I’m bothered by Harry’s “recovered memory” of Voldemort killing his mother. Firstly we are told, at the time of its first narration, that Harry almost-notices that something is wrong with it. Secondly, the recover-memories-from-before-you-were-verbal thing seems, I don’t know, kind of off. It’s the sort of thing that would be possible if popular conceptions of how memory is stored were true. And thirdly, while I can see James trying to hold off Voldemort—and incidentally, he can’t even dodge the very first AK that Voldemort casts? Isn’t he an experienced combat wizard?- why doesn’t Lily use the moments thus bought to snatch Harry and Apparate out of there? Really, it should be very hard to kill an adult wizard who knows you’re there. The scene seems engineered for maximum emotional impact rather than combat realism.
On the other hand, it’s hard to see how a false memory would be useful. If it is false, who benefits thereby, and who had the chance to implant it?
It can be blocked, yes, but this appears to be a fairly major jinx, the equivalent of a lot of capital equipment. Hogwarts is known to be anti-Apparation jinxed, as is Azkaban, but I don’t recall any other places where it’s mentioned. (Ministry of Magic, perhaps; implied by the workers there commuting in a fairly standard fashion instead of just Apparating from their homes.) It’s not clear that it can be installed on an average wizard’s home. Anyway, you’d think it would prevent inward, but not outward, Apparation by default; you don’t want to be suddenly attacked but you might want to make a quick escape.
Dumbledore captures (in that fanfic by Rowling, that is, not the canon) some Death Eaters by preventing their Apparation, but he has to duel them first, so he might as well have cast AK.
All that aside, she’s an experienced combat wizard with a few seconds to spare. If she can’t Apparate, she still has the option og grabbing Harry, blowing a hole in the wall, and running. “Accio Broomstick”, anyone? Or whatever flight spell Voldemort uses to go up the stairs without footsteps.
Come to think of it, why were they hiding in an apparently average home without special defenses, and relying on mere secrecy? Put them in Hogwarts, with its layers upon layers of magical fortifications. Draco states that Hogwarts is an impregnable fortress, and presumably Voldemort thinks so too since he doesn’t attack Dumbledore there and end the war at a stroke.
This has come up before in the tvtropes discussion thread, but personally I operate on the assumption that apparating in a combat situation is simply beyond the skills of most wizards. It requires deliberation, which is probably hard to muster when someone is firing death beams at you, and if you tried it you’d probably get splinched. It’s probably doable for really exceptional wizards, like Voldemort or Dumbledore, but not for your average auror, let alone the average joe wizard.
Highly tactically useful feats that are extremely difficult to perform would be one major reason why some wizards can be so much more dangerous in a fight than others when wizards far from the top of the scale are capable of firing death beams.
As opposed to what happens when she sits about in a panic? “Accio Broomstick” is another helpful tactical option, here. Anyway, if he can fly, why can’t she?
In canon, Voldemort’s unassisted-flight spell was unique to him (until he taught it to Snape). He invented it, and it was considered rather impressive, and unprecedented.
I can’t think of any particular reason that wouldn’t work, unless Voldemort or the Death Eaters in general have some way of stopping them prior to the attack. Maybe the anti-disapparition jinx (which is an area of effect spell rather than a targeted one according to the Potter wiki) also affects portkeys? Or perhaps there’s another spell. The Death Eaters might simply jinx their targets’ houses before attacking.
If there weren’t some way of preventing people from using them, I’d think having a portkey in the house in a readily accessible place, to teleport out of harm’s way, would be standard response for anyone at particular risk in the war. Given that this apparently didn’t stop the Death Eaters, I assume that it’s preventable.
I think canon suggests you’re either part of the Floo network or you’re not, meaning that if you were part of it, the Death Eaters could use it to get in, just as you could use it to get out.
Before the war, certainly. And even during, while Dumbledore was alive, Hogwarts was well enough protected that it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea for the Death Eaters to try and get in by Floo, even assuming that they could.
The Potter Wiki says that the Floo Network is governed by the Floo Network Authority at the Ministry of Magic, which probably keeps tabs on who’s connected where, so being connected to the Floo Network may be incompatible with trying to keep your location strictly secret.
I was basically quoting Quirrell from his first DDA lesson. He says that he’s teaching defense against wizards because they can keep you from being able to run. From this I drew the conclusion that wizards can keep you from being able to run, and this is a problem you might have to worry about in practice, even when facing wizards less powerful than Voldemort.
If, as an adult wizard, you find yourself incapable of using the Killing Curse, then you can simply Apparate away! Likewise if you are facing the second most perfect killing machine, a Dementor. You just Apparate away!”
“Unless, of course,” Professor Quirrell said, his voice now lower and harder, “you are under the influence of an anti-Apparition jinx.
This does not immediately imply that the anti-Apparation jinx is something that can be cast quickly, or under combat conditions. Most spells seem to require line of sight; if Voldemort has to be able to see you to jinx you, he might as well cast AK. The only times we actually see anti-Apparation in action, it is applied to places—Hogwarts, Ministry of Magic, Azkaban—not individuals.
I’m confused- you suggest Anti-Apparation spells are difficult to use because they probably require line-of-sight, then in the very next sentence acknowledge that we only ever see them as area-effect spells laid on locations. You don’t think it’s likely that all Anti-Apparation spells are area-effect, including the combat-time version that one might find oneself under the influence of while being attacked by Dark Wizards? It seems more reasonable to treat it as a tactical consideration if the jinx denies Apparation in a hundred-yard-radius sphere for five minutes, or something like that.
It seems to me that Potterverse magic comes in two distinct kinds. There are dueling charms that require line-of-sight, and this is what we actually see being cast. And then there are big area-effect magics like the ones affecting Hogwarts, and we don’t really know anything about those—we never see them being cast. But we do see that such things are rare, and mostly old. This suggests to me that there’s no area-effect combat spells, to be laid on in five minutes before you enter the enemy’s house. Rather there are point-and-shoots, and Epic Ritual Magic, possibly lost to modern wizardkind.
Touching Dumbledore’s magic against the Death Eaters, note that he doesn’t use it until they are defeated and presumably unconscious. This seems to indicate that it’s an ordinary point-and-shoot, perhaps even a slow, easily-dodged one that’s useless on an active target. A point-and-shoot anti-Apparation jinx is useless to Voldemort; if he can jinx you that way he might as well use the AK.
It seems to me that Potterverse magic comes in two distinct kinds. There are dueling charms that require line-of-sight, and this is what we actually see being cast. And then there are big area-effect magics like the ones affecting Hogwarts, and we don’t really know anything about those—we never see them being cast. But we do see that such things are rare, and mostly old. This suggests to me that there’s no area-effect combat spells, to be laid on in five minutes before you enter the enemy’s house. Rather there are point-and-shoots, and Epic Ritual Magic, possibly lost to modern wizardkind.
The original canon didn’t really have the Lost Golden Age elements of MoR. We don’t see a lot of area-affecting spells actually being cast, but we do have stuff like Fred and George turning part of Hogwarts castle into a swamp, in a manner such that Professor Umbridge couldn’t turn it back. In the original canon, it seems more like spells of this sort simply require some know how and competence that might be beyond the average coasted-through-school-and-forgot-everything-they-didn’t-need wizard, but isn’t beyond clever and mischievous upper year students.
I think the reason this kind of magic appears so little on screen is that Rowling simply couldn’t be arsed to come up with rules for how her magic worked beyond the “point and say words” type, so she mostly kept anything with more complicated mechanics offstage.
If we’re talking about canon, I want to point out that they cast an Anti-Disapparation jinx over Hogsmeade in Deathly Hallows, when it was perfectly possible to apparate before. So at the very least we know the ability to cast it on an area isn’t lost to wizardkind.
And to address the more general idea, you may well want to cast a Muffliato or Repello Muggletum over someone’s house before you break in, to avoid attracting attention.
note that he doesn’t use it until they are defeated and presumably unconscious. This seems to indicate that it’s an ordinary point-and-shoot
Or it may also indicate it takes ten seconds to cast.
IIRC, in book 5 of canon, after the battle in the ministry, Dumbledore tells Fudge that the captured Death Eaters are in the Department of Mysteries, and that he has “bound them with an Anti-Disapparition jinx”. This implies that this jinx is at the very least one that is capable of being cast easily and quickly enough to be a viable way to stop captured prisoners from escaping. (Although not necessarily under combat conditions.)
Rowling-canon strongly implies that Dumbledore was the reason Voldemort didn’t attack Hogwarts; that is, Dumbledore’s presence at Hogwarts protected the castle, and not the other way around. Hogwarts fell very soon after Dumbledore’s death. However, while Dumbledore may have prevented Voldemort from outright capturing Hogwarts, in the same way he stopped Voldemort from outright capturing the Ministry, he proved unable to prevent Voldemort and friends from repeatedly sneaking into the castle, and he doesn’t have the time to personally guard the Potters 24⁄7.
It may not be a world without the Fidelius Charm; Lupin implies that the betrayal of a secret keeper was still what did them in. It may simply be that the charm may Never Be Mentioned Again, because if it’s allowed to function as more than a one-time plot device, it breaks the story, so we’re just going to have to shove it in the corner and pretend it’s not there anymore.
Cross-posted from the TVTropes forum. (There’s more to the post there, but I didn’t think it all needed to be repeated.)
Why would this important? Well, obviously, this memory represents a huge turning point for Harry. This is when he started to turn against Dumbledore. It suggested to him an interpretation of his parents’ death in which Dumbledore deliberately set them up for it. This interpretation of events is itself a bit suspect; Harry thinks (Ch. 46) he came to it sometime during or immediately after the period of his Dementation, but he can’t quite place exactly when that was, and it certainly doesn’t appear in his narration at the time. He is presently sticking to this interpretation even after receiving information that should falsify it: according to Snape, it is impossible to tamper with the memory of a prophecy.
And, let’s not forget, there’s another reason this is important: the memory is leaking back into Snape. According to Minerva, Snape is held to Dumbledore’s service by his guilt over Lily’s death. Whether or not Lily was tortured seems to matter to him… perhaps Dumbledore had told him that she was. Now, Snape knows that the memory falsifies torture; this may weaken the bonds tying him to Dumbledore. This is without even touching upon Harry’s interpretation of events, in which Dumbledore deliberately set up Lily and James to be killed in order to bring down Voldemort. Obviously, should Snape come to the same conclusion, his anger over the death of Lily will suddenly pivot and he will become unpredictable.
I wondered whether he had been memory charmed with that memory, but since Harry could see Thestrals afterwards, I assumed it was a real memory.
One of the problems of fiction, and particularly magical fiction, is that all the rules aren’t spelled out. If you’re memory charmed with the scene of a death, does that allow you to see a thestral?
EDIT: IN Chapter 86, a very strange description as Harry recounts his memory of his parents’ death to Snape:
Slowly, like a body floating to the surface of water, Harry returned from wherever he’d been.
Sounds like someone coming out of a memory in a Pensieve. And Dumbledore did race him off to his office, alone, when he got demented.
BUT, at least in the narrative, Harry’s remembering occurs before being taken off to the office.
I think it was implied that the memory wasn’t the cause for Harry being able to see Thestrals; Harry seeing Death in the form of a Dementor was. From Chapter 49:
“They are visible only to those who have seen death and comprehended it, a useful defense against most animal predators. Hm. I suppose that the first time you went in front of the Dementor, your worst memory proved to be the night of your encounter with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?”
Harry nodded grimly. It was the right guess, even if for the wrong reasons. Those who have seen Death...
Ok, so now updating, there is not evidence against the memory being implanted. Also, that fact that Quirrell suggests the memory makes it more likely he implanted it.
I think it’s stronger than that. Quirrell suggesting this memory can only have two implications that I can see:
Either 1) A baby remembering an event like this in the HPMOR universe is not, in any way that Quirrell would notice, unusual, and would even be expected. This seems unlikely and unsatisfying to me. No reason for the existence of this discrepancy between their world and ours has been shown, no excuse made. I also think “how does anyone know this story?” is the nagging rationalist doubt Harry experiences when he first hears of it. Especially—how would one remember a conversation in detail before having learned the language it is in, or any language at all? If anything he would remember tones, emotions, sights. His supposed recall is an extremely improbable feat for baby Harry.
Or 2) Quirrell knows both that the memory was implanted and its contents. This is consistent with Quirrell, particularly that he has made the right guess for the wrong reasons, as previously described in Ch.49, “Prior Information”. The main lesson from that chapter is that we should not assume that Quirrell’s (or anyone’s) seemingly extraordinary deductions are actually deductions, but look for other reasons why he would have that information.
The simplest explanation for #2 is that Quirrell knows because Quirrell placed the memories. I am assuming that the inability of Quirrell to interact magically with Harry is real because EY has called it a literary necessity, but Quirrel/Voldemort/Riddle/Monroe could have just placed the (unusually clear and detailed) memory into the infant Harry before turning him into a horcrux that he would then not be able to magically interact with (is this a thing that always happens with human horcruxes?) There would be no need to obliviate the real events afterwards, the 15-month-old babe would not remember anyway, but he could also just have Bellatrix do it. This would be part of some version of “Voldemort faked his own death.” There are a few of versions of how this might have happened, and I haven’t settled out what I believe yet.
The other possibility for #2 is that someone else, most likely Dumbledore, placed the false memories for reasons that are not clear to me and that Quirrell has come by this information somehow. If he had done it, and Minerva knew the secret she might be a weak occlumency link in the Order’s chain, allowing Voldemort’s legendary legilimency to obtain any information she has. She seems highly trustworthy but not particularly secure. I can’t think of any reasons why Dumbledore would do this, though. It seems to only disadvantage Dumbledore’s priorities.
It is possible, I suppose, that dementors have the ability to make their victims recall even the faintest of bad memories in stunning detail, or that Dumbledore has some inscrutable reason for faking the events of that night. Overall I think the most likely explanation is that Quirrell planted Harry’s memory of Godric’s Hollow.
3) Quirrell was pattern matching. People would see their worst memory when faced with a dementor, Harry needed to see a death to be able to see thestrals, and the murder of his parents was a likely candidate for his worst memory.
At that point, and perhaps at no point, did Harry tell Quirrell the details of what he remembered, so your objections about the detailed nature of the memory aren’t very strong. That a 1 year old could process Mommy being killed doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch.
You’re right that the elaborate nature of the memories does point them to being fakes, it’s just that Harry hasn’t told Quirrell how elaborate those memories are.
But the next few sentences are support for your theory.
“Did you recall anything of interest, thereby?” “Yes,” Harry said, “I did,” only that and nothing more, for he was
not ready as yet to make accusations. The Defense Professor smiled one of his dry smiles, and beckoned
with an impatient finger.
The Professor would make a poor poker player—he can never help smiling about his own cleverness. The book is full of such tells. I think EY makes these as purposeful tells.
Overall I think the most likely explanation is that Quirrell planted Harry’s memory of Godric’s Hollow.
I think it is highly unreasonable that Quirrell/Voldemort would have managed to get himself killed when he was alone with a 1 year old. Would a guy trying to protect his life with multiple horcruxes been so ridiculously sloppy about the child with a prophesied power to destroy him?
Pop in a henchman (bellatrix) and have her drop a large rock on Harry’s head. Done.
More likely, Quirrell left Harry alive and faked his own death for his own purposes.
My original theory is that Quirrell plans to take possession of Harry’s body at some point in the future, and so was setting him up, and is setting him up, as the slayer of the Dark Lord so that he can be that savior some day.
Dumbledore attempted to get Voldemort killed with a dark ritual, performed by Lily. Voldemort recognized the ploy, and played along, making it seemingly come true.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if Harry is Quirrell. Between time traveling and bodily possession, there are about a zillion ways that the Magical Link of Doom between Harry and Quirrell is actually the interaction of the same person time turned.
As for implanting the memory, see my previous EDIT upthread on Dumbledore doing it while Harry was demented.
Harry didn’t quite know how to describe in words the sense of kinship he felt with Professor Quirrell, except to say that the Defense Professor was the only clear-thinking person Harry had met in the wizarding world. Sooner or later everyone else started playing Quidditch, or not putting protective shells on their time machines, or thinking that Death was their friend. It didn’t matter how good their intentions were. Sooner or later, and usually sooner, they demonstrated that something deep inside their brain was confused. Everyone except Professor Quirrell. It was a bond that went beyond anything of debts owed, or even anything of personal liking, that the two of them were alone in the wizarding world. And if the Defense Professor occasionally seemed a little scary or a little Dark, well, that was just the same thing some people said about Harry.
If comprehending the nature of Dementors is required to see Thestrals, how does Quirrel—or anyone else—see them? Quirrel seems to accept that “seeing Death” means simply seeing someone killed, perhaps someone dear to you.
I would assume that understanding the nature of Dementors isn’t required to be able to see Thestrals, it’s just that it’s possibly sufficient to see them.
One popular conception, if I’ve got my pop psychology right, is that [people believe that] memories are stored in brains like they’re stored in computers; that is, they’re archived at a particular location and are always in principle retrievable, even though it might take a lot of effort to do so. You’ll see this popular conception in action if you watch children’s cartoons where the plot involves going into a character’s brain in some metaphorical way; a less high-tech metaphor might visualize the brain as a giant collection of filing cabinets (I’m thinking of an episode of Spongebob in particular).
Right, I heard the cabinet metaphor before. Another piece of evidence that people think that way is that they often unquestioningly trust memories retrieved via regressive hypnosis and stuff to be genuine.
Firstly we are told, at the time of its first narration, that Harry almost-notices that something is wrong with it.
No we’re not. You’re confusing this memory with the first time Harry is told the standard story of what happened by McGonagall. All we’re told about this memory is
Into the vacuum rose the memory, the worst memory, something forgotten so long ago that the neural patterns shouldn’t have still existed.
I’m bothered by Harry’s “recovered memory” of Voldemort killing his mother. Firstly we are told, at the time of its first narration, that Harry almost-notices that something is wrong with it. Secondly, the recover-memories-from-before-you-were-verbal thing seems, I don’t know, kind of off. It’s the sort of thing that would be possible if popular conceptions of how memory is stored were true. And thirdly, while I can see James trying to hold off Voldemort—and incidentally, he can’t even dodge the very first AK that Voldemort casts? Isn’t he an experienced combat wizard?- why doesn’t Lily use the moments thus bought to snatch Harry and Apparate out of there? Really, it should be very hard to kill an adult wizard who knows you’re there. The scene seems engineered for maximum emotional impact rather than combat realism.
On the other hand, it’s hard to see how a false memory would be useful. If it is false, who benefits thereby, and who had the chance to implant it?
Apparation can be blocked. That’s what makes Dark Wizards more dangerous than any other monster you might fight—you can’t just Apparate away.
It can be blocked, yes, but this appears to be a fairly major jinx, the equivalent of a lot of capital equipment. Hogwarts is known to be anti-Apparation jinxed, as is Azkaban, but I don’t recall any other places where it’s mentioned. (Ministry of Magic, perhaps; implied by the workers there commuting in a fairly standard fashion instead of just Apparating from their homes.) It’s not clear that it can be installed on an average wizard’s home. Anyway, you’d think it would prevent inward, but not outward, Apparation by default; you don’t want to be suddenly attacked but you might want to make a quick escape.
Dumbledore captures (in that fanfic by Rowling, that is, not the canon) some Death Eaters by preventing their Apparation, but he has to duel them first, so he might as well have cast AK.
All that aside, she’s an experienced combat wizard with a few seconds to spare. If she can’t Apparate, she still has the option og grabbing Harry, blowing a hole in the wall, and running. “Accio Broomstick”, anyone? Or whatever flight spell Voldemort uses to go up the stairs without footsteps.
Come to think of it, why were they hiding in an apparently average home without special defenses, and relying on mere secrecy? Put them in Hogwarts, with its layers upon layers of magical fortifications. Draco states that Hogwarts is an impregnable fortress, and presumably Voldemort thinks so too since he doesn’t attack Dumbledore there and end the war at a stroke.
This has come up before in the tvtropes discussion thread, but personally I operate on the assumption that apparating in a combat situation is simply beyond the skills of most wizards. It requires deliberation, which is probably hard to muster when someone is firing death beams at you, and if you tried it you’d probably get splinched. It’s probably doable for really exceptional wizards, like Voldemort or Dumbledore, but not for your average auror, let alone the average joe wizard.
Highly tactically useful feats that are extremely difficult to perform would be one major reason why some wizards can be so much more dangerous in a fight than others when wizards far from the top of the scale are capable of firing death beams.
Ok, that’s a good point. So what about blowing a hole in the wall and fleeing into the night?
I assume that he’d catch her if she tried. He can fly.
As opposed to what happens when she sits about in a panic? “Accio Broomstick” is another helpful tactical option, here. Anyway, if he can fly, why can’t she?
In canon, Voldemort’s unassisted-flight spell was unique to him (until he taught it to Snape). He invented it, and it was considered rather impressive, and unprecedented.
Port keys? Those seem an obvious precaution in a wizarding war.
I can’t think of any particular reason that wouldn’t work, unless Voldemort or the Death Eaters in general have some way of stopping them prior to the attack. Maybe the anti-disapparition jinx (which is an area of effect spell rather than a targeted one according to the Potter wiki) also affects portkeys? Or perhaps there’s another spell. The Death Eaters might simply jinx their targets’ houses before attacking.
If there weren’t some way of preventing people from using them, I’d think having a portkey in the house in a readily accessible place, to teleport out of harm’s way, would be standard response for anyone at particular risk in the war. Given that this apparently didn’t stop the Death Eaters, I assume that it’s preventable.
Given how poorly the war was going for the OotF I wouldn’t be surprised if by that point they were suffering from a shortage of safe houses.
There’s also the Floo.
I think canon suggests you’re either part of the Floo network or you’re not, meaning that if you were part of it, the Death Eaters could use it to get in, just as you could use it to get out.
The offices of Dumbledore and Snape and presumably the other Professors have Floo links.
Before the war, certainly. And even during, while Dumbledore was alive, Hogwarts was well enough protected that it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea for the Death Eaters to try and get in by Floo, even assuming that they could.
The Potter Wiki says that the Floo Network is governed by the Floo Network Authority at the Ministry of Magic, which probably keeps tabs on who’s connected where, so being connected to the Floo Network may be incompatible with trying to keep your location strictly secret.
I was basically quoting Quirrell from his first DDA lesson. He says that he’s teaching defense against wizards because they can keep you from being able to run. From this I drew the conclusion that wizards can keep you from being able to run, and this is a problem you might have to worry about in practice, even when facing wizards less powerful than Voldemort.
Mmm. He says
This does not immediately imply that the anti-Apparation jinx is something that can be cast quickly, or under combat conditions. Most spells seem to require line of sight; if Voldemort has to be able to see you to jinx you, he might as well cast AK. The only times we actually see anti-Apparation in action, it is applied to places—Hogwarts, Ministry of Magic, Azkaban—not individuals.
I’m confused- you suggest Anti-Apparation spells are difficult to use because they probably require line-of-sight, then in the very next sentence acknowledge that we only ever see them as area-effect spells laid on locations. You don’t think it’s likely that all Anti-Apparation spells are area-effect, including the combat-time version that one might find oneself under the influence of while being attacked by Dark Wizards? It seems more reasonable to treat it as a tactical consideration if the jinx denies Apparation in a hundred-yard-radius sphere for five minutes, or something like that.
It seems to me that Potterverse magic comes in two distinct kinds. There are dueling charms that require line-of-sight, and this is what we actually see being cast. And then there are big area-effect magics like the ones affecting Hogwarts, and we don’t really know anything about those—we never see them being cast. But we do see that such things are rare, and mostly old. This suggests to me that there’s no area-effect combat spells, to be laid on in five minutes before you enter the enemy’s house. Rather there are point-and-shoots, and Epic Ritual Magic, possibly lost to modern wizardkind.
Touching Dumbledore’s magic against the Death Eaters, note that he doesn’t use it until they are defeated and presumably unconscious. This seems to indicate that it’s an ordinary point-and-shoot, perhaps even a slow, easily-dodged one that’s useless on an active target. A point-and-shoot anti-Apparation jinx is useless to Voldemort; if he can jinx you that way he might as well use the AK.
The original canon didn’t really have the Lost Golden Age elements of MoR. We don’t see a lot of area-affecting spells actually being cast, but we do have stuff like Fred and George turning part of Hogwarts castle into a swamp, in a manner such that Professor Umbridge couldn’t turn it back. In the original canon, it seems more like spells of this sort simply require some know how and competence that might be beyond the average coasted-through-school-and-forgot-everything-they-didn’t-need wizard, but isn’t beyond clever and mischievous upper year students.
I think the reason this kind of magic appears so little on screen is that Rowling simply couldn’t be arsed to come up with rules for how her magic worked beyond the “point and say words” type, so she mostly kept anything with more complicated mechanics offstage.
Such as canon!Harry Potter.
If we’re talking about canon, I want to point out that they cast an Anti-Disapparation jinx over Hogsmeade in Deathly Hallows, when it was perfectly possible to apparate before. So at the very least we know the ability to cast it on an area isn’t lost to wizardkind.
And to address the more general idea, you may well want to cast a Muffliato or Repello Muggletum over someone’s house before you break in, to avoid attracting attention.
Or it may also indicate it takes ten seconds to cast.
IIRC, in book 5 of canon, after the battle in the ministry, Dumbledore tells Fudge that the captured Death Eaters are in the Department of Mysteries, and that he has “bound them with an Anti-Disapparition jinx”. This implies that this jinx is at the very least one that is capable of being cast easily and quickly enough to be a viable way to stop captured prisoners from escaping. (Although not necessarily under combat conditions.)
“that fanfic by Rowling”? Heh.
Rowling-canon strongly implies that Dumbledore was the reason Voldemort didn’t attack Hogwarts; that is, Dumbledore’s presence at Hogwarts protected the castle, and not the other way around. Hogwarts fell very soon after Dumbledore’s death. However, while Dumbledore may have prevented Voldemort from outright capturing Hogwarts, in the same way he stopped Voldemort from outright capturing the Ministry, he proved unable to prevent Voldemort and friends from repeatedly sneaking into the castle, and he doesn’t have the time to personally guard the Potters 24⁄7.
The last paragraph makes a good point. In a world without the Fidelius, why wouldn’t they be at Hogwarts? Hmm.
It may not be a world without the Fidelius Charm; Lupin implies that the betrayal of a secret keeper was still what did them in. It may simply be that the charm may Never Be Mentioned Again, because if it’s allowed to function as more than a one-time plot device, it breaks the story, so we’re just going to have to shove it in the corner and pretend it’s not there anymore.
Cross-posted from the TVTropes forum. (There’s more to the post there, but I didn’t think it all needed to be repeated.)
Why would this important? Well, obviously, this memory represents a huge turning point for Harry. This is when he started to turn against Dumbledore. It suggested to him an interpretation of his parents’ death in which Dumbledore deliberately set them up for it. This interpretation of events is itself a bit suspect; Harry thinks (Ch. 46) he came to it sometime during or immediately after the period of his Dementation, but he can’t quite place exactly when that was, and it certainly doesn’t appear in his narration at the time. He is presently sticking to this interpretation even after receiving information that should falsify it: according to Snape, it is impossible to tamper with the memory of a prophecy.
And, let’s not forget, there’s another reason this is important: the memory is leaking back into Snape. According to Minerva, Snape is held to Dumbledore’s service by his guilt over Lily’s death. Whether or not Lily was tortured seems to matter to him… perhaps Dumbledore had told him that she was. Now, Snape knows that the memory falsifies torture; this may weaken the bonds tying him to Dumbledore. This is without even touching upon Harry’s interpretation of events, in which Dumbledore deliberately set up Lily and James to be killed in order to bring down Voldemort. Obviously, should Snape come to the same conclusion, his anger over the death of Lily will suddenly pivot and he will become unpredictable.
I wondered whether he had been memory charmed with that memory, but since Harry could see Thestrals afterwards, I assumed it was a real memory.
One of the problems of fiction, and particularly magical fiction, is that all the rules aren’t spelled out. If you’re memory charmed with the scene of a death, does that allow you to see a thestral?
EDIT: IN Chapter 86, a very strange description as Harry recounts his memory of his parents’ death to Snape:
Sounds like someone coming out of a memory in a Pensieve. And Dumbledore did race him off to his office, alone, when he got demented.
BUT, at least in the narrative, Harry’s remembering occurs before being taken off to the office.
I think it was implied that the memory wasn’t the cause for Harry being able to see Thestrals; Harry seeing Death in the form of a Dementor was. From Chapter 49:
Thanks, that’s a good one.
Ok, so now updating, there is not evidence against the memory being implanted. Also, that fact that Quirrell suggests the memory makes it more likely he implanted it.
I think it’s stronger than that. Quirrell suggesting this memory can only have two implications that I can see:
Either 1) A baby remembering an event like this in the HPMOR universe is not, in any way that Quirrell would notice, unusual, and would even be expected. This seems unlikely and unsatisfying to me. No reason for the existence of this discrepancy between their world and ours has been shown, no excuse made. I also think “how does anyone know this story?” is the nagging rationalist doubt Harry experiences when he first hears of it. Especially—how would one remember a conversation in detail before having learned the language it is in, or any language at all? If anything he would remember tones, emotions, sights. His supposed recall is an extremely improbable feat for baby Harry.
Or 2) Quirrell knows both that the memory was implanted and its contents. This is consistent with Quirrell, particularly that he has made the right guess for the wrong reasons, as previously described in Ch.49, “Prior Information”. The main lesson from that chapter is that we should not assume that Quirrell’s (or anyone’s) seemingly extraordinary deductions are actually deductions, but look for other reasons why he would have that information.
The simplest explanation for #2 is that Quirrell knows because Quirrell placed the memories. I am assuming that the inability of Quirrell to interact magically with Harry is real because EY has called it a literary necessity, but Quirrel/Voldemort/Riddle/Monroe could have just placed the (unusually clear and detailed) memory into the infant Harry before turning him into a horcrux that he would then not be able to magically interact with (is this a thing that always happens with human horcruxes?) There would be no need to obliviate the real events afterwards, the 15-month-old babe would not remember anyway, but he could also just have Bellatrix do it. This would be part of some version of “Voldemort faked his own death.” There are a few of versions of how this might have happened, and I haven’t settled out what I believe yet.
The other possibility for #2 is that someone else, most likely Dumbledore, placed the false memories for reasons that are not clear to me and that Quirrell has come by this information somehow. If he had done it, and Minerva knew the secret she might be a weak occlumency link in the Order’s chain, allowing Voldemort’s legendary legilimency to obtain any information she has. She seems highly trustworthy but not particularly secure. I can’t think of any reasons why Dumbledore would do this, though. It seems to only disadvantage Dumbledore’s priorities.
It is possible, I suppose, that dementors have the ability to make their victims recall even the faintest of bad memories in stunning detail, or that Dumbledore has some inscrutable reason for faking the events of that night. Overall I think the most likely explanation is that Quirrell planted Harry’s memory of Godric’s Hollow.
3) Quirrell was pattern matching. People would see their worst memory when faced with a dementor, Harry needed to see a death to be able to see thestrals, and the murder of his parents was a likely candidate for his worst memory.
At that point, and perhaps at no point, did Harry tell Quirrell the details of what he remembered, so your objections about the detailed nature of the memory aren’t very strong. That a 1 year old could process Mommy being killed doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch.
You’re right that the elaborate nature of the memories does point them to being fakes, it’s just that Harry hasn’t told Quirrell how elaborate those memories are.
But the next few sentences are support for your theory.
The Professor would make a poor poker player—he can never help smiling about his own cleverness. The book is full of such tells. I think EY makes these as purposeful tells.
I think it is highly unreasonable that Quirrell/Voldemort would have managed to get himself killed when he was alone with a 1 year old. Would a guy trying to protect his life with multiple horcruxes been so ridiculously sloppy about the child with a prophesied power to destroy him?
Pop in a henchman (bellatrix) and have her drop a large rock on Harry’s head. Done.
More likely, Quirrell left Harry alive and faked his own death for his own purposes.
My original theory is that Quirrell plans to take possession of Harry’s body at some point in the future, and so was setting him up, and is setting him up, as the slayer of the Dark Lord so that he can be that savior some day.
Dumbledore attempted to get Voldemort killed with a dark ritual, performed by Lily. Voldemort recognized the ploy, and played along, making it seemingly come true.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if Harry is Quirrell. Between time traveling and bodily possession, there are about a zillion ways that the Magical Link of Doom between Harry and Quirrell is actually the interaction of the same person time turned.
As for implanting the memory, see my previous EDIT upthread on Dumbledore doing it while Harry was demented.
One of the many Harry=Quirrell passages.
If comprehending the nature of Dementors is required to see Thestrals, how does Quirrel—or anyone else—see them? Quirrel seems to accept that “seeing Death” means simply seeing someone killed, perhaps someone dear to you.
I would assume that understanding the nature of Dementors isn’t required to be able to see Thestrals, it’s just that it’s possibly sufficient to see them.
What? Are there any popular conceptions of how memory is stored? I don’t think I’ve ever heard any.
One popular conception, if I’ve got my pop psychology right, is that [people believe that] memories are stored in brains like they’re stored in computers; that is, they’re archived at a particular location and are always in principle retrievable, even though it might take a lot of effort to do so. You’ll see this popular conception in action if you watch children’s cartoons where the plot involves going into a character’s brain in some metaphorical way; a less high-tech metaphor might visualize the brain as a giant collection of filing cabinets (I’m thinking of an episode of Spongebob in particular).
Right, I heard the cabinet metaphor before. Another piece of evidence that people think that way is that they often unquestioningly trust memories retrieved via regressive hypnosis and stuff to be genuine.
No we’re not. You’re confusing this memory with the first time Harry is told the standard story of what happened by McGonagall. All we’re told about this memory is
You’re right, I was confusing the two.
Nonetheless, the memory matches up with the standard story, and something is a bit off with the standard story.