"Ssomething like that. Woman we resscued will cooperate, sshould be mosst convincing when sshe iss sseen at hiss sside." More sardonic tongue-flickering. "You are kidnapped from Hogwartss to public location, many witnesssess, wardss keep out protectorss. Dark Lord announcess that he hass at long lasst regained physical form, after wandering as sspirit for yearss; ssayss that he hass gained sstill greater power, not even you can sstop him now. Offerss to let you duel. You casst guardian Charm, Dark Lord laughss at you, ssayss he iss not life-eater. Casstss Killing Cursse at you, you block, watcherss ssee Dark Lord explode -"
"Casst Killing Cursse?" Harry hissed in incredulity. "At me? Again? Ssecond time? Nobody will believe Dark Lord could posssibly be that sstupid -"
"You and I are only two people in country who would notice that," hissed the snake. "Trusst me on thiss, boy."
"What if there iss third, ssomeday?"
The snake swayed thoughtfully. "Could write different sscript for play, if you wissh. Whatever sscenario, sshould leave open posssibility Dark Lord might return yet again - nation musst think they are sstill dependent on you to protect them."
Harry stared into the red-flickering pits of the snake's eyes.
"Well?" hissed the swaying form.
The obvious thought was that going along with the Defense Professor's plots and deceptions a second time, spinning an even more complicated lie to cover up the first mistake, and creating another fatal vulnerability if anyone ever discovered the truth, would be exactly the same sort of stupidity as the putative Dark Lord using the Killing Curse again. It didn't even take his Hufflepuff side to point that out, Harry thought it in his very own mental voice.
But there was also a certain question as to whether the appropriate moral to learn from the last experience was to always say no immediately to the Defense Professor, or...
"Will think about it," hissed Harry. "Will not ansswer right away, thiss time, will enumerate risskss and benefitss firsst -"
"Undersstood," hissed the snake. "But remember thiss, boy, other eventss proceed without you. Hessitation iss alwayss eassy, rarely usseful."
The boy emerged from the private room into the main infirmary, running nervous fingers through his messy black hair as he walked past the white beds, occupied and unoccupied.
Shortly afterward, the boy emerged from the Hogwarts infirmary entirely, passing Madam Pomfrey on the way out with a distracted nod.
The boy walked out into a hallway, then into a larger corridor, and then stopped and leaned against the wall.
The thing was...
...he really didn't want to be stuck in Hogwarts for the next six years; and when you thought about it...
... the Incident with Rescuing Bellatrix From Azkaban wasn't just imposing costs on Harry. Other people would be worrying, living in fear of the Dark Lord's return, expending unknown resources to take unknown precautions. Harry could demand that they write the script in such fashion as to make it seem not plausible that the Dark Lord would return a third time. And then people would relax, it would all be over.
Unless of course there actually was a Dark Lord out there to be feared. There had been a prophecy.
The boy leaning against the wall vented a soft sigh, and started walking again.
Harry had almost forgotten, but he had gotten around to showing Professor Quirrell the deck of cards he'd been given on Sunday night by 'Santa Claus', within which the King of Hearts was allegedly a portkey that would take him to the Salem Witches' Institute in America. Although of course Harry hadn't told Professor Quirrell who'd sent him the card, nor what it was supposed to do, before he'd asked Professor Quirrell if it was possible to tell where the portkey would send him.
The Defense Professor had transformed back to human form, and examined the King of Hearts, tapping it a few times with his wand.
And according to Professor Quirrell...
...the portkey would send the user somewhere in London, but he couldn't pinpoint it any nearer than that.
Harry had shown Professor Quirrell the note that had accompanied the deck of cards, saying nothing of the earlier notes.
Professor Quirrell had taken it in at a glance, given a dry chuckle, and observed that if you read the note carefully, it did not explicitly say that the portkey would take him to the Salem Witches' Institute.
You needed to learn to pay attention to that kind of subtlety, Professor Quirrell said, if you wanted to be a powerful wizard when you grew up; or, indeed, if you wanted to grow up at all.
The boy sighed again as he trudged off to class.
He was starting to wonder if all the other wizarding schools were also like this, or if it was only Hogwarts that had a problem.
Chapter 66: Self Actualization, Pt 1
Hessitation iss alwayss eassy, rarely usseful.
So the Defense Professor had told him; and while you could quibble about the details of the proverb, Harry understood the weaknesses of Ravenclaws well enough to know that you had to try answering your own quibbles. Did some plans call for waiting? Yes, many plans called for delayed action; but that was not the same as hesitating to choose. Not delaying because you knew the right moment to do what was necessary, but delaying because you couldn't make up your mind - there was no cunning plan which called for that.
Did you sometimes need more information to choose? Yes, but that could also turn into an excuse for delaying; and it would be tempting to delay, when you were faced with a choice between two painful alternatives, and not choosing would avoid the mental pain for a time. So you would pick a piece of information you couldn't easily obtain, and claim that you couldn't possibly decide without it; that would be your excuse. Although if you knew what information you needed, knew when and how you would obtain that information, and knew what you would do depending on each possible observation, then that was less suspicious as an excuse for hesitating.
If you weren't just hesitating, you ought to be able to choose in advance what you would do, once you had the extra information you claimed you needed.
If the Dark Lord were really out there, would it be smart to go along with Professor Quirrell's plan to have someone impersonate the Dark Lord?
No. Definitely no. Absolutely not.
And if Harry knew for a fact that the Dark Lord wasn't really out there... in that case...
The Defense Professor's office was a small room, at least today; it had changed since the last time Harry had seen it, the stone of the room becoming darker, more polished. Behind the Defense Professor's desk stood the single empty bookcase that always decorated the room, a tall bookcase stretching almost from the floor to the ceiling, with seven empty wooden shelves. Harry had only once seen Professor Quirrell take a book from those empty shelves, and never seen him put a book back.
The green snake swayed above the seat of the chair behind the Defense Professor's desk, the lidless eyes staring unblinking at Harry from close to his own eye level.