So, what did Harry do in that minute and a half he had with Hermione’s body?
My best guess is that he transfigured her body into something, then transfigured something else into a copy of her body. Either that or he just used partial transfiguration on her brain and left the rest of the body behind as unimportant.
It’s just not like Harry to just abandon his efforts to preserve her body, especially after he took care to keep it cold. If he has her brain transfigured into a coin or something, that should suffice as a preservation method.
You’ll notice that he made sure no-one went in the room for several hours, during which he had his Time-Turner unlocked. He then went in there himself.
That doesn’t explain what the past him was doing. Had six hours past between the troll attack and then? Even if not, it seems a wast of time to sit for awhile and just waste time when he could have done his traveling back immediately after his time-turner was unlocked.
I think Harry spent the time sitting in front of the room planning what he was going to do to revive Hermione, because what went wrong when he got her killed was largely due to time constraints. It is explicitly stated that he was there for hours, and Minerva says it looks like years have passed when he comes out. So, I also think that whatever Harry planned, and then tried for several hours, did not work, and he came out with Hermione still dead. He is saying that there is nothing left to plan at the beginning of 92, whereas after he cools Hermione he thinks that he now has time to think. That strongly suggests he thought, tried the plan, and it failed.
On the other hand, Minerva has been told explicitly that people have generally not done everything they can, teaches Transfiguration, and quite definitely feels terrible over Hermione’s death. She is also free to use the Time-Turner. So, yes, I also think she went back, Transfigured herself into Hermione, and let herself be killed, as that was, by that point, the only way to save Hermione’s life. She probably borrowed Harry’s invisibility cloak to hide Hermione from all the people who mustn’t know that she is still alive if she is to survive. That hasn’t happened yet, but there is still time. (Note that she also identifies with the other specified victim of the troll, Mrs Norris.)
This is well within Minerva’s capabilities as stated, explains who was asking for the troll to be led away (Hermione under a cloak), and fits with Dumbledore’s comment about losing another friend instead. It also has the potential to appease the feminists, because Hermione is saved by a woman acting heroically after Harry has failed.
I also find it a lot easier to live with. My reaction to death has got stronger as I’ve got older, and I cope a lot more easily with someone sacrificing themselves to save someone else than with someone just being killed. Agency matters. I still feel a bit sorry for the troll, though.
I don’t know about the feminists, but I’d be happier if there were more than one female rationalist in the story. And I’d definitely be interested to see a rationalist Minerva taking part rather than dead.
One trope I’ve gotten very tired of is the character who becomes much wiser and/or better and then dies almost immediately. I want to see how the improved version handles their life.
A rationalist Minerva would be great, but I must admit my scepticism of how far she can get. She has a lot to unlearn compared to someone like Hermione, and her only potential mentors are Harry (who has too much else on his mind) and Quirrell (who is Quirrell).
The likelihood of this theory is definitely boosted by “Hermione’s” last words, as that’s exactly the message that a disguised McG would want to give him.
No, edkeyes is saying that McG would have a higher chance of saying that if she were dying than Hermione would have of saying that if she were dying. Hermione might want to say something completely unrelated.
If we’re thinking of who else might have been in Hermione’s place, McGonagall only kind of fits:
“There was a burst of something that was magic and also more, a shout louder than an earthquake and containing a thousand books, a thousand libraries, all spoken in a single cry that was Hermione; too vast to be understood, except that Harry suddenly knew that Hermione had whited out the pain, and was glad not to be dying alone.”
That’s a very Ravenclaw way to die. Who fits better?
Harry told his patronus to specifically seek out Hermione, which lead him to the Troll. He also got a response back of “AHHHHHHHHHH”, which seems suspicious enough, but not completely solid evidence. These details don’t seem to match up with the idea that somebody else died in Hermione’s place.
I think we are meant to assume that Hermione did die, or at least experienced something close enough to death that Dumbledore was alerted.
I think this theory is cool, and sort of hope that this is what happened. But… Dumbledore says he felt a student die. Whatever magical detection he uses for this probably wouldn’t trigger for Polyjuiced McGonagall.
What about Transfiguration, which is what davidchart talks about? If you are literally becoming another copy of an existing student, perhaps this interacts with the wards differently than merely drinking a potion that alters your appearance.
(Yes, transfiguring yourself into another living being is fatal, but not straight away, and this is a suicide mission)
Mcgonagal would have to have someone else transfigure her, or else the spell would end when she dies. (Perhaps dumbledore? Not sure he would go for it.) Polyjuice would be another approach, but it wears off after an hour, so dumbledore would have to do another body swap after Hermione/mcgonagal is killed. Again, not sure he would go for it. Who else? Quirrel might be desperate enough. Snape is loose but I don’t see him going for it.
So several things would have to fall into place but the plot buildup is definitely there.
Wasn’t there a story about someone who accidentally Polyjuiced herself into a cat and, instead of getting help, hid from the teachers, so she got stuck cat-like? McGonagall could turn into a cat and Polyjuice herself into Hermione from that state, to get the effect deliberately. The waxy, doll-like appearance could be a side-effect of deliberately botched Polyjuice. Or… Hermione could Transfigure McGonagall. Hard, but quite possibly just within her capabilities, with guidance.
The ward message is a problem, but, as jaibot suggested, maybe McGonagall enrolled herself as a student. Or maybe the wards sound the same for students and teachers, and Dumbledore interpreted it when he saw “Hermione” dead.
The description of the death scene is Harry’s interpretation, not objective truth.
At this point in the narrative, I can add epicycles to deal with the problems, which is just as it should be. It is a beautiful theory (and my baby!), and I still have a few hours before the really ugly facts show up.
Edit: And here they are. The tragedy of theories strikes again…
I see what you mean. Good catch. That broadens up the possibilities a bit. In any case, he almost certainly was doing something to preserve Hermione’s body. He certainly wouldn’t just abandon it like that.
Hmm, it looks like the first version of this did break a convention, and a strikethru won’t stop it annoying people, so let’s edit it as well and put a new post up.
On the one hand, some things make it look like he did something of great significance there. (Which is why this subthread is happening at all.)
On the other hand, ch.92 seems to show Harry, from his own point of view, at least convinced that Hermione is lost-and-gone-for-ever and that there’s nothing he can do about it. Which means that either Eliezer is deceiving his readers in ways I think he wouldn’t, or Harry has managed to memory-charm himself, or he hasn’t done anything that (from his own perspective) gives a substantial chance of saving or recovering her. The first two of those three options seem pretty unlikely to me.
Figuring out how to resurrect the dead will be hard enough. Figuring out the way the brain connects to the body and reconnecting all the individual nerve connections makes the challenge much harder. I’m not sure we know all the connections even now with much better technology and decades of additional scholarship. Saving just the brain makes the problem much harder. Keep in mind that the reasons actual cryo sites offer brain only options has a lot to to with cost, storage, transport, etc and not due to thinking its a fundamentally better option.
But it is fundamentally better: the smaller the volume you are trying to vitrify, the better the process works because the greater surface area is compared to volume, and so you get faster and more even cooling (and in humans, you get problems with circulation getting blocked off after a certain point). Go read through http://chronopause.com/ . This is why you can drop small things into LN2 and they recover fine, or why Fahy could do a kidney and bring it back, but why we can’t do larger things.
Figuring out the way the brain connects to the body and reconnecting all the individual nerve connections makes the challenge much harder.
I study neuroscience. You may know something I don’t, but I think body transplants would be a lot easier than resurrecting the dead, as long as you save the first few sections of the spinal chord as well—repairing broken spinal chords, albeit imperfectly, is somewhat in the realm of current technology. If we’re talking magic, I don’t think spinal chord injuries would even be a big deal.
Edit: never mind everything written below about the freezing
I was quite disappointed when Harry just froze her like that. The rapidly expanding ice will destroy much of her data—in real cryonics you pump ’em full of antifreeze to prevent this. Even if he revives her, she might not quite be the same now. He should have transfigured her head into a small crystalline structure and later found some way to securely maintain the spell (and if no one knows he did it, the pesky authorities won’t try to take off the spell).
Oops...somehow my imagination inserted freezing!
In that case, he really aught to contact a team of muggle and wizard doctors and have them swap knowledge immediately...(might be too risky for other reasons, of course)
Or your mind read Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. I originally thought that he froze her until I read more carefully. (This is presumably a risk primarily for American readers.)
So, what did Harry do in that minute and a half he had with Hermione’s body?
My best guess is that he transfigured her body into something, then transfigured something else into a copy of her body. Either that or he just used partial transfiguration on her brain and left the rest of the body behind as unimportant.
It’s just not like Harry to just abandon his efforts to preserve her body, especially after he took care to keep it cold. If he has her brain transfigured into a coin or something, that should suffice as a preservation method.
You’ll notice that he made sure no-one went in the room for several hours, during which he had his Time-Turner unlocked. He then went in there himself.
That doesn’t explain what the past him was doing. Had six hours past between the troll attack and then? Even if not, it seems a wast of time to sit for awhile and just waste time when he could have done his traveling back immediately after his time-turner was unlocked.
I think Harry spent the time sitting in front of the room planning what he was going to do to revive Hermione, because what went wrong when he got her killed was largely due to time constraints. It is explicitly stated that he was there for hours, and Minerva says it looks like years have passed when he comes out. So, I also think that whatever Harry planned, and then tried for several hours, did not work, and he came out with Hermione still dead. He is saying that there is nothing left to plan at the beginning of 92, whereas after he cools Hermione he thinks that he now has time to think. That strongly suggests he thought, tried the plan, and it failed.
On the other hand, Minerva has been told explicitly that people have generally not done everything they can, teaches Transfiguration, and quite definitely feels terrible over Hermione’s death. She is also free to use the Time-Turner. So, yes, I also think she went back, Transfigured herself into Hermione, and let herself be killed, as that was, by that point, the only way to save Hermione’s life. She probably borrowed Harry’s invisibility cloak to hide Hermione from all the people who mustn’t know that she is still alive if she is to survive. That hasn’t happened yet, but there is still time. (Note that she also identifies with the other specified victim of the troll, Mrs Norris.)
This is well within Minerva’s capabilities as stated, explains who was asking for the troll to be led away (Hermione under a cloak), and fits with Dumbledore’s comment about losing another friend instead. It also has the potential to appease the feminists, because Hermione is saved by a woman acting heroically after Harry has failed.
I also find it a lot easier to live with. My reaction to death has got stronger as I’ve got older, and I cope a lot more easily with someone sacrificing themselves to save someone else than with someone just being killed. Agency matters. I still feel a bit sorry for the troll, though.
I don’t know about the feminists, but I’d be happier if there were more than one female rationalist in the story. And I’d definitely be interested to see a rationalist Minerva taking part rather than dead.
One trope I’ve gotten very tired of is the character who becomes much wiser and/or better and then dies almost immediately. I want to see how the improved version handles their life.
A rationalist Minerva would be great, but I must admit my scepticism of how far she can get. She has a lot to unlearn compared to someone like Hermione, and her only potential mentors are Harry (who has too much else on his mind) and Quirrell (who is Quirrell).
The likelihood of this theory is definitely boosted by “Hermione’s” last words, as that’s exactly the message that a disguised McG would want to give him.
...it is? So you’re saying Hermione would, as she lay dying, want to tell Harry it was all his fault?
No, edkeyes is saying that McG would have a higher chance of saying that if she were dying than Hermione would have of saying that if she were dying. Hermione might want to say something completely unrelated.
If we’re thinking of who else might have been in Hermione’s place, McGonagall only kind of fits:
“There was a burst of something that was magic and also more, a shout louder than an earthquake and containing a thousand books, a thousand libraries, all spoken in a single cry that was Hermione; too vast to be understood, except that Harry suddenly knew that Hermione had whited out the pain, and was glad not to be dying alone.”
That’s a very Ravenclaw way to die. Who fits better?
Any member of the Verres family.
Harry told his patronus to specifically seek out Hermione, which lead him to the Troll. He also got a response back of “AHHHHHHHHHH”, which seems suspicious enough, but not completely solid evidence. These details don’t seem to match up with the idea that somebody else died in Hermione’s place.
I think we are meant to assume that Hermione did die, or at least experienced something close enough to death that Dumbledore was alerted.
Seeing a glowing super bright human patronus for the first time might be enough to get an ′ “AHHHHHHHHHH”′
While stunned, under an invisibility cloak, watching someone transfigured into you die...
Fair point.
I think this theory is cool, and sort of hope that this is what happened. But… Dumbledore says he felt a student die. Whatever magical detection he uses for this probably wouldn’t trigger for Polyjuiced McGonagall.
I bet the Deputy Headmistress can enroll students at will.
Unless she told him what her plan was before he encountered harry.
What about Transfiguration, which is what davidchart talks about? If you are literally becoming another copy of an existing student, perhaps this interacts with the wards differently than merely drinking a potion that alters your appearance.
(Yes, transfiguring yourself into another living being is fatal, but not straight away, and this is a suicide mission)
Mcgonagal would have to have someone else transfigure her, or else the spell would end when she dies. (Perhaps dumbledore? Not sure he would go for it.) Polyjuice would be another approach, but it wears off after an hour, so dumbledore would have to do another body swap after Hermione/mcgonagal is killed. Again, not sure he would go for it. Who else? Quirrel might be desperate enough. Snape is loose but I don’t see him going for it.
So several things would have to fall into place but the plot buildup is definitely there.
Wasn’t there a story about someone who accidentally Polyjuiced herself into a cat and, instead of getting help, hid from the teachers, so she got stuck cat-like? McGonagall could turn into a cat and Polyjuice herself into Hermione from that state, to get the effect deliberately. The waxy, doll-like appearance could be a side-effect of deliberately botched Polyjuice. Or… Hermione could Transfigure McGonagall. Hard, but quite possibly just within her capabilities, with guidance.
The ward message is a problem, but, as jaibot suggested, maybe McGonagall enrolled herself as a student. Or maybe the wards sound the same for students and teachers, and Dumbledore interpreted it when he saw “Hermione” dead.
The description of the death scene is Harry’s interpretation, not objective truth.
At this point in the narrative, I can add epicycles to deal with the problems, which is just as it should be. It is a beautiful theory (and my baby!), and I still have a few hours before the really ugly facts show up.
Edit: And here they are. The tragedy of theories strikes again…
My condolences. It really was a nice way to save Hermione.
It doesn’t explain what he was doing, but it does mean he has a lot longer than one and a half minutes to do it.
I see what you mean. Good catch. That broadens up the possibilities a bit. In any case, he almost certainly was doing something to preserve Hermione’s body. He certainly wouldn’t just abandon it like that.
Hmm, it looks like the first version of this did break a convention, and a strikethru won’t stop it annoying people, so let’s edit it as well and put a new post up.
On the one hand, some things make it look like he did something of great significance there. (Which is why this subthread is happening at all.)
On the other hand, ch.92 seems to show Harry, from his own point of view, at least convinced that Hermione is lost-and-gone-for-ever and that there’s nothing he can do about it. Which means that either Eliezer is deceiving his readers in ways I think he wouldn’t, or Harry has managed to memory-charm himself, or he hasn’t done anything that (from his own perspective) gives a substantial chance of saving or recovering her. The first two of those three options seem pretty unlikely to me.
It strikes me that Harry just asked how to use Memory Charms, and he has access to a time turner...
Would it make more sense to just save her brain instead of saving her whole body?
Figuring out how to resurrect the dead will be hard enough. Figuring out the way the brain connects to the body and reconnecting all the individual nerve connections makes the challenge much harder. I’m not sure we know all the connections even now with much better technology and decades of additional scholarship. Saving just the brain makes the problem much harder. Keep in mind that the reasons actual cryo sites offer brain only options has a lot to to with cost, storage, transport, etc and not due to thinking its a fundamentally better option.
But it is fundamentally better: the smaller the volume you are trying to vitrify, the better the process works because the greater surface area is compared to volume, and so you get faster and more even cooling (and in humans, you get problems with circulation getting blocked off after a certain point). Go read through http://chronopause.com/ . This is why you can drop small things into LN2 and they recover fine, or why Fahy could do a kidney and bring it back, but why we can’t do larger things.
Those are instrumentally better reasons, not fundamentally better.
I study neuroscience. You may know something I don’t, but I think body transplants would be a lot easier than resurrecting the dead, as long as you save the first few sections of the spinal chord as well—repairing broken spinal chords, albeit imperfectly, is somewhat in the realm of current technology. If we’re talking magic, I don’t think spinal chord injuries would even be a big deal.
Edit: never mind everything written below about the freezing
I was quite disappointed when Harry just froze her like that. The rapidly expanding ice will destroy much of her data—in real cryonics you pump ’em full of antifreeze to prevent this. Even if he revives her, she might not quite be the same now. He should have transfigured her head into a small crystalline structure and later found some way to securely maintain the spell (and if no one knows he did it, the pesky authorities won’t try to take off the spell).
Harry didn’t freeze her. He cooled her to 5° Celsius, equivalent to 41° Fahrenheit and well above the freezing point.
Oops...somehow my imagination inserted freezing! In that case, he really aught to contact a team of muggle and wizard doctors and have them swap knowledge immediately...(might be too risky for other reasons, of course)
Or your mind read Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. I originally thought that he froze her until I read more carefully. (This is presumably a risk primarily for American readers.)
Definitely. There’s been some news around this: HEAVEN: The head anastomosis venture Project outline for the first human head transplantation with spinal linkage (GEMINI.
I don’t think think I know anything you don’t. It’s possible I just have a dated conception of how hard it is to repair severed nerves.
Yeah, on reflection that branch of my theory looks more likely.