Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

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.

"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.

The criminals had invented some way to prevent the Dementors from finding Bellatrix Black.

That ought to have been impossible.

It chilled her blood, contemplating that. It was like...

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."

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

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

"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! "

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.

At first, when he'd realized that the Aurors probably knew already, and that moreover, Professor Quirrell wasn't waking up...

His thoughts had frozen up there, for a second.

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.

Harry hadn't been able to think of any way out.

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

From which an answer had followed instantly.

And then Harry had thought, but if it's that easy, why hasn't anyone broken out of Azkaban before?

And after he'd realized the possible problem: Fine, what would General Chaos do about that?

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

It was...

It was the most insanely Gryffindor thing Harry had ever...

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

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.

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

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.

"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..."

"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.

Um... said Hufflepuff. Did you seriously just think, 'You ought to work for me, I would appreciate you?'

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 -

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?

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.

The better parts of Harry didn't have much to say to that.

And that was when Harry heard it.

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

A woman's voice, distant, indistinct.

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

"...please don't..."

"...didn't mean..."

"...don't die..."

Then his brain knew who he was hearing, and in almost the same moment, figured out what he was hearing.

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

Faint the woman's voice, repeating:

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

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

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

...the woman's worst memory, rehearsing over and over again...

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

...the murder that had sent her to Azkaban...

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

...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.

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.

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

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.

It helped Harry, being able to help Bellatrix, but it wasn't enough.

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

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.

Good, said a voice inside him. That was step one.