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// 9595
//== The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 5

// 9596
//In a scarred and ruined corridor, lit by dim gas lights, a boy slowly crept
//forward, one hand stretched out, toward the unmoving snake that was the body of
//his teacher.

// 9597
//Harry was only a meter away from the snake’s body when he first felt it,
//tickling at the edge of his perception.

// 9598
//Ever so weakly, a sense of doom…

// 9599
//Professor Quirrell __was__ alive, then.

// 9600
//The thought engendered no feeling of joy, only a sort of empty despair.

// 9601
//Harry would still be caught soon, and no matter how he tried to explain, it
//still wouldn’t look good. No one would trust him again, they would think he was
//the next Dark Lord, they wouldn’t help him when it came time to fight Lord
//Voldemort, Hermione would give up on him, probably even Dumbledore would look
//for another hero…

// 9602
//…maybe they’d just send him home to his parents.

// 9603
//He had failed.

// 9604
//Harry looked at the crumpled body of the police officer he’d stunned, the
//already-drying blood from the minor cuts and slashes, the burned places on the
//intricately embroidered red robes.

// 9605
//He’d been stupid. He __shouldn’t__ have stunned the police officer, should
//have just __stayed__ with his original story about being kidnapped by
//Professor Quirrell…

// 9606
//__It might not be too late,__ whispered a voice inside him. __You
//might still be able to fix your mistake. The Auror saw you, he remembers that
//you stunned him… but if he were dead, if Professor Quirrell were dead, if
//Bellatrix were dead, there would be no one to contradict your story.__

// 9607
//Slowly, Harry’s hand started to rise, pointing his wand at the police officer
//and -

// 9608
//Harry’s hand halted.

// 9609
//He had a distant sense he was behaving uncharacteristically of himself,
//somehow. Like there was something he’d forgotten, something important, but he
//was having trouble remembering what it was, exactly.

// 9610
//Oh. That was right. He was someone who believed in the value of human life.

// 9611
//A sense of puzzlement accompanied the thought, he couldn’t quite remember
//__why__ other people’s lives had seemed valuable…

// 9612
//__All right,__ said the logical part of him, w__hy has my mind
//changed between then and now?__

// 9613
//Because he was in Azkaban…

// 9614
//And he’d forgotten to recast the Patronus Charm…

// 9615
//Doing anything at all, somehow, seemed like a tremendous effort, like the
//thought of action itself was a weight too heavy to lift; but it did seem like a
//good idea to recast the Patronus Charm, for he was still able to be afraid of
//Dementors. And though he couldn’t remember what it was like to be happy, he
//knew that this wasn’t it.

// 9616
//Harry’s hand rose to hold his wand level before him, his fingers took the
//starting positions.

// 9617
//And then Harry paused.

// 9618
//He couldn’t… quite remember… what he’d used as his happy thought.

// 9619
//That was odd, it had been something very important, he really ought to be able
//to remember it… something to do with death? But that wasn’t happy…

// 9620
//His body was shivering, Azkaban hadn’t seemed so cold before, and it seemed to
//be getting colder even as he thought. It was too late for him, he’d already
//sunk too far, he’d never be able to cast the Patronus Charm now -

// 9621
//__That may be the Dementation talking rather than an accurate estimate,__
//observed the logical part of himself, habits that had been encoded into sheer
//reflex, requiring no energy to activate. __Think of the Dementors’ fear
//as a cognitive bias, and try to overcome it the way you would overcome any
//other cognitive bias. Your hopeless feelings may not indicate that the
//situation is actually hopeless. It may only indicate that you are in the
//presence of Dementors. All negative emotions and pessimistic estimates must now
//be considered suspect, fallacious until proven valid.__

// 9622
//(If you’d been watching the boy as he thought, you would have seen a distant,
//abstract, puzzled frown move across his face, below the glasses and the
//lightning-bolt scar. His hand stayed in the starting position for the Patronus
//Charm, and did not move.)

// 9623
//__The presence of Dementors interferes with the part of you that
//processes happiness. If you cannot retrieve your happy thought by mnemonic
//association on the key of happiness, perhaps you can get at the memory some
//other way instead. When was the last time you talked to someone about the
//Patronus Charm?__

// 9624
//Harry couldn’t seem to remember that either.

// 9625
//A crushing wave of despair swept over him, and was dismissed by the logical
//part of himself as untrustworthy, external, not-Harry, the dull weight still
//pressed him down but his mind went on thinking, it didn’t take much effort to
//think…

// 9626
//__When was the last time you talked to someone about Dementors?__

// 9627
//Professor Quirrell had said that he was already able to feel the presence of
//Dementors, and Harry had said to Professor Quirrell… he’d told Professor
//Quirrell…

// 9628
//…to hold to the memory of the stars, of falling bodilessly through space, like
//an Occlumency barrier across his entire mind.

// 9629
//His second Defense class of the year, on Friday, that was when Professor
//Quirrell had shown him the stars, and again on Christmas.

// 9630
//It didn’t take much effort to remember them, the searing points of white
//against perfect blackness.

// 9631
//Harry remembered the great cloudy wash of the Milky Way.

// 9632
//Harry remembered the peace.

// 9633
//Some of the coldness at the fringes of his limbs seemed to retreat.

// 9634
//There were words he had spoken out loud on the day he’d first cast the Patronus
//Charm, his mind could remember the sounds and the speech even as the feelings
//seemed distant…

// 9635
//…__I thought of my absolute rejection of death as the natural order.__

// 9636
//You cast the True Patronus Charm by thinking about the value of human life.

// 9637
//__…But there are other lives that are still alive to be fought for. Your
//life, and my life, and Hermione Granger’s life, all the lives of Earth, and all
//the lives beyond, to be defended and protected.__

// 9638
//Then the idea of killing everyone… that hadn’t been his true self, that had
//been the Dementation talking…

// 9639
//Despair was the Dementors’ influence.

// 9640
//__Where there’s life, there’s hope. The Auror is still alive. Professor
//Quirrell is still alive. Bellatrix is still alive. I’m still alive. No one’s
//actually died yet…__

// 9641
//Harry could picture the Earth, now, in the midst of the starfield, the
//blue-white orb.

// 9642
//__…and I won’t let them!__

// 9643
//“Expecto Patronum!”

// 9644
//The words came out a little halting, and when the human shape burst back into
//existence it was dim at first, moonlight instead of sunlight, white instead of
//silver.

// 9645
//But it strengthened, slowly, as Harry breathed in deliberate rhythm,
//recovering. Letting the light drive back the darkness from his mind.
//Remembering the things that he had almost forgotten, and channeling them back
//into the Patronus Charm.

// 9646
//Even when the light blazed full and silver once more, illuminating the corridor
//more brightly than the gas lamps, banishing fully the cold, Harry’s limbs still
//shook. That had been too close.

// 9647
//Harry took a deep breath. All right. It was time to reconsider the situation
//now that his thoughts were no longer being artificially darkened by Dementors.

// 9648
//Harry reviewed the situation.

// 9649
//…still looked pretty hopeless, actually.

// 9650
//It wasn’t the crushing despair of before, but Harry still felt wobbly, to put
//it mildly. He didn’t dare go dark and it was his dark side that had the ability
//to take this level of problem in stride. It was his dark side that would have
//laughed scornfully at the very concept of giving up just because he’d lost
//Professor Quirrell and was marooned in the depths of Azkaban and had been seen
//by a police officer. The ordinary Harry was not able to take that sort of thing
//in stride.

// 9651
//But there wasn’t any option except to keep moving forward anyway. You couldn’t
//get any __more__ pointless than giving up before you’d actually lost.

// 9652
//Harry looked around.

// 9653
//Dim gas lights lit a corridor of grey metal, whose sides and floor and ceiling
//were slashed in places, gouged and melted, telling anyone who cared to look
//that there had been battle here.

// 9654
//Professor Quirrell could have repaired it easily enough, if he’d…

// 9655
//The sense of betrayal struck Harry with full force, then.

// 9656
//__Why… why did he… why…__

// 9657
//__Because he’s evil,__ said Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, quietly and sadly.
//__We told you so.__

// 9658
//__No!__ thought Harry desperately. __No, it doesn’t make sense, we
//were going to commit the perfect crime, the Auror could have been Obliviated,
//the corridor repaired, it wasn’t too late but it would have BEEN too late if
//he’d died!__

// 9659
//__But Professor Quirrell was never really planning to commit the perfect
//crime,__ said the grim voice of Slytherin. __He __wanted__ the crime
//to be noticed. He wanted everyone to know that someone had killed an Auror and
//broken Bellatrix Black out of Azkaban. He would have prepared some kind of
//evidence, some proof he could reveal of your involvement, to use as blackmail
//against you; and you would have been bound to him forever.__

// 9660
//Harry’s Patronus almost went out, then.

// 9661
//__No…__ Harry thought.

// 9662
//__Yes,__ said the other three parts of him sadly.

// 9663
//__No. It still doesn’t make sense. Professor Quirrell had to know I would
//turn against him the instant I saw him kill an Auror. That I might very well go
//ahead and confess to Dumbledore, hoping to plead the true fact that I was
//tricked. And… in terms of blackmail, does his killing an Auror against my will,
//really add all __that__ much to breaking Bellatrix out of Azkaban with my
//willing help? It would have been more cunning to keep the evidence of my
//involvement with the basic crime, but still pretend to be my ally for as long
//as he could, saving the blackmail to use only if it became necessary…__

// 9664
//__Rationalization,__ said Slytherin. __So why __did__ Professor
//Quirrell do it, then?__

// 9665
//And Harry thought with a tinge of desperation - knowing, even as he thought it,
//that he was motivated in part by a desire to reject reality, and that wasn’t
//how the technique was meant to be wielded - __I notice that I am
//confused.__

// 9666
//There was internal silence. None of the parts of himself seemed to have
//anything to add to that.

// 9667
//And Harry continued to take stock of the moderately hopeless-looking situation.

// 9668
//Did Harry need to re-evaluate the probability that Bellatrix was evil?

// 9669
//…not in any mission-relevant sense. It was a __given__ that Bellatrix was
//currently evil. Whether she was an innocent who’d been made that way by torture
//and Legilimency and unspeakable rituals, or whether she’d chosen it of her own
//will, didn’t have much bearing on the current situation. The key fact was that
//while Bellatrix thought Harry was the Dark Lord, she would obey him.

// 9670
//That was one resource, then. But Bellatrix was starved and nine-tenths dead…

// 9671
//__‘Oh, I feel a little better now, how strange…’__

// 9672
//Bellatrix had said that, in her shattered voice, after Harry’s Patronus had
//blazed out of control.

// 9673
//Harry thought, and he couldn’t have quite said __why__ he thought this, it
//might have just been his own mind making things up, but… it seemed likely that
//what the Dementors had taken from you long ago was lost forever. But what the
//Dementors had taken from you __recently,__ the True Patronus Charm might
//give back. Like the difference between emptying a cup, and the unused cup
//fading away. Bellatrix, then, might have got back what she’d lost in just the
//last week or so. Not any happy memories, those would have been eaten years ago.
//But whatever strength and magic had been drained from her in just the last
//week, she might have regained. Like the equivalent of getting a week of rest, a
//week to build up her magic again…

// 9674
//Harry looked at Professor Quirrell’s snake form.

// 9675
//…maybe enough for an __Innervate.__

// 9676
//If awakening Professor Quirrell __was__, in fact, a smart thing to do.

// 9677
//Some of the despair came back to Harry, then. He couldn’t trust Professor
//Quirrell, couldn’t trust that reviving him would be wise, not after what had
//just happened.

// 9678
//__Steady,__ Harry thought to himself, and looked at the crumpled form of
//the Auror.

// 9679
//Bellatrix might __also__ be able to manage a Memory Charm.

// 9680
//That could be step one, anyway. It wasn’t exactly getting everyone safely out
//of Azkaban, and the Aurors __would__ know afterward that something strange
//had happened, they might suspect Bellatrix’s body and perform an autopsy. But
//it was a step.

// 9681
//…and __would__ it be all that hard to get out of Azkaban? If they could
//get to the top of Azkaban quickly enough, before the Auror was supposed to
//report back in, before anyone noticed him missing, then they could just fly out
//through the hole Professor Quirrell had made, and get far enough away from
//Azkaban to activate the portkey Harry already had in his possession. (Both
//Professor Quirrell and Harry had portkeys, and both were powerful enough to
//transport two humans, plus or minus a snake. As with their doubly-concealed
//departure from Mary’s Room, Professor Quirrell had put enough safety margin in
//his plans to impress even Harry.)

// 9682
//Bellatrix could carry Professor Quirrell’s snake form, which Harry dared not
//touch or levitate.

// 9683
//Harry turned and strode quickly toward where Bellatrix was waiting on the
//stairs. He could feel his spirits reviving a little. It __was__ starting
//to look like a good plan, and there was no time to waste in going about it.

// 9684
//What to do with Professor Quirrell, or for that matter Bellatrix, after the
//portkey took them to where they were supposed to hand Bellatrix over to the
//psychiatric healer… well, Harry could work that out along the way. Harry would
//probably have to bamboozle the healer into doing something - which was going to
//take one hell of a bamboozling, and Harry wasn’t even sure what he
//__wanted__ done - but he and Bellatrix had to get moving __now.__

// 9685
//The main problem Harry saw, as he quickly ran the whole process forward in his
//imagination, would come when they reached the roof. Professor Quirrell had been
//supposed to sneak around invisibly and Confund the monitors that would notice
//visitors in the aerial surroundings of Azkaban, causing them to see a repeating
//loop of scenery for a few minutes. Professor Quirrell had said that he couldn’t
//Disillusion Harry’s Patronus; and if they switched __off__ the Patronus,
//the Dementors would notice Bellatrix was missing, and alert the Aurors…

// 9686
//Harry’s train of thought stumbled.

// 9687
//There were times when ‘Aw, crap’ just didn’t seem to cover it.

// 9688
//Li’s hands were sure despite the adrenaline, as he unlocked the bars on the
//Vanishing Cabinet that linked Azkaban to a well-guarded room in the interior of
//the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. (A one-way Vanishing Cabinet, of
//course. The wards permitted a few fast ways __into__ Azkaban, all of them
//highly restricted, and __no__ fast ways out.)

// 9689
//Li stepped well back, pointed his wand at the Cabinet, spoke the incantation
//“__Harmonia Nectere Passus__”, and not a second later -

// 9690
//The door of the Cabinet burst open with a bang, and into the room strode a
//heavy-set, square-jawed witch with greyed hair cropped close around her head.
//She wore no rank signs as she wore no jewelry or other ornamentation, it was
//only an ordinary Auror’s robes that she deemed fit to grace herself: Director
//Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and said to be
//the only witch in the DMLE who could take Mad-Eye Moody in a fair fight (not
//that either of those two were the sort to fight fairly). Li had heard rumors
//that Amelia could Apparate within the bounds of the DMLE, and this was the sort
//of thing that gave rise to rumors like that, he’d called in the alarm not fifty
//seconds ago.

// 9691
//“Get into the air, now!” Amelia barked over her shoulder at the female Auror
//trio following behind her with police broomsticks, they must have all been
//crushed in there, waiting for Li to activate the Cabinet. “I want more aerial
//coverage on this place! And make sure you keep up your anti-Disillusionment
//Charms!” Then her head turned toward him. “Report, Auror Li! Do we know how
//they got in yet?”

// 9692
//Another Auror trio holding broomsticks materialized in the Vanishing Cabinet
//and strode out after them even as Li began talking.

// 9693
//They were followed by a trio of Hit Wizards in full battle gear.

// 9694
//Then another trio of Hit Wizards.

// 9695
//Then another broomstick team.

// 9696
//The emaciated form that was Bellatrix Black was resting motionless on the
//stairs when Harry got there, eyes closed, and when Harry asked in a cold, high
//whisper whether she was awake, he got no response.

// 9697
//A brief twitch of panic was countered by the thought that Professor Quirrell
//had knocked her out to prevent her from hearing the Dark Lord’s cringing
//servant suddenly turn into a hardened criminal and then an expert battlemage.
//Which was good, because she wouldn’t have heard Harry’s voice saying ‘Expecto
//Patronum’.

// 9698
//Harry drew back the hood of the Cloak, pointed his wand at Bellatrix, and
//whispered as gently as he could, “__Innervate.__”

// 9699
//From the way Bellatrix’s body jerked a little, Harry didn’t think he’d managed
//to get it quite gentle enough.

// 9700
//The sunken dark eyes opened.

// 9701
//“Bella dear,” Harry said in his cold, high voice, “I am afraid we’ve run into a
//bit of a problem. Have you recovered enough to do small magics?”

// 9702
//There was a pause, and then Bellatrix’s pale head nodded.

// 9703
//“Very good,” Harry said dryly. “I won’t ask you to walk unaided, Bella dear,
//but I am afraid you must walk.” He pointed his wand at her. “__Wingardium
//Leviosa.__”

// 9704
//Harry kept the flow of force down to something he could sustain for a while,
//and it was still probably lifting two-thirds of her current body weight. She
//was… thin.

// 9705
//Slowly, as though for the first time in years, Bellatrix Black pushed herself
//to her feet.

// 9706
//Amelia strode into the duty room, Auror Li and his silver badger following
//behind her. She’d spun her Time-Turner the moment she’d heard the alarm, and
//then spent a tense hour preparing her forces for entry. You couldn’t
//__loop__ time within Azkaban itself, Azkaban’s future couldn’t interact
//with its past, so she hadn’t been able to arrive before the DMLE had gotten the
//message, but she should have arrived in time…

// 9707
//Her eyes went straight to the corpse, uncloaked and looking very dead, floating
//beyond the viewing window.

// 9708
//“Where is Bellatrix Black?” Amelia demanded, showing no fear before the
//creature of fear.

// 9709
//Even her own blood froze for an instant, as the corpse parted its lips, and
//gurgled, “__Do not know.__”

// 9710
//Harry watched, now fully invisible once more, as Bellatrix slowly leaned down,
//took Professor Quirrell’s wand (which Harry dared not touch), and slowly
//straightened again.

// 9711
//Then Bellatrix pointed the wand at the snake, and said, her voice precise
//though it was still a whisper, “__Innervate.__”

// 9712
//The snake did not stir.

// 9713
//“Shall I try again, my Lord?” she whispered.

// 9714
//“No,” Harry said. He swallowed the sick feeling. Harry had decided to say the
//hell with it and try to revive Professor Quirrell after he’d realized that the
//Dementors had probably alerted the Aurors by now. His high, cold voice went on,
//unperturbed, “Do you think you are able to perform a Memory Charm, dear Bella?”

// 9715
//Bellatrix paused, and then said, hesitantly, “I think so, my Lord.”

// 9716
//“Eliminate that Auror’s last half-hour of memory,” Harry commanded. He’d
//thought a bit about whether he wanted to provide any justification for that,
//what he would say if Bellatrix asked why they weren’t just killing him, in
//which case Harry would explain that they were pretending to be a different
//power group and then tell her to shut up -

// 9717
//But Bellatrix simply pointed her wand at the Auror, stood silently for a time,
//and finally whispered, “__Obliviate.__”

// 9718
//She swayed, then, but did not fall.

// 9719
//“Very good, my dear Bella,” Harry said, and chuckled thinly. “And I will ask
//you to carry that snake.”

// 9720
//Again, the woman said nothing, demanded no explanations, didn’t ask why Harry
//or the apparently-invisible Patronus caster couldn’t do it. She only staggered
//to where the long snake lay, slowly bent over, picked it up, draped it over her
//shoulder.

// 9721
//(A tiny little part of Harry observed that it was very __relaxing__ to
//have a minion that would just follow orders so unquestioningly, and even got as
//far as thinking that he could totally get used to having a minion like
//Bellatrix, before that mind-fraction was screamed into silence by his mortally
//offended remainder.)

// 9722
//“Follow,” the boy commanded his minion, and began to walk.

// 9723
//It was starting to get crowded in the duty room, almost too crowded to breathe,
//though there was still space around Amelia herself; if needing to breathe meant
//that you had to crowd Director Bones, it was better not to breathe.

// 9724
//Amelia looked at where Ora was fiddling with Auror McCusker’s mirror.
//“Specialist Weinbach,” she barked, causing the young witch to start. “Any
//response from One-Hand’s mirror?”

// 9725
//“None,” Ora said nervously, “it’s… I mean it has to be jammed, not dead,
//carefully jammed because it didn’t set off the alarms, but the line is so blank
//the mirror might as well be broken…”

// 9726
//Amelia didn’t let her expression change, though the part of her that was
//already mourning One-Hand got a little sadder and a lot more angry. Seven
//months, he’d had seven months left until his retirement after a full century of
//service. She remembered him as an eager young Auror, so very long ago, and his
//whole career he’d served the DMLE with perfect loyalty, at least when it came
//to anything really important…

// 9727
//Someone would __burn__ for this.

// 9728
//The Dementor still hovered outside the window, casting its useless shadow of
//dread over their operations; all the creature could do was gurgle its lack of
//knowledge or fail to reply at all, when asked questions like ‘Did Bellatrix
//Black escape?’ and ‘Why can’t you find her?’ and ‘How is she being hidden?’
//Amelia was starting to worry that the criminals were already gone, when -

// 9729
//“We found a hole in the roof over C spiral!” someone shouted from the doorway.
//“Still open, ward circumventions still active!”

// 9730
//Amelia’s lips peeled back in a smile like a wolf opening its jaws to eat.

// 9731
//Bellatrix Black was still in Azkaban.

// 9732
//And in Azkaban, Bellatrix Black would remain forever.

// 9733
//She took a stride toward the window, ignoring the Dementor now, and looked up
//at the sky above, to check with her own eyes the patrolling broomsticks. She
//couldn’t see the whole sky from here, but she saw ten brooms go past on a
//patrol pattern and that already ought to be enough to catch anyone, though she
//fully meant to put every broom she could in the air. Her Aurors were equipped
//with the fastest racing broom currently on the market, the Nimbus 2000; no
//unsuccessful chases for __her__ people.

// 9734
//Amelia turned back from the window, and frowned. The room was getting
//ridiculously crowded, and two thirds of these people didn’t __need__ to be
//here, they just __wanted__ to be close to the center of the action. If
//there was one thing Amelia couldn’t tolerate, it was people who did what they
//wanted instead of what was needed.

// 9735
//“All right, you lot!” Amelia bellowed at them. “Stop hanging around here and
//start securing the top level of each spiral! That’s right,” she said to the
//looks of surprise, “all three! They could tunnel through a floor or a ceiling
//to go between them, in case you hadn’t worked that out! We’re going down level
//by level until we catch them! I’ll take C spiral, Scrimgeour, you’re on B…” She
//paused, then, remembering that Mad-Eye had retired last year, who could she…
//“Shacklebolt, you’re on the A spiral, take with the strongest other fighters!
//Check every set of cells you pass, look under blankets, do the full set of
//detection Charms in every corridor! Nobody leaves Azkaban until the criminals
//are caught, nobody! And…” People looked at Amelia in surprise as her voice
//trailed off.

// 9736
//__The criminals had invented some way to prevent the Dementors from
//finding Bellatrix Black.__

// 9737
//That ought to have been __impossible.__

// 9738
//It chilled her blood, contemplating that. It was like…

// 9739
//Amelia took a deep breath, and spoke once more, in a voice of steel command.
//“And when you catch them, make bloody sure they’re the real criminals and not
//our own people forced to take Polyjuice. Anyone behaves oddly, check them for
//the Imperius Curse. Keep each other in sight at all times. Don’t assume an
//Auror uniform is friendly if you don’t recognize the face.” She turned to the
//communications specialist. “Tell the broomsticks. If one of the brooms peels
//off for no reason, __half__ of them are to hunt it down while the
//__rest__ keep patrolling. And change the harmonics on everything
//changeable, they may have stolen our keys.” Then back to the rest of the room.
//“No Auror is above suspicion unless they have no family left to threaten.”

// 9740
//She saw it, the cold looks that came over the older faces, saw some of the
//younger Aurors flinch, and knew that they understood.

// 9741
//But she said it out loud, just to be sure.

// 9742
//“We’re fighting the old Wizarding War today, everyone. Just because
//You-Know-Who is dead doesn’t mean the Death Eaters have forgotten his tricks.
//Now __go!__”

// 9743
//Harry walked in silence through the gas-lit grey corridor, invisible beside
//Bellatrix and the silver shape following them, trying to think of a better
//plan.

// 9744
//At first, when he’d realized that the Aurors probably knew already, and that
//moreover, Professor Quirrell wasn’t waking up…

// 9745
//His thoughts __had__ frozen up there, for a second.

// 9746
//And then stayed frozen, even as he’d gotten himself and Bellatrix heading
//downward, to buy as much time as possible; the Aurors, Harry figured, would
//start at the top and move down level by level. The Aurors could afford to move
//slowly and securely; they knew their prey had no way out.

// 9747
//Harry hadn’t been able to think of any way out.

// 9748
//Until Harry had said to himself, __well, if it was just a war game, what
//would General Chaos do?__

// 9749
//From which an answer had followed instantly.

// 9750
//And then Harry had thought, __but if it’s __that__ easy, why hasn’t
//anyone broken out of Azkaban before?__

// 9751
//And after he’d realized the possible problem: __Fine, what would General
//Chaos do about __that?

// 9752
//Whereupon General Chaos had come up with an amendment to his first plan.

// 9753
//It was…

// 9754
//It was the most insanely __Gryffindor__ thing Harry had ever…

// 9755
//So now he was trying to think of a __better__ plan, and not having much
//luck.

// 9756
//__Picky picky picky,__ said Gryffindor. __Who was complaining about
//not having __any__ plan one minute earlier? You should be glad we came up
//with anything at all, Mister Now-We’re-Doomed.__

// 9757
//“My Lord,” Bellatrix whispered haltingly, as she navigated the next flight of
//stairs downward, “am I going back to my cell, my Lord?”

// 9758
//Harry’s brain was distracted, so it took him that long to process the words,
//and then another moment to process the horror, while Bellatrix continued
//speaking.

// 9759
//“I would… please, my Lord, I would very much rather die,” her voice said. And
//then, in a smaller voice, a whisper that was barely there, “but I will go back
//if you ask it of me, my Lord…”

// 9760
//“We are not going back to your cell,” hissed Harry’s voice, on automatic.
//Nothing of what he felt was allowed to reach his face.

// 9761
//__Um…__ said Hufflepuff. __Did you seriously just think, ‘You ought
//to work for me, __I__ would appreciate you?’__

// 9762
//__A stone would respond to that kind of loyalty,__ Harry thought.
//__Even if I’m only getting it by mistake, I can’t help but -__

// 9763
//__She’s the Dark Lord’s loyal killer and torturer, and the supposed
//reason she’s loyal is because an innocent girl was broken into pieces and used
//as raw material to make her,__ said Hufflepuff. __Did you forget?__

// 9764
//__If someone shows me that much loyalty, even by mistake, there’s a part
//of me that can’t help but feel something. The Dark Lord must have been…
//__evil__ doesn’t seem like a strong enough word, he must have been
//__empty__… to not appreciate her loyalty, artificial or not.__

// 9765
//The better parts of Harry didn’t have much to say to that.

// 9766
//And that was when Harry heard it.

// 9767
//It was faint, and it grew louder with every step they took forward.

// 9768
//A woman’s voice, distant, indistinct.

// 9769
//His ears, automatically, strained to make out the words.

// 9770
//“…please don’t…”

// 9771
//“…didn’t mean…”

// 9772
//“…don’t die…”

// 9773
//Then his brain knew __who__ he was hearing, and in almost the same moment,
//figured out __what__ he was hearing.

// 9774
//Because Professor Quirrell wasn’t there to keep the silence any more, and
//Azkaban was not, in fact, silent.

// 9775
//Faint the woman’s voice, repeating:

// 9776
//“No, I didn’t mean it, please don’t die!”

// 9777
//“No, I didn’t mean it, please don’t die!”

// 9778
//It got louder with every step Harry took, he could hear the emotion in the
//words now, the horror, the remorse, the desperation of…

// 9779
//“No, I didn’t mean it, please don’t die!”

// 9780
//…the woman’s worst memory, rehearsing over and over again…

// 9781
//“No, I didn’t mean it, please don’t die!”

// 9782
//…the murder that had sent her to Azkaban…

// 9783
//“No, I didn’t mean it, please don’t die!”

// 9784
//…where she was sentenced by the Dementors to watch whoever she’d killed, die
//and die and die in an infinite repeating loop. Though she must have been put in
//Azkaban recently, from the amount of life left in her voice.

// 9785
//The thought came to Harry, then, that Professor Quirrell had passed those
//doors, heard those sounds, and given not the slightest sign of disturbance; and
//Harry would have called it a positive proof of evil, if Harry’s own lips hadn’t
//remained silent in the presence of Bellatrix, his breathing regular, while
//something inside him screamed and screamed and screamed.

// 9786
//The Patronus brightened, not out of control, but it brightened, with every step
//Harry took forward.

// 9787
//It brightened further as Harry and Bellatrix descended the stairs, she stumbled
//and Harry offered her his left arm thrust outside the Cloak, braving the sense
//of doom from being that close to the snake draped around her neck. There was a
//surprised look on her face, but she accepted it, and said nothing.

// 9788
//It helped Harry, being able to help Bellatrix, but it wasn’t enough.

// 9789
//Not when he saw the huge metal door in the center of that level’s corridor.

// 9790
//Not when they came closer, and the woman’s voice fell silent, because there was
//a Patronus near her now, and she wasn’t reliving her worst memory any more.

// 9791
//__Good,__ said a voice inside him. __That was step one.__

// 9792
//Harry’s steps carried him inevitably forward toward the metal door.

// 9793
//And…

// 9794
//__Now unlock the door -__

// 9795
//…Harry kept walking…

// 9796
//__What do you think you’re doing? Go back and get her out of there!__

// 9797
//…kept walking…

// 9798
//__Save her! What are you doing? She’s hurting YOU HAVE TO SAVE HER!__

// 9799
//The portkey Harry was carrying could transport two humans, only two, plus or
//minus a snake. If they’d had Professor Quirrell’s portkey too… but they
//__didn’t__, Professor Quirrell’s human form was carrying that, there was
//no way to get it… Harry could only save one person today, and there was only
//one person on the lowest level of Azkaban, in the most desperate need…

// 9800
//“DON’T GO!” The voice came in a scream from behind the metal door. “No, no, no,
//don’t go, don’t take it away, don’t don’t don’t -”

// 9801
//There was a light in the corridor and it grew brighter.

// 9802
//“Please,” sobbed the woman’s voice, “please, I can’t remember my children’s
//names any more -”

// 9803
//“Sit down, Bella,” Harry’s voice said, somehow he kept his voice in a cold
//whisper, “I must deal with this,” the Hover Charm diminishing and switching off
//even as Bella obediently sat down, her skeletal form dark against the
//brightening air.

// 9804
//__I’ll die,__ thought Harry.

// 9805
//The air went on brightening.

// 9806
//After all, it wasn’t a __certainty__ that Harry would die.

// 9807
//It was just a probability of death, and weren’t some things worth a probability
//of dying?

// 9808
//The air went on brightening, the greater Patronus was beginning to form around
//him, the brilliant human shape was becoming indistinct within the burning air,
//as Harry’s life went to feed the fire.

// 9809
//__If I wipe out the Dementors, then even if I live, they’ll know it was
//me, that I was the one who did this… I’ll lose my support, lose the war…__

// 9810
//__Yeah?__ said the inner voice that was urging him on. __After you
//destroy all the Dementors in Azkaban? I’d think that’d tend to prove your
//credentials as a Light Lord, actually, so SAVE HER SAVE HER YOU HAVE TO SAVE
//HER -__

// 9811
//The humanoid shape could no longer be seen as a separate entity.

// 9812
//The corridor couldn’t be seen.

// 9813
//Harry’s own body was invisible within the Cloak.

// 9814
//There was only a bodiless viewpoint within an infinite expanse of silver light.

// 9815
//Harry could feel the life leaving him, fueling the spell; far away, he could
//feel the shadows of Death begin to fray.

// 9816
//__I meant to accomplish more with my life than this… I was going to fight
//the Dark Lord, I was going to merge the wizarding and Muggle worlds…__

// 9817
//Lofty goals seemed very distant, very abstract, compared to one woman begging
//him for help, it wasn’t __certain__ that Harry would ever do anything more
//important than this one thing, this one thing that he could do now and here.

// 9818
//And with what might have been his last breath, Harry thought:

// 9819
//__There are other Dementors, probably other Azkabans… if I’m going to do
//this, I should do it when I’m closer to the central pit, it will take less of
//my life that way, which increases the probability that I’ll survive to destroy
//other Dementors… even assuming this is the optimal thing to do, if there’s a
//right time and place to do this, it isn’t now and here, IT ISN’T NOW AND HERE!__

// 9820
//__What?__ said the other part of him indignantly, as it searched for a
//counterargument that didn’t exist -

// 9821
//Slowly the light died back down, as Harry concentrated on that one indisputable
//fact, the one obvious truth that they weren’t in the optimal place, the time
//__couldn’t__ be __now…__

// 9822
//Slowly the light died back down.

// 9823
//Part of Harry’s life flowed back into him.

// 9824
//Part had been lost as radiation.

// 9825
//But Harry had enough left to stay on his feet, and keep the silver human shape
//bright; and when his wand arm raised and his voice whispered “Wingardium
//Leviosa”, the magic flowed obediently out of him and helped Bellatrix to her
//feet. (For it wasn’t his magic he had expended, it had never been his magic
//that fueled the Patronus Charm.)

// 9826
//__I swear,__ Harry thought, breathing as regularly as he could in
//Bellatrix’s presence, while tears streamed down his invisible cheeks, __I
//swear upon my life and my magic and my art as a rationalist, I swear by
//everything I hold sacred and all my happy memories, I give my oath that someday
//I will end this place, please, please may I be forgiven…__

// 9827
//And the two of them walked on, as a murderess’s voice screamed and begged
//someone to come back and save her.

// 9828
//There should have been more time, there should have been a ceremony, for
//Harry’s sacrifice of that piece of himself, but Bellatrix was beside him and so
//Harry just had to keep on walking without a pause, saying nothing, breathing
//evenly.

// 9829
//So Harry walked on, leaving a piece of himself behind. It would dwell in this
//place and time forever, he knew. Even after Harry came back someday with a
//company of other True Patronus casters and they destroyed all the Dementors
//here. Even if he melted the triangular building and burned the island low
//enough that the sea would wash over it, leaving no trace that such a place as
//this had ever once existed. Even then he wouldn’t get it back.

// 9830
//The flock of luminous creatures stopped staring downward, and began patrolling
//the metal corridor as if nothing had happened.

// 9831
//“Just like last time?” Director Bones snapped in the direction of Auror Li, and
//the young Auror replied, “Yes, ma’am.”

// 9832
//The Director fired off another query to see if the Dementors could now find
//their target, and looked unsurprised to hear a negative reply a few seconds
//later.

// 9833
//Emmeline Vance was feeling torn between her loyalties.

// 9834
//Emmeline wasn’t a member of the Order of the Phoenix any more, they had
//disbanded after the end of the last war. And during the war, she’d known,
//they’d all known, that Director Crouch had quietly approved of their
//off-the-books battle.

// 9835
//Director Bones wasn’t Crouch.

// 9836
//But they were hunting Bellatrix Black now, who had been a Death Eater, and who
//was certainly being rescued by Death Eaters. Their Patronuses were behaving
//oddly - all the bright creatures stopping and staring off downward, before
//they’d gone back to following their masters. And the Dementors couldn’t find
//their target.

// 9837
//It seemed to her that this would be an extremely good time to consult Albus
//Dumbledore.

// 9838
//Should she just __suggest__ to Director Bones that they contact
//Dumbledore? But if Director Bones hadn’t contacted him already…

// 9839
//Emmeline wavered for a while, probably too long, and then finally decided.
//__The hell with it,__ she thought. __We’re all on the same side, we
//need to stick together whether Director Bones likes it or not.__

// 9840
//At a thought, her silver sparrow fluttered onto her shoulder.

// 9841
//“Drop behind us to guard our rear,” Emmeline murmured softly, almost without
//moving her lips, “wait until no one is looking directly at you, then go to
//Albus Dumbledore. If he is not already by himself, wait until he is. And tell
//him this: Bellatrix Black is breaking out of Azkaban, and the Dementors cannot
//find her.”