Harry Potter and the Way of Reason

Original author's note: Goodbye, Terry Pratchett, 1948-2015 [1].Your characters inspired me, and now I realize they taught me a lot about 2st and 3rd tiers of intelligent characters[[-]]: that self-awareness often uses humor or plot characters to understand plot clichés[[-]] Intrinsic brilliance can shine equally through characters who are described (rather than acted out) as humble and stupid; intelligent characters can come across as kind and bright rather than cynical throughout the story.I wish I had known you to be able to talk to you about your method.With so many people who love you, I'm sure at least one of them will tear the foundations of reality to bring you back; but your brain is dead and warm, and so your story is over.

Even if the stars are extinguished in heaven,

Our sin can never be erased.

No death is ever forgiven,

When the last burning sun finally dims.

And in the cold and silent darkness,

When light and matter end,

We shall look back on ourselves at last,

Raise a glass to an absent friend.

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The boy was sitting in an office not far from the former vice-principal's former office.His tears had been shed hours ago.Now all he had left was to wait and see what would happen to him, Hogwarts orphan ward, a child whose life and well-being had been placed in the hands of the enemies of his family.The boy was told to come to this room, and he came, because there was nothing else to do and nowhere to go.Vincent and Gregory left his side, called back by their mothers to their fathers' hasty funerals.Perhaps the boy should have left with them, but he couldn't bring himself to do so.He couldn't play the role that a Malfoy should have in the meantime.The emptiness that filled his heart was so strong that he couldn't even pretend to be polite.

All of them are dead.

His father was dead, his godfather, Mr. McNair, was dead, and his backup godfather, Mr. Avery, was dead.Even Sirius Black, his mother's cousin, died for unknown reasons, and the remaining members of the Black family were not friends with any Malfoys.

All of them are dead.

There was a knock at the office door; then, when the boy made no answer, it opened to reveal—

"Go away," Draco Malfoy said to the Boy Who Lived.He could not exert any force in words.

"I will soon," said Harry Potter, as they entered the room, "but there is a decision to make, and only you can make it."

Draco turned his head to the wall, because just looking at Harry Potter took more strength out of him than was left in him.

"You'll have to decide," said Harry, "what will happen to Draco Malfoy after this. I don't mean to mean anything ominous. Either way, you'll grow up to be a member of the noble and oldest family." Rich heir. The thing is," Harry's voice was shaking now, "the problem is, you don't know a terrible truth, and I've been thinking that if you knew, you'd tell me not to be friends with you anymore And I don't want to stop being friends with you. But just—never tell you—maintaining that lie so I can stay friends with you—I can't. It's wrong too. I don't ...I don't want to go on like this, I don't want to manipulate you. I've hurt you too much."

Then stop trying to be my friend, you're not good at it anyway.The words flooded Draco's mind, but were rejected by his lips.He felt he had almost lost Harry because of the games Harry had played on their friendship, because of those lies and manipulations; but the thought of going back to Slytherin alone, maybe without even Vincent and Gregory around —if their mothers ended the arrangement... Draco didn't want that, he didn't want to go back to Slytherin, he didn't want to go back to Slytherin, and for the rest of his life only those who agreed to be sorted into Slytherin house people around him.Draco was only sane enough to remember how many of his real friends were also Harry's friends, Padma was a Ravenclaw, and even Theodore was an officer of the Legion of Chaos.Now, all that was left of the Malfoy family was tradition; and that tradition told him that it was unwise to tell the victors of war to go away, or to try to be friends with you.

"Okay," Draco said blankly, "tell me."

"I'll do it," said Harry. "The headmistress will come in after I leave and seal your memory for the last half hour. But before that, with all the truth, you have a chance to decide Do you still want to associate with me?" Harry's voice began to tremble, "Well. According to the records I read before coming here, the story actually began in 1926 when a half-blood wizard named Tom Morfin Gaunt Birth. His mother died in childbirth, and he was raised in a Muggle orphanage until Professor Dumbledore brought him a letter from Hogwarts..."

The Boy Who Lived continued, words crashing into the remnants of Draco's brain like a collapsing house.

The Dark Lord is a half-blood.He didn't believe in pure blood for a fraction of a second.

Voldemort was a poor-taste hoax created by Tom Riddle.

The Death Eaters were supposed to lose to David Monroe in order for Monroe to take control.

After abandoning that plan, Tom Riddle continued to play Voldemort's game instead of trying to win because he liked to lord over the Death Eaters.

Voldemort was trying to use me to frame my father about my attempted murder, and then use me to get the Philosopher's Stone.Draco didn't remember that part, but he'd been told that he and Professor Sprout had been used, so they wouldn't be prosecuted.

Then there's the ultimate horror.

"You—" Draco Malfoy whispered, "You—"

"I was the one who killed your father and all the other Death Eaters last night. They fired at me the moment I was told I would do anything, so I had to kill them to have a chance against Voldemort, And that man is a danger to the whole world." Harry Potter's voice was strained, "I didn't think of you, Theodore, Vincent and Gregory, but if I did, I would too .My brain somehow realized in hindsight that Mr. White was Lucius, but even if I did, I still couldn't risk keeping him alive in case he would be wandless. Long ago, I thought, As far as the political landscape is concerned, it would be nice if all the Death Eaters died suddenly. Ever since we first met, I've always thought Death Eaters were horrible people, and that's more than I can reveal to you. Much more intense. But if your father wasn't there and I had a remote button that would kill him, I wouldn't have pressed the button just for political reasons. How I feel about what I did , do I regret it...well, part of me screamed expressing the general horror of killing anyone. And the other part of me said morally, the Death Eaters Already signed their death notice the day I joined Voldemort. They raised their wands at me first, and so on. But now I just feel bad for what I did to you. Again. I feel like, " There was a tremor in Harry Potter's voice, "Everything I do just hurts you, no matter how good my intentions are, you are always just lost by my side, so if you call me forever If you don't get close to Draco Malfoy again, I will. And if you want me to be your friend for real this time, and never try to manipulate you or risk hurting you, then I will , I swear I will."

In the presence of his enemies, the future Lord Malfoy wept bitterly, abandoning decorum and composure, because he had no one left worthy of those things.

lie.

lie.

Everything is a lie, lies superimposed on lies, lies lie lies—

"You deserve to die," Draco said reluctantly, "You deserve to die for killing father." Those words only made him feel more empty inside, but he had to say it.

Harry Potter just shook his head, "What if that's not an option?"

"You should suffer."

Harry just shook his head again.

The Boy Who Lived insisted that Lord Malfoy make a choice.

Lord Malfoy refuses to choose.No matter which option it was, he couldn't say it, couldn't bring himself to say it.He didn't want the victors of the war and their mutual friends to abandon him, and he didn't want Harry to get the forgiveness he wanted.

So Draco Malfoy refused to answer, and then his memory time for this one was over.

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The boy was sitting in an office not far from the former vice-principal's former office.His tears had been shed hours ago.Now all he had left was to wait and see what would happen to him, Hogwarts orphan ward, a child whose life and well-being had been placed in the hands of the enemies of his family.The boy was told to come to this room, and he came, because there was nothing else to do and nowhere to go.Vincent and Gregory left his side, called back by their mothers to their fathers' hasty funerals.Perhaps the boy should have left with them, but he couldn't bring himself to do so.He couldn't play the part that a Malfoy should have in the meantime.The emptiness that filled him was so strong that he couldn't even lie.

All of them are dead.

All are dead, and all was doomed to futility from the start.

There was a knock on the office door, and after a polite pause, the door opened, and Principal McGonagall, who was dressed very similar to when she was a professor, appeared. "Mr. Malfoy?" said the victor, his family's enemy, "come with me."

Listlessly, Draco stood up and followed her out of the office.The sight of Harry Potter waiting aside gave him pause, but his brain quickly brushed it off.

"And one last thing," said Harry Potter, "I found it in a folded parchment that said it was the last weapon against the Malfoys, and it told me not to read any further , unless the whole war is on the line. I didn't want to tell you before because I thought it would unfairly influence your decision. If you're a good guy who never killed or told a lie, But you have to choose between the two, which is worse?"

Draco ignored him and continued to follow Headmaster McGonagall, leaving behind Harry, who was watching him sadly.

They came to the Headmistress's old office, and she lit the Floo with a flick of her wand, said "Gringotts Travel Office" to the green flame, and stepped into the fire after a determined look in his direction.

With no other choice, Draco Malfoy followed.

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Lying in bed, she felt more lethargic than usual this morning, waking up prematurely as the sun barely rose—even though it was blocked by the skyscrapers that shaded her house.A slight hangover scratched her temples and left her mouth dry; she had tried to refrain from drinking (though she didn't know why she bothered to do so), but yesterday she felt...more depressed than usual, for some reason, It was as if she had lost something.It wasn't the first time, not even the hundredth time, that she wanted to move - to Adelaide, Perth or Perth Amboy, if that worked.She had always felt that she should be somewhere else; but while she could live comfortably on the money her insurance company gave her, she could not afford luxuries.She couldn't afford to travel the world aimlessly in search of places that would satisfy her lost sense of belonging.She'd watched enough TV, she'd rented enough travel documentaries, that she knew the VCR hadn't shown anything that made her feel more right than Sydney.

Since the car accident that stole her memories, she feels frozen and in a standstill—and her lost memories are not just of a dead family that means nothing to her now, but of how the stove was. how it works.She suspected, no, she knew that whatever her heart was waiting for, whatever the necessary key to keep her life going, it must be something else that the hit-and-run van took.She thought about it almost every morning, trying to guess what was missing, missing, missing in her life and her psyche.

Someone rang her doorbell.

She let out a groan and turned her head enough to look at the digital alarm clock next to her bed.It reads 6:31 and the "am" light is on.honestly?Well, then, let the idiot wait while she gets up at her own pace.

Ignoring the doorbell ringing again, she staggered out of bed, walked into the bathroom, and put on her clothes.

She stumbled down the stairs, ignoring the feeling that someone else should answer the door for her. "Who's there?" she said to the closed door; there was a hole in it, but it was blurred.

"Are you Nancy Mason?" said a woman with a clear Scottish accent.

"Yes," she replied cautiously.

"The River of Remembrance [4]," said the Scottish accent, and Nancy jumped back in surprise as a light hit her from the door, and...

Nancy swayed, putting her hand to her forehead.The light simply goes through the door and hits the person, it's... this... it's not really that surprising...

"Can you open the door?" said the Scotch woman. "The war is over, and your memory should come back soon. Someone deserves to see you."

my memory--

Nancy's head began to feel blocked, like she was about to start knocking something out of her brain, but she struggled to reach out and yank the door open.

In front of her was a woman dressed like a (perfectly normal) witch, both in black robes and tall pointed hats—

—and the boy standing next to her, with short platinum-blonde hair and a (perfectly normal) black robe with green trim, stared at her dumbfounded, tears starting to well up in his eyes.

Green-trimmed robes and platinum-blonde hair...

Something warm stirred her memory.She felt her heart rise to her throat as she realized that what she had been looking for for the past ten years might be right in front of her right now.Somewhere deep inside her, the ice around her heart shattered, a part of herself that had stagnated for so long was ready to move on again.

The boy stared at her, his mouth moving soundlessly.

A cryptic name entered her mind, gushing from her lips.

"Lucius?" she whispered.

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[1]特里·普拉切特（TerryPratchett）是著名幻想小说作家，主要作品有《碟形世界》系列。作者发布本章时正逢普拉切特辞世。详见：//zh.wikipedia/wiki/%E6%B3%B0%E7%91%9E%C2%B7%E6%99%AE%E8%90%8A%E5%A5%91

[2] The author has written an article on how to create intelligent characters, see: yudkowsky.tumblr/writing

[3] About the plot characters to understand the plot old stalk (Genre-savviness), see: tvtropes/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy

[4] Memory River Returns (Eunoe): Original spell.The original meaning is the river mentioned in Dante's "Divine Comedy". People are baptized by the Eunoe River after death, and the good memories will be enhanced. See: //en.wikipedia/wiki/Eunoe