Harry Potter and the Way of Reason

Face. "I'm not with them, I'm just following up to stop something stupider from happening."

Severus Snape stared at Theodore Nott and the others.Then he turned his head to Draco Malfoy. "Mr. Malfoy," drawled the Potions Master, "how did you discover Dumbledore's plot?"

"I deduce it from the evidence!" Draco Malfoy said with his head floating in mid-air.

Professor Snape turned his head back to look at Theodore Nott. "How are you going to get this Philosopher's Stone from a magic mirror that might stump Dumbledore? Answer me now!"

"We're going to take the whole mirror and return it to Flamel," replied Theodore Nott. "We're not trying to keep the Philosopher's Stone for ourselves, we're just trying to stop Dumbledore from stealing it."

Professor Snape nodded, as if confirming something, then turned to look at the other students. "Tell me, has any of you noticed lately that people around you are behaving strangely? In particular, have you acquired any special objects, or been able to cast spells that a first-year student should not know?" The wand held in Professor Snape's right hand was Pointing to Susan Burns, "I see that Miss Greenglass and Miss Davis are trying not to look at you, Miss Burns. If there is a common explanation for this, it would be wise to say so at once. "

Susan Burns' hair turned bright red, though her expression remained the same. "I don't think there's any point in keeping quiet about it," she said. "I'm graduating in two days anyway."

"Super witches can graduate six years early?" Tracy Davis said. "It's not fair!"

"Bones is a super witch?" Theodore yelled.

"No, she is Nymphadora Tonks, a Metamorphmagus," said Professor Snape. "It is a serious breach of the rules to pretend to be another student, as you know very well yourself, Tonks." Miss St. It would be too late to expel you from Hogwarts two days before your graduation. It would be a grisly tragedy - from your point of view, of course. From my point of view it would be utterly comical. Now tell me what the hell you're doing here."

"It makes sense now," said Daphne Greengrass, "well, did Susan Burns actually exist? Or was the Burns family so debilitated that they let you secretly—"

The redhead version of Susan Burns puts her face in her hand. "Yes, Miss Greengrass, there is a real Susan Bones. She only sends me when you are about to cause a lot of trouble. Professor Snape, the reason I am here is Draco Malfoy was missing, and the gang insisted on finding him instead of summoning the Aurors. Because the real Miss Burns said there was no time to explain to me why, and I realize now how stupid those reasons were. But young students must never go alone, and always have a sixth or seventh year with them. Now that we've found Draco Malfoy, we can all go back. Okay? Before this gets any more ridiculous ?”

"What happened here in the name of Merlin?"

"Ah," said Professor Snape, still pointing his wand at the red-haired Susan Bones, with his other hand tugging at the collar of the disembodied Draco Malfoy's head, Standing next to the fallen figure of the defense professor. "Professor Sprout, you're here too."

"It's not what it seems," Tracy Davis offered.

The chunky herbal medicine professor strode forward.At this point, she had drawn her wand, though she wasn't pointing it at anyone. "I don't even know what this looks like! Put down wands, everyone, now! Even you, Professor!"

interference.The thought came to Harry's mind suddenly and clearly.Whatever he sees from a distance in his invisible state, it's not really what's going on, it's not the real thread of the story, it's set up that way.The arrival of Professor Sprout breaks Harry's system of tolerance for absurdity[3]; things like this don't just happen by some comic coincidence.Someone deliberately caused such confusion, but for what purpose?

Harry really hoped he didn't have time to switch back and cause this, because it seemed like the kind of thing he'd do.

Severus Snape lowered his wand and released Draco Malfoy with his other hand. "Professor Sprout," said the Potions Master, "I have come to guard this door by order of the headmaster. No one else present should be here, and I beg you to send them away."

"Well made up," snapped Professor Sprout. "Of all the people, why did Dumbledore ask you to guard the door to his playground? It's not that he wants to keep the students in Outside, oh no, they've got to go in and get caught in my devil's net! Susan, honey, you've got a calling mirror, don't you? Use it to call the Aurors."

Harry, who was watching, nodded to himself.That's the purpose.The Aurors would take everyone present in this deeply confusing situation, no excuses would be accepted, and the door would be left unguarded.

But Harry was going into the restricted corridor by himself?Or just sit on the sidelines and see who comes at the end when everyone is gone?

A loud dry cough caused everyone to look at the lying defense professor.

"Snape - listen -" the Defense Professor said between coughs, "why - Sprout - here -"

The potions master looked down.

"Memory Charm—means—Professor—" The Defense Professor coughed again.

"what?"

Now, the logic unfolded in Harry's mind with depressing clarity, all the steps already doubted, this time the more reliable repetition brought a terrible realization.

Someone used a Memory Charm to convince Hermione that she was trying to kill Draco.

Only a Hogwarts professor could do so without raising alarms.

So a real mastermind only needs to use Legilimency or Imperius on a Hogwarts professor.

The last person anyone doubted was the Head of Hufflepuff House.

Snape's head jerked around as Professor Sprout raised her wand and the Potions Master managed to silently raise a translucent barrier between them.But what shot out of Professor Sprout's wand was a dark brown beam of light that stirred a terrible fright in Harry's mind; The flickering disappeared.Even though he dodged, he was hit in the right arm.Professor Snape let out a stifled scream, his hand convulsed, and his wand dropped.

The next ray of light from Sprout's wand, bright red like a stunning spell, seemed to grow brighter and fly faster as it left her wand, bringing another wave of anxiety; The potions master slammed into the door, and he fell to the ground motionless.

At this moment pink-haired Susan Bones, surrounded by a burst of faceted blue light, cast one curse after another on Professor Sprout.Professor Sprout ignored the jinx and summoned a swarm of plant tentacles that stalked the young students trying to escape, except for Draco Malfoy, who once again donned the cloak and disappeared.

Non-Susan Bones stopped casting jinxes.She leveled her wand, took a deep breath, and shouted a spell, summoning a golden worm made of light, which gnawed at the shield around Professor Sprout.The herbalism professor thus turned his face to Non-Susan, blank-faced, as a new group of plant tentacles rose behind her, their stalks were a darker green, and they appeared to have their own shields.

Harry Potter whispered into the seemingly empty air, "Attack Sprout. Help Burns. Only non-lethal means."

"Yes, my lord," whispered Lysas Lestrange under Harry's cloak, and the fifth-year Slytherins walked to the fight.

Harry looked down at his own hands, then was shocked to see that his Disillusionment Charm wasn't as complete as before.Every time Harry moved, there was a twist in the air...

Harry backed away slowly until he came around a corner and crouched behind a wall.Then he pulled out his commscope...blank, jammed.Of course it is.Harry levitated the mirror until he could see the other side of the corner, to witness the end of... this disturbance?what happened?Why?

The duel between Professor Sprout and what appears to be Susan Burns is filled with flashes and blades; a blinding green power piercing spell emerges from mid-air and consumes the outer half of Sprout's shield.The herbal medicine professor turned and fired a broad yellow beam in the direction the drilling spell came from, but the spell didn't seem to hit anything.

Yellow flames, blue facets, dark green plant tendrils and swirling purple petals...

When Professor Sprout fired scarlet arcs in all directions, a scarlet blade hit something in midair. The cloak did not hide how the scarlet arcs were absorbed and disappeared; The shape fell to the ground.

This gave the non-Susan Bones enough time to stand up, catch her breath, and scream some kind of spell that gave Harry another wave of terror; a flicker of white sparks pierced Sprout The professor's shield, and her plant armor, had been devoured, knocking her down.

Non-Susan Bones fell to her knees, panting, her gown soaked with sweat.

She turned her head to look around her, and the scattered bodies on the ground were either stunned or entangled by vines.

"What," said Non-Susan, "what. what. what."

No one answered.Victims caught in Professor Sprout's vines appear motionless, although they appear to be breathing.

"Malfoy..." said pink-haired Susan, still panting, "Draco Malfoy, where are you? Are you there? Go and call the Aurors here! Damn Merlin - Humanoid appear!"

And so Harry found himself visible again, staring at the half-hidden figure of Draco Malfoy in his mirror under the gleaming robes, standing behind Non-Susan, pointing his wand at Non-Susan's Gap of blue smoke.

Harry's thoughts pushed forward, flashes of realization kept coming, too slow and too fast; even when he opened his mouth to breathe in and prepare to scream.

Beware of constellations

There is a constellation named Draco (Draco)

If you can control a professor you can control a student

"Get out of the way!" Harry yelled, but it was too late, and a beam of red light shot non-Susan from zero distance to the back of the head, knocking her to the ground.

Harry rounded the corner. "Sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep."

The gleaming figure of Draco Malfoy collapsed in a heap.

It took Harry a moment to catch his breath before saying "Stunning!", confirming that, yes, the Stunning Spell had indeed hit Draco Malfoy's figure.

(You could be mistaken about whether or not the Stunning Spell actually hit. Harry has seen enough horror movies, not to mention his previous incident with the Sunshine Corps, so he's not prepared to make that mistake again.)

After further reflection, Harry cast another Stunning Charm on the prostrate figure of Professor Sprout.

Harry gripped his wand tightly, staring at the scene before him, gasping for breath from exhaustion.He didn't have enough magical powers to summon a courier Patronus to Dumbledore, and he really, really should have thought of that possibility right away this time.Harry started reaching back for his mirror to see if it was now undisturbed.

Then Harry hesitated.

He'd given himself a note saying to avoid the attention of the Aurors, and Harry still didn't know what was going on.

The collapsed figure of Professor Quirrell let out another dry cough, stretched out one hand to the side wall, and slowly pulled himself up.

"Harry," said Professor Quirrell hoarsely, "Harry. Are you here?"

This was the first time Professor Quirrell called Harry's name directly.

"I'm here," said Harry.Without any conscious thought, his feet moved forward.

"Please," said Professor Quirrell, "please, I'm...running out of time. Please take me...to the magic mirror...help me...get the Philosopher's Stone."

"The Philosopher's Stone?" said Harry.He glanced around at the scattered bodies on the ground, but Draco was out of sight, and the reveal spell was useless. "You think Mr. Nott is right? I don't think Dumbledore would—"

"Not... Dumbledore," gasped Professor Quirrell, "because — Sprout —"

"I see," Harry said.If Dumbledore was behind all this, he wouldn't need to mind control a professor to use the Memory Charm.

"Mirror...ancient relic...can hide anything...the Philosopher's Stone might be in it...a lot of people want the Philosopher's Stone...someone sent Sprout..."

Harry repeated quickly: "The magic mirror inside is an ancient relic that can be used to hide things. It is a place that may be used to hide the Philosopher's Stone. If the Philosopher's Stone is hidden in the magic mirror, there are many people who want to get it .one of them took control of Sprout, and that would explain their real purpose...except...that wouldn't explain why Sprout's manipulators were after Hermione?"

"Harry, please," said Professor Quirrell, his breathing now more labored and his voice painfully slow. "It's the only... that saved my life... I found, now... I don't want to die... Please, help me..."

Yet somehow this statement spoiled something.

Somehow this seems overkill.

The sense of alienation Harry felt after Professor Sprout's arrival, the broken tolerance system for absurd settings, returned; his inner critic weighed everything that happened as if it had been planned.The timing, the probability, the presence of so many people at the same door, the recklessness of the defense professor... the whole situation felt unreal.But if he'd taken the time to think about it all ahead of time, instead of rushing in when the adventure came, he might be able to crack it.All the experience accumulated over the past year finally crystallized into a trace of battle tempered.Intuition brought on by past disasters told Harry that if he acted without thinking, he would end up realizing his previous stupidity in a sad conversation after the fact.again.

"Let me think," Harry said, "let me think for a minute before we go." He turned his face away from the Defense Professor, looking at the unconscious bodies strewn across the floor.With so many jigsaw pieces over the past year already, maybe just one more piece is all it needs to fit together...

"Harry..." the Defense Professor said intermittently, "Harry, I'm going to die..."

One more minute wouldn't make a difference, he'd have a whole year to get sick no matter what happened to Hermione, and the odds that his life and death depended on just that last minute were too slim—

"I know!" said Harry, "I'll think about it soon!"

Harry stared at the bodies trying to think.There's no time left for doubts, or warnings, or slamming the brakes, or self-doubt, just use your first instinct and follow it—

In the back of Harry's mind, shards of abstract thought flew by, ideas for problem-solving that had no time for words.In wordless moments they fly by, setting up object-level questions.

—I noticed something confusing—

——The first place to look for problems is whatever aspect of the status quo seems most improbable——

—Simple explanations are more likely, excluding isolated low-probability events requiring presuppositions—

Professor Snape was here at the beginning and then Professor Quirrell came and Harry came (via a time-turner) then the expedition team came and Draco showed up (part of the team) and then Sprout showed up.

Too many people showing up at the same time and too many coincidences, the chances of that many groups of people being in the same place within a 5 minute window is too small, there must be a hidden connection.

Mark Sprout's controller as the one behind the order to modify Hermione's memory.The man behind the scenes sent Sprout.

Snape said the Headmaster had sent him to guard the door after a disturbance, and if the mastermind had set it up as a distraction, that would explain Severus' presence as well.

Harry wasn't quite sure if Draco was being controlled by someone behind the scene, because the assumption had run into Harry's mind just a split second ago, that Draco might just be trying to stun Susan, not Susan, so that he could go on undisturbed. Into the restricted corridor——

No that's not the right line of thinking, turn around and try to explain the well-timed Draco and the expedition showing up, no time to ask yourself, go with the hypothetical, so whoever sent Draco or caused his arrival.

This explains the arrival of the three groups.

Harry showed up because of a note he'd given himself asking him to do so.This is caused by time travel.

Only the Defense Professor said he was following Snape, but that didn't seem like a plausible explanation for Professor Quirrell's presence.This didn't lessen Harry's confusion, so perhaps someone behind the scene somehow manipulated the timing of Professor Quirrell's appearance, and even arranged for Harry to walk into this time loop himself.

Harry's consciousness hit a roadblock, and he couldn't continue his reasoning.

There was no time to stare blankly at the roadblock.

Without any pause or brake, Harry's mind began to attack the problem from a new angle.

Professor Quirrell infers that there is a controlled Hogwarts professor because he needs to use a certain professor to modify Hermione's memory, which means that Professor Sprout's controller framed and murdered Hermione, which means that Professor Sprout The controller of the book has detailed information about life at Hogwarts and perhaps he has a personal interest in the Boy Who Lived and his friends.

Harry's brain finally threw out the associated memory. Dumbledore said that Voldemort's strongest path to rebirth is hidden inside Hogwarts. If you think about it, the tool for rebirth is the magic hidden in the mirror Stone Why would Dumbledore put the mirror in a hallway that all first years could pass through? No ignore the question it doesn't matter now Professor Quirrell said the Philosopher's Stone has enormous healing powers so that part makes sense too.

But if it is the Sorcerer's Stone that needs to be kept away from the Dark Lord hidden in the mirror, it means that the mirror also hides the only thing in the world that can save the life of the defense professor——

Harry's mind wanted to hesitate, to recoil, to feel a sudden fear of where it was going to go next.

But there is no time to hesitate.

—too much coincidence and too much improbability if your brain doesn't picture it as a wonderful plot twist in the middle of the story.

It's possible that the supposed Dark Lord also manipulated Professor Quirrell so that Professor Quirrell would discover his imaginary elixir of salvation just in time so that Harry and Professor Quirrell would go get the rebirth item from the mirror and that even Probably not the Philosopher's Stone and then an avatar of the Dark Lord or some other minion would show up and take it from them so that would explain all the synchronicity and negate all the coincidences.

Or maybe Professor Quirrell knew from the beginning that the only thing that could save his life was hidden in the magic mirror that's why he agreed to teach Defense at Hogwarts and now he's finally ready to get it but why wait until he Too sick to try and why Sprout and Professor Quirrell show up at the same time—

Harry's mind flinched even more.

His inner eye was looking in the direction it was afraid to look.

A note I gave myself said Help Stargazers.I wouldn't have said that on a note I gave myself if I hadn't figured out in the future that this was the right thing to do - maybe the note was telling me to just keep going -

A tiny, bewildering detail is brought to conscious attention.

The encrypted message on the parchment... a line or two sounded wrong, not like the ciphertext Harry expected himself to use...

"Harry," came Professor Quirrell's dying whisper from behind him, "Harry, please."

"I'm almost done thinking about it," Harry blurted out, and even as he said it he realized he was right.

Think backwards.

From the enemy's point of view, from the point of view of the enemy making their plans, somewhere out of your view.

Hogwarts is populated by Aurors, and your target Harry Potter is on full alert.At the first sign of trouble, Harry Potter would summon Aurors, or launch a Patronus at Dumbledore.Think of it as a puzzle, and a creative solution would be -

—Fake a time-shifted fake message from Harry Potter himself, tell Harry Potter not to call the helper, and make him appear when and where you need him.You can let the target himself bypass all the protection measures he put in place.You could even use his future self's overwhelming authority in judgment to bypass the protection of his own skepticism.

It's not even difficult.You can tamper with any student's memory to make him think that Harry Potter gave him an envelope and returned it to him some time later.

You can tamper with students' memories because you're a Hogwarts professor.

You don't need to go the extra mile to steal a pencil and Muggle paper from Harry Potter's pouch.Instead, you fake Harry Potter's handwriting on wizard parchment.It's possible to fake Harry Potter's handwriting because you've seen it in a graded Ministry of Magic required test.

You call Draco Malfoy a "constellation" because you know Harry Potter is interested in astronomy and you're a wizard, you took astronomy classes and memorized the names of all the constellations.But it was not natural for Harry Potter to use this code to describe Draco Malfoy, and his word should be "apprentice".

You call Professor Quirrell a "stargazer" and ask Harry Potter to help him.

You know that Life Eaters are your way of calling "Dementors" in Parseltongue, and you expect Harry Potter to see Aurors as their henchmen.

You coded 6:49 as "six, and seven in a square" because you read a Muggle physics book that Harry Potter gave you recently.

So, who are you?

Harry realized that his breathing had accelerated, and with a quickening of his heart rate, Harry had slowed his breathing again as Professor Quirrell watched him.

If it is assumed that Professor Quirrell is the person behind the scenes and forged Harry's information, then it can explain the five groups of people appearing at the same time like a comedy, and then Professor Sprout is only controlled so that Professor Quirrell can have a excuse afterwards. Candidates let him frame him as the person who used the memory tampering technique after the dust settled but

But why would Professor Quirrell risk Harry's tenuous alliance with Draco, with that attempted murder and frame-up?

(Professor Quirrell claims he "spotted" and "stopped" it with a Tracking Charm placed on Draco)

Why did Professor Quirrell kill Hermione?

(if his first attempt to remove her doesn't work)

If Professor Quirrell is evil then he probably lied about anything about Horcruxes and maybe the only thing that could save his life was a way to resurrect the Dark Lord and it wouldn't be a coincidence at all if it was the Dark Lord somehow arranged

(David Monroe mysteriously disappeared one day, presumably at the hands of the Dark Lord)

A terrible intuition had taken hold of Harry, irrelevant to all the reasoning he'd just done, an intuition that Harry couldn't put into words; except that he and the Defense Professor were very much alike in many ways, and that forging a time-shifting message was Some creative means that Harry himself might resort to, to bypass all of the target's defenses—

And that's when Harry finally realized what should have been obvious from the very beginning.

------

Professor Quirrell is smart.

Professor Quirrell is smart in the same way as Harry.

Professor Quirrell is smart in exactly the same way as Harry's mysterious dark side.

If you had to guess when the Boy Who Lived acquired his mysterious dark side, the most obvious guess would be the night of October 1981, 10.

------

And

And

And Professor Quirrell knows Bellatrix Black's connection to the Dark Lord and his presence gives the Boy Who Lived a sense of impending doom and his magic reacts destructively to Harry's magic and he Favorite spells are Avada Kedavra and and-

The realization exploded through Harry, like a gigantic dam burst, unleashing all its raging waters, rushing through his consciousness like an irresistible flood, washing everything away.

There is only one reality from which all observations are made.

If different observations seem to point in incompatible different directions, you haven't thought of the real hypothesis yet.

In those situations, when you finally think of the correct hypothesis, everything will match it, standing above denial and fear, tearing away any doubt and any emotion that would stand in its way.

- so "David Monroe" and "Voldemort" were just one man playing both sides in the Wizarding War and that's why the Monroe family was killed before they even met "David Monroe" As Moody suspected—

Reality settles into a single known state, a cohesive self-consistent state of things, compactly yielding the collection of all observations.

Harry didn't jump up, didn't change his breath, tried not to let a trace of the fear and pain that flooded his consciousness surface.

The enemy was behind him, watching him.

"Okay," Harry said loudly, speaking as soon as he could believe his voice should sound normal.He continued to stare at the bodies instead of Professor Quirrell, because Harry didn't trust his own expressions.Harry raised his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead, trying to look casual; Harry couldn't help the sweat, or the quick hammering in his chest. "Let's go get the Philosopher's Stone."

All Harry needs is a distraction along the way so that his Time-Turner can be used.

There was no reply behind him.

The silence stretched out.

Slowly, Harry turned around.

Professor Quirrell stood upright, smiling.

A piece of black metal in the Defense Professor's hand pointed to Harry's wand-holding arm, and the way his fingers were held showed that he knew how to use a semi-automatic pistol.

Harry's mouth was dry, and although his lips quivered with adrenaline, he said, "Hello, Voldemort."

Professor Quirrell nodded and said, "Hello, Tom Riddle."

----------------------------

[1] The square in English has the double meaning of "square" and "square"

[2] Schelling point: In game theory, the most natural tendency for people to choose without communicating with each other

[3] Tolerance system for absurd settings: (suspension of disbelief) When reading fictional works, readers will habitually automatically turn off doubts about the authenticity of the work.If it breaks, the reader realizes that he is reading fiction rather than being immersed in the story.