trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Chapter 105: The Truth, Pt 2
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2015-03-14T19:00:57.357Z

Tom Riddle.

The words seemed to echo inside Harry's head, sparking resonances that as quickly died away, broken patterns trying to complete themselves and failing.

Tom Riddle is a

Tom Riddle was the

Riddle

There were other priorities occupying Harry's attention.

Professor Quirrell was pointing a gun at him.

And for some reason Lord Voldemort hadn't fired it yet.

Harry's voice came out in more of a croak. "What is it that you want from me?"

"Your death," said Professor Quirrell, "is clearly not what I am about to say, since I have had plenty of time to kill you if I wished. The fateful battle between Lord Voldemort and the Boy-Who-Lived is a figment of Dumbledore's imagination. I know where to find your family's house in Oxford, and I am familiar with the concept of sniper rifles. You would have died before you ever touched a wand. I hope this is clear to you, Tom?"

"Crystal," Harry whispered. His body was still shaking, running programs more suited to fleeing a tiger than casting delicate spells or thinking. But Harry could think of one thing the person pointing a gun at him obviously wanted him to do, a question that person was waiting for him to ask, and Harry did so. "Why are you calling me Tom?"

Professor Quirrell regarded him steadily. "Why am I calling you Tom? Answer. Your intellect is not everything I hoped for, but it should suffice for this."

Harry's mouth seemed to know the answer before his brain could manage to focus on the question. "Tom Riddle is your name. Our name. That's who Lord Voldemort is, or was, or - something."

Professor Quirrell nodded. "Better. You have already vanquished the Dark Lord, the one and only time that you will ever do so. I have already destroyed all but a remnant of Harry Potter, eliminating the difference between our spirits and enabling us to reside in the same world. Now that it is clear to you that the battle between us is a lie, you might act sensibly to advance your own interests. Or you might not." The gun jabbed slightly forward, causing prickles of sweat to appear on Harry's forehead. "Drop your wand. Now."

Harry dropped it.

"Step away from the wand," said Professor Quirrell.

Harry obeyed.

"Reach toward your neck," said Professor Quirrell, "and remove your Time-Turner, touching it by the chain only. Place the Time-Turner on the ground, then step away from it as well."

This also Harry did. Even in his state of shock, his mind st

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Chapter 19: Delayed Gratification
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2015-03-14T19:00:56.265Z

Blood for the blood god! Skulls for J. K. Rowling!

Draco had a stern expression on his face, and his green-trimmed robes somehow looked far more formal, serious, and well-turned-out than the same exact robes as worn by the two boys behind him.

"Talk," said Draco.

"Yeah! Talk!"

"You heard da boss! Talk!"

"You two, on the other hand, shut up."

The last session of classes on Friday was about to start, in that vast auditorium where all four Houses learned Defense, er, Battle Magic.

The last session of classes on Friday.

Harry was hoping that this class would be non-stressful, and that the brilliant Professor Quirrell would realize this was perhaps not the best time to single out Harry for anything. Harry had recovered a little, but...

...but just in case, it was probably best to get in a bit of stress relief first.

Harry leaned back in his chair and bestowed a look of great solemnity upon Draco and his minions.

"You ask, what is our aim?" Harry declaimed. "I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no -"

"Talk about Snape," Draco hissed. "What did you do?"

Harry wiped away the fake solemnity and gave Draco a more serious look.

"You saw it," Harry said. "Everyone saw it. I snapped my fingers."

"Harry! Stop teasing me!"

So he'd been promoted to Harry now. Interesting. And in fact Harry was fairly sure that he was meant to notice that, and feel bad if he didn't respond somehow...

Harry tapped his ears and gave a significant glance at the minions.

"They won't talk," said Draco.

"Draco," Harry said, "I'm going to be one hundred percent honest here and say that yesterday I was not particularly impressed with Mr. Goyle's cunning."

Mr. Goyle winced.

"Me neither," said Draco. "I explained to him that I ended up owing you a favor because of it." (Mr. Goyle winced again.) "But there is a big difference between that sort of mistake and being indiscreet. That really is something they've been trained from childhood to understand."

"All right then," Harry said. He lowered his voice, even though the background noises had gone to blurs in Draco's presence. "I deduced one of Severus's secrets and did a bit of blackmail."

Draco's expression hardened. "Good, now tell me something you didn't tell in strict confidence to the idiots in Gryffindor, meaning that was the story you

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Chapter 51: Title Redacted, Pt 1
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2015-03-14T19:00:56.175Z

Saturday.

Harry had run into trouble falling asleep Friday night, which he had anticipated might happen, and so he had decided to take the obvious advance precaution of buying a sleeping potion; and to prevent it from constituting a visible sign that he was nervous, he had decided to buy it off Fred and George a couple of months earlier. (Be prepared, that's the Boy Scout's marching song...)

Thus Harry was fully rested, and his pouch contained almost everything which he owned and might conceivably need. Harry had, in fact, run into the volume limitation on the pouch; and keeping in mind that he would need to store a large snake, and might need to store who-knew-what-else, he had removed some of the bulkier items, like the car battery. He was up to the point now where he could Transfigure something the size of a car battery in four minutes flat, so it wasn't much of a loss.

Harry had kept the emergency flares and the oxyacetylene welding torch and fuel tank, since you couldn't just Transfigure things that were to be burned.

(Be prepared, as through life you march along...)

Mary's Place.

After the waitress had taken their order and bowed to them and left the room, Professor Quirrell had performed only four Charms, and then they'd talked about nothing of any vast consequence, just Professor Quirrell's complex thesis about how the Dark Lord's curse on the Defense position had led to the decline of dueling and how this had changed social customs in magical Britain. Harry listened and nodded and said intelligent things, while he tried to control the pounding of his heart.

Then the waitress came in again bearing their food, and this time, a minute after the waitress had departed, Professor Quirrell gestured for the door to close and lock, and began to speak twenty-nine security Charms, one of the ones in Mr. Bester's sequence being left out this time, which somewhat puzzled Harry.

Professor Quirrell finished his Charms -

- stood up from his chair -

- blurred into a green snake, banded in blue and white -

- hissed, "Hungry, boy? Eat your fill sswiftly, we sshall need both sstrength and time."

Harry's eyes were a bit wide, but he hissed, "I ate well at breakfasst," and then rapidly began forking noodles into his mouth.

The snake watched him for a moment, with those flat eyes, and then hissed, "Do not wissh to explain here. Prefer to be elssewhere firsst. Need to leave unobsserved

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Chapter 44: Humanism, Pt 2
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2015-03-14T19:00:55.943Z

"Fawkes," said Albus Dumbledore, his voice cracking, "help him, please -"

A brilliant creature of red-gold shuffled into the field of vision, looking down quizzically; and it began to croon.

The meaningless chirps slid off the emptiness, there was nothing onto which they could hold.

"You're noisy," said the voice, "you should die."

"Chocolate," Albus Dumbledore said, "you need chocolate, and your friends - but I dare not take you back -"

Then a shining raven came, and spoke in Professor Flitwick's voice; whereupon Albus Dumbledore gasped in sudden comprehension, and cursed aloud at his own stupidity.

The empty thing laughed at that, for it had retained the capacity to be amused.

And a moment later they had all vanished in another flash of fire.

It was only a moment, it seemed, between when Flitwick's raven had flown to elsewhere, and when Albus Dumbledore reappeared in another crack of red and golden fire with Harry in his arms; but somehow in that time Hermione had already managed to fill her hands with chocolate.

Before Hermione even got there, chocolate had zoomed off the table and straight into Harry's mouth, which a tiny part of her mind said was unfair, he'd gotten a chance to do it for her -

Harry spat the chocolate back out again.

"Go away," said a voice so empty it wasn't even cold.

...

Everything seemed to freeze, everyone who had been moving toward Harry halted, all movements broken by the shock of those two dead words.

Then: "No," said Albus Dumbledore, "I will not," and time resumed again, even as another piece of chocolate zoomed off the table and into Harry's mouth.

Hermione was close enough now that she could see Harry's expression become more hateful, as his mouth chewed with a mechanical, unnatural rhythm.

The Headmaster's voice was grim as iron. "Filius, call Minerva, tell her she must come at speed."

Professor Flitwick whispered to his silver raven, and it flew into the air and vanished.

Another piece of chocolate floated into Harry's mouth, and the mechanical chewing continued.

There were more students gathering around where the Headmaster watched over Harry with grim eyes: Neville, Seamus, Dean, Lavender, Ernie, Terry, Anthony, none of them daring to approach any closer than Hermione had.

"What can we do?" said Dean in a trembling voice.

"Back off and give him more space -" said the dry voice of Professor Quirrell.

"No!" interrupted the Headmaster. "Let him

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Chapter 39: Pretending to be Wise, Pt 1
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2015-03-14T19:00:55.254Z

Whistle. Tick. Bzzzt. Ding. Glorp. Pop. Splat. Chime. Toot. Puff. Tinkle. Bubble. Beep. Thud. Crackle. Whoosh. Hiss. Pffft. Whirr.

Professor Flitwick had silently passed Harry a folded parchment during Charms class that Monday, and the note had said that Harry was to visit the Headmaster at his convenience and in such fashion that no one else would notice, especially not Draco Malfoy or Professor Quirrell. His one-time password for the gargoyle would be "squeamish ossifrage". This had been accompanied by a remarkably artistic ink drawing of Professor Flitwick staring at him sternly, the eyes of which occasionally blinked; and at the bottom of the note, underlined three times, was the phrase DON'T GET INTO TROUBLE.

And so Harry had finished up Transfiguration class, and studied with Hermione, and eaten dinner, and spoken with his lieutenants, and finally, when the clock struck nine, turned himself invisible and dropped back to 6PM and wearily trudged off toward the gargoyle, the turning spiral stairs, the wooden door, the room full of little fiddly things, and the silver-bearded figure of the Headmaster.

This time, Dumbledore looked quite serious, the customary smile absent; and he was dressed in pajamas of a darker and more sober purple than usual.

"Thank you for coming, Harry," said the Headmaster. The old wizard rose from his throne, began to slowly pace through the room and the strange devices. "First, do you have with you the notes of yesterday's encounter with Lucius Malfoy?"

"Notes?" blurted Harry.

"Surely you wrote it down..." said the old wizard, and his voice trailed off.

Harry felt rather embarrassed. Yes, if you'd just fumbled through a mysterious conversation full of significant hints you didn't understand, the bloody obvious thing to do would be to write it all down immediately afterward, before the memory faded, so you could try to figure it out later.

"All right," said the Headmaster, "from memory then."

Harry sheepishly recited as best he could, and got almost halfway through before he realized that it wasn't smart to just go around telling the possibly-crazy Headmaster everything, at least not without thinking about it first, but then Lucius was definitely a bad guy and Dumbledore's opponent so it probably was a good idea to tell him, and Harry had already started talking and it was too late to try and calculate things out now...

Harry finished his re

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Chapter 7: Reciprocation
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2015-03-14T19:00:55.225Z

Whoa. A spokesman for Rowling's literary agent said that Rowling is okay with the existence of fanfiction as long as no one charges for it and everyone's clear that the original copyrights belong to her? That's really cool of her. So thank you, JKR, and thine is the kingdom!

I feel the need to disclaim that certain parts of this chapter are not meant as "bashing". It's not that I have a grudge, the story just writes itself and once you start dropping anvils on a character it's hard to stop.

A few reviewers have asked whether the science in this story is real or made up. Yes, it is real, and if you look at my profile, you'll see a link to a certain nonfiction site that will teach you pretty much everything Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres knows and then some.

Thank you very much to all my reviewers. (Especially Darkandus on Viridian Dreams, for the surprisingly inspiring comment "Lungs and tea are not meant to interact".

"Your dad is almost as awesome as my dad."

Petunia Evans-Verres's lips were trembling and her eyes were tearing up as Harry hugged her midsection on Platform Nine of the King's Cross Station. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you, Harry?"

Harry glanced over to his father Michael Verres-Evans, who was looking stereotypically stern-but-proud, and then back to his mother, who really did look rather... uncomposed. "Mum, I know you don't like the wizarding world very much. You don't have to come with. I mean it."

Petunia winced. "Harry, you shouldn't worry about me, I'm your mother and if you need someone with you -"

"Mum, I'm going to be on my own at Hogwarts for months and months. If I can't manage a train platform alone, better to find out sooner rather than later so we can abort." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Besides, Mum, they all love me over there. If I have any problems, all I need to do is take off my sweatband," Harry tapped the exercise band covering his scar, "and I'll have way more help than I can handle."

"Oh, Harry," Petunia whispered. She knelt down and hugged him hard, face to face, their cheeks resting against each other. Harry could feel her ragged breathing, and then he heard a muffled sob escape. "Oh, Harry, I do love you, always remember that."

It's like she's afraid she'll never see me again, the thought popped into Harry's head. He knew the thought was true but he didn't know why Mum was so afraid.

So he made a guess.

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Chapter 17: Locating the Hypothesis
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2015-03-14T19:00:54.325Z

You have always been J. K. Rowling.

Historical note: In the Roman calendar, the "Ides" of a month referred to the 15th day of March, May, July, and October, and to the 13th day of all other months.

"You start to see the pattern, hear the rhythm of the world."

Thursday.

If you wanted to be specific, 7:24am on Thursday morning.

Harry was sitting on his bed, a textbook lying limp in his motionless hands.

Harry had just had an idea for a truly brilliant experimental test.

It would mean waiting an extra hour for breakfast, but that was why he had cereal bars. No, this idea absolutely positively had to be tested right away, immediately, now.

Harry set the textbook aside, leapt out of bed, raced around his bed, yanked out the cavern level of his trunk, ran down the stairs, and started moving boxes of books around. (He really needed to unpack and get bookcases at some point but he was in the middle of his textbook reading contest with Hermione and falling behind so he hadn't had time.)

Harry found the book he wanted and raced back upstairs.

The other boys were getting ready to go down to breakfast in the Great Hall and start the day.

"Excuse me can you do something for me?" said Harry. He was flipping through the book's index as he spoke, found the page with the first ten thousand primes, flipped to that page, and thrust the book at Anthony Goldstein. "Pick two three-digit numbers from this list. Don't tell me what they are. Just multiply them together and tell me the product. Oh, and can you do the calculation twice to double-check? Please make really sure you've got the right answer, I'm not sure what's going to happen to me or the universe if you make a multiplication error."

It said a lot about what life in that dorm had been like over the past few days that Anthony didn't even bother saying anything like "Why'd you suddenly flip out?" or "That seems really weird, what are your reasons for asking?" or "What do you mean, you're not sure what's going to happen to the universe?"

Anthony wordlessly accepted the book and took out a parchment and quill. Harry spun around and shut his eyes, making sure not to see anything, dancing back and forth and bouncing up and down with impatience. He got a pad of paper and a mechanical pencil and got ready to write.

"Okay," Anthony said, "One hundred and eighty-one thousand, four hundred and twenty-nine."

Harry wrote down 181,429. He repeated w

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Chapter 118: Something to Protect: Professor Quirrell
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2015-03-14T19:00:54.139Z

The Sun shone down on the Scottish green, striking sparks of reflected white from every passing dewdrop or reflective leaf that happened to position itself correctly, a clear blue sky for a funeral.

Harry had declined to give the eulogy. He'd declined for the second time. Professor Flitwick had asked him about it weeks ago in May, to give Harry time to write his lines before it would become necessary to speak; and Harry had said no then, too.

So it fell to a sixth-year Gryffindor, Oliver Habryka, who had the fourth-highest total of Quirrell points among all the students, and who had been General of an army. The seventeen-year-old boy was tall and not especially handsome in solid black robes; instead of a red tie, he was wearing a purple tie such as Professor Quirrell had sometimes favored.

Speaking, under the circumstances, ex tempore. The previous eulogies, written well in advance, had been discarded; Oliver Habryka had a parchment in his left hand, but he wasn't looking at it at all.

"Professor Quirrell was very sick," the tall boy said, his wavering voice falling into a hush of students, occasionally broken by a muffled sob. "I think if Professor Quirrell had been able to fight in the fullness of his power, You-Know-Who couldn't have beat him easily, and maybe not at all. They say that David Monroe was the only one that You-Know-Who was ever afraid of, in his day. But," Oliver's voice broke, "Professor Quirrell wasn't in the fullness of his power. He was very sick. He had trouble walking by himself. And he went to face the Dark Lord, alone."

There was a pause, then, while the students cried for a while.

Oliver wiped away his tears with his sleeve, and spoke again. "We don't know exactly what happened," said Oliver. "I imagine the Dark Lord laughed at him. Maybe made fun of the Professor, for challenging him when he couldn't stand up. Well, he's not laughing now, is he."

There were fierce nods from the students; all of them that Harry could see, from Gryffindor to Slytherin.

"Maybe the Dark Lord knew some way of curing Professor Quirrell, You-Know-Who did come back from the dead after all. Maybe he offered Professor Quirrell his life if Professor Quirrell would serve him. Professor Quirrell smiled, and told the Dark Lord it was time for them to play a game called Who's The Most Dangerous Wizard In The World."

If you don't know, don't just make stuff up. But Harry d

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Chapter 15: Conscientiousness
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2015-03-14T19:00:53.058Z

Love as thou Rowling.

Today's historical tidbit: The ancient Hebrews considered the boundary of a day to be sunset rather than dawn, so they said "evening and morning" not "morning and evening". (And as many reviewers noted, modern Jewish halacha asserts the same.)

"I'm sure I'll find the time somewhere."

"Frigideiro!"

Harry dipped a finger in the glass of water on his desk. It should have been cool. But lukewarm it was, and lukewarm it had stayed. Again.

Harry was feeling very, very cheated.

There were hundreds of fantasy novels scattered around the Verres household. Harry had read quite a few. And it was starting to look like he had a mysterious dark side. So after the glass of water had refused to cooperate the first few times, Harry had glanced around the Charms classroom to make sure no one was watching, and then taken a deep breath, concentrated, and made himself angry. Thought about the Slytherins bullying Neville, and the game where someone knocked down your books every time you tried to pick them up again. Thought about what Draco Malfoy had said about the ten-year-old Lovegood girl and how the Wizengamot really operated...

And the fury had entered his blood, he had held out his wand in a hand that trembled with hate and said in cold tones "Frigideiro!" and absolutely nothing had happened.

Harry had been gypped. He wanted to write someone and demand a refund on his dark side which clearly ought to have irresistible magical power but had turned out to be defective.

"Frigideiro!" said Hermione again from the desk next to him. Her water was solid ice and there were white crystals forming on the rim of her glass. She seemed to be totally intent on her own work and not at all conscious of the other students staring at her with hateful eyes, which was either (a) dangerously oblivious of her or (b) a perfectly honed performance rising to the level of fine art.

"Oh, very good, Miss Granger!" squeaked Filius Flitwick, their Charms Professor and Head of Ravenclaw, a tiny little man with no visible signs of being a past dueling champion. "Excellent! Stupendous!"

Harry had expected to be, in the worst case, second behind Hermione. Harry would have preferred for her to be rivalling him, of course, but he could have accepted it the other way around.

As of Monday, Harry was headed for the bottom of the class, a position for which he was companionably rivalling all the other M

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