Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality/Funny

"Harry could predict where this conversation was about to go, and he decided in a split second of frustration that enough was enough.
 * Harry's meeting with Draco in Madam Malkins.

Harry: (cheerfully sarcastic) Good heavens! It couldn't be! Your name, sir?

Draco: Draco Malfoy.

Harry: (mock enthusiasm) It is you! Draco Malfoy. I never thought I'd be so honored, sir.

Draco: (completely serious) Oh. It's good to meet someone who knows his place.

Harry: I'm delighted to meet you, Mr. Malfoy. Just unutterably delighted. And to be attending Hogwarts in your very year! It makes my heart swoon.

Draco: And it lightens my heart as well to see that I can expect to be treated with the respect due the Malfoy family.

Harry: (cheerfully sarcastic) Might you deign to shake my hand? I should wish nothing more to put the capper upon this day, nay, this month, indeed, my whole lifetime.

Draco: (still completely serious) I think you ask an unwarranted familiarity with my person! What have you ever done for the Malfoy family that entitles you to such a request?

Harry: No, no, sir, I understand. I'm sorry for asking. I should be honored to clean your boots, rather.

Draco: Indeed. Though your wish is understandable enough. Tell me, what House do you think you might be sorted into? I'm bound for Slytherin House, of course, like my father Lucius before me. And for you, I should guess House Hufflepuff, or possibly House Elf.

Harry: (truthful) Professor McGonagall says that I'm the most Ravenclaw person she's ever seen or heard tell of in legend, so much so that Rowena herself would tell me to get out more, whatever that means, and that I'll undoubtedly end up in Ravenclaw House if the Sorting Hat isn't screaming in horror too loudly for the rest of us to make out any words, end quote.

Draco: Wow. Your flattery was great, or I thought so, anyway--you'd do well in Slytherin House, too. Usually it's only my father who gets that sort of groveling. I'm hoping the other Slytherins will suck up to me now I'm at Hogwarts... I guess this is a good sign, then.

Harry: Actually, sorry, I've got no idea who you are really.

Draco: (crestfallen) Oh come on! Why'd you go and do that then? And how do you not know about the Malfoys? And what are those clothes you're wearing? Are your parents Muggles?

Harry: Two of my parents are dead. My other two parents are Muggles, and they're the ones that raised me.

Draco: What? Who are you?

Harry: Harry Potter. Pleased to meet you.

Draco: (aghast) Harry Potter?! The Harry--

(beat)

Draco: (mock enthusiasm) Harry Potter? The Harry Potter? Gosh, I've always wanted to meet you!

Harry: Shut up.

Draco: Can I have your autograph? No, wait, I want a picture with you first!

Harry: Shutupshutupshutup.

Draco: I'm just so inexpressibly delighted to meet you!

Harry: (politely) Burst into flames and die.

Draco: But you're Harry Potter, the glorious saviour of the wizarding world, defeater of the Dark Lord! Everyone's hero, Harry Potter! I've always wanted to be just like you when I grow up so I can defeat Dark Lords too--

[Enter Lucius Malfoy.]

Lucius: (outraged) Draco, what are you saying?

(beat)

Harry: (mock enthusiasm) Lucius Malfoy! The Lucius Malfoy? Your son has been telling me all about you. But of course I knew about you all before then, everyone knows about you, the great Lucius Malfoy! The most honored laureate of all the House of Slytherin, I've been thinking about trying to get into Slytherin House myself just because I heard you were in it as a child--

[Enter Minerva McGonagall.]

Professor McGonagall: (horrified) What are you saying, Mr. Potter?

(beat)

Draco: (mock enthusiasm) Professor McGonagall! Is it really you? I've heard so much about you from my father, I've been thinking of trying to get Sorted into Gryffindor so I can--

Lucius and Professor McGonagall: WHAT?!?

(Lucius drags Draco outside.)

(beat)

Professor McGonagall: Madam Malkin, what has been happening here?

Madam Malkin looked back silently for four seconds, and then cracked up. She fell against the wall, wheezing out laughter, and that set off both of her assistants, one of whom fell to her hands and knees on the floor, giggling hysterically.

Professor McGonagall: I leave you alone for five minutes. Five minutes, Mr. Potter, by the very clock.

Harry: I was only joking around.

Professor McGonagall: (borderline hysterical) Draco Malfoy said in front of his father that he wanted to be sorted into Gryffindor! Joking around isn't enough to do that! What part of "get fitted for robes" sounded to you like please cast a Confundus Charm on the entire universe!

Harry: He was in a situational context where those actions made internal sense--

Professor McGonagall: No. Don't explain. I don't want to know what happened in here. Ever. There are some things I was not meant to know, and this is one of them. Whatever demonic force of chaos inhabits you, it is contagious, and I don't want to end up like poor Draco Malfoy, poor Madam Malkin and her two poor assistants."

"[McGonagall]: I am going there, (points to a bar) and buying a drink, which I desperately need."
 * Even better...

"Harry: Draco? What are you doing in--oh my god you have minions!
 * The result of Harry's experiment with the Time Turner in Chapter 17.
 * Draco's reaction when he learns Muggles landed on the moon.
 * Fred and George singing an improvised "Who you gonna call? Harry Potter!" song to the Ghostbusters melody during Harry's sorting in chapter 9.
 * When Harry meets Crabbe and Goyle for the first time.

Draco: Potter, I introduce to you Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Goyle. Vincent, Gregory, this is Harry Potter.

Crabbe: (false accent) Pleased ta meetcha.

Harry: You have minions! Where do I get minions?

[...]

Harry: Um... hold on, this was arranged years ago?

Draco: Exactly, Potter. I'm afraid you're out of luck.

Harry: And, Lucius insisted that you were not to grow up knowing your bodyguards, and that you were only to meet them on your first day of school.

Draco: Yes, Potter, we all know you're brilliant, the whole school knows by now, you can stop showing off--

Harry: So they've been told their whole lives that they're going to be your minions and they've spent years imagining what minions are supposed to be like and what's worse, they do know each other and they've been practicing"

"Dear Mum and Dad:
 * Chapter 21 ends with a letter home describing Harry's (eventful) first week:

Hogwarts is lots of fun.

I learned how to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics in Charms class, and I met a girl named Hermione Granger who reads faster than I do.

I'd better leave it at that."

"YOU SHOULD DIMMMPHL."
 * "You have lost the game", for the wrong reason.
 * "Yes, I'm very angry!" said Harry. "Grrr!" Harry's Internal Critic promptly awarded him the All-Time Award for the Worst Acting in the History of Ever.
 * Harry is suffering a Heroic BSOD, retreating into his Dark Side persona after Dementor exposure sucks away everything else. In between loudly threatening the murder of everything that slightly annoys him, the nurse shovels chocolate in his mouth;

"Dumbledore: Well done, Miss Granger. Honestly, I would never have expected that to work."
 * And of course, what the thing that cures Harry ends up being.

"Draco: You're a Parselmouth, you can speak Parseltongue, it's the language of all snakes everywhere. You can understand any snake when it talks, and they can understand when you talk to them... Harry, you can't possibly believe you were Sorted into Ravenclaw! You're the Heir of Slytherin!
 * Professor McGonagall: "You're having another 'you turned into a cat' moment, aren't you, Mr. Potter. You probably don't want to hear this, but it's quite endearingly cute."
 * The exchange at the end of Chapter 47:

...

...

...

...

...

Harry: SNAKES ARE SENTIENT?"

"Harry: "That's why when Ron came over to me as I was sitting down at the Ravenclaw table, and told me to stay away from you, I held my hand out over the floor and said, 'You see how high I'm holding my hand? Your intelligence has to be at least this high to talk to me.' Then he accused me of, quote, sucking you into the darkness, unquote, so I pursed my lips and went schluuuuurp, and after that his mouth was still making those talking noises so I put up a Quieting Charm. I don't think he'll be trying his lectures on me again.""
 * CANNIBALISM!!
 * AAIIIEEEEE DON'T EAT ME!
 * Harry's response to Ron's warnings to Harry:

"Harry:"Professor McGonagall the Headmaster set fire to a chicken!"
 * "Oh, I'm a Sorting Hat and I'm okay, I sleep all year, I work one day..."
 * What Harry does with the last three cans of Comed-Tea in chap. 46
 * The scene with Dumbledore's phoenix:


 * Beat*

Professor McGonagall: "He wha-""

"Harry: "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.""
 * Harry's Pet Rock died, nuff said...
 * "Tell me," said General Granger, "is there anyone in my army who isn't a spy?"
 * Harry's speech to his soldiers in chapter 30:

"Before she'd met Harry Potter she hadn't had anyone she'd wanted to crush. If someone wasn't doing as well as her in class, it was her job to help them, not rub it in. That was what it meant to be Good.
 * Hermione's absolute glee at beating Harry hollow (academically) in ch. 21 makes this troper grin along with her:

And now...

...now she was winning, Harry Potter was flinching every time she got another House point, and it was so much fun, her parents had warned her against drugs and she suspected this was more fun than that."

"Don't be frightened, don't be sad,
 * Absolutely anything in any of the battles.

We'll only hurt you if you're bad,

And send you to a home that's true,

With new friends to watch over you,

Be sure to tell them you were sent

By Granger's Sunshine Regiment!"

""You doing anything interesting today?" said Tracey.
 * Chapter sixty-three consists of various character's reactions to the escape of Bellatrix Lestrange. And then there's this.

"Nope," said Daphne."

""Well!" Dumbledore cried jovially. "It seems Harry Potter has been sorted into the new House of Achoo! McGonagall, you can serve as the Head of House Achoo. You'd better hurry up on making arrangements for Achoo's curriculum and classes, tomorrow is the first day!""
 * The omake chapter 11, with all the various possibilities the Sorting Hat could have yelled out about which house Harry belonged to...
 * Achoo!

"Hat: "Oh, dear. This has never happened before..."
 * Pancakes!
 * Representatives!
 * ELF!
 * Atreides!
 * KHAAAAANNNN!
 * This troper was reduced to a puddle of laughing tears after imagining the Sorting Hat screaming after being placed on Harry's mind, bouncing away, and bursting into flame.
 * And of course what it actually said: SLYTHERIN!
 * Another "Harry gets Draco pregnant" joke.

Harry: What?

Hat: I've had to tell students before that they were mothers - it would break your heart to know what I saw in their minds - but this is the first time I've ever had to tell someone they were a father.

Harry: WHAT?

Hat: Draco Malfoy is carrying your baby.

Harry: WHAAAAAAAT?

Hat: To repeat: Draco Malfoy is carrying your baby.

Harry: But we're only eleven -

Hat: Actually, Draco is secretly thirteen years old.

Harry: B-b-but men can't get pregnant -

Hat: And a girl under those clothes.

Harry: BUT WE'VE NEVER HAD SEX, YOU IDIOT!

Hat: SHE OBLIVIATED YOU AFTER THE RAPE, MORON!

Harry Potter fainted. His unconscious body fell off the stool with a dull thud.

"RAVENCLAW!" called out the Hat from where it lay on top of his head. That had been even funnier than its first idea."

"At the Head Table, Dumbledore rose, his face puzzled. "Yes?" he addressed the Hat. "What is it?"
 * "Headmaster!" called the Sorting Hat.

"I wasn't talking to you," said the Hat. "I was Sorting Harry Potter into the place in Hogwarts where he most belongs, namely the Headmaster's office -""

""And everyone with secret orders, make sure you carry them out to the letter," said Draco.
 * "When you try to find the Great Hall, you will get lost." Penelope stated this in the tones of a flat, unarguable fact. "As soon as you do, ask a portrait how to get to the first floor. Ask another portrait the instant you suspect you might be lost again. Especially if it seems like you're going up higher and higher. If you are higher than the whole castle ought to be, stop and wait for search parties. Otherwise we shall see you again three months later and you will be two years older and dressed in a loincloth and covered in snow and that's if you stay inside the castle."
 * Draco knows the right way to deal with incompetence:

Around half his soldiers openly nodded, and Draco marked them for death after he rose to power."

"Hermione: I'm getting tired of hearing people talk about the Boy-Who-Lived like you're - like you're some kind of god or something.
 * Harry is not modest.

Harry: Same here, I must say. It's sad how people keep underestimating me."

"Quirrel: Mr. Potter will ask his account manager at Gringotts to recommend a neutral instructor. With respect, Headmaster Dumbledore, after the events of this morning I must protest you or your friends having access to Mr. Potter's mind. I must also insist that the instructor have taken an Unbreakable Vow to reveal nothing, and that he agree to be Obliviated of each session immediately afterward.
 * Dumbledore backpedals:

Dumbledore: Such services are extremely expensive, as you well know, and I cannot help but wonder why you deem them necessary.

Harry: If it's money that's the problem, I have some ideas for making large amounts of money quickly -

Dumbledore: Thank you Quirinus, your wisdom is now quite evident and I am sorry for disputing it."

"At the Gryffindor table, where a cake waited with fifty-one unlit candles, Fred whispered, "I think we may be out of our league here, George." And from that day onward, no matter what Hermione tried to tell anyone, it would be an accepted legend of Hogwarts that Harry Potter could make absolutely anything happen by snapping his fingers.""
 * The exact moment when poor Professor McGonagall realises she's been played in chapter sixty-nine.
 * Daphne Greengrass.
 * Establishing the traitor-armies arc, you get four viewpoint sections from the perspectives of Professor McGonagall, Hermione, Draco and Harry. The first three begin, quote, "The terrifying part was how fast the whole thing had spiraled out of control." Harry's begins, "The awesome thing was how fast he'd been able to escalate the chaos once he started doing it deliberately."
 * Dumbledore being equal-opportunity insa- inscrutable to Susan in chapter 70.
 * The end of Chapter 18.

"And some unbelievably tactless part of him thought, Yay, we completed a quest and got a minion."
 * After Lesath Lestrange profusely thanking him for

"My working hypothesis is that you're stupid, said Hufflepuff.
 * While reflecting on :

That is not a useful fault analysis, thought Harry.

If you want a little more detail, said Hufflepuff, the Defense Professor of Hogwarts was all like 'Let's get !' and you were like 'Okay!'"

""Oh, I know," said Hermione. She ate another bite of toast. "That reminds me, Dumbledore refused to be my mysterious old wizard, is there someplace I can write to get another one?""
 * After Hermione talking to Dumbledore deciding to become a hero:

"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.
 * Severus Snape has plans in motion such that if Voldemort comes back,
 * Even though
 * Draco's reaction to Harry still wanting to be friends with him in Chapter 24, after Draco put a torture hex on him.

Probably.

Maybe.

Well, he could always switch to being his enemy later.

He was doomed."

""But," said the Headmaster. "But, but what am I to tell the Ministry? You can't just !"
 * Harry's conversation with Quirrel and Dumbledore after

"Tell them I ate it," said Professor Quirrell, causing Harry to choke on the soda he had unthinkingly raised to his lips. "I don't mind. Shall we head on back, Mr. Potter?""

"McGonagall clenched the podium in a white-knuckled grip, knowing that Harry Potter's contagious chaos had somehow infected the Sorting Hat itself and the Hat was about to, to demand that a whole new House of Doom be created just to accomodate Harry Potter or something, and Dumbledore would make her do it..."
 * McGonagall's reaction to Harry's long sorting.

"But she had to carry on, because that was what heroes did, they carried on, and also because it had seemed infinitely too awful to tell everyone she was calling it off. Hermione wondered how much heroism had gone on for reasons like that. Most books didn't say "And then they refused to give up, no matter how sensible it would have been, because that would've been too embarrassing"; but a great deal of history made a lot more sense that way."
 * Hermione having second thoughts about SPHEW in Chapter 70.

""Yeah," said Parvati, voice only slightly shaky as she stood up and started to brush off her red-trimmed robes, "it turns out that Susan Bones is the Heir of Hufflepuff and she's opened up the long-lost entrance to Helga Hufflepuff's Chamber of Hard Work and Practice.""
 * The first offered explanation for Susan's dramatic power increase in chapter 73, proving that not all houses can be as cool as Slytherin:

""I... see," said Harry, as he trod through the halls of Hogwarts after Professor Quirrell, following him toward the Defense Professor's office. "So my chant, the way I wrote it, implies that the Outer God, Yog-Sothoth -"
 * Harry and Quirell discussing the aftereffects of a prank ritual, involving some Warhammer 40000 Chaos gods, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer demon and an Old One:

"Was permanently sacrificed to fuel a ritual which but briefly manifested your presence," said Professor Quirrell. "I suppose we will discover tomorrow whether anyone took that seriously, when we read the newspapers and see whether all the magical nations of the world are banding together in a desperate effort to seal off your incursion into our reality.""

"Pansy turned, and stretched out a begging hand toward Draco Malfoy's desk. "Draco!" she said pleadingly. "Mr. Malfoy! Please, make Tracey give me back my soul!"
 * The others aftereffects of this particular prank:

"I can't," said Tracey. "I ate it."

"Make her throw it up!" yelled Pansy.

The heir of Malfoy had slumped forward, resting his head in both hands, so that nobody could see his face. "Why is my life like this?" said Draco Malfoy. [Snape enters].

"Professor Snaaaaaape!" wailed Pansy Parkinson in tears. "Tracey ate my soooouuul!""

"Harry: So, after weighing the expected outcomes as best I could with my boundedly rational intellect, I thought it would be wisest to."
 * In addition to the line itself, the fact that this line makes sense in context should get one:

"A Quibbler headline proclaiming"
 * Hermione's imagination when she contemplates the fate of those who are about to become heroes...

"Harry: I. Am. Not. Her. Boyfriend!
 * In chapter seventy-five, the Ravenclaw boys telling Harry that nice boys get girls, and Dark wizards get girls, but nice boys suspected of secretly being Dark wizards get more girls than you can imagine...all while the Ravenclaw girls are telling Hermione how romantic Harry's actions were (she's not buying it).

Sixth-Year: Yeah, well, I think after she kisses you to bring you out of Dementation and you stick forty-four bullies to the ceiling for her, we've gone way past 'she's not my girlfriend, really' and into the question of what your kids will be like. Wow, that's a scary thought...Please don't look at me like that."

"Harry: I make you this one offer. I never learn that you've been interfering with me or any of mine. And you never find out why the unkillable soul-eating monster is scared of me. Now sit down and shut up."
 * Harry and Hermione have The Maiden Name Debate...and then immediately stop talking when they realize they're having the maiden name debate.
 * Harry scaring a Dementor away by saying, "BOO!". Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome.

"Harry:Oh, and Ron Weasley came up to me, looking very serious, and told me that if I saw you first, I should tell you that he's sorry for having thought badly of you, and he'll never speak ill of you again.
 * "Enough, Mr. Potter," said Professor McGonagall. "We shall be late for afternoon Transfiguration as it is. And do come back here, you're still terrifying that poor Dementor."
 * A very serious talk in Chapter 84 in which Harry comforts Hermione about everyone thinking she, ends with this:

Hermione: Ron believes I'm innocent?

Harry: Well... he doesn't think you're innocent, per se..."