Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

up his mind and magic.

Harry's eyes were fixed on the far end of the corridor, next to the stairs that led downward. Not in his mind now, but in true reality, the light in the corridor had dimmed, the temperature had fallen. The fear thundered over him and around him like a sea whipped by hurricane winds, and the sucking emptiness had become a howling draw toward some approaching black hole.

Up the stairs at the far end, floating smoothly through the dying air, came the voids, the absences, the wounds in the world.

And Harry expected them to stop.

With all the will and focus he could muster, Harry expected them to stop.

Anticipated their stopping.

Believed they would stop.

...that was the idea, anyway...

Harry shut down the dangerous stray thought, and expected the Dementors to halt. They had no intelligence of their own, they were just wounds in the world, their form and structure was borrowed from others' expectations. People had been able to negotiate with them, offer them victims in exchange for cooperation, only because they believed Dementors would bargain. So if Harry believed hard enough that the voids would turn and go, they would turn and go.

But the wounds in the world kept coming, the swirling fear seemed like a solid thing now, the emptiness tearing at matter as well as mind, substance as well as spirit, you could see the metal beginning to tarnish as the holes in the world passed.

A small sound came from behind him, from Bellatrix, but she said no word, for she had been instructed to remain silent.

Don't think of them as creatures, think of them as psychosensitive objects, they can be controlled if I can control myself -

The problem was that he couldn't control himself so easily, couldn't make himself believe blue was green by an act of will. Couldn't suppress all those thoughts about how irrational it was to make yourself believe something. How impossible it was to trick yourself into believing something if you knew that was what you were doing. All the training Harry had given himself against self-deception was refusing to switch off no matter how harmful it was in this unique special case -

The shadows of Death crossed the halfway point of the corridor, and Harry held up his hand, fingers spread, and said in a voice of firm and confident command, 'Stop.'

The shadows of Death stopped.

Behind Harry, Bellatrix gave a strangled gasp, like it was being torn out of her.

Harry gestured to her, the signal he had set up in advance which meant, repeat what you heard the Dementors say.

'They say,' Bellatrix said, her voice was shaking, 'they said, 'Bellatrix Black was promised us. Tell us where she hides, and you will be spared.''

'Bellatrix?' Harry said, making his voice sound amused. 'She escaped a while ago.'

A moment later, Harry realized that he should have said that Bellatrix was among the Aurors in the top level, that would have caused more confusion -

No, it was wrong to think of the Dementors as trickable, they were merely things, they were controlled only by expectations -

'They say,' Bellatrix said in a cracked voice, 'they say they know you're lying.'

The voids began to move forward again.

Her anticipations are more solidly believed than mine; she is controlling them, unwittingly -

'Don't resist,' Harry said, pointing his wand behind him.

'I, I love you, farewell, my Lord -'

'Somnium.'

It had helped, strangely enough, hearing those particular awful words, understanding Bellatrix's mistake; it reminded Harry why he was fighting.

'Stop,' Harry said again. Bellatrix was asleep; now only his own will, his own expectations rather, should control those spheres of annihilation -

But they kept on gliding forward, and Harry couldn't stop himself from worrying that the previous experience had damaged his confidence, which meant that he wouldn't be able to stop them, and as he noticed himself thinking that, he doubted even more - he needed more time to prepare, really ought to practice controlling just one Dementor in a cage first -

There was only a quarter of corridor now between Harry and the shadows of death, the empty winds were so strong that Harry could feel the erosion beginning in the cracks of himself.

And the thought came to Harry that maybe he was wrong, maybe Dementors did have their own desires and planning capability. Or maybe they were controlled by how everyone thought they worked, not just whoever was closest to them. And in either case -

Harry drew up his wand into the starting position for the Patronus Charm, and spoke.

'One of your number went to Hogwarts and did not return. It no longer exists; that Death is dead.'