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<div id="nav-top"><form action="../go.php" method="GET" id="nav-form-top" target="_top"><div class="nav-prev"><a href="../chapter/84" title="Chapter 84: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 2" accesskey="p" target="_top">« Prev</a></div><div class="nav-dropdown"><select name="chapter" class="nav-select">
<option value="home">Home</option>
<option value="1">Chapter 1: A Day of Very Low Probability</option>
<option value="2">Chapter 2: Everything I Believe Is False</option>
<option value="3">Chapter 3: Comparing Reality To Its Alternatives</option>
<option value="4">Chapter 4: The Efficient Market Hypothesis</option>
<option value="5">Chapter 5: The Fundamental Attribution Error</option>
<option value="6">Chapter 6: The Planning Fallacy</option>
<option value="7">Chapter 7: Reciprocation</option>
<option value="8">Chapter 8: Positive Bias</option>
<option value="9">Chapter 9: Title Redacted, Part I</option>
<option value="10">Chapter 10: Self Awareness, Part II</option>
<option value="11">Chapter 11: Omake Files 1, 2, 3</option>
<option value="12">Chapter 12: Impulse Control</option>
<option value="13">Chapter 13: Asking the Wrong Questions</option>
<option value="14">Chapter 14: The Unknown and the Unknowable</option>
<option value="15">Chapter 15: Conscientiousness</option>
<option value="16">Chapter 16: Lateral Thinking</option>
<option value="17">Chapter 17: Locating the Hypothesis</option>
<option value="18">Chapter 18: Dominance Hierarchies</option>
<option value="19">Chapter 19: Delayed Gratification</option>
<option value="20">Chapter 20: Bayes's Theorem</option>
<option value="21">Chapter 21: Rationalization</option>
<option value="22">Chapter 22: The Scientific Method</option>
<option value="23">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>
<option value="27">Chapter 27: Empathy</option>
<option value="28">Chapter 28: Reductionism</option>
<option value="29">Chapter 29: Egocentric Bias</option>
<option value="30">Chapter 30: Working in Groups, Pt 1</option>
<option value="31">Chapter 31: Working in Groups, Pt 2</option>
<option value="32">Chapter 32: Interlude: Personal Financial Management</option>
<option value="33">Chapter 33: Coordination Problems, Pt 1</option>
<option value="34">Chapter 34: Coordination Problems, Pt 2</option>
<option value="35">Chapter 35: Coordination Problems, Pt 3</option>
<option value="36">Chapter 36: Status Differentials</option>
<option value="37">Chapter 37: Interlude: Crossing the Boundary</option>
<option value="38">Chapter 38: The Cardinal Sin</option>
<option value="39">Chapter 39: Pretending to be Wise, Pt 1</option>
<option value="40">Chapter 40: Pretending to be Wise, Pt 2</option>
<option value="41">Chapter 41: Frontal Override</option>
<option value="42">Chapter 42: Courage</option>
<option value="43">Chapter 43: Humanism, Pt 1</option>
<option value="44">Chapter 44: Humanism, Pt 2</option>
<option value="45">Chapter 45: Humanism, Pt 3</option>
<option value="46">Chapter 46: Humanism, Pt 4</option>
<option value="47">Chapter 47: Personhood Theory</option>
<option value="48">Chapter 48: Utilitarian Priorities</option>
<option value="49">Chapter 49: Prior Information</option>
<option value="50">Chapter 50: Self Centeredness</option>
<option value="51">Chapter 51: Title Redacted, Pt 1</option>
<option value="52">Chapter 52: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 2</option>
<option value="53">Chapter 53: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 3</option>
<option value="54">Chapter 54: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 4</option>
<option value="55">Chapter 55: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 5</option>
<option value="56">Chapter 56: TSPE, Constrained Optimization, Pt 6</option>
<option value="57">Chapter 57: TSPE, Constrained Cognition, Pt 7</option>
<option value="58">Chapter 58: TSPE, Constrained Cognition, Pt 8</option>
<option value="59">Chapter 59: TSPE, Curiosity, Pt 9</option>
<option value="60">Chapter 60: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 10</option>
<option value="61">Chapter 61: TSPE, Secrecy and Openness, Pt 11</option>
<option value="62">Chapter 62: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Final</option>
<option value="63">Chapter 63: TSPE, Aftermaths</option>
<option value="64">Chapter 64: Omake Files 4, Alternate Parallels</option>
<option value="65">Chapter 65: Contagious Lies</option>
<option value="66">Chapter 66: Self Actualization, Pt 1</option>
<option value="67">Chapter 67: Self Actualization, Pt 2</option>
<option value="68">Chapter 68: Self Actualization, Pt 3</option>
<option value="69">Chapter 69: Self Actualization, Pt 4</option>
<option value="70">Chapter 70: Self Actualization, Pt 5</option>
<option value="71">Chapter 71: Self Actualization, Pt 6</option>
<option value="72">Chapter 72: SA, Plausible Deniability, Pt 7</option>
<option value="73">Chapter 73: SA, The Sacred and the Mundane, Pt 8</option>
<option value="74">Chapter 74: SA, Escalation of Conflicts, Pt 9</option>
<option value="75">Chapter 75: Self Actualization Final, Responsibility</option>
<option value="76">Chapter 76: Interlude with the Confessor: Sunk Costs</option>
<option value="77">Chapter 77: SA, Aftermaths: Surface Appearances</option>
<option value="78">Chapter 78: Taboo Tradeoffs Prelude: Cheating</option>
<option value="79">Chapter 79: Taboo Tradeoffs, Pt 1</option>
<option value="80">Chapter 80: Taboo Tradeoffs, Pt 2, The Horns Effect</option>
<option value="81">Chapter 81: Taboo Tradeoffs, Pt 3</option>
<option value="82">Chapter 82: Taboo Tradeoffs, Final</option>
<option value="83">Chapter 83: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 1</option>
<option value="84">Chapter 84: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 2</option>
<option value="85" selected>Chapter 85: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 3, Distance</option>
<option value="86">Chapter 86: Multiple Hypothesis Testing</option>
<option value="87">Chapter 87: Hedonic Awareness</option>
</select><noscript><input type="submit" value="Go" /></noscript></div><div class="nav-next"><a href="../chapter/86" title="Chapter 86: Multiple Hypothesis Testing" accesskey="n" target="_top">Next »</a></div></form></div>
<div id="chapter-title">Chapter 85: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 3,
Distance<br /></div>
<div style='' class='storycontent' id='storycontent'>
<p><i>This chapter received a major, significiant revision on
December 16th, 2012. The main revision starts about halfway through
- search on the word "trivial" to find it.</i></p>
<hr size="1" noshade="noshade" />
<p>Slow and hard, the long stairway that led to the peak of
Ravenclaw. From the inside, the stairway seemed like a straight
upward slope, though from the outside you could see that it
logically had to be a spiral. You could only get to the top of the
Ravenclaw tower by making that long climb without shortcuts, stone
step by stone step; passing beneath Harry's shoes, pushed down by
his wearying legs.</p>
<p>Harry had seen Hermione safely off to bed.</p>
<p>He had lingered in the Ravenclaw common room long enough to
collect a few signatures that might be useful to Hermione later.
Not many students had signed; wizards hadn't been trained to think
in the put-up-or-shut-up,
stick-your-neck-out-and-make-a-prediction-or-stop-pretending-to-believe-in-your-theory
rules of Muggle science. Most of them hadn't seen anything
<i>incongruent</i> about being too nervous to sign an agreement
saying that Hermione got to hold it over them for the rest of their
lives if they were wrong, while acting outwardly confident that she
was guilty. But just having demanded the signatures would make the
point after the truth came out, if anyone ever again suspected
Hermione of anything Dark. She wouldn't have to go through this
<i>twice,</i> at least.</p>
<p>After that Harry had left the common room quickly, because all
the kindly forgiving sentiments he'd reasoned out were getting
harder and harder to remember. Sometimes Harry thought the deepest
split in his personality wasn't anything to do with his dark side;
rather it was the divide between the altruistic and forgiving
Abstract Reasoning Harry, versus the frustrated and angry Harry In
The Moment.</p>
<p>The circular platform at the top of the Ravenclaw tower wasn't
the tallest place in Hogwarts, but the Ravenclaw tower jutted out
from the main body of the castle, so you couldn't see down into the
top platform from the Astronomy tower. A quiet place to think, if
you had an awful lot to think about. A place where few other
students ever came - there were easier niches of privacy, if
privacy was all you wanted.</p>
<p>The night-lit torches of Hogwarts were far below. The platform
itself offered few obstructions; the stairs emerged from an
uncovered gap in the floor, rather than an upright door. From this
place, then, the stars were as visible as they ever were on
Earth.</p>
<p>The boy lay down in the center of the platform, heedless of his
robes that might be dirtied, dropping his head to rest upon the
rock-tiled floor; so that, except for a few half-seen crenellations
of stone at vision's edge, and a sliver of crescent moon, reality
became starlight.</p>
<p>The pinpoints of light in dark velvet twinkled, wavering and
returning, a different kind of beauty from their steady brilliance
in the Silent Night.</p>
<p>Harry gazed out abstractly, his mind on other things.</p>
<p><i>This day your war against Voldemort has begun...</i></p>
<p>Dumbledore had said that, after the Incident with Rescuing
Bellatrix from Azkaban. That had been a false alarm, but the phrase
expressed the sentiment well.</p>
<p>Two nights ago his war had begun, and Harry didn't know with
<i>who</i>.</p>
<p>Dumbledore thought it was Lord Voldemort, returned from the
dead, making his first move against the boy who had defeated him
last time.</p>
<p>Professor Quirrell had put detection wards on Draco, fearing
that Hogwarts's mad Headmaster would try to frame Harry for the
death of Lucius's son.</p>
<p>Or Professor Quirrell had set up the entire thing, and
<i>that</i> was how he'd known where to find Draco. Severus Snape
thought the Hogwarts Defense Professor was an obvious suspect, even
<i>the</i> obvious suspect.</p>
<p>And Severus Snape himself might or might not be even remotely
trustworthy.</p>
<p><i>Someone</i> had declared war against Harry, their first
strike had been meant to take out Draco and Hermione both, and it
was only by the barest of margins that Harry had saved
Hermione.</p>
<p>You couldn't call it victory. Draco had been removed from
Hogwarts, and if that wasn't death, it wasn't clear how it could be
undone, or what shape Draco might be in when he got back. The
country of magical Britain now thought Hermione an
attempted-murderer, which might or might not make her decide to do
the sane thing and leave. Harry had sacrificed his entire fortune
to undo his loss, and that card could only be played once.</p>
<p>Some unknown power had struck at him, and if that blow had been
partially deflected, it had still hit <i>really hard.</i></p>
<p>At least his dark side hadn't asked anything of him in exchange
for saving Hermione. Maybe because his dark side <i>wasn't</i> an
imaginary voice like Hufflepuff; Harry might <i>imagine</i> his
Hufflepuff part as wanting different things from himself, but his
dark side wasn't like that. His "dark side", so far as Harry could
tell, was a different way that Harry sometimes <i>was</i>. Right
now, Harry wasn't angry; and trying to ask what "dark Harry" wanted
was a phone ringing unanswered. The thought even seemed a little
strange; could you owe something to a different way you sometimes
were?</p>
<p>Harry stared up at the random stars, the scattered twinkling
lights that human brains couldn't help but pattern-match into
imaginary constellations.</p>
<p>And then there was that promise Harry had sworn.</p>
<p>Draco to help Harry reform Slytherin House. And Harry to take as
an enemy whomever Harry believed, in his best judgment as a
rationalist, to have killed Narcissa Malfoy. If Narcissa had never
gotten her own hands dirty, if indeed she'd been burned alive, if
the killer hadn't been tricked - those were all the conditions
Harry could remember making. He probably should've written it down,
or better yet, never made a promise requiring that many caveats in
the first place.</p>
<p>There were plausible outs, for the sort of person who'd let
themselves rationalize an out. Dumbledore hadn't <i>actually</i>
confessed. He hadn't come right out and said he'd done it. There
were plausible reasons for an actually-guilty Dumbledore to behave
that way. But it was <i>also</i> what you'd expect to see, if
someone else had burned Narcissa, and Dumbledore had taken
credit.</p>
<p>Harry shook his head, flattening one side of his hair and then
another against the stone-tiled floor. There was still a final out,
Draco could still release him from the oath at any time. He could,
at least, describe the situation to Draco, and talk about options
with him, when they met again. It didn't seem like a very likely
prospect for release - but the idea of talking something over
honestly was enough to satisfy the part of himself that demanded
adherence to oaths. Even if it only meant delaying, it was better
than taking a good man as an enemy.</p>
<p><i>But</i> is <i>Dumbledore a good man?</i> asked the voice of
Hufflepuff. <i>If Dumbledore burned someone alive - wasn't the
whole point that good people may kill, but never kill with
suffering?</i></p>
<p><i>Maybe he killed her instantly,</i> said Slytherin, <i>and
then lied to Lucius about the burning-alive part. But... if there
was</i> any <i>possibility of the Death Eaters magically verifying
how Narcissa died... and if being caught in a lie would've
endangered Light-side families...</i></p>
<p><i>Be careful what we cleverly rationalize,</i> warned
Gryffindor.</p>
<p><i>You have to expect reputational effects on how other people
treat you,</i> said Hufflepuff. <i>If you decide there's sufficient
reason to burn a woman alive, one of the predictable side effects
is that good people decide you've crossed the line and have to be
stopped. Dumbledore should've expected that. He's got no right to
complain.</i></p>
<p><i>Or maybe he expects us to be smarter,</i> said Slytherin.
<i>Now that we know this much of the truth - no matter the exact
details of the full story - can we really believe that Dumbledore
is a terrible, terrible person who ought to be our enemy? In the
middle of a horrible bloody war, Dumbledore set</i> one <i>enemy
civilian on fire? That's only bad by the standards of comic books,
not by any sort of realistic historical standard.</i></p>
<p>Harry stared up at the night sky, remembering history.</p>
<p>In real life, in real wars...</p>
<p>During World War II, there had been a project to sabotage the
Nazi nuclear weapons program. Years earlier, Leo Szilard, the first
person to realize the possibility of a fission chain reaction, had
convinced Fermi not to publish the discovery that purified graphite
was a cheap and effective neutron moderator. Fermi had wanted to
publish, for the sake of the great international project of
science, which was above nationalism. But Szilard had persuaded
Rabi, and Fermi had abided by the majority vote of their tiny
three-person conspiracy. And so, years later, the only neutron
moderator the Nazis had known about was deuterium.</p>
<p>The only deuterium source under Nazi control had been a captured
facility in occupied Norway, which had been knocked out by bombs
and sabotage, causing a total of twenty-four civilian deaths.</p>
<p>The Nazis had tried to ship the deuterium already refined to
Germany, aboard a civilian Norwegian ferry, the <i>SS
Hydro.</i></p>
<p>Knut Haukelid and his assistants had been discovered by the
night watchman of the civilian ferry while they were sneaking on
board to sabotage it. Haukelid had told the watchman that they were
escaping the Gestapo, and the watchman had let them go. Haukelid
had considered warning the night watchman, but that would have
endangered the mission, so Haukelid had only shaken his hand. And
the civilian ship had sunk in the deepest part of the lake, with
eight dead Germans, seven dead crew, and three dead civilian
bystanders. Some of the Norwegian rescuers of the ship had thought
the German soldiers present should be left to drown, but this view
had not prevailed, and the German survivors had been rescued. And
that had been the end of the Nazi nuclear weapons program.</p>
<p>Which was to say that Knut Haukelid had killed innocent people.
One of whom, the night watchman of the ship, had been a <i>good</i>
person. Someone who'd gone out of his way to help Haukelid, at risk
to himself; from the kindness of his heart, for the highest moral
reasons; and been sent to drown in turn. Afterward, in the cold
light of history, it had looked like the Nazis had never been close
to getting nuclear weapons after all.</p>
<p>And Harry had never read anything suggesting that Haukelid had
acted wrongly.</p>
<p>That was war in real life. In terms of total damage and who'd
gotten hit, what Haukelid had done was considerably <i>worse</i>
than what Dumbledore might have done to Narcissa Malfoy, or what
Dumbledore had possibly done to leak the prophecy to Lord Voldemort
to get him to attack Harry's parents.</p>
<p>If Haukelid had been a comic-book superhero, he'd have somehow
gotten all the civilians off the ferry, he would've attacked the
German soldiers directly...</p>
<p>...rather than let a single innocent person die...</p>
<p>...but Knut Haukelid hadn't been a superhero.</p>
<p>And neither had been Albus Dumbledore.</p>
<p>Harry closed his eyes, swallowing hard a few times against the
sudden choking sensation. It was abruptly very clear that while
Harry was going around trying to live the ideals of the
Enlightenment, Dumbledore was the one who'd actually <i>fought in a
war</i>. Nonviolent ideals were cheap to hold if you were a
scientist, living inside the <i>Protego</i> bubble cast by the
police officers and soldiers whose actions you had the luxury to
question. Albus Dumbledore seemed to have started out with ideals
at least as strong as Harry's own, if not stronger; and Dumbledore
hadn't gotten through his war without killing enemies and
sacrificing friends.</p>
<p><i>Are you so much better than Haukelid and Dumbledore, Harry
Potter, that you'll be able to fight without a single casualty?
Even in the world of comic books, the only reason a superhero like
Batman even</i> looks <i>successful is that the comic-book readers
only notice when Important Named Characters die, not when the Joker
shoots some random nameless bystander to show off his villainy.
Batman is a murderer no less than the Joker, for all the lives the
Joker took that Batman could've saved by killing him. That's what
the man named Alastor was trying to tell Dumbledore, and afterward
Dumbledore regretted having taken so long to change his mind. Are
you really going to try to follow the path of the superhero, and
never sacrifice a single piece or kill a single enemy?</i></p>
<p>Fatigued, Harry turned his attention away from the dilemma for a
moment, opened his eyes again to regard the hemisphere of night,
which required no decisions from him.</p>
<p>Near the edge of his vision, the pale white crescent of the
Moon, the light from which had left one-and-a-quarter seconds ago,
around 375,000 kilometers of distance in Earth's space of
simultaneity.</p>
<p>Above and to the side, Polaris, the North Star; the first star
Harry had learned to identify in the sky, by following the edge of
the Big Dipper. That was actually a five-star system with a
brilliant central supergiant, 434 light-years from Earth. It was
the first 'star' whose name Harry had ever learned from his father,
so long ago that he couldn't have guessed how old he'd been.</p>
<p>The dim fog that was the Milky Way, so many billions of distant
stars that they became an indistinct river, the plane of a galaxy
that stretched 100,000 light-years across. If Harry had experienced
any sense of wonder when he'd <i>first</i> been told that, he'd
been too young for him to remember now that first time, across a
few years' distance.</p>
<p>In the center of the constellation Andromeda, the star
Andromeda, which was really the Andromeda Galaxy. The nearest
galaxy to the Milky Way, 2.4 million light-years away, containing
an estimated trillion stars.</p>
<p>Numbers like those made 'infinity' pale by comparison, because
'infinity' was just featureless and blank. Thinking that the stars
were 'infinitely' distant was a lot less scary than trying to work
out what 2.4 million light-years amounted to in meters. 2.4 million
light-years, times 31 million seconds in a year, times a photon
moving at 300,000,000 meters per second...</p>
<p>It was strange to think that such distances might <i>not</i> be
unreachably far away. Magic was loose in the universe, things like
Time-Turners and broomsticks. Had any wizard ever tried to measure
the speed of a portkey, or a phoenix?</p>
<p>And the human understanding of magic couldn't possibly be
anywhere <i>near</i> the underlying laws. What would you be able to
do with magic if you <i>really</i> understood it?</p>
<p>A year ago, Dad had gone to the Australian National University
in Canberra for a conference where he'd been an invited speaker,
and he'd taken Mum and Harry along. And they'd all visited the
National Museum of Australia, because, it had turned out, there was
basically nothing else to do in Canberra. The glass display cases
had shown rock-throwers crafted by the Australian aborigines - like
giant wooden shoehorns, they'd looked, but smoothed and carved and
ornamented with painstaking care. In the 40,000 years since
anatomically modern humans had migrated to Australia from Asia,
nobody had invented the bow-and-arrow. It really made you
appreciate how <i>non-obvious</i> was the idea of Progress. Why
would you even think of Invention as something important, if all
your history's heroic tales were of great warriors and defenders
instead of Thomas Edison? How could anyone have suspected, while
carving a rock-thrower with painstaking care, that someday human
beings would invent rocket ships and nuclear energy?</p>
<p>Could you have looked up into the sky, at the brilliant light of
the Sun, and deduced that the universe contained greater sources of
power than mere fire? Would you have realized that if the
fundamental physical laws permitted it, someday humans would tap
the same energies as the Sun? Even if nothing you could imagine
doing with rock-throwers or woven pouches - no pattern of running
across the savannah and nothing you could obtain by hunting animals
- would accomplish that even in imagination?</p>
<p>It wasn't like modern-day Muggles had gotten anywhere near the
limits of what Muggle physics said was possible. And yet like
hunter-gatherers conceptually bound to their rock-throwers, most
Muggles lived in a world defined by the limits of what you could do
with cars and telephones. Even though Muggle physics explicitly
permitted possibilities like molecular nanotechnology or the
Penrose process for extracting energy from black holes, most people
filed that away in the same section of their brain that stored
fairy tales and history books, well away from their personal
realities: <i>Long ago and far away, ever so long ago.</i> No
surprise, then, that the wizarding world lived in a conceptual
universe bounded - not by fundamental laws of magic that nobody
even knew - but just by the surface rules of known Charms and
enchantments. You couldn't observe the way magic was practiced
nowadays and <i>not</i> be reminded of the National Museum of
Australia, once you realized what you were seeing. Even if Harry's
first guess had been mistaken, one way or another it was still
inconceivable that the <i>fundamental</i> laws of the universe
contained a special case for human lips shaping the phrase
'Wingardium Leviosa'. And yet even that fumbling grasp of magic was
enough to do things that Muggle physics said should be <i>forever
impossible:</i> the Time-Turner, water conjured out of nothingness
by <i>Aguamenti.</i> What were the <i>ultimate</i> possibilities of
invention, if the underlying laws of the universe permitted an
eleven-year-old with a stick to violate almost every constraint in
the Muggle version of physics?</p>
<p>Like a hunter-gatherer trying to look up at the Sun, and guess
that the universe had to be shaped in a way that allowed for
nuclear energy...</p>
<p>It made you wonder if maybe twenty thousand million million
million meters wasn't so much distance, after all.</p>
<p>There was a step beyond Abstract Reasoning Harry which he could
take, given time enough to compose himself and the right
surroundings; something beyond Abstract Reasoning Harry, as that
was beyond Harry In The Moment. Looking up at the stars, you could
try to imagine what the distant descendants of humanity would think
of your dilemma - in a hundred million years, when the stars would
have spun through great galactic movements into entirely new
positions, every constellation scattered. It was an elementary
theorem of probability that if you knew what your answer would be
after updating on future evidence, you ought to adopt that answer
right now. If you <i>knew</i> your destination, you were already
there. And by analogy, if not quite by theorem, if you could guess
what the descendants of humanity would think of something, you
ought to go ahead and take that as your own best guess.</p>
<p>From that vantage point the idea of killing off two-thirds of
the Wizengamot seemed a lot less appealing than it had a few hours
earlier. Even if you <i>had</i> to do it, even if you knew for a
solid fact that it would be the best thing for magical Britain and
that the complete Story of Time would look worse if you didn't do
it... even as a necessity, the deaths of sentient beings would
still be a tragedy. One more element of the sorrows of Earth; the
Most Ancient Earth from which everything had begun, long ago and
far away, ever so long ago.</p>
<p><i>He is not like Grindelwald</i>. <i>There is nothing human
left in him. Him you must destroy. Save your fury for that, and
that alone -</i></p>
<p>Harry shook his head slightly, tilting the stars a little in his
vision, as he lay on the stone floor looking upward and outward and
forward in time. Even if Dumbledore was right, and the true enemy
was utterly mad and evil... in a hundred million years the organic
lifeform known as Lord Voldemort probably wouldn't seem much
different from all the other bewildered children of Ancient Earth.
Whatever Lord Voldemort had done to himself, whatever Dark rituals
seemed so horribly irrevocable on a merely human scale, it wouldn't
be beyond curing with the technology of a hundred million years.
Killing him, even if you <i>had</i> to do it to save the lives of
others, would be just one more death for future sentient beings to
be sad about. How could you look up at the stars, and believe
anything else?</p>
<p>Harry stared up at the twinkling lights of Eternity and wondered
what the children's children's children would think of what
Dumbledore had maybe-done to Narcissa.</p>
<p>But even if you tried framing the question that way, asking what
humanity's descendants would think, it still drew only on your own
knowledge, not theirs. The answer still came from inside yourself,
and it could still be mistaken. If you didn't know the hundredth
decimal digit of pi yourself, then you didn't know how the
children's children's children would calculate it, for all that the
fact was trivial.</p>
<hr size="1" noshade="noshade" />
<p>Slowly - he'd been lying there, looking at the stars, for longer
than he'd planned - Harry sat up from the ground. Pushing himself
to his feet, the muscles protesting, he walked over to the edge of
the stone platform at the height of the Ravenclaw tower. The stone
crenellations surrounding the edge of the tower weren't high, not
high enough to be safe. They were markers, clearly, rather than
railings. Harry didn't approach too close to the edge; there was no
point in taking chances. Looking down at the Hogwarts grounds
below, he was predictably feeling a sense of dizziness, the wobbly
affliction called vertigo. His brain was alarmed, it seemed,
because the ground below was so <i>distant</i>. It might have been
fully 50 meters away.</p>
<p>The lesson, it seemed, was that things had to be
<i>incredibly</i> close by before your brain could comprehend them
well enough to feel fear.</p>
<p>It was a rare brain that could feel strongly about anything, if
it wasn't close in space, close in time, near at hand, within easy
reach...</p>
<p>Before, Harry had imagined that going to Azkaban would require
planning and cooperation from a grownup confederate. Portkeys,
broomsticks, invisibility spells. Some way of getting to the bottom
levels without the Aurors noticing, so he could carve his way into
the central pit where the shadows of Death waited.</p>
<p>And that had been enough to put the prospect away, into the
future, safely apart from the <i>now</i>.</p>
<p>He hadn't realized until today that it might be as simple as
finding Fawkes and telling the phoenix that it was time.</p>
<p>Memories were rising up again, memories that Harry could never
manage to forget for long. Though the stones beneath his feet were
not smooth like metal, though the moonlit sky stretched all around
him, somehow it was very easy to imagine himself trapped in a long
metal corridor lit by dim orange light.</p>
<p>The night was quiet, quiet enough for memories to be clearly
audible.</p>
<p><i>No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!</i></p>
<p><i>No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!</i></p>
<p><i>Don't take it away, don't don't don't -</i></p>
<p>The world blurred, and Harry wiped his eyes with his sleeve.</p>
<p>If <i>Hermione</i> had been the one behind that door -</p>
<p>If Hermione had been put in Azkaban, Harry would have called the
phoenix and gone there and burned away every last Dementor and it
wouldn't have made a single difference how crazy it was or what
else he'd wanted to do with his life. That was just - that was -
that was just how it was.</p>
<p>And the woman who <i>was</i> behind that door - wasn't there
someone, somewhere, to whom she too was precious? Wasn't it only
Harry's distance from her life that was preventing his brain from
being driven to Azkaban to <i>save her no matter what?</i> What
would it have taken to compel him? Would he have needed to know her
face? Her name? Her favorite color? Would he have been driven to
Azkaban to save Tracey Davis? Would he have been compelled there to
save Professor McGonagall? Mum and Dad - there wasn't even any
question. And that woman had said she was someone's mother. How
many people had wished for the power to break Azkaban? How many
prisoners of Azkaban dreamed nightly of such a miraculous
rescue?</p>
<p><i>None. It's a happy thought.</i></p>
<p>Maybe he <i>should</i> harrow Azkaban. All he had to do was find
Fawkes and tell him it was time. Visualize the center of the
Dementor's pit as he'd seen it from the broomstick, and let the
phoenix take him there. Cast the True Patronus Charm at point-blank
range and to hell with what came after.</p>
<p>All he had to do was go find Fawkes.</p>
<p>It might be as simple as thinking of the flame, calling for the
fire-bird in his heart -</p>
<p>A star flashed in the night.</p>
<p>By the time Harry's eyes had jumped with a reflex action trained
on meteor showers, another part of him was surprised that the
astronomical phenomenon was still there; a faint star whose
brightness was slowly visibly waxing. There was a startled moment
when Harry wondered whether he was seeing, not a meteor, but a nova
or supernova - could you <i>see</i> them getting brighter like
that? Was the first stage of a nova supposed to be that
yellow-orange color?</p>
<p>Then the new star moved again, and seemed to grow as well as
brightening. It looked <i>closer</i> suddenly, no longer so far
away that distance became moot. Like what you thought was a star,
turning out to be an airplane, a lighted form whose shape you could
actually see...</p>
<p>...no, not a plane...</p>
<p>The realization seemed to spread out from Harry's chest in a
wave of prickling, sweat preparing to break out.</p>
<p>...a bird.</p>
<p>A piercing cry split the night, echoing from the rooftops of
Hogwarts.</p>
<p>The approaching creature trailed fire as it flew, shedding
golden flames like sparks from its feathers as the mighty wings
beat and beat again. Even as it swooped up in a great curve to
hover a few paces away from Harry, even as the flames surrounding
its passage diminished, the creature seemed no dimmer, no less
bright; as though some unseen Sun shone upon it and illuminated
it.</p>
<p>Great shining wings red like a sunset, and eyes like
incandescent pearls, blazing with golden fire and
determination.</p>
<p>The phoenix's beak opened, and let out a great caw that Harry
understood as though it had been a spoken word:</p>
<p><i>COME!</i></p>
<p>Not even realizing, the boy stumbled back from the edge of the
rooftop, eyes still locked on the phoenix, his whole body trembling
and tensed, his fists clutching and releasing at his side; stepping
back, stepping away.</p>
<p>The phoenix cawed again, a desperate, pleading, sound. It didn't
come through in words, this time, but it came through in feelings,
an echo of everything that Harry had ever felt about Azkaban and
every temptation to <i>action,</i> to just <i>do</i> something
about it, the desperate need to do something <i>now</i> and not
delay any longer, all spoken in the cry of a bird.</p>
<p><i>Let's go. It's time.</i> The voice that spoke came from
inside Harry, not from the phoenix; from so deep inside it couldn't
be given a separate name like 'Gryffindor'.</p>
<p>All he had to do was step forward and touch the phoenix's
talons, and it would take him where he needed to be, where he kept
thinking he ought to be, down into the central pit of Azkaban.
Harry could see the image in his mind, shining with unbearably
clarity, the image of himself suddenly smiling with joyous release
as he threw all his fears away and <i>chose</i> -</p>
<p>"But I -" Harry whispered, not even aware of what he was saying.
Harry lifted his shaking hands to wipe at his eyes from which tears
had sprung, as the phoenix hovered before him with great
wing-sweeps. "But I - there's other people I also have to save,
other things I have to do -"</p>
<p>The fire-bird let out a piercing scream, and the boy flinched
back as though from a blow. It wasn't a command, it wasn't an
objection, it was the <i>knowledge -</i></p>
<p>The corridors lit by dim orange light.</p>
<p>It felt like a tightening compulsion in Harry's chest, the
desire to just <i>do</i> it and get it over with. He might die, but
if he didn't die he could feel <i>clean</i> again. Have principles
that were more than excuses for inaction. It was <i>his</i> life.
His to spend, if he chose. He could do it any time he wanted...</p>
<p>...if he wasn't a good person.</p>
<hr size="1" noshade="noshade" />
<p>The boy stood there on the rooftop, his own eyes locked with two
points of fire. The stars might have had time to shift in their
constellations while he stood there, agonizing over the
decision...</p>
<p>...that wouldn't...</p>
<p>...change.</p>
<p>The boy's eyes flickered once to the stars above; and then he
looked at the phoenix.</p>
<p>"Not yet," the boy said in a voice hardly audible. "Not yet.
There's too much else I have to do. Please come back later, when
I've found others who can cast the True Patronus - in six months,
maybe -"</p>
<p>Without word, without sound, a sphere of fire surrounded the
bird's form, crackling and blazing with white and crimson veins as
though it meant to consume that which lay within; and when the fire
dispersed into grey smoke, no phoenix remained.</p>
<p>There was silence on the top of the Ravenclaw tower. The boy
gradually lowered his hands from his ears, pausing only to wipe at
his wet cheeks.</p>
<p>Slowly, the boy turned -</p>
<p>Then cried out and leapt back and almost fell off the Ravenclaw
tower; though the misstep would hardly have mattered, with that
other wizard standing there.</p>
<p>"And so it was done," Albus Dumbledore said, almost in a
whisper. "So it was done." Fawkes was on his shoulder, staring at
where the other phoenix had been with an indecipherable avian
gaze.</p>
<p>"<i>What are you doing here?</i> "</p>
<p>"Ah?" said the ancient man standing on the roof-platform's
opposite corner. "I felt the presence of a creature Hogwarts did
not know, and came to see, of course." Slowly the old wizard's
shaking hand came up to remove the half-moon glasses, his other
hand wiped at his eyes and forehead with his robe's sleeve. "I
dared - I dared not speak - I knew, I knew this choice above all
choices must be your own -"</p>
<p>A strange apprehension was beginning to fill Harry, welling up
in him like a sick feeling in his stomach.</p>
<p>"That everything depended on this," Albus Dumbledore said, still
in that almost-whisper, "that much I knew. But which choice led
into darkness, that I could not guess. At least the choice was your
own."</p>
<p>"I don't -" Harry said, and then his voice stopped.</p>
<p>A terrible hypothesis, rising in credibility...</p>
<p>"The phoenix comes," said the old wizard. "To those who would
fight, to those would act even at cost of their lives, the phoenix
comes. Phoenixes are not wise, Harry, they know no means to judge
us, save witnessing the choice. I thought it was to my death I
went, when the phoenix took me to fight Grindelwald. I did not know
that Fawkes would sustain me, and heal me, and stay by my side -"
The old wizard's voice quavered, for a moment. "It is not spoken of
- you should realize, Harry, why it is never spoken of - if the one
knew, the phoenix could not judge. But to you, Harry, I may say it
now, for the phoenix comes only once."</p>
<p>The old wizard walked across the top of the Ravenclaw tower to
where a boy stood rooted in dawning horror, in dawning and utter
horror.</p>
<p><i>In my duel with Grindelwald I could not win, only fight him
for long hours until he collapsed in exhaustion; and I would have
died of it afterward, if not for Fawkes -</i></p>
<p>Harry didn't even know he was speaking, until the whisper had
escaped him -</p>
<p>"Then I <i>could</i> have -"</p>
<p>"Could you have?" said the ancient wizard, his voice sounding
far older than his normal tones. "Three times, now, a phoenix has
come for my student. One did send hers away, and the grief of it
broke her, I think. And the last was cousin to your young friend
Lavender Brown, and he -" The old wizard's voice cracked. "He did
not return, did poor John, and he saved none of those he meant to
save. It is said, among the few scholars of phoenix-lore, that not
one in four returns from their ordeal. And even if you did survive
- for the life you must lead, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres - the
choices you must make and the path you must walk - to always hear
the phoenix's cries - who is to say it would not have driven you
mad?" The old wizard raised his sleeve again, drawing it once more
across his face. "I had more joy of Fawkes's companionship, in the
days before I fought Voldemort."</p>
<p>The boy did not seem to be listening, all his eyes were on the
red-gold bird on the ancient wizard's shoulder. "Fawkes?" the boy
said in shaking voice. "Why won't you look at me, Fawkes?"</p>
<p>Fawkes craned his head to peer at the boy curiously, then turned
back and resumed gazing at his master.</p>
<p>"See?" said the old wizard. "He does not reject you. Fawkes may
not be interested in you in quite that way, now; and he knows -"
the wizard smiled wryly, "- that you are not exactly loyal to his
master. But one to whom the phoenix comes at all - cannot be one
whom a phoenix would dislike." The wizard's voice fell to a whisper
again. "There never was a bird seen on Godric Gryffindor's
shoulder. Though it is not written even in his secrets, I think he
must have sent his phoenix away, before he chose the red and gold
for his colors. Perhaps the guilt of it urged him to greater
lengths than he ever would have dared otherwise. Or it might have
taught him humility, and respect for human frailty, and failure..."
The wizard bowed his head. "I truly do not know if your choice was
wise. I truly do not know if it was the right thing, or the wrong
thing. If I knew, Harry, I would have spoken. But I -" Dumbledore's
voice broke, then. "I am nothing but a foolish young boy who has
become a foolish old man, and I have no wisdom."</p>
<p>Harry couldn't breathe, the nausea seeming to fill and overflow
his whole body, stomach locked solid. He was suddenly and terribly
certain that he had failed, in some final sense failed, failed this
very night -</p>
<p>The boy whirled and ran out to the curb of the Ravenclaw
rooftop. "Come back!" His voice cracked, rising to a shriek.
<i>"Come back!</i> "</p>
<hr size="1" noshade="noshade" />
<p><i>Final Aftermath:</i></p>
<p>She came awake with a gasp of horror, she woke with an unvoiced
scream on her lips and no words came forth, she could not
understand what she had seen, <i>she could not understand what she
had seen</i> -</p>
<p>"What time is it?" she whispered.</p>
<p>Her golden jeweled alarm clock whispered back, "Around eleven at
night. Go back to sleep."</p>
<p>Her sheets were soaked in sweat, her nightclothes soaked in
sweat, she took her wand from beside the pillow and cleaned herself
up before she tried to go back to sleep and eventually
succeeded.</p>
<p>Sybill Trelawney went back to sleep.</p>
<p>In the Forbidden Forest, a centaur woken by a nameless
apprehension ceased scanning the night sky, having found only
questions there and no answers; and with a folding of his many
legs, Firenze went back to sleep.</p>
<p>In the distant lands of magical Asia, an ancient witch named Fan
Tong, sleeping the tired days away, told her anxious
great-great-grandson that she was fine, it had only been a
nightmare, and went back to sleep.</p>
<p>In a land where Muggleborns received no letters of any kind, a
girl-child too young to have a name of her own was rocked in the
arms of her annoyed but loving mother until she stopped crying and
went back to sleep.</p>
<p>None of them slept well.</p>
</div>
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<option value="1">Chapter 1: A Day of Very Low Probability</option>
<option value="2">Chapter 2: Everything I Believe Is False</option>
<option value="3">Chapter 3: Comparing Reality To Its Alternatives</option>
<option value="4">Chapter 4: The Efficient Market Hypothesis</option>
<option value="5">Chapter 5: The Fundamental Attribution Error</option>
<option value="6">Chapter 6: The Planning Fallacy</option>
<option value="7">Chapter 7: Reciprocation</option>
<option value="8">Chapter 8: Positive Bias</option>
<option value="9">Chapter 9: Title Redacted, Part I</option>
<option value="10">Chapter 10: Self Awareness, Part II</option>
<option value="11">Chapter 11: Omake Files 1, 2, 3</option>
<option value="12">Chapter 12: Impulse Control</option>
<option value="13">Chapter 13: Asking the Wrong Questions</option>
<option value="14">Chapter 14: The Unknown and the Unknowable</option>
<option value="15">Chapter 15: Conscientiousness</option>
<option value="16">Chapter 16: Lateral Thinking</option>
<option value="17">Chapter 17: Locating the Hypothesis</option>
<option value="18">Chapter 18: Dominance Hierarchies</option>
<option value="19">Chapter 19: Delayed Gratification</option>
<option value="20">Chapter 20: Bayes's Theorem</option>
<option value="21">Chapter 21: Rationalization</option>
<option value="22">Chapter 22: The Scientific Method</option>
<option value="23">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>
<option value="27">Chapter 27: Empathy</option>
<option value="28">Chapter 28: Reductionism</option>
<option value="29">Chapter 29: Egocentric Bias</option>
<option value="30">Chapter 30: Working in Groups, Pt 1</option>
<option value="31">Chapter 31: Working in Groups, Pt 2</option>
<option value="32">Chapter 32: Interlude: Personal Financial Management</option>
<option value="33">Chapter 33: Coordination Problems, Pt 1</option>
<option value="34">Chapter 34: Coordination Problems, Pt 2</option>
<option value="35">Chapter 35: Coordination Problems, Pt 3</option>
<option value="36">Chapter 36: Status Differentials</option>
<option value="37">Chapter 37: Interlude: Crossing the Boundary</option>
<option value="38">Chapter 38: The Cardinal Sin</option>
<option value="39">Chapter 39: Pretending to be Wise, Pt 1</option>
<option value="40">Chapter 40: Pretending to be Wise, Pt 2</option>
<option value="41">Chapter 41: Frontal Override</option>
<option value="42">Chapter 42: Courage</option>
<option value="43">Chapter 43: Humanism, Pt 1</option>
<option value="44">Chapter 44: Humanism, Pt 2</option>
<option value="45">Chapter 45: Humanism, Pt 3</option>
<option value="46">Chapter 46: Humanism, Pt 4</option>
<option value="47">Chapter 47: Personhood Theory</option>
<option value="48">Chapter 48: Utilitarian Priorities</option>
<option value="49">Chapter 49: Prior Information</option>
<option value="50">Chapter 50: Self Centeredness</option>
<option value="51">Chapter 51: Title Redacted, Pt 1</option>
<option value="52">Chapter 52: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 2</option>
<option value="53">Chapter 53: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 3</option>
<option value="54">Chapter 54: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 4</option>
<option value="55">Chapter 55: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 5</option>
<option value="56">Chapter 56: TSPE, Constrained Optimization, Pt 6</option>
<option value="57">Chapter 57: TSPE, Constrained Cognition, Pt 7</option>
<option value="58">Chapter 58: TSPE, Constrained Cognition, Pt 8</option>
<option value="59">Chapter 59: TSPE, Curiosity, Pt 9</option>
<option value="60">Chapter 60: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 10</option>
<option value="61">Chapter 61: TSPE, Secrecy and Openness, Pt 11</option>
<option value="62">Chapter 62: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Final</option>
<option value="63">Chapter 63: TSPE, Aftermaths</option>
<option value="64">Chapter 64: Omake Files 4, Alternate Parallels</option>
<option value="65">Chapter 65: Contagious Lies</option>
<option value="66">Chapter 66: Self Actualization, Pt 1</option>
<option value="67">Chapter 67: Self Actualization, Pt 2</option>
<option value="68">Chapter 68: Self Actualization, Pt 3</option>
<option value="69">Chapter 69: Self Actualization, Pt 4</option>
<option value="70">Chapter 70: Self Actualization, Pt 5</option>
<option value="71">Chapter 71: Self Actualization, Pt 6</option>
<option value="72">Chapter 72: SA, Plausible Deniability, Pt 7</option>
<option value="73">Chapter 73: SA, The Sacred and the Mundane, Pt 8</option>
<option value="74">Chapter 74: SA, Escalation of Conflicts, Pt 9</option>
<option value="75">Chapter 75: Self Actualization Final, Responsibility</option>
<option value="76">Chapter 76: Interlude with the Confessor: Sunk Costs</option>
<option value="77">Chapter 77: SA, Aftermaths: Surface Appearances</option>
<option value="78">Chapter 78: Taboo Tradeoffs Prelude: Cheating</option>
<option value="79">Chapter 79: Taboo Tradeoffs, Pt 1</option>
<option value="80">Chapter 80: Taboo Tradeoffs, Pt 2, The Horns Effect</option>
<option value="81">Chapter 81: Taboo Tradeoffs, Pt 3</option>
<option value="82">Chapter 82: Taboo Tradeoffs, Final</option>
<option value="83">Chapter 83: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 1</option>
<option value="84">Chapter 84: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 2</option>
<option value="85" selected>Chapter 85: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 3, Distance</option>
<option value="86">Chapter 86: Multiple Hypothesis Testing</option>
<option value="87">Chapter 87: Hedonic Awareness</option>
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