Dumbledore is a sonovabitch. Harry's wrong about how Snape heard the prophesy. Malfoy and Friends may be wrong about how Narcissa died. The whole matter of lighting a live chicken on fire may be a strange misunderstanding. But Dumbledore is still a right bastard for what he did to Snape, which we may put together from chapters 17, 18, 27, & the renumbered 76.
Chapters 17 & 76 tell us how Snape pursued Lily while he was her friend. (Or that's what Snape thinks of what he was doing. He was probably a 'Nice Guy' about it and it would probably have failed in the usual fashion. But that wasn't allowed to happen.)
To be clear: despite the (deservedly) doomed-to-the-friendzone fate of Snape's attempts to woo Lily, Dumbeldore nonetheless stepped in and instigated fights between Snape and Lily by writing things in Lily's potions book. While headmaster and responsible for the well being of children, Dumbledore sabotaged a relationship between children! He might even have done this because it did not fit the story he foresaw for a very Slytherin Snape to remain friends with a pretty and heroic Lily. He might have done it for even worse reasons.
Yes, worse. Dumbledore said, "H...
It is my hope that Snape will read Lily's fifth year potions book, will understand that Dumbledore ruined his like, will dedicate himself to killing Dumbledore, and will be successful before the close of the fic.
Snape killing Dumbledore? I don't know, it sounds a little far-fetched.
Snape actually murdering Dumbledore at some point is too MoR-ish of an event for Eliezer not to include.
If two people are in a relationship like very close friends, marriage or long-term dating, or just roommates, they often have fights about little things. These fights are not because the little things have some hidden importance that would make them not-little, but because there is a big thing that upset one or both people. They don't talk about the big thing. They never mention it. They may not understand that is why they are upset.
That is how people fight over toilet lids being left up, or dishes in the sink one day to many, or whose turn it is to take the garbage out, when what they are really hurt by is loss of autonomy, or financial insecurity, or fading intensity of intimacy, or some other big deal.
That is also why many couples cannot resolve longs series of fights on their own, and why couple's counseling works, most of the times when it does.
People rarely become rational communicators on their own.
And so she never told him.
Dumbledore correctly surmises part of Quirrellmort's motivation for this arc's events: he's neutralizing all of Light Harry's allies. What Dumbledore hasn't realized, what is completely outside his hypothesis space, is that he's not doing so to attack Harry, or at least not as part of a plan to defeat Harry. He's doing it to remove all of Harry's support except Quirrellmort himself, so as to hasten Harry's consumption by his Dark Side. With only Quirrell to rely upon in the magical world, his conversion into Dark Harry will be much swifter.
Therefore, when speculating abut the rest of this arc, we must speculate about how this plan will neutralize the rest of Light Harry's allies: Dumbledore and McGonagall. Harry has already hinted that he intends to investigate Dumbledore the next time he sees Quirrell. Assuming Quirrell gets out of the Ministry without causing a scene, he will almost certainly have manufactured evidence that implicates Dumbledore, which he will show Harry.
So perhaps one of the "taboo tradeoffs" of the arc will be Harry successfully politically attacking the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards...
Interesting. That's a kind of reverse taboo tradeoff.
In a normal taboo tradeoff, you sacrifice a sacred value (lives, torture, ideals) to gain a mundane value (money, jobs, political influence). Here Harry would be doing the reverse: sacrifice a huge amount of mundane value (Dumbledore's political standing and his being an ally to Harry) to gain a sacred value (Hermione's life and freedom).
For an ordinary thinker (i.e. not Harry or Quirrel), this might even feel like a morally imperative tradeoff, one you have no right not to make no matter what the amount of mundane value you lose.
Here's a secret in plain sight: if this story has a happy ending, then Harry has the power to destroy Quirrelmort's brain, anytime they're together.
First clue: the WRONG DON'T BAD IDEA messages when Harry tries to make contact with Quirrell. Assume that they mean just what they say -- that something terrible will happen if Harry makes contact.
Second clue: the prophecy appears to say that Harry and Voldemort's confrontation can only leave more or less one. Storytelling convention makes us think it's a metaphor or foreseeing complex future actions. But maybe there's just an already existing spell or condition, dating from the first encounter, that's primed to cause Harry+Voldemort = boom.
There's more. But just from these two clues alone, we can see that an available though seemingly extreme interpretation of data in the story is: "If Harry ever touches Quirrellmort, one or the other will be magically destroyed".
Now the subtler clues.
Third clue: in the original canon, Harry had a piece of Voldemort's soul in him, an accidentally created Horcrux, and the destruction of that piece of soul was a critical step in Voldemort's death.
Fourth clue: in our world's science, there's no ...
In consequence, if ever Quirrellmort and Harry come sufficiently into physical/magical contact, Quirrellmort anticipates that Harry's brain will turn into a vegetable as Harry-Voldemort destructively uploads itself into the "real" Quirrell-Voldemort, leaving behind a stronger and more complete Q+H-Voldemort.
How about the other way - Quirrellmort uploads into Harry? Make Harry the Dark Lord, and then upload into him.
Note that Voldemort has seemingly already uploaded into Quirrell.
"My... Lord... I went where you said to await you, but you did not come...
"Sshow her your face," hissed the snake at Harry's feet.
Harry cast back the hood of the Cloak of Invisibility.
"The scar..." muttered Bellatrix. "That child..."
"So they all still think," said Harry's voice, and gave a thin little chuckle. "You looked for me in the wrong place, Bella dear."
Bella is not particularly surprised to find Voldemort in a new body. And while there are other explanations, having Harry masquerade as Voldemort does set the stage for him to do it for real. It also gets Bella on Harry's side for later in the story, so that Harry has support from...
So Harry is, in effect, an AI created by Voldemort, but one that developed an unintended value system and so turned on its creator?
Harry as Unfriendly AI. (Unfriendly from Voldemort's point of view, anyway.) Nice.
Harry is not so clever: why did he think that telling Malfoy "this is a plot, you know it's a plot" would make it not a good idea for Malfoy to commit overkill in defending his son? The point of vengeance is deterrence, and the crack of "well, it might not have been Hermione" is not a good crack to have in your deterrence. Dumbledore even tells Harry as much. And then, to top it off, Harry threatens Malfoy.
What Harry should have done: talked to Malfoy beforehand (why didn't he?). Given that didn't happen, told Malfoy "I have information that is relevant to the attack, which I think you should know but should not be public yet, as it might diminish your capacity for vengeance for this to be known publicly."
Then, in private, Harry has a conversation with Lucius where Lucius doesn't need to play to the crowd, informing Lucius of his expectation of the plot, his respect for Draco, and his vow to punish the murderer of Narcissa, and then Lucius walks back out and asks that the trial be finished in a week.
Even if Harry couldn't get access to Lucius in private, he could have made a much better public proposal.
"Hermione was not your family's true enemy, as you and I both know. To you, she is nothing but a pawn symbolizing the foe you can't yet strike. But she has value to me. If you want the right to deliver her to Azkaban, so be it, but hold off on claiming that right, Lucius, and I will give you your real enemy. You can spend your anger on this one little child now. But then I will owe you nothing, and your enemy will laugh at you. Or take today's judgment but wait on executing it, call her a hostage for my promise between us, and I will redeem Hermione with one far more valuable to you - both for your revenge, and for the life and safety of your son."
Or something like that. It still probably wouldn't have worked, of course - Lucius does not trust Harrymort's intentions or power.
Okay, I don't really think this is how it'll go down - slightly too Dark Lordish. But the image was amusing, so here goes:
"It just happens that if Hermione doesn't walk, everyone but me will lose the ability to cast Patronus. Don't buy it? Oh, well, I'll just explain it to Hermione and she'll be able to testify under Veritaserum that I can do it."
Or, you know, have Hermione figure it out herself from Harry's note and do the blackmail herself.
Anyway, the blackmail potential for this is rather great, and I'd not be surprised to see it used in a more dire situation with more than Hermione on the line.
It occurs to me that this would actually be a potentially successful (if politically costly) way to force the Ministry to replace Azkaban with a more humane Nurmengard-style prison. The mere fact that it's demonstrably possible for anyone to do this makes keeping Dementors around far less attractive.
What's the in-story justification for the dementor's presence anyway? I thought it seemed awfully convenient in case Harry decided to demonstrate his Patronus 2.0 but I couldn't figure out how it'd help enough.
I'd forgotten about the potential for ruining others' patronuses, though. That makes a lot more sense, especially considering he'd just reached into his dark side - possibly deeper than he'd ever willingly done before.
My guess: it wouldn't be enough at this point to just demonstrate a superior patronus or tell people about the possibility of ruining it for others. He tells the secret to EVERYONE present, leaving them at his mercy for protection. That gives him plenty of bargaining power and is dramatically Dark to boot. The political implications would be rather interesting, whether the Patroni could be returned by Obliviation or not.
Harry opened his mouth, and then, as realization hit him, rapidly snapped his mouth shut again. Godric hadn't told anyone, nor had Rowena if she'd known; there might have been any number of wizards who'd figured it out and kept their mouths shut. You couldn't forget if you knew that was what you were trying to do; once you realized how it worked, the animal form of the Patronus Charm would never work for you again - and most wizards didn't have the right upbringing to turn on Dementors and destroy them -
I'm curious now...
We know that Obliviation doesn't erase everything - it erases memories but not every effect of the experience it erases. We've even seen it in story - Rianne Felthorne felt sad when looking at her "found" ruby. McGonnagall also hypothesized that Harry might have been abused(or otherwise experienced something awful) and then Obliviated.
Either way, I'm curious how this effect would interact with something like this.
If Harry told you the secret of the True Patronus(and you weren't the sort of person who could kill Dementors with that knowledge) and you Obliviated yourself, would that be enough to restore the capacity to use an animal Patronus?
PredictionBook registry - take one prediction a day to keep the hindsight bias away! - based on the speculation:
Harry's solution will be...
(These are not all mutually exclusive, and I didn't set down and make them all sum to 100%.)
Something about the last paragraph
his eyes looked at the rows of chairs, at every person and every thing within range of his vision, searching for any opportunity it could grasp
Makes me afraid he'll end up stabbing Lucius with the bones of a Hufflepuff.
Suggestion: Harry (/Dumbledore) run some more almost-successful assassination attempts against Draco, while Hermione is in custody. That should suggest to Lucius and the Wizengamot that Hermione was being controlled. Bonus points for appearing to rescue Draco from said attempts. Bonus points for plausible attempts against Lucius himself. Extra bonus points for suggesting to Lucius a better explanation for the continuing attempts than the true one.
Among other things, this runs into the same issue as pretending to defeat Voldemort - there's an actual criminal out there who actually tried to kill Draco, or frame Hermione, or something more obscure than either, and any playacting would be extremely premature until they know what's actually going on.
Time Turner.
EDIT: On the other hand, if people know you have a time turner, then you have to work extra hard to establish an alibi.
EDIT Again: But then, with Polyjuice Potion, how could anyone ever have an alibi? Ehhh, maybe it's time for more suspension of belief.
The author's clues are pushing in two different directions. "Taboo tradeoffs" in the title, and that Harry's Dark side is delivering the solution, implies an answer that is morally unnerving or at least cold-blooded.
The author's line about Harry shifting from seeing the Wizengamot voters as "wallpaper" to seeing individuals with agency, "PCs", and the line about remembering the laws of magical Britain, implies an answer that involves the incentives and 'rules of the game' of the other Wizengamot members besides Lucius and Dumbledore.
None of the solutions I've seen (let alone the few I've thought of) seem both Dark/taboo and social/voters-are-PCs.
Harry calling in the (nominally) Imperiused voters' debts: clever, invokes customs of magical Britain, makes the voters PCs rather than wallpaper, but not very Dark or taboo.
Harry threatens the crowd with the Dementor somehow, or browbeats Dumbledore into ruining his reputation: Dark/taboo, but doesn't invoke the customs of magical Britain or treat the other Wizengamot voters as PCs.
Is there a solution that both invokes magical Britain's laws / makes PCs of the voters and involves some alarmingly Dark/taboo move or trade by Harry?
Boy-Who-Lived marries Draco Malfoy?
"...Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge."
Harry testifies: "Voldemort did it all. He made me watch with the Imperius curse -- just like when he made me help rescue Bellatrix Black."
Harry provides details of the Bellatrix rescue that only a participant would know. His accuracy can be verified by Azkaban Security Director Amelia Bones, who just happens to be present in the Wizengamot.
Harry's knowledge of the Bellatrix rescue proves the villain who Imperiused him was really Voldemort. Who else would rescue Bellatrix?
If anyone expresses doubts about Harry's super-Patronus, Harry immediately takes the excuse to annihilate a Dementor, one of which also just happens to be present in the Wizengamot.
Harry's Occlumency lets him lie through the Veritaserum about being Imperiused and witnessing poor Hermione being framed by Voldemort. He likewise lies that "Voldemort" (not Quirrell) took him to rescue Bellatrix.
Harry explains that seeing Hermione about to be condemned to Azkaban gave him the strength to finally break free of Voldemort's Imperius curse and tell everyone the truth. (Alternately, Obliviation and a Pensieve Harry wasn't supposed to find.)
Hermione is deemed innocent. Voldemort is acknowledged back in t...
After almost a month of work, and more on a whim than any real hunch, Harry had decided to make himself coldly angry and then try the book's Occlumency exercises again. At that point he'd mostly given up hope on that sort of thing, but it had still seemed worth a quick try -
He'd run through all the book's hardest exercises in two hours, and the next day he'd gone and told Professor Quirrell he was ready.
His dark side, it had turned out, was very, very good at pretending to be other people.
Chapter 27
The Joker: I took Gotham's white knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn't hard. You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push!
-- The Dark Knight
The narrative that we, the readers, are supposed to believe at this point goes like this: Hermione was given information during her little rendezvous with H+C, giving her some information that made her think that Snape and the Malfoys had it in for her, that the duel didn't happen, and H+C (presumably Quirrell) obliviated her memory of their first meeting afterwards.
Professor Quirrell has made numerous statements doubting Hermione's goodness. For example: "She is young, and to make a show of kindness costs her little." (60) Being Quirrell, he has most likely predicted Harry's sentiment on the matter: "But 3 out of 40 subjects had refused to participate all the way to the end. The Hermiones. They did exist, in the world, the people who wouldn't fire a Simple Strike Hex at a fellow student even if the Defense Professor ordered them to do it." (63)
I would like to advance the hypothesis that Hermione actually did attempt to kill Draco. Yes, she had been set up to stew in her p...
I don't have a clue why Dumbledore would be involved in this case, but... Bellatrix is Narcissa's sister. And it occurs to me that a) Bella would be perfectly capable of burning her sister to death for basically any reason at all and b) Harry would be extremely reluctant to destroy her even if he knew she did it.
Oh, thank you, that's it, that's the answer: Bellatrix is Narcissa's sister, and of course Lucius would be more comfortable blaming Dumbledore than Bellatrix, not only for family reasons but for fear of Voldemort.
Plus, consider the Law of Dramatic Efficiency: Bellatrix is one of the few people we've met who would fully trigger Harry's oath (to take Narcissa's killer as an enemy) yet Harry wouldn't want to kill. Because Bellatrix wasn't "tricked" into killing Narcissa. Brainwashed, yes, but not tricked.
Bellatrix meets all the conditions for Narcissa's killer:
If it's not Dumbledore, it has to be someone Lucius would rather not name to Draco. Bellatrix: sister-in-law and Voldemort's chief lieutenant.
It has to be someone Lucius has been in no position to take revenge on in the intervening years. Bellatrix: in Azkaban.
It ought, dramatically, to be someone within the oath yet very uncomfortable for Harry to go after. Bellatrix: in Harry's mind, brainwashed into her evil, but not tricked into the murder of Narcissa.
So Bellatrix fits perfectly. Lucius blames Dumbledore, knowing Draco won't trust Dumbledore claiming the contrary, and knowing how dangerous it would be for ...
Oh, I just realized - this makes Lucius' reaction to Harrymort make much more sense. Previously I was confused as to why he wasn't either ingratiating or fearful, but instead was all "my son is the last worthwhile thing I have in the world" complete with threats of vengeance. Of course he would react like that if this had happened.
Floo powder requires a fireplace connected to the Ministry-supervised system. It's meant to be secure enough that it can connect locations where wards would prevent you from just Apparating there (like people's homes and Hogwarts)
Apparation requires being an licenced wizard and (in HPMoR atleast) you can only visit places where you've already been.
Portkeys can take you to new locations, and only need expertise in their creation, not their usage, but each portkey can only take you to a specific location.
The above are differences enough that you can see why different forms of transportation would be preferable under different scenarios.
Point in favor of this all being a plot by Quirrell to cause Harry to be more willing to overthrow the ministry:
But by then he'd already declared war on the country of magical Britain, and the idea of other people calling him a Dark Lord no longer seemed important one way or another.
ETA: Evidence this is the result of Quirrell's plotting at all:
Harry's mind flashed back to another day of horror, and even though Harry had been on the verge of writing off Lord Voldemort's continued existence as the senility of an old wizard, it suddenly seemed horribly and uniquely plausible that the entity who'd Memory-Charmed Hermione was the very same mind that had - made use of - Bellatrix Black. The two events had a certain signature in common. To choose that this should happen, plan for this to happen - it would take more than evil, it would take emptiness.
Harry's suggesting that Voldemort's tactics involve not just hate but an incredible degree of cynicism.
Both "Make Bella love you despairingly, on purpose" and "Mess with Hermione's brain intimately over a long period of time" reflect a person who can get to know people closely and accurately and yet not care about them at all.
A lot of evil comes from people doing bad things to people they don't bother to think about in the first place. Voldemort clearly took the trouble to get to know Bellatrix and (somewhat) Hermione rather well - solely for the purposes of undermining them.
Some police trained as hostage-situation snipers find they can't actually pull the trigger on real criminals, because they watch them so long and so closely they empathize with them. Draco Malfoy, in the fic, was coming to empathize with Hermione Granger.
Harry is observing that Voldemort seems to be immune to natural empathy, and that creeps him out.
(Agree that Harry having "Voldemort plot detection powers" as a general rule would be bizarre.)
Why are we assuming that Quirrelmort is on the up and up about wanting Harry to be the next Dark Lord?
Isn't that exactly the story you'd give a young prodigy with delusions of godhood to manipulate him, particularly if you wanted to set him against the establishment? Put Hermione in harms way, arrange to have her sent to Azkaban, where you've already arranged to have Harry rescue Bellatrix, egg Harry on to rescue her, as if he needed any egging on, then try to steal the Sorcerer's Stone while everyone is away at Azkaban.
Regardless on the details of Hermione's trial plays out, it would be a really interesting mind fuck to Harry, to find out that Quirrell was completely manipulating Harry's Messiah Complex from day one so he could someday use him as a distraction, and that all of Harry's childish science fiction fantasizing are seen by Quirrellmort as just that - childish.
And Dumbledore seems worse than Harry about taking science fiction/fantasy novels as a way to model real life.
And guess what? To the extent that we are lapping up this story, we are too. A mind fuck for Harry, Dumbledore, and us. And I can't say that we wouldn't have it coming.
Years ago, I read Point Counterpoint...
Snape's plotting here is interesting, but I'm not sure what he is actually trying to accomplish.
Quick rundown of what we know:
So I suspect a few things:
I don't believe Snape values his love for Lily, past or present. I believe Snape is scheming to his own ends and by his own mercilessly practical means. He's not the best at it, but he's left the chump train.
Snape forced the escalation in order to get justification to do exactly what he did at the end of the first scene of chapter 75, where the following describes him admonishing the top Slytherin bullies:
"You will do nothing," hissed their Head of House. Severus Snape's face was enraged, when he spoke small spots of spittle flew from his mouth, further dotting his already-dirtied robes. "You fools have done enough! You have embarrassed my House - lost to first-years - now you speak of embroiling noble Lords of the Wizengamot in your pathetic childish squabbles? I shall deal with this matter. You will not embarrass this House again, you will not risk embarrassing this House again! You are done with fighting witches, and if I hear otherwise -"
Snape has cut the head off the Slytherin Bullying Machine, intending to see the machine fall apart without it. The non-Slytherin bullies were probably never that organized (fucking Gryffindors), and I suppose are mean...
I believe Snape's motivations are more personal than trying to help Slytherin House. He's remembering how he was bullied by James, and his conversation about the topic with Harry prompted him to devise this scheme to fight bullying today. He's basically looking for redemption, having perhaps abandoned his love for Lily after talking with Harry and also after the Interlude with the Confessor.
This explains why he's starting this scheme now, rather than as soon as he became Head of Slytherin.
He's hiding this from Dumbledore because Dumbledore explicitly acted against his plot: he tried to stop the SPHEW-bully fights, in the end by the drastic method of ordering Snape to disband them and publicly humiliate and punish Hermione. Dumbledore explained his actions and motivations several times to Harry.
Not really. Bullying is House-neutral; Slytherin and Gryffindor both bully each other as well as random other students. Note the heavy non-Slytherin presence at the last bully battle, and note that James Potter was in Gryffindor. And Quirrelmort, who was (for the sake of argument) in Slytherin, spoke of how much he once hated bullies.
Snape is over Lily. He's been coming to grips with losing his love for Lily ever since Harry gave Snape his (incorrect) explanation for Lily's treatment of him. The moment he kissed Rianne is the moment he finally decided to stop living and grieving for Lily and start living for himself.
The question is what it means for him to live for himself. Dumbledore's trust in Snape is based on his knowledge of Snape's undying love for Lily. If Dumbledore were to find out that that love no longer exists, he would (gently, perhaps) kick Snape out of the Fellowship. He would know that there was no longer any reason to trust him. And if Snape has gotten over Lily, he'll probably feel no real compulsion to help Harry in any particular way.
Quirrell, being a smarter Voldemort, knows what was driving Snape when he was working for Dumbledore, and he now knows that it's driving Snape no longer. That's why he had that little conversation with him in the woods; he knows that Snape is now a free agent who might once again be a blood purist loyal to Voldemort.
Voldemort would not likely welcome Snape back into his fold once Voldie reveals himself, but now that he knows Snape's loyalties are up for grabs, he won't hesitate to manipulate him and use him however he can until then.
We're told so during their conversation in the woods.
No, there is only one person who holds so much power over you, and who would be most perturbed to find you executing any plot without his knowledge. Your true and hidden master, Albus Dumbledore."
"What?" hissed the Potions Master, the anger plain upon his face.
"But now, it seems, you are moving on your own; and so I find myself most intrigued as to what you could possibly be doing, and why."
Quirrell may not know about his love for Lily, but I consider that highly unlikely, since Snape apparently still asked Voldemort not to kill her. Quirrellmort would certainly have put two and two together by now.
But that passage explicitly tells us that Quirrell knows that Snape is no longer acting under Dumbledore's orders.
Lucius is a slytherin, and not stupid. What if he really does believe Hermione is a pawn? The question remains — whose pawn?
Lucius might believe Hermione is Dumbledore's pawn.
Lucius already believes D killed his wife, and so he would have no trouble believing Dumbledore is targeting his son. In fact, it would be to Dumbledore's advantage (so might think Lucius) to target Draco in such a way that D can avoid taking the blame. If D wanted to impose political costs on Lucius, one way he might do it is to have someone utterly beyond suspicion be found to have attacked Draco. Then Lucius would have to use up political capital to punish an innocent little girl.
If Lucius thinks this way, it would explain his willingness to punish Hermione to the extreme — she's Dumbledore's pawn, and so he's going to take her away in order to impose costs on Dumbledore. For Dumbledore to speak up for Hermione would reinforce the belief that she belongs to D.
What do we make of Harry Potter's comments, and Lucius's reaction to them, in this light (given that Lucius thinks Harry is the dark lord)? His "unheard sentences" would likely be along the lines of "No shit, sherlock!", followed by...
Dementor, do you know who I am? Just say yes or no.
Do you know what I'm capable of? Once again, yes or no.
Leave Hermione be. Do not approach her or tread upon her thoughts during her time in azkaban. Run along and tell your compatriots at azkaban. Now.
Hopefully albus's belief would be enough to bolster them even if they don't have a mind if their own. If they do have a mind of their own they can be threatened, and have been in the past.
How about, follow the money? Who gains?
Hermione, the girl who publicly humiliated Draco and the whole Pureblood cause, now owes a blood debt to Lucius Malfoy. Not only does he gain power over her, but by extension, over Harry, and further extension, to Dumbledore. All for the price of a very safe if monitored supposed attempt on Draco's life, which Draco likely would have volunteered for if given the opportunity.
Lucius has hit the jackpot, even if he didn't plan and orchestrate the whole thing. He can extract almost anything out of Harry in exchange for leniency for Hermione. It seems unlikely that the good Defense Professor would have orchestrated a plan which is entirely dependent for it's success on Lucius failing to take advantage of the situation - unless putting Harry in Lucius's debt was his goal.
Lucius personally has complete control of the outcome, and I'm surprised Harry hasn't considered contacting him yet.
But plot thickens: Draco will intervene on Hermione's behalf, mostly on the basis of their remembered scenario being very implausible, as explained in the chapter.
Only Hermione's supposed cold-blooded attempt to kill him is highly implausible, and Draco doesn't actually remember nor can testify to that.
The things that Draco remembers aren't actually significantly implausible: We know he challenged her to a duel to that very place, we know he considered himself quite likely to overpower her in that duel. Then all Draco knows of that night is that he was stunned in the back.
Draco does not even need to have been False-Memory charmed for any of the above - even if Hermione didn't actually go to the duel, a polyjuiced Quirrell could have taken her place.
Only Hermione needs to have been implanted with false memories.
It's an actually popular thing associated with LessWrong, and it's a good place for the comments. Putting the threads in the discussion section is hardly onerous. We could date them rather than number them, like the Open Threads.
I think Harry already failed his bargaining attempt vs. Lucius, so for flow of story reasons I don't think he's going to call in his life debt, although that makes the most sense of the theories I've seen so far.
I think Harry will bargain with the dementor. "Dementor, if you and your ilk allow this girl to enter Azkaban, I will come and destroy you all. If you refuse to let her enter, I will permit your species to continue to exist." This could be a taboo tradeoff; Harry is trading his sacred value of anti-death-ness to save Hermione.
I think this theory fits in with the story a little better, but it seems less likely to work. It also has a pretty bad failure mode; the dementor ignores Harry because everyone else in the room expects it to, and Harry has to get Fawkes to take him to Azkaban to make good on his threat. (Does Harry know that Phoenix travel is a fast way in? If not, he can probably guess so.)
I'd like to point out something awesome Eliezer did in the previous chapter, "Cheating". In canon, Potions as a discipline is hardly taught at all. The only thing you ever see Snape do in the books is give a list of ingredients and instructions, tell the class how long the class period is, and assign papers at the end of the class. This is one example of how J.K. Rowling wasn't really invested in developing the mythology of the universe, except as strictly necessary to make her plots happen. (There's nothing wrong with that; they're children's books, not "real" fantasy for adults.)
With the "Cheating" chapter, rather than trying to create a whole framework of Potions rules to understand as he's done elsewhere, he simply added a darn good explanation that legitimizes everything Rowling already showed us. When Hermione lectures Harry on "understanding the principles" in Half-Blood Prince, instead of scoffing about how there's never been evidence of any principles to learn, we can now imagine that there's a very good reason why Harry is never taught the principles of potion-making: if you're not smart, thoughtful, and careful enough to figure the...
Seconded. In retrospect, the Canon teaching of potions now seems incredibly practical. The vast majority of students not only don't need to learn the theory, but it's a negative for them to do so. They only need to learn two things: 1) how to make the potions they'll use every day and 2) whether or not they even can make those potions or if they should just buy them from someone else. Constant repetition with minimal instruction is exactly what you need for a class that's more akin to cooking instead of calculus.
I'd say lower probability, but Snape is the obvious villain right now based on what we know about him destroying the notes
Wait, how is this relevant? Destroying the notes is just about cleaning up his SPHEW-related tracks (due to his apparent embarrassment at being a soft touch w/r/t bullying) now that Hermione and her notes are under great scrutiny as possibly being related to her framing.
And in fact, I'd say the notes are evidence against. If Snape had been plotting this all along, one might expect the notes to have been destroyed before the incident is uncovered, say after Hermione left for the duel, since Snape would not be able to guarantee he'd be assigned to look for the notes, that he would be alone or unobserved in every way, etc. If you predict an investigation will find dangerous papers you no longer need, you don't wait until the investigation starts!
I dunno, I always read that conversation (and the subsequent scenes from Snape's POV) as indicating that Harry actually succeeded in convincing Snape that Lily wasn't all that great and that his carrying that particular torch for so long was pathetic.
In the process cutting the only tie holding Snape to the Light.
Oops.
Maybe. On the other hand . . . maybe actually winning Snape to Harry's side.
Ch 76 - "I have had two mentors, over the course of my days. Both were extraordinarily perceptive, and neither one ever told me the things I wasn't seeing. It's clear enough why the first said nothing, but the second..." Snape's face tightened. "I suppose I would have to be naive, to ask why he stayed silent."
Let us assume that Snape no longer has any reason to be loyal to Dumbledore. Then where does Snape turn next? Back to Voldemort? MoR!Voldemort, who is not nearly the idiot Canon!Voldemort was (and thus far less likely to trust Snape), who killed Lily despite knowing how important Lily was to Snape, and who with no question would only be using him?
If that were the only alternative to Dumbledore, perhaps. But it isn't.
No, Snape has an alternative. Someone who confronts bullies, instead of leading or tolerating them. Someone who told him the truth, rather than leave him in a fog of lies. Someone of demonstrated intelligence and power. Someone who has already bested Voldemort.
Snape of course cannot bear, in pride, to simply and openly take up the banner of the alternative. But he can at least take up the role of protector of the boy, who really is not particularly like his father.
I'm increasingly struck by the foreshadowing EY uses. Instead of pulling things out of his ass, he sets up whatever happens. Unlike the original series, I expect a satisfying ending where all the pieces fit together and make sense.
Along these lines, go back and look at the little chat Quirrell had with Harry after they broke Bella out of Azkaban. To summarize Quirrell: People are hypocritical and delusional pricks who will bleed their grandmothers for a nickel. They care nothing for people accused of crimes, but instead sadistically compete to show strength by abusing them. Being young and naive, you can still tolerate them, but once their idiocy strikes at something dear to you, you'll despise them as I do, and decide it's better to rule them than tolerate the abominations that inevitably follow when you don't.
And what happens? Hermione is accused of a crime, which is transparently improbably, but people compete to sadistically abuse her regardless. Their idiocy strikes at something dear to Harry, and in his heart, he declares war on magical Britain, musing "Dark Lord" just doesn't sound as bad as it used to.
EY and Quirrell couldn't have spelled it out more clearly.
Shou...
I don't mind the downvote -- but consider reversing it if my theory is proven right next chapter. :-)
If Mitchell vouches for you, I'm willing to make a bet specified as follows:
I will take this bet, with the following stipulations:
You're obviously a sock puppet (not a bad one, just an anonymous one.) So I just pictured Eliezer making a sock puppet account specifically to take bets on what's going to happen in HPMoR.
My model of EY says that isn't something he would do, but I find the concept hilarious, nonetheless. (And had many giggles while imagining scheming!Eliezer posting good plot ideas he DIDN'T use under a sock account, and then swooping in as another sock to offer bets on said idea, while laughing evilly (can't ignore the Evil Laugh), and raking in the dough :P)
At Anna and Carl's wedding, I advanced a MoR prediction, which Eliezer offered to confirm/deny iff I first made bets with all present, and I won something like $50 =)
I understand your point, but I'm not sure the analogy is quite correct. In the case of the lottery, where the probabilities are well known, to make a bad bet is just bad (even if chances goes your way).
In this case however, our estimated probabilities derive ultimately from our models of Eliezer in his authoring capacity. If Vladimir derives a lower probability than the one I derived on Harry using the solution I stated, and it ends up my theory is indeed correct, that is evidence that his model of Eliezer is worse than mine. So he should update his model accordingly, and indeed reconsider whether I was actually overconfident or not. (Ofcourse he may reach the conclusion that even with his updated model, I was still overconfident)
Step one: Stand up and loudly explain how a patronus works, and what a dementor actually is, under the guise of arguing for a diffrent punisment - This will make the entire wizengamot, including the aurors controling the dementor present incapable of casting expecto patronum. Destroy the dementor before it eats anyone. Now the wizengamot has to shut down azkaban (Because the secret would get out). This would not exactly endear him to anyone at all, but they cannot seriously retaliate, because they need him to kill off the dementors before they run out of aurors who havent heard the truth yet. This doesnt actually free Hermonie, just stops them from sending her (or anyone) to azkaban.
Side bonus Harry cannot predict: This would probably also convince Lucius that he isnt Pottermort.
And Eliezer's Author's Notes have confirmed
Could you do me a favor and quote the exact line that made you think this?
Anyone else getting the feeling that EY is doing an accelerated wrap up of HPMOR?
We've jumped forward months in the story, and it looks like everyone is in play all at once, for the highest of stakes. The major players all have their beloved pieces at risk in Lucius and Draco, Harry and Hermione, and Albus and Harry.
Also, with the approaching end of the school year, I assume it's the end for Quirrell as well.
But Chapter 83 is The Aftermath. And I believe EY talked about future installments more as novellas, which makes me think those would be retrospective fill ins for the months we've skipped.
Say it aint so. I'm in no rush to see this end, and not to get melodramatic about it, but I think HPMOR has a good chance of being the most important thing anyone on this list ever does. Rand would have been an unknown crank without the novels. A transvaluation of values is made through stories, not Sequences.
We've jumped forward months in the story,
I checked again, and chapter 73 says "The March days marched by". Chapter 78 starts at 4th of April, and the day of Hermione's arrest was the morning of Sunday the 5th of April.
So I think your impression is wrong: we're still moving at the pace of about one month per major arc. "Humanism" was January, and "Stanford Prison Experiment" was February, and "Self-actualization" was March. This is now April.
I think HPMOR has a good chance of being the most important thing anyone on this list ever does.
Rational DanArmak knows about UFAI and how he can't weigh miniscule probabilities correctly and so on.
Emotional DanArmak is praying oh dear god when HPMOR ends please please let Eliezer go on writing fiction.
There have been a couple Aftermath chapters already, that's what the author titles chapters within an arc that come after the climax of the arc and wrap things up usually on a character-by-character basis. Chapters 63 and 77 were both Aftermath, but they certainly didn't end the story.
A transvaluation of values is made through stories, not Sequences.
Correct. Stories are how humans learn most things.
Anyways, if the obvious answer is incorrect, we ought to figure out which Hogwarts staff-member has been going around casting memory charms. Now Dumbledore did specifically say "professor" and I doubt that he misspoke, so we can discount Hagrid, Pomffery, etc. So:
Now, there is one possibility I don't think anyone has brought up yet. H&C could simply be the unwilling pawn anyone capable of using the Imperius, This explains how he/she can have quite brilliant long-term plans, given to them by their puppet-master, but make a few simple mistakes when on their own (Like taking so long to crack Hermione).
Now, we know that Hermione recognized and was very shocked by whomever she saw beneath H&C's disguise, which suggests it was someone she actually knew rather tha...
Not to mention the entirety of his conversation with Hermione strikes me as, well, clumsy. Professor Quirrell can convince most people of most things without multiple trials, and even if he modeled Hermione as putting on a show of goodness H&C's methods are not the ideal way to convince someone like that.
Experiments that involve talking may superficially resemble clumsy attempts at persuasion. The objective of those sessions was probably not persuasion, so judging their effectiveness by optimality with respect to that criterion is wrong. The objective was probably to map the dynamic of Hermione's thinking. Gaining unlikely powers of persuasion eventually is one possible product of this process, but not its character.
I think it's better than the inconvenience of not being able to see all the comments in a thread at once because there's over 500 of them.
This comment gave me the obvious-in-retrospect idea of cloning things with a Time-Turner. Consider:
The universe makes it rather obvious that you can't. How do we know that? Because the economics of Time-Turners is such that they are only valuable if you have exactly one and any additional time-turners are irrelevant. If time-turners worked that way then...
... You would want as many as you could get. And Hogwarts wouldn't be able to loan them out. If each person can only use 1 time-turner (as I say), then the economic demand is at most the population who's aware of time-turners. If you can use infinitely many time turners, then demand is without limit. The price for them would increase, and Hogwarts wouldn't be free to hand them out like they relatively were inexpensive.
They would have a very high price, and powerful or rich wizards would use them as much as they want. People as rich as Lucius Malfoy would be wearing twenty five time-turners like they were the rapper flava-flav. Upon hearing about Azkaban being attacked, you'd immediately go back six hours instead of one because there would be no reason to not do it. Harry, upon exiting the Azkaban wards, would have run into a patrol of a thousand disillusioned Dumbledores patrolling the sky. Hermione would have gotten arrested, and McGonagall would temporarily recall all the time-turners so that Harry or Dumbledore could have a week of turned time to come up with a defense.
No, the universe does not appear as it would if time turners could be stacked. Indeed if they could, things would look drastically different.
What happened here?
The Veritaserum was brought in then, and Hermione looked for a brief moment like she was about to sob, she was looking at Harry - no, at Professor McGonagall - and Professor McGonagall was mouthing words that Harry couldn't make out from his angle. Then Hermione swallowed three drops of Veritaserum and her face grew slack.
b) communicating something. If it's this, then I strongly suspect that McGonagall is cooperating with future Harry in some rescue plan. She might be communicating a simple message like "Don't worry" or "We'll get you out" which would imply that she has some extra knowledge about how things are going to play out.
But what she told Hermione shouldn't be very important as there was no way to know that Hermione, in her tired state, would understand the significance of whatever McGonagall mouthed.
It's not really a problem. Currently we are in a phase of rapid fic updates so there'll be lots of comments, but afterwards it'll slow down again for some months, I'm sure...
The best solution I've been able to come up with on my own involves Harry breaking the compact between the dementors and the ministry:
"I am not yet done!
Lucius, while I appreciate you desire for vengeance, pointing it at the wrong target gains you nothing. However, it does inconvenience me. Hermione Granger is mine. I have claimed her, and I will have her, healthy and with her magical abilities intact.
Dementor! The compact you have made with the Ministry has been broken. I have already begun teaching the charm which was used to destroy one of your kind at Hogwarts earlier this year. You will return immediately to Azkaban and tell the other dementors to leave that place. Should any of you wish to side with the ministry, be certain that we will destroy you all. Go, now."
[dementor leaves]
"We are now at war. The spell to destroy dementors does in fact exist, a fact Albus Dumbledoor will verify. However, it is powerful, and can only be cast by very few wizards, wizards of a particular mind. Those who learn of it and fail will be permanently robbed of their patronus.
Hermione is one of the few wizards who can learn to cast the spell, and we all need her with her m...
Hah. Fun, but completely unreasonable. The Wizengemot is ultimately responsible for the safety of wizard-kind, and though they're pretty selfish when it comes to minor issues, as soon as a Harry makes the threat to disable wizard-kind's defenses against Dementors, everyone, Dumbledore and Malfoy and Bones and so on, will be his enemy, and they will disable him.
Chapter 26, "Noticing Confusion" : Don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but Quirrell says, "I...need to go off and set something in motion," before apparently going off to accost Rita Skeeter. During their conversation (Ch 25) she thinks about the alleged fact that a tipster directed her to Mary's Room, where she will shortly die. Now she may have thought this before meeting Quirrell -- she definitely had somewhere to be -- but then why would he bother to speak with her?
I just looked at the passage again, and it seems worse than that. She actually thinks,
And his hair was already falling out? Couldn't he afford a healer?
No, that wasn't important, she had a time and a place and a beetle to be.
Destroys the dementors by destroying himself? Destroys the dementors, and lets out the criminals of wizarding Britain? Destroys the dementors, and is put down for rebellion?
There are no happy endings down that path.
I find Dumbledore morally confusing.
Largely inactive in the present, good and effective in the reputed past, weird or vile when we actually see him act.
Has there been a leader in real life like this? If this was a real-life person, what would we say about them -- that they were a good leader once, and now they're a crazy one?
Dumbledore has no difficulty with action when needed(TSPE, most notably), but he's been burned too many times by the cost of his efforts to be eager about it. He'd much prefer to stop the war by passive deeds(sequestering Harry, poisoning Voldemort's father's grave, etc.), and not risk the bloodshed that open war would cause, or even the loss of political capital caused by a showdown with Lucius Malfoy. There's bound to be a big difference between an 11 year old sci-fi fan and a hundredish year old veteran when it comes to eagerness to do harm, and frankly I think that Dumbledore's caution is at least as justified as Harry's sneakiness when it comes to planning a war. After all, Harry's never seen one of his incredibly clever plots fail, and he's eleven, so he is naturally going to be far too eager. Inaction isn't always wrong.
I think you need to consider the idea that this is the way he's always acted.
His handling of the Grindelwald business can be summed up as several years of inaction followed by the most spectacular duel in recent history. Presumably he didn't explain the blood sacrifices + Deathstick = invincibility thing to everyone who asked, so he must have skated by on inscrutability.
He states with a certain bitter pride that he taught Voldemort he doesn't give in to blackmail or threats to hostages- which he (hopefully, considering the alternative) accomplished through more inaction.
When you think about it, a wizard with tremendous magical and political power who doesn't seem to actually want to do anything with that power is pretty much the best case scenario for a lot of people. Imagine that Dumbledore suddenly decided to act on Fawkes' advice: how much of Wizarding Britain is left standing?
Given Harry's knowledge about basic game theory and decision making theory how come he's so bad at producing fake information? I refer both to his dealings in conversations (where he arguably has increased his game level), but even more so in the mock battles. Not hiding the creation of green sunglasses did seem unnaturally stupid taking into consideration:
Furthermore I'm rather stunned by how bad at constructing ambushes and firing lines Harry is.
It was unlikely that his enemies would see what was being done, so unlikely that they did not think to prepare. So unlikely that, appropriately enough, it was mentioned in chapter 78:
The Dragons had started the combat with a feint to provide a distraction for Mr. Goyle's approach through the forest; Neville hadn't realized there were two brooms attacking until almost too late. But the Chaos Legion had gotten the other pilot. That was why broomsticks usually didn't attack before armies met, it meant a whole army would concentrate fire on the broomstick.
The Dragons sacrificed a broom to see what was up. This is a significant sacrifice as they have only two and their enemies have a total of four between them.
It would not be surprising for the next battle, if there is one, to include some protection against aerial espionage. Better spy-planes would be another reasonable result of this battle. The first thing you do is fly higher.
Whenever someone commits cold-blooded murder their soul is ripped in two
I see what you did there.
Harry has the legendary Lost Sword of Humerus Hufflepuff in his pouch.
Be prepared! As through life you march along! Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared - be prepared!
We have Word of God (in comments above) that Harry is about to come up with some plan. However, that plan may yet fail, or it may not be executable during this Wizengamot session but only a few hours or days later.
If Harry does not succeed in rescuing Hermione now, or at least publicly show that he has a credible plan in motion, then I predict (50% probability) that right afterwards Quirrel will approach Harry with a plan for 1) breaking Hermione out of Azkaban 2) consolidating a public political platform in line with destroying Azkaban (Harry's goal), inc...
They could adopt/legitimize Draco's children by another lover. As Harry's fanclub says, he and Draco and the lady could have one of those, you know, arrangements...
Since when? A while ago he convinced Dumbledore to give him the full six hours rather than two, but I don't think we were ever told that he can use it at will now.
ETA: From Chapter 77, Self-Actualization Aftermaths, emphasis mine:
(Some time later, an earlier version of Harry, who had invisibly waited next to the gargoyles since 9PM, followed the Deputy Headmistress through the opening that parted for her, stood quietly behind her on the turning stairs until they came to the top, and then, still under the Cloak, spun his Time-Turner thrice.)
Actions like that ensured that Bellatrix's devotion to Voldemort was not a happy memory for her, and therefore would survive in Azkaban for as long as she did. It might even have prolonged her life (though I rather doubt he tortured her for her own good).
I would be surprised if Harry's knowledge of Muggle science, as such, was his edge over Voldemort. This Voldemort Horcruxed a spacecraft.
And I would be surprised if Harry's "rationality" in the general sense was his edge. Quirrellmort seems plenty clear-thinking.
On the other hand, you're right that Harry is much more of an experimentalist than Quirrellmort seems to be. Voldemort in this fic seems to be brilliantly efficient rather than brilliantly creative.
So perhaps Harry can defeat Voldemort through the power of experimentation. Not so much Science as The Scientific Method.
you cannot unknow any of this stuff except by obliterating yourself.
Obliterating? That's perhaps overkill!
There is a human sacrifice, a murder, of that I am certain; committed in coldest blood, the victim dying in horror.
Pretty sure it's not a valid sacrifice if the human doesn't die.
Harry asks Draco if Draco had submitted him to torture with no intention of helping him. Draco is already under the effects of Veritaserum, so he'll testify.
Draco isn't even present. His earlier testimony under Veritaserum was simply read aloud.
And also the possibility of utilizing Draco's use of torture was mentioned and rejected in the previous chapter, as Lucius Malfoy may well have obliviated anything incriminating he found in Draco's mind under his own Veritaserum interrogation of his son.
What I wanna know is what Lucius even thinks is going on. What his mental model of the situation is. It's unclear to me. A plot by Harrymort to inoculate future Death Eater and trusted lieutenant Draco against pro-muggleborn ideas by having him severely disappointed in Hermione? Well maybe not, but surely a man with that much control and intelligence is thinking something rather than just blindly grasping for revenge...
My mental model of Lucius says he believes...
Harry is Voldemort (Who is still strong in some ways but weak in others)
Harrymort has been trying to split Draco from his father.
Harrymort has been using a new ideology to recruit Draco.
This new ideology is incompatible with the previous ideology.
Harrymort has no use of his old allies as he hasn't let them in on anything and he's using an incompatible ideology.
Harrymort's gathering of power and allies/minions (eg Hogwarts students) will take at least a decade to come to fruition.
Harrymort is in a weak position right now and in danger of losing a key piece. (Hermoine would be his Bellatrix.)
Harrymort seems to be on Dumbledore's side in the court room and ideologically.
So, assuming Lucius isn't just acting on rage, he's decided to align himself against Harrymort and with whoever it is that's attacking him. Perhaps he's hoping that he can destroy Harrymort soon enough before he becomes invincible withe the passage of years. Perhaps he hopes by aligning the House of Malfoy against Harrymort publicly, whoever attacked his son won't target him again and risk losing the Malfoy's support. Perhaps he thinks Harry is strongly allied enough to Dumbledore to lie to Lucius. Although I'm more of the mind that he's acting on blind revenge, or at least it's clouding his vision enough to make poor choices at the moment.
He might think that Harrymort is toying with his son for pure amusement, Bellatrix-style; or that Dumbledore set Hermione on Draco.
But he can punish Hermione as a demonstration of his ferocity now, while he waits and hopes to find the real villain later.
Lucius probably knows that he doesn't know enough; on that he agrees with Harry. The difference is that he doesn't see that as a reason to let Hermione off; he sees Hermione as at least an opportunity to send a message to his real enemy, whoemever he is, not to take the House of Malfoy lightly.
Eliezer, could you please confirm / deny / decline to answer whether the fic is past its halfway point? I have a persistent memory that you did at one point state that it was, but I can't find that statement so I'm wondering if I just crossed a couple of brain-wires.
e: while I'm here, I was rereading random chapters and spotted a typo in Ch. 14: "Good heavens, Mr. Potter, do you think these would be allowed to students".
An idea: We're discussing lethal magic, of the sort that even Quirrell is unlikely to have taught. Has anyone checked that she even knows the Blood-Cooling Charm? She reads a lot, and Quirrell is unlikely to have left a hole that obvious in his plan, but this seems like something that may be worth checking.
This occurred to me, but Hermione really shot herself in the foot by publicly demonstrating the ability to successfully cast a charm above her year level on the first try, from nothing more than having glanced at the instructions once.
Plus, just from naming conventions I would expect that spell to have non-lethal uses- it's not called the Blood-Cooling Curse, or even Hex, but Charm. Maybe it's a treatment for heatstroke, or the counter to the Blood-Boiling Curse. In any situation other than under Hogwarts' wards, a Charm that takes six hours to kill an unconscious first-year isn't that big a deal, compared to, say, Levitating them off a cliff and dropping them.
I don't really buy that motivation. Even if Harry becomes Dark, it's unlikely that he will then instantly become buddies with everyone else on the Dark side. Instead, I would expect Dark Harry and Dark Voldemort to be bitter enemies, trying to be the sole ruler of the world.
The best motivation I came up with for Voldemort turning Harry dark is that he intends to possess him, or dispose of him and sustain himself on polyjuice. In that case, Quirrellmort might well take actions that look like actions intended to help Harry rule, in addition to moves intended...
I went and made a new comment section because we broke 1000 posts and we're supposed to split at 500. Here's the link.
I notice a disturbing similarity between what Dumbledore did with the note he left with the invisibility cloak and the actions of H&C 1. Dumbledore increased Harry's trust in him by having his motives impugned by a note that he then discredited. Dumbledor arranged for Zabini to achieved the highest possible pinnacle of untrustworthiness and then H&C arranged for Zabini to impugn the motives of Dumbledore to Harry's mentor.
Even if it goes by "if you think you've witnessed death" there's still the matter that Hermione at no point thought that she witnessed Draco's death; it would have happened hours after she left.
Sorry if this was mentioned before, but I just noticed something (not related to the latest cliffhanger):
It's implied that some people break into Azkaban to give some prisoners normal sleep/Patronus time, but why go to all the trouble when you can just tell a Patronus to go there for a few hours by itself. And we already know that a Patronus can travel into Azkaban (McGonagalls' in TSPE arc)
So, plothole?
The trick of knowing how to send Patronuses to others as messengers has been implied to be kept in Dumbledore's close circle, as a tactical advantage. (e.g. Quirrel mentioning the possibility of Dumbledore teaching Harry this trick -- not as if it's public knowledge)
Madam Bones killed Narcissa. "Someone would burn for this." pg. 879 of the pdf.
EDIT: This is likely the double Taboo tradeoff. The original tradeoff was going along with the innocent Narcissa being burned as a war tactic or just covering up for the Aurors and Bones after they did it because he needed them - he was protecting his pieces for the larger war. Either way, it probably served his war aims to take credit for the attack and have Malfoy believe he was ruthless enough to do it. Mutual Assured Destruction.
The new taboo tradeoff is much the ...
Dumbledore is a seasoned politician who may be assumed to know how to take the mood of the Wizengamot. However, he incorrectly predicts that they will not call for Hermione to be sent to Azkaban. Was his model of reality wrong or was he ignorant of a force on the board? I notice certain parallels to Quirrell's predictions about the Slytherin bullies.
"Are you all lost?" cried Albus Dumbledore. "She is too young! Her mind would not withstand it! Not in three centuries has such a thing been done in Britain!"
The leading article, written by some name that Harry didn't recognize, had called for the minimum age for Azkaban to be lowered, just so that the twisted mudblood who had defaced the honor of Scotland with her savage, unprovoked attack upon the last heir of a Most Ancient House within the sacred refuge of Hogwarts could be sent to the Dementors that were the only punishment commensurate with the severity of her unspeakable crime.
This is a definite break from the historical record.
Remember that Malfoy controls the Daily Prophet, which called for Azkaban before the trial began.
Are you really comfortable putting "hurtful and/or stupid things written in a Potions textbook" in the same category as financial insecurity?
Yes, I am absolutely comfortable doing so. I'm talking about two children who have never been taught to communicate with intention, with raging adolescent hormones, and with typical teenage naïvete regarding bother their own emotions and those of others.
I don't have two high-school friends to rub together. The fact that I'm still in touch with one person from twenty years ago is the freak result of a wh...
Has anyone suggested yet that Aberforth was threatened with the aim to let Dumbledore "give in in blackmail"? I have never read it here before and it was my first idea, when I knew Aberforth was dead and heard Dumbledore saying the Deatheaters learned towards the end of the war he does not give in in blackmail.
I like most of the ideas but this one strikes me as only a small step up from horcruxing the most famous artifacts:
The concrete in a major public works project, like a large dam.
That sounds like the plot for a Nicholas Cage movie or a Matthew Reilly book.
Far better to settle for obscurity. Horcrux a non-precious stone and dump it in a random desert. Anything that you yourself couldn't guess at (specifically) if your clone was your enemy.
Frame Quirrell. (Assuming it's even framing and not accidentally getting the right answer for the wrong reasons.)
Harry knows he's an unregistered animagus. Harry has even better blackmail with Azkaban though he'd be loath to use it. People in universe also know that the defense professor is suspect #1.
Harry could just lie under veritaserum that Quirrell did all this. Nobody aside from Quirrell or Dumbledore would even imagine that Harry could do that (well, Snape and McGonagall). Way back in chapter 47, Harry said Bester thought Harry could beat verit...
Floo powder — Not tiring, can be used by unqualified wizards, but prone to error, and having a limited set of possible destinations.
Apparation — Highly flexible and requiring little setup time, but unpleasant, and only able to be performed by wizards of age.
Portkeys — Can be used to control the precise destination and time of teleporting, even to places where other modes of transport are forbidden. Can be used by unqualified wizards.
Side-along Apparation was a later invention by Rowling that negates some of the above logic and screws up some of her plots f...
Whenever someone commits cold-blooded murder their soul is ripped in two, even if the torn piece is not placed into a Horcrux. Not many people know this, but after speaking with Dumbledore Harry does.
No, Harry knows that Dumbledore said that he thinks this.
"I think, Harry - though you will call it only inference - that the act of murder splits the soul.
Just because they don't expect her to be able to accomplish much with it doesn't mean that they wouldn't stop it as a matter of policy. You don't let a character witness walk up and hand anything to a prisoner on the stands without clearance.
A whole lot of plans proposed here seem to rely on the assumption that Harry can treat the Wizengamot as a captive audience who'll humor any attempt he makes to sway them or prove his points. The Wizengamot is a highly authoritarian court of law, and Harry is a first year student. They have little incentive to humor him about anything.
the reason probably wasn't so that Harry could say, "dementors are bad" again.
It could be there to highlight the moral bankruptcy of the Wizengamot and also mislead the readers into searching for a stereotypically heroic solution (vanquish the monster and rescue the fair-complexioned maiden!) when cleverness is called for.
A hypothesis: The ministry, large fractions of the ministry, or at least Dolores Umbridge, don't wind up being villians in this universe; they're also quasi-competent (on the level of canon Dumbledore).
Evidence:
a) Eliezer seemingly went to a fair amount of effort to demonstrate that both MoR!Harry and canon!Harry's thoughts were biased when regarding Umbridge- to the extent of naming the relevant chapter "The Horns Effect," and (IIRC) having this explicitly reference her
b) The Ministry seems to have gotten it right on convicting Sirius Black, ev...
c) The Ministry generally seems to be portrayed as fairly competent...
But I'm reminded of this exchange in Chapter 61:
Madam Bones's voice continued. "We brought in Arthur Weasley from Misuse of Muggle Artifacts—he knows more about Muggle artifacts than any wizard alive—and gave him the descriptions from the Aurors on the scene, and he cracked it. It was a Muggle artifact called a rocker, and they call it that because you'd have to be off your rocker to ride one. Just six years ago one of their rockers blew up, killed hundreds of Muggles in a flash and almost set fire to the Moon. Weasley says that rockers use a special kind of science called opposite reaction, so the plan is to develop a jinx which will prevent that science from working around Azkaban."
And there's the fact that interrogation under Veritaserum seems to constitute the entirety of serious criminal investigations.
It still says bad things that the Head of the DMLE thinks that Arthur "knows more about Muggle artifacts than any wizard alive" rather than, say, any random muggleborn or halfblood.
In addition, he was just recently told
..."It is clear, from the stories, that the Dark Lords who return by possessing another's form, wield lesser magics than they once knew. I do not think Voldemort would be satisfied with that. He would take some other avenue to life. But Voldemort was more Slytherin than Salazar, grasping at every opportunity. He would use his pitiful state, use his power of possession, if he had reason. If he could benefit by another's... inexplicable fury." Albus's voice had fallen to almost a whisper. "That is what I su
One last comment and I'll stop spamming the page. It certainly seems as though Amelia Bones is highly connected to Narcissa's death now. I wonder if Dumbledore really has a reason for keeping it secret that's worth sending Hermione to Azkaban over.
I wonder if Dumbledore really has a reason for keeping it secret that's worth sending Hermione to Azkaban over.
It would discredit his entire side, their strategies, and their results, vindicating the opposite side. Oh, and obviously something would happen to Dumbledore like imprisonment, execution, exile, etc.
Well. We have five days to think of something. This seems to mean that Harry will think of something, and we have five days to guess what it may be. Presumably it will be something in one of the following categories:
I propose we start by making a list of everything in the courtroom:
I'm pretty sure the solution is as follows (I've already posted it in TV tropes forum). I'm ROT13, if anyone still wants to figure it out: Yhpvhf Znysbl pynvzrq gb unir orra haqre Vzcrevhf ol Ibyqrzbeg. Ibyqrzbeg jnf qrsrngrq ol Uneel Cbggre. Sebz Serq & Trbetr'f cenax jr xabj gung xvyyvat gur jvmneq gung unf lbh haqre gur Vzcrevhf phefr perngrf n qrog. Erfhyg: Yhpvhf Znysbl naq rirel bgure Qrngu rngre pynvzvat gb unir orra vzcrevbfrq ner abj haqre yvsr qrog gb Uneel Cbggre. Ur pna fgneg erqrrzvat.
Also, it would need to be explained why no one ever thought of this before.
Yeah, I was going 'wow, that might actually work' and then it occurred to me that they already discussed whether they had any debts from Lucius they could call in. So unless this is so subtle that no one has ever called in such a debt before, someone must have been holding an idiotball.
EDIT: Logos01 suggests that the debt be invoked of all the Wizengamot members who also claimed to be Imperiused, to swing the vote on whether or not to convict. This might work, but I would personally dislike it as we have no idea how many such people there are.
He alone spoke to defend Hermione, the man with a phoenix flaming bright upon his shoulder.
Don't forget the phoenix.
Context: Harry's dark side is amoral, destructive, will take any available option which leads to its target no matter how it may escalate or what the risks are, and cares about nothing else other than achieving regular Harry's current subgoal. (I'm convinced Eliezer regards the dark side as basically a UFAI.) Emphasis added:
...Harry plunged himself into his dark side...offering his dark side anything if it would only solve this problem for him
Who are the major players here that Harry can affect? Harry has no hold on the Wizengamot, as I pointed out any threat on Azkaban is more easily dealt with by attacking Harry.
So Dumbledore and Lucius are the keys. What can Harry do with Dumbledore - no matter the cost to Dumbledore, Harry, or anyone else - that would free Hermione? There's little he can testify to, as an Occlumens, so he can't even sacrifice himself (Lucius would refuse it), and it's not obvious how any of his magic 2.0 abilities could somehow convince the Wizengamot that Hermione is innocent or Lucius to let her go - what is he going to do, promise some more magic to an aristocrat who can buy all the magic he wants?
The answer is so obvious I'm surprised that no one seems ...
In this case the True ending is already written, and anyone who comes up with a better solution than Harry would obviously win points.
Here's mine:
cold!Harry activates his Patronus charm, which depends on the wish to destroy Death, and therefore can be cast while "cold". This is done to disrupt the proceedings by destroying the Dementor. Since Harry never actually did this while at Azkaban, he wouldn't necessarily be associated w/ the prisonbreak of Bellatrix.
In the confusion, Harry cloaks himself, and timeturns back an hour. This is done to give himself time to contemplate exactly what he needs to say and do. Sicne he will be cloaked, this preserves the secret of the Time turner.
(version A) Immediately after destroying the Dementor, and the loop is closed, still-cloaked Harry takes advantage of his ability to get past any guards/defenses and whispers in Parseltongue into LM's ears: "No power can stop me. Even here in the Wizengamot I could reach you. If you do not relinquish your claim on Hermione your son is dead." IF LM doesn't understand Parseltongue, he would at least recognize it, and Harry could repeat himself in English.
Harry Time turns again, and uncloaks in a side hall, intentionally getting himself seen during the same time that cloaked!Harry was threatening Draco's life (the
We're talking about a kid who literally spoke a language designed for a different species without noticing.
Chapter breaks are a meta-aspect not in the story itself. If it were a continual story this might make sense. Dramatic pacing of the story elements with a bad ending wouldn't be an in universe lesson but an out of universe lesson. Also, I suspect that Eliezer is smart enough to realize that having a downer ending would likely turn off a lot of people to rationality who might otherwise be take some interest in it simply from the halo effect. Having a downer ending would substantially undermine that.
Please be clear when you make a request of others. I honestly don't understand what you're asking for.
You have an argument about how probable Dumbledore is to have said that he burned Narcissa alive. But in the ancestor post, you're talking about readers "excusing" that, as if that's an observation both you and other readers shared, and the other readers merely choose to excuse him for it -- instead of just not making the same inference given the observations at hand.
...And aren't you supposed to be linking the Sequences if you're telling me my
I suggest: (1) all Harry needs is time, (2) Dumbledore refuses to give it to him, (3) Harry offers Lucius an Unbreakable Vow.
In theory, Obliviations and False Memories can be broken, right? So what's Dumbledore's excuse for not insisting on a delay in punishment long enough to attempt to break the alleged tampering with Hermione's brain?
[ETA: actually, doesn't matter whether the spells are known breakable; Harry could experiment with counterspells or just hunt for the real villain. Either way, Harry will be confident that he can get the truth -- given time...
Good ideas.
My thoughts:
If IRL we discovered a really reliable neurological lie detector, it would be used by police and courts, but do you really think politicians and CEOs would ever submit to it?
If we did that, I think we would just end up selecting CEOs and politicians with firm self-deceptions instead of those who gave accurate information.
Snape didn't make an Unbreakable Vow to protect Harry. He makes one with Narcissa in the sixth book, promising to help Draco in his plot to kill Dumbledore. But Snape's protection of Harry in canon is always grounded in his love for Lily.
Not quite. I don't disagree that they were from the start supposed to be from the same individual, nor that 'Santa Claus' was meant to show Harry they were the same individual. It's just that the first letter was not signed 'Santa Claus' and Harry says it was. This is a mistake on either Harry's or Eliezer's part, (with a lesser hypothesis being that the inaccuracy was a deliberate minor ploy on Harry's part - but that's a bit unlikely and silly)
Maybe not to others, but he himself would know Harry had broken Bella out of Azkaban and then lied to him about it. He would definitely force Veritaserum or Legilimency on Harry to find out the complete truth of what happened that day.
In fact, that's a point I haven't considered before. Why haven't Quirrel offered to Obliviate Harry of that day's events, maybe using a Pensieve first? This would protect them both a lot. It makes no sense if what Quirrel wanted was the lost lore of Slytherin that Bella might possess, or even Bella herself for some unknown purpose. But it makes perfect sense if Quirrel just wanted Azkaban to produce the emotional effect that it did on Harry. As a sort of prerequisite for this trial of Hermione.
FIrst, your grammar is poor, and you abuse run-on sentences, making your idea a pain to read.
Second, it is unnecessarily convoluted. All you really had to say was "Harry retroactively implicates Lord Jugson by using his wand, and clears Hermione's and Draco's."
The problem, of course, is that presumably H&D's wands have already been checked.
Just a piece, but one I haven't seen discussed- why has no one done a Priori Incantatem on Hermione's wand? We know harry knows about it, from clear back in chapter 13:
"Priori Incantatem," said Sprout. She frowned. "That's odd, your wand doesn't seem to have been used at all." Harry shrugged.
I don't know if this is part of Harry's plan, but it is certainly a line of investigation that has not been followed. There is always the possibility that whoever did the memory charm used Hermione's wand to cast the blood chilling hex, but once down that track Harry can start eliminating suspects for the memory charm.
Actually, its a bad decision with respect to the information you had when you made it, unlike one-boxing instead of two-boxing, you can't have expected to win the lottery.
Harry can save Hermione by offering false testimony against Quirrell. There's a taboo social tradeoff. The odd thing is that he has to do it by telling lies about Quirrell that we know are mostly true.
Harry can give false testimony under Veritaserum, because he's an Occlumens, which of those present only Dumbledore and McGonagall and the Malfoys know (and the Malfoys wouldn't be believed).
So, what can he falsely testify that would save Hermione?
There has been some speculation that Snape is H&C, but what has been lacking as far as I can tell is motive. I may have one. Cannon Snape was a Death Eater who only came over to Dumbledor's side because he wanted to try to save Lilly and then stayed on his side in order to help protect Harry out of respect for Lilly's sacrifice.
However, in chapter 27 Snape has a conversation with Harry and Snape says that he almost killed harry due to the degree that he was offended and that he gained a new understanding of what Lilly saw in Harry's father. If Snape r...
As counter-proof, a person's Animagus form is supposed to represent an aspect of their personality or what they want to be. There are only two characters whose corporeal patronus and animagus forms are shown to us. McGonagall (both in canon and HPMoR) is a cat animagus and has a cat patronus charm. James Potter (in canon) is both a stag animagus and has a stag patronus. In HPMoR Hermoine already knows what her patronus would be if she could make one; she says Otter and in 4 years later in canon she creates an Otter patronus. This would imply that anyo...
I'll admit, a big part of my reason for that belief is narrative causality - I would not find this evidence convincing in an open world, but in the context of a fictional story, it fits a little too neatly for coincidence. It's obvious that Harry is going to move out of Dumbledore's camp at some point - their worldviews differ too strongly - but this would make an absolutely beautiful cause for the split.
And yes, "I don't give in to intimidation" is a good start for getting people to stop threatening you, but "...and if you try, I'll start ...
He may leave briefly for the trial, but unless a move is made at that precise moment, in general I think he's going to hunker down inside his fortress of Hogwarts, defend it more tightly, and search it for Voldemort's soul more thoroughly.
The whole trial can't have been set up just to get him out for a few hours; there must be other important Wizengamot votes that he as Chief Warlock (and important political figure) must attend. He must leave Hogwarts regularaly for a few hours at a time for that reason.
On the other hand, he may routinely loop back with his Time Turner to cover up these absences, including Hermione's trial, so that there is always a Dumbledore in Hogwarts...
It wasn't Snape's choice to humiliate Hermione publicly — that was Dumbledore's decision, making use of Snape's "evil potions master" persona. Note that none of the other professors speak up, except for Quirrell, who is a temporary hire and need not follow Dumbledore's direction. Minerva doesn't even show up, presumably so that she doesn't have to sit and keep her mouth shut.
Dumbledore explains to Harry in chapter 77 that Hermione had to be seen to lose publicly in order to de-escalate the conflict with Slytherin. Dumbledore doesn't actually know...
The dictionary attack by H&C on Hermione happened months before Hermione defeated Draco.
The attack depicted in Ch. 77 was clearly recent, after the events of the SA sequence.
Meta: everyone seems to have started using the term "Groundhog's Day Attack" to describe what H&C did to Hermione. While I understand what happened in the story, I've never heard this term before, can't find any relevant looking results by googling, and don't see what the connection could be between brute forcing someone's mind and using a small furry animal to predict the changing of the seasons. Can someone please point me in the right direction here?
This was addressed in the previous thread:
The movie 'Groundhog Day' is about a man who relives the same day over and over again repeatedly. Because the day is reset, he is able to re-play each interaction with any person repeatedly until he can convince them of whatever he wants or work around them ...
In chapter 77, H&C performs a similar hack. He tries to convince her, then obliviates her memory and uses his gained information to convince her even more, etc. Instead of resetting the day, he is resetting her mind back again and again.
if the obvious answer is incorrect, we ought to figure out which Hogwarts staff-member has been going around casting memory charms.
Harry in ch.79 claims that both notes were signed "Santa Claus" but in chapter 14 the note is explicitly unsigned (though it mentions Christmas).
This may have been a thematic demonstration of the faultiness of memory, a crucial topic of chapter 79, but currently it feels to me more like an authorial mistake. If the mistake was deliberate on the part of the author, I think a (3rd person-omnicient) narrative note could be edited in chapter 79 to note this failure of Harry's memory in passing.
I think that having Less Wrong host the almost-official HPMOR forum (i.e. the one on which Eliezer sometimes comments and sometimes asks for translation help) is a very good thing for Less Wrong in terms of attracting new people. Since Eliezer thinks that's a good thing, I expect him not to add an official HPMOR forum anywhere other than Less Wrong.
The authors notes name the direct readers to the thread on TV Tropes for discussion, and to Less Wrong for the Sequences. The author also posts in the thread on TV Tropes.
Also, a successful forum would increase traffic to the hpmor.com by a very large amount. The potential for increased cost may not fit the plan for whoever provides that host.
In chapter 50, in Mary's room before leaving on the Azkaban mission:
Professor Quirrell gestured for the door to close and lock, and began to speak twenty-nine security Charms, one of the ones in Mr. Bester's sequence being left out this time, which somewhat puzzled Harry.
Quirrel casts the full 30 charms during their previous secret talk in Mary's room (a week before), and he casts all 30 charms when they reach the warehouse (before entering Azkaban).
So, anyone have an idea what this is about?
As far as I know we have no indication that Lucius is capable of casting the Patronus Charm at all. Or are you referring to the scene where Harry teaches Draco how to send messages with it?
Taboo tradeoff...
Is there a way that Harry could simply buy Hermione's freedom? Harry is, among other things, rich.
Break the line of Merlin, using partial transfiguration. This would almost certainly be seen as Merlin himself expressing extreme displeasure from beyond the grave.
Given that Dumbledore is on Hermione's side, I'm not sure that destroying his badge of office would be a helpful move.
If a new thread was necessary, it should have been created before the new chapter was posted. As it is there are already dozens of posts about Chapter 80 here; a new thread would split the discussion.
By the end of chapter 80, I think I would have stood up, looked Lucius in the eye, and destroyed the dementor in full view of everyone.
Both recessive magic-gene carriers. That's the definition of Sqib in MoR - or have I got this wrong?
Hypothesis: original (probably Latin) incantations were aliased to "Wingardium Leviosa" and similar because it was easier for Hogwarts students to learn.
Evidence:
The aliasing could be common knowledge among wizards, but not muggleborns. That could explain ...
There's also
"Um..." Harry said. "If there are any spells you can cast to make sure no one's listening to us..."
Professor McGonagall stood up from her chair, firmly closed the outer door, and began taking out her wand and saying spells. [...]
Professor McGonagall finished a spell that sounded a lot older than Latin, and then she sat down again.
Not to mention the Sumerian Simple Strike Hex. Mahasu doesn't sound much like Latin.
This thought just occurred to me: would Harry think to check the phoenix's price chamber for a picture of Narcissa Malfoy? If it is not there, how strong is it as evidence against Dumbledore immolating her?
However, since Hermione was terrified to see the (presumed) real face of H&C... The obvious solution seems ever more obvious. (And Word of God practically confirmed it!)
Where does Eliezer 'practically' confirm it?
I just realized something. The wizarding world has a strong Taboo against the free sharing of information. Harry has an entire hieracy of explosive insights he can read into the wizengamots records untill they let Hermonie go to get him to shut up Okay, this actually needs him to bluff about having a fallback that publishes if he perishes, but consider:
If he tells them about the true patronus and the true nature of dementors, the regular patronus stops working. This destroys askaban.Not enough?
If he explains the silver / gold arbritage scheme the economy o...
untill they let Hermonie go to get him to shut up
Or until they hit him with a Quietus to shut him up. Much simpler.
I had a long post enumerating things, but it can be replaced with this: A power only provides you with an advantage if the other side doesn't have it; a power only provides you with an unexpected advantage if the other side is unaware of it.
This is the Wizengamot. Worst case, the majority of the people here probably have time turners, best case, enough people know about them that you couldn't keep time travel secret. The DMLE has protocols about how to use time travel, which means it's known to the ministry. Time travel would not be a sufficiently unexpected advantage.
Well, why not? Maybe it's the departing soul of the victim yanking on the murderer's that causes the split. Do you know something I don't?
I find it fascinating that nobody has yet considered the thought that Hermione may actually be guilty. Neither Harry nor anybody here seems to have noticed that confession(under truth serum!) is generally considered very strong evidence of guilt, certainly much more so than an appeal to demographics is evidence of innocence.
We know that she is innocent because we saw her being effected by a mind effecting attack. It's like watching an episode of Supernatural, seeing a ghost kill somebody on screen, then saying "well maybe it was a regular homicide!"
We as readers are privy to knowledge that people in universe are not. This is why they entertain the notion that she's guilty and we don't. Harry doesn't entertain the notion because she's his best friends and twelve year old girls do not attempt cold blooded murder of their own volition.
If you win, you made the right decision.
I will not argue about the definition of 'right decision', that is at least ambiguous. Yet when it comes to overconfidence in a given prediction that is a property of the comment itself and the information on which it was based upon. New information doesn't change it.
This would almost certainly be seen as Merlin himself expressing extreme displeasure from beyond the grave.
It might just as well be seen as Merlin expressing displeasure with the current carrier-on of the line when he protests a legal vote of the Wizengamot. Omens are usually interpreted opportunistically.
...'Not some kind of sign?' said Cohen. 'There must have been some temple I didn't rob.'
'The trouble with signs and portents,' said Boy Willie, 'is you never know who they're for. This'n could be a nice one for Hong and his pals.'
'Then I'm nicking it,'
How much respect to the Dementors have for Harry at this point? Now that they know he can kill them and all. And how intelligent are they?
What it'd be really fun (ie. a desirable yet not likely outcome) is for Harry to make a deal with the Dementors. They will give Hermione VIP treatment in Azkhaban and minimize the damage to her in the interim until Harry can free her. In exchange Harry will give the Dementors the souls of all of Wizarding Britain's government and all the aurors. And, naturally, be granted their ongoing existence. He is clearly the greate...
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Wild speculation:
Harry can confess to being the one who setup Hermione, or even having attacked Draco himself.
We know from Chapter 47 he can probably beat veritaserum "Not a perfect Occlumens, but Mr. Bester said I was putting up a complete block, and I could probably beat Veritaserum.", so he can testify in a way the Wizengamot will find convincing.
As member of a Noble House and Boy-Who-Lived he should be in for a much weaker punishment than Hermione, and can probably stay out of Azkaban. Lucius may not want to challenge Harry that directly at a...
As member of a Noble House and Boy-Who-Lived he should be in for a much weaker punishment than Hermione, and can probably stay out of Azkaban.
That sounds terribly noble. And silly. Harry is more important than Hermione. Risking himself puts everything he cares about at stake. If Harry doesn't make a SinguHarrity and take control chances are Voldemort or some other dark wizard will end up killing both him and Hermione.
I got sufficiently distracted by the relevance to real world politics (I agree with the narrator's point of view), that I became less concerned about what happened to the characters. I'm not sure if this counts as an artistic failure or not.
However, since I've read the comments at ffn as of last night and at least skimmed the comments here, I'm not sure whether I'm the only one who noticed real world politics, or whether it's generally a breach of manners to mention them.
They might let him stand up and explain his theory of how dementors work without interrupting him, I'm pretty certain they wouldn't let him walk over to the defendant and hand her a wand.
If that is the case then the hat didn't actually say "it couldn't tell if Harry had any false memories." It said it couldn't detect deleted memories and seems to imply that 'sophisticated analysis' of all of his memories for 'inconsistencies' would be required to do so. The false memory given to Hermione is at the forefront of her mind and doesn't require the hat to scan her memories (though Hermione could replay memories of event for the hat presumably). In addition the false memory is entirely out of character with Hermione's personality whi...
Regarding meaningful response:
The Dementor's speech hurt their ears as it said, "Bellatrix Black is out of her cell."
Can't see the significance of 'The Horn Effect' in the title....
Is it that the Daily Prophet, et al, are creating a Horn effect against Hermione?
Sure, but coming out with a scary voice when he's trying to sound intimidating is a lot less odd than coming out sounding like a snake. If he didn't notice the latter, he's not likely to notice the former, in canon or in MoR.
About Harry's darkside. It seems new and weird that his darkside can be hurt by Hermione's plight. Last time he went over to his darkside strongly (after dementor exposure), he ended up in a state where he hated everyone he cares about and only came out because he didn't know how to respond to her kissing him, not because he cared.
He did achieve some progress with his darkside in Azkaban - he became less affected by them, and now it seems it shares his goals to some degree.
Last time his darkside had control its response looked like this:
...There was a com
Erm...isn't the usual followup to an arrest to throw people in prison? I don't think you're thinking your comments through.
Hell, this wouldn't even work. They'd have him immediately arrested for destruction of Ministry Property, and never let him near Azkaban.
I doubt they'd have him arrested for destruction of Ministry property, because it would be such a PR disaster.
"Boy Who Lived Destroys Dementor, Arrested For Destruction Of Ministry Property."
It would definitely limit his ability to carry out any sort of breakouts in future though, and possibly incriminate him with respect to the Bellatrix breakout.
"Beyond all panic and despair his mind began to search through every fact in its possession, recall everything it knew about Lucius Malfoy, about the Wizengamot, about the laws of magical Britain; his eyes looked at the rows of chairs, at every person and every thing within range of his vision, searching for any opportunity it could grasp -"
-and then the pieces fit together, and in retrospect it was obvious. The Boy Who Lived announced his discovery.
"I can deliver you Voldemort."
Harry knows enough to reasonably come to the correct conc...
It should also be pointed out, everyone thinks Voldemort is dead. Remember what happened in Order of the Phoenix to everyone who was spreading the bad news? That's more likely to be met by confusion than by bargaining.
Roberta had been increasingly apprehensive about giving her daughter over to witchcraft - especially after she'd read the books, put the dates together, and realized that her magical mother had probably been killed at the height of Grindelwald's terror, not died giving birth to her as her father had always claimed.
I'm having a hard time imagining how Hermione got two copies of the magic gene if they weren't.
Nothing original just now - I just want to go on record as saying that HP:MOR is amazing, brilliant work - I really enjoy it, as well as learning from it.
I just commented below with my opinion on the Lily/Snape/Dumbledore-writing-in-a-potions-book situation. That comment is based on my firm belief that our existing knowledge of Lily's and Snape's relationship from canon is sufficient to tell us what really happened in the MoR backstory.
Eliezer has said that while HPMOR is not a strict single-point-of-departure fic, there is a "primary" point of departure somewhere in the past. It stands to reason that if he said that, then he knows exactly what that point is.
I want to know what that point is, too....
In canon, the Elder Wand has a thestral tail-hair core; in MoR,
And Harry knew, now, that the concealment of the Cloak was more than the mere transparency of Disillusionment, that the Cloak kept you hidden and not just invisible, as unseeable as were Thestrals to the unknowing. And Harry also knew that it was Thestral blood which painted the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on the inside of the Cloak, binding into the Cloak that portion of Death's power, enabling the Cloak to confront the Dementors on their own level and block them. It had felt like guessing, and yet a certain guess, the knowledge coming to him in the instant of solving the riddle.
Maybe the thestral blood added permanence, because death is permanent? If it was replacing blueberries I doubt it was the key magical ingredient, and so its effect may not be directly related to its properties.
ETA: And also that's why this version of the potion so much more dangerous. It has Death in it.
Not necessarily - what would the Polyjuice make you look like? Also, hair in Polyjuice is used at time of use, not at time of brewing, and that may be the difference.
More likely, from what we know in MoR, would be something from a troll. "The troll is unique among magical creatures in continuously maintaining a form of Transfiguration on itself - it is always transforming into its own body"(Ch. 16). Also, rereading that passage, with it's "Expose them to sunlight" bit, does make the potion Harry brewed in 78 a lot more interesting. It's probably too obscure to ever come up again, except maybe as a throwaway line about brewing troll repellant for sale, but it's amusing anyways.
Horcruxing a spacecraft doesn't strike me as brilliantly creative; it seems like an obvious thing to do if you're familiar enough with muggle society to have heard about space exploration.
Creative enough to make himself unkillable. It'll do. There is no need to get too creative in these things. Find a powerful or exploitable magic. Exploit it. A lot. Don't mess around being clever.
Mind you in my books the fact that neither Harry nor Voldemort have 'won' already pretty much granted each of them an honorary idiot ball. Given their resources (magic!) and intellect they really should have.
Why are we supposed to believe so?
I think Eliezer gave us some good advice for understanding some of his characters' plots: “One way to fathom a strange plot is to look at what happened, assume it was the intended result, and ask who benefited."
Quirrell knows how Dementors affect him, and he knows that Harry's got a piece of Voldemort stuck inside him, so it was a reasonable guess that Harry might be similarly affected, and permanently, if he was exposed for long enough.
Quirrell certainly anticipated the possibility of failure — his experiment was ...
Thank you for the clarification. I got to think a bit about the transportation modes used in HP, and found them inconsistent. They use a train to go to Howarts, have this nightbus system, while also having teleportation. It seemed a bit inconsistent, but I probably over thought it.
For those still keen on solutions involving violence, let me just point to this Eliezer comment: http://lesswrong.com/lw/aha/rationality_quotes_march_2012/642q
I'd have expected it not to. There seems to be power released with murders and I wouldn't expect that to come from wishful thinking.
But is there something relevant, perhaps obvious, that I've missed related to this hypothesis?
Two things: one, why do you think Voldemort doesn't know where his Horcruxes or the Resurrection Stone are? Two, why would he be looking for them?
I think my problem is with this "Judge Retrospectively" thing. Here's what I think:
Decisions are what's to be judged, not outcomes. And decisions should be judged relative to the information you had at the time of making them.
In the lottery example, assuming you didn't know what number would win, the decision to buy a ticket is Bad regardless of whether you won or not.
What I got from this:
you will have been retrospectively wrong not to have bought
Is that you think that if you had a (presumably random) number in mind, but did not buy a ticket,...
A thought struck me.
Could Harry not personally marry Hermione, thus make her a member of the House of Potter, hence make the blood debt owed one owed by his house? After that he could burden the punishment himself hence display the absurdity of the whole justice system, perhaps off a dementor or two in the process just for the kicks.
Please enlighten me.. If this solution is possible it certainly seems the easiest (all though I do like the "blame Voldemort-option" as well).
you will have been retrospectively wrong not to have bought
Not really; Before you know the outcome, saying "my numbers will be 5, 11, 17, 33, 36, and 42" is privileging the hypothesis. (unless you had other information which allowed you to select that specific combination)
And even if those numbers, by pure chance, were correct, there is still a reason it was a bad decision (in the 'maximizing expected utility' sense) to buy a ticket. Which is what I meant when I said that you can't have expected to win.
Yes, he stated very early on (at least a year ago, I think?) that he had only read up to book 3 or 4, tried to pick up the later books, couldn't get into them, and so relies on the wiki and other references to know how the plot develops.
I do not know if this has since changed.
I assumed Voldemort's soul was split because the Killing Curse hit him. How that caused his soul to split is a bit mysterious, I'll admit.
Snape's been acting as Hermione's protector, not as her adversary. (And without telling Dumbledore about it!)
From Chapter 72:
...Jaime Astorga, seventh-year of Slytherin, and until recently considered a promising upstart on the youth dueling circuit, stood ramrod straight in Professor Snape's office, with his teeth clenched tight and sweat trickling down his spine.
"I distinctly recall," said the Head of his House in a sardonic drawl, "that I warned you, and a number of others this very morning, that there were certain first-year girls who migh
The person in custody is not necessarily Quirrell, or "unlikely to be released" can be circumvented a number of different ways. The only way the Quirrell is just sitting in custody is if that's what he wants, and I still think he's sort of a Byronic hero.
I agree with the principle, but lottery is a really poor example of this, since it implies ignorance.
Harry knew another patronus was seeking his own patronus, so I think he should at least know there's a risk that someone might be able to identify him.
I am aware. My point is that if you say "X is impossible" and then someone points out a way to do X, you now have a plot hole / have to admit that the fan is cleverer than the character or author. That's genre savvy evidence against the prediction that EY will say "X is impossible," whereas "he would end the chapter on a downer" isn't because he would get the desired effect more strongly if he ended the chapter on a cliffhanger, and then had the character fall off the cliff.
I was thinking about Harry's four sides: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. He's already tried Ravenclaw (presenting logic and rationality, thinking through his options) and Slytherin (plotting against Lucius Malfoy in front of the Wizgov.-"you do not want me as your enemy") But his Hufflepuff (strong loyalty to Hermione as a friend) refuses to allow him to give up, and I think his Ravenclaw and Slytherin sides will shout down the Gryffindor option (destroy the dementor with his patronus). However, E.Y. said "figure it out fro...
Still unusually speculative; we're told previously that an Imperius debt is not a life-debt
Not quite. We're told it's a debt, we don't know what sort of debt it is.
I'd think she was magically capable of protecting herself, back then during the war. If she took such a step as torturing an enemy-affiliated civilian to death, I doubt Dumbledore would lie and say he did it merely to give her political protection in a very improbable future where Voldemort was defeated but Lucius Malfoy retained great political power.
I liked the theory proposed here a long time ago: Bones went to Malfoy Manor to destroy Tom Riddle's diary-horcrux, which we know from canon was kept there then, it required Fiendfyre to destroy a Horcrux, Na...
Intended to suggest pulling some kind of social stunt that would put the Malfoys under obligation or massively shake up the politics of the room...
... but mostly 'cause it's funny. I mean, it's got to be a solution to some problem Harry faces. His fanclub demands it!
You could make a space-elevator out of ordinary string.
I guess that's one use to make of your soul!
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that it would be convenient if Lucius Malfoy had missed this session, but it's probably too late to break a few of Draco's ribs now.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know or have any idea what time the trial's taking place? If it's before 3 PM Harry's unable to use his Time Turner to change the events of the trial. Unless he cheats the Time Turner like last time, or gets his Time Turner's restriction taken off, but he can't do that easily while the trial is going on.
Harry had used up all six hours from his Time-Turner, and there were still no clues, and he had to go to sleep now if he wanted to be functional at Hermione's trial the next day.
"Wanted to be functional" meaning i...
Waaay back in Chapter 47, we get:
Look, Draco, I'll take one drop of Veritaserum if you can get it, I'm just warning you that I'm an Occlumens. Not a perfect Occlumens, but Mr. Bester said I was putting up a complete block, and I could probably beat Veritaserum."
Your question made me realize: Lucius quite probably is assuming Harry is a perfect Occlumens. Meaning it would be counterproductive to try to get the court Legilimancer to prove he could beat Veritaserum- he could beat her too. The trouble would be that no one else, possibly not even Dumbledore, would believe that Harry is a perfect Occlumens. Harry could offer to testify under Veritaserum and say whatever he wants, in which case Lucius is in a bit of a pickle.
What do you mean he doesn't need to? That's the only way to use it before it unlocks at 9pm. Unless you think the trial is after that?
Harry should just threaten to destroy Azkaban, and say that Dumbledore can testify that he has the power to do it.
The easier solution there is to do something to Harry, not let off a filthy mud-blood murderer to satisfy a childish terrorist's demands...
Petunia (but she was explicitly altered somehow by her sister) and Hermonies parents. Hermonies parents are.. pretty much exactly what I would expect them to be, in either canon or MoR. I dont recall ever seeing them in canon however, so no baseline.
There was a brief discussion in Chapter 65 about Harry getting his sleep cycle extended to 30 hours a day, but I don't remember hearing anything else about it afterwards. Has that happened yet?
Chapter 79:
Harry Potter took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and then spoke again. "In mystery books it usually takes longer than one day to solve a crime, but twenty-six hours is - no, thirty hours is eighteen hundred minutes.
I can't see chapter 80 being very short if that's when the trial takes place. Anyone else expect to be reading during Community commercials?
I used DD because that's where you speak up when you say it. Is there another character in this story that DD could mean?
I don't mind too much. It makes Dumbledore sound like "The Destroyer". Bodes well for the future when he puts on his black hat...
We observe that Petunia says took a potion that made her sick for weeks then she became beautiful. (Chapter 1)
"Anyway," Petunia said, her voice small, "she gave in. She told me it was dangerous, and I said I didn't care any more, and I drank this potion and I was sick for weeks, but when I got better my skin cleared up and I finally filled out and... I was beautiful, people were nice to me," her voice broke, "and after that I couldn't hate my sister any more, especially when I learned what her magic brought her in the end -"
We observed that it Harry thinks her beauty is a sign of magic and deduced that it was extremely rare and dangerous. (Chapter 36)
"Harry?" called a thin, blonde woman whose perfectly smooth and unblemished skin made her look a good deal younger than thirty-three; and Harry realized with a start that it was magic, he hadn't known the signs before but he could see them now. And whatever sort of potion lasted that long, it must have been terribly dangerous, because most witches didn't do that to themselves, they weren't that desperate...
We observe that Dumbledore admits to writing into Lily's potion notes. Specifically...
I doubt PR counted for much among deatheaters, so Dumbledore did not lose anything here, and for the rest of wizarding Brittain - they didn't have a choice other than Dumbledore, so they wouldn't believe deatheaters that DD could do sth like that. And later they would not change their opinions, but would forgot their motivation (because it was unplesant - fear of worse evil).
Very similiar thing happened in real life in WW2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre Nazi Germany announced in 1943 that they have found mass graves of tousands Polish prisoners of war all killed by shot in the back of head by soviets. USA and UK had treaty with Stalin, and Germany was more immadietly dangerous, and Stalin was instrumental, so nobody believed Germans, and after the war Poland was sold to USSR, and only in 1990 Katyn massacre was made public.
Wow. I like the idea that Dumbledore burned Narcissa, told Lucius and the other Death Eaters and consciously relied on his good reputation to ensure no one else would believe he'd done it. That's creepy. You're right, that does take care of the "how does he have such a positive reputation, then?" objection.
I still think Fawkes would have a problem with it unless he'd tried everything else first. Fawkes is presented as quite the moral absolutist. But maybe Fawkes wasn't around - and possibly he did try lesser measures first.
Close, but no cigar:
"That depends," Amelia said in a hard voice. "Are you here to help us catch criminals, or to protect them from the consequences of their actions?" Are you going to try to stop the killer of my brother from getting her well-deserved Kiss, old meddler? From what Amelia heard, Dumbledore had gotten smarter toward the end of the war, mostly due to Mad-Eye's nonstop nagging; but had relapsed into his foolish mercies the instant Voldemort's body was found.
Narcissa's sister murdered Amelia's brother.
I want to quote part of a review on fanfiction.net by celopmuh that I completely agree with and that I think Eliezer should take into account:
"Let's not narrow down the hypothesis space prematurely." - Harry's way of talking is getting tiresome, I hope he learns to adjust it to his audience ("let's not rule out any possibilities too early"? I'm sure there is a non-lossy, good-sounding way to rephrase that). I understand this is intended, but his speech on "your brain just pattern-matches the hypothesis" turned out rather anticlimactic - it would sound much better if it was actually directed to Hogwarts students and not the readers.
No, that is the way that Harry thinks, the way that the ideas are constituted in his head. To expect someone largely oblivious to other people to automatically translate everything he says into language more suitable for them would be out of character, IMO.
In particular, when Harry really wants the right answer, when something important is on the line, I expect the analytical side to ramp up, and the social awareness side to ramp down.
Yeah. Harry talks this way. It's not an authorial accident. It's meant to be alienating and offputting to his peers, emphasizing the distance between Harry and a normal 11-year old.
I think when he's trying to communicate with someone Harry can speak on their level, but when he's upset he goes back to talking like a robot.
I wasn't talking about the murder attempt story, and I don't believe Snape's behind it anyway (he's the most likely suspect after Quirrel, but he's not really very likely at all IMO). I meant Snape's scheme to stop bullying in Hogwarts - which is what Jello_Raptor posted about.
He's more than capable of defending himself, and given that he's probably keyed into the wards at a level just below McGonnagal , it would be a huge security hole if he was easily imperiused.
The official policy is "new thread after 500 comments". It looks like this is going to turn into a serious annoyance; two chapters pushed the last one to 500+ in 10 days, and there are another 5 chapters coming up soon.
Harry's Muggle parents could not authorize it because they were Muggles, and Muggles had around the same legal standing as children or kittens: they were cute, so if you tortured them in public you could get arrested, but they weren't people. Some reluctant provision had been made for recognizing the parents of Muggleborns as human in a limited sense, but Harry's adoptive parents did not fall into that legal category.
I kinda doubt wizards in general care overmuch about Muggle law.
My idea that to the best of my knowledge is my own, is that Harry could use the time turner to go back in time, and get Quirrel/Snape/Dumbledore to false memory charm a student to provide crucial testimony clearing Hermoine and proving a plot. Another part that would help would be to present the wands as evidence (not original to me) but to also steal the wands of Draco and Hermoine out of custody using the cloak and tamper with them to remove any evidence if hat and cloak tampered with them.
I'll expand on this with a post attached to my main one since I've discovered that some people don't like long walls of texts, so if you come up with some reason why this wouldn't work check that post first please.
Yes, but she supposedly left Draco in the trophy room to die slowly. From her perspective, allegedly, it was murder.
No, it's attempted murder. It can be considered morally equivalent to murder and given the same punishment as murder but if nobody dies it is not murder. Because murder is when you kill someone.
you cannot unknow any of this stuff except by obliterating yourself.
This works too, but I think you meant obliviating :) Other than that, good point. Destroying the dementor present would be a good opening move for several different strategies--anything that requires him to be taken very seriously, really.
edited in response to the below
It's not only the intent behind attempted murder, but the successful execution of that intention:
“But how do you [create a Horcrux]?”
“By an act of evil — the supreme act of evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: He would encase the torn portion —” (HBP Ch 23)
It's possible that Snape's soul did split. When Snape and Dumbledore are discussing the plot to have Dumbledore killed, there's this exchange:
...“If you don’t mind dying
I don't think a dementor would be cooperative with him. If it's being controlled by people's expectations it's probably being controlled a lot more strongly by the expectations of the Ministry, and they don't expect it to care what he has to say.
I thought that it was split into heavy (CA) and light (CL) cruisers, at least back during WW2. Also deviating from the two-letter pattern
No, cruisers are split into battle cruisers (CC), armored (CA), large (CB), light and a couple of others, some of which are even still in use. Pre 1920 cruisers were just "C", destroyers "D" and battleships "B".
Even if the hypothesis that they don't really think, just behave in a way that people think they will, is true; it's phrased in such a way as to cause doubt in the purple-robes (the use of "just say yes or no" to make them think there's more information then they're getting) and belief in albus. If it just answers "yes" to the first question, it's still plausible within the purple robes belief sets, but hopefully makes harry seem mysterious enough that they believe the next question can also be a yes. Then albus, who's a true believer, pushes the consensus reality over to a yes with his understanding that harry has the power to destroy them.
Why rescue Bellatrix? So that there is an uncontestable witness that Harry Potter is Voldemort. Malfoy is afraid of Harry. Bella is likely out and about telling death eaters that Harry is Voldemort. Lucius found out. He wants to extract Draco and take away Harry's allies.
I theorized earlier that this was Malfoy's plot to gain leverage over Harry and Albus. Now I think it's Malfoy trying to fight Voldemort.
Chapter 80 -
Damnit, lost my nice long post. Here's a short summary:
If this a plot designed by Quirel, it's to help Harry. If this is a plot to help Harry, my guess is that it's via the governmental destabilization that will result - Unrest will be caused by the ruling, a lack of trust in the sanity of the government, and this just gets worse when Harry does something drastic to get her out, like taking the whole thing out. If it's a legit attack, not sure what to do or what will happen.
As for the events themselves, I think they happened. "Oblivation...
He doesn't know about the horcruxes. He may suspect that Harry is Voldemort, but Harry doesn't know that, and thus has little reason to think that Lucius would believe him either. For the most part, the Death Eaters are as convinced as anyone that Voldemort is dead.
There's no way Lucius will settle for a highly dubious IOU on Dumbledore's head after almost nailing Hermione and suffering a highly visible defeat, so this is not sufficient on its own.
Of course not. That's why 3B's additional verbiage was supplemental to 3A. So consider everything said in 3A and what's said in 3B, when assigning it a probability of success.
There's no need to bring it in.
Sure there is. To keep it quiet, thereby allowing Harry to "get away with it." There is no victory like total victory. There is no kill like overkill. And cold!Harry is a Sith: he deals in absolutes.
Eh, everyone we have seen be smarter is a wizard
Well, Petunia was at least able to figure out that Vernon Dursley would be a terrible father.
Wait a minute! The Sorting Hat hasn't shown up yet! For those of you who aren't aware, Eliezer remarked that a spell translating to "here comes the judge" would be appropriate for summoning the sorting hat, although he did not end up using that spell.
Although we've already seen it summoned, it was not for any sort of judging reason. Therefore, I postulate that this first summoning was a red-herring to throw us off.
If all of this is true, then I'd say it's quite likely that Harry's last-minute-plan will somehow involve the hat. But how?
The Sorting Hat when it was on Harry said that it couldn't tell if Harry had any false memories and that it just looks at thoughts as they form. So it is unlikely it can do much to detect such issues.
Using what positivity? Harry's dark side isn't able to destroy Dementors.
Both canon and MoR seem reasonably flexible when it comes to letting people use situationally irrelevant positivity be harnessed for dementor production.
If "A potion spends that which is invested in the creation of its ingredients." then what the heck goes into an Animagus potion? Something that's been transfigured a lot?
Edit: It doesn't seem like the method for becoming an Animagus is described in canon, so the potion aspect might be new to MoR.
That one action may have had a reason: to demonstrate to someone how loyal she was to him, perhaps, or what was possible with Dark rituals for mind control.
More generally, the public Voldemort persona - as exemplified by Harry pretending to be Voldemort to Bella - is very different from Quirrel's public persona. In my impression, Quirrel's is more personable and likeable, and just as powerful and scary and competent. This may be due to complexities of the Quirrel-Voldemort relationship.
I don't know, it's kind of telling that Harry-as-Voldemort quotes Quirrell's "one must be efficient" thing to Bella without seeming to notice. And I've always been of the opinion that the glowing-red-eyes, high-pitched-giggling schtick was a conscious attempt to get people to underestimate him ever since the martial arts story. (He goes in disguise to learn, is taught to "lose" and kick butt, comes back afterwards in full regalia to kill everyone who spat on him except his one friend, in the process making sure no one else will learn what he did.) Apparently he sees a benefit in cultivating the crazy sadistic killer persona, but it's definitely done out of cold calculation.
Draco mentioned that Bella once Crucioed herself at Voldemort's orders.
Also, if Dumbledore could have set fire to Bella he would have, spouse or no spouse.
Hmm.. Actually, thinking about it, I think that the most likely outcome is that Hermonie will be rescued by someone other than HP. Rereading the last chapter, Harry made absolutely no headway on the case himself, but he does succeed in something else: Persuading a great number of other people that this senario screams "setup" to high heaven - the very first thing he does : Explain Hermonines predicament to Hermonine. - this presumably sets her quite considerable intellect in motion on the case. Second thing he does: Alert the most formidable teac...
It would be less confusing (to me, possibly others), if you abbreviated Albus Percival Brian Wulfric Dumbledore's name as AD. (My personal preference for APBWD should not be catered to.)
I'd settle for "Albus" or "Dumbledore" too.
Why does Dumbledore not want to use the word "Horcrux" in front of Harry?
Did Quirrell have a reason for not mentioning Horcruxes in front of Harry, other than not wanting Harry to deduce that the professor himself had made one?
On reflection, it doesn't even matter whether Obliviates and FMCs are normally removable in this universe - Harry would use a delay in carrying out sentence to either attempt to find a counterspell or find the real perpetrator or both.
This is a good point; agreed.
So no matter what, for Harry, a one-year delay in carrying out sentence has a really good cost/benefit tradeoff.
I would have said a one-week delay.
And if Dumbledore won't exert himself sufficiently to secure that
I see no reason to think that Dumbledore is even remotely capable of that. ...
We don't know that Snape wanted to eliminate bullies. Snape's intervention in SPEW battles caused a serious escalation in the conflict, but it was Quirrel's intervention in the final battle that continued the escalation to the point where something had to be done to stop it. We do not know what Snape's intention was for that final battle.
I'll make a question, kinda off-topic. Does anyone know any good book about plotting? I'd like to study it more, I definitively got interested in.
The purpose of the list is to propose alternatives to Quirrell, who right now is the obvious candidate.
Presumably that was one of the ideas that Harry checked with Hermione in the beginning of the fic.
Or it's about how well the belief is justified, not "strength" of the belief, or number of the believers. Crazy beliefs or those based on false assumptions would have no impact in that case. And justified true beliefs can't disagree (at their level of specificity).
I'm confused. "I'm pretty sure" is extremely vague. I would not expect to be able to confidently call something like that "overconfidence". Is there some formalization of such terms that I'm missing?
Well, every story that has people traveling or communicating faster than light basically has not-well-defined time travel in it. Which includes most scifi ever written, I'd guess.
(Edit: Whoops, this is wrong.) Chapter 30:
...Then Harry's mind clicked on another implication, and he looked down at the steel ring on his left hand's pinky finger, and almost swore out loud when he saw that the tiny diamond was missing and there was a marshmallow lying on the ground near where he'd fallen.
He'd sustained that Transfiguration for seventeen days, and would now need to start over.
Could've been worse. He could've done this fourteen days later, after Professor McGonagall had approved him to Transfigure his father's rock. That was one very good l
And ever since, I've looked forward to the moment when Harry, lacking access to a wand, realizes that he has the means to launch a heavy object at a very high speed by simply ceasing the Transfiguration at the right moment while swinging his fist.
A few not particularly relevant concerns. Transfiguration is dangerous in MOR, But the type of danger McGonagall discusses is basically the same as any toxin. It's literally only dangerous if you eat it or breath it. A bubble head charm and enough self control not to eat anything that looks tasty and transfiguration reversion is no danger. So why is Mcgonagall so surprised that Dumbledoor used transfiguration in battle, and is still alive?
That being said, I think transfiguration is second only to time-travel in magics that are dangerous in the hands of cre...
How about, Hermione goes to Azkaban, Harry breaks her out? Seems like it would have a better chance of working than the other possibilities, especially if Quirrel helps.
Bellatrix truly believed she was doomed, that's a strong belief against harrys position. Harry himself didn't fully believe it either. I'd argue that the extent of bellatrixes disbelief was greater then the great halls, although it's hard to say. That coupled with the fact that harry wasn't a true believer leads to a consensus that they're not leaving. Now we have 2 true believer on harrys side and a bunch of people who probably don't have real strong opinions one way or the other.
Also, it's entirely possible that magical ability decides how many "vot...
EDIT: New discussion thread here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. With two chapters recently the previous thread has very quickly reached 500 comments. The latest chapter as of 17th March 2012 is Ch. 79.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:
You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).
If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it's fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that "Eliezer said X is true" unless you use rot13.