Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

or my last will and testament says that my whole estate goes into putting a bounty on your head. Speaking of which -"

The Defense Professor reached again into his robes and tossed the witch a bag that made a clinking sound. The witch caught it, weighed it, made a pleased sound.

Then she stood up, and the pale skeletal woman floated off the ground beside her. "I'm heading back," said the witch. "I can't start my work here."

"Wait," said the Defense Professor, and with a gesture retrieved his wand from Bellatrix's hand and harness. Then his hand pointed the wand at Bellatrix, and moved in a small circular gesture, accompanied by a quiet, "Obliviate."

"That's it," snapped the witch, "I'm taking her out of here before anyone does her any more damage -" One arm came around to hug the bony form of Bellatrix Black to her side, and they both disappeared with the loud POP! of Apparition.

And there was silence in that lumpy place, but for the gentle rush of the passing waves, and a little breath of wind.

I think the performance is finished, said the Inner Critic. I give it two and a half out of five stars. She's probably not a very experienced actor.

I wonder if a real healer would seem more fake than an actor told to play one? mused Ravenclaw.

Like watching a television show, that was how it felt, like watching a television show whose characters you didn't particularly empathize with, that was all that could be seen and felt from behind the glass walls.

Somehow, Harry managed to move his lips himself, send his own voice out into the still dawn air, and then was surprised to hear his own question. "How many different people are you, anyway?"

The pale man lying on the ground didn't laugh, but from the broomstick Harry's eyes saw the sides of Professor Quirrell's lips curling up, the edge of that familiar sardonic smile. "I cannot say that I bothered keeping count. How many are you?"

It shouldn't have shaken the inner Harry so much, hearing that response, and yet he felt - he felt - unstable, like his own center had been subtracted -

Oh.

"Excuse me," said Harry's voice. It now sounded as distant and detached as the fading Harry felt. "I'm going to faint in a few seconds, I think."

"Use the fourth portkey I gave you, the one I said was our fallback refuge," said the man lying on the ground, calmly but swiftly. "It will be safer there. And continue wearing your cloak."

Harry's free hand retrieved another twig from his pouch and snapped it.

There was another portkey yank, internationally long, and then he was somewhere black.

"Lumos," said Harry's lips, some part of him looking out for the safety of the whole.

He was inside what looked like a Muggle warehouse, a deserted one.

Harry's legs climbed off the broomstick, lay on the floor. His eyes closed, and some tidy fraction of self willed his light to fail, before the darkness took him.

"Where will you go?" yelled Amelia. They were almost at the edge of the wards.

"Backward in time to protect Harry Potter," said the old wizard, and before Amelia could even open her lips to ask if he wanted help, she felt the boundary of the wards as they crossed them.

There was a pop of Apparition, and the wizard and the phoenix vanished, leaving behind the borrowed broomstick.

Chapter 60: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 10

"Wake."

Harry's eyes flew open as he came awake with a choking gasp, a jerking start of his prone body. He couldn't remember any dreams, maybe his brain had been too exhausted to dream, it seemed like he'd only closed his eyes and then heard that word spoken a moment after.

"You must awaken," said the voice of Quirinus Quirrell. "I gave you as much time as I could, but it would be wise to reserve at least one use of your Time-Turner. Soon we must go backward four hours to Mary's Place, appearing in every way as though we have done nothing interesting this day. I wished to speak to you before then."

Harry slowly sat up in the midst of darkness. His body ached, and not only in the places where it had laid on the hard concrete. Images tumbled over each other in his memory, everything his unconscious brain had been too tired to discharge into a proper nightmare.

Twelve terrible voids floating down a metal corridor, tarnishing the metal around them, light dimmed and temperature falling as the emptiness tried to suck all life out of the world -

Chalk-white skin, stretched just above the bone that had remained after fat and muscle faded -

A metal door -

A woman's voice -

No, I didn't mean it, please don't die -

I can't remember my children's names any more -

Don't go, don't take it away, don't don't don't -