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...
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...
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.
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.
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...
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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: