//------------------------------//
// Chapter 47: Bypass 
// Story: Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies 
// by The Guy Who Writes 
//------------------------------//

Excerpt from HPMoR Ch 109:

"The Mirror's most characteristic power is to create alternate realms of existence, though these realms are only as large in size as what can be seen within the Mirror; it is known that people and other objects can be stored therein. It is claimed by several authorities that the Mirror alone of all magics possesses a true moral orientation, though I am not sure what that can mean in practical terms. I would expect moralists to call the Cruciatus Curse by their name of 'evil' and the Patronus Charm by their name of 'good'; I cannot guess what a moralist would think was any more moral than that. But it is claimed, for example, that phoenixes came into our world from a realm that was invoked inside this Mirror."







Silver decided not to Apparate out of the most secure vault in Equestria. Even if it is possible, there wouldn't be much of a point. Not where he was going. An innervate woke Memory and a quick explanation brought her up to speed. Well, up to speed enough.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I thought we had to keep it secret."

"We might still be able to," he hoped. "I was invisible for most of the memories I want to show you, so it might not be obvious that I was a human. But even if it is, it's important for you to see what happened. If Celestia decides to watch along with us... we'll cross that bridge when we get there."

"Does Professor Riddle know you're doing this?"

"No, but by the time we see him again, he should understand why it was important."

"Okay..." said Memory, sounding a bit nervous. Silver was grateful that she trusted him more than she trusted Professor Riddle. "So do we just... I don't know... think that we want to go back there?"

"No idea," said Silver. "But that's a good place to start. Maybe go through the mental steps of apparation, only without the magic. On three?"

She nodded, closing her eyes, and Silver did the same.

"One..."

Destination: Astral Plane.

"Two..."

Determination: Appear there.

"Three!"

Deliberation: Yes, I'm sure.

When they opened their eyes again, they found themselves standing amidst a sea of stars. A large computer screen floated on their right and a bookshelf stood tall on their left. They hadn't consciously willed their memories to take those forms – they hadn't consciously done anything with the astral plane since the first/last time they were here – but it was obvious enough whose were whose.

Silver walked over to the computer screen and sat down, gesturing for Memory to sit beside him.

"What memories did you want to show me?" she asked in the short time it took for the PC to boot up faster than any real computer would.

"A few from the day you saw Fawkes on my shoulder."

Memory didn't reply to this in words, and he was too focused on the screen to look at her reaction, whatever it might have been.

He opened the file explorer and scanned the visible titles until he found one labeled First Year of Hogwarts. The ones before that had titles suggestive of his earlier childhood, and the only one after that was labeled Equestria, so the memories were probably sorted chronologically. Clicking on the Hogwarts tab opened another list, from which he clicked the appropriate month, then the appropriate day. He noted along the way that each visible date had a number next to it. Most were marked by a low, single-digit number, like a three or a one, and there were many dates that were simply missing. The date he wanted had a 32 next to it, the highest number out of the entire month.

Opening that file opened yet another series of files. 

1. Preparation
2. Lies
3. Departure
4. Arrival
5. Descent
6. Bella
7. Auror
8. Dementation
9. Recovery
10. Descent #2
11. Don't Take it Away
12. Fixing the Fault
13. Dementors
14. Escape Plan
15. Last Minute Adjustments
16. Escape
17. Performance?
18. Warehouse
...

The list continued down through his tricking the Time Turner test, through his conversation with Dumbledore, until it ended with his third person conversation with Hermione and the note he found beneath his pillow just before falling asleep.

"Have you finally decided to ascend?"

Hermione gave a small start, but Silver just sighed, not even turning from his inspections.

"No, Princess Celestia. I just wanted to show Memory a few of my memories. There's not some ancient magic rule saying I have to be ascended to do that, is there?"

"Not as far as I know."

He gave an internal sigh of relief. He was always a bit worried about that sort of thing, but he hadn't been willing to ask beforehand on the chance that they might be able to do this secretly. Now that they couldn't do it secretly...

"Out of curiosity," ...he may as well get some answers. "Would I have to watch all of these-" he gestured at the list "-if I wanted to ascend? Would I have to watch the memories from the other days and months as well?"

"No," said the ascended alicorn. "Just a few of the important ones. In fact, I just learned this morning that watching your memories might not be a requirement at all. But I know little about non-standard ascensions, so I would not know the details."

"I like your hair," said Memory.

Silver turned to actually look at Celestia and confirmed that she still has her new rainbow mane. And she still looks a bit taller than she used to. And maybe she glows just a little – he was only noticing that thanks to the relatively low-light setting, though it could just be his imagination. He'd seen the differences when walking to the mirror an hour ago, but he'd been focused on stealth (i.e. floating through the air on his broomstick bones, which he hasn't had much practice doing), and he hadn't given her appearance his full attention at the time.

"Thank you," answered the possibly-only-recently-ascended monarch.

"Does that mean you just ascended this morning?" Silver asked.

He had thought she'd already ascended. Were there multiple stages? Up until now, he thought there was zero (not alicorn), zero point five (alicorn but not ascended), and one (ascended). Although... then again, Celestia had said his changing Cutie Mark was part of the process, and that had happened well before he became an alicorn himself.

"My sister ascended," Celestia replied to his question. "And I finally made it all the way."

"What was stopping you before?" Silver investigated.

She smiled sadly. "In truth, I never watched all the required memories. My sister and I were going to finish together. Then Nightmare Moon came along. After that, I did not think I deserved it."

"So you finally got around to watching the rest this morning?"

She shook her head. "No, I simply self-actualised. I had thought memory-viewing was the only way to ascend, but I was mistaken. There is no instruction manual on being an alicorn, you see. Memory Lane and the Astral Plane are the closest thing we have to a guide. I thought they were essential to the process, but they might not be, since I did not need them this morning."

Silver tilted his head at that, ignoring his annoyance at the fact that he hadn't been given correct information the first time around. If Celestia's only data points were her own experiences, there wasn't much that could be done about that. "So I can't ascend only by watching these?"

"I am fairly certain you could," Princess Celestia answered. "As I said, I never finished my own viewing process to completion."

"Hmm... alright. I still don't want to just yet, but if I did want to ascend, how would I know which memories to watch?"

"They will begin automatically when you decide it is time."

Silver backed out of the list of 32 memories to the overview of main files, saw one labeled Ascension, nodded to himself, then navigated back to where he'd been.

"Was Hogwarts the name of your old school?" Celestia asked.

"Um... what makes you think that?"

"The chapter you selected was labeled Hogwarts First Year," she pointed out. "And the range of months in the index seem to align closely with the standard Unicorn school year. 'Twas just a guess."

Silver stared at her skeptically, then nodded slowly. "Yeah. Have you heard of it?"

"Not in the slightest."

Silver breathed another internal sigh of relief. "For the record, these are called files, not chapters... and I guess index works. So... how long are you going to be here, exactly? Did you just stop by to check up on us?"

Celestia, when she spoke again, seemed surprisingly shy for the ruler of a nation. "Do you mind if I stay and watch?"

"I'm... not sure."

There were plusses and minuses to it. If she stayed, she would be able to tell Riddle Tome about his escaping the trap (if all went according to plan, that is). That would prompt him into facing Dumbledore again and learning what he must do to escape. But if Celestia stayed, she would also be able to tell Riddle Tome the circumstances of his escape. Plus, she would see him interacting with other humans. Even if, hypothetically, she didn't see that he was a human himself...

"If you're going to stay," he decided, "can you promise not to share anything you see in my memories with anypony else?"

"I promise," she said easily, taking a seat next to Hermione.

Silver blinked. He was expecting that to be a little more difficult. He was expecting her to at least ask why. He wasn't complaining, but...

"And not just the things you see," he added. "Anything you learn from my memories. Anything you guess. It has to stay a secret, no matter what. Not even if you think there's an extremely good reason. You can't even hint about it. I'm almost tempted... well, here. I'll show you sort-of what it has to be like."

He selected the second memory on the list, the one titled Lies, knowing in advance what memory it would be and wondered if he could simply will the memory to start at a certain exact point.

"You sometimes make a game of lying with truths," began the voice of Professor Quirrell, accompanied by his moving image. It was almost exactly like watching a movie in a theatre, even down to the dim lighting of their surroundings. The Defense Professor stood in an empty storefront, illuminated by a source of light that, at the time, had come from Harry Potter's wand, and so seemed to come directly from the point of view of the ponies watching the screen. "Playing with words to conceal your meanings in plain sight. I, too, have been known to find that amusing. But if I so much as tell you what I hope we shall do this day, Mr. Potter, you will lie about it. You will lie straight out, without hesitation, without wordplay or hints, to anyone who asks about it, be they foe or closest friend. You will lie to Malfoy, to Granger, and to McGonagall. You will speak, always and without hesitation, in exactly the fashion you would speak if you knew nothing, with no concern for your honor. That also is how it must be."

Harry willed the memory to pause, and it did. He turned to his left, noting that Memory was staring hard at the screen, as if trying to understand what she was seeing, then looked beyond her, meeting the gaze of the adult alicorn.

"That's what I'm asking," he said to Celestia. "Nopony can know that you know what I'm about to show you. Not yet, and maybe not ever."

"Because you will be violating your promise to the human in that memory?" she asked. "I assume you agreed to his request?"

"Not that, exactly." Silver ran a hoof through his ethereal mane. "It's hard to explain. I'm not sure I can explain. It's complicated. Just..."

She held up a hoof. "I understand, Mr. Potter." She said his name casually, with a smile. Not a smug smile, or clever, just a knowing one. Silver saw out of the corner of his eye that Memory's gaze was torn from the screen upon hearing it. "I will not speak of what I see in your memories with anypony."

"It's not just a matter of speaking," Silver said seriously. "You have to act the way you would have if this whole thing-" he waved his hoof around him, at the astral plane "-never happened. Nopony can even suspect you know what you're about to see."

"And Riddle Tome in particular, yes?" she asked insightfully.

Silver sighed. "Yes, him in particular."

"I do not like to lie, Silver Wing, and he is very perceptive. But I shall do my best. And if I cannot, I shall simply say that I promised not to speak of it."

"What about me?" asked Memory.

"In your case," Silver replied, "I don't think it will matter." More like he was hoping it wouldn't matter.

"Does that conclude the housekeeping?" Celestia asked.

"I... think so," said Silver.

"Then I have one final question before you begin." She turned her gaze on Memory. "Is your name one of the ones the human mentioned? Malfoy, Granger, or McGonagall?"

Silver gulped nervously. Celestia was picking up on things much more quickly than he thought she would.

Memory looked at him, silently asking permission.

Silver shrugged and nodded. Celestia already knew his name. Why not hers too?

"Granger," said Memory. "Hermione Granger." She held out a hoof.

Celestia looked at the hoof with a raised eyebrow. "Tia Sunrise," she said, shaking it. Her gaze turning back to him. "And your first name?" 

He wondered if she meant the name he had first, i.e. Harry Potter, or his first name, i.e. Harry.

"Harry Potter," he said, consciously not using his full name, which would have been even more conspicuous, on the hope that she wasn't already putting the pieces together.

But she probably was. 'Harry Potter' and 'Hermione Granger' aren't pony names. 'Tia' and 'Selena' aren't pony names either, he realized, but maybe that was a consequence of a thousand years of cultural shift. Even still, even if their first names were unusual, their last names of 'Sunrise' and 'Lullaymoon' were Equestrian enough. 'Potter' and 'Granger' probably stood out like sore thumbs – er, sore hooves. Maybe not Potter, actually, if he had a pottery cutie mark or something, but certainly Granger.

Keeping all those thoughts to himself, he turned his gaze back to the screen and willed it to rewind so it could play from the beginning.

It didn't take long for Memory to whisper, rather harshly in his ear, "You broke Bellatrix Black out of AZKABAN?!"







A/N: I want to say that I was reluctant to use the plot device in the next section. TV Tropes calls it "let's watch our show", where a fanfiction author has a character watch their own canon story from the perspective that we the audience saw it. I personally don't like it because it subjects the reader to a massive amount of canon material they should already know.

Unfortunately, I couldn't think of how to write this scene differently. The best I could come up with was to tell it mostly from Celestia's perspective. That way we at least have someone outside the HPMoR verse reacting to it.

Still, if you end up skipping most of the rest of this chapter, and especially anything quoted from HPMoR, I completely understand. I skip things like this when I read other fanfiction. If you're as familiar with HPMoR and the Azkaban breakout as I am, you can probably go straight to the final few paragraphs and not miss much. I tried to make it as tolerable as possible for everyone who does read it.







Celestia watched as the 'file' began from its beginning. The conversation that was sure to come did not start immediately. Instead, spell after spell was being incanted.

"All right," said the human in the memory after casting what had probably been security spells with what was probably the human equivalent of a horn: a small, wooden stick. Celestia had thought, earlier, that the human's speech patterns... or maybe just his personality reminded her of Riddle Tome. The voice was completely different though. "If anyone is still watching us now, we are in any case doomed, so I will speak plainly and in human speech."

Humans refer to language as 'human speech'? Odd.

Well, it's not odd that they would refer to it as something other than 'Equish', given that humans don't even seem partly equinoid. The dragons call their accent 'draconic', and they can tell without fail when their fellow dragons are speaking , from voice alone and nothing else. The odd thing is that humans would call their accent 'human speech'. Why not 'humanic'?

"Parseltongue does not quite suit me, I fear, as I am neither a descendant of Salazar nor a true snake."

Silver Life, i.e. Harry Potter seemed to have something of a coughing fit, during which the memory paused itself.

"Parseltongue?" Memory Sunshine, i.e. Hermione Granger asked during the pause. "The language for talking to snakes? The one you had us researching to see if wizards made plants and animals sentient? Salazar Slytherin's Parseltongue? That Parseltongue?" 

Harry, after calming down from his coughing fit, nodded to his friend. "It's more like a magical user-interface for controlling snakes," he said by way of explanation. "Not an actual language. Apparently, Salazar Slytherin invented the curse to make sure his descendants could trust each other, because you can't lie in Parseltongue. He might have been inspired by the Patronus Charm, come to think of it, since you can't lie with a Patronus message either."

"Harry, you're a Parselmouth?"

Again, the young stallion nodded. "Thanks to the whole boy-who-lived business. I'm not a descendant by blood. Professor Quirrell was a snake animagus, so whenever he wanted to say something to me that absolutely had to stay private, he said it in Parseltongue."

Hermione gave an exasperated sigh. "He was an unregistered animagus, wasn't he?"

"Just like us," Harry said with a smile.

"It's not like we can regester," she replied. "I would if I could."

"You would," he nodded, "but under the circumstances, I actually don't think it's a good idea. And in my opinion, it should be a choice, not a law. It's not like it's ritual magic or anything. Mandating supervision for the sake of safety would make sense, but of course that's not what the lawmakers cared about. Requiring registration afterwards is just stuffy bureaucracy. It's not like real criminals listen to laws in the first place, and it's not like the aurors won't double-check every criminal they catch. In other words, it's a stupid law." Then, in a mock voice he said, "Do you have a loicense for that magic?"

Celestia had trouble following all of this when she didn't even know what an animagus was.

"So, Mr. Potter," continued the memory before Celestia could ask or Hermione could reply. "We are alone and unobserved, and I have an important question to ask you."

"Go ahead," said Harry's voice, though the Harry sitting next to Celestia was watching silently.

"What is your opinion of the government of magical Britain?"

Magical Britain? That is the name of Harry's country of origin? Or is it just Britain? Why the 'magical' moniker?

"Based on my limited knowledge, I would say that both the Ministry and the Wizengamot appear to be stupid, corrupt, and evil." 

That isn't good. Worse, a glance to Celestia's right informed her that Hermione – a good filly who trusts authority – was nodding to that claim.

"Correct," said the human that Harry had named Professor Quirrell. "Do you understand why I ask?"

"You are about to ask me to join a secret organization full of interesting people like yourself, one of whose goals is to reform or overthrow the government of magical Britain, and yes, I'm in."

In any other context, Celestia might have laughed, or at least giggled. In this context, she was a bit nervous that... but no. The lips of the human were twitching upward as if he found the foalish conceit just as amusing as she did. His humor even reached his voice.

"I'm afraid that is not quite where I intended to direct this conversation. I merely planned to ask for your help in doing something extremely treasonous and illegal."

Well, isn't that just so much better?

"Go on," said past Harry, sounding unbothered by that.

"Before I do," said the human, now serious. "Are you open to such requests, Mr. Potter? I say again that if you are likely to say no regardless, you must say no now. If your curiosity compels you otherwise, squash it."

"Treasonous and illegal doesn't bother me," Harry replied. Again, Celestia thought, not good. "Risks bother me, and the stakes would have to be commensurate, but I can't imagine you taking risks frivolously."

The human nodded. "I would not. It is a terrible abuse of my friendship with you, and of such trust as is placed in my teaching position at Hogwarts-"

So this 'Professor Quirrell' was a teacher of Hogwarts?

"You can skip this part," said Harry's voice.

The man's lips twitched again, then fell flat. "Then I shall skip it. Mr. Potter, you sometimes make a game of lying with truths..."

Celestia's attention went a bit afield at the part she'd already heard. In the brief window of repeated content, she tried to understand what she had seen so far.

She had seen Harry speaking to a human professor of Hogwarts. She had seen Harry speak with him as if it were the most normal thing he'd ever done. But humans, as far as Celestia knew, could not be found anywhere on the planet Equus. They could only be found in the mirror beneath Canterlot, and those humans – no, not just the humans, the entire human world she'd seen in the mirror – seemed entirely different from what she was currently watching. There are no pastel colors in this memory. The eyes on the human are not very large, his skin is barely pink, and his hair style is not vibrant. 'Magical Britain' rings no bells of memory in her mind, nor 'Hogwarts', nor 'the Wizengamot'.

In all likelihood, Harry Potter came from another realm entirely, one she has never seen before, one with humans and ponies. And by extension, Riddle Tome and Hermione Granger did as well.

"Without telling me yet," said Harry's voice, the new information drawing her full attention back to the screen, "Can you say if the need is desperate?"

"There is someone in the most terrible want of your help," said Professor Quirrell, "and there is no one who can help them but you."

Hm...

Well. Maybe that isn't quite as bad as Celestia had thought it would be. If the government is truly corrupt, then opposing it might not be the wrong thing to do. Especially if you are trying to help somepony.

After a brief silence, past-Harry replied. "All right. Tell me of the mission."

Celestia watched the next bit in some confusion. She understood the Patronus charm, but...

"Harry," she said, causing the memory to pause. "What are Dementors?"

Harry looked at her, then tilted his head in thought. "If it's possible to bookmark these memories, I could show you. Can I come back to this point in this memory if I went to a different one?"

"Yes. It should be as simple as willing it."

"Then give me a second."

The colt backed out of the current memory, beholding the long list of 32 sequences once more, and then selected one from lower on the same day. The 'file' fittingly labeled Dementors.

In the astral plane, memories do not convey feelings unless the watching alicorn wills it, but the plane itself will automatically change in appearance if the emotions within a memory are powerful enough. In this case, as soon as the memory began, the light of the stars surrounding them dimmed until they were barely visible. The void between was much more pronounced. The stars themselves did not waver, but they became much harder to see. And then she felt the memory, as though Harry had just figured out how to do that. All it took was to want his guests to feel it, and they would. Hermione felt the memory as well, if her small little gasp was anything to go by.

A voice could be heard in the memory. It was distant, as if it did not come from the visible corridor, but beyond it. The voice was deathly fearful, the words so distant and stammering that only brief snippets of "don't" and "away" could be understood.  Then the distant voice went silent, and a few voices behind Harry's perspective began saying similar things.

"My lord-" said a quiet, female voice from much closer. Just that, before the memory skipped ahead.

When it resumed, the feelings of primal dread and pulling emptiness crashed against her mind like a mighty storm. Visible in the memory were a great many voids, looking like wounds in the world itself.

Then the memory paused and the feelings left.

"Those are Dementors," said Harry, frowning at the screen.

Hermione was shaking next to him. "They're truly awful," she whispered.

Celestia agreed completely. Without knowing anything about Dementors, she already knew that much. "What you were feeling..." she said hesitantly. "Was that natural?"

"It's the natural response to the presence of Dementors," he nodded. "That's what they feel like when you don't have a Patronus charm active. Dementors eat away your happy thoughts and force you to relive your worst memories if you're exposed to them. After enough time, you forget that you have a family unless you already hate them. You forget friends and love and light. You don't even remember the sun because warmth is a happy thought. This place is a torture chamber, where the government of magical Britain tortures those they call criminals to death."

"Where is it?" she demanded. She was on her hooves, ready to go at once and destroy the place. Tartarus, at least, was only a prison. But this place- those things-

"Inaccessible," Harry denied her demand. "At the moment, anyway. And even if you could go there, you wouldn't be able to come back to Equestria for a long time, if you could come back at all."

"Why?!"

"I can't explain," he said seriously. "Except to say that the thing stopping us is even more powerful than ritual magic. Yes, I'm certain, and don't forget your promise. Trying to find it is the same as admitting that you know about it. Please sit down, princess. There's more to see."

Slowly, and with a sense of helplessness that she rarely ever felt about matters she was supposed to be able to help, she sat down.

When her rear touched the invisible floor, the memory reverted to the empty shop and the human Professor Quirrell. It resumed to repeat a bit of what she'd already seen. "The ordinary Patronus Charm, Mr. Potter, wards off a Dementor's fear. But the Dementors still see you through it, they know that you are there. Only not your Patronus Charm. It blinds them, or more than blinds them. What I saw beneath the cloak wasn't even looking in our direction as you killed it; as though it had forgotten our existence, even as it died."

Although the focus of the image remained centered on the human, the borders of the perspective window moved up and down, as though Harry had nodded.

"Mr. Potter, the central branch of Gringotts is guarded by every spell high and low that the goblins know. Even so those vaults have been successfully robbed; for what wizardry can do, wizardry can undo. And yet no one has ever escaped from Azkaban. No one. For every Charm there is a counter-Charm, for every ward there is a bypass. How can it be that no one has ever been rescued from Azkaban?"

"Because Azkaban has something invincible," said the voice of Harry. "Something so terrible that no one can defeat it."

"The Dementors don't like their meals being taken from them," said the cold voice of Professor Quirrell. "They know if anyone tries. There are more than a hundred Dementors there, and they speak to the guards as well. It's that simple, Mr. Potter. If you're a powerful wizard then Azkaban isn't hard to enter, and it isn't hard to leave. So long as you don't try to take anything out of it that belongs to the Dementors."

"But the Dementors are not invincible," said the voice of Harry Potter – no, of Silver Life. Even as he said it, the stars around them seemed to brighten, suffusing the air with a soft sheen of Patronus light. "Never believe that they are." 

Celestia watched raptly, now much less apprehensive about discussions of 'treason' and 'illegality' against the government of Magical Britain.

"Do you remember what it was like when you went before the Dementor, the first time, when you failed?"

"I remember."

The silvery brightness left the astral plane around them.

"There is an innocent person in Azkaban," said Professor Quirrell.

The perspective's borders moved up and down, another nod.

"The one of whom I speak was not under the Imperius Curse. There are surer ways to break wills than the Imperius, if you have time for torture, and Legilimency, and rituals of which I will not speak. I cannot tell you how I know this, how I know any of this, cannot hint even to you, you will have to trust me. But there is a person in Azkaban who never once chose to serve the Dark Lord, who has spent years suffering alone in the most terrible cold and darkness imaginable, and never deserved a single minute of it."

Harry's voice, in the memory, interrupted the man from going further. "A person by the name of Black."

Celestia's gaze was not drawn from the screen by Memory's harshly-whispered question to Harry, but Celestia did take note of filly's incredulous and panicked tone. She also took note of Harry asking his friend to wait until the memory was over.

Professor Quirrell described the one they were to rescue, a woman who had once been a quiet and innocent schoolgirl. Professor Quirrell then described the pretense that would fool the corrupted adult. When Harry asked why Professor Quirrell could not play that role, the man claimed there was no plausible reason for him to be possessed by the shade of 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named', whoever that was.

Harry, outside of the memory, had another coughing fit. He then stopped the memory entirely, just as Professor Quirrell began to explain the technical details of the plan.

"Yes, I did," said Harry to Hermione when the screen was no longer playing anything. He did not sound proud, but he also did not sound reluctant to admit it. "You probably noticed how Professor Quirrell convinced me, making it sound like what happened to Bellatrix could have happened to you. If I weren't there at the trial, it's entirely possible that it would have happened to you. But yeah, I now know that I was being very stupid. Later on, Professor Quirrell said he did it so that some of Slytherin's ancient lore might not be lost forever, which is a lot saner than my reasoning, but I didn't think to question him about his motives until after the breakout, and I didn't realize how blatantly stupid I was being until a day after that. I'm pretty sure this fallacy doesn't have a name outside of 'egocentric bias', or maybe 'peer pressure', but that's not specific enough so I'm calling it the Dumbledore fallacy. I was thinking my life was a plot, and look, here's a plot twist. When your mysterious wizard gives you a quest, you aren't supposed to say no. It's probably a consequence of all the morning cartoons and fantasy books. I see it now, but I didn't see it at the time. That isn't to say that quests are always wrong, just that they need careful consideration, not automatic agreement."

"And that's why you said yes," said Hermione, looking sharply at Harry.

"That's why I said yes."

There was a pause that stretched.

Celestia felt this was a good time to interrupt. "Who is Bellatrix Black?"

"The Dark Lord's number two," said Harry. "Second most evil person in the world. The most evil after the Dark Lord fell."

"And who was this Dark Lord?"

"He called himself Lord Voldemort," Harry answered. "But he was so bad that everybody uses referents like 'the dark lord', even ten years after he was vanquished. If they have to be more specific, like if the conversation involves more than one Dark Lord, then they say 'you-know-who' or 'he-who-must-not-be-named' when referring to Voldemort."

"Was he human?"

"Most would argue that he wasn't," said Harry. "But in the sense that you're asking the question, yes, he was." His attention focused back on the screen. "We're getting sidetracked. Next up is... this one."

6. Bella.

The new memory did not begin with an image of a living human female as Celestia had expected. It began in another long metal corridor, like the one with the Dementors from earlier, except this corridor did not terminate in a staircase, just a solid wall. Visible in the corridor was a green light guiding a human-shaped Patronus forward. Celestia wondered if it was Quirrell's Patronus, since Harry's would have been pony-shaped.

Movement ended her musings. The lock of the door at the end of the corridor clicked open and the green spark winked out. A snake appeared in the corridor from thin air, as if an invisibility spell had been broken or dismissed.

Harry walked forward, passing the snake and the Patronus. He approached the door and it opened for him. It must have been some kind of banishing spell, Celestia thought, because he did not use his hoof to push it open. Though it didn't look like a spell. There was no glow to indicate active magic. Maybe the door was charmed to open on its own, without apparent effect? But that-

Her thoughts came to a grinding halt when she saw what Harry saw inside the first cell. Skin gray. Flesh worn away. A half-face, half-skull looked forward with empty, hollow eye sockets. A desiccated human corpse. It was far worse than just a skeleton might have been.

The perspective suddenly went black, and Celestia realized that the Harry in the memory was closing his eyes. The Harry in the memory was closing his eyes from seeing a sight nopony should ever have to see. Let alone somepony so young, without a parent, or at least an adult to comfort him. And with Professor Quirrell's demand that he lie about it afterwards, nopony ever would have...

Abruptly Celestia stood and walked to Harry's side, sat back down, and draped a large wing over his back. Hermione, when she saw this, scooted closer as well, pressing her side against his.

Harry hadn't stopped the memory while the two were giving him much-needed care, and by the time Celestia looked back, she saw another corpse.

Only, when Harry's voice spoke in the memory, Celestia realized it wasn't a corpse.

"Hello, my dear Bella," said Harry's voice, coldly and quietly, just as Professor Quirrell had instructed him earlier. "Did you miss me?"

Celestia found herself disturbed at how skillfully the false voice was done. (This would not be the last time this thought came to her.)

The corpse stirred. Its eyes opened but did not quite settle on Harry's. After a brief silence, it responded. "Mad," said a cracked, dead voice. Celestia could barely even tell that it was female. "It seems that little Bella is going mad..."

"I hope you are not mad, Bella dear," said Harry's cold whisper. "Mad is not useful."

The corpse's eyes flickered about, settling on nothing in particular. Celestia understood then that Harry must have been beneath some kind of invisibility spell.

"My Lord... I waited for you but you did not come... I looked for you but I could not find you... you are alive..." The dull monotony of the words was worse than any pained gasping could have been.

Then the snake beside past-Harry hissed. Celestia was surprised to hear that it was speaking words, and that the words could be understood. "Sshow her your face."

Nothing visibly changed after that command, except that Bella suddenly focused directly on Harry's eyes. "That scar..." she muttered. "That child..."

"So they all still think," said Harry's cold voice, followed by a disturbingly evil-sounding chuckle. "You looked for me in the wrong place, Bella dear."

Bella looked at him, saying nothing.

"Ssay ssomething in Parsseltongue," hissed the snake.

Harry hissed the numbers one through ten while Celestia took a moment to process that she was hearing something she would not, under normal circumstances, be able to understand, for it was comprehensible only to those who bore the 'Parseltongue' curse.

"Those who do not fear the darkness..." murmured Bellatrix.

"Will be conssumed by it," hissed the snake.

"Will be consumed by it," repeated Harry in non-snake speech.

Ah. So that's why Professor Quirrell had called it 'human' speech. Then that probably wasn't the name they had for language.

"Your wand," murmured the skeletal human. "I took it from the Potters' house and hid it, my lord... under the tombstone to the right of your father's grave... will you kill me, now, if that was all you wished of me... I think I must have always wanted you to be the one to kill me... but I can't remember now, it must have been a happy thought..."

Celestia's heart wrenched, and from the dimming of the stars around them, she knew Harry must have felt the same thing. It was too terrible to be imagined, even as she watched it happen.

'Dementors eat away your happy thoughts', Harry had said. She knew, in this moment, as she comprehended what Bellatrix had said, that the evil of Dementors went far deeper than just the way they made you feel. Hearing Harry explain it and watching a woman live it were like night and day. The thought of death, of release from the pain and the torment, would be a happy thought, wouldn't it? Any hope at all would be happy. And that was only half the horror of Bellatrix's words. The other half... Professor Quirrell had said that Voldemort had done unspeakable things to her... but this-

"Enough foolishness," said the cold voice of Harry, now sounding annoyed. "You're to come with me, Bella dear, unless you prefer the company of the Dementors."

The woman responded to this invitation to escape, not with an enthusiastic "Yes!", but with a look of confusion. She did not even move from her spot.

"You'll need to float her out," Harry hissed to the snake beside him. "Sshe can no longer think of esscaping."

Celestia's chest continued to ache. To not allow happy thoughts of escape from torment would, of course, include the literal sense of escaping the prison. Dementors do indeed make terribly effective jailors. The prisoners can't even fantasize about the possibility of their pain coming to an end, dooming them to eternal despair and suffering.

"Yess," hissed the snake in the memory, "but do not underesstimate her, sshe wass the deadliesst of warriorss. One would be wisse to fear me, boy, even were I sstarved and nine-tenthss dead; be wary of her, allow no ssingle flaw in your pretensse."

After hissing this statement of danger and doom, the green snake left the room. As it did, Celestia was suddenly certain that the snake and Professor Quirrell were one and the same. She had been wondering where he was, wondering if he was hiding invisibly. But after that threat, she was certain the snake was he. That must be what Harry meant when he called him a snake animagus. The term had been foreign, alien, when Harry and Hermione discussed it earlier, but now she understood: an animagus is a magus who can become an animal.

The unhealthy, bearded, fearful man who returned in the snake's place was not Professor Quirrell. For a moment she was confused, but then she realized that if human mages could become animals, they could probably change their appearances to that of other humans, just like Changelings could supposedly look like any pony they pleased, though she didn't know if they were real or just a myth. Either way, shapeshifting is well within the possibilities of magic, and it seems that the humans of Harry's homeland have realized and utilized that potential.

"My lord?" the man said falteringly. The acting was so perfect it would have fooled Celestia in an instant if she didn't already know better. The body language, the deferential tone of voice...

"Do as you were instructed," Harry whispered coldly. "And do not let your Patronus falter. Remember, if I do not return there will be no reward for you, and it will be long before your family is allowed to die."

For a brief moment, a cloth seemed to fall over Harry's vision, but then that cloth disappeared. Celestia was almost too distracted by the words to notice the implication of invisibility cloak, not invisibility spell.

Harry's real voice, interrupting the memory, was a welcome change. "I'm going to fast-forward to the next- actually, wait. Hold on." His eyes narrowed at the screen, and when Celestia followed his gaze, she saw that he'd focused on a small bottle which the cringing 'servant' hid beneath a scrap of cloth in the corner of the cell. Harry said nothing, but the screen paused on that image.

"Something you don't remember happening?" Celestia asked. She'd had that experience more than a few times when reviewing her own memories.

"Yeah."

"If he's leaving evidence," said Celestia, "I'm guessing he does not intend to perform the 'perfect crime' after all?"

Harry didn't answer, but Hermione said, "The whole world learned about it afterward. It wasn't stealthy at all. The Daily Prophet said Bellatrix Black used an unknown fire spell to... Harry, was that a rocket?"

"Maybe," he said with a grin. Then he addressed Celestia. "To answer your question, he did intend for it to be a perfect crime, but he's a cautious planner. I think that vial was supposed to throw off the aurors in case something went wrong. Anyway, what happens next isn't that important until Bellatrix starts talking again, so I'm skipping ahead to that part."

When the memory resumed, now back within the long metal corridors, Bellatrix did not immediately begin talking. No words came from her direction, wherever she might be. Instead, there were small sounds... sounds that were hard to recognize...

Oh.

Oh.

Oh no.

It had taken Celestia much too long to realize that Bella was crying. When she did, she was almost brought to tears herself.

"It's real?" asked a voice that was no longer monotone. "It's real?"

The words 'Yes, now be silent' flitted across the bottom of the screen as text, but did not manifest as sounds in the memory. That meant the words were almost said aloud, were on the tip of Harry's tongue, but the now-alicorn had decided not to say them at the time. The fluctuating lights in the astral plane, the turbulence, led Celestia to believe that Harry had stayed silent for the same reason she would have stayed silent if she'd been in his hooves. The words were just too awful to speak.

"I knew - you would - come to me someday. I knew - you were alive - that you would come - to me - my Lord - and that even - when you came - you still wouldn't love me - never - you would never love me back - that was why - they couldn't take - my love from me - even though I can't remember - can't remember so many other things - though I don't know what I forgot - but I remember how much I love you, Lord."

Celestia was in tears at this point.

"Do you still have - use for me - my Lord?"

"No," hissed the voice of Harry, now pretending to be angry. When he spoke next, she knew the words he uttered were the same that the Dark Lord would have spoken in his place, and she was made furious by the utter lack of compassion – the disdain for compassion – within them. "I entered Azkaban on a whim. Of course I have use for you! Don't ask foolish questions."

"But, I'm weak," the broken woman objected. "I can't kill for you, my Lord, I'm sorry, they ate it all up, ate me all up, I'm too weak to fight, what good am I to you now?"

Harry's voice did not answer that unholy question.

Celestia thought of closing her eyes to block it out. Her tears were blurring her vision anyway. But the memory window was showing nothing except a human Patronus and a green spark. Closing her eyes would have done nothing, and she could not bring herself to close her ears.

"Ugly," despaired the woman. Somehow, that one word hit harder than everything that had come before. "I'm ugly, they ate that too, I'm, I'm not pretty anymore, you won't even, be able, to use me as a reward, for your servants – even the Lestranges, won't want, to hurt me, any more..."

Like a switch being flipped, Celestia's heartache gave way to fury. If she had not been within the astral plane, she might have risked causing a draught, distraught as she was. If she had not been within an astral plane, she might have risked burning Harry and Hermione alive as they sat next to her. Her hair was fire, hotter and brighter and deadlier than it had ever been. Even as tears streamed down her cheeks, she decided that if she ever met Lord Voldemort, Lord Voldemort would never see the light of her days again. Some deeds were unforgivable. Some ponies – some people could not be redeemed.

He was one of them. And he was already vanquished. Her anger had no outlet, except...

"Whatever you're thinking," said the true voice of Silver Life beside her, his own mane glowing brightly, "and trust me, I've probably thought the same things, just remember that you promised to keep this secret. And remember that if you try to go to Azkaban, you'll be leaving Equestria behind."

"Why?!" she turned on him, no longer caring for secrecy or promises. "Why must that be?"

"It involves Time," Harry said. "I mean, it literally involves Time magic. Really, really powerful Time magic. If you violate it, you could be sent years ahead into the future. For you, it would only seem like an instant, but for your subjects it could be fifty years. If you could come back at all."

She began pacing, the energy inside her too great to stand sitting. If she didn't at least move, she might just combust.

"There must be a bypass of some sort. There always is. Tell me the specifics and I shall find a way." And if she couldn't, Twilight certainly could, given enough time.

But Harry shook his head in denial. "I'm already working on a bypass." His eyes glanced briefly at Hermione, who was ignoring both of them and staring hard at the screen, which is still playing the memory. "But no matter how it's done, the Time magic won't be denied. Please calm down. There's one last memory."

"At this point," said Celestia, "I do not think I could calm down if I tried."

"In that case, please stand back a bit."

An understandable request, given her state. She moved a bit away and continued pacing.

Then, turning his attention to his companion, "Hermione, I know I was being stupid when I accepted the mission, but do you get why I'd still accept it even now that I know better? Why it has to be done? Not just for her, but everyone?"

She nodded tightly, not turning to face him. "Is it true?" she asked with a slight quaver in her voice. "What you just said? In the memory, I mean. Can the Patronus charm kill you if you don't control your emotions?"

"Only if you can't stop yourself from wanting to destroy Dementors," he answered. "I almost couldn't, but then I realized that Azkaban isn't the only place with Dementors, and I didn't have a way to get to them all. I didn't have portkeys, or teleportation, or a phoenix. At that moment in time, I would have kept going, even if it killed me, but for that one problem. Any attack on Azkaban comes with the risk of death. And even if the Dementors don't kill you, even if the Patronus Charm doesn't kill you, the aurors might. If they see somepony attacking Azkaban, they might use deadly curses to stop them. I only managed to stop myself on the promise that I'd go back when I was better prepared, and when I had help, so the spell wouldn't die with me if the worst happened."

Celestia saw that Hermione's whole body was shivering, even as she watched Harry drape his wing over her, just as Celestia had done for him.

"I can't," said Hermione, almost in tears. "I know why you're showing me this, Harry. I- I don't think- I can't-" she took a few short breaths. "I can't do it. Not for someone like Bellatrix. Neville told me what she did to his parents. I can't just ignore that, Harry."

Silver's wing seemed to hold her even more tightly. "And I couldn't just ignore Lesath Lestrange asking me to save his mother from Azkaban."

Hermione hiccupped – proof that she had come to tears. "What?"

"Bellatrix's son," Harry answered. "He's a fifth-year attending Hogwarts. At the start of the school year, he begged me to get his parents out of Azkaban because he heard I could do anything. I told him I couldn't do it because I didn't have the power, but I couldn't stop myself from wondering if there was a way to help him anyway. No, Hermione, I didn't rescue her for Lesath. I completely forgot about Lesath until he thanked me afterwards. But that might have been enough. It's not like he did anything wrong. He just wanted his parents to stop being tortured. He just wanted to see them, but his parents were both Death Eaters, so they weren't allowed visitors."

Hermione was shaking her head. "I... Harry, they're still Death Eaters. If there was someone innocent in Azkaban..."

"It's not a matter of innocence, Hermione. You know that as much as I do. Azkaban is evil."

"But it's my life!" Hermione was suddenly frantic. "I can't- for bad people, I just can't-" a sob cut her off. "Harry, I can't."

Harry let her cry, not saying anything.

After a time, he began browsing his memories.

"If you're looking for something specific," Celestia advised him, finally glad to be useful for something, "you can make a query for it."

Harry did not respond in words, but box of not-memory appeared on his screen. When the words 'innocent prisoner' were entered into the box, the screen automatically clicked on the memory 'escape plan', then jumped to a certain exact point. As Harry's past-self passed one of the metal doors of Azkaban, a dead mutter said the words "I'm not serious, I'm not serious, I'm not serious," over and over. Harry stared hard at this.

He glanced at Hermione, but she wasn't looking. He seemed about to say something, but closed his mouth and returned his gaze to the screen. Then he exited the memory, selected another one, and nudged Memory.

"Even on the off chance that the Ministry never sent an innocent person to Azkaban," he said to her, "the prisoners aren't all Bellatrix Black. This is the last memory I wanted to show you."

"Harry, I-"

"Please, Hermione," he whispered. "Just this last one. Then we can go home."

"...Okay," she whispered back.

"Is it better than the last ones?" asked Celestia, still pacing angrily behind them both.

Harry didn't answer her, just started the memory.

She soon learned that the answer to her question was "No."

It was not better.

Not at all.

It contained a regretful murderess reliving her worst memory – the murder that sent her to Azkaban. The Patronus charm that walked beside him gave her temporary reprieve, as Harry approached the door to her cell block. And then he passed her cell block and continued walking, following the charm in front of him. The prisoner must have sensed as it began to leave her. She begged for him to come back. She couldn't remember her children's names anymore.

Celestia was even more horrified, now. A Dark Lord's cruelty is one thing. A government's cruelty is quiet another. Riddle Tome, in tones of an insult, had once called her conception of abuse 'pedestrian', and now that she was witnessing the potential depths of human depravity, she knew it was true.

The memory paused.

"She's still there," said Harry, addressing Hermione. "By now she probably doesn't even remember that she has children."

Hermione had her eyes closed. She was crying. "She killed someone," she whispered.

"It might have been an accident," said Silver. "She said she didn't mean it. Muggle Britain would have called it manslaughter. In Wizarding Britain, it doesn't matter. Misdemeanors. Felonies. Civil infractions. The punishment is always Azkaban, it's just a question of how long and how close to Dementors. Unless you can pay the fines, or you belong to a noble house who can bail you out, or you say you were under the Imperius curse, or you're too powerful for the aurors to arrest you. The punishment for not registering your animagus form is two years. How many other stupid laws get people sent there? How many other people have forgotten their children? Or their parents? Or their friends? How many people around the world have forgotten? Remember that Azkaban is in Britain. That means the prisoners still get fed, the cells occasionally get cleaned, and the prisoners get released after their sentence is served. Most prisoners are even allowed to have visitors. But what about the Azkabans in Africa? What about the Dementors that roam freely?"

Hermione cried harder at Harry's words. By the end of his speech, it seemed like she couldn't take any more.

"Okay!" she seemed to explode all at once. "Okay, alright?! I know! I want them gone too! But what do you want me to do?! We can't even do anything about it! We're trapped! We can't go back-" another choked sob cut her off.

"What if we weren't?" Harry asked, his eyes gazing intently into his friend's. "An important aspect of decision theory is to plan for the future. If you need more information to make a decision, you should still know what decisions you'll make based on that new information. If we were free, would you risk your life to end Azkaban? Imagine you could go right now. Would you do it?"

Out of nowhere, a phoenix blazed into existence before the two young ponies. The phoenix locked eyes with Hermione, two blazing orbs matching two tearful ones.

Hermione seemed to understand in an instant. "Of course I would," whispered the young filly to the blazing creature. "I just don't want to die again."

With a scream, a cry of approval and action, the phoenix surged forward.

When Celestia's wide eyes looked back to the creature's target, she saw that Hermione's hoof was being held tightly by Harry's. His wing was still draped behind her back and he shouted, "Take me too!" at the blazing bird.

In the blink of an eye, the two ponies and the phoenix were gone. The moment they vanished, Celestia was forcefully ejected from the astral plane.

She found herself standing in a meadow she did not recognize, wondering what on Equus had just happened, and suspecting with a sick feeling that she knew exactly what had just happened.