Harry Potter and the Way of Reason

Painfully dazed, that's how Harry felt when he stepped off Platform Nine and Three Quarters and into the rest of the Earth, which he had once thought was the only real world.People wore casual shirts and trousers rather than the solemn robes of wizards and witches.Litter littered on benches everywhere.The air was filled with the long-lost smell of burnt gasoline, very pungent.The atmosphere at King's Cross Station was not as bright and cheerful as Hogwarts and Diagon Alley; the people here seemed smaller and more timid, as if they would rather fight a dark wizard than face their own problems.Harry wanted to dust off the chairs, he wanted to get the rubbish out, and if he knew how to use the Head Buff Charm, he wanted to cast the Blow Head Charm so he wouldn't have to breathe the air.But in this place, he can't use a wand...

This, Harry realized, must have felt like coming from a first-world country to a third-world one.

It's just that Harry comes from World Zero, the magical world of cleansing spells and house-elves; where, with magical medicine and its own magic, people don't really start to age until they're 170.

Harry temporarily returned to Muggle Earth, London without magic.Mum and Dad would be here for the rest of their lives, unless there was a leap in technology that made life better for Muggles than wizards, or the world changed more profoundly.

Harry couldn't help looking back at the wooden box following him.The Muggles couldn't notice the box, and the claw-like tentacles protruding from the bottom of the box immediately confirmed that, yes, all this was not in his imagination...

There was another reason for the tightness in his chest.

His parents don't know.

They don't know anything.

they do not know……

"Harry?" a slender woman with blond hair and blue eyes called, her perfectly smooth skin made her look much younger than her 33 years; Harry jumped a little, realizing that this was indeed magic, which he hadn't recognized before. signs, but now he recognized them.No matter what kind of potion, if it has such a long-term effect, it must be extremely dangerous; because most witches would not do this to themselves, they are not so desperate...

Tears welled up in Harry's eyes.

"Harry?" an older-looking man called.He had already begun to grow a belly, a black vest was casually covered over a gray-green shirt, and his attire revealed a strong academic casualness.The man was a professor wherever he went.Had he had two copies of the magic gene instead of zero, he would undoubtedly have been one of the most talented wizards of his generation...

Harry waved to them.He couldn't speak.Completely speechless.

They came towards him with a steady, stately step, not a run; such was the speed of Professor Mike Evans-Verres, and Mrs. Petunia Evans-Verres had no intention of getting ahead of her husband.

His father didn't smile much, but his father never laughed; at least, Harry had never seen a wider smile, not when new research funding came in, or when students got jobs. smile, so he couldn't have asked for a bigger smile.

Mom was blinking desperately to hold back the tears. She tried to smile, but didn't succeed.

"Speaking of which," his father said as he strode over, "have you made any revolutionary discoveries?"

Of course Dad thought he was joking.

When his parents didn't look down on him before, he didn't feel so painful, because at that time, no one looked down on him, and Harry didn't know that he was surrounded by Principal Dumbledore and Quirrell. What it's like to teach someone like that seriously.

That's when Harry realizes that the Boy Who Lived only exists in magical Britain, there's no such thing as Muggle Britain, he's just a sweet 11-year-old boy coming home for Christmas.

"Sorry," said Harry, his voice shaking, "I'm going to cry now, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the school."

Harry started to move forward, then stopped, torn between embracing his father and his mother, not wanting either of them to be left out, or to be mistaken for the fact that Harry loved the other more—

"You," said his father, "are a silly boy, Mr. Verres," and gently took Harry's shoulders and pushed him into his mother's arms, where she was half kneeling on the ground, tears running down her cheeks. Roll straight down.

"Hi, Mom," Harry said in a trembling voice, "I'm back." He hugged her amidst the din of machines and the smell of burnt petrol, and began to cry because he knew nothing could ever come back, especially He will never come back.

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It was dark and the stars were starting to appear by the time they followed the Christmas traffic back to the university town of Oxford and parked in the driveway in front of the house; the small, old house the family used to shelter their books from the wind and rain place.

They walked down the short passage leading to the front door, past a row of flowerpots filled with small, dim electric lights (the lights didn't work because they were powered by the sun's opened.The hardest part was finding a motion sensor that wasn't afraid of water and would trigger at the right distance...

There are real torches at Hogwarts that do just that.

The front door opened, and Harry stepped into the living room, trying to hold back his tears.

Every inch of space on the wall is covered by bookshelves.Each bookshelf has six levels, almost reaching the ceiling.Some shelves were brimming with hardcover volumes: science, math, history, whatever.Other shelves hold two tiers of paperback science fiction, with the back tiers padded with old tissue boxes or wooden blocks so that titles in the back row can be seen over the books in the front row.But still can't let go.There are piles of books on the table and on the sofa, and there are small piles of books under the windows.

The Verres house is exactly the same as when he left, only with more books, and the trend is exactly the same as when he left.

There is a Christmas tree in the living room, and it will be Christmas in two days. The tree is still bare without any decorations. After a moment of surprise, Harry understands that of course his parents are waiting for him, which breaks his heart A burst of warmth.

"We moved the bed out of your room to make room for more bookshelves," his father said. "You can sleep in your box, can't you?"

"You can sleep in my trunk," said Harry.

"Speaking of which," his father asked, "what the hell do they do with your sleep cycle?"

"Magic," said Harry, heading straight for the bedroom, just in case Dad wasn't joking...

"What kind of explanation is that!" said Professor Evans-Verys, and Harry shouted at the same time, "You've used up all the space on my bookshelf?"

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On December 23rd, Harry spent all day shopping for Muggle products that he couldn't directly transform into; his dad was busy and told Harry he had to walk or take the bus, which was fine with Harry.Someone in the hardware store looked at Harry suspiciously, but he explained in an innocent voice that Dad was shopping nearby and there was too much to do, so he was sent to do some shopping (while holding up a card with imitation grown-up handwriting Caution scribbled shopping lists); and, in the end, business is business.

The family decorated the tree together, and Harry put a dancing fairy on top (two Sickle-five Knuts, bought at Hoppy and Fromp's Magic Joke Shop).

Gringotts happily exchanged gold coins for paper money, but there seemed to be no easy way for them to convert large quantities of gold into tax-free, clean-source Muggle currency and store it in a Swiss bank account.So Harry's plan to steal his own money into 60% of international index funds and 40% of Berkshire Hathaway's stock is considered bankrupt. [1] For now, Harry has diversified his fortune a bit: after reversing time, he slipped out of the house wearing an invisibility cloak and buried a hundred Galleons in the backyard.Anyway, Harry had always wanted to do it.

On December 24th, the professor spent some time reading Harry's textbook and asking some questions.Most of the experiments his father suggested were difficult, at least not yet realistic; for the rest, Harry tried many (“Yes, Dad, I tested making Hermione Learning to spell out the pronunciation, that was my first experiment, Dad!")

Then Harry's father looked up from Magic Potions and Potions with a confused and disgusted look on his face, and asked one final question: Would it be easy to understand if you were a wizard; Harry replied, no .

So his father declared that magic was unscientific.

Harry was still a little appalled at this way of thinking about pointing at a part of reality and calling it unscientific.Dad seemed to think that if his instincts were contradicting the universe, it was the universe that was at fault.

(But then again, there are also plenty of physicists who think quantum mechanics is weird, not that quantum mechanics is normal, and that's weird for them.)

Harry shows Mum the first aid kit he bought for the family, even though most potions don't work for Dad.The way Mom looked at the first aid kit made Harry wonder if Mom's sister never bought them for Grandpa Edwin and Grandma Elaine.When Mum was still silent, Harry hastened to explain that she must not have thought of it.Then, finally, he escaped from the room.

Lily Evans may not have thought of it, but here is the sad part.Harry knew that other people automatically avoided thinking about painful questions, just as they automatically avoided putting their hands on a hot fire; Harry began to suspect that most Muggle-born wizards would soon become accustomed to Don't think about their families, anyway, they will all die before they are a hundred years old.

Of course, Harry would never let this happen.

Then, on the afternoon of December 24, they drove off to a Christmas Eve dinner.

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The house is huge, unremarkable by Hogwarts standards, but definitely huge if your father was a brilliant university professor trying to survive at Oxford.The two-story brick building gleamed in the setting sun, with windows stacked one upon another, floor-to-ceiling windows dangerously high, suggesting that the living room must be monstrously large...  

Harry took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

A call came from a distance, "Honey, can you go and open the door?"

Then came the sound of slowly approaching footsteps.

Then the door opened, and there stood a kindly man with ruddy plump cheeks and thinning hair, in a blue shirt with buttons at the collar, and the seams were a little taut.

"Dr. Granger?" Harry's father said briskly before Harry could speak. "I'm Mike, and this is Petunia and our son Harry. The food is in the magic box," Dad pointed vaguely behind him. ——It’s not actually the direction where the box is.

"Ah, come in," said Leo Granger.He stepped forward, took a bottle of wine from the professor, murmured "thank you," and stepped back, waving towards the living room. "Sit down, please. By the way," he said, looking down at Harry, "all the toys are downstairs in the basement, and I'm sure Minmin will be down soon. It's the first door on your right," he pointed to a corridor.

Harry watched him for a moment before realizing that he had blocked the door and his parents couldn't get in.

"Toys?" Harry opened his eyes and said loudly, lively, "Toys are my favorite!"

His mother gasped behind him.Harry strode into the house, refraining from stamping the floor too loudly as he walked.

The living room was as big as it looked from the outside. A huge crystal chandelier hung from the huge vaulted roof. The Christmas tree obviously took a lot of effort to squeeze in through the door.The lower part of the tree is carefully decorated in red, green and gold patterns, with occasional blue and copper dots; gold leaf.The corridor stretches into the distance, leading to a cabinet in the kitchen, and the wooden stairs with metal railings lead to the second floor.

"My God!" said Harry, "such a big house! I can't get lost!"

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As dinner time approached, Dr. Roberta Granger was feeling quite nervous.The turkey and roast, which they took on at this co-produced dinner, are now roasting in the oven; their guests, the Verezs, will bring the rest.The boy adopted by the Vires couple is named Harry, who is also known as the Boy Who Lived in the wizarding world. He is also the only boy Hermione said was "cute", and it can even be said to be the only boy she has ever noticed.

According to the Verreses, their son has never acknowledged the existence of any other children of his age in any way other than Hermione.

It may be too early to draw conclusions, but both parents secretly suspect that there may be a wedding in a few years' time.

So, despite the traditional Christmas gathering with her husband's family, they decided to meet their daughter's potential future in-laws on Christmas Eve.

While she was basting the turkey, the doorbell rang, and she raised her voice, "Will you open the door, my dear?"

There was a short groan from the chair, and a groan from the occupant as he got up; and then the heavy step of her husband, and the door swung open.

"Dr. Granger?" said an older man briskly. "I'm Mike, and this is Petunia and our son Harry. The food is in the magic box."

"Ah, please come in," said her husband, then murmured a "thank you," indicating he had accepted a gift of some kind, and "sit down, please." Then Leo said in a tone of deliberately excited, "all the toys are in Downstairs in the basement, I'm sure Minmin will be down soon. It's the first door on your right."

A brief pause.

Then a little boy said in a lively voice, "Toys? My favorite toys!"

Then came the sound of footsteps entering the house, and the lively voice said, "My God! Such a big house! I can't get lost!"

Roberta turned off the oven and began to smile.Hermione's description of the Boy Who Lived in her letters worried her a little - her daughter certainly hadn't said anything to suggest that Harry Potter was dangerous; The gloomy hints in those books bought in the name of theHer daughter didn't really say much, except that Harry talked like someone in a book and that she was working harder than ever to stay ahead of the schoolwork.But from the sound of it, Harry Potter is just an ordinary 11-year-old kid.

When she got to the front door, her daughter was racing down the stairs at a speed she thought was really unsafe, and Hermione claimed that witches were less afraid of falling, but Roberta didn't quite believe it—

When Roberta first saw Professor Verres and Mrs. Verres, both of them looked very nervous. The boy with the legendary scar on his forehead was turning to her daughter and said in a relatively low voice, "Very It's an honor to call on you on such a beautiful evening, Miss Granger." He stretched his hand back as if to present his parents to her on a silver platter, "allow me to introduce you to my father , Professor Mike Evans-Verres, and my mother, Mrs. Petunia Evans-Verres."

While Roberta was dumbfounded, the boy turned to his parents and said in that lively voice again, "Mum, Dad, this is Hermione! She's smart!"

"Harry!" her daughter warned in a low voice, "Stop it!"

The boy turned around again to greet Hermione. "I'm afraid, Miss Granger," said the boy solemnly, "that you and I have been banished deep into the labyrinthine depths of the basement. Let us not disturb their grown-up conversations, which will undoubtedly far exceed our immature Let’s continue to discuss the significance of Hume’s projectionism to transfiguration.”[2]

"Sorry," said her daughter in a very determined tone, grabbing the boy by the left sleeve and pulling him into the corridor - Roberta turned involuntarily and watched them pass her, the boy happy waved at her - and Hermione pulled the boy into the basement, where the door slammed shut.

"I, oh, I'm sorry..." Mrs. Verres stammered.

"I'm sorry," said the professor with a loving smile, "Harry's sensitive about things like that. But I think he's right to think we're not going to be interested in what they're talking about."

is he dangerousRoberta really wanted to ask this question, but she didn't say anything, thinking about how to find a more cryptic way to ask this question.Beside her, her husband was giggling, as if he thought the situation was amusing rather than scary.

The most terrifying Dark Lord ever tried to kill the boy, only to find himself a charred corpse beside the crib.

And he might be her future son-in-law.

Roberta is getting more and more apprehensive about sending her daughter to the wizarding world - especially after reading the books and putting the dates together, she realizes that her witch mother was probably killed at the height of Grindelwald's terror Instead of dying of dystocia as my father said.But Professor McGonagall came back several times after his first visit, to "see how Miss Granger was doing", and Roberta couldn't help but wonder if Hermione was talking about her parents interfering with her becoming a witch. If so, they may take some action to solve this problem...

Roberta put on the biggest smile on her face, trying to spread some fake Christmas cheer.

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The dining-room table was long, and there was room for six people—well, four adults and two children—but the whole table was covered with crisp white linen, and the plates were replaced, unnecessarily, with finer ones. Dinner plates, but at least they're still stainless steel instead of real silver.

Harry had a hard time concentrating on the turkey.

The conversation turned naturally to Hogwarts; Harry noticed that his parents were clearly hoping that Hermione would slip up and tell them something about the school that Harry hadn't told the family.And Hermione may be aware of this, or maybe she's just avoiding all possible troublesome topics automatically.

So Harry was out of trouble.

Unfortunately, however, Harry made the mistake of writing to his parents all sorts of things that Hermione hadn't told her own parents.

For example, she served as a general in an army in after-school activities.

Hermione's mother looked terribly worried, so Harry interrupted the conversation quickly, trying to explain that the spells in battle were just passing out, and that Professor Quirrell was always supervising, and that the existence of magical healing meant a lot of things. Far less dangerous than it sounded, Hermione kicked him hard under the table.Luckily, Harry had to admit that his father was better than he was in some ways; he said, with that undeniable firmness characteristic of a professor, that he wasn't worried at all, because he couldn't imagine that Hogwarts would still be there if there was any danger. Children will be allowed to participate.

Still, that wasn't why Harry had a hard time enjoying the meal.

… The problem with self-pity is that you can always spot someone in a worse situation than you right away.

At one point in the conversation Dr. Leo Granger asked if the genial teacher who seemed to like Hermione, Professor McGonagall, had awarded her many house points at school.

Hermione replied yes, with what seemed to be a genuine smile on her face.

Harry had a hard time refraining from pointing out coldly that Professor McGonagall was never partial to any Hogwarts student, and that the reason Hermione got so many house points was because she earned every one of them.

Another time, Dr. Leo Granger commented to the dinner table that Hermione was smart and would have gone to medical school and become a dentist if she hadn't been a witch.

Hermione smiled again, and gave Harry a quick wink, so he couldn't refute that Hermione might become a world-famous scientist, and asked if Hermione was a son instead of a daughter, what would the Grangers have done? Will they be aware of this, or that their descendants will not be able to surpass them anyway.

But Harry was approaching the boiling point very quickly.

And began to be doubly grateful, because his own father had been so supportive of Harry's development as a prodigy, always encouraging him to strive for higher goals, and never belittling any of his achievements, even though the prodigy was just a child.Would he have grown up in such a family if his mother had married Vernon Darsley?

Still, Harry was trying to bear it.

"Is she really better than you in every subject except broomstick flying and transfiguration?" asked Professor Mike Evans-Verys.

"Yes," said Harry with forced calm, and sliced ​​off another piece of Christmas turkey. "She's a lot better than me in most subjects." At any other time, Harry might not have admitted it so readily, which is why he hasn't told Dad about it yet.

"Hermione has always done well in school," said Dr. Leo Granger in a satisfied tone.

"Harry can compete at national level!" said Professor Mike Evans-Verres.

"Honey!" said Petunia.

Hermione was giggling, which didn't make Harry feel any better about her situation at all.She didn't seem to care at all, and Harry cared a lot about it. "I'm not ashamed to lose to her, Dad," said Harry.At least not at the moment. "Did I tell you that she memorized the entire textbook before the first class? And yes, I tested it."

"Is she, ah, usually like this?" Professor Mike Evans-Verres asked the Grangers.

"Well, yes, Hermione has a very good memory," said Dr. Roberta Granger with a happy smile. "She remembers all the recipes in every cookbook I have. Every time I cook, I remember everything." miss her."

From the look on his father's face, Dad felt at least part of what Harry was feeling.

"Don't worry, Dad," Harry said, "she has all kinds of advanced learning materials to meet her learning needs now. Her teachers at Hogwarts know that she is very bright, unlike her parents." !"

His voice rose as he spoke the last few words.All faces turned to stare at him, and Hermione kicked him again.Harry knew he screwed up, but it was too much, too much.

"Of course we know she's smart," said Leo Granger, looking offended by the child who had the audacity to speak harshly at their dinner table.

"You don't know anything," said Harry, his voice becoming icy. "You think she reads a lot, which is cute, don't you? You see the perfect report card and think, yes, she studies very well." Well. Your daughter is the most talented witch of her generation, the brightest star at Hogwarts, and one day, Dr. Granger and Dr. Granger, the only reason history will remember you is because you are her parents!"

Hermione rose calmly from her seat and walked around the table, choosing this moment to grab Harry's clothes by the shoulders and drag him away from the chair.Harry didn't fight back, but when Hermione pulled him away, his voice grew louder, "Probably in 1000 years from now, the only reason people remember being a dentist is that Hermione Granger's parents Used to be a dentist!"

Roberta stared at her daughter as she pulled the Boy Who Lived out of the room with a patient look on her immature face.

"I'm very, very sorry," said Professor Verres with a pleasant smile, "but don't worry, Harry talks like this all the time. Don't they already look like a couple?"

The scary part is that they really look alike.

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Harry expected Hermione to give him a tough reprimand.

But when Hermione pulled him into the basement, closed the door behind him, and turned around—

—she was smiling, and it seemed to Harry that it was a smile that was entirely from the heart.

"Please don't, Harry," she said softly, "though I'm grateful. It's all right."

Harry just looked at her. "How can you bear it?" he said.He had to lower his voice because he didn't want their parents to hear, but his pitch rose nonetheless. "How can you stand it?"

Hermione shrugged and said, "Because that's how parents are supposed to be?"

"No," Harry whispered fiercely, "not at all, my father never underestimated me - well, he did, but definitely not like that -"

Hermione held up a finger, and Harry waited, watching her search for the appropriate words in his mind.After a while, she finally said, "Harry...Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick like me because I am the most talented witch of this generation and the brightest star at Hogwarts. Mom and Dad don't like me." Knowing this, you'd never be able to tell them, but they'd love me no matter what. That means everything is the way it should be, at Hogwarts, and at home. And they're My parents, Mr. Potter, so you are not allowed to argue." She showed her mysterious dinner smile again, looking at Harry tenderly. "Is that clear, Mr. Potter?"

Harry nodded reluctantly.

"Fine," said Hermione, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek.



Just when the conversation had just resumed, there was a sudden scream in the distance.

"Hi! No kissing!"

The two fathers laughed, and the two mothers stood up from their chairs and rushed to the basement with identical expressions of horror.

When the children were brought back to the dining room, Hermione said in icy tones that she would never kiss Harry again, and Harry huffed back that she would kiss him before the sun burned to a cold ashes. Don't try to get that close to him again, so she won't have another chance.

That meant everything was as it should be, and they sat down together to finish the Christmas dinner.

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[1］伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司：著名的投资人沃伦·巴菲特于1956年创建，主营保险业务的公司。根据baike.baidu/view/6246936.htm：“如果你在1956年把一万美元交给沃伦·爱德华·巴菲特，今天它就会变成2.7亿美元。”

[2] Hume's Projectionism: A philosophical thought of David Hume (baike.baidu/view/163463.htm): "It is well known that the brain has a characteristic of projecting itself onto external objects, which will cause Internal impressions are associated with the external objects themselves, and whenever these external objects are perceived by the senses, the internal impressions are simultaneously present.” en.wikipedia/wiki/Projectivism