Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

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

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

...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.

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

'Oh, I feel a little better now, how strange...'

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

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...

Harry looked at Professor Quirrell's snake form.

...maybe enough for an Innervate.

If awakening Professor Quirrell was, in fact, a smart thing to do.

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.

Steady, Harry thought to himself, and looked at the crumpled form of the Auror.

Bellatrix might also be able to manage a Memory Charm.

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.

...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.)

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

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.

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.

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...

Harry's train of thought stumbled.

There were times when 'Aw, crap' just didn't seem to cover it.

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.)

Li stepped well back, pointed his wand at the Cabinet, spoke the incantation 'Harmonia Nectere Passus', and not a second later -

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.

'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?'

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

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

Then another trio of Hit Wizards.

Then another broomstick team.

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