Harry Potter and the Way of Reason

Harry, holding his teacup in the exact way Professor Quirrell had taught him three times, took a small, careful sip.At the other end of the long, wide table in the center of Mary's room, Professor Quirrell looked far more natural and elegant, sipping from his glass.The name of the tea Harry couldn't pronounce, or at least, every time Harry tried to repeat the Chinese characters, Professor Quirrell would correct him, until finally Harry gave up.

Professor Quirrell hadn't stopped Harry, who had deftly allowed himself a glance at the bill last time.

He had the urge to drink joke tea before.

Even taking this into account, Harry was genuinely taken aback.

And to him, it still tasted like, uh, tea.

There was a faint skeptical voice in Harry's head, and Professor Quirrell knew it, and he deliberately bought tea that Harry couldn't appreciate and was outrageously expensive, just to make fun of him.Professor Quirrell himself may not be that fond of drinking.Maybe no one really likes the tea, the point of it is that it's ridiculously expensive and makes victims feel like they can't taste it.Actually, maybe it really is just regular tea, it's just that if you order it with another code name, they fake a huge price on the bill...

Professor Quirrell had a pensive look on his tired expression. "No," said Professor Quirrell, "you shouldn't have told the Headmaster about your conversation with Lord Malfoy. Try to think faster next time, Mr. Potter."

"I'm sorry, Professor Quirrell," Harry said meekly, "I still don't understand." There were many times when Harry felt like a liar, pretending to be smart in front of Professor Quirrell.

"Mr. Malfoy is Dumbledore's enemy," said Professor Quirrell, "at least for now. The whole of England is their chessboard, and all wizards are pawns. Consider this: Mr. Malfoy threatens that as long as Mr. Malfoy is injured , he will give up everything, abandon the chess game to take revenge on you. In this case, Mr. Potter...?"

It took Harry a while to grasp the implications, but apparently Professor Quirrell wasn't going to give any more clues - not that Harry wanted to.

Then Harry finally figured out the relationship, frowned, and said, "Dumbledore kills Draco, makes it look like I did it, so that Lucius will abandon his relationship with Dumbledore." Turning his game against me? That... doesn't seem very Headmaster's style, Professor Quirrell..." Harry's mind flashed a similar warning from Draco, who had said the same thing at the time.

Professor Quirrell shrugged and took a sip of his tea.

Harry took a sip of his tea and sat in silence.The neatly patterned tablecloth spread over the table looks like a normal cloth at first, but if you stare at it long enough, or stay silent long enough, you start to see a set of thin lines Embroidered flowers glowed faintly; the room's drapes, transformed into matching patterns, shone in the still breeze.It looked like Professor Quirrell was brooding this Saturday, as did Harry, and Mary's room didn't seem to be ignoring that.

"Professor Quirrell," Harry said suddenly, "does the world exist after death?"

Harry chose his questions carefully.Don't you believe in the existence of an afterlife?But does the afterlife exist only?What people really believe is no longer a belief to them.People don't say, "I absolutely believe the sky is blue!" They just say, "The sky is blue."What does your inner picture of the world look like, you will feel that the inner picture of the world is what the world itself looks like...

The Defense Professor raised his cup to his lips, and replied with a thoughtful expression: "If there is, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell, "then there are many wizards who have wasted a great deal of energy in the pursuit of immortality."

"That's not really an answer," Harry commented.He had now learned to pay attention to such things when talking to Professor Quirrell.

Professor Quirrell returned his teacup to the saucer with a small crisp clink. "Some of these wizards are quite clever, Mr. Potter, so you can understand that the existence of the afterlife is not obvious. I have done some research myself. There are many claims made out of hope and fear. dubious reports, and nothing that cannot be induced by mere magic. There are said to be certain devices that can communicate with the dead, but I suspect that these can only create projections in the mind; the results seem indistinguishable from memories, because the It's memory. The so-called spirits don't tell any secrets they knew in life, and don't learn after death, don't know anything that the controller doesn't know-"

"That's why the Resurrection Stone isn't the most precious magical artifact in the world," said Harry.

"Exactly," said Professor Quirrell, "but I wouldn't say no to trying it out." His lips curled into a thin, dry smile; his eyes were colder and more distant. "So you talked to Dumbledore too."

Harry nodded.

The curtains were stained a shade of light blue, and the tablecloth was embroidered with light and delicate snowflakes.Professor Quirrell's voice sounded very calm. "The headmaster can be very persuasive, Mr Potter, and I hope he hasn't convinced you."

"Tch, of course not," said Harry, "didn't fool me for a second."

"I hope not," said Professor Quirrell, his voice still very calm. "I would be extremely annoyed if I found out that the headmaster had persuaded you to throw life away for some stupid scheme by telling you that death was the next great adventure."

"Actually, I don't think the Headmaster himself believed it," said Harry, taking another sip of his tea. "He asked me what I could do if I lived forever, and told me that it would be boring and stuff like that. lines, and he doesn't seem to see any inconsistency between that and his own insistence on immortality. In fact, he gave me a long rant about how bad it is to want to live forever before claiming it. I don't I can imagine what's going on in his mind, but I don't think he really has a concept in his mind that he will exist forever in the world after death..."

The temperature in the house seemed to be starting to drop.

"You think," said a voice as cold as ice from the other end of the table, "that Dumbledore didn't really believe what he said. He didn't compromise his principles, he didn't have them in the first place. You Becoming cynical already, Mr Potter?"

Harry looked down at his teacup. "One thing," said Harry, staring at his cup of possibly extremely high-quality, or outrageously expensive, Chinese tea, "I do get a little frustrated about... what the hell is going on in people's minds."

"Yes," said the icy voice, "I find that frustrating too."

"Is there any way to get people to stop doing that?" Harry said into his teacup.

"There is indeed a useful spell that can solve this problem."

Harry looked up hopefully to see a cold, grim smile on the Defense Professor's face.

Then Harry understood. "I mean, except for Avada Kedavra."

The Defense Professor laughed.Harry didn't.

"Anyway," said Harry hastily, "I thought too much about it and didn't give Dumbledore the most obvious suggestion about the Resurrection Stone. You've seen one with a triangle drawn on it, and a circle inside the triangle. , is there a threaded stone in the circle?"

The deathly chill seemed to withdraw, the folds folded, and the usual Professor Quirrell returned. "I have no recollection," said Professor Quirrell after a moment, then frowned thoughtfully. "Is that the Resurrection Stone?"

Harry put the teacup aside and drew the symbol he had seen in his Invisibility Cloak on the saucer.Then, before Harry could pull out his wand and cast a Levitation Charm, the saucer floated eagerly towards Professor Quirrell across the table.Harry really wanted to learn wandless magic, but that was obviously way ahead of his current course.

Professor Quirrell looked carefully at Harry's saucer for a while, then shook his head; after a while, the saucer floated back to Harry's side.

Harry put the teacup back on the saucer, absently noticing that the symbol he had drawn earlier had disappeared. "If you happen to see a stone with this symbol on it," said Harry, "and it does talk to spirits in the afterlife, do let me know. I have a few questions for Merlin, or whoever lives in Asia. People near Atlantis."

"Sure." Professor Quirrell said.Then the defense professor raised his teacup again, and drank it down as if he was going to empty it. "By the way, Mr. Potter, I'm afraid we're going to end our trip to Diagon Alley early today. I had hoped to—forget it. Suffice it to say that I have other things to do this afternoon."

Harry nodded, drank his tea, and stood up with Professor Quirrell.

"One last question," Harry said.Professor Quirrell's coat floated from the coat rack by itself, and flew towards Professor Defense. "Because there is magic in the world, I no longer believe in my conjectures like I did at first. So in your most objective and reasonable speculation, without any wishful thinking, do you believe in the existence of the afterlife?"

"If I believe it, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell as he put on his coat, "will I still be here?"