This is a spin off of Less Wrongs Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Fanfiction. All idea's and characters go to him and J.K. Rowling. I just couldn't resist jumping in on the fun.

If you have not read Methods of Rationality, please stop what you are doing and read it NOW! It is awesomeness in a can.

And now, please enjoy my fanfiction, of a fanfiction.

Chapter Two

Intent to Kill

The rat was dead. Harry had willed it to die, and so it did.

Wait, what? That's it? Harry's brain had caught up with that thought. That's the key to the unblockable Avada Kedavra? Wanting to kill something? His cool dark side was rapidly receding as some part of Harry recognized the horror of what he'd just done.

He'd killed something. He'd really meant to kill something and it had died.

The rat cage lifted of its own accord and drifted over to Professor Quirrell. The class hadn't been very talkative, but even Malfoy's muttered instructions cut off. A dead silence hung in the air. (no pun intended)

The Defense Professor inspected the rat with an unreadable look. "Ten points to Ravenclaw for mastering Avada Kedavra on your first attempt, Potter," he drawled softly. With a wave of his hand the caged rat disappeared in a wisp of black smoke. Lucius made a strangled sound from somewhere behind Harry.

"What? No I didn't!" Harry snapped. A different kind of anger was filling him now and there certainly wasn't anything cold about it. There is no way it can be that easy!

Professor Quirrell arched a brow. "You do not believe me? I see that you are not alone in this. Perhaps another demonstration should convince you and Lord Malfoy." Another rat appeared on the pedestal.

Harry turned to glare at it. He was angry, that was certain, but the moment he started preparation for the spell he managed to block off that anger, focusing his intent on killing the rat. He flicked his wand. "Avadakedavra," his voice grew cool and collected as he said it and once again a jet of green light left his wand tip and struck the rat.

It fell over, completely limp.

There was a pause before Harry insisted, "It's just a rat… I can't have mastered the spell. Killing a person, a wizard would be much harder."

"Yes, I suppose a human would have moved, but then again if they were caged they wouldn't have gotten very far," the Defense Professor said, and though Harry was still staring at the dead rat, he could just picture that sardonic smile on Quirrells lips.

"No," Harry said and turned to face the Professor. The strange anger was coming back to him now that he wasn't focused on the spell. "There is no way I mastered a spell capable of killing anything and everything on my first attempt. That is just ridiculous."

He didn't know how he knew it, but in this moment the universe was laughing at him.

"I told you, Potter, on your first day that you'd be the most dangerous student in your year. You had not believed me, and now you see why," he gestured to the second dead rat. "It is your intent to kill that makes the Avada Kedavra curse so easy to you. No other student in this classrooms intent to kill comes remotely close to yours. You will go to whatever lengths to kill your enemy without flinching, without the slightest hesitation, not when you really mean it."

"Are you telling me," Harry said slowly, coolly, not in any way calm. "that all you have to do is just want something to die, say Avada Kedavra and then it just does? That is—that's just- what the hell! It can't be that easy! Not when-" Harry had to stop himself from finishing the sentence. Not when the counter was so difficult to learn…

"And what do you mean my intent to kill is stronger than everyone else here? How could anyone want something to die more than someone else? Just how is that measured anyway? Say two people go at it with the killing curse and their spells hit at the exact same time. I'm pretty sure they'd both want to kill each other equally. Nether of them would want to die any less than the other. What then? Do they just both die?" Or maybe one of them fears death more than the other so that would give them the upper hand. Did my mother fear death less than Voldemort? That didn't make any sense, he even let her start before he did. How couldn't she kill him off? Did her intent to kill fall short of his, even at the cost of her own son's life?

"There has to be something more to it."

"I'm sorry, Potter, but there really isn't," Quirrell didn't sound apologetic, at all.

"No! No! No way there is not! You're saying that Voldemort," Harry didn't stuttered, half the class gasped in horror and the other half lips were too tightly pressed together to let out so much as a breath. A chill swept down Harry's spine, but he was too angry to notice it. "could go about killing whoever he pleased because he bloody wanted to and no one could stop him because they just didn't want him to die enough? He could just go around shouting

Avada Kedavra wherever he damn well pleased and if you didn't move away fast enough you'd just die?"

The sense of doom spiked and continued to bear down on Harry at the mention of Voldemort's name. The Defense Professor hadn't moved yet the intensity of it felt as if he were inches from Harry, not several feet away.

"I think," Professor Quirrell said softly. "that you ought to leave the room for a while." He pointed towards the door that Harry had entered after he'd learned to loose. "Leave your wand on the table outside."

"That isn't an answer."

"Twenty points from Ravenclaw and a week's detention and if you don't move now it will be fifty."

Harry couldn't believe it. Quirrell was the most rational person Harry knew, why on earth was he suddenly acting like Snape? "For what?" Harry spat. "For asking a damn question?"

"For terrifying your classmates."

Harry looked and indeed people were watching him with mixed expressions of horror. In fact, the people who'd been practically crowding him had taken several steps away. It was only in their absence Harry saw that Hermione was among those who'd attempted the spell with Harry, and she was looking at him now with tear brimmed eyes, and it was that sight that had eased Harry's anger and nothing else.

Without another word, he turned from her and did as Professor Quirrell asked.