The Dementor's speech hurt their ears as it said, "Bellatrix Black is out of her cell."
There was a split second of horrified silence, and then Li tore out of his chair, heading for the communicator to call in reinforcements from the Ministry, even as McCusker grabbed his mirror and started frantically trying to raise the three Aurors who'd gone on patrol.
Chapter 55: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 5
In a scarred and ruined corridor, lit by dim gas lights, a boy slowly crept forward, one hand stretched out, toward the unmoving snake that was the body of his teacher.
Harry was only a meter away from the snake's body when he first felt it, tickling at the edge of his perception.
Ever so weakly, a sense of doom...
Professor Quirrell
The thought engendered no feeling of joy, only a sort of empty despair.
Harry would still be caught soon, and no matter how he tried to explain, it still wouldn't look good. No one would trust him again, they would think he was the next Dark Lord, they wouldn't help him when it came time to fight Lord Voldemort, Hermione would give up on him, probably even Dumbledore would look for another hero...
...maybe they'd just send him home to his parents.
He had failed.
Harry looked at the crumpled body of the police officer he'd stunned, the already-drying blood from the minor cuts and slashes, the burned places on the intricately embroidered red robes.
He'd been stupid. He
Slowly, Harry's hand started to rise, pointing his wand at the police officer and -
Harry's hand halted.
He had a distant sense he was behaving uncharacteristically of himself, somehow. Like there was something he'd forgotten, something important, but he was having trouble remembering what it was, exactly.
Oh. That was right. He was someone who believed in the value of human life.
A sense of puzzlement accompanied the thought, he couldn't quite remember
Because he was in Azkaban...
And he'd forgotten to recast the Patronus Charm...
Doing anything at all, somehow, seemed like a tremendous effort, like the thought of action itself was a weight too heavy to lift; but it did seem like a good idea to recast the Patronus Charm, for he was still able to be afraid of Dementors. And though he couldn't remember what it was like to be happy, he knew that this wasn't it.
Harry's hand rose to hold his wand level before him, his fingers took the starting positions.
And then Harry paused.
He couldn't... quite remember... what he'd used as his happy thought.
That was odd, it had been something very important, he really ought to be able to remember it... something to do with death? But that wasn't happy...
His body was shivering, Azkaban hadn't seemed so cold before, and it seemed to be getting colder even as he thought. It was too late for him, he'd already sunk too far, he'd never be able to cast the Patronus Charm now -
(If you'd been watching the boy as he thought, you would have seen a distant, abstract, puzzled frown move across his face, below the glasses and the lightning-bolt scar. His hand stayed in the starting position for the Patronus Charm, and did not move.)
Harry couldn't seem to remember that either.
A crushing wave of despair swept over him, and was dismissed by the logical part of himself as untrustworthy, external, not-Harry, the dull weight still pressed him down but his mind went on thinking, it didn't take much effort to think...