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<option value="1">Chapter 1: A Day of Very Low Probability</option>
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<option value="4">Chapter 4: The Efficient Market Hypothesis</option>
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<option value="23" selected>Chapter 23: Belief in Belief</option>
<option value="24">Chapter 24: Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis</option>
<option value="25">Chapter 25: Hold Off on Proposing Solutions</option>
<option value="26">Chapter 26: Noticing Confusion</option>
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<option value="37">Chapter 37: Interlude: Crossing the Boundary</option>
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<div id="chapter-title">Chapter 23: Belief in Belief<br /></div>
<div style='' class='storycontent' id='storycontent'>
<p>Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around J. K.
Rowling.</p>
<hr size="1" noshade="noshade" />
<p>"And then Janet was a Squib," said the portrait of a short young
woman with a gold-trimmed hat.</p>
<p>Draco wrote it down. That was only twenty-eight but it was time
to go back and meet Harry.</p>
<p>He'd needed to ask other portraits to help translating, English
had changed a lot, but the oldest portraits had described
first-year spells that sounded an awful lot like the ones they had
now. Draco had recognized around half of them and the other half
didn't sound any more powerful.</p>
<p>The sick feeling in his stomach had grown with each answer until
finally, unable to take it any more, he'd gone off and asked other
portraits Harry Potter's strange question about Squib marriages,
instead. The first five portraits hadn't known anyone and finally
he'd asked those portraits to ask <i>their</i> acquaintances to ask
<i>their</i> acquaintances and so managed to find some people who'd
actually admit to being friends with Squibs.</p>
<p>(The first-year Slytherin had explained he was working on an
important project with a Ravenclaw and the Ravenclaw had told him
they needed this information and then run off without saying why.
This had garnered many sympathetic looks.)</p>
<p>Draco's feet were heavy as he walked through the corridors of
Hogwarts. He should have been running but he couldn't seem to
muster the energy. He kept on thinking that he didn't want to know
about this, he didn't want to be involved in any of this, he didn't
want this to be his responsibility, just let Harry Potter do it, if
magic was fading let Harry Potter take care of it...</p>
<p>But Draco knew that wasn't right.</p>
<p>Chill the dungeons of Slytherin, gray the stone walls, Draco
usually liked the atmosphere, but now it seemed too much like
fading.</p>
<p>His hand on the doorknob, Harry Potter already inside and
waiting, wearing his cowled cloak.</p>
<p>"The ancient first-year spells," Harry Potter said. "What did
you find?"</p>
<p>"They're no more powerful than the spells we use now."</p>
<p>Harry Potter's fist struck a desk, hard. "Damn it. All right. My
own experiment was a failure, Draco. There's something called the
Interdict of Merlin -"</p>
<p>Draco hit himself on the forehead, realizing.</p>
<p>"- which stops anyone from getting knowledge of powerful spells
out of books, even if you find and read a powerful wizard's notes
they won't make sense to you, it has to go from one living mind to
another. I couldn't find any powerful spells that we had the
instructions for but couldn't cast. But if you can't get them out
of old books, why would anyone bother passing them on by word of
mouth after they stopped working? Did you get the data on the Squib
couples?"</p>
<p>Draco started to hand the parchment over -</p>
<p>But Harry Potter held up a hand. "Law of science, Draco. First I
tell you the theory and the prediction. Then you show me the data.
That way you know I'm not just making up a theory to fit; you know
that the theory actually predicted the data in <i>advance.</i> I
have to explain this to you anyway, so I have to explain it
<i>before</i> you show me the data. That's the rule. So put on your
cloak and let's sit down."</p>
<p>Harry Potter sat down at a desk with torn scraps of paper
arranged across its surface. Draco drew his cloak out of his
bookbag, drew it on, and sat down across from Harry on the other
side, giving the paper scraps a puzzled look. They were arranged in
two rows and the rows were about twenty scraps long.</p>
<p>"The secret of blood," said Harry Potter, an intense look on his
face, "is something called deoxyribose nucleic acid. You don't say
that name in front of anyone who's not a scientist. Deoxyribose
nucleic acid is the recipe that tells your body how to grow, two
legs, two arms, short or tall, whether you have brown eyes or
green. It's a material thing, you can <i>see</i> it if you have
microscopes, which are like telescopes only they look at things
that are very small instead of very far away. And that recipe has
two copies of everything, always, in case one copy is broken.
Imagine two long rows of pieces of paper. At each place in the row,
there are two pieces of paper, and when you have children, your
body selects one piece of paper at random from each place in the
row, and the mother's body will do the same, and so the child also
gets two pieces of paper at each place in the row. Two copies of
everything, one from your mother, one from your father, and when
you have children they get one piece of paper from you at random in
each place."</p>
<p>As Harry spoke, his fingers ranged over the paired scraps of
paper, pointing to one part of the pair when he said "from your
mother", the other when he said "from your father". And as Harry
talked about picking a piece of paper at random, his hand pulled a
Knut out of his robes and flipped it; Harry looked at the coin, and
then pointed to the top piece of paper. All without a pause in the
speech.</p>
<p>"Now when it comes to something like being short or tall,
there's a <i>lot</i> of places in the recipe that make
<i>little</i> differences. So if a tall father marries a short
mother, the child gets some pieces of paper saying 'tall' and some
pieces of paper saying 'short', and usually the child ends up
middle-sized. But not always. By luck, the child might get a lot of
pieces saying 'tall', and not many papers saying 'short', and grow
up pretty tall. You could have a tall father with five papers
saying 'tall' and a tall mother with five papers saying 'tall' and
by amazing luck the child gets <i>all ten</i> papers saying 'tall'
and ends up taller than both of them. You see? Blood isn't a
perfect fluid, it doesn't mix perfectly. Deoxyribose nucleic acid
is made up of lots of little pieces, like a glass of pebbles
instead of a glass of water. That's why a child isn't always
exactly in the middle of the parents."</p>
<p>Draco listened with his mouth open. How in Merlin's name had the
Muggles figured all this out? They could <i>see</i> the recipe?</p>
<p>"Now," Harry Potter said, "suppose that, just like with
tallness, there's lots of little places in the recipe where you can
have a piece of paper that says 'magic' or 'not magic'. If you have
enough pieces of paper saying 'magic' you're a wizard, if you have
a <i>lot</i> of pieces of paper you're a powerful wizard, if you
have too few you're a Muggle, and in between you're a Squib. Then,
when two Squibs marry, most of the time the children should also be
Squibs, but once in a while a child will get lucky and get most of
the father's magic papers <i>and</i> most of the mother's magic
papers, and be strong enough to be a wizard. But probably not a
very powerful one. If you started out with a lot of powerful
wizards and they married only each other, they would stay powerful.
But if they started marrying Muggleborns who were just barely
magical, or Squibs... you see? The blood wouldn't mix perfectly, it
would be a glass of pebbles, not a glass of water, because that's
just the way blood works. There would still be powerful wizards now
and then, when they got a lot of magic papers by luck. But they
wouldn't be as powerful as the most powerful wizards from
earlier."</p>
<p>Draco nodded slowly. He'd never heard it explained that way
before. There was a surprising beauty to how exactly it fit.</p>
<p>"<i>But,</i>" Harry said. "That's only <i>one</i> hypothesis.
Suppose that instead there's only a <i>single</i> place in the
recipe that makes you a wizard. Only <i>one</i> place where a piece
of paper can say 'magic' or 'not magic'. And there are two copies
of everything, always. So then there are only three possibilities.
Both copies can say 'magic'. One copy can say 'magic' and one copy
can say 'not magic'. Or both copies can say 'not magic'. Wizards,
Squibs, and Muggles. Muggleborns wouldn't really be born to
Muggles, they would be born to two Squibs, two parents each with
one magic copy who'd grown up in the Muggle world. Now imagine a
witch marries a Squib. Each child will get one paper saying 'magic'
from the mother, always, it doesn't matter which piece gets picked
at random, both say 'magic'. But like flipping a coin, half the
time the child will get a paper saying 'magic' from the father, and
half the time the child will get the father's paper saying 'not
magic'. When a witch marries a Squib, the result won't be a lot of
weak wizarding children. Half the children will be wizards and
witches just as powerful as their mother, and half the children
will be Squibs. Because if there's just <i>one</i> place in the
recipe that makes you a wizard, then magic isn't like a glass of
pebbles that can mix. It's like a single magical pebble, a
sorcerer's stone."</p>
<p>Harry arranged three pairs of papers side by side. On one pair
he wrote 'magic' and 'magic'. On another pair he wrote 'magic' on
the top paper only. And the third pair he left blank.</p>
<p>"In which case," Harry said, "either you have two stones or you
don't. Either you're a wizard or not. Powerful wizards would get
that way by studying harder and practicing more. And if wizards get
<i>inherently</i> less powerful, not because of spells being lost
but because people can't cast them... then maybe they're eating the
wrong foods or something. But if it's gotten steadily worse over
eight hundred years, then that could mean magic itself is fading
out of the world."</p>
<p>Harry arranged another two pairs of papers side by side, and
took out a quill. Soon each pair had one piece of paper saying
'magic' and the other paper blank.</p>
<p>"And that brings me to the prediction," said Harry. "What
happens when two Squibs marry. Flip a coin twice. It can come up
heads and heads, heads and tails, tails and heads, or tails and
tails. So one quarter of the time you'll get two heads, one quarter
of the time you'll get two tails, and half the time you'll get one
heads and one tail. Same thing if two Squibs marry. One quarter of
the children would come up magic and magic, and be wizards. One
quarter would come up not-magic and not-magic, and be Muggles. The
other half would be Squibs. It's a very old and very classic
pattern. It was discovered by Gregor Mendel who is not forgotten,
and it was the first hint ever uncovered for how the recipe worked.
Anyone who knows anything about blood science would recognize that
pattern in an instant. It wouldn't be exact, any more than if you
flip a coin twice forty times you'll always get exactly ten pairs
of two heads. But if it's seven or thirteen wizards out of forty
children that'll be a strong indicator. That's the test I had you
do. Now let's see your data."</p>
<p>And before Draco could even think, Harry Potter had taken the
parchment out of Draco's hand.</p>
<p>Draco's throat was very dry.</p>
<p>Twenty-eight children.</p>
<p>He wasn't sure of the exact number but he was pretty sure around
a fourth had been wizards.</p>
<p>"Six wizards out of twenty-eight children," Harry Potter said
after a moment. "Well, that's that, then. And first-years were
casting the same spells at the same power level eight centuries
ago, too. Your test and my test both came out the same way."</p>
<p>There was a long silence in the classroom.</p>
<p>"What now?" Draco whispered.</p>
<p>He'd never been so terrified.</p>
<p>"It's not definite yet," said Harry Potter. "My experiment
failed, remember? I need you to design another test, Draco."</p>
<p>"I, I..." Draco said. His voice was breaking. "I can't do this
Harry, it's too much for me."</p>
<p>Harry's look was fierce. "Yes you can, because you have to. I
thought about it myself, too, after I found out about the Interdict
of Merlin. Draco, is there any way of observing the strength of
magic directly? Some way that doesn't have anything to do with
wizards' blood or the spells we learn?"</p>
<p>Draco's mind was just blank.</p>
<p>"Anything that affects magic affects wizards," said Harry. "But
then we can't tell if it's the wizards or the magic. What does
magic affect that <i>isn't</i> a wizard?"</p>
<p>"Magical creatures, obviously," said Draco without even thinking
about it.</p>
<p>Harry Potter slowly smiled. "Draco, that's
<i>brilliant.</i>"</p>
<p><i>It's the sort of dumb question you'd only ask in the first
place if you'd been raised by Muggles.</i></p>
<p>Then the sickness in Draco's stomach got even worse as he
realized what it would mean if magical creatures <i>were</i>
getting weaker. They would know for certain then that magic was
fading, and there was a part of Draco that was already sure that
was exactly what they would find. He didn't want to see this, he
didn't want to know...</p>
<p>Harry Potter was already halfway to the door. "Come <i>on</i>,
Draco! There's a portrait not far from here, we'll just ask them to
go get someone old and find out right away! We're cloaked, if
someone sees us we can just run away! Let's go!"</p>
<hr size="1" noshade="noshade" />
<p>It didn't take long after that.</p>
<p>It was a wide portrait, but the three people in it were looking
rather crowded. There was a middle-aged man from the twelfth
century, dressed in black swathes of cloth; who spoke to a
sad-looking young woman from the fourteenth century, with hair that
seemed to constantly frizz about her head as if she'd been charged
up by a static spell; and she spoke to a dignified, wizened old man
from the seventeenth century with a solid gold bowtie; and him they
could understand.</p>
<p>They had asked about Dementors.</p>
<p>They had asked about phoenixes.</p>
<p>They had asked about dragons and trolls and house elves.</p>
<p>Harry had frowned, pointed out that creatures which needed the
most magic could just be dying out entirely, and had asked for the
most powerful magical creatures known.</p>
<p>There wasn't anything unfamiliar on the list, except for a
species of Dark creature called mind flayers which the translator
noted had finally been exterminated by Harold Shea, and those
didn't sound half as scary as Dementors.</p>
<p>Magical creatures were as powerful now as they'd ever been,
apparently.</p>
<p>The sickness in Draco's stomach was easing, and now he just felt
confused.</p>
<p>"Harry," Draco said in the middle of the old man translating a
list of all eleven powers of a beholder's eyes, "what does this
mean?"</p>
<p>Harry held up a finger and the old man finished the list.</p>
<p>Then Harry thanked all the portraits for helping - Draco, pretty
much on automatic, did so as well and more graciously - and they
headed back to the classroom.</p>
<p>And Harry brought out the original parchment with the
hypotheses, and began scribbling.</p>
<p><i><u>Observation:</u></i></p>
<p><i>Wizardry isn't as powerful now as it was when Hogwarts was
founded.</i></p>
<p><i><u>Hypotheses:</u></i></p>
<p><i><u>1</u></i><i>. Magic itself is fading.<br />
<u>2</u></i><i>. Wizards are interbreeding with Muggles and
Squibs.<br />
<u>3</u></i><i>. Knowledge to cast powerful spells is being
lost.<br />
4. Wizards are eating the wrong foods as children, or something
else besides blood is making them grow up weaker.<br />
5. Muggle technology is interfering with magic. (Since 800 years
ago?)<br />
6. Stronger wizards are having fewer children. (Draco = only child?
Check if 3 powerful wizards, Quirrell / Dumbledore / Dark Lord, had
any children.)</i></p>
<p><i><u>Tests:</u></i></p>
<p><i>A. Are there spells we know but can't cast (1 or 2) or are
the lost spells no longer known (3)? <u>Result</u>: Inconclusive
due to Interdict of Merlin. No known uncastable spell, but could
simply have not been passed on.</i></p>
<p><i>B. Did ancient first-year students cast the same sort of
spells, with the same power, as now? (Weak evidence for 1 over 2,
but blood could also be losing powerful wizardry only.)
<u>Result</u>: Same level of first-year spells then as now.</i></p>
<p><i>C. Additional test that distinguishes 1 and 2 using
scientific knowledge of blood, will explain later. <u>Result</u>:
There's only one place in the recipe that makes you a wizard, and
either you have two papers saying 'magic' or you don't.</i></p>
<p><i>D. Are magical creatures losing their powers? Distinguishes 1
from (2 or 3). <u>Result:</u> Magical creatures seem to be as
strong as they ever were.</i></p>
<p>"A failed," said Harry Potter. "B is weak evidence for 1 over 2.
C falsifies 2. D falsifies 1. 4 was unlikely and B argues against 4
as well. 5 was unlikely and D argues against it. 6 is falsified
along with 2. That leaves 3. Interdict of Merlin or not, I didn't
actually find any known spell that couldn't be cast. So when you
add it all up, it looks like knowledge is being lost."</p>
<p>And the trap snapped shut.</p>
<p>As soon as the panic went away, as soon as Draco understood that
magic <i>wasn't</i> fading out, it took all of five seconds to
realize.</p>
<p>Draco shoved himself away from the desk and stood up so hard
that his chair skittered with a scraping noise across the floor and
fell over.</p>
<p>"So it was all just a stupid trick, then."</p>
<p>Harry Potter stared at him for a moment, still sitting. When he
spoke, his voice was quiet. "It was a fair test, Draco. If it had
come out a different way, I would have accepted it. That's not
something I would ever cheat on. Ever. I didn't look at your data
before I made my predictions. I told you up front when the
Interdict of Merlin invalidated the first experiment -"</p>
<p>"Oh," Draco said, the anger starting to come out into his voice,
"you didn't know how the whole thing was going to come out?"</p>
<p>"I didn't <i>know</i> anything you didn't know," Harry said,
still quietly. "I admit that I suspected. Hermione Granger was too
powerful, she should have been barely magical and she wasn't, how
can a Muggleborn be the best spellcaster in Hogwarts? And she's
getting the best grades on her essays too, it's too much
coincidence for one girl to be the strongest magically <i>and</i>
academically unless there's a single cause. Hermione Granger's
existence pointed to there being only one thing that makes you a
wizard, something you either have or you don't, and the power
differences coming from how much we know and how much we practice.
And there weren't different classes for purebloods and Muggleborns,
and so on. There were too many ways the world didn't look the way
it would look if you were right. But Draco, I didn't see anything
you couldn't see too. I didn't perform any tests I didn't tell you
about. I didn't cheat, Draco. I wanted us to work out the answer
together. And I never thought that magic might be fading out of the
world until you said it. It was a scary idea for me, too."</p>
<p>"Whatever," Draco said. He was working very hard to control his
voice and not just start screaming at Harry. "You claim you're not
going to run off and tell anyone else about this."</p>
<p>"Not without consulting you first," Harry said. He opened his
hands in a pleading gesture. "Draco, I'm being as nice as I can but
<i>the world turned out to just not be that way</i>."</p>
<p>"Fine. Then you and I are through. I'm going to just walk away
and forget any of this ever happened."</p>
<p>Draco spun around, feeling the burning sensation in his throat,
the sense of betrayal, and that was when he realized he really
<i>had</i> liked Harry Potter, and that thought didn't slow him
down for a moment as he strode toward the classroom door.</p>
<p>And Harry Potter's voice came, now louder, and worried:</p>
<p>"Draco... you <i>can't</i> forget. Don't you understand? That
was your sacrifice."</p>
<p>Draco stopped in midstride and turned around. "<i>What</i> are
you talking about?"</p>
<p>But there was already a freezing coldness in Draco's spine.</p>
<p>He knew even before Harry Potter said it.</p>
<p>"To become a scientist. You questioned one of your beliefs, not
just a small belief but something that had great significance to
you. You did experiments, gathered data, and the outcome proved the
belief was wrong. You saw the results and understood what they
meant." Harry Potter's voice was faltering. "Remember, Draco, you
can't sacrifice a <i>true</i> belief that way, because the
experiments will confirm it instead of falsifying it. Your
sacrifice to become a scientist was your <i>false</i> belief that
wizard blood was mixing and getting weaker."</p>
<p>"<i>That's not true!</i> " said Draco. "I didn't sacrifice the
belief. I still believe that!" His voice was getting louder, and
the chill was getting worse.</p>
<p>Harry Potter shook his head. His voice came in a whisper.
"Draco... I'm sorry, Draco, you <i>don't</i> believe it, not
anymore." Harry's voice rose again. "I'll prove it to you. Imagine
that someone tells you they're keeping a dragon in their house. You
tell them you want to see it. They say it's an invisible dragon.
You say fine, you'll listen to it move. They say it's an inaudible
dragon. You say you'll throw some cooking flour into the air and
see the outline of the dragon. They say the dragon is permeable to
flour. And the telling thing is that they know, in <i>advance,</i>
exactly which experimental results they'll have to explain away.
They <i>know</i> everything will come out the way it does if
there's no dragon, they know in <i>advance</i> just which excuses
they'll have to make. So maybe they <i>say</i> there's a dragon.
Maybe they <i>believe</i> they believe there's a dragon, it's
called belief-in-belief. But they don't actually believe it. You
can be mistaken about what you believe, most people never realize
there's a difference between believing something and thinking it's
good to believe it." Harry Potter had risen from the desk now, and
taken a few steps toward Draco. "And Draco, you don't believe any
more in blood purism, I'll show you that you don't. If blood purism
is true, then Hermione Granger doesn't make sense, so what could
explain her? Maybe she's a wizarding orphan raised by Muggles, just
like I was? I could go to Granger and ask to see pictures of her
parents, to see if she looks like them. Would you expect her to
look different? Should we go perform that test?"</p>
<p>"They would have put her with relatives," Draco said, his voice
trembling. "They'll still look the same."</p>
<p>"You see. You already know what experimental result you'll have
to excuse. If you still believed in blood purism you would say,
sure, let's go take a look, I bet she won't look like her parents,
she's too powerful to be a real Muggleborn -"</p>
<p>"They <i>would</i> have put her with relatives!"</p>
<p>"Scientists can do tests to check for sure if someone is the
true child of a father. Granger would probably do it if I paid her
family enough. <i>She</i> wouldn't be afraid of the results. So
what do you expect that test to show? Tell me to run it and we
will. But you already know what the test will say. You'll always
know. You won't ever be able to forget. You might <i>wish</i> you
believed in blood purism, but you'll always <i>expect to see
happen</i> just exactly what would happen if there was only one
thing that made you a wizard. That was your sacrifice to become a
scientist."</p>
<p>Draco's breathing was ragged. "Do you realize <i>what you've
done?</i> " Draco surged forward and he seized Harry by the collar
of his robes. His voice rose to a scream, it sounded unbearably
loud in the closed classroom and the silence. "<i>Do you realize
what you've done?</i> "</p>
<p>Harry's voice was shaky. "You had a belief. The belief was
false. I helped you see that. What's true is already so, owning up
to it doesn't make it worse -"</p>
<p>The fingers on Draco's right hand clenched into a fist and that
hand dropped down and blasted up unstoppably and punched Harry
Potter in the jaw so hard that his body went crashing back into a
desk and then to the floor.</p>
<p>"<i>Idiot!</i> " screamed Draco. "<i>Idiot! Idiot!</i> "</p>
<p>"Draco," whispered Harry from the floor, "Draco, I'm sorry, I
didn't think this would happen for months, I didn't expect you to
awaken as a scientist this quickly, I thought I would have longer
to prepare you, teach you the techniques that make it hurt less to
admit you're wrong -"</p>
<p>"What about Father?" Draco said. His voice trembled with rage.
"Were you going to prepare <i>him</i> or did you just not
<i>care</i> what happened after this?"</p>
<p>"You can't tell <i>him!</i> " Harry said, his voice rising in
alarm. "He's not a scientist! You promised, Draco!"</p>
<p>For a moment the thought of Father not knowing came as a
relief.</p>
<p>And then the real anger started to rise.</p>
<p>"So you planned for me to lie to him and tell him I still
believe," Draco said, voice shaking. "I'll always have to lie to
him, and now when I grow up I can't be a Death Eater, and I won't
even be able to tell him why not."</p>
<p>"If your father really loves you," whispered Harry from the
floor, "he'll still love you even if you don't become a Death
Eater, and it sounds like your father <i>does</i> really love you,
Draco -"</p>
<p>"<i>Your</i> stepfather is a scientist," Draco said. The words
coming out like biting knives. "If <i>you</i> weren't going to be a
scientist, he would still love you. But you'd be a <i>little less
special</i> to him."</p>
<p>Harry flinched. The boy opened his mouth, as if to say 'I'm
sorry', and then closed his mouth, seeming to think better of it,
which was either very smart of him or very lucky, because Draco
might have tried to kill him.</p>
<p>"You should have warned me," Draco said. His voice rose. "<i>You
should have warned me!</i> "</p>
<p>"I... I did... every time I told you about the power, I told you
about the price. I said, you have to admit you're wrong. I said
this would be the hardest path for you. That this was the sacrifice
anyone had to make to become a scientist. I said, what if the
experiment says one thing and your family and friends say another
-"</p>
<p>"<i>You call that a warning?</i> " Draco was screaming now.
"<i>You call that a warning? When we're doing a ritual that calls
for a permanent sacrifice?</i> "</p>
<p>"I... I..." The boy on the floor swallowed. "I guess maybe it
wasn't clear. I'm sorry. But that which can be destroyed by the
truth should be."</p>
<p>Hitting him wasn't enough.</p>
<p>"You're wrong about one thing," Draco said, his voice deadly.
"Granger isn't the strongest student in Hogwarts. She just gets the
best grades in class. You're about to find out the difference."</p>
<p>Sudden shock showed in Harry's face, and he tried to roll
quickly to his feet -</p>
<p>It was already too late for him.</p>
<p>"<i>Expelliarmus!</i> "</p>
<p>Harry's wand flew across the room.</p>
<p>"<i>Gom jabbar!</i> "</p>
<p>A pulse of inky blackness struck Harry's left hand.</p>
<p>"That's a torture spell," said Draco. "It's for getting
information out of people. I'm just going to leave it on you and
lock the door behind me when I go. Maybe I'll set the locking spell
to wear off after a few hours. Maybe it won't wear off until you
die in here. Have fun."</p>
<p>Draco moved smoothly backward, wand still on Harry. Draco's hand
dipped down, picked up his bookbag, without his aim wavering.</p>
<p>The pain was already showing in Harry Potter's face as he spoke.
"Malfoys are above the underage magic laws, I take it? It's not
because your blood is stronger. It's because you already practiced.
In the beginning you were as weak as any of us. Is my prediction
wrong?"</p>
<p>Draco's hand whitened on his wand, but his aim stayed
steady.</p>
<p>"Just so you know," Harry said through gritted teeth, "if you'd
told me I was wrong I would have listened. <i>I</i> won't ever
torture <i>you</i> when you show me that I'm wrong. And you
<i>will</i>. Someday. You're awakened as a scientist now, and even
if you never learn to use your power, you'll always," Harry gasped,
"be looking, for ways, to test, your beliefs -"</p>
<p>Draco's backing away was less smooth, now, a little faster, and
he had to work to keep his wand on Harry as he reached back to open
the door and stepped back out of the classroom.</p>
<p>Then Draco shut the door again.</p>
<p>He cast the most powerful locking Charm he knew.</p>
<p>Draco waited until he heard Harry's first scream before casting
the <i>Quietus.</i></p>
<p>And then he walked away.</p>
<hr size="1" noshade="noshade" />
<p>"<i>Aaahhhhh! Finite Incantatem! Aaaahhh!</i> "</p>
<p>Harry's left hand had been put into a pot of boiling cooking oil
and left there. He'd put everything he had into the <i>Finite
Incantatem</i> and it still wasn't working.</p>
<p>Some hexes required specific counters or you couldn't undo them,
or maybe it was just that Draco was that much stronger.</p>
<p>"<i>Aaaaahhhh!</i> "</p>
<p>Harry's hand was really starting to hurt, now, and that was
interfering with his attempts to think creatively.</p>
<p>But a few screams later, Harry realized what he had to do.</p>
<p>His pouch, unfortunately, was on the wrong side of his body, and
it took some twisting to reach into it, especially with his other
arm flailing around in a reflex, unstoppable attempt to fling off
the source of pain. By the time he managed it his other arm had
managed to throw away his wand again.</p>
<p>"Medical <i>ahhhhh</i> kit! Medical kit!"</p>
<p>On the floor, the green light was too dim to see by.</p>
<p>Harry couldn't stand. He couldn't crawl. He rolled across the
floor to where he thought his wand was, and it wasn't there, and
with one hand he managed to raise himself high enough to see his
wand, and he rolled there, and got the wand, and rolled back to
where the medical kit was opened. There was also a good deal of
screaming, and a bit of throwing up.</p>
<p>It took eight tries before Harry could cast <i>Lumos.</i></p>
<p>And then, well, the package wasn't designed to be opened
one-handed, because all wizards were idiots, that was why. Harry
had to use his teeth and so it took a while before Harry finally
managed to wrap the Numbcloth over his left hand.</p>
<p>When all feeling in his left hand was finally gone, Harry let
his mind come apart, and lay motionless on the floor, and cried for
a while.</p>
<p><i>Well,</i> Harry's mind said silently into itself, when it had
recovered enough to think in words again. <i>Was it worth
it?</i></p>
<p>Slowly, Harry's functional hand reached up to a desk.</p>
<p>Harry pulled himself to his feet.</p>
<p>Took a deep breath.</p>
<p>Exhaled.</p>
<p>Smiled.</p>
<p>It wasn't much of a smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.</p>
<p><i>Thank you, Professor Quirrell, I couldn't have lost without
you.</i></p>
<p>He hadn't redeemed Draco yet, not even close. Contrary to what
Draco himself might now believe, Draco was still the child of a
Death Eater, through and through. Still a boy who'd grown up
thinking "rape" was something the cool older kids did. But it was
one heck of a start.</p>
<p>Harry couldn't claim it had all gone just as planned. It had all
gone just as completely made up on the spot. The <i>plan</i> hadn't
called for this to happen until December or thereabouts, after
Harry had taught Draco the techniques not to deny the evidence when
he saw it.</p>
<p>But he'd seen the look of fear on Draco's face, realized that
Draco was <i>already</i> taking an alternative hypothesis
seriously, and seized the moment. One case of true curiosity had
the same sort of redeeming power in rationality that one case of
true love had in movies.</p>
<p>In retrospect, Harry had given himself hours to make the most
important discovery in the history of magic, and months to break
through the undeveloped mental barriers of an eleven-year-old boy.
This could indicate that Harry had some sort of major cognitive
deficit with respect to estimating task completion times.</p>
<p>Was Harry going to Science Hell for what he'd done? Harry wasn't
sure. He'd contrived to keep Draco's mind on the possibility that
magic was fading, made sure Draco would carry out the part of the
experiment that would seem at first to point in that direction.
He'd waited until after explaining genetics to prompt Draco into
realizing about magical creatures (though Harry had thought in
terms of ancient artifacts like the Sorting Hat, which no one could
duplicate anymore, but which continued to function). But Harry
hadn't actually exaggerated any evidence, hadn't distorted the
meaning of any results. When the Interdict of Merlin had
invalidated the test that should have been definitive, he'd told
Draco up front.</p>
<p>And then there was the part <i>after</i> that...</p>
<p>But he hadn't actually <i>lied</i> to Draco. Draco had believed
it, and <i>that would make it true.</i></p>
<p>The end, admittedly, had not been fun.</p>
<p>Harry turned, and staggered toward the door.</p>
<p>Time to test Draco's locking spell.</p>
<p>The first step was simply trying to turn the doorknob. Draco
could have been bluffing.</p>
<p>Draco hadn't been bluffing.</p>
<p>"<i>Finite Incantatem.</i>" Harry's voice came out rather
hoarse, and he could feel that the spell hadn't taken.</p>
<p>So Harry tried it again, and that time it felt true. But another
twist at the doorknob showed it hadn't worked. No surprise
there.</p>
<p>Time to bring out the big guns. Harry drew a deep breath. This
spell was one of the most powerful he'd learned so far.</p>
<p>"<i>Alohomora!</i> "</p>
<p>Harry staggered a little after saying it.</p>
<p>And the classroom door still didn't open.</p>
<p>That shocked Harry. Harry hadn't been planning to go anywhere
near Dumbledore's forbidden corridor, of course. But a spell to
open magical locks had seemed like a useful sort of spell anyway,
and so Harry had learned it. Was Dumbledore's forbidden corridor
meant to lure people so stupid that they didn't notice the security
was worse than what Draco Malfoy could put on it?</p>
<p>Fear was creeping back into Harry's system. The placard in the
medical kit had said the Numbcloth could only safely be used for up
to thirty minutes. After that it would come off automatically, and
not be reusable for 24 hours. Right now it was 6:51pm. He'd put on
the Numbcloth about five minutes ago.</p>
<p>So Harry took a step back, and considered the door. It was a
solid panel of dark oaken wood, interrupted only by the brass metal
doorknob.</p>
<p>Harry didn't know any explosive or cutting or smashing spells,
and Transfiguring explosive would have violated the rule against
Transfiguring things to be burned. Acid was a liquid and would have
made fumes...</p>
<p>But that was no obstacle to a <i>creative thinker.</i></p>
<p>Harry laid his wand against one of the door's brass hinges, and
concentrated on the form of cotton as a pure abstraction apart from
any material cotton, and also on the pure material apart from the
pattern that made it a brass hinge, and brought the two concepts
together, imposing shape on substance. An hour of Transfiguration
practice every day for a month had gotten Harry to the point where
he could Transfigure a subject of five cubic centimeters in just
under a minute.</p>
<p>After two minutes the hinge hadn't changed at all.</p>
<p>Whoever had designed Draco's locking spell, they'd thought of
that, too. Or the door was part of Hogwarts and the castle was
immune.</p>
<p>A glance showed the walls to be solid stone. So was the floor.
So was the ceiling. You couldn't separately Transfigure a part of
something that was a solid whole; Harry would have needed to try
Transfiguring the whole wall, which would have taken hours or maybe
days of continuous effort, if he could have done it at all, and if
the wall wasn't contiguous with the rest of the whole castle...</p>
<p>Harry's Time-Turner wouldn't open until 9pm. After that he could
go back to 6pm, before the door was locked.</p>
<p>How long would the torture spell last?</p>
<p>Harry swallowed hard. Tears were coming into his eyes again.</p>
<p>His brilliantly creative mind had just offered the ingenious
suggestion that Harry could cut his hand off using the hacksaw in
the toolset stored in his pouch, which would hurt, obviously, but
might hurt a lot less than Draco's pain spell, since the nerves
would be gone; and he had tourniquets in the healer's kit.</p>
<p>And that was obviously a hideously stupid idea that Harry would
regret the rest of his entire life.</p>
<p>But Harry didn't know if he could hold out for two hours under
torture.</p>
<p>He wanted <i>out</i> of this classroom, he wanted out of this
classroom <i>now,</i> he didn't want to wait in here screaming for
two hours until he could use the Time-Turner, he needed to <i>get
out</i> and find someone to get the torture spell off his
hand...</p>
<p><i>Think!</i> Harry screamed at his brain. <i>Think!
Think!</i></p>
<hr size="1" noshade="noshade" />
<p>The Slytherin dorm was mostly empty. People were at dinner. For
some reason Draco himself wasn't feeling very hungry.</p>
<p>Draco closed the door to his private room, locked it, Charmed it
shut, Quieted it, sat down on his bed, and started to cry.</p>
<p>It wasn't fair.</p>
<p>It wasn't fair.</p>
<p>It was the first time Draco had ever really <i>lost</i> before,
Father had warned him that losing for real would hurt the first
time it happened, but he'd lost <i>so much</i>, it wasn't fair, it
wasn't fair for him to lose <i>everything</i> the very first time
he lost.</p>
<p>Somewhere in the dungeons, a boy Draco had actually liked was
screaming in pain. Draco had never hurt anyone he'd liked before.
Punishing people who deserved it was supposed to be fun, but this
just felt sick inside. Father hadn't warned him about that, and
Draco wondered if it was a hard lesson everyone had to learn when
they grew up, or if Draco was just weak.</p>
<p>Draco wished it were Pansy screaming. That would have felt
better.</p>
<p>And the worst part was knowing that it might have been a mistake
to hurt Harry Potter.</p>
<p>Who else was there for Draco now? Dumbledore? After what he'd
done? Draco would sooner have been burned alive.</p>
<p>Draco would have to go back to Harry Potter because there was
nowhere else for him to go. And if Harry Potter said he didn't want
him, then Draco would be nothing, just a pathetic little boy who
could never be a Death Eater, never join Dumbledore's faction,
never learn science.</p>
<p>The trap had been perfectly set, perfectly executed. Father had
warned Draco over and over that what you sacrificed to Dark rituals
couldn't be regained. But Father hadn't known that the accursed
Muggles had invented rituals that didn't need wands, rituals you
could be tricked into doing without knowing it, and that was only
one of the terrible secrets which scientists knew and which Harry
Potter had brought with him.</p>
<p>Draco started crying harder, then.</p>
<p>He didn't want this, he <i>didn't want this</i> but there was no
turning back. It was too late. He was already a scientist.</p>
<p>Draco knew he should go back and free Harry Potter and
apologize. It would have been the smart thing to do.</p>
<p>Instead Draco stayed in his bed and sobbed.</p>
<p>He'd already hurt Harry Potter. It might be the only time Draco
ever got to hurt him, and he would have to hold to that one memory
for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>Let him keep screaming.</p>
<hr size="1" noshade="noshade" />
<p>Harry dropped the remnants of his hacksaw to the ground. The
brass hinges had proved impervious, not even scratched, and Harry
was beginning to suspect that even the desperation act of trying to
Transfigure acid or explosives would have failed to open this door.
On the plus side, the attempt had destroyed the hacksaw.</p>
<p>His watch said it was 7:02pm, with less than fifteen minutes
left, and Harry tried to remember if there were any other sharp
things in his pouch that needed destroying, and felt another fit of
tears welling up. If only, when his Time-Turner opened, he could go
back and <i>prevent</i> -</p>
<p>And that was when Harry realized he was being <i>silly</i>.</p>
<p>It wasn't the first time he'd been locked in a room.</p>
<p>Professor McGonagall had already told him the correct way to do
this.</p>
<p>...she'd also told him not to use the Time-Turner for this sort
of thing.</p>
<p>Would Professor McGonagall realize that this occasion really
<i>did</i> warrant a special exception? Or just take away the
Time-Turner entirely?</p>
<p>Harry gathered up all his things, all the evidence, into his
pouch. A <i>Scourgify</i> took care of the vomit on the floor,
though not the sweat that had soaked his robes. He left the
overturned desks overturned, it wasn't important enough to be worth
doing with one hand.</p>
<p>When he was done, Harry glanced down at his watch. 7:04pm.</p>
<p>And then Harry waited. Seconds passed, feeling like years.</p>
<p>At 7:07pm, the door opened.</p>
<p>Professor Flitwick's puff-bearded face looked rather concerned.
"Are you all right, Harry?" said the squeaky voice of Ravenclaw's
Head of House. "I got a note saying you'd been locked in here
-"</p>
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