“Do you believe,” Headmaster Dumbledore said quietly to Harry, when all of it was done, and the two of them alone, “that the Hogwarts you have wrought is an improvement?”
Harry sat with his elbows on his knees, his face resting on his palms, in the conference room from which all the others had now departed. Professor McGonagall, who did not use a Time-Turner as routinely as the two of them, had departed swiftly for her bed.
“Yes,” Harry answered after too long a hesitation. “From my perspective, Headmaster, things in Hogwarts are finally, finally normal. This is how things should be, when four children get sent into the Forbidden Forest at night. There should be a huge fuss, constables showing up, and the responsible party getting sacked.”
“You believe it is good,” Dumbledore said quietly, “that the man who you call responsible was, as you put it, sacked.”
“Yes, in fact, I do.”
“Argus Filch has served this institution for decades.”
“And when given Veritaserum,” Harry said tiredly, “Argus Filch revealed that he had sent an eleven-year-old boy into the Forbidden Forest, hoping something awful would happen to him, because he thought the boy’s father had been responsible for the death of his cat. The three other students in Draco’s company don’t seem to have fazed him. I would have argued for jail time, but your concept of jail in this country is Azkaban. I’ll also note that Filch was remarkably unpleasant to the children in Hogwarts and I expect the school’s hedonic index to be improved by his departure, not that it matters to you, I suppose.”
The Headmaster’s eyes were impenetrable behind the half-moon glasses. “Argus Filch is a Squib. His work at Hogwarts is all he has. Had, rather.”
“The purpose of a school is not to provide work for its employees. I know you probably spent more time around Filch than around any individual student, but that shouldn’t make Filch’s inner experiences loom larger in your thoughts. Students have inner lives too.”
“You don’t care at all, do you Harry?” Dumbledore’s voice was quiet.
“About those you hurt.”
“I care about the innocent,” Harry said. “Like Mr. Hagrid, who you’ll note I argued should not be considered malicious, just oblivious. I was fine with Mr. Hagrid working here so long as he didn’t take anyone into the Forbidden Forest again.”
“I had thought that with Rubeus vindicated, he might teach Care of Magical Creatures after Silvanus departs the position. But much of that teaching is done in the Forbidden Forest. So that too shall not be, in the wake of your passage.”
Harry said slowly, “But—you told us that Mr. Hagrid has a blind spot when it comes to magical creatures threatening wizards. That Mr. Hagrid had a cognitive deficit and couldn’t really imagine Draco and Tracey getting hurt, which was why Mr. Hagrid didn’t see anything wrong with leaving them alone in the Forbidden Forest at night. Was that not true?”
“It is true.”
“Then wouldn’t Mr. Hagrid be the worst possible teacher for Magical Creatures?”
The old wizard gazed down at Harry through the half-moon glasses. His voice was thick when he spoke. “Mr. Malfoy himself saw nothing awry. It was not so implausible a trick which Argus played, Harry Potter.
And Rubeus might have grown into his position. It would have been—all Rubeus wished, his one greatest desire—”
“Your mistake,” Harry said, looking down at his knees, feeling at least ten percent as exhausted as he’d ever been, “is a cognitive bias we would call, in the trade, scope insensitivity. Failure to multiply. You’re thinking about how happy Mr. Hagrid would be when he heard the news. Consider the next ten years and a thousand students taking Magical Creatures and ten percent of them being scalded by Ashwinders. No one student would be hurt as much as Mr. Hagrid would be happy, but there’d be a hundred students being hurt and only one happy teacher.”
“Perhaps,” the old wizard said. “And your own error, Harry, is that you do not feel the pain of those you hurt, once you have done your multiplication.”
“Maybe.” Harry went on staring at his knees. “Or maybe it’s worse than that. Headmaster, what does it mean if a centaur doesn’t like me?” What does it mean when a member of a race of magical creatures known for Divination gives you a lecture on people who are ignorant of consequences, apologizes, and then tries to stab you with a spear?
“A centaur?” the Headmaster said. “When did you—ah, the TimeTurner. You are the reason why I could not travel back to before the event, on pain of paradox.”
“Am I? I guess I am.” Harry shook his head distantly. “Sorry.”
“With very few exceptions,” Dumbledore said, “centaurs do not like wizards, at all.”
“This was a bit more specific than that.” “What did the centaur say to you?” Harry didn’t reply.
“Ah.” The Headmaster hesitated. “Centaurs have been wrong many times, and if there is anyone in the world who could confuse the stars themselves, it is you.”
Harry looked up, and saw the blue eyes once more gentle behind the half-circle glasses.
“Do not fret too much about it,” said Albus Dumbledore.
Chapter 102: Caring
June 3rd, 1992.
Professor Quirrell was very sick.
He’d seemed better for a while, after drinking his unicorn’s blood in May, but the air of intense power which had surrounded him afterward hadn’t lasted even a day. By the Ides of May, Professor Quirrell’s hands had been trembling again, though subtly. The Defense Professor’s medical regimen had been interrupted too early, it seemed.
Six days ago Professor Quirrell had collapsed at dinnertime.
Madam Pomfrey had tried to forbid Professor Quirrell from teaching classes, and Professor Quirrell had shouted at her in front of everyone. The Defense Professor had shouted that he was dying regardless, and would use his remaining time as he chose.
So Madam Pomfrey, blinking hard, had forbidden the Defense Professor from doing anything except teaching his classes. She’d asked for a volunteer to help her take Professor Quirrell to a room in the Hogwarts infirmary. More than a hundred students had risen to their feet, only half wearing green.
The Defense Professor no longer sat at the Head Table during mealtimes. He didn’t cast spells during lessons. The oldest students who had the most Quirrell points helped him to teach, the seventh-years who had already sat their Defense N.E.W.T.s in May. They took turns floating him from his room in the infirmary to his classes, and brought him food at mealtimes. Professor Quirrell proctored his Battle Magic classes from a chair, sitting.
Watching Hermione die had hurt more than this, but that had ended much more quickly.
This is the true Enemy.
Harry had already thought that, after Hermione had died. Being forced to watch Professor Quirrell die, day by day, week by week, had not done much to change his mind.
This is the true Enemy I have to face, Harry thought in Wednesday’s Defense class, watching Professor Quirrell leaning far to one side of his chair before that day’s seventh-year assistant caught him. Everything else is just shadows and distraction.