"Do not get greedy. Have partners share your gains. This provides allies against losses." - Lucius Malfoy



The Bayesian Conspiracy met after dinner at least once a week, tonight's session had just passed the two hour mark.

"All of these ideas," said Neville, "they let us check a solution. But they don't help us come up with the answer." Harry just raised his eyebrows and looked around the table, like he did when he wanted people to come up with the solution themselves.

"Coming up with a solution is harder," said Draco, "But checking it is easy. Does it work is yes or no. How does it work, that could be anything."

"Proving a solution is like a fixed Transfiguration," Hermione offered, "you go from stone to wood and back. But even that requires lots of different spells, hundreds for every form combination. Free transfiguration can do anything, but we all know how hard that is." Hermione felt smug having worked out the metaphor. She missed being in class and getting the right answer, even though she knew it was somewhat small of her.

Harry finally spoke up, "And coming up with a solution is really hard. Even I don't get it right often. But what I do is that I check my solution instead of just trying it, and that lets me discard my failures faster, and then I try again. If nobody sees you fail a few times," he chuckled," you'll get a reputation as being able to do anything by just snapping your fingers. I'm not always right, merely less wrong. And to most people that seems like magic."

Harry's mirror made a buzzing noise, and he took it out and started a quiet conversation, then said "I think now's a good time to stop." Daphne checked the time and, letting out a small eep, grabbed her scrolls and ran off. Draco jotted a few notes down on a scroll, planning to summarize and expand later in his journal.

"Draco," said Hermione, "Do you have a few minutes?"

He looked up, perplexed. "Sure. One second." He wrote a few more words, more reminders than detailed notes.

Harry said, "I'll see you later, everyone. I do have some things to do." He put away his mirror. Draco caught Hermione's look, but Harry just shook his head. "It's not that important." He walked out of the classroom, Neville beside him, and their voices drifted down the hall as Draco put down his quill and looked across the desk at Hermione.

Draco could see the telltale signs of the glamour, now. That should make her perfection less impressive, but it didn't. Knowing something on an intellectual level doesn't necessarily turn off emotions.

"How are things going, Draco?" she asked. Hermione stared at him intently, trying to read his reactions. She felt like she'd been getting better at reading people. Her magic helped her perceptions, if she focused on it. She really hoped that came from the Unicorn side of the enhancement, and not the troll side. She preferred not to think of herself as one-third Troll.

"Fine, Hermione. People miss you in class, of course."

"I find that hard to believe," she said, shaking her head, and noticing how Draco watched her hair.

"Oh, they thought they didn't want you in classes for the first few days." Draco's pitched his voice up like Pansy Parkinson. "Where's little miss know-it-all? Where can she be?" He dropped his voice back to normal, "but it turns out that when little miss know-it-all isn't there with the answer then the Professor could call on anyone, and that's worse."

"If you are Pansy Parkinson, sure," laughed Hermione, "I suspect you know the answers."

Draco smiled, "I said people missed you, Hermione, not that I did." Draco's smile looked relaxed, not forced, not beaming, but enough of a smile to show he was joking. She let out a little laugh, and Draco's smile relaxed a bit more. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

"I'm worried about you," she said and Draco interrupted her with a wave.

"It's not that I don't appreciate what you did, Hermione, and I'm not going to lie and say I have it all under control, but it isn't helping my situation as much as you might hope and I think," Draco finally had to pause for a breath, just barely.

"I'm worried about you and Harry," Hermione said, exasperated.

"Oh." Draco paused and fiddled with his quill, thinking. "Why?" Between the pause and the interruption, Hermione felt pleased that Draco treated her more like a friend and less like a tool he manipulated. Or maybe Harry's abrasive manner had been rubbing off.

"Well, you live with him, but you don't trust him. He told me – please don't be mad – about the chess game, and the Slytherin duel before that."

Draco blushed.

"He didn't mention all of the parts of the duel, he is your friend after all. But I heard lots of gossip. Anyway, I understand why intellectually its hard to trust Harry, but can you please? I mean, I trust him. Doesn't that count for something?" Hermione considered batting her eyes, but she already felt guilty, using Draco's infatuation to help her gauge how much she should trust him.

"It does," Draco stammered, "of course it does. But … what we've been learning here is how keep our judgment when we're biased. If Harry were here, he'd say something like 'Hermione Granger is difficult to fool, which reduces the odds of Harry being a future Dark Lord significantly.'"

"But not to zero." Draco just nodded. "I understand that, Draco. That makes sense. In fact, Harry told me a story. After Professor Quirrell taught him to lose he asked if there was anything he could say to convince the Professor he wouldn't turn evil, and the Professor just replied 'You could raise your right hand,' meaning that there was nothing that someone as clever as Harry could say that would comfort him. So we have to judge Harry by his actions, not his words. And that's going to take time."

"I knew that," Draco said. "But it isn't just time. I can't judge Harry's actions if I can't see them."

"The time will come, things have to line up a bit first. Please, Draco, don't make it even more difficult for him."

Draco slumped in his chair. "Even more difficult?"

"You, you don't see it?" Her eyes semi-closed, "I get it now. He hides it from you, doesn't want to look weak. He runs off every time." Hermione thought, deciding if she wanted to reveal what she'd assumed Draco had already noticed. She said, "Boys!" with a snort. "Why don't they just talk instead of posture?"

Hermione saw Draco's bewildered look, and sighed.

"What did Harry tell you, about Voldemort? I have to ask because I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone details."

Draco got up and started pacing. "He didn't tell me anything," Draco said, sounding slightly hurt. "But I have my guesses. I'm not sure how Professor Quirrell is involved, or any details really. But, well, they came up with a plan to bring you back and attack Voldemort. The Professor took the brunt of the attack, maybe sacrificed himself since he was dying. At the time, I didn't think you were involved at all, and that was just Harry being Harry, bringing you back somehow. But after the summer and what Gregory saw when you fought Flint …. I don't know. You've been hiding your powers haven't you?"

Hermione nodded slightly. "I want to be treated like a normal girl, not like Harry was treated. For as long as I can."

"So, I'm not sure anymore exactly who defeated Voldemort, but Harry was there, if not the driving force. Despite the fact that he appeared to not be there."

"How do you think he did that," she asked.

Draco shot Hermione a look, and then said. "I have some theories. But he hasn't told me how. I don't think he'll ever tell me, and I'm OK with it. I'd like to know the details, of course..."

"And that's it? Harry didn't tell you anything else? Professor Quirrell died. You never thought to ask yourself if Harry got away without a scratch?" Hermione had an edge in her voice, and saw Draco's shock. She realized that no, he hadn't actually asked himself. Which wasn't too surprising. Harry never seemed to get scratched. Before she died Hermione had seen Harry scared, but never actually hurt in some surprisingly dangerous situations. And everyone had been so young. Harry explained that most people never thought about death (and by extension, injury) until they'd seen it first hand. There was no reason Draco would be different.

"Wait, you have a Phoenix. Harry built Peverell Hospital. Whatever happened to him is fixed." Draco's voice had a note of accusation.

"Have you ever heard of hypergraphia, Draco? People with it suffer a compulsion to write things out. They can't stop writing, not until they are exhausted. Harry doesn't have that, exactly, but he got cursed in the battle. You know he was already a bit obsessed and his methods made him …. odd. But now it's more of a compulsion. He literally can't do things unless he reasons out all of the consequences." Harry wouldn't be happy about this, Hermione thought, but it was a close enough explanation to be true.

"What kind of curse does that?" Draco asked.

"The kind that Voldemort casts, specifically designed to slow down Harry Potter. No, I don't know why Voldemort didn't just kill him. Maybe he worried about the spell rebounding, like it did when Harry was a baby. Voldemort cast a curse that would hurt Harry more than anyone. And now Harry has to spend hours and hours making decisions that he could have made in a second last year. He's …. too rational, maybe."

Hermione paused. "I guess you don't see it because he's exhausted when he goes back to his dorm. And he's not making decisions then, not really. He's just teaching and hanging out with the few friends he has left. I think Harry would say that the odds that Draco Malfoy is actually a good person and Harry's friend have shot up dramatically, so I just want you to give him time and not do anything rash."

Draco gathered his notes and they both got up to head out. "I wasn't planning on doing anything rash," Draco said defensively. Draco opened the door, quickly glancing at the empty hallway.

"Nobody ever does," Hermione said as she walked through the door.

"I suppose not," said Draco, shutting the door behind him.