"I don't see the sense of it, son, but I suppose I could do you the favor."
"Is there aught else, Alastor?" inquired Albus.
"Yes," said Moody. "About that Defense Professor of yours -"
Hypothesis: Gilderoy Lockhart: END
Hypothesis: Dumbledore
(April 9th, 1992, 5:32pm)
As Professor Quirrell slowly raised up his tea, the teacup jerked in midair, sending the dark translucent liquid just barely slopping over the side, so that only three single drops crawled down the side of the teacup. Harry would have missed it, if he hadn't happened to be watching closely; for Professor Quirrell's hand was perfectly steady on the cup before and after.
If that small jerky motion advanced to a constant tremor, it would be the end of any non-wandless magic for the Defense Professor. Wandwork had no room for trembling fingers. How much that would actually handicap Professor Quirrell, if at all, Harry couldn't guess. The Defense Professor was certainly capable of wandless magic, yet still tended to use a wand for larger things - but for him that might only be a convenience...
"Insanity," said Professor Quirrell, as he carefully sipped from his tea - he was looking at the teacup, not at Harry, which was unusual for him - "can be a signature all its own."
The Defense Professor's small office was silent, the sound-warded room quiet in a way the Headmaster's office never could be. Sometimes the two of them both happened to finish exhaling or inhaling at the same time; and then there was an auditory emptiness that was almost a sound in itself.
"I'll agree with that in one sense," Harry said. "If somebody tells me that everyone is staring at them and that their underwear is being dusted with thought-controlling powder, I know they're psychotic, because that's the standard signature of psychosis. But if you tell me that anything confusing points to Albus Dumbledore as a suspect, that seems... overreaching. Just because I can't see a purpose doesn't mean there is no purpose."
"Purposeless?" said Professor Quirrell. "Oh, but the madness of Dumbledore is not that he is purposeless, but that he has too many purposes. The Headmaster might have planned this to make Lucius Malfoy throw away his game for vengeance on you - or it might be a dozen other plots. Who knows what the Headmaster thinks he has reason to do, when he has found reason to do so many strange things already?"
Harry had politely declined tea, even knowing that Professor Quirrell would know what it meant. He'd considered bringing his own can of soda - but had decided against that as well, after realizing how easy it would be for the Defense Professor to teleport in a bit of potion, even if the two of them couldn't touch each other with direct magic.
"I have seen a little now of Dumbledore," Harry said. "Unless everything I have seen is a lie, I find it difficult to believe that he would plot to send any Hogwarts student to Azkaban. Ever."
"Ah," the Defense Professor said softly, the tiny reflection of the teacup gleaming in his pale eyes. "But perhaps that is another signature, Mr. Potter. You have not yet comprehended the perspective of a man like Dumbledore. If he must, in some sufficiently noble cause, sacrifice a student - why, who would he choose, but she who declared herself a heroine?"
That gave Harry some pause. It might just be hindsight bias, but that did seem to concentrate some of that hypotheses's probability mass onto framing Hermione in particular. Similarly, Professor Quirrell had predicted in advance that Dumbledore might target Draco...
But if it's you behind all of this, Professor, you might have shaped your plans to frame the Headmaster, and taken care to cast suspicion on him in advance.
The concept of 'evidence' had something of a different meaning, when you were dealing with someone who had declared themselves to play the game at 'one level higher than you'.
"I see your point, Professor," Harry said evenly, giving no hint of his other thoughts. "So you think it most probable that it was the Headmaster who framed Hermione?"
"Not necessarily, Mr. Potter." Professor Quirrell drained his teacup in one swallow and then set it down, the cup making a sharp rap as it descended. "There is also Severus Snape - though what he might think to gain from this, I could not guess. Thus he is not my prime suspect either."
"Then who is?" Harry said, somewhat puzzled. Professor Quirrell surely wasn't about to reply 'You-Know-Who' -
"The Aurors have a rule," said Professor Quirrell. "Investigate the victim. Many would-be criminals imagine that if they are the apparent victims of a crime, they shall not be suspected. So many criminals imagine it, indeed, that every senior Auror has seen it a dozen times over."
"You're not seriously trying to convince me that Hermione -"
The Defense Professor was giving Harry one of those slit-eyed looks that meant he was being stupid.
Draco? Draco had been interrogated under Veritaserum - but Lucius might have had enough control to subvert Aurors to... oh.
"You think Lucius Malfoy set up his own son?" Harry said.
"Why not?" Professor Quirrell said softly. "From Mr. Malfoy's recorded testimony, Mr. Potter, I gather that you enjoyed some success in changing Mr. Malfoy's political views. If Lucius Malfoy learned of that earlier... he might have decided that his former heir had become a liability."
"I don't buy it," Harry said flatly.
"You are being wantonly naive, Mr. Potter. The history books are full of family disputes turned murderous, for inconveniences and threats far less than those which Mr. Malfoy posed to his father. I suppose next you will tell me that Lord Malfoy of the Death Eaters is far too gentle to wish his son such harm." A tinge of heavy sarcasm.
"Well, yes, frankly," Harry said. "Love is real, Professor, a phenomenon with observable effects. Brains are real, emotions are real, and love is as much a part of the real world as apples and trees. If you made experimental predictions without taking parental love into account, you'd have a heck of a time explaining why my own parents didn't abandon me at an orphanage after the Incident with the Science Project."
The Defense Professor did not react to this at all.
Harry continued. "From what Draco says, Lucius prioritized him over important Wizengamot votes. That's significant evidence, since there's less expensive ways to fake love, if you just want to fake it. And it's not like the prior probability of a parent loving their child is low. I suppose it's possible that Lucius was just taking on the role of a loving father, and he renounced that role after he learned Draco was consorting with Muggleborns. But as the saying goes, Professor, one must distinguish possibility from probability."
"All the better the crime," the Defense Professor said, still in that soft tone, "if no one would believe it of him."
"And how would Lucius even Memory-Charm Hermione in the first place, without setting off the wards? He's not a Professor - oh, right, you think it's Professor Snape."
"Wrong," said the Defense Professor. "Lucius Malfoy would trust no servant with that mission. But suppose some Hogwarts Professor, intelligent enough to cast a well-formed Memory Charm but of no great fighting ability, is visiting Hogsmeade. From a dark alley the black-clad form of Malfoy steps forth - he would go in person, for this - and speaks to her a single word."
"Imperio."
"Legilimens, rather," said Professor Quirrell. "I do not know if the Hogwarts wards would trigger for a returning Professor under the Imperius Curse. And if I do not know, Malfoy probably does not know either. But Malfoy is a perfect Occlumens at least; he might be able to use Legilimency. And for the target...perhaps Aurora Sinistra; none would question the Astronomy Professor moving about at night."