History Quotes / HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality

"Your books betrayed you, Potter. They did not tell you the one thing you needed to know. You cannot learn from stories what it is like to lose the one you love. That is something you could never understand without feeling it yourself."

->Whatever [[CrazyAwesome dark power]] inhabits you, it is ''[[DrivenToMadness contagious]]'', and I don't want to end up like poor [[NeutralEvil Draco Malfoy]], poor [[LawfulNeutral Madam Malkin]] and her ''[[NonPlayerCharacter two poor assistants]]''!

'''Harry''' about [[spoiler:Hermione's death]], ''Chapter 90''

->'''Professor [=McGonagall=]:''' Whatever [[CrazyAwesome dark power]] inhabits you, it is ''[[DrivenToMadness contagious]]'', and I don't want to end up like poor [[NeutralEvil Draco Malfoy]], poor [[LawfulNeutral Madam Malkin]] and her ''[[NonPlayerCharacter two poor assistants]]''!

->The awesome thing was how fast he'd been able to escalate the chaos once he started doing it deliberately.\\
Harry sat in his office; he'd been given the authority to order furniture from the house elves, so he'd ordered a throne, and curtains in a black and crimson pattern. Scarlet light like blood, mixed with shadow, poured over the floor.\\
Something in Harry felt like he'd finally come home.\\
Before him stood the four Lieutenants of Chaos, his most trusted minions, one of whom was a traitor.\\
This. This was what life should be like.\\
"We are gathered," said Harry.\\
"Let Chaos reign," chorused his four Lieutenants.\\
"My hovercraft is full of eels," said Harry.\\
"I will not buy this record, it is scratched," chorused his four Lieutenants.\\
"All mimsy were the borogroves."\\
"And the mome raths outgrabe!"\\
That concluded the formalities.
-->-- ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/33/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality Chapter 33]]''

->'''Albus''': Nor had Harry ever dropped his Occulmency barriers in the Defense Professor's presence--\\
'''Minerva''': Mr. Potter is an ''Occlumens?'' You gave him an invisibility cloak and he is immune to Veritaserum and he is ''friends with the [[ThePrankster Weasley twins?]]'' Albus, do you have any idea what you have ''unleashed upon this school?'' By his seventh year there won't be anything left of Hogwarts but a ''smoking hole in the ground''!\\
'''Dumbledore''': Don't forget the [[TimeMachine Time-Turner.]]\\
'''Minerva''': *strangled shriek*\\
'''[[DeadpanSnarker Severus]]''': Should I teach him to brew Polyjuice, Headmaster? I ask only for the sake of completeness, in case you are not satisfied with the magnitude of your [[PersonOfMassDestruction pet disaster.]]\\
'''Albus''': [[DissonantSerenity Perhaps next year.]]

->(Ex tempore speech given by General Potter to the Chaos Legion, immediately before their first battle, on November 3rd, 1991, at 2:56pm:)\\\
My troops, I'm not going to lie to you, our situation today is very grim. Dragon Army has never lost a single battle. And Hermione Granger... has a very good memory. The truth is, most of you are probably going to die. And the survivors will envy the dead. But we have to win this. We have to win this so that someday, our children can enjoy the taste of chocolate again. Everything is at stake here. Literally everything. If we lose, the whole universe just blinks out like a light bulb. And now I realize that most of you don't know what a light bulb is. Well, take it from me, it's bad. But if we have to go down, let's go down fighting, like heroes, so that as the darkness closes in, we can think to ourselves, at least we had fun. Are you afraid to die? I know I am. I can feel those cold shivers of fear like someone is pumping ice cream into my shirt. But I know... that history is watching us. It was watching us when we changed into our uniforms. It was probably taking pictures. And history, my troops, is written by the victors. If we win this, we can write our own history. A history in which Hogwarts was founded by four renegade house elves. We can make everyone study that history, even though it isn't true, and if they don't answer the right way on our tests... they'll fail the class. Isn't that worth dying for? No, don't answer that. Some things are better left unknown. None of us know why we're here. None of us know why we're fighting. We just woke up in these uniforms in this mysterious forest, knowing only that there was no way to get our names and memories back except victory. The students in those other armies out there... they're just like us. They don't want to die. They're fighting to protect each other, the only friends they have left. They're fighting because they know they have families who'll miss them, even if they can't remember now. They may even be fighting to save the world. But we have a better reason to fight than they do. We fight because we like it. We fight to amuse eldritch monstrosities from beyond Space and Time. We fight because we're Chaos. Soon the final battle will begin, so let me say now, because I won't get a chance later, that it was an honor to be your commander, however briefly. Thank you, thank you all. And remember, your goal isn't just to cut down the enemy, it's to make them afraid.
-->-- ''Chapter 30''

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"''

->The awesome thing was how fast he'd been able to escalate the chaos once he started doing it deliberately.\\\
Harry sat in his office; he'd been given the authority to order furniture from the house elves, so he'd ordered a throne, and curtains in a black and crimson pattern. Scarlet light like blood, mixed with shadow, poured over the floor.\\\
Something in Harry felt like he'd finally come home.\\\
Before him stood the four Lieutenants of Chaos, his most trusted minions, one of whom was a traitor.\\\
This. This was what life should be like.\\\
"We are gathered," said Harry.\\\
"Let Chaos reign," chorused his four Lieutenants.\\\
"My hovercraft is full of eels," said Harry.\\\
"I will not buy this record, it is scratched," chorused his four Lieutenants.\\\
"All mimsy were the borogroves."\\\
"And the mome raths outgrabe!"\\\

-->-- ''Chapter 39''

-> - "And then," ''spat Harry, the fury coming fully into his voice, the cold rage at the universe for being like that and at himself for being so stupid,'' "I asked Hermione and she said that they were just afterimages, burned into the stone of the castle by the death of a wizard, like the silhouettes left on the walls of Hiroshima. And I should have known! I should have known without even having to ask! I shouldn't have believed it even for all of thirty seconds! Because if people had souls there wouldn't be any such thing as brain damage, if your soul could go on speaking after your whole brain was gone, how could damage to the left cerebral hemisphere take away your ability to talk? And Professor [=McGonagall=], when she told me about how my parents had died, she didn't act like they'd just gone away on a long trip to another country, like they'd emigrated to Australia back in the days of sailing ships, which is the way people would act if they actually knew that death was just going somewhere else, if they had hard evidence for an afterlife, instead of making stuff up to console themselves, it would change everything, it wouldn't matter that everyone had lost someone in the war, it would be a little sad but not horrible! And I'd already seen that people in the wizarding world didn't act like that! So I should have known better! And that was when I knew that my parents were really dead and gone forever and ever, that there wasn't anything left of them, that I'd never get a chance to meet them and, and, and the other children thought I was crying because I was scared of ghosts -"

-> - "And then," ''spat Harry, the fury coming fully into his voice, the cold rage at the universe for being like that and at himself for being so stupid,'' "I asked Hermione and she said that they were just afterimages, burned into the stone of the castle by the death of a wizard, like the silhouettes left on the walls of Hiroshima. And I should have known! I should have known without even having to ask! I shouldn't have believed it even for all of thirty seconds! Because if people had souls there wouldn't be any such thing as brain damage, if your soul could go on speaking after your whole brain was gone, how could damage to the left cerebral hemisphere take away your ability to talk? And Professor McGonagall, when she told me about how my parents had died, she didn't act like they'd just gone away on a long trip to another country, like they'd emigrated to Australia back in the days of sailing ships, which is the way people would act if they actually knew that death was just going somewhere else, if they had hard evidence for an afterlife, instead of making stuff up to console themselves, it would change everything, it wouldn't matter that everyone had lost someone in the war, it would be a little sad but not horrible! And I'd already seen that people in the wizarding world didn't act like that! So I should have known better! And that was when I knew that my parents were really dead and gone forever and ever, that there wasn't anything left of them, that I'd never get a chance to meet them and, and, and the other children thought I was crying because I was scared of ghosts -"

-->-- Harry and Hermione agree to murder Cho Chang, ''Chapter 27''

-->-- '''Harry's train of thought''' when Professor [=McGonagall=] [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment gives Harry a time machine to treat his sleep disorder]], ''Chapter 14''

-->-- ''Chapter 30''

-> ''The awesome thing was how fast he'd been able to escalate the chaos once he started doing it deliberately.''\\\
''Harry sat in his office; he'd been given the authority to order furniture from the house elves, so he'd ordered a throne, and curtains in a black and crimson pattern. Scarlet light like blood, mixed with shadow, poured over the floor.''\\\
''Something in Harry felt like he'd finally come home.''\\\
''Before him stood the four Lieutenants of Chaos, his most trusted minions, one of whom was a traitor.''\\\
''This. This was what life should be like.''\\\
''"We are gathered," said Harry.''\\\
''"Let Chaos reign," chorused his four Lieutenants.''\\\
''"My hovercraft is full of eels," said Harry.''\\\
''"I will not buy this record, it is scratched," chorused his four Lieutenants.''\\\
''"All mimsy were the borogroves."''\\\
''"And the mome raths outgrabe!"''\\\
''That concluded the formalities.''
--> --[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/33/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality Chapter 33]]
-----
--> '''Professor [=McGonagall=]:''' Whatever [[CrazyAwesome dark power]] inhabits you, it is ''[[DrivenToMadness contagious]]'', and I don't want to end up like poor [[NeutralEvil Draco Malfoy]], poor [[LawfulNeutral Madam Malkin]] and her ''[[NonPlayerCharacter two poor assistants]]''!
-----
--> '''Harry Potter:''' Professor [=McGonagall=] the Headmaster set fire to a chicken!
--> '''Minerva [=McGonagall=]:''' Wh[[CurseCutShort --]]
-----
--> '''Harry Potter''': Someday, when the distant descendants of Homo sapiens are looking back over the history of the galaxy and wondering how it all went so wrong, they will conclude that the original mistake was when someone taught Hermione Granger how to read.
-----
--> '''Albus''': Nor had Harry ever dropped his Occulmency barriers in the Defense Professor's presence--
--> '''Minerva''': Mr. Potter is an ''Occlumens?'' You gave him an invisibility cloak and he is immune to Veritaserum and he is ''friends with the [[ThePrankster Weasley twins?]]'' Albus, do you have any idea what you have ''unleashed upon this school?'' By his seventh year there won't be anything left of Hogwarts but a ''smoking hole in the ground''!
--> '''Dumbledore''': Don't forget the [[TimeMachine Time-Turner.]]
--> '''Minerva''': *strangled shriek*
--> '''[[DeadpanSnarker Severus]]''': Should I teach him to brew Polyjuice, Headmaster? I ask only for the sake of completeness, in case you are not satisfied with the magnitude of your [[PersonOfMassDestruction pet disaster.]]
--> '''Albus''': [[DissonantSerenity Perhaps next year.]]

-----

(Ex tempore speech given by General Potter to the Chaos Legion, immediately before their first battle, on November 3rd, 1991, at 2:56pm:)

My troops, I'm not going to lie to you, our situation today is very grim. Dragon Army has never lost a single battle. And Hermione Granger... has a very good memory. The truth is, most of you are probably going to die. And the survivors will envy the dead. But we have to win this. We have to win this so that someday, our children can enjoy the taste of chocolate again. Everything is at stake here. Literally everything. If we lose, the whole universe just blinks out like a light bulb. And now I realize that most of you don't know what a light bulb is. Well, take it from me, it's bad. But if we have to go down, let's go down fighting, like heroes, so that as the darkness closes in, we can think to ourselves, at least we had fun. Are you afraid to die? I know I am. I can feel those cold shivers of fear like someone is pumping ice cream into my shirt. But I know... that history is watching us. It was watching us when we changed into our uniforms. It was probably taking pictures. And history, my troops, is written by the victors. If we win this, we can write our own history. A history in which Hogwarts was founded by four renegade house elves. We can make everyone study that history, even though it isn't true, and if they don't answer the right way on our tests... they'll fail the class. Isn't that worth dying for? No, don't answer that. Some things are better left unknown. None of us know why we're here. None of us know why we're fighting. We just woke up in these uniforms in this mysterious forest, knowing only that there was no way to get our names and memories back except victory. The students in those other armies out there... they're just like us. They don't want to die. They're fighting to protect each other, the only friends they have left. They're fighting because they know they have families who'll miss them, even if they can't remember now. They may even be fighting to save the world. But we have a better reason to fight than they do. We fight because we like it. We fight to amuse eldritch monstrosities from beyond Space and Time. We fight because we're Chaos. Soon the final battle will begin, so let me say now, because I won't get a chance later, that it was an honor to be your commander, however briefly. Thank you, thank you all. And remember, your goal isn't just to cut down the enemy, it's to make them afraid.

--> '''Albus''': [[DissonantSerenity Perhaps next year.]]

--> '''Minerva''': Mr. Potter is an ''Occlumens?'' You gave him an invisibility cloak and he is immune to Veritaserum and he is ''friends with the [[ThePrankster Weasley twins?]]'' Albus, do you have any idea what you have ''unleashed upon this school?''
--> '''Minerva''': By his seventh year there won't be anything left of Hogwarts but a smoking hole in the ground!

-> '''Professor [=McGonagall=]:''' Whatever [[CrazyAwesome dark power]] inhabits you, it is ''[[DrivenToMadness contagious]]'', and I don't want to end up like poor [[NeutralEvil Draco Malfoy]], poor [[LawfulNeutral Madam Malkin]] and her ''[[NonPlayerCharacter two poor assistants]]''!

-> '''Harry Potter:''' Professor [=McGonagall=] the Headmaster set fire to a chicken!
-> '''Minerva [=McGonagall=]:''' Wh[[CurseCutShort --]]

-> '''Harry Potter''': Someday, when the distant descendants of Homo sapiens are looking back over the history of the galaxy and wondering how it all went so wrong, they will conclude that the original mistake was when someone taught Hermione Granger how to read.

-> '''Albus''': Nor had Harry ever dropped his Occulmency barriers in the Defense Professor's presence--
-> '''Minerva''': Mr. Potter is an ''Occlumens?'' You gave him an invisibility cloak and he is immune to Veritaserum and he is ''friends with the [[ThePrankster Weasley twins?]]'' Albus, do you have any idea what you have ''unleashed upon this school?''
-> '''Minerva''': By his seventh year there won't be anything left of Hogwarts but a smoking hole in the ground!
-> '''Dumbledore''': Don't forget the [[TimeMachine Time-Turner.]]
-> '''Minerva''': *strangled shriek*
-> '''[[DeadpanSnarker Severus]]''': Should I teach him to brew Polyjuice, Headmaster? I ask only for the sake of completeness, in case you are not satisfied with the magnitude of your pet disaster.
-> '''Albus''': [[DissonantSerenity Perhaps next year.]]

--> '''Professor [=McGonagall=]:''' Whatever [[CrazyAwesome dark power]] inhabits you, it is ''[[DrivenToMadness contagious]]'', and I don't want to end up like poor [[NeutralEvil Draco Malfoy]], poor [[LawfulNeutral Madam Malkin]] and her ''[[NonPlayerCharacter two poor assistants]]''!

--> '''Harry Potter:''' Professor [=McGonagall=] the Headmaster set fire to a chicken!
--> '''Minerva [=McGonagall=]:''' Wh[[CurseCutShort --]]

--> '''Albus''': Nor had Harry ever dropped his Occulmency barriers in the Defense Professor's presence--
--> '''Minerva''': Mr. Potter is an ''Occlumens?'' You gave him an invisibility cloak and he is immune to Veritaserum and he is ''friends with the [[ThePrankster Weasley twins?]]'' Albus, do you have any idea what you have ''unleashed upon this school?''
--> '''Minerva''': By his seventh year there won't be anything left of Hogwarts but a smoking hole in the ground!
--> '''Dumbledore''': Don't forget the [[TimeMachine Time-Turner.]]
--> '''Minerva''' *strangled shriek*
--> '''[[DeadpanSnarker Severus]]''': Should I teach him to brew Polyjuice, Headmaster? I ask only for the sake of completeness, in case you are not satisfied with the magnitude of your pet disaster.
--> '''Albus''': [[DissonantSerenity Perhaps next year.]]

--> '''Dumbledore''': Nor had Harry ever dropped his Occulmency barriers in the Defense Professor's presence--

--> --[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/33/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality Chapter 33]]