//is a part of you…”

// 3683
//“And needs to be trained,” Harry said, completing the pattern.

// 3684
//“And needs to be trained, yes.” That strange expression was still on Professor
//Quirrell’s face. “Mr. Potter, if you truly do not wish to be the next Dark
//Lord, then what was the ambition which the Sorting Hat tried to convince you to
//abandon, the ambition for which you were Sorted into Slytherin?”

// 3685
//“I was Sorted into __Ravenclaw!__”

// 3686
//“Mr. Potter,” said Professor Quirrell, now with a much more usual-looking dry
//smile, “I know you are accustomed to everyone around you being a fool, but
//please do not mistake me for one of them. The likelihood that the Sorting Hat
//would play its first prank in eight hundred years while it was upon your head
//is so small as to not be worth considering. I suppose it is barely possible
//that you snapped your fingers and invented some simple and clever way to defeat
//the anti-tampering spells upon the Hat, though I myself can think of no such
//method. But by far the most probable explanation is that Dumbledore decided he
//was not happy with the Hat’s choice for the Boy-Who-Lived. This is evident to
//anyone with the tiniest smidgin of common sense, so your secret is safe at
//Hogwarts.”

// 3687
//Harry opened his mouth, then closed it again with a feeling of complete
//helplessness. Professor Quirrell was wrong, but wrong in such a convincing way
//that Harry was starting to think that it simply __was__ the rational
//judgment given the evidence available to Professor Quirrell. There were times,
//never __predictable__ times but still sometimes, when you would get
//improbable evidence and the best knowable guess would be wrong. If you had a
//medical test that was only wrong one time in a thousand, sometimes it would
//still be wrong anyway.

// 3688
//“Can I ask you never to repeat what I’m about to say?” said Harry.

// 3689
//“Absolutely,” said Professor Quirrell. “Consider me asked.”

// 3690
//Harry wasn’t a fool either. “Can I consider you to have said yes?”

// 3691
//“Very good, Mr. Potter. You may indeed so consider.”

// 3692
//“__Professor Quirrell -__”

// 3693
//“I won’t repeat what you’re about to say,” Professor Quirrell said, smiling.

// 3694
//They both laughed, then Harry turned serious again. “The Sorting Hat did seem
//to think I was going to end up as a Dark Lord unless I went to Hufflepuff,”
//Harry said. “But I don’t __want__ to be one.”

// 3695
//“Mr. Potter…” said Professor Quirrell. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I
//promise you will not be graded on the answer. I only want to know your own,
//honest reply. Why not?”

// 3696
//Harry had that __helpless__ feeling again. __Thou shalt not become a
//Dark Lord__ was such an obvious theorem in his moral system that it was hard to
//describe the actual proof steps. “Um, people would get hurt?”

// 3697
//“Surely you’ve wanted to hurt people,” said Professor Quirrell. “You wanted to
//hurt those bullies today. Being a Dark Lord means that people you __want__
//to hurt get hurt.”

// 3698
//Harry floundered for words and then decided to simply go with the obvious.
//“First of all, just because I want to hurt someone doesn’t mean it’s right -”

// 3699
//“What makes something right, if not your wanting it?”

// 3700
//“Ah,” Harry said, “preference utilitarianism.”

// 3701
//“Pardon me?” said Professor Quirrell.

// 3702
//“It’s the ethical theory that the good is what satisfies the preferences of the
//most people -”

// 3703
//“No,” Professor Quirrell said. His fingers rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I
//don’t think that’s quite what I was trying to say. Mr. Potter, in the end
//people all do what they want to do. Sometimes people give names like ‘right’ to
//things they want to do, but how could we possibly act on anything __but__
//our own desires?”

// 3704
//“Well, obviously,” Harry said. “I couldn’t __act__ on moral considerations
//if they lacked the power to move me. But that doesn’t mean my wanting to hurt
//those Slytherins has the power to move me __more__ than moral
//considerations!”

// 3705
//Professor Quirrell blinked.

// 3706
//“Not to mention,” Harry said, “being a Dark Lord would mean that a lot of
//innocent bystanders got hurt too!”

// 3707
//“Why does that matter to you?” Professor Quirrell said. “What have they done
//for you?”

// 3708
//Harry laughed. “Oh, now __that __was around as subtle as __Atlas
//Shrugged.__”

// 3709
//“Pardon me?” Professor Quirrell said again.

// 3710
//“It’s a book that my parents wouldn’t let me read because they thought it would
//corrupt me, so of course I read it anyway and I was offended they thought I
//would fall for any traps that obvious. Blah blah blah, appeal to my sense of
//superiority, other people are trying to keep me down, blah blah blah.”

// 3711
//“So you’re saying I need to make my traps less obvious?” said Professor
//Quirrell. He tapped a finger on his cheek, looking thoughtful. “I can work on
//that.”

// 3712
//They both laughed.

// 3713
//“But to stay with the current question,” said Professor Quirrell, “what
//__have__ all these other people done for you?”

// 3714
//“Other people have done __huge__ amounts for me!” Harry said. “My parents
//took me in when my parents died because they were __good people,__ and to
//become a Dark Lord is to betray that!”

// 3715
//Professor Quirrell was silent for a time.

// 3716
//“I confess,” said Professor Quirrell quietly, “when I was your age, that
//thought could not ever have come to me.”

// 3717
//“I’m sorry,” Harry said.

// 3718
//“Don’t be,” said Professor Quirrell. “It was long ago, and I resolved my
//parental issues to my own satisfaction. So you are held back by the thought of
//your parents’ disapproval? Does that mean that if they died in an accident,
//there would be nothing left to stop you from -”

// 3719
//“No,” Harry said. “Just no. It is their __impulse to kindness__ which
//sheltered me. That impulse is not only in my parents. And that impulse is what
//would be betrayed.”

// 3720
//“In any case, Mr. Potter, you have not answered my original question,” said
//Professor Quirrell finally. “What __is__ your ambition?”

// 3721
//“Oh,” said Harry. “Um…” He organized his thoughts. “To understand everything
//important there is to know about the universe, apply that knowledge to become
//omnipotent, and use that power to rewrite reality because I have some
//objections to the way it works now.”

// 3722
//There was a slight pause.

// 3723
//“Forgive me if this is a stupid question, Mr. Potter,” said Professor Quirrell,
//“but are you __sure__ you did not just confess to wanting to be a Dark
//Lord?”

// 3724
//“That’s only if you use your power for evil,” explained Harry. “If you use the
//power for good, you’re a Light Lord.”

// 3725
//“I see,” Professor Quirrell said. He tapped his other cheek with a finger. “I
//suppose I can work with that. But Mr. Potter, while the scope of your ambition
//is worthy of Salazar himself, how exactly do you propose to go about it? Is
//step one to become a great fighting wizard, or Head Unspeakable, or Minister of
//Magic, or -”

// 3726
//“Step one is to become a scientist.”

// 3727
//Professor Quirrell was looking at Harry as if he’d just turned into a cat.

// 3728
//“A scientist,” Professor Quirrell said after a while.

// 3729
//Harry nodded.

// 3730
//“A __scientist?__” repeated Professor Quirrell.

// 3731
//“Yes,” Harry said. “I shall achieve my objectives through the power… of
//__Science!__”

// 3732
//“A __scientist!__” said Professor Quirrell. There was genuine indignation
//on his face, and his voice had grown stronger and sharper. “You could be the
//best of all my students! The greatest fighting wizard to come out of Hogwarts
//in five decades! I cannot picture you wasting your days in a white lab coat
//doing pointless things to rats!”

// 3733
//“Hey!” said Harry. “There’s more to science than that! Not that there’s
//anything __wrong__ with experimenting on rats, of course. But science
//__is__ how you go about understanding and controlling the universe -”

// 3734
//“Fool,” said Professor Quirrell, in a voice of quiet, bitter intensity. “You’re
//a fool, Harry Potter.” He passed a hand over his face, and when that hand had
//passed, his face was calmer. “Or more likely you have not yet found your true
//ambition. May I strongly recommend that you try to become a Dark Lord instead?
//I will do anything I can to help as a matter of public service.”

// 3735
//“You don’t like science,” Harry said slowly. “Why not?”

// 3736
//“Those fool Muggles will kill us all someday!” Professor Quirrell’s voice had
//grown louder. “They will end it! End all of it!”

// 3737
//Harry was feeling a bit lost here. “What are we talking about here, nuclear
//weapons?”

// 3738
//“__Yes__, nuclear weapons!” Professor Quirrell was almost shouting now.
//“Even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named never used those, perhaps because he didn’t want
//to rule over a heap of ash! They never should have been made! And it will only
//get worse with time!” Professor Quirrell was standing up straight instead of
//leaning on his desk. “There are gates you do not open, there are seals you do
//not breach! The fools who can’t resist meddling are killed by the lesser perils
//early on, and the survivors all know that there are secrets you __do not
//share__ with anyone who lacks the intelligence and the discipline to discover
//them for themselves! Every powerful wizard knows that! Even the most terrible
//Dark Wizards know that! And those idiot Muggles can’t seem to figure it out!
//The eager little fools who discovered the secret of nuclear weapons didn’t keep
//it to themselves, they told their __fool__ politicians and now __we__
//must live under the constant threat of annihilation!”

// 3739
//This was a rather different way of looking at things than Harry had grown up
//with. It had never occurred to him that nuclear physicists should have formed a
//conspiracy of silence to keep the secret of nuclear weapons from anyone not
//smart enough to be a nuclear physicist. The thought was intriguing, if nothing
//else. Would they have had secret passwords? Would they have had masks?

// 3740
//(Actually, for all Harry knew, there __were__ all sorts of incredibly
//destructive secrets which physicists kept to themselves, and the secret of
//nuclear weapons was the only one that had escaped into the wild. The world
//would look the same to him either way.)

// 3741
//“I’ll have to think about that,” Harry said to Professor Quirrell. “It’s a new
//idea to me. And one of the __hidden__ secrets of science, passed down from
//a few rare teachers to their grad students, is how to avoid flushing new ideas
//down the toilet the instant you hear one you don’t like.”

// 3742
//Professor Quirrell blinked again.

// 3743
//“Is there any sort of science you __do__ approve of?” said Harry.
//“Medicine, maybe?”

// 3744
//“Space travel,” said Professor Quirrell. “But the Muggles seem to be dragging
//their feet on the one project which might have let wizardkind escape this
//planet before they blow it up.”

// 3745
//Harry nodded. “I’m a big fan of the space program too. At least we have that
//much in common.”

// 3746
//Professor Quirrell looked at Harry. Something flickered in the professor’s
//eyes. “I will have your word, your promise and your oath never to speak of what
//follows.”

// 3747
//“You have it,” Harry said immediately.

// 3748
//“See to it that you keep your oath or you will not like the results,” said
//Professor Quirrell. “I will now cast a rare and powerful spell, not on you, but
//on the classroom around us. Stand still, so that you do not touch the
//boundaries of the spell once it has been cast. You must not interact with the
//magic which I am maintaining. Look only. Otherwise I will end the spell.”
//Professor Quirrell paused. “And try not to fall over.”

// 3749
//Harry nodded, puzzled and anticipatory.

// 3750
//Professor Quirrell raised his wand and said something that Harry’s ears and
//mind couldn’t grasp at all, words that bypassed awareness and vanished into
//oblivion.

// 3751
//The marble in a short radius around Harry’s feet stayed constant. All the other
//marble of the floor vanished, the walls and ceilings vanished.

// 3752
//Harry stood on a small circle of white marble in the midst of an endless field
//of stars, burning terribly bright and unwavering. There was no Earth, no Moon,
//no Sun that Harry recognized. Professor Quirrell stood in the same place as
//before, floating in the midst of the starfield. The Milky Way was already
//visible as a great wash of light and it grew brighter as Harry’s vision
//adjusted to the darkness.

// 3753
//The sight wrenched at Harry’s heart like nothing he had ever seen.

// 3754
//“Are we… in space…?”

// 3755
//“No,” said Professor Quirrell. His voice was sad, and reverent. “But it is a
//true image.”

// 3756
//Tears came into Harry’s eyes. He wiped them away frantically, he would not miss
//this for some stupid water blurring his vision.

// 3757
//The stars were no longer tiny jewels set in a giant velvet dome, as they were
//in the night sky of Earth. Here there was no sky above, no surrounding sphere.
//Only points of perfect light against perfect blackness, an infinite and empty
//void with countless tiny holes through which shone the brilliance from some
//unimaginable realm beyond.

// 3758
//In space, the stars __looked__ terribly, terribly, terribly far away.

// 3759
//Harry kept on wiping his eyes, over and over.

// 3760
//“Sometimes,” Professor Quirrell said in a voice so quiet it almost wasn’t
//there, “when this flawed world seems unusually hateful, I wonder whether there
//might be some other place, far away, where I should have been. I cannot seem to
//imagine what that place might be, and if I can’t even imagine it then how can I
//believe it exists? And yet the universe is so very, very wide, and perhaps it
//might exist anyway? But the stars are so very, very far away. It would take a
//long, long time to get there, even if I knew the way. And I wonder what I would
//dream about, if I slept for a long, long time…”

// 3761
//Though it felt like sacrilege, Harry managed a whisper. “Please let me stay
//here awhile.”

// 3762
//Professor Quirrell nodded, where he stood unsupported against the stars.

// 3763
//It was easy to forget the small circle of marble on which you stood, and your
//own body, and become a point of awareness which might have been still, or might
//have been moving. With all distances incalculable there was no way to tell.

// 3764
//There was a time of no time.

// 3765
//And then the stars vanished, and the classroom returned.

// 3766
//“I’m sorry,” said Professor Quirrell, “but we’re about to have company.”

// 3767
//“It’s fine,” Harry whispered. “It was enough.” He would never forget this day,
//and not because of the unimportant things that had happened earlier. He would
//learn how to cast that spell if it was the last thing he ever learned.

// 3768
//Then the heavy oaken doors of the classroom blasted off their hinges and
//skittered across the marble floor with a high-pitched shriek.

// 3769
//“__QUIRINUS! HOW DARE YOU!__”

// 3770
//Like a vast thundercloud, an ancient and powerful wizard blew into the room, a
//look of such incandescent rage upon his face that the stern look he had earlier
//turned upon Harry seemed like nothing.

// 3771
//There was a wrench of disorientation in Harry’s mind as the part that wanted to
//run away screaming from the scariest thing it had ever seen ran away, rotating
//into place a part of him which could take the shock.

// 3772
//__None__ of Harry’s facets were happy about having their star-gazing
//interrupted. “Headmaster Albus Percival -” Harry started to say in icy tones.

// 3773
//__WHAM.__ Professor Quirrell’s hand came down hard upon his desk.
//“__Mr. Potter!__” barked Professor Quirrell. “This is the
//__Headmaster of Hogwarts__ and you are a mere student! You will address
//him appropriately!”

// 3774
//Harry looked at Professor Quirrell.

// 3775
//Professor Quirrell was giving Harry a stern glare.

// 3776
//Neither of them smiled.

// 3777
//Dumbledore’s long strides had come to a halt before where Harry stood in front
//of the dais and Professor Quirrell stood by his desk. The Headmaster stared in
//shock at both of them.

// 3778
//“I’m sorry,” Harry said in meekly polite tones. “Headmaster, thank you for
//wanting to protect me, but Professor Quirrell did the right thing.”

// 3779
//Slowly, Dumbledore’s expression changed from something that would vaporize
//steel into something merely angry. “I heard students saying that this man had
//you abused by older Slytherins! That he forbade you to defend yourself!”

// 3780
//Harry nodded. “He knew exactly what was wrong with me and he showed me how to
//fix it.”

// 3781
//“Harry, __what are you talking about?__”

// 3782
//“I was teaching him how to lose,” Professor Quirrell said dryly. “It’s an
//important life skill.”

// 3783
//It was apparent that Dumbledore still didn’t understand, but his voice had
//lowered in register. “Harry…” he said slowly. “If there’s any threat the
//Defense Professor has offered you to prevent you from complaining -”

// 3784
//__You lunatic, after today of all days do you really think I -__

// 3785
//“Headmaster,” Harry said, trying to look abashed, “what’s wrong with me isn’t
//that I keep quiet about abusive professors.”

// 3786
//Professor Quirrell chuckled. “Not perfect, Mr. Potter, but good enough for your
//first day. Headmaster, did you stay long enough to hear about the fifty-one
//points for Ravenclaw, or did you storm out as soon as you heard the first
//part?”

// 3787
//A brief look of disconcertment crossed Dumbledore’s face, followed by surprise.
//“Fifty-one points for Ravenclaw?”

// 3788
//Professor Quirrell nodded. “He wasn’t expecting them, but it seemed
//appropriate. Tell Professor McGonagall that I think the story of what Mr.
//Potter went through to earn back the lost points will do just as well to make
//her point. No, Headmaster, Mr. Potter didn’t tell me anything. It’s easy to see
//which part of today’s events are her work, just as I know that the final
//compromise was your own suggestion. Though I wonder how on Earth Mr. Potter was
//able to gain the upper hand over both Snape and you and then Professor
//McGonagall was able to gain the upper hand over him.”

// 3789
//Somehow Harry managed to control his face. Was it __that__ obvious to a
//real Slytherin?

// 3790
//Dumbledore came closer to Harry, scrutinizing. “Your color looks a little off,
//Harry,” the old wizard said. He peered closely at Harry’s face. “What did you
//have for lunch today?”

// 3791
//“What?” Harry said, his mind wobbling in sudden confusion. Why would Dumbledore
//be asking about deep-fried lamb and thin-sliced broccoli when that was just
//about the __last__ probable cause of -

// 3792
//The old wizard straightened up. “Never mind, then. I think you’re fine.”

// 3793
//Professor Quirrell coughed, loudly and deliberately. Harry looked at the
//professor, and saw that Professor Quirrell was staring sharply at Dumbledore.

// 3794
//“__Ah-hem!__” Professor Quirrell said again.

// 3795
//Dumbledore and Professor Quirrell locked eyes, and something seemed to pass
//between them.

// 3796
//“If you don’t tell him,” Professor Quirrell said then, “I will, even if you
//fire me for it.”

// 3797
//Dumbledore sighed and turned back to Harry. “I apologize for invading your
//mental privacy, Mr. Potter,” the Headmaster said formally. “I had no purpose
//except to determine if Professor Quirrell had done the same.”

// 3798
//__What?__

// 3799
//The confusion lasted just exactly as long as it took Harry to understand what
//had just happened.

// 3800
//“__You - !__”

// 3801
//“Gently, Mr. Potter,” said Professor Quirrell. His face was hard, however, as
//he stared at Dumbledore.

// 3802
//“Legilimency is sometimes mistaken for common sense,” said the Headmaster. “But
//it leaves traces which another skillful Legilimens can detect. That was all I
//looked for, Mr. Potter, and I asked you an irrelevant question to ensure you
//wouldn’t think about anything important while I looked.”

// 3803
//“__You should have asked first!__”

// 3804
//Professor Quirrell shook his head. “No, Mr. Potter, the Headmaster had some
//justification for his concerns, and had he asked for permission you would have
//thought of exactly those things you did not wish him to see.” Professor
//Quirrell’s voice grew sharper. “I am rather more concerned, Headmaster, that
//you saw no need to tell him afterward!”

// 3805
//“You have now made it more difficult to confirm his mental privacy on future
//occasions,” Dumbledore said. He favored Professor Quirrell with a cold look.
//“Was that your intention, I wonder?”

// 3806
//Professor Quirrell’s expression was implacable. “There are too many Legilimens
//in this school. I insist that Mr. Potter receive instruction in Occlumency.
//Will you permit me to be his tutor?”

// 3807
//“Absolutely not,” Dumbledore said at once.

// 3808
//“I did not think so. Then since __you__ have deprived him of my free
//services, __you__ will pay for Mr. Potter’s tutoring by a licensed
//Occlumency instructor.”

// 3809
//“Such services do not come cheaply,” Dumbledore said, looking at Professor
//Quirrell in some surprise. “Although I do have certain connections -”

// 3810
//Professor Quirrell shook his head firmly. “No. Mr. Potter will ask his account
//manager at Gringotts to recommend a neutral instructor. With respect,
//Headmaster Dumbledore, after the events of this morning I must protest you or
//your friends having access to Mr. Potter’s mind. I must also insist that the
//instructor have taken an Unbreakable Vow to reveal nothing, and that he agree
//to be Obliviated of each session immediately afterward.”

// 3811
//Dumbledore was frowning. “Such services are __extremely__ expensive, as
//you well know, and I cannot help but wonder why __you__ deem them
//necessary.”

// 3812
//“If it’s money that’s the problem,” Harry spoke up, “I have some ideas for
//making large amounts of money quickly -”

// 3813
//“Thank you Quirinus, your wisdom is now quite evident and I am sorry for
//disputing it. Your concern for Harry Potter does you credit, as well.”

// 3814
//“You’re welcome,” said Professor Quirrell. “I hope you will not object if I go
//on making him a particular focus of my attentions.” Professor Quirrell’s face
//was now very serious, and very still.

// 3815
//Dumbledore looked at Harry.

// 3816
//“It is my own wish also,” Harry said.

// 3817
//“So that’s how it is to be…” the old wizard said slowly. Something strange
//passed across his face. “Harry… you must realize that if you choose this man as
//your teacher and your friend, your first mentor, then one way or another you
//will lose him, and the manner in which you lose him may or may not allow you to
//ever get him back.”

// 3818
//That hadn’t occurred to Harry. But there __was__ that jinx on the Defense
//position… one which had apparently worked with perfect regularity for decades…

// 3819
//“Probably,” said Professor Quirrell quietly, “but he will have the full use of
//me while I last.”

// 3820
//Dumbledore sighed. “I suppose it is economical, at least, since as the Defense
//Professor you’re __already__ doomed in some unknown fashion.”

// 3821
//Harry had to work hard to suppress his expression as he realized what
//Dumbledore had actually been implying.

// 3822
//“I will inform Madam Pince that Mr. Potter is allowed to obtain books on
//Occlumency,” said Dumbledore.

// 3823
//“There is preliminary training which you must do on your own,” said Professor
//Quirrell to Harry. “And I do suggest that you hurry up on it.”

// 3824
//Harry nodded.

// 3825
//“I’ll take my leave of you then,” said Dumbledore. He nodded to both Harry and
//Professor Quirrell, and departed, walking a bit slowly.

// 3826
//“Can you cast the spell again?” Harry said the moment Dumbledore was gone.

// 3827
//“Not today,” said Professor Quirrell quietly, “and not tomorrow either, I’m
//afraid. It takes a lot out of me to cast, though less to keep going, and so I
//usually prefer to maintain it as long as possible. This time I cast it on
//impulse. Had I thought, and realized we might be interrupted -”

// 3828
//Dumbledore was now Harry’s least favorite person in the entire world.

// 3829
//They both sighed.

// 3830
//“Even if I only ever see it once,” Harry said, “I will never stop being
//grateful to you.”

// 3831
//Professor Quirrell nodded.

// 3832
//“Have you heard of the Pioneer program?” Harry said. “They were probes that
//would fly by different planets and take pictures. Two of the probes would end
//up on trajectories that took them out of the Solar System and into interstellar
//space. So they put a golden plaque on the probes, with a picture of a man, and
//a woman, and showing where to find our Sun in the galaxy.”

// 3833
//Professor Quirrell was silent for a moment, then smiled. “Tell me, Mr. Potter,
//can you guess what thought went through my mind when I finished assembling the
//thirty-seven items on the list of things I would never do as a Dark Lord? Put
//yourself in my shoes - imagine yourself in my place - and guess.”

// 3834
//Harry imagined himself looking over a list of thirty-seven things not to do
//once he became a Dark Lord.

// 3835
//“You decided that if you had to follow the __whole__ list __all__ the
//time, there wouldn’t be much point in becoming a Dark Lord in the first place,”
//Harry said.

// 3836
//“__Precisely__,” said Professor Quirrell. He was grinning. “So I am going
//to violate rule two - which was simply ‘don’t brag’ - and tell you about
//something I have done. I don’t see how the knowledge could do any harm. And I
//strongly suspect you would have figured it out anyway, once we knew each other
//well enough. Nonetheless… I shall have your oath never to speak of what I am
//about to tell.”

// 3837
//“You have it!” Harry had a feeling this was going to be __really__ good.

// 3838
//“I subscribe to a Muggle bulletin which keeps me informed of progress on space
//travel. I didn’t hear about Pioneer 10 until they reported its launch. But when
//I discovered that Pioneer 11 would also be leaving the Solar System forever,”
//Professor Quirrell said, his grin the widest that Harry had yet seen from him,
//“I snuck into NASA, I did, and I cast a lovely little spell on that lovely
//golden plaque which will make it last a lot longer than it otherwise would.”

// 3839
//…

// 3840
//…

// 3841
//…

// 3842
//“Yes,” Professor Quirrell said, who now seemed to be standing around fifty feet
//taller, “I thought that was how you might react.”

// 3843
//…

// 3844
//…

// 3845
//…

// 3846
//“Mr. Potter?”

// 3847
//“…I can’t think of anything to say.”

// 3848
//“‘You win’ seems appropriate,” said Professor Quirrell.

// 3849
//“You win,” Harry said immediately.

// 3850
//“See?” said Professor Quirrell. “We can only imagine what giant heap of trouble
//you would have gotten into if you had been unable to say that.”

// 3851
//They both laughed.

// 3852
//A further thought occurred to Harry. “You didn’t add any extra information to
//the plaque, did you?”

// 3853
//“Extra information?” said Professor Quirrell, sounding as if the idea had never
//occurred to him before and he was quite intrigued.

// 3854
//Which made Harry rather suspicious, considering that it’d taken less than a
//minute for __Harry __to think of it.

// 3855
//“Maybe you included a holographic message like in __Star Wars?__” said
//Harry. “Or… hm. A portrait seems to store a whole human brain’s worth of
//information… you couldn’t have added any extra mass to the probe, but maybe you
//could’ve turned an existing part into a portrait of yourself? Or you found a
//volunteer dying of a terminal illness, snuck them into NASA, and cast a spell
//to make sure their __ghost __ended up in the plaque -”

// 3856
//“Mr. Potter,” Professor Quirrell said, his voice suddenly sharp, “a spell
//requiring a human death would certainly be classified by the Ministry as Dark
//Arts, regardless of circumstances. Students should not be heard talking about
//such things.”

// 3857
//And the amazing thing about the way Professor Quirrell said it was how
//perfectly it maintained plausible deniability. It had been said in exactly the
//appropriate tone for someone who wasn’t willing to discuss such things and
//thought students should steer away from them. Harry honestly __didn’t
//know__ whether Professor Quirrell was just waiting to talk about it until after
//Harry had learned to protect his mind.

// 3858
//“Got it,” Harry said. “I won’t talk with anyone else about that idea.”

// 3859
//“Please be discreet about the whole matter, Mr. Potter,” Professor Quirrell
//said. “I prefer to go through my life without attracting public notice. You
//will find nothing in the newspapers about Quirinus Quirrell until I decided it
//was time for me to teach Defense at Hogwarts.”

// 3860
//That seemed a little sad, but Harry understood. Then Harry realized the
//implications. “So just how much awesome stuff __have__ you done that no
//one else knows about -”

// 3861
//“Oh, some,” said Professor Quirrell. “But I think that’s quite enough for
//today, Mr. Potter, I confess I am feeling a bit tired -”

// 3862
//“I understand. And __thank you.__ For __everything__.”

// 3863
//Professor Quirrell nodded, but he was leaning harder on his desk.

// 3864
//Harry quickly took his leave.