Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Giant hands were squeezing Harry's chest, wringing him like a washcloth, trying to crush his heart.

"Please," whispered Bellatrix, "just kill me..." Her voice seemed to calm, once she said that. "Please Lord, kill me, I've no reason to live if I'm no use to you... I only want it to stop... please hurt me one last time, my Lord, hurt me until I stop... I love you..."

It was the saddest thing Harry had ever heard.

The bright silver shape of Harry's Patronus flickered -

Wavered -

Brightened -

The fury that was rising in Harry, his rage against the Dark Lord who had done this, the rage against the Dementors, against Azkaban, against the world that allowed such horror, it all seemed to be pouring straight through his arm and into his wand without there being any way of blocking it, he tried willing it to stop and nothing happened.

"My Lord!" whispered the disguised voice of Professor Quirrell. "My spell is going out of control! Help me, my Lord!"

Brighter the Patronus, brighter and brighter, it was waxing faster than on the day that Harry had destroyed a Dementor.

"My Lord!" the silhouette said in a terrified whisper. "Help me! Everyone will feel it, my Lord!"

Everyone will feel it, thought Harry. His imagination could picture it clearly, the prisoners in their cells stirring as the cold and darkness fell away, replaced by healing light.

Every exposed surface now burned like a white sun in the reflections, the silhouette of Bellatrix's skeleton and the sallow man now clearly visible in the blaze, the Disillusionment spells unable to keep pace with the unearthly brilliance; only the Cloak of Invisibility out of the Deathly Hallows withstood it.

"My Lord! You must stop it!"

But Harry could no longer will it to stop, he no longer wanted it to stop. He could sense it, more and more of the sparks of life in Azkaban being sheltered by his Patronus, as it unfolded like spreading wings of sunlight, the air turned to absolute silver as he thought it, Harry knew what he had to do.

"Please, my Lord!"

The words went unheard.

They were far from him, the Dementors in their pit, but Harry knew that they could be destroyed even at this distance if the light blazed bright enough, he knew that Death itself could not face him if he stopped holding back, so he unsealed all the gates inside him and sank the wells of his spell into all the deepest parts of his spirit, all his mind and all his will, and gave over absolutely everything to the spell -

And in the interior of the Sun, an only slightly dimmer shadow moved forward, reaching out an entreating hand.

WRONG

DON'T

The sudden sense of doom clashed with Harry's steel determination, dread and uncertainty striving against the bright purpose, nothing else might have reached him but that. The silhouette took another step forward and another, the sense of doom rising to a point of terrible catastrophe; and in the drench of cold water, Harry saw it, he realized the consequences of what he was doing, the danger and the trap.

If you had been watching from outside you would have seen the interior of the Sun brightening and dimming...

Brightening and dimming...

...and finally fading, fading, fading into ordinary moonlight that seemed like pitch darkness by contrast.

Within the darkness of that moonlight stood a sallow man with his hand outstretched in entreaty, and the skeleton of a woman, lying upon the floor, a puzzled look upon her face.

And Harry, still invisible, fallen to his knees. The greater danger had passed, and now Harry was just trying not to collapse, to keep the spell going at the lower level. He'd drained something, hopefully not lost something - he should have known, should have remembered, that it wasn't mere magic that fueled the Patronus Charm -

"Thank you, my Lord," whispered the sallow man.

"Fool," said the hard voice of a boy pretending to be a Dark Lord. "Did I not warn you that the spell could prove fatal if you failed to control your emotions?"

Professor Quirrell's eyes did not widen, of course.

"Yes, my Lord, I understand," said the Dark Lord's servant in a faltering voice, and turned to Bellatrix -

She was already pushing herself off the floor, slowly, like an old, old Muggle woman. "How funny," Bellatrix whispered, "you were almost killed by a Patronus Charm..." A giggle that sounded like it was blowing dust out of her giggle pipes. "I could punish you, maybe, if my Lord froze you in place and I had knives... maybe I can be useful after all? Oh, I feel a little better now, how strange..."

"Be silent, dear Bella," Harry said in a chill voice, "until I give you leave to speak."

There was no reply, which was obedience.

The servant levitated the human skeleton, and made her invisible once more, followed shortly by his own disappearance with the sound of another cracking egg.

They passed on through the corridors of Azkaban.

And Harry knew that as they passed, the prisoners were stirring in their cells as the fear lifted for one precious