Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (78 page)

The cloak came closer. It was unraveling and shot through with unpatched holes; it had been new that morning, Auror Goryanof had said.

“Headmaster?” Harry said. “What do you see?”

The Headmaster’s voice was also calm. “The Dementors are creatures of fear, and as your fear of the Dementor diminishes, so does the fearsomeness of its form. I see a tall, thin, naked man. He is not decaying. He is only slightly painful to look upon. That is all. What do you see, Harry?”

…Harry couldn’t see under the cloak.

Or that wasn’t right, it was that his mind was
refusing
to see what was under the cloak…

No, his mind was trying to see the
wrong
thing under the cloak, Harry could feel it, his eyes trying to force a mistake. But Harry had done his best to train himself to notice that tiny feeling of confusion, to automatically flinch away from making stuff up; and every time his mind tried to start inventing a lie about what was under the cloak, that reflex was fast enough to shut it down.

Harry looked under the cloak and saw…

An open question. Harry wouldn’t let his mind see something false, and so he didn’t see anything, like the part of his visual cortex getting that signal was just ceasing to exist. There was a blind spot under the cloak. Harry couldn’t know what was under there.

Just that it was far worse than any decaying mummy.

The unseeable horror beneath the cloak was very close, now, but the blazing bird of moonlight, the white phoenix, yet lay between them.

Harry wanted to run away like some of the other students had. Half the ones who’d had no luck with their Patronus Charms just hadn’t shown up today in the first place. Of those remaining, half had fled before the Headmaster had even dispelled his own Patronus, and no one had said a word. There’d been a little laughter when Terry had turned and walked back before his own try; and Susan and Hannah, who’d gone before, had yelled at everyone to shut up.

But Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived, and he would lose much respect if he was seen to give up without even trying…

Pride and roles seemed to diminish and fall away, in the presence of whatever lay beneath the cloak.

Why am I still here?

It wasn’t the shame of others thinking him cowardly, that kept Harry’s feet in place.

It wasn’t the hope of repairing his reputation that brought up his wand.

It wasn’t the desire to master the Patronus Charm as magic, that moved his fingers into the initial position.

It was something else, something that
had
to oppose whatever lay beneath the cloak, this was the true darkness and Harry had to find out whether it lay within him, the power to drive it back.

Harry had planned to try one final time to think of his book-shopping spree with his father, but instead, at the last minute, facing the Dementor, a different memory occurred to him, something he hadn’t tried before; a thought that wasn’t warm and happy in the ordinary way, but felt righter, somehow.

And Harry remembered the stars, remembered them burning terribly bright and unwavering in the Silent Night; he let that image fill him, fill all of him like an Occlumency barrier across his entire mind, became once again the bodiless awareness of the void.

The bright silver shining phoenix vanished.

And the Dementor smashed into his mind like the fist of God.

FEAR / COLD / DARKNESS

There was an instant when the two forces clashed head-on, when the peaceful starlit memory held its own against the fear, even as Harry’s fingers began the wand motions, practiced until they had become automatic. They weren’t warm and happy, those blazing points of light in perfect blackness; but it was an image the Dementor could not easily pierce. For the silent burning stars were vast and unafraid, and to shine in the cold and darkness was their natural state.

But there was a flaw, a crack, a fault-line in the immovable object trying to resist that irresistible force. Harry felt a twinge of anger at the Dementor for trying to feed on him, and it was like slipping on wet ice. Harry’s mind began to slide sideways, into bitterness, black fury, deathly hatred -

Harry’s wand came up in the final brandish.

It felt wrong.

“Expecto Patronum,” his voice spoke, the words hollow and pointless.

And Harry fell into his dark side, fell down into his dark side, further and faster and deeper than ever before, down down down as the slide accelerated, as the Dementor latched onto the exposed and vulnerable parts and fed on them, eating away the light. A fading reflex scrabbled for warmth, but even as an image of Hermione came to him, or an image of Mum and Dad, the Dementor twisted it, showed him Hermione lying dead on the ground, the corpses of his mother and father, and then even that was sucked away.

Into the vacuum rose the memory, the worst memory, something forgotten so long ago that the neural patterns shouldn’t have still existed.

“Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him!” shouted a man’s voice. “Go! Run! I’ll hold him off!”

And Harry couldn’t help but think, in the empty depths of his dark side, how ridiculously overconfident James Potter had been. Hold off Lord Voldemort? With what?

Then the other voice spoke, high-pitched like the hiss of a teakettle, and it was like dry ice laid on Harry’s every nerve, like a brand of metal cooled to liquid helium temperatures and laid on every part of him. And the voice said:

“Avadakedavra.”

(The wand flew from the boy’s nerveless fingers as his body began to convulse and fall, the Headmaster’s eyes widening in alarm as he began his own Patronus Charm.)

“Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!” screamed the woman’s voice.

Whatever was left of Harry listened with all the light drained out of him, in the dead void of his heart, and wondered if she thought that Lord Voldemort would stop because she asked politely.

“Step aside, woman!” said the shrill voice of burning cold. “For you I am not come, only the boy.”

“Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…”

Lily Potter, Harry thought, seemed not to understand what type of people became Dark Lords in the first place; and if this was the best strategy she could conceive to save her child’s life, that was her final failure as a mother.

“I give you this rare chance to flee,” said the shrill voice. “But I will not trouble myself to subdue you, and your death here will not save your child. Step aside, foolish woman, if you have any sense in you at all!”

“Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead!”

The empty thing that was Harry wondered if Lily Potter seriously imagined that Lord Voldemort would say yes, kill her, and then depart leaving her son unharmed.

“Very well,” said the voice of death, now sounding coldly amused, “I accept the bargain. Yourself to die, and the child to live. Now drop your wand so that I can murder you.”

There was a hideous silence.

Lord Voldemort began to laugh, horrible contemptuous laughter.

And then, at last, Lily Potter’s voice shrieked in desperate hate, “Avada ke-”

The lethal voice finished first, the curse rapid and precise.

“Avadakedavra.”

A blinding flare of green marked the end of Lily Potter.

And the boy in the crib saw it, the eyes, those two crimson eyes, seeming to glow bright red, to blaze like miniature suns, filling Harry’s whole vision as they locked to his own -

The other children saw Harry Potter fall, they heard Harry Potter scream, a thin high-pitched scream that seemed to pierce their ears like knives.

There was a brilliant silver flash as the Headmaster bellowed “
Expecto Patronum!
” and the blazing phoenix returned to being.

But Harry Potter’s horrible scream went on and on and on, even as the Headmaster scooped up the boy in his arms and bore him away from the Dementor, even as Neville Longbottom and Professor Flitwick both went for the chocolate at the same time and -

Hermione knew it, she knew it as she saw it, she knew that her nightmare had been real, it was coming true, somehow it was coming true.

“Get him chocolate!” demanded the voice of Professor Quirrell, pointlessly, because Professor Flitwick’s tiny form was already cannonballing toward where the Headmaster was racing toward the students.

Hermione was moving forward herself, though she didn’t know what else she meant to do -

“
Cast Patronuses!
” shouted the Headmaster, as he brought Harry behind the Aurors. ”
Everyone who can! Get them between Harry and the Dementor! It’s still feeding on him!
”

There was a moment of frozen horror.

“
Expecto Patronum!
” shouted Professor Flitwick and Auror Goryanof, and then Anthony Goldstein, but he failed the first time, and then Parvati Patil, who succeeded, and then Anthony tried again and his silver bird spread its wings and screamed at the Dementor, and Dean Thomas roared the words like they had been written in letters of fire and his wand gave birth to a towering white bear; there were eight blazing Patronuses all in a line between Harry and the Dementor, and Harry went on screaming and screaming as the Headmaster laid him on the dried grass.

Hermione couldn’t cast a Patronus Charm, so she ran toward where Harry lay. In her mind, something tried to guess how long it had been already. Was it twenty seconds? More?

There was a dreadful agony and bewilderment on the face of Albus Dumbledore. His long black wand was in his hand, but he spoke no spells, only looked down at Harry’s convulsing body in horror -

Hermione didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know what to do, she didn’t understand what was happening, and the most powerful wizard in the world seemed equally at a loss.

“
Use your phoenix!
” bellowed Professor Quirrell. ”
Take him far away from that Dementor!
”

Without a single word the Headmaster scooped up Harry in his arms and vanished in a crack of fire along with the suddenly appearing Fawkes; and the Headmaster’s Patronus winked out, where it had guarded the Dementor.

Horror and confusion and sudden babble.

“Mr. Potter should recover,” Professor Quirrell said, raising his voice, but his tone now calm once again, “I think it was just over twenty seconds.”

Then the blazing white phoenix appeared again, like it was flying before them from elsewhere, to Hermione Granger came the creature of moonlight, and it cried to her in Albus Dumbledore’s voice:

“
It still feeds on him, even here! How? If you know, Hermione Granger, you must tell me! Tell me!
”

The senior Auror turned to stare at her, and so did many students. Professor Flitwick didn’t turn, he was now leveling his wand on Professor Quirrell, who was holding out clearly empty hands.

Seconds ticked past, uncounted.

She couldn’t remember it, she couldn’t remember the nightmare clearly, she couldn’t remember why she had thought it was possible, why she had been afraid -

Hermione realized then what she ought to do, and it was the hardest decision of her life.

What if whatever had happened to Harry, happened to her too?

All her limbs cold as death, her vision gone dark, fear overwhelming everything; she’d seen Harry dying, Mum and Dad dying, all her friends dying, everyone dying, so that in the end, when she died, she would be alone. That was her secret nightmare she’d never talked about with anyone, that had given the Dementor its power over her, the loneliest thing was to die alone.

She didn’t want to go to that place again, she, she didn’t, she didn’t want to stay there forever -

You have courage enough for Gryffindor,
said the calm voice of the Sorting Hat in her memory,
but you will do what is right in any House I give you. You will learn, you will stand by your friends, in any House you choose. So don’t be afraid, Hermione Granger, just decide where you belong…

There was no time for deciding, Harry was dying.

“I can’t remember now,” said Hermione, her voice cracking, “but just hold on, I’ll go in front of the Dementor again…”

She started to run toward the Dementor.

“Miss Granger!” squeaked Professor Flitwick, but he made no move to stop her, only kept holding his wand on Professor Quirrell.

“
Everyone!
” shouted Auror Komodo in a voice of military command. ”
Get your Patronuses out of her way!
”

“
FLITWICK!
” roared Professor Quirrell. ”
SUMMON POTTER’S WAND!
”

Even as Hermione understood, Professor Flitwick was already crying “
Accio!
”, and she saw the stick of wood zooming up from where it had lain almost touching the Dementor’s cage.

The eyes opened, dead and vacant.

“
Harry!
” gasped a voice in the colorless world. ”
Harry! Speak to me!
”

The face of Albus Dumbledore leaned over into the field of vision, which had been occupied by a distant marble ceiling.

“You’re annoying,” said the empty voice. “You should die.”

“Fawkes,” said Albus Dumbledore, his voice cracking, “help him, please -”

A brilliant creature of red-gold shuffled into the field of vision, looking down quizzically; and it began to croon.

The meaningless chirps slid off the emptiness, there was nothing onto which they could hold.

“You’re noisy,” said the voice, “you should die.”

“Chocolate,” Albus Dumbledore said, “you need chocolate, and your friends - but I dare not take you back -”

Then a shining raven came, and spoke in Professor Flitwick’s voice; whereupon Albus Dumbledore gasped in sudden comprehension, and cursed aloud at his own stupidity.

The empty thing laughed at that, for it had retained the capacity to be amused.

And a moment later they had all vanished in another flash of fire.

It was only a moment, it seemed, between when Flitwick’s raven had flown to elsewhere, and when Albus Dumbledore reappeared in another crack of red and golden fire with Harry in his arms; but somehow in that time Hermione had already managed to fill her hands with chocolate.

Before Hermione even got there, chocolate had zoomed off the table and straight into Harry’s mouth, which a tiny part of her mind said was unfair,
he’d
gotten a chance to do it for
her -

Harry spat the chocolate back out again.

“Go away,” said a voice so empty it wasn’t even cold.

…

Everything seemed to freeze, everyone who had been moving toward Harry halted, all movements broken by the shock of those two dead words.

Then: “No,” said Albus Dumbledore, “I will not,” and time resumed again, even as another piece of chocolate zoomed off the table and into Harry’s mouth.

Hermione was close enough now that she could see Harry’s expression become more hateful, as his mouth chewed with a mechanical, unnatural rhythm.

The Headmaster’s voice was grim as iron. “Filius, call Minerva, tell her she must come at speed.”

Professor Flitwick whispered to his silver raven, and it flew into the air and vanished.

Another piece of chocolate floated into Harry’s mouth, and the mechanical chewing continued.

There were more students gathering around where the Headmaster watched over Harry with grim eyes: Neville, Seamus, Dean, Lavender, Ernie, Terry, Anthony, none of them daring to approach any closer than Hermione had.

“What can we do?” said Dean in a trembling voice.

“Back off and give him more space -” said the dry voice of Professor Quirrell.

“No!” interrupted the Headmaster. “Let him be surrounded by his friends.”

Harry swallowed his chocolate, and said in that empty voice, “They’re stupid. They should die
mmmppphhh
” as another piece of chocolate entered his mouth.

Hermione saw the looks of shock that crossed their faces.

“He doesn’t mean it, does he?” Seamus said it like he was begging.

“You don’t understand,” Hermione said, her voice breaking, “
that’s not Harry -
” and she shut up before she said anything more, but she
had
to say that much.

She saw from the look on his face that Neville understood, and she also saw that the others didn’t. If Harry had really never thought anything like that, then being exposed to a Dementor for less than a minute wouldn’t have made him say it. That’s what they were probably thinking.

Less than a minute of Dementor exposure couldn’t create a whole new evil person inside you out of nothing.

But if that person was
already there
-

Does the Headmaster know?

Hermione looked up at the Headmaster, and found that Albus Dumbledore was gazing at
her
, and that his blue eyes had grown suddenly piercing -

Words came into her mind.

Do not speak of it,
said the will of Dumbledore to her.

You know,
thought Hermione.
About his dark side.

I know. But this is beyond even that. Fawkes’s song cannot reach him, where he is lost.

What can we -

I have a plan,
sent the Headmaster.
Patience.

Something about the tenor of that thought made Hermione nervous.
What sort of plan?

It is better that you not know,
sent the Headmaster.

Now Hermione was getting
really
nervous. She didn’t know how
much
the Headmaster knew about Harry’s dark side -

A fair point,
sent the Headmaster.
I am about to tell you; steel yourself so as not to react. Are you ready? Good. I am going to pretend to cast the Killing Curse on Professor McGonagall - DO NOT REACT, Hermione!

That took work. The Headmaster really was crazy! That wouldn’t bring Harry
out
of his dark side, Harry would go
completely berserk
, he’d
kill
the Headmaster -

But that is not true darkness,
sent Albus Dumbledore.
That is protectiveness, that is love. Fawkes will be able to reach him, then. And when Harry sees that Minerva is alive after all, it will return him fully.

The thought came to Hermione -

I doubt that will work,
sent the Headmaster,
and you may not like the way he reacts if you try. But you may try if you wish.

She hadn’t really meant that seriously! It was too -

Then her eyes moved, breaking gaze with the Headmaster, going to the boy looking around with empty, despising eyes as his mouth kept chewing and swallowing bar after bar of chocolate without effect. Her heart wrenched, and suddenly a lot of things didn’t seem to matter, only that there was a chance.

There was a compulsion to chew and swallow chocolate. The response to compulsion was killing.

People had gathered around and stared. That was annoying. The response to annoyance was killing.

Other people were chattering in the background. That was insolent. The response to insolence was to inflict pain, but since none of them were useful, killing them would be simpler.

Killing all those people would be difficult. But many of them didn’t trust Quirrell, who was strong. Finding exactly the right trigger could cause them all to kill each other.

Then a person leaned over into the field of vision and did something completely strange, something that belonged to a foreign mode of thought, for which there was only a single response stored anywhere -

She heard the gasps around her, and they didn’t matter, she maintained the kiss on those chocolate-smeared lips as the tears welled in her eyes.

And Harry’s arms came up and pushed her away, and his lips yelled, “
I told you, no kissing!
”

“I think he’ll be all right now,” the Headmaster said, looking at where Harry was crying in great wretched sobs as Fawkes crooned over him. “Excellently done, Miss Granger. Do you know, not even I would have expected that to actually work?”

The phoenix’s song wasn’t meant for her, Hermione knew, but she could still be soothed by it, which she needed, because her life was officially over.