Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

newly healed ears.

"Enough, Bella," Harry finally said, and her voice stopped on the instant.

There was a pause. Harry pulled the Cloak back over his head, just on general principles; and realized in the same instant that they might have telescopes down there or something, in retrospect pulling down his hood for even a moment had been an incredibly dumb move, he hoped the whole mission didn't end up failing because of that one error...

We're not really cut out for this, are we? observed Slytherin.

Hey, Hufflepuff objected in sheer reflex, we can't expect to do anything perfectly the first time, we probably just need more practice FORGET I SAID THAT.

Harry looked back again, saw Bellatrix looking around with a puzzled, wondering look on her face. Her head kept turning, turning.

And finally Bellatrix said, her voice now lower, "My Lord, where are we?"

What do you mean? was what Harry wanted to say, but the Dark Lord would never admit to not understanding anything, so Harry replied, dryly, "We are on a broomstick."

Does she think she's dead, that this is Heaven?

Bellatrix's hands were still chained to the broomstick, so it was only a finger that came up and pointed when she said, "What is that?"

Harry followed the direction of her finger and saw... nothing in particular, actually...

Then Harry realized. After they'd gone up high enough, there hadn't been any clouds to obscure it any more.

"That is the Sun, dear Bella."

It came out remarkably controlled, the Dark Lord sounding perfectly calm and maybe a little impatient with her, even as the tears started down Harry's cheeks.

In the endless cold, in the pitch blackness, the Sun would surely have been...

A happy memory...

Bellatrix's head kept turning.

"And the fluffy things?" she said.

"Clouds."

There was a pause, and then Bellatrix said, "But what are they?"

Harry didn't answer her, there was no way his voice could have been steady, would have been steady, it was all he could do to keep his breathing perfectly regular while he cried.

After a while, Bellatrix breathed, so softly Harry almost didn't hear, "Pretty..."

Her face slowly relaxed, the color leaving its paleness almost as quickly as it had arrived.

Her skeletal body slumped down against the broomstick.

The borrowed wand dangled lifelessly from the strap attached to her unmoving hand.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING -

Harry's mind remembered then, the Pepper-Up potion came at a cost; Bellatrix would ssleep for a conssiderable time, Professor Quirrell had said.

And in the same instant another part of Harry became utterly convinced, looking back at the chalk-white emaciated woman, seeming deader in the bright sunlight than anything Harry had ever seen alive, that she was dead, that she had just uttered her last word, that Professor Quirrell had misjudged the dosage -

- or deliberately sacrificed Bellatrix to guard their own escape -

Is she breathing?

Harry couldn't see if she was breathing.

There was no way, on the broomstick, to reach back and take her pulse.

Harry looked ahead to make sure they weren't about to run into any flying rocks, kept on steering the broomstick toward the Sun, the invisible boy and the possibly dead woman riding off into the afternoon, while his fingers gripped the wood so hard they turned white.

He couldn't reach back and perform artificial respiration.

He couldn't use anything from his healer's kit.

Trust Professor Quirrell to have not endangered her?

Strange, it was strange, that even genuinely believing that Professor Quirrell hadn't meant to kill the Auror (for it would have been stupid), thinking of the Defense Professor's reassurances no longer felt reassuring.

Then it occurred to Harry that he had yet to check -

Harry looked back, and hissed, "Teacher?"

The snake did not stir within its harness, and said no word.

...maybe the snake, not being an actual rider, hadn't been protected from the acceleration. Or maybe coming