Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The old wizard, his face now even grimmer, said nothing, only shook his head.

When the portkey's yank had subsided, the Sun was only just peeking over the horizon, looking more like dawn than sunset, as their broom hovered low above a brief expanse of dark-orange rock and sand, arranged into lumpy hills like someone had kneaded the land's dough a few times and then forgotten to roll it flat. In the near distance, waves rolled past in an endless vista of water, though the ground over which the broomstick hovered was above sea level by meters at the least.

Harry blinked at the dawn colors, and then realized the portkey had been international.

"Oy!" came a brisk, female shout from behind him, and Harry spun the broomstick to look. A middle-aged lady was holding up one hand to her mouth in a deliberate calling gesture, and bustling forward. Her kindly features, narrow eyes, and umber skin marked a race unfamiliar to Harry; she was clad in brilliant purple robes of a style Harry had never seen before; and when her lips opened again she spoke with an accent that Harry couldn't place, for he was not widely traveled. "Where were you? You're two hours late! I almost gave up on the lot of you... hello?"

There was a brief pause. Harry's thoughts seemed to be moving oddly, too slow, everything felt distant, like there was a thick pane of glass between himself and the world, and another thick pane of glass between himself and his feelings, so that he could see, but not touch. It had come over him upon seeing the dawn's light and the kindly witch, and thinking that it all seemed like a proper end to the adventure.

Then the witch was rushing forward and drawing her wand; a muttered word severed the cuffs that bound the emaciated woman to the broomstick, and Bellatrix was being floated down onto the sandy rock with her skeletal arms and pale legs dangling like lifeless things. "Oh, Merlin," whispered the witch, "Merlin, Merlin, Merlin..."

She appears concerned, thought an abstract, distant thing between two panes of glass. Is that what a real healer would say, or is it what someone told to put on a performance would say?

As though it wasn't Harry who spoke, but some other part of himself behind yet another pane of glass, a whisper came from his lips. "The green snake on her back is an Animagus." Not high the whisper, not cold, only quiet. "He is unconscious."

The witch's head twitched up, to look at where that voice had seemed to speak out of empty air, and then looked back down at Bellatrix. "You're not Mister Jaffe."

"That would be the Animagus," whispered Harry's lips. Oh, thought the Harry behind glass, listening to the sound of his own lips, that makes sense; Professor Quirrell must have used a different name.

"Since when is he a - bah, forget it." The witch laid her wand on the snake's nose for a moment, then shook her head sharply. "Nothing wrong with him that a day's rest won't cure. Her... "

"Can you wake him up now?" whispered Harry's lips. Is that a good idea? thought Harry, but his lips definitely seemed to think so.

Again the sharp headshake. "If an Innervate didn't work on him -" began the witch.

"I did not attempt one," whispered Harry's lips.

"What? Why - oh, never mind. Innervate. "

There was a pause, and then a snake slowly crawled out of its harness. Slowly the green head came up, looked around.

A blur later, Professor Quirrell was standing, and a moment later had sagged to his knees.

"Lie down," said the witch without looking up from Bellatrix. "That you in there, Jeremy?"

"Yes," said the Defense Professor rather hoarsely, as he carefully laid himself down on a relatively flat patch of sandy orange rock. He was not so pale as Bellatrix, but his face was bloodless in the dim dawn light. "Salutations, Miss Camblebunker."

"I told you," said the witch, sharpness in her voice and a slight smile on her face, "call me Crystal, this isn't Britain and we'll have none of your formality here. And it's Doctor now, not Miss."

"My apologies, Doctor Camblebunker." This was followed by a dry chuckle.

The witch's smile grew a little wider, her voice that much sharper. "Who's your friend?"

"You don't need to know." The Defense Professor's eyes were closed, where he lay on the ground.

"How wrong did it go?"

Very dryly indeed: "You can read about it tomorrow in any newspaper with an international section."

The witch's wand was tapping here, there, poking and prodding all over Bellatrix's body. "I missed you, Jeremy."

"Truly?" said the Defense Professor, sounding slightly surprised.

"Not even a tiny little bit. If I didn't owe you -"

The Defense Professor started to laugh, and then it turned into more of a coughing fit.

What do you think? said Slytherin to the Inner Critic, while Harry listened from behind the glass walls. Performance, or reality?

Can't tell, said Harry's Inner Critic. I'm not in top critical form right now.

Can anyone think of a good probe to gather more information? said Ravenclaw.

Again that whisper from the empty air above the broomstick: "What is the chance of undoing all that was done to her?"

"Oh, let's see. Legilimency and unknown Dark rituals, ten years for that to set in place, followed by ten years of Dementor exposure? Undo that? You're out of your skull, Mister Whoever-You-Are. The question is whether there's anything left, and I'd call that maybe one chance in three -" The witch suddenly cut herself off. Her voice, when it spoke again, was quieter. "If you were her friend, before... then no, you're never getting her back. Best understand that now."

I'm voting that this is a performance, said the Inner Critic. She wouldn't just blurt all that out in response to one question unless she was looking for an opportunity.

Noted, but I'm putting a low weight of confidence on that, said Ravenclaw. It's very hard not to let your suspicions control your perceptions when you're trying to weigh evidence that subtle.

"What potion did you give her?" the witch said after opening Bellatrix's mouth and peering inside, her wand flashing multiple colors of illumination.

The man lying on the ground calmly said, "Pepper-Up -"

" Were you out of your mind? "

Again the coughing laugh.

"She'll sleep for a week if she's lucky," the witch said, and clucked her tongue. "I'll owl you when she opens her eyes, I suppose, so you can come back and talk her into that Unbreakable Vow. Have you got anything to stop her from killing me on the spot, if she manages to even move for another month?"

The Defense Professor, eyes still closed, took a sheet of paper from his robes; a moment later, words began to appear on it, accompanied by tiny wisps of smoke. When the smoke had stopped rising, the paper floated over toward the woman.

The woman looked over the paper with raised eyebrows, gave a sardonic snort. "This had better work, Jeremy, or my last will and testament says that my whole estate goes into putting a bounty on your head. Speaking of which -"

The Defense Professor reached again into his robes and tossed the witch a bag that made a clinking sound. The witch caught it, weighed it, made a pleased sound.

Then she stood up, and the pale skeletal woman floated off the ground beside her. "I'm heading back," said the witch. "I can't start my work here."

"Wait," said the Defense Professor, and with a gesture retrieved his wand from Bellatrix's hand and harness. Then his hand pointed the wand at Bellatrix, and moved in a small circular gesture, accompanied by a quiet, " Obliviate ."

" That's it ," snapped the witch, "I'm taking her out of here before anyone does her any more damage -" One arm came around to hug the bony form of Bellatrix Black to her side, and they both disappeared with the loud POP! of Apparition.