This was said by Quirrell in Parseltongue. If you can only tell the
truth in Parseltongue, then Quirrell was really forbidding Harry
from obtaining the stone himself.
If Quirrell can’t lie in Parseltongue (and not just Harry, since Harry’s speaking as a standard Parselmouth but Quirrell is speaking as a sentient snake), and if that prohibition enforces the sincerity of imperative commands and not just declarative statements, then clearly what Quirrell is saying is that Harry should try to make his own Philosopher’s Stone.
“It’s not a secret.” Hermione flipped the page, showing Harry the
diagrams. “The instructions are right on the next page. It’s just
so difficult that only Nicholas Flamel’s done it.”
“Well, it can’t work,” Hermione said. She’d flown across the library
to look up the only book on alchemy that wasn’t in the Restricted
Section. And then—she remembered the crushing letdown, all the
sudden hope dissipating like mist. “Because all alchemical circles
have to be drawn ‘to the fineness of a child’s hair’, it isn’t any
finer for some alchemies than others. And wizards have Omnioculars,
and I haven’t heard of any spells where you use Omnioculars to
magnify things and do them exactly.
So the first thing Hermione mentions as a limitation of doing alchemy is the insane precision of the circle you have to draw. But what if there were already an acceptable, permanent alchemy setup just lying around somewhere where Harry could get to it?
The three of them stood within the Headmaster’s private Transfiguration
workroom, where the shining phoenix of Dumbledore’s Patronus had
told her to bring Harry, moments after her own Patronus had reached
him. Light shone down through the skylights and illuminated the
great seven-pointed alchemical diagram drawn in the center of the
circular room, showing it to be a little dusty, which saddened
Minerva. Transfiguration research was one of Dumbledore’s great
enjoyments, and she’d known how pressed for time he’d been lately,
but not that he was this pressed.
“Because all alchemical circles have to be drawn ‘to the fineness of a child’s hair’, it isn’t any finer for some alchemies than others.
strongly implies that different alchemical procedures require different circles. What are the odds that Dumbledore just happens to have the right circle for philosopher’s stone creation ready, given that he has no desire for immortality, no special need for gold, and access to an existing philosopher’s stone anyway?
We definitely don’t know enough specifics about HPMoR-alchemy to come to any firm conclusions.
Does the “alchemical circle” that has to be so precise refer to just the containing circle itself, or to all the runes inside it, too? If the former, then the circle could be a permanent part of the room, while the runes are drawn (the earlier passage does say the Transfiguration studio’s diagram was “drawn”) slightly more crudely in some way that’s erasable. If the latter, then,
Are there different runes for different alchemies, or is it always the same “board” that you perform different processes on top of? If the latter, then the whole room could be ready to go; if the former, then yeah, Harry may be out of luck.
I did some Googling about the history of alchemy, and the diagram I saw associated with the Philosopher’s Stone in several places was a circle-inscribed-in-a-square-inscribed-in-a-triangle-inscribed-in-the-Circle. If Eliezer is consistent with that, then Harry’s probably going to have to draw at least the runes on his own.
I do think that it makes more sense literarily for Harry to have to go through the trapped third-floor corridor to the room with the “magic mirror” rather than skipping it altogether. But as others have pointed out, if it is the Mirror of Erised and Dumbledore’s scheme is the same as in canon, HPMoR-Harry probably won’t qualify to receive the Stone, since he totally does want to use it, and (I hope) can’t somehow make himself not want to use it in a way that satisfies Dumbledore’s spell.
So maybe he’ll get to the mirror, find himself flummoxed, and then proceed to go make one. I don’t know.
Or maybe he goes to the room, gets the Mirror, and looking into the Mirror to correct himself, draws the circle just right.
(Since he does want to be able to make a Philosopher’s stone, not just to get one—he wants ‘mass-produced immortality’. And he had suggeted to Hermione that magical objects could be used to draw objects more precisely (only they were discussing a different object). And he had already used a supposedly-significant stone in battle in a least-magic-demanding way. And we haven’t seen even in Rowling’s world that the Mirror can only show ‘real-sized things’, so it can potentially magnify them.)
/u/solipsist, in another comment on this thread:
If Quirrell can’t lie in Parseltongue (and not just Harry, since Harry’s speaking as a standard Parselmouth but Quirrell is speaking as a sentient snake), and if that prohibition enforces the sincerity of imperative commands and not just declarative statements, then clearly what Quirrell is saying is that Harry should try to make his own Philosopher’s Stone.
So the first thing Hermione mentions as a limitation of doing alchemy is the insane precision of the circle you have to draw. But what if there were already an acceptable, permanent alchemy setup just lying around somewhere where Harry could get to it?
On the other hand,
strongly implies that different alchemical procedures require different circles. What are the odds that Dumbledore just happens to have the right circle for philosopher’s stone creation ready, given that he has no desire for immortality, no special need for gold, and access to an existing philosopher’s stone anyway?
We definitely don’t know enough specifics about HPMoR-alchemy to come to any firm conclusions.
Does the “alchemical circle” that has to be so precise refer to just the containing circle itself, or to all the runes inside it, too? If the former, then the circle could be a permanent part of the room, while the runes are drawn (the earlier passage does say the Transfiguration studio’s diagram was “drawn”) slightly more crudely in some way that’s erasable. If the latter, then,
Are there different runes for different alchemies, or is it always the same “board” that you perform different processes on top of? If the latter, then the whole room could be ready to go; if the former, then yeah, Harry may be out of luck.
I did some Googling about the history of alchemy, and the diagram I saw associated with the Philosopher’s Stone in several places was a circle-inscribed-in-a-square-inscribed-in-a-triangle-inscribed-in-the-Circle. If Eliezer is consistent with that, then Harry’s probably going to have to draw at least the runes on his own.
I do think that it makes more sense literarily for Harry to have to go through the trapped third-floor corridor to the room with the “magic mirror” rather than skipping it altogether. But as others have pointed out, if it is the Mirror of Erised and Dumbledore’s scheme is the same as in canon, HPMoR-Harry probably won’t qualify to receive the Stone, since he totally does want to use it, and (I hope) can’t somehow make himself not want to use it in a way that satisfies Dumbledore’s spell.
So maybe he’ll get to the mirror, find himself flummoxed, and then proceed to go make one. I don’t know.
Or maybe he goes to the room, gets the Mirror, and looking into the Mirror to correct himself, draws the circle just right.
(Since he does want to be able to make a Philosopher’s stone, not just to get one—he wants ‘mass-produced immortality’. And he had suggeted to Hermione that magical objects could be used to draw objects more precisely (only they were discussing a different object). And he had already used a supposedly-significant stone in battle in a least-magic-demanding way. And we haven’t seen even in Rowling’s world that the Mirror can only show ‘real-sized things’, so it can potentially magnify them.)
I guess I know what Harry told Fred/George to buy him in Chapter 98. The greatest alchemist tool ever! :D