Free Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky

parents
never
did anything like that, never ever
ever!
How
dare
you suggest such a thing!”
    The older witch gazed at him steadily. “It is my duty as Deputy Headmistress to investigate possible signs of abuse in the children under my care.”
    Harry’s anger was spiralling out of control into pure, black fury. “Don’t you ever
dare
breathe a word of these, these
insinuations
to anyone else!
No one
, do you hear me, McGonagall? An accusation like that can ruin people and destroy families even when the parents are completely innocent! I’ve read about it in the newspapers!” Harry’s voice was climbing to a high-pitched scream. “The
system
doesn’t know how to
stop
, it doesn’t believe the parents
or
the children when they say nothing happened!
Don’t you dare threaten my family with that! I won’t let you destroy my home!
”
    “Harry,” the older witch said softly, and she reached out a hand towards him -
    Harry took a fast step back, and his hand snapped up and knocked hers away.
    McGonagall froze, then she pulled her hand back, and took a step backwards. “Harry, it’s all right,” she said. “I believe you.”
    “
Do you,
” Harry hissed. The fury still roaring through his blood. “Or are you just waiting to get away from me so you can file the papers?”
    “Harry, I saw your house. I saw you with your parents. They love you. You love them. I do believe you when you say that your parents are not abusing you. But I
had
to ask, because there is something strange at work here.”
    Harry stared at her coldly. “Like what?”
    “Harry, I’ve seen many abused children in my time at Hogwarts, it would break your heart to know how many. And, when you’re happy, you don’t behave like one of those children, not at
all
. You smile at strangers, you hug people, I put my hand on your shoulder and you didn’t flinch. But sometimes, only sometimes, you say or do something that seems
very
much like… someone who spent his first eleven years locked in a cellar. Not the loving family that I saw.” Professor McGonagall tilted her head, her expression growing puzzled again.
    Harry took this in, processing it. The black rage began to drain away, as it dawned on him that he was being listened to respectfully, and that his family wasn’t in danger.
    “And how
do
you explain your observations, Professor McGonagall?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s possible that something could have happened to you that you don’t remember.”
    Fury rose up again in Harry. That sounded all too much like what he’d read in the newspaper stories of shattered families. “Suppressed memory is a load of
pseudoscience!
People do
not
repress traumatic memories, they remember them all
too
well for the rest of their lives!”
    “No, Mr. Potter. There is a Charm called Obliviation.”
    Harry froze in place. “A spell that erases memories?”
    The older witch nodded. “But not all the effects of the experience, if you see what I’m saying, Mr. Potter.”
    A chill went down Harry’s spine.
That
hypothesis… could
not
be easily refuted. “But my parents couldn’t do that!”
    “Indeed not,” said Professor McGonagall. “It would have taken someone from the wizarding world. There’s… no way to be certain, I’m afraid.”
    Harry’s rationalist skills began to boot up again. “Professor McGonagall, how sure are you of your observations, and what alternative explanations could there also be?”
    The witch opened her hands, as though to show their emptiness. “Sure? I’m sure of
nothing
, Mr. Potter. In all my life I’ve never met anyone else like you. Sometimes you just don’t seem eleven years old or even all that
human
.”
    Harry’s eyebrows rose toward the sky -
    “I’m sorry!” Professor McGonagall said quickly. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Potter. I was trying to make a point and I’m afraid that came out sounding different from what I had in mind -”
    “On the contrary, Professor McGonagall,”