Harry Potter and the Way of Reason

J.K. Rowling is still sleeping peacefully in her house. [1]

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"I don't know what's wrong with him."

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"Tupin, Lisa!"

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"Ravenclaw!"

Harry joined everyone in clapping, welcoming the shy little girl, the hem of her robes now dark blue, to Ravenclaw.Lisa Turpin seemed very torn between trying to get as far away from Harry Potter as possible, and trying to run over to him and forcefully pry the truth out.

Being sorted into Ravenclaw house after being at the center of a quirky incident is like getting thrown into a pack of hungry kittens after being covered in barbecue sauce.

"I promised the Sorting Hat I wouldn't say anything," Harry whispered for the umpteenth time.

"Yes, that's true."

"No, I actually promised the Sorting Hat that I wouldn't say anything."

"Okay, I promised the Sorting Hat not to mention most of the content, and the rest are very personal matters, so don't ask any more."

"You want to know what happened? Well! Part of what happened was this: I said to the Sorting Hat, and Professor McGonagall threatened to burn it, and it told me to tell Professor McGonagall that she was a brat, called Don't mind her own business!"

"Why do you ask me if you don't believe me?"

"No, I don't know how I beat the Dark Lord either! Let me know if you figure it out!"

"Quiet!" shouted Professor McGonagall from the podium at the head table. "Don't talk until the sorting is over!"

The volume went down for a while, as everyone waited to see if she would make any concrete and credible threats, and then the whispers rose again.

The old man with the silver beard stood up from his golden throne and smiled cheerfully at everyone.

Quiet for an instant.Harry was in the middle of a sentence when someone gave him a hard arm and he quickly shut up.

The old man happily sat down again.

Memo: Don't mess with Dumbledore.

Harry was still thinking about what had happened at the Sorting Hat.Especially what happened when he took his hat off.At that moment, a small voice came from nowhere, it sounded strange, it sounded like English and hissed, and something said: "Slytherin's greetings to Slytherin: If you want To seek my secret, ask my snake."

Harry guessed it wasn't part of the standard Sorting process, but a little bit of special magic that Salazar Slytherin had put in when making the hat.And the Sorting Hat itself doesn't know.And this magic will be triggered when the hat shouts "Slytherin", plus or minus some conditions.Also, a Ravenclaw like him really really shouldn't have heard it.Also, if he could think of a reliable way to keep Draco a secret and then ask him, then by all means bring a pot of joke tea.

My God, just as soon as you decided not to follow the path of the Dark Lord and the Sorting Hat came off your head, this universe came to mess with you.Sometimes it is futile to resist fate.I'd better wait until tomorrow before deciding not to be the Dark Lord.

"Gryffindor!"

Ron Weasley got a lot of applause, and not just Gryffindors.Clearly, the Weasleys are well-liked here.After a while, Harry also started laughing and applauding with everyone.

But at the same time, today is also a great opportunity to leave the dark path.

To hell with fate and the universe.He wanted to prove it to the Sorting Hat.

"Zabini, Blaise!"

pause.

"Slytherin!" shouted the hat.

Harry also applauded Zabini, ignoring the weird stares from everyone, including Zabini himself.

There were no other names after that, and that's when Harry realized that "Zabini, Brace" really seemed to be at the end of the alphabet.Well now, he only applauded for Zabini... oh well.

Dumbledore stood up again and walked to the podium.The following is apparently a speech -

At this time, Harry thought of a wonderful experimental plan.

Hermione said that Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard today, isn't he?

Harry reached into the pouch and whispered, "Joke tea."

If the joke tea wanted to be successful, Dumbledore had to say something so ridiculous that Harry would still choke under the current mental preparation.For example, Hogwarts students are not allowed to wear clothes to school this year, or everyone will be turned into cats or something.

But if there is anyone in the world who can resist the power of joke tea, it should be Dumbledore.So if Joke Tea can succeed this time, it will be literally invincible.

Harry quietly pulled the tab of the joke tea under the table, hoping the experiment would not be too conspicuous.There is a quiet hissing sound when the jar is opened.A few people glanced back at him, but turned back quickly because—

"Welcome! Welcome back to Hogwarts and start a new year!" said Dumbledore, smiling and opening his arms to the students, as if nothing in the world pleased him more than seeing them.

Harry took his first sip of joke tea and put down the pitcher in his hand.He would swallow in small sips, trying not to choke whatever Dumbledore said—

"Before the dinner starts, I want to say a few words. All I want to say is: happy happy boom boom, wetland wetland wetland! Thank you!"

Everyone was clapping and cheering, and Dumbledore sat down again.

Harry sat dumbfounded, the soda dripping from the corner of his mouth.At least he managed not to make a sound when he choked.

He really really really shouldn't have done it.It's amazing how this fact becomes so apparent a second after it's already too late.

Looking back now, he should have noticed something was wrong when he thought that everyone was going to be turned into a cat... or earlier, when he decided not to mess with Dumbledore... or when he recently made up his mind to be more considerate When someone else...or even if he has a little common sense...

Hopeless.He's broken to the bone.Long live the Dark Lord Harry.You cannot resist fate.

Someone was asking Harry if he was feeling sick. (Others have already started to eat, because all kinds of food suddenly appeared on the table. Okay.)

"I'm fine," Harry said. "Excuse me. Um, the principal...is this how he usually talks? You...seem...not surprised at all..."

"Oh, of course, Dumbledore is crazy," said a Ravenclaw senior beside him.He had introduced himself, but Harry couldn't remember his name. "He's funny, an incredibly powerful wizard, but totally crazy." He paused. "Later I want to ask you why the green liquid flowed from your mouth just now and then disappeared, but I guess you promised the Sorting Hat about this?"

It took a lot of effort for Harry not to look down at the culprit of the incident, the joke teapot in his hand.

Anyway, Joke Tea didn't automatically generate the headlines of him and Draco in The Quibbler.According to Draco's explanation, it seems that it all happened...naturally?As if it could rewrite the past so that everything becomes natural?

Harry mentally pictured himself banging his head on the table.Bang, bang, bang, bang bang.

Another student lowered his voice. "I heard that Dumbledore is actually a genius mastermind behind the scenes, controlling many things, just pretending to be a lunatic on the surface, so that no one suspects him."

"I've heard that too," whispered a third student, and many students on the table nodded quietly.

It was impossible not to get Harry's attention.

"I see," Harry whispered, also deliberately lowering his voice. "So everyone knows that Dumbledore is secretly behind the scenes."

Most of the students are nodding.One or two suddenly became thoughtful, including the senior sitting next to Harry.

Are you sure this is a table from Ravenclaw House?Harry had a hard time refraining from asking out loud.

"That's great!" Harry whispered. "If everyone knew it, no one would suspect it was a secret!"

"Exactly," one student whispered, then frowned. "Wait a minute, this doesn't sound right—"

Memo: Students in the No.70 quintile at Hogwarts,[2] aka Ravenclaw House, are not the most highly gifted collection of children in the world.

But at least he learned an important fact today.Joke tea is omnipotent.This means...

Harry was taken aback when his thoughts reached the obvious conclusion.

…which means that if he finds a spell that temporarily alters his sense of humor, he can make anything happen.Just let yourself think that this is the only thing that's so funny, and drink a can of joke tea.

Well, this road to becoming a god is too short and smooth.Even I thought it was impossible to succeed on the first day of school.

If you think about it, he also destroyed Hogwarts in the first 10 minutes after sorting.

Harry did regret it - Merlin only knew what a crazy headmaster would do for the next seven years - but he couldn't help feeling a little smug.

Tomorrow.From tomorrow at the latest, he will change his mind and stop following the path of the Dark Lord Harry.This prospect has become more and more dire.

But I don't know why, but it's getting more and more attractive.Part of his mind was already imagining the uniforms of the servants.

"Hurry up," the senior sitting next to him yelled at Harry and poked him in the ribs. "Forget it. Eat it."

Harry began absently picking food from his plate.Blue sausage with tiny shiny bits inside.whatever.

"What were you thinking just now, the House—" asked Padma Patil, also a first-year Ravenclaw.

"You can't ask questions while eating!" At least three people said at the same time. "It's an academy rule!" another added. "Otherwise we'll all starve to death here."

Harry found himself wishing very, very much that his clever idea wouldn't actually work out.I hope the joke tea has other principles, instead of being omnipotent and able to rewrite reality at will.Not that he doesn't want to be omnipotent.It's just that he really can't accept a world where this is okay.With the clever use of carbonated drinks, it is really a shame.

But he will prove it experimentally.

"You know," said the senior next to him in a cheerful tone, "we have a way to force people like you to eat. Do you want to know what it is?"

Harry gave up and started eating his blue sausage.It's delicious, especially those little shiny particles.

Dinner is over soon.Harry tried a little of each of the strange new foods as best he could.His curiosity makes it impossible for him not to know what a food tastes like.Luckily it's not a restaurant, you're only allowed to order one dish, you never know what the other options on the menu are like.Harry hated it, it was a torture chamber for anyone with even the slightest bit of curiosity: choose to uncover one of the secrets, hahaha!

Then it was dessert time, and Harry had completely forgotten to leave room for dessert.He gave up after trying a bit of treacle pie.These things will definitely come up again in the coming school year.

So what was he going to do besides ordinary studies?

the first thing.Research mind-altering spells and test whether joke tea is really a shortcut to omnipotence.In fact, research every mind-altering spell you can find.Thoughts are the bedrock of all our powers as human beings, and all magic that affects the mind is the most important magic.

Second thing.Actually that's the first thing, the first thing before that was the second thing.Go through the entire Hogwarts library and the Ravenclaw library, familiarize yourself with the system, and at least memorize the titles of all the books.Second pass: read all chapters.Team up with Hermione, she has a much better memory than you.Find out if there is an interlibrary loan system between the Hogwarts library and other libraries, and if so, find out if you two, especially Hermione, can go to those libraries.If other colleges have their own libraries, find out how to get in legally, or sneak in.

Option 3a: Swear Hermione to secrecy, then start working on the line "Slytherin to Slytherin: If you want to know my secrets, ask my snake".The problem is that this sentence sounds quite confidential, and I'm afraid it will take a long time to stumble across a clue related to this sentence.

Part [-]: Research what information retrieval spells are available.Library magic is not as important as mind-affecting magic, but has a much higher priority.

Option 3b: Research the magic that would keep Draco Malfoy a secret, or use magic to verify the honesty of Draco's promise of secrecy (Veritaserum?), then ask him about this information in Slytherin...

Actually...Harry thought option 3b was terrible.

On second thought, he felt that option 3a was not very good either.

Harry's mind went back to the most terrifying moment of his life right now, under the hat, feeling his blood freeze and thinking he had failed.He had wished he could go back a few minutes and change something, anything, before it was too late...

Fortunately, it's not too late.

His wish came true.

You cannot change the past.But you can do something right from the start.Change yourself the first time.

Seeking out the secrets of Slytherin...seems so much like the kind of thing that you'll look back years later and say, "That's where all the mistakes started."

At that time, he will hope desperately that he can go back to the past and make a different choice...

Allows you to make this wish come true.Then what?

Harry smiled slowly.

It's a pretty counter-intuitive idea...but...

But he can, there's no rule saying he can't pretend he's never heard it.Let the universe run on its original trajectory, as if this critical moment never happened. Twenty years from now, he will hope desperately that this is the version of what happened 20 years ago, and 20 years ago, 20 years from now, happens to be now.Changing the past is easy if you think about it at the right moment.

Or... which was even more counterintuitive... he could even tell, oh, say to Professor McGonagall, instead of Draco or Hermione.Let her find some reliable people to remove that extra charm from the hat.

Huh, not bad.Once he did think about it, Harry found the idea to be surprisingly good.

It was obvious in retrospect, but for some reason, the possibility of options 3c and 3d had never occurred to him before.

Harry's Anti-Dark Lord Harry Project, +1 point.

The hat was cruel to his tricks, but from a consequentialist point of view its effect was unquestionable.On the other hand, it did help him understand the victim's feelings better.

Fourth thing: An apology to Neville Longbottom.

Very good, he is going too well now, as long as he persists in the future, it will be fine.Every day, in every way, is getting closer and closer to the light...

Everyone around Harry basically finished eating, and desserts and used plates started disappearing from the tables.

After all the dishes were gone, Dumbledore rose from his seat again.

Suddenly Harry wanted another sip of joke tea.

What are you kidding, Harry thought to this part of himself.

But experiments that haven't been verified repeatedly don't count, don't they?And the damage was done anyway, right?Doesn't he want to see what happens this time?Aren't you curious?What if the results were different this time?

Hey, I bet you're the one in my head trying to play a prank on Neville Longbottom.

Uh, maybe?

If I did, I'd start regretting it a second later.Isn't this extremely obvious?

Um...

yes.So, no.

"Hmm," Dumbledore said from the podium, smoothing his long silver beard. "Now that everyone is full, I have to say a few more words. It's a few announcements about the new semester."

"First-year students must remember that the forest outside the castle is forbidden to any student. That's why it's called the Forbidden Forest. If you can enter it, it will be called the Into the Forest."

Simple.Memo: Entering the Forbidden Forest is prohibited.

"Mr. Filch, the administrator, asked me to tell everyone that magic shouldn't be used in the corridors during recess. Well, everyone knows that should and should be are two different things. Thank you for remembering that."

Well...

"Quidditch training starts the second week after school starts. Students who are interested in being selected for the college team should contact Mrs. Hooch. Students who are interested in improving the rules of the Quidditch game should contact Harry Potter."

Harry choked on his own saliva and started coughing violently when all eyes turned to him.what the hell!He hadn't looked Dumbledore in the eye...at least he didn't think so.And he was definitely not thinking about Quidditch!He hadn't told anyone about it except Ron Weasley, and he didn't think Ron would tell anyone about it... Could it be that Ron had gone off to complain to some professor?what the hell...

"Also, I must inform everyone that no one is allowed to go to the corridor on the right of the fourth floor this year, unless you want to die ugly. There are various dangerous and even deadly traps set up there, and it is impossible for anyone to pass through them all, especially if you If you're only in first grade."

Harry was numb when he heard this.

"Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Quirinus Quirrell for his heroic consent to serve as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts this year," said Dumbledore, looking from among the students, "in return for his dedication to the school and For your great contribution, I hope that all students will give Professor Quirrell the utmost courtesy and tolerance, and you are not allowed to complain to us about him because of some trivial matters, unless you want to replace his work."

What does this mean?

"Next, I will give up my position to our new teacher, Professor Quirrell. He has a few words to say to everyone."

The thin, nervous young man Harry had seen at the Leaky Cauldron walked slowly up to the podium, his eyes darting timidly here and there.For a split second, Harry saw the back of his head, and Professor Quirrell was a little bald despite his youthful appearance.

"I don't know what's wrong with him," whispered the senior next to Harry.Others were whispering similar things.

Professor Quirrell walked up to the podium and stood there, blinking his eyes. "Ah..." he said. "Ah..." Then his courage was completely gone, and he stood there in a daze, twitching every now and then.

"Oh, well," the senior whispered, "It seems that this year's defense class is going to be a tough one—"

"Hello, my new students," said Professor Quirrell in a dry, confident tone. "We all know that Hogwarts has been unlucky in the selection of this position, and many of you have no doubt been wondering what my bad luck will be this year. I assure you, it won't be mine Impossible." He smiled lightly. "Believe it or not, I've always wanted the opportunity to be Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The first professor of the subject was Salazar Slytherin himself, until the fourteenth century, the subject has traditionally been taught by some of the greatest war wizards of the day, whatever their philosophy. Past defense professors have included the legendary wandering hero Harold Shea,[3] and Believed to be the Immortal Granny Yaga,[4] yes, some of you still tremble at the name of her now, even though she's been dead for 600 years. It must have been fun going to Hogwarts back then, Isn't it?"

Harry swallowed hard, suppressing the sudden rush of emotion.Professor Quirrell's stern tone, much like that of a professor at Oxford University, made him finally realize that he would not be able to go home and see his mother and father until Christmas.

"You are used to being taught by fools, rogues, or unlucky ghosts. Anyone with a little bit of historical knowledge knows that the reputation of this course is not what it used to be. The people who teach here are not necessarily the strongest , but the strongest have taught here. With the example of those who came before me, I look forward to this day again for so long, it would be a shame if I lowered my standards to less than perfection. I want Let each of you always remember that this year is the best defense class you have ever had. What you learn this year will give you a solid foundation in defense, no matter who your teachers were before or after.

Professor Quirrell's expression became more serious. "We've got a lot of work to do and not much time. So my teaching method will be a little different from the standard Hogwarts teaching method, and I will have some optional extracurricular activities." He paused. "If that's not enough, maybe I can find another way to motivate you. You are my long-awaited students, and I'm going to make you do your best in my long-awaited defense class. Maybe I can threaten you and say, 'Otherwise you'll die', but that's too cliché, isn't it? I'm proud to tell you that I have more than a little bit of imagination. Thank you."

At this point Professor Quirrell's energy and confidence seemed to be exhausted.His mouth opened, as if suddenly finding himself in front of an unexpected audience, and he twitched hastily and turned back to his seat, hunched over as if about to collapse and implode.

"He looks kind of weird," Harry whispered.

"It's normal," said a senior. "You haven't seen anything really weird."

Dumbledore returned to the podium.

"Now," said Dumbledore, "before we go to bed, let's sing the school song! Everyone choose their favorite melody and lyrics, let's begin!"

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[1] From the short story "The Call of Cthulhu" by American novelist Howard Philip Lovecraft, it was originally a prayer for the believers of Cthulhu, the old ruler.

[2] Percentile: baike.baidu/view/1323573.htm

[3] Harold Shea: en.wikipedia/wiki/Harold_Shea

[4] Granny Yaga: baike.baidu/view/1025599.htm