024.asc

// 4622
//== Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis

// 4623
//J. K. Rowling coils and strikes, unseen; Orca circles, hard and lean.

// 4624
//__Act 3:__

// 4625
//Draco waited in a small windowed alcove he’d found near the Great Hall, stomach
//churning.

// 4626
//There would be a price, and it would not be small. Draco had known that as soon
//as he’d woken up and realized that he didn’t dare enter the Great Hall for
//breakfast because he might see Harry Potter there and Draco didn’t know what
//would happen after that.

// 4627
//Footsteps approached.

// 4628
//“Here ya go,” said Vincent’s voice. “Now da boss ain’t in a good mood today, so
//ya’d better watch your step.”

// 4629
//Draco was going to skin that idiot alive and send back the flayed body with a
//request for a more intelligent servant, like a dead gerbil.

// 4630
//One set of footsteps went off, and the other set of footsteps came closer.

// 4631
//The churning in Draco’s stomach got worse.

// 4632
//Harry Potter came into sight. His face was carefully neutral, but his
//blue-trimmed robes looked oddly askew, as if they hadn’t been put on quite
//right -

// 4633
//“__Your hand,__” Draco said without thinking about it at all.

// 4634
//Harry raised his left arm, as though to look at it himself.

// 4635
//The hand dangled limply from it, like something dead.

// 4636
//“Madam Pomfrey said it’s not permanent,” Harry said quietly. “She said it
//should mostly recover by the time classes start tomorrow.”

// 4637
//For a single instant the news came as a relief.

// 4638
//And then Draco realized.

// 4639
//“You went to Madam Pomfrey,” whispered Draco.

// 4640
//“Of course I did,” said Harry Potter, as though stating the obvious. “My hand
//wasn’t working.”

// 4641
//It was slowly dawning on Draco what an __absolute__ fool he’d been, far
//worse than the older Slytherins he’d chewed out.

// 4642
//He’d just taken for granted that no one would go to the authorities when a
//Malfoy did something to them. That no one would want Lucius Malfoy’s eye on
//them, ever.

// 4643
//But Harry Potter wasn’t a frightened little Hufflepuff trying to stay out of
//the game. He was already playing it, and Father’s eye was already on him.

// 4644
//“What else did Madam Pomfrey say?” said Draco, his heart in his throat.

// 4645
//“Professor Flitwick said that the spell cast on my hand had been a Dark torture
//hex and extremely serious business, and that refusing to say who did it was
//absolutely unacceptable.”

// 4646
//There was a long pause.

// 4647
//“And then?” Draco said in a shaking voice.

// 4648
//Harry Potter smiled slightly. “I apologized deeply, which made Professor
//Flitwick look __very__ stern, and then I told Professor Flitwick that the
//whole thing was, indeed, extremely serious, secret, __delicate __business,
//and that I’d already informed the Headmaster about the project.”

// 4649
//Draco gasped. “No! Flitwick isn’t going to just accept that! He’ll check with
//Dumbledore!”

// 4650
//“Indeed,” said Harry Potter. “I was promptly hauled off to the Headmaster’s
//office.”

// 4651
//Draco was trembling now. If Dumbledore brought Harry Potter before the
//Wizengamot, willingly or otherwise, and had the Boy-Who-Lived testify under
//Veritaserum that Draco had tortured him… too many people loved Harry Potter,
//Father could __lose__ that vote…

// 4652
//Father might be able to convince Dumbledore not to do that, but it would
//__cost.__ Cost terribly. The game had rules now, you couldn’t just
//threaten someone at random any more. But Draco had walked into Dumbledore’s
//hands of his own free will. And Draco was a very valuable hostage.

// 4653
//Though since Draco couldn’t be a Death Eater now, he wasn’t as valuable as
//Father thought.

// 4654
//The thought tore at his heart like a Cutting Charm.

// 4655
//“Then what?” whispered Draco.

// 4656
//“Dumbledore deduced immediately that it was you. He knew we’d been
//associating.”

// 4657
//The worst possible scenario. If Dumbledore hadn’t guessed who did it, he might
//not have risked using Legilimency just to find out… but if Dumbledore
//__knew…__

// 4658
//“And?” Draco forced out the word.

// 4659
//“We had a little chat.”

// 4660
//“And?”

// 4661
//Harry Potter grinned. “And I explained that it would be in his best interest
//not to do anything.”

// 4662
//Draco’s mind ran into a brick wall and splattered. He just stared at Harry
//Potter with his mouth hanging slack like a fool.

// 4663
//It took that long for Draco to remember.

// 4664
//Harry knew Dumbledore’s mysterious secret, the one Snape used as his hold.

// 4665
//Draco could just see it now. Dumbledore looking all stern, concealing his
//eagerness as he explained to Harry what a terribly serious matter this was.

// 4666
//And Harry politely telling Dumbledore to keep his mouth shut if he knew what
//was good for him.

// 4667
//Father had warned Draco against people like this, people who could ruin you and
//still be so likable that it was hard to hate them properly.

// 4668
//“After which,” Harry said, “the Headmaster told Professor Flitwick that this
//was, indeed, a secret and delicate matter of which he had already been
//informed, and that he did not think pressing it at this time would help me or
//anyone. Professor Flitwick started to say something about the Headmaster’s
//usual plotting going much too far, and I had to interrupt at that point and
//explain that it had been my __own__ idea and not anything the Headmaster
//forced me into, so Professor Flitwick spun around and started lecturing
//__me__, and the Headmaster interrupted __him__ and said that as the
//Boy-Who-Lived I was doomed to have weird and dangerous adventures so I was
//safer if I got into them on purpose instead of waiting for them to happen by
//accident, and that was when Professor Flitwick threw up his little hands and
//started shrieking in a high-pitched voice at __both__ of us about how he
//didn’t care what we were cooking up together, but this wasn’t ever to happen
//again for as long as I was in Ravenclaw House or he would have me thrown out
//and I could go to Gryffindor which was where all this __Dumbledoring__
//belonged -”

// 4669
//Harry was making it __very__ hard for Draco to hate him.

// 4670
//“Anyway,” Harry said, “I didn’t want to be thrown out of Ravenclaw, so I
//promised Professor Flitwick that nothing like this would happen again, and if
//it did, I would just tell him who did it.”

// 4671
//Harry’s eyes should have been cold. They weren’t. The voice should have made it
//a deadly threat. It wasn’t.

// 4672
//And Draco saw the question that should have been obvious, and it killed the
//mood in an instant.

// 4673
//“Why… didn’t you?”

// 4674
//Harry walked over to the window, into the small beam of sunlight shining into
//the alcove, and turned his head outward, toward the green grounds of Hogwarts.
//The brightness shone on him, on his robes, on his face.

// 4675
//“Why didn’t I?” Harry said. His voice caught. “I guess because I just couldn’t
//get angry at you. I knew I’d hurt you first. I won’t even call it fair, because
//what I did to you was worse than what you did to me.”

// 4676
//It was like running into another brick wall. Harry could have been speaking
//archaic Greek for all Draco understood him then.

// 4677
//Draco’s mind scrabbled for patterns and came up flat blank. The statement was a
//concession that hadn’t been in Harry’s best interests. It wasn’t even what
//Harry should say to make Draco a more loyal servant, now that Harry held power
//over him. For that Harry should be emphasizing how kindly he’d been, not how
//much he’d hurt Draco.

// 4678
//“Even so,” Harry said, and now his voice was lower, almost a whisper, “please
//don’t do that again, Draco. It hurt, and I’m not sure I could forgive you a
//second time. I’m not sure I’d be able to want to.”

// 4679
//Draco just didn’t get it.

// 4680
//Was Harry trying to be __friends__ with him?

// 4681
//There was no way Harry Potter could be dumb enough to believe that was still
//possible after what he’d done.

// 4682
//You could be someone’s friend and ally, like Draco had tried to do with Harry,
//or you could destroy their life and leave them no other options. Not both.

// 4683
//But then Draco didn’t understand what else Harry __could__ be trying.

// 4684
//And a strange thought came to Draco then, something Harry had kept talking
//about yesterday.

// 4685
//And the thought was: __Test it.__

// 4686
//__You’re awakened as a scientist now,__ Harry had said, __and even
//if you never learn to use your power, you’ll always, be looking, for ways, to
//test, your beliefs…__ Those ominous words, spoken in gasps of agony, had kept
//running through Draco’s mind.

// 4687
//If Harry __was__ pretending to be the repentant friend who had
//accidentally hurt someone…

// 4688
//“You __planned__ what you did to me!” Draco said, managing to put a note
//of accusation in his voice. “You didn’t do it because you got angry, you did it
//because you __wanted__ to!”

// 4689
//__Fool,__ Harry Potter would say, __of course I planned it, and now
//you’re mine -__

// 4690
//Harry turned back toward Draco. “What happened yesterday __wasn’t__ the
//plan,” Harry said, his voice seeming stuck in his throat. “The __plan__
//was that I would teach you why you were always better off knowing the truth,
//and then we would try together to discover the truth about blood, and whatever
//the answer was we would accept it. Yesterday I… rushed things.”

// 4691
//“Always better off knowing the truth,” Draco said coldly. “Like you did me a
//__favor.__”

// 4692
//Harry nodded, blowing Draco’s mind completely, and said, “What if Lucius comes
//up with the same idea I did, that the problem is stronger wizards having fewer
//children? He might start a program to pay the strongest purebloods to have more
//children. In fact, if blood purism __were__ right, that’s just what Lucius
//__should__ be doing - addressing the problem on __his__ side, where
//he can make things happen right away. Right now, Draco, you’re the only friend
//Lucius has who would try to stop him from wasting the effort, because you’re
//the only one who knows the __real__ truth and can predict the real
//results.”

// 4693
//The thought came to Draco that Harry Potter had been raised in a place so
//strange that he was now effectively a magical creature rather than a wizard.
//Draco simply couldn’t guess what Harry would say or do next.

// 4694
//“__Why?__” Draco said. Putting pain and betrayal into his voice wasn’t
//hard at all. “Why did you __do__ this to me? What __was__ your plan?”

// 4695
//“Well,” Harry said, “you’re Lucius’s heir, and believe it or not, Dumbledore
//thinks I belong to him. So we could grow up and fight their battles with each
//other. Or we could do something else.”

// 4696
//Slowly, Draco’s mind wrapped around this. “You want to provoke a fight to the
//finish between them, then seize power after they’re both exhausted.” Draco felt
//cold dread in his chest. He would __have__ to try and stop that no matter
//the cost to himself -

// 4697
//But Harry shook his head. “Stars above, __no!__”

// 4698
//“No…?”

// 4699
//“You wouldn’t go along with that and neither would I,” said Harry. “This is
//__our__ world, we don’t want to break it. But imagine, say, Lucius thought
//the Conspiracy was your tool and you were on his side, Dumbledore thought the
//Conspiracy was my tool and I was on his side, Lucius thought that you’d turned
//me and Dumbledore believed the Conspiracy was mine, Dumbledore thought that I’d
//turned you and Lucius believed the Conspiracy was yours, and so they both
//helped us out but only in ways that the other one wouldn’t notice.”

// 4700
//Draco did not have to fake being speechless.

// 4701
//Father had once taken him to see a play called __The Tragedy of Light__,
//about this __incredibly__ clever Slytherin named Light who’d set out to
//purify the world of evil using an ancient ring that could kill anyone whose
//name and face he knew, and who’d been opposed by another incredibly clever
//Slytherin, a villain named Lawliet, who’d worn a disguise to conceal his true
//face; and Draco had shouted and cheered at all the right parts, especially in
//the middle; and then the play had ended sadly and Draco had been hugely
//disappointed and Father had gently pointed out that the word ‘Tragedy’ was
//right there in the title.

// 4702
//Afterward, Father had asked Draco if he understood why they had gone to see
//this play.

// 4703
//Draco had said it was to teach him to be as cunning as Light and Lawliet when
//he grew up.

// 4704
//Father had said that Draco couldn’t possibly be more wrong, and pointed out
//that while Lawliet had cleverly concealed his face there had been no good
//reason for him to tell Light his __name__. Father had then gone on to
//demolish almost every part of the play, while Draco listened with his eyes
//growing wider and wider. And Father had finished by saying that plays like this
//were __always__ unrealistic, because if the playwright had known what
//someone __actually__ as smart as Light would __actually__ do, the
//playwright would have tried to take over the world himself instead of just
//writing plays about it.

// 4705
//That was when Father had told Draco about the Rule of Three, which was that any
//plot which required more than three different things to happen would never work
//in real life.

// 4706
//Father had __further__ explained that since only a fool would attempt a
//plot that was __as complicated as possible__, the real limit was two.

// 4707
//Draco couldn’t even find words to describe the sheer gargantuan unworkability
//of Harry’s master plan.

// 4708
//But it was __just__ the sort of mistake you would make if you didn’t have
//any mentors and thought you were clever and had learned about plotting by
//watching plays.

// 4709
//“So,” said Harry, “what do you think of the plan?”

// 4710
//“It’s clever…” Draco said slowly. Shouting __brilliant!__ and gasping in
//awe would have looked too suspicious. “Harry, can I ask a question?”

// 4711
//“Sure,” said Harry.

// 4712
//“Why did you buy Granger an expensive pouch?”

// 4713
//“To show no hard feelings,” said Harry at once. “Though I expect she’ll also
//feel awkward if she refuses any small requests I make over the next couple of
//months.”

// 4714
//And that was when Draco realized that Harry actually __was__ trying to be
//his friend.

// 4715
//Harry’s move against Granger __had__ been smart, maybe even brilliant.
//Make your enemy not suspect you, __and__ put them into your debt in a
//friendly way so that you could maneuver them into position __just by
//asking them__. Draco couldn’t have gotten away with that, his target would have
//been too suspicious, but the Boy-Who-Lived __could.__ So the first step of
//Harry’s plot was to give his enemy an expensive present, Draco wouldn’t have
//thought of that, but it could __work…______

// 4716
//____

// 4717
//If you were Harry’s enemy, his plots might be hard to see through at first,
//they might even be stupid, but his reasoning would make __sense__ once you
//understood it, you would comprehend that he was trying to hurt you.

// 4718
//The way Harry was acting toward Draco right now did __not__ make sense.

// 4719
//Because if you were Harry’s __friend,__ then he tried to be friends with
//you in the alien, incomprehensible way he’d been raised by Muggles to do, even
//if it meant destroying your entire life.

// 4720
//The silence stretched.

// 4721
//“I know that I’ve abused our friendship terribly,” Harry said finally. “But
//please realize, Draco, that in the end, I just wanted the two of us to find the
//truth together. Is that something you can forgive?”

// 4722
//A fork with two paths, but with only one path easy to go back on later if Draco
//changed his mind…

// 4723
//“I guess I understand what you were trying to do,” Draco lied, “so yes.”

// 4724
//Harry’s eyes lit up. “I’m glad to hear that, Draco,” he said softly.

// 4725
//The two students stood in that alcove, Harry still dipped in the lone sunbeam,
//Draco in shadow.

// 4726
//And Draco realized with a note of horror and despair, that although it was a
//terrifying fate indeed to be Harry’s friend, Harry now had so many different
//avenues for threatening Draco that being his enemy would be even
//__worse__.

// 4727
//Probably.

// 4728
//Maybe.

// 4729
//Well, he could always switch to being enemies later…

// 4730
//He was doomed.

// 4731
//“So,” Draco said. “Now what?”

// 4732
//“We study again next Saturday?”

// 4733
//“It better not go like the last one -”

// 4734
//“Don’t worry, it won’t,” said Harry. “A few more Saturdays like __that
//__and you’d be ahead of __me.__”

// 4735
//Harry laughed. Draco didn’t.

// 4736
//“Oh, and before you go,” Harry said, and grinned sheepishly. “I know this is a
//bad time, but I wanted to ask you for advice about something, actually.”

// 4737
//“Okay,” Draco said, still a bit distracted by that last statement.

// 4738
//Harry’s eyes grew intent. “Buying that pouch for Granger used up most of the
//gold I managed to steal from my Gringotts vault -”

// 4739
//What.

// 4740
//“- and McGonagall has the vault key, or Dumbledore does now, maybe. And I was
//just about to launch a plot that might take some money, so I was wondering if
//you know how I can get access -”

// 4741
//“I’ll loan you the money,” said Draco’s mouth in sheer existential reflex.

// 4742
//Harry looked taken aback, but in a pleased way. “Draco, you don’t have to -”

// 4743
//“How much?”

// 4744
//Harry named the amount and Draco couldn’t quite keep the shock from showing on
//his face. That was almost all the spending money Father had given Draco to last
//out the whole year, Draco would be left with just a few Galleons -

// 4745
//Then Draco mentally kicked himself. All he had to do was write Father and
//explain that the money was gone because he had managed to __loan it to
//Harry Potter,__ and Father would send him a special congratulatory note written
//in golden ink, a giant Chocolate Frog that would take two weeks to eat, and ten
//times as many Galleons just in case Harry Potter needed another loan.

// 4746
//“It’s way too much, isn’t it,” said Harry. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked
//-”

// 4747
//“Excuse me, I __am__ a Malfoy, you know,” said Draco. “I was just
//surprised you __wanted__ that much.”

// 4748
//“Don’t worry,” Harry Potter said cheerfully. “It’s nothing that threatens your
//family’s interests, just me being evil.”

// 4749
//Draco nodded. “No problem, then. You want to go get it right now?”

// 4750
//“Sure,” said Harry.

// 4751
//As they left the alcove and started heading toward the dungeons, Draco couldn’t
//help but ask, “So __can__ you tell me which plot this is for?”

// 4752
//“Rita Skeeter.”

// 4753
//Draco thought some very bad words to himself, but it was far too late to say
//no.

// 4754
//By the time they’d reached the dungeons, Draco had started pulling together his
//thoughts again.

// 4755
//He __was__ having trouble hating Harry Potter. Harry __had__ been
//trying to be friendly, he was just insane.

// 4756
//And that wasn’t going to stop Draco’s revenge or even slow it down.

// 4757
//“So,” Draco said, after looking around to make certain no one was nearby. Their
//voices would both be Blurred, of course, but it never hurt to be extra sure.
//“I’ve been thinking. When we bring new recruits into the Conspiracy, they’re
//going to have to __think__ we’re equals. Otherwise it would only take
//__one__ of them to blow the plot to Father. You already worked that out,
//right?”

// 4758
//“Naturally,” said Harry.

// 4759
//“__Will__ we be equals?” said Draco.

// 4760
//“I’m afraid not,” Harry said. It was clear that he was trying to sound gentle,
//and also clear that he was trying to suppress a good deal of condescension and
//not quite succeeding. “I’m sorry, Draco, but you don’t even know what the word
//__Bayesian__ in __Bayesian Conspiracy__ means right now. You’re going
//to have to study for months before we take anyone else in, just so you can put
//up a __good front__.”

// 4761
//“Because I don’t know enough science,” Draco said, carefully keeping his voice
//neutral.

// 4762
//Harry shook his head at that. “The problem isn’t that you’re ignorant of
//specific science things like deoxyribonucleic acid. __That __wouldn’t stop
//you from being my equal. The problem is that you aren’t trained in the methods
//of rationality, the __deeper__ secret knowledge behind how all those
//discoveries got made in the first place. I’ll __try__ to teach you those,
//but they’re a lot harder to learn. Think of what we did yesterday, Draco. Yes,
//you did some of the work. But I was the only one in control. You answered some
//of the questions. I asked all of them. You helped push. I did the steering by
//myself. And without the methods of rationality, Draco, you can’t possibly steer
//the Conspiracy where it needs to go.”

// 4763
//“I see,” said Draco, his voice sounding disappointed.

// 4764
//Harry’s voice tried to gentle itself even more. “I’ll try to respect your
//expertise, Draco, about things like people stuff. But you need to respect my
//expertise too, and there’s just no __way__ you could be my equal when it
//comes to steering the Conspiracy. You’ve only been a scientist for __one
//day__, you know __one__ secret about deoxyribonucleic acid, and you aren’t
//trained in __any__ of the methods of rationality.”

// 4765
//“I understand,” said Draco.

// 4766
//And he did.

// 4767
//__People stuff,__ Harry had said. Seizing control of the Conspiracy
//probably wouldn’t even be difficult. And afterward, he would kill Harry Potter
//just to be sure -

// 4768
//The memory rose up in Draco of how sick inside it had felt last night, knowing
//Harry was screaming.

// 4769
//Draco thought some more bad words.

// 4770
//Fine. He __wouldn’t__ kill Harry. Harry had been raised by Muggles, it
//wasn’t his fault he was insane.

// 4771
//Instead, Harry would live on, just so that Draco could tell him that it had all
//been for Harry’s own good, really, he ought to be grateful -

// 4772
//And with a sudden twitch of surprised pleasure, Draco realized that it actually
//__was__ for Harry’s own good. If Harry tried to carry out his plan of
//playing Dumbledore and Father for fools, he would __die.__

// 4773
//That made it __perfect.__

// 4774
//Draco would take all of Harry’s dreams away from him, just as Harry had done to
//him.

// 4775
//Draco would tell Harry that it had been for his own good, and it would be
//absolutely true.

// 4776
//Draco would wield the Conspiracy and the power of science to purify the
//wizarding world, and Father would be as proud of him as if he’d been a Death
//Eater.

// 4777
//Harry Potter’s evil plots would be foiled, and the forces of right would
//prevail.

// 4778
//The perfect revenge.

// 4779
//Unless…

// 4780
//__Just pretend to be pretending to be a scientist,__ Harry had told him.

// 4781
//Draco didn’t have words to describe exactly what was wrong with Harry’s mind -

// 4782
//(since Draco had never heard the term __depth of recursion__)

// 4783
//- but he could guess what sort of plots it implied.

// 4784
//…unless all that was exactly what Harry __wanted__ Draco to do as part of
//some even __larger__ plot which Draco would play __right into__ by
//trying to foil this one, Harry might even __know__ that his plan was
//unworkable, it might have no purpose __except__ luring Draco to thwart it
//-

// 4785
//No. That way lay __madness.__ There __had __to be a limit. The Dark
//Lord himself hadn’t been __that__ twisty. That sort of thing didn’t happen
//in real life, only in Father’s silly bedtime stories about foolish gargoyles
//who always ended up furthering the hero’s plans every time they tried to stop
//him.

// 4786
//And beside Draco, Harry walked along with a smile on his face, thinking about
//the evolutionary origins of human intelligence.

// 4787
//In the beginning, before people had quite understood how evolution worked,
//they’d gone around thinking crazy ideas like __human intelligence evolved
//so that we could invent better tools.__

// 4788
//The reason why this was crazy was that only one person in the tribe had to
//invent a tool, and then everyone else would use it, and it would spread to
//other tribes, and still be used by their descendants a hundred years later.
//That was great from the perspective of scientific progress, but in evolutionary
//terms, it meant that the person who invented something didn’t have much of a
//fitness __advantage__, didn’t have all that many __more__ children
//than everyone else. Only __relative__ fitness advantages could increase
//the relative frequency of a gene in the population, and drive some lonely
//mutation to the point where it was universal and everyone had it. And brilliant
//inventions just weren’t common enough to provide the sort of consistent
//selection pressure it took to promote a mutation. It was a natural guess, if
//you looked at humans with their guns and tanks and nuclear weapons and compared
//them to chimpanzees, that the intelligence was there to make the technology. A
//natural guess, but wrong.

// 4789
//Before people had quite understood how evolution worked, they’d gone around
//thinking crazy ideas like __the climate changed, and tribes had to
//migrate, and people had to become smarter in order to solve all the novel
//problems.__

// 4790
//But human beings had four times the brain size of a chimpanzee. 20// of a
//human’s metabolic energy went into feeding the brain. Humans were
//__ridiculously__ smarter than any other species. That sort of thing didn’t
//happen because the environment stepped up the difficulty of its problems a
//little. Then the organisms would just get a little smarter to solve them.
//Ending up with that gigantic outsized brain must have taken some sort of
//__runaway__ evolutionary process, something that would push and push
//without limits.

// 4791
//And today’s scientists had a pretty good guess at what that runaway
//evolutionary process had been.

// 4792
//Harry had once read a famous book called __Chimpanzee Politics.__ The book
//had described how an adult chimpanzee named Luit had confronted the aging
//alpha, Yeroen, with the help of a young, recently matured chimpanzee named
//Nikkie. Nikkie had not intervened directly in the fights between Luit and
//Yeroen, but had prevented Yeroen’s other supporters in the tribe from coming to
//his aid, distracting them whenever a confrontation developed between Luit and
//Yeroen. And in time Luit had won, and become the new alpha, with Nikkie as the
//second most powerful…

// 4793
//…though it hadn’t taken very long after that for Nikkie to form an alliance
//with the defeated Yeroen, overthrow Luit, and become the __new__ new
//alpha.

// 4794
//It really made you appreciate what millions of years of hominids trying to
//outwit __each other__ - an evolutionary arms race without limit - had led
//to in the way of increased mental capacity.

// 4795
//‘Cause, y’know, a human would have totally seen that one coming.

// 4796
//And beside Harry, Draco walked along, suppressing his smile as he thought about
//his revenge.

// 4797
//Someday, maybe in years but someday, Harry Potter would learn just what it
//meant to underestimate a Malfoy.

// 4798
//Draco had awakened as a scientist in a single day. Harry had said that wasn’t
//supposed to happen for months.

// 4799
//But of course if you were a Malfoy, you would be a more powerful scientist than
//anyone who wasn’t.

// 4800
//So Draco would learn all of Harry Potter’s methods of rationality, and then
//when the time was ripe -