Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky Page B

fact only ever sung him those
particular
lines of that Tom Lehrer song, and Harry was blissfully unaware of the rest.)
    Professor McGonagall’s stance had slightly softened - though mostly when Harry had said that he was heading for Ravenclaw. “What sort of
contingency
do you imagine this kit might prepare you for,
young man?
”
    “One of my classmates gets bitten by a horrible monster, and as I scrabble frantically in my mokeskin pouch for something that could help her, she looks at me sadly and with her last breath says,
‘Why weren’t you prepared?’
And then she dies, and I know as her eyes close that she won’t ever forgive me -”
    Harry heard the salesgirl gasp, and he looked up to see her staring at him with her lips pressed tight. Then the young woman whirled and fled into the deeper recesses of the shop.
    What…?
    Professor McGonagall reached down, and took Harry’s hand in hers, gently but firmly, and pulled Harry out of the main street of Diagon Alley, leading him into an alleyway between two shops which was paved in dirty bricks and dead-ended in a wall of solid black dirt.
    The tall witch pointed her wand at the main street and spoke,
“Quietus
” she said, and a screen of silence descended around them, blocking out all the street noises.
    What did I do wrong…
    Professor McGonagall turned to regard Harry. She didn’t have a full adult Wrongdoing Face, but her expression was flat, controlled. “You must remember, Mr. Potter,” she said, “that there was a war in this country not ten years ago. Everyone has lost someone, and to speak of friends dying in your arms - is not done lightly.”
    “I - I didn’t mean to -” The inference dropped like a falling stone into Harry’s exceptionally vivid imagination. He’d talked about someone breathing their last breath - and then the salesgirl had run away - and the war had ended ten years ago so that girl would have been at most eight or nine years old, when, when, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Harry choked up, and turned away to run from the older witch’s gaze but there was a wall of dirt blocking his way and he didn’t have his wand yet. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m
sorry!
”
    There came a heavy sigh from behind him. “I know you are, Mr. Potter.”
    Harry dared to peek behind him. Professor McGonagall only seemed sad, now. “I’m sorry,” Harry said again, feeling wretched. “Did anything like that happen to -” and then Harry shut his lips and slapped a hand over his mouth for good measure.
    The older witch’s face grew a little sadder. “You must learn to think before you speak, Mr. Potter, or else go through life without many friends. That has been the fate of many a Ravenclaw, and I hope it will not be yours.”
    Harry wanted to just run away. He wanted to pull out a wand and erase the whole thing from Professor McGonagall’s memory, be back with her outside the shop again,
make it didn’t happen -
    “But to answer your question, Mr. Potter, no, nothing like
that
has ever happened to me. Certainly I’ve watched a friend breathe their last, once or seven times. But not one of them ever cursed me as they died, and I never thought that they wouldn’t forgive me. Why would you
say
such a thing, Mr. Potter? Why would you even
think
it?”
    “I, I, I,” Harry swallowed. “It’s just that I always try to imagine the worst thing that could happen,” and maybe he’d also been joking around a little but he would rather have bitten off his own tongue than say that now.
    “What?” said Professor McGonagall. “But
why?”
    “So I can stop it from happening!”
    “Mr. Potter…” the older witch’s voice trailed off. Then she sighed, and knelt down beside him. “Mr. Potter,” she said, gently now, “it’s not your responsibility to take care of the students at Hogwarts. It’s mine. I won’t let anything bad happen to you or anyone else. Hogwarts is the safest place for magical children in all the