Harry Potter and the Way of Reason

There is evening, there is morning, and this is the last day.June [-], [-].

The first gleam of morning light, the dawn before the sun rises, barely illuminates the sky.To the east of Hogwarts, where the sun should rise, a barely visible sliver of gray barely outlines the undulating hillside behind the Quidditch grounds.

The stone-roofed terrace on which Harry sits is high enough to see the dawn over the hills below; that's what he asked for when describing his new office.

Harry was sitting cross-legged on a cushion now, with the cool pre-dawn wind blowing over his bare face and hands.He asked the house-elves to bring his hand-pasted and glittered throne up from General Chaos' former office...and then he realized he should worry about where his taste for decoration came from, and where Voldemort Had a similar throne once been held, and the elves carried it back again.That in itself is not a conclusive argument - and not that there's anything immoral in Harry's ethical philosophy about "sitting on a shining throne overlooking the grounds around Hogwarts" - — but Harry decided he needed a moment to think about it.In the meantime, a simple cushion will suffice.

The room below was Harry's new office at Hogwarts, connected to the roof terrace by a simple wooden ladder.The room was spacious, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows filled with sunlight, and currently unfurnished except for four chairs and a desk.Harry told Principal McGonagall what he wanted, so Principal McGonagall put on the Sorting Hat, and then told him a series of winding instructions leading to where he wanted.It was so high inside Hogwarts, it was so high that the castle couldn't even accommodate it, and it was so high that people outside couldn't see the castle corresponding to where Harry was sitting now.This seems like a simple sniper-prevention measure, and there's no reason not to take it.

On the other hand, though, Harry had no idea where he was in reality.How could Harry see the field below if his office could not be seen from the field below, how could the photon reach him from below?To the west of the horizon, the stars were still twinkling, clear in the predawn air.Were those photons really photons sent from an unimaginably distant plasma fireball?Or is Harry now sitting in a dreamlike Hogwarts castle?Or is it all "magic" that can't be explained and needs no explanation?He needs to figure out how to get the electricity to work better around the magic so he can test it with the laser up and down.

And, yes, Harry had his own office at Hogwarts.He doesn't have an official title yet, but 'The Boy Who Lived' is now a regular at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which will soon be home to the Sorcerer's Stone and the world's only truly Higher education institution in the magic world.The security system of this office is currently not perfect, but Professor Victor has arranged some basic charms and charms to shield the office and the roof terrace above it from eavesdropping.

Harry sat on his cushion, close to the edge of the roof of his office, looking down at the woods, the lake, and the meadow dotted with wildflowers.The carriage in the distance is parked, and the skeleton horse has not yet been tied.There are a few small boats scattered on the shore of the lake, ready to take the young students there.The Hogwarts Express arrived last night, and now the carriages and the huge old-fashioned locomotive are waiting on the opposite side of the South Lake.Everything is ready to send the students home after the farewell banquet in the morning.

Harry stared blankly across the lake, at the huge old delivery locomotive, which he wouldn't be riding home this time.Same as last time.The thought was accompanied by a strange sadness and concern, as if Harry had begun to miss the opportunity to experience the same experiences as the students his year - you could hardly say that, considering a considerable part of Harry was in Born in 1926.Last night in the Ravenclaw common room, Harry felt as if the distance between him and the other students had, yes, grown further.Well, maybe that's just because Padma Patil and Anthony Goldstein are excitedly discussing with each other about "The Girl Who Died and Risen" and Ravenclaw and Ravenclaw are on fire Numerous guesses popped up.Harry knew the answers, he knew all the answers, but he couldn't say them.

Some part of Harry had the intention of boarding the Hogwarts Express and Flooing back.But when he imagines being in a compartment with five students, spending eight hours keeping secrets from Padma or Neville or Dean or Tracy or Lavender... doesn't feel like an attraction people's outlook.Harry felt he should do it for the grand "association with other kids" reasons, but he didn't want to.He can meet with everyone again at the beginning of the next school year, when there will be other topics that will allow him to speak more freely.

Harry stared south across the lake, at the big old transport locomotive, and thought about the rest of his life.

Think about the future.

That part of Dumbledore's letter about him tearing the stars apart...well, that part sounds pretty optimistic.That part is well explained and obvious to anyone with the right education.That, so to speak, describes the future of human triumph.Harry usually doesn't think of this when he looks at the starry sky, but from a fully mature perspective, the stars are huge and precious piles of raw materials that have unfortunately caught fire and need to be scattered and extinguished.If you can draw raw materials from the vast reservoirs of hydrogen and helium, it means that your species has successfully entered adulthood.

Unless that's not what the prophecy said at all.Dumbledore may have misunderstood the words of a prophet...but the wording of his letter to Harry sounded like a prophecy that Harry himself would tear the stars apart, and that was within reach.This seems more worrisome, but it doesn't mean that it will definitely come true, or that it will be a bad thing if it happens...

Harry exhaled.Last night, in the long hours before falling asleep, he had begun to understand what Dumbledore's last message meant.

Looking back, the events of the Hogwarts year of [-]-[-] were horrific, because now Harry understood what it was all about.

Not only because Harry spends a lot of time with his good friend Voldemort.That's not even the main problem.

It was he who saw that Albus Dumbledore led a thin thread of time through the narrow keyhole of fate, introducing a possibility as thin as a hair into the middle of the eye of a needle.

Those prophecies instruct Dumbledore to have Tom Riddle copy the mind into the brain of a wizarding baby and raise the child up in Muggle science.If this is the best or first strategy the prophets could find to avoid a catastrophe, what does this imply for the future?

Now Harry could look back at the Unbreakable Vow he had made and guess that without that the apocalypse might have started, just yesterday when he wanted to destroy the International Covenant of Secrecy.And this incident strongly suggests that the myriad of prophecies Dumbledore had read and obeyed somehow ensured that Harry and Voldemort would collide in exactly the precise way that Voldemort would force Harry to take that unbreakable vow.That unbreakable oath, he guessed, was part of the narrow keyhole of time, one of the improbable prerequisites for allowing people on Earth to survive.

The sole mission of that oath was to protect everyone from Harry's current folly.

It's like watching a video of a traffic accident that almost happened to you, and you remember a car passing within a few centimeters of you, and then the video shows that at the same time, someone threw a stone with great precision, just in time. Let a truck miss that near collision, and if the guy hadn't thrown that pebble, you and your family in the car and your entire planet would have been killed by that truck Hit, in this metaphor, that big truck represents your utter ignorance.

Harry had been warned, he subconsciously knew the danger (otherwise the oath wouldn't have stopped him), but he still almost made the wrong choice and destroyed the world.Harry could now look back and see that, yes, the unsworn Harry in that parallel universe would have had a hard time accepting a reasoning that didn't allow the introduction of magical medicine to Muggles anytime sooner.If the Harry of the parallel universe admits the risk of this matter, he will try to rationalize it, try to find some clever way around this problem, and refuse to spend a few more years on this matter, so the world will be destroyed.Even after all the warnings Harry had received, it wouldn't be possible without the Unbreakable Vow.

A tiny thread of time carefully penetrated into the middle of the eye of a needle.

Harry didn't know what to do with the discovery.Humans have evolved emotions that do not include this situation.All Harry could do was stare blankly at how he had almost caused the disaster, and how it would happen again in the future if the oath was destined to be triggered more than once, and think... .

thinking about...

The idea of ​​"I don't want this to happen again" doesn't feel right.He never wanted to destroy the world in the first place.Harry has no shortage of protective desires for intelligent beings on Earth, and those protective desires are in some ways the problem.What Harry lacked was some clarity of insight that would allow him to consciously acknowledge what he already knew subconsciously...

And the fact that Harry spent the past year befriending the Defense professor didn't add much to Harry's IQ rating.It could even be said that this points to the same problem.There were some things Harry knew subconsciously, or strongly suspected, but never rose to the conscious level to pay attention to.So he failed and almost died.

I need to raise my level.

That was what Harry was looking for.He has to do better than he is now, become a less stupid person.

I need to improve my level or I will fail.

Dumbledore destroyed the records in the Hall of Prophecy, and arranged that there would be no more records.Said there was a prophecy that Harry must never touch those prophecies.The obvious next thought (whether true or false) is that saving the world goes beyond what prophecy can dictate.Victory, he guessed, required elaborate plans that the prophets could not communicate, or that the divination spells were somehow unable to detect.If there was some way for Dumbledore to save the world himself, then the prophecy should tell Dumbledore how to do it.Instead, those prophecies told how Dumbledore would create the prerequisites for such a being to exist.Such a person, perhaps, can solve difficult problems that prophecy cannot directly solve.So Harry was put in a position of independence, allowing him to think for himself without being guided by prophecy.If all Harry does is follow the mysterious instructions given by the prophecy, then he cannot grow into a person who can take on that unknown mission.

And for now, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verys is still a walking disaster, requiring an unbreakable oath to bind him so that he will not immediately push the earth to the end. Fate will go on the track, even if he has been warned.All this had happened literally yesterday, the day after he'd helped Voldemort come close to world domination.

A line from Tolkien's book that keeps ringing in Harry's head comes from when Frodo puts on the Ring at Mount Doom and Sauron suddenly realizes what a big idiot he is. "So the profoundness of his ignorance was finally fully exposed", or how to put it.

The difference between who Harry needs to be and who Harry is is not 01:30 points.

And Harry didn't think that time, life experience, and puberty would automatically solve this problem, although they might help.Still, if Harry as an adult was as far from him as he is from the average adult and the average 11-year-old, perhaps that would be enough to steer the helm through the narrow keyhole of time...  

He had to grow up, grow up in a certain way, and there was no conventional path before him to achieve this goal.

At this moment Harry remembered another novel, this work was less famous than Tolkien:[1]

You can only become a master by practicing the skills you've learned, facing challenges head-on and solving them, making full use of the craft you've learned until they crumble in your hands, leaving you in ruins...  ..I can't teach a master, I never know how to teach a master.So, go, and fail... You have been trained and may rise from the ashes with an unwavering determination to re-forge your craft.I can't teach a master, but if you're not taught, your chances are even smaller.The higher path begins after your craft seems to have failed you; when in fact, you have failed your craft.

The problem wasn't that Harry was on the wrong track, that the road to sanity lay outside science.But reading the scientific literature has proven to be insufficient.The cognitive psychology literature that describes known pitfalls in the human mind helps, but it's not enough on its own.Harry was just beginning to understand how amazingly and unbelievably rational you need to be in order to actually start doing things right—rather than just having a handy vocabulary to describe the mistakes you made after the fact. What an astonishingly high standard, and Harry fell short of it.Harry can now look back and use ideas like "motivated cognition" [2] to analyze the path he went astray in the past year, which makes sense for him to become more rational in the future.It's better than not knowing what he did wrong at all.But this is not yet a man through the narrow keyhole of time, not the man Dumbledore fashioned out of possibilities guided by the prophets.

I need to think faster, grow faster... How alone am I and how lonely am I going to be?Am I making the same mistake I made in Professor Quirrell's first war when I didn't realize Hermione had other officers?Like my mistake for not telling him about the impending doom feeling even after knowing that Dumbledore was probably neither crazy nor evil?

If only the Muggles had developed a curriculum for this sort of thing, but they didn't.Maybe Harry could recruit Daniel Kahneman[3], fake his death, rejuvenate him with the Philosopher's Stone, and put him in charge of developing better training methods...

Harry took the Elder Wand from his robes and looked again at the dark gray wand that Dumbledore had passed him.This time Harry tried to think faster, and he tried to use the clues given by the Invisibility Cloak and the Resurrection Stone to piece together the answer.Cloaks of invisibility have the legendary power to hide those beneath them, and the secret power to hide from death-incarnate dementors.The Resurrection Stone has the legendary power to summon images of the dead, and Voldemort added it to his Horcrux system to allow his soul to move freely.The second Deathly Hallows could be a potential component of an ultimate immortality system that Cadmus Peverell failed to complete, possibly due to his moral principles.

And the third Deathly Hallows, Antioch Peverell's Elder Wand, is said to pass from one wizard to a stronger wizard, making its bearer invincible against ordinary attacks; is a well-known superficial trait...

The Elder Wand once belonged to Dumbledore, and Dumbledore was trying to prevent the death of the whole world.

The purpose of the Elder Wand attached to the victor may be to find the strongest living wizard and make him stronger, in case any crisis threatens the survival of the entire race; it may be to defeat death, which destroys the world. The secret tool of the enemy.

But if there was any higher level of magic locked in the Elder Wand, it didn't reveal itself because of Harry's guess.Harry tried to raise the Elder Wand and speak to it, expressing that he was a descendant of the Peverell family and accepted the mission of his family; he swore to the Elder Wand that he would do everything in his power to save the world from death, Inherit Dumbledore's responsibilities.And the Elder Wand didn't respond to him any more strongly than before, rejecting his attempts to fast-forward the storyline.Perhaps Harry needed to deliver his first blow to the death of the world before the Elder Wand would admit him; as Ignotus Peverell's heir first defeated the shadow of death, Cadmus Peverell's heirs survived his physical death first before their respective Deathly Hallows revealed their secrets to them.

At least Harry guessed that, contrary to legend, the inner core of the Elder Wand was not a Thestral hair.Harry had seen Thestrals, and they were skeleton horses, smooth skinned, without any mane on their skulllike heads, and bony tails too.But Harry hadn't figured out what the inner core of the Elder Wand was; nor had he found the Deathly Hallows mark on the Elder Wand, which was supposed to be there.

"I said," Harry whispered to the Elder Wand, "could you just tell me?"

The knobby wand offered him no answer; only a sense of glory and restrained power eyed him suspiciously.

Harry sighed and put the world's most powerful wand back inside his school robes.He'll figure it out someday, hopefully in time.

Maybe faster, if someone could help him with the research.

Harry knew on a subconscious level—no, he had to stop 'knowing on a subconscious level'', but just knew—and Harry knew explicitly, consciously, that he was thinking about the future primarily to distract himself from Think about the fact that Hermione Granger is coming soon.Hermione woke up early today and got a stamp of good health from St. Mungo's Hospital, and she will follow Professor Flitwick back to Hogwarts on the Floo network.At that point she would tell Professor Flitwick that she needed to speak to Harry Potter right away.The sun was already up when Harry woke up in the Ravenclaw dormitory this morning, and then he saw the note left by his future self saying it, so he used the time-turner to go back to the dawn, waiting for Hermione Granger arrives.

She won't be really mad at me.

......

honestly.Hermione wasn't that kind of person.Maybe she was at the beginning of the school year, but she's self-aware enough now not to make that kind of mistake.

......

what do you mean,"......"?Hey, inner voice, if you have something to say, just say it!We're trying to be more conscious of our thought processes, remember?

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The sky had turned blue-gray and dawn was about to turn into sunrise when Harry heard footsteps on the ladder leading to his new office.Harry stood up quickly and began to dust his robes; then he realized what he was doing and stopped the nervous movement.He had just defeated Voldemort, and god damn it, he shouldn't be so nervous.

The little witch's head and curly sorrel hair appeared at the exit, and she looked around, then climbed higher, as if running up a ladder, as if walking on an ordinary sidewalk, just vertical with.Harry would have missed it if he blinked, one of her shoes touched the top of the ladder, and she hopped lightly onto the roof terrace.

Hermione.Harry's lips muttered the name silently, but no sound came out.

Harry had thought about saying something, but now his mind was blank.

They stood on the roof, and about 15 seconds had passed before Hermione Granger spoke.She now wears a blue-trimmed school uniform and a blue-and-copper striped tie to represent her house.

"Harry," said Hermione Granger, her voice so familiar it nearly brought Harry to tears. "Before I ask you all those questions, I want to say thank you so much for, uh, whatever you do. I mean it. Thank you."

"Hermione," Harry said, swallowing.The opening line he originally prepared, "May I give you a hug" is completely unspeakable now. "Welcome back. Wait a minute, I'll set up some privacy barriers." Harry took out the Elder Wand from his robe, took out a book from his bag, opened it to the page with the bookmark, and read carefully." Manifest." There were two other security spells he had just learned, which Harry could barely cast with the Elder Wand.It's not very safe, but it's a little safer than relying on Professor Victor alone.

"You have Dumbledore's wand," said Hermione.Her voice was soft, but it sounded like an avalanche in the still dawn air. "And you can use it to cast fourth-year spells?"

Harry nodded, making a mental note to be careful who saw him do it in the future. "Can I give you a hug?"

Hermione came lightly, with a strange fluidity to her movements, more graceful than ever.There seemed to be something pure and divine about her demeanor that reminded Harry of how peaceful and serene Hermione looked as she lay asleep on Voldemort's altar—

The sudden epiphany hit Harry like a ton of bricks, or at least a kilo of bricks.

Harry hugged Hermione, feeling how alive she was.He wanted to cry, but held back because he didn't know if it was just her aura affecting him.

Hermione wrapped her arms around him very gently, with the slightest pressure, as if she was careful not to snap his body in half like a used toothpick.

"Well," said Hermione after Harry let her go.Her young face looks very serious, but innocent at the same time. "I didn't tell the Aurors you were there, or that Professor Quirrell and not You-Know-Who killed the Death Eaters. Professor Flitwick only asked them to give me a drop of Veritaserum, so I didn't have to. I just Tell them the last thing I remember is the troll."

"Ah," said Harry.Somehow he found himself staring at Hermione's nose instead of her eyes. "What do you think happened, exactly?"

"Well," said Hermione Granger thoughtfully, "I got eaten by a troll, and to be honest I'd rather not repeat the experience, and then there was a bang and my legs came back and I lay On a stone altar in the middle of a cemetery, surrounded by a dark moonlit forest such as I have never seen, someone's two severed hands were around my throat. You see, Mr. Potter, I found myself in a I'm not going to make the same mistake Tracy did in a situation that's weird and dark and scary. I'll know right away it's you."

Harry nodded. "That's right."

"I called your name, but you didn't answer," said Hermione. "I sat up, and a severed hand slid off me, leaving a little bit of flesh and blood, but I didn't scream, even if it was I looked around and saw those heads and bodies, and I didn't even realize what the smell was." Hermione paused and took another deep breath, "I saw those skull masks and realized that those dead people were Death Eaters. I Right off the bat the defense professor and you went there and killed them all, but I didn't notice that Professor Quirrell's body was there too. Even when I saw Professor Flitwick examine him I didn't realize it was He. He looked... different after he died." Hermione's voice became quieter.She looked humbled somehow, in a way Harry hadn't seen before. "They say David Monroe sacrificed himself to bring me back, just like your mother sacrificed herself for you, and the Dark Lord exploded as soon as he touched me. I'm pretty sure that's not the whole truth, But... I used to have some pretty nasty thoughts about our Defense professor, and I really shouldn't have those thoughts."

"Er," said Harry.

Hermione nodded solemnly, clasping her hands on her chest, as if in repentance. "I know you are too kind to say to me what you have a right to say now, so I will say it for you, Harry. You were always right about Professor Quirrell, and I was wrong. You told me. David Monroe was a little bit dark and very Slylinian, and I thought that was tantamount to evil, which was extremely naive."

"Ah..." said Harry.It's hard to say that. "Actually, the rest of the world doesn't know that part, not even the headmistress; but you're actually 110 percent right about him being evil, and I'll remember in the future , while 'dark' and 'evil' are not strictly the same thing, there is a strong statistical correlation between them."

"Oh," said Hermione, falling silent again.

"Don't you want to say 'I told you so'?" Harry asked.The simulated version of Hermione in his head was yelling: I told you so!Didn't I already tell you, Mr Potter?Did I say it earlier?Professor Quirrell is evil, evil, evil, I told you, but you didn't listen!

The real Hermione just shook her head. "I know you care about him," she said softly, "since I turned out to be right...I know that Professor Quirrell was evil probably hurt you a lot, now It's not a good time to say to you 'I should have said it earlier'. I mean, that's how I decided when I was thinking about this part a few months ago."

Thank you, Miss Granger.Harry was glad she had at least said that, though, because it wouldn't have felt like Hermione otherwise.

"Then, Mr. Potter," said Hermione Granger, tapping her fingers on the top of her robes about her thighs. "After the nurse witch took my blood sample, the pain disappeared immediately. After I wiped the blood off my arm, I couldn't find where the needle hole was. Curved, and, while I haven't had a chance to test it, I think I should be able to run very fast. My fingernails are pearly white, but I don't remember having them painted. My teeth are the same Well, I'm the daughter of two dentists after all, and this situation makes me nervous. So, it's not that I'm not grateful, but what the hell have you done?"

"Uh," said Harry, "and, I guess you'd like to know why you exude an air of innocence?"

"What am I?"

"That part wasn't my idea. Really." Harry's voice was small. "Please don't kill me."

Hermione Granger raised her hand to her face, staring at her fingers a little cross-eyed. "Harry, are you saying... I mean, I exude innocence and I'm fast and elegant and my teeth are pearly white... My fingernails are Did the empty corner do it?"

"Empty corner?"

"The scientific name of a unicorn's horn, Mr. Potter." Hermione Granger seemed to be trying to bite her fingernails, but to no avail. "So, I guess if you bring a girl back from the dead she'll be, what did Daphne say, a sparkly unicorn princess?"

"Not quite," said Harry, though very close, frighteningly close.

Hermione pulled her finger out of her mouth and frowned at it: "I can't even bite. Mr. Potter, have you considered that it's literally impossible for me to cut my nails now?"

"The Weasley twins have a magic sword, which should work," Harry offered the information.

"I think," said Hermione Granger firmly, "that I'd be interested to know the whole story behind this, Mr. Potter. Because, from what I know of you and Professor Quirrell, there must be some plot behind it." .”

Harry took a deep breath, then let it out. "Sorry, that's... confidential. I could tell you if you learned Occlumency, but... would you like to?"

"Do I want to learn Occlumency?" said Hermione, looking a little taken aback. "That's at least sixth grade stuff, isn't it?"

"I learned," said Harry, "I took advantage of some specials at first, but I don't think it matters in the long run. I mean, I'm sure if you study hard you can learn Calculus, whatever age Muggles typically learn it. The problem is, uh," Harry struggled to catch his breath. "The question is, do you still want to do...that kind of thing."

Hermione turned and looked towards the east where the sky was getting brighter. "You mean," she said softly, "because of being a hero, I have experienced such a tragic death, do I want to continue?"

Harry nodded, then said "yes", because Hermione didn't turn to look at him, even though the words seemed to be stuck in his throat.

"I've thought about it," said Hermione. "It was, in fact, a particularly bloody and painful death."

"I, uh, I did arrange some things, in case you still want to be a hero. There are some opportunities that are fleeting, I don't have time to discuss with you, I can't let you see me, because I foresee they will turn around Veritaserum for you. But if you don't like it, I can undo most of what I do and leave the rest alone."

Hermione nodded, her mind seemingly wandering far away. "Like, let everyone think I'm...Harry, did I actually do anything to You-Know-Who?"

"No, I did it all, but please don't tell anyone else. You know, the Boy Who Lived claimed to have defeated Voldemort on Halloween night in [-], but it was actually Dumbledore's victory, he made Everyone thought it was me. So now I beat the Dark Lord once and get credit for it. Everything will even out, I think."

Hermione continued to look east. "I'm still not comfortable with it," she said after a while, "everyone thinks I've defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort when in fact I've done nothing... oh, that's what you're going through, no ?"

"Yeah. Sorry to force that on you. I was...well, I guess, I was trying to create another image of you in people's minds. There was that opportunity, and The situation was urgent, and...I realized in hindsight that I probably shouldn't have done it, but it was too late." Harry cleared his throat, "But, uh, if you think you need to do something To live up to what people say about 'the girl who died and came back', uh. I might have an idea of ​​something you can do. Soon, if you want."

Hermione Granger was watching him.

"But you don't have to!" said Harry hastily. "You can ignore the whole thing and be Raven Crowley's best student! If that's what you prefer."

"You're trying to use reverse psychology on me