As a comment on the story as a whole, I used to think it was likely that the story would cumulate with Harry finding the source of magic. But with only one arc left, there simply isn’t the time. It would be like the hobbits setting off to Mordor halfway through ‘the return of the king’.
I also thought there might be a hunt for the horocruxes, but I doubt there will be time for that either. Without the horocruxes destroyed, Quirrelmort will at least partially survive. I’m guessing Harry will too. Dumbledore might be killed, either by Quirrel or by Harry, when Harry realises that Dumbledore has been sitting on mass immortality. Hermione might be resurrected somehow, perhaps by a combination or the resurrection stone and the philosophers stone, depending on how the philosophers stone works.
All in all, it seems likely that there will still be interesting plot threads left, and most of the characters will still be alive. So will there be a sequel? If EY is too busy working on FAI to write it, maybe it could be a community effort. After all, there’s been some pretty good fiction written other LWers.
The following chapters together will be at least as long as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. There might be room for all sort of directions. Some stories work very well with endings that quickly escalate.
All in all, it seems likely that there will still be interesting plot threads left, and most of the characters will still be alive. So will there be a sequel?
Not from Yudkowsky. He has said before that he wants to wrap up all the plot points in this story.
My guess is that Hermione has already been resurrected. Her body was stolen. Harry returned from the future to a time when her body was still fresh, and took it to the future, when he has already defeated death.
If Harry gains access to arbitrarily powerful time travel (That’s how I’ve interpreted your scenario. I apologize if I’m wrong.), doesn’t that make the whole plot redundant? Can’t Harry just go back to the beginning and tell himself everything?
Well, what if even uber-time travel still has the paradox limitation. Harry figures out his becomus-goddus spell, and can go back in time arbitrarily far.
But if he mucks about with his own past in any way he doesn’t remember he may unhappen his omnipotent ass. Moreover, this is true of almost all of history. Any mucking about that might prevent his timeline from making him invincible would be verboten.
So, what could he do? Not go back and tell himself everything, it would be a big gamble that his past self could consciously fake its way through the events of his own past timeline well enough to keep him in existence.
No, he goes back and Imperiuses himself, and only interferes in his life in the manners that he recognizes must have always been his future self.
So he:
Gives himself the strange sense of certainty that makes him believe in magic in the first chapter.
Whispers to himself on the train to meet Hermione Granger.
Steals Hermione’s body (presumably what Harry did while alone with it was pointedly not observe it to leave a moment for future versions of himself to time travel in and steal it without creating a paradox)
I hope this isn’t right, but I assign a relatively high plausibility that future Harry is running behind the scenes throughout the story.
Another offhand guess, he kills Volemort in the past via his own remembered dialog. Voldemort agrees (sarcastically) with Harry’s mom that Harry is to live, she is to die, then requests she drop the wand and let him murder her. She doesn’t, and he kills her. Then he goes to kill Harry. But I don’t think “now drop the wand and let me murder you” was part of the deal.
My guess is he’s unknowingly (possibly due to time travel Harry) under some magic that makes everything he says Unbreakable, and when he kills her and then goes to kill Harry he’s killed by the oath enforcement mechanism, since he’s agreed that she’s to die and Harry is to live.
In that scenario he could become a closed timelike curve: go back, become the being that invented magic in the first place, and program it to record the brain states of everyone at every moment in there lives for future recall given a spell or ritual that he would then know. This could also explain the “Atlantis erased from time” business. It would rely on magic changing the laws of physics in a way that allows magic time travel to operate before magic existed—or for the invention of magic to have happened outside the timestream.
I would guess that the time travel would keep the restriction that he can’t change the past. So he could recover her body and resurrect her in the future, but couldn’t change the past events.
I also thought there might be a hunt for the horocruxes
They might be mostly gone. Dumbledore was MIA for much of the book. It has been hinted that one Horcrux has already being used.
> “There will be no second date,” said the green-lit silhouette in a voice so fearsome that it sounded, not only like a Death Eater, but like Amycus Carrow that one time just before Father told him to stop it, he wasn’t the Dark Lord.
> Amycus Carrow had always been one of the other problem people; Father had once told Draco to make sure he was never alone in the same room with Amycus...
> Draco’s heart was hammering in his chest so hard he worried it might explode right out of his chest in a shower of blood, like that curse Amycus Carrow had used once on a puppy.
> Filch simply wasn’t in Amycus Carrow’s league.
Or as Father had said, while any Malfoy should certainly know much of the secret lore, the more… costly rituals were better left to useful fools like Amycus Carrow.
So, Amycus Carrow is a psychopath who is willing to do dark rituals. I don’t see how this means that a Horcrux has already been used ( do Horcruxes have a use beyond preserving life?)
Dumbledore was MIA for much of the book.
But Rationalist!Horcruxes are hidden in ocean trenches, on voyager 2 etc. I don’t see that Dumbledoor would be able to find them, or reach them even if he knew where they were. I also think that in canon Voldemort knew when a Horocrux was destroyed, but if Quirrel thought that Dumbledoor was a serious threat (e.g. because a Horocrux was destroyed) I think he would stop holding back and just kill Dumbledoor. There must be a way for someone with the intellegence, rationality and raw power Quirrel has.
Incidentally, now that Harry has given Quirrel a physics textbook, the odds of a transfigured antimatter bomb being used just went up. Unlike nukes, antimatter weapons can be made small enough yeild that you don’t flatten the whole of hogwarts when you use one.
HPMOR Horcruxes are devices with a ghost attached. When touched, the ghost inhabits a victim and gives it the ghost’s memories. But these victims are shallow copies of the original and easily dispatched.
> “There will be no second date,” said the green-lit silhouette in a voice so fearsome that it sounded, not only like a Death Eater, but like Amycus Carrow that one time just before Father told him to stop it, he wasn’t the Dark Lord.
Sure bet that Carrow has a Riddle ghost inside him? No. But still, a possibility.
Subtle indeed. Conservation of detail might suggest that Amycus Carrow is going to play some sort of role involving dark rituals conducted in the past, but… is there an advantage to having a human Horcrux? I mean, its a lot less safe than all the other Horcruxes, but if if allowed Voldemort to posses Amycus Carrow then it would be useful.
I’d suggest not so much subtle as overinterpreting. Carrow is shallow-minded and status-driven, he thinks he’ll sound more deatheaterish if he puts on a particularly grim voice, and Malfoy sees right through him and tells him to stop being silly. This is simple, compatible with everything else we’re told, and sufficient to explain Draco’s memory described here.
I’d agree—I doubt Carrow is a Horocrux, but the repeated mentions of him might indicate that he has some further role to play, possible involving dark rituals. But the joint probability (Carrow will appear) and (his role will involve dark rituals) and (dark ritual is a Horocrux) is quite low.
Also, IIRC there are 7 Horocruxes in cannon. In HPMOR, it is hinted that we have one for each greek element (magma, ocean trench, stratosphere and buried underground) and one in space. Presumably, Harry is one and Quirrel is one. So all Horocruxes are accounted for.
I’m sorry I don’t understand. Even when discussing a work of fiction, the probability that ‘Carrow has conducted a dark ritual which makes him a Horocrux’ has to be strictly lower than the probability that ‘Carrow has a further part to play’.
Probability doen’t stop working in certain fields, its universal.
Sure, if you think you have a really good read of the author. But as I said, all Horocruxes are accounted for, and as gjm said, there is a simpler explanation, and so I’m sticking by my opinion that Carrow probably isn’t a Horocrux, even if he does show up later.
That sounds a lot more like a Rowling type twist than an Eliezer type twist. There are elements that could be interpreted as vague and oblique hints, but it doesn’t suggest particularly clever or well-considered behavior on anyone’s part.
“I see,” said Professor Quirrell. “And what would you have done about the threat to me if your spell hadn’t worked for destroying the Dementor?”
“Plan B,” said Harry. “Encase the Dementor in dense metal with a high melting point, probably tungsten, drop it into an active volcano, and hope it ends up inside Earth’s mantle. Ah, the whole planet is filled with molten lava under its surface—”
“Yes,” said Professor Quirrell. “I know.” The Defense Professor was wearing a very odd smile. “I really should have thought of that myself, all things considered.”
(...)
“Oh?” said Professor Quirrell. “But there is an interesting pattern to them, you see. One might say it sounds like something of a riddle.”
What Quirrell is remarking on is that Harry’s following an elemental pattern, not that he himself followed the same one.
Q is saying that he didn’t think of that as a thing to do with a Dementor and should have. One possible reason for his “very odd smile” is that he did already think of it as a thing to do with a horcrux. I think it’s reasonable to call this a hint that maybe there is a Voldemort horcrux buried deep underground. (Certainly far from a proof that there is, though.)
Assuming those are horcruxes, not like parts of the Philosopher’s stone or something (but Horcruxes are more likely).
Totally-not-going-to-happen reason for Hogwarts to stop playing with a snitch: the “air” horcurx is a snitch. Dumbledore realizes that Snitches are dangerous, and bans touching them. (Much more likely: Mcgonagall becomes headmistress).
Quirrell in Ch46 said they ” sound like something of a riddle,” which I guess could be interpreted to mean Tom Riddle, which may be evidence in favor of horcrux-status or something similar.
The entire world plays with a snitch. It seems very unlikely that any one school would stop playing with a snitch (and thereby ruin their preparation for games against other schools, adult competition etc).
But, if the whole of Hogwarts stops playing altogether, perhaps because the school has been destroyed, then technically they have stopped playing with a snitch.
The last act of whoever is the head (Dumbeldoor might have died) is to declare that in the last year of Hogwarts, all houses won the cup, as a symbolic act of unity in the face of tragedy.
But, if the whole of Hogwarts stops playing altogether, perhaps because the school has been destroyed, then technically they have stopped playing with a
Harry’s wish was for quidditch to be played without a snitch. Not playing quidditch doesn’t fulfill the wish.
Is the present king of France bald? I’m not sure where Quirrell and Harry stand on the truth of vacuous statements- if Hogwarts plays zero games of quidditch, all of them do not involve the snitch.
Also, technically Harry wished that “in Hogwarts we should play quidditch without the Snitch.” Should can mean “will” but it can also mean Quirrell will somehow make it a moral fact that quidditch should be played that way, not a factual matter of actually playing that way.
Alsso Merlin’ss Interdict preventss powerful sspells from passing through ssuch a device, ssince it iss not truly alive.
By which I infer that if the horcrux is alive, you can pass powerful spells through it.
Also, that whole discussion simply screams of Quirrell setting Harry up for a ritual where Quirrell will transfer his mind to Harry’s body, and set up shop there, the end.
Harry musing on what Q might have done to the Pioneer Plaque:
“Or… hm. A portrait seems to store a whole human brain’s worth of information… you couldn’t have added any extra mass to the probe, but maybe you could’ve turned an existing part into a portrait of yourself? Or you found a volunteer dying of a terminal illness, snuck them into nasa, and cast a spell to make sure their ghost ended up in the plaque.
Q later describing the Horcrux spell.
Horcrux sspell channelss death-bursst through casster, createss your own ghosst insstead of victim’ss, imprintss ghosst in sspecial device.
It seems another case where someone’s musing turns up in detail later in the book. There are lots of these. Often, it just seems like EY foreshadowing (and possibly making the story nature of the events part of the plot), but in this case, it also seems very much like making up a lie that fits in with Harry’s preconceptions.
Unlike nukes, antimatter weapons can be made small enough yeild that you don’t flatten the whole of hogwarts when you use one.
...but the amount of antimatter you’d use for that is very small indeed; about 0.000023 grams for an explosive yield equivalent to 1 ton of TNT, going by Wikipedia’s numbers. I wouldn’t put it past Quirrell to figure out a way to transmute quantities that small, but it’d be tricky; everything we’ve seen transmuted onscreen has been macroscopic.
Also, all the initial yield would be in the form of highly energetic gamma rays, so we’d likely be looking at something more like a hard radiation pulse than a bomb.
Do wizards generally have a reason to transmute microscopic things?
There’s also the possibility of transmuting a larger portion of antimatter, levitated within a vacuum (bubble head charm maybe?) and then subdivde it, if that is possible.
You could transmute something into something containing trace amounts of antimatter. Once the gamma rays hit something and get absorbed, they’ll turn to heat. The bomb will make the floor explode.
As a comment on the story as a whole, I used to think it was likely that the story would cumulate with Harry finding the source of magic. But with only one arc left, there simply isn’t the time. It would be like the hobbits setting off to Mordor halfway through ‘the return of the king’.
I also thought there might be a hunt for the horocruxes, but I doubt there will be time for that either. Without the horocruxes destroyed, Quirrelmort will at least partially survive. I’m guessing Harry will too. Dumbledore might be killed, either by Quirrel or by Harry, when Harry realises that Dumbledore has been sitting on mass immortality. Hermione might be resurrected somehow, perhaps by a combination or the resurrection stone and the philosophers stone, depending on how the philosophers stone works.
All in all, it seems likely that there will still be interesting plot threads left, and most of the characters will still be alive. So will there be a sequel? If EY is too busy working on FAI to write it, maybe it could be a community effort. After all, there’s been some pretty good fiction written other LWers.
The following chapters together will be at least as long as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. There might be room for all sort of directions. Some stories work very well with endings that quickly escalate.
Not from Yudkowsky. He has said before that he wants to wrap up all the plot points in this story.
If he manages to fit everything in the last arc, then never mind ‘quickly escalate’ its going to be a literary singularity.
The final arc is 90,000 words. That’s a fairly large book on its own; there’s time enough, if he’s even halfway terse.
I don’t think you read as much epic fantasy as I do.
I’ve read Worm. Does that count?
However, getting your point across with fewer words is also a skill. 90,000 is enough to describe quite a lot of things happening.
EY for better or worse is generally quite verbose, although out of the whole of HPMOR the only part I felt was superfluous was Hermine vs the bullies.
It does, but my comment was intended as a joke.
My guess is that Hermione has already been resurrected. Her body was stolen. Harry returned from the future to a time when her body was still fresh, and took it to the future, when he has already defeated death.
If Harry gains access to arbitrarily powerful time travel (That’s how I’ve interpreted your scenario. I apologize if I’m wrong.), doesn’t that make the whole plot redundant? Can’t Harry just go back to the beginning and tell himself everything?
That’s a well-established fanfiction genre, but I think its popularity is actually evidence against its use here.
On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Peggy Sue that ended with the time-travel event rather than starting with it.
That would pretty much DELETE ALL THE PEOPLE AFFECTED and REPLACE THEM WITH DIFFERENT VERSIONS, so I don’t think Harry would do that.
Well, what if even uber-time travel still has the paradox limitation. Harry figures out his becomus-goddus spell, and can go back in time arbitrarily far.
But if he mucks about with his own past in any way he doesn’t remember he may unhappen his omnipotent ass. Moreover, this is true of almost all of history. Any mucking about that might prevent his timeline from making him invincible would be verboten.
So, what could he do? Not go back and tell himself everything, it would be a big gamble that his past self could consciously fake its way through the events of his own past timeline well enough to keep him in existence.
No, he goes back and Imperiuses himself, and only interferes in his life in the manners that he recognizes must have always been his future self.
So he:
Gives himself the strange sense of certainty that makes him believe in magic in the first chapter.
Whispers to himself on the train to meet Hermione Granger.
Steals Hermione’s body (presumably what Harry did while alone with it was pointedly not observe it to leave a moment for future versions of himself to time travel in and steal it without creating a paradox)
I hope this isn’t right, but I assign a relatively high plausibility that future Harry is running behind the scenes throughout the story.
Another offhand guess, he kills Volemort in the past via his own remembered dialog. Voldemort agrees (sarcastically) with Harry’s mom that Harry is to live, she is to die, then requests she drop the wand and let him murder her. She doesn’t, and he kills her. Then he goes to kill Harry. But I don’t think “now drop the wand and let me murder you” was part of the deal.
My guess is he’s unknowingly (possibly due to time travel Harry) under some magic that makes everything he says Unbreakable, and when he kills her and then goes to kill Harry he’s killed by the oath enforcement mechanism, since he’s agreed that she’s to die and Harry is to live.
In that scenario he could become a closed timelike curve: go back, become the being that invented magic in the first place, and program it to record the brain states of everyone at every moment in there lives for future recall given a spell or ritual that he would then know. This could also explain the “Atlantis erased from time” business. It would rely on magic changing the laws of physics in a way that allows magic time travel to operate before magic existed—or for the invention of magic to have happened outside the timestream.
I would guess that the time travel would keep the restriction that he can’t change the past. So he could recover her body and resurrect her in the future, but couldn’t change the past events.
They might be mostly gone. Dumbledore was MIA for much of the book. It has been hinted that one Horcrux has already being used.
> “There will be no second date,” said the green-lit silhouette in a voice so fearsome that it sounded, not only like a Death Eater, but like Amycus Carrow that one time just before Father told him to stop it, he wasn’t the Dark Lord.
> Amycus Carrow had always been one of the other problem people; Father had once told Draco to make sure he was never alone in the same room with Amycus...
> Draco’s heart was hammering in his chest so hard he worried it might explode right out of his chest in a shower of blood, like that curse Amycus Carrow had used once on a puppy.
> Filch simply wasn’t in Amycus Carrow’s league.
So, Amycus Carrow is a psychopath who is willing to do dark rituals. I don’t see how this means that a Horcrux has already been used ( do Horcruxes have a use beyond preserving life?)
But Rationalist!Horcruxes are hidden in ocean trenches, on voyager 2 etc. I don’t see that Dumbledoor would be able to find them, or reach them even if he knew where they were. I also think that in canon Voldemort knew when a Horocrux was destroyed, but if Quirrel thought that Dumbledoor was a serious threat (e.g. because a Horocrux was destroyed) I think he would stop holding back and just kill Dumbledoor. There must be a way for someone with the intellegence, rationality and raw power Quirrel has.
Incidentally, now that Harry has given Quirrel a physics textbook, the odds of a transfigured antimatter bomb being used just went up. Unlike nukes, antimatter weapons can be made small enough yeild that you don’t flatten the whole of hogwarts when you use one.
HPMOR Horcruxes are devices with a ghost attached. When touched, the ghost inhabits a victim and gives it the ghost’s memories. But these victims are shallow copies of the original and easily dispatched.
> “There will be no second date,” said the green-lit silhouette in a voice so fearsome that it sounded, not only like a Death Eater, but like Amycus Carrow that one time just before Father told him to stop it, he wasn’t the Dark Lord.
Sure bet that Carrow has a Riddle ghost inside him? No. But still, a possibility.
Subtle indeed. Conservation of detail might suggest that Amycus Carrow is going to play some sort of role involving dark rituals conducted in the past, but… is there an advantage to having a human Horcrux? I mean, its a lot less safe than all the other Horcruxes, but if if allowed Voldemort to posses Amycus Carrow then it would be useful.
I’d suggest not so much subtle as overinterpreting. Carrow is shallow-minded and status-driven, he thinks he’ll sound more deatheaterish if he puts on a particularly grim voice, and Malfoy sees right through him and tells him to stop being silly. This is simple, compatible with everything else we’re told, and sufficient to explain Draco’s memory described here.
I’d agree—I doubt Carrow is a Horocrux, but the repeated mentions of him might indicate that he has some further role to play, possible involving dark rituals. But the joint probability (Carrow will appear) and (his role will involve dark rituals) and (dark ritual is a Horocrux) is quite low.
Also, IIRC there are 7 Horocruxes in cannon. In HPMOR, it is hinted that we have one for each greek element (magma, ocean trench, stratosphere and buried underground) and one in space. Presumably, Harry is one and Quirrel is one. So all Horocruxes are accounted for.
Joint probabilities don’t work that way if you have a designed story line. Esp. by this author.
I’m sorry I don’t understand. Even when discussing a work of fiction, the probability that ‘Carrow has conducted a dark ritual which makes him a Horocrux’ has to be strictly lower than the probability that ‘Carrow has a further part to play’.
Probability doen’t stop working in certain fields, its universal.
Strictly lower, yes. “Quite low” was what you said, and that part can be disputed based on a read of the author.
Sure, if you think you have a really good read of the author. But as I said, all Horocruxes are accounted for, and as gjm said, there is a simpler explanation, and so I’m sticking by my opinion that Carrow probably isn’t a Horocrux, even if he does show up later.
That sounds a lot more like a Rowling type twist than an Eliezer type twist. There are elements that could be interpreted as vague and oblique hints, but it doesn’t suggest particularly clever or well-considered behavior on anyone’s part.
(...)
What Quirrell is remarking on is that Harry’s following an elemental pattern, not that he himself followed the same one.
Q is saying that he didn’t think of that as a thing to do with a Dementor and should have. One possible reason for his “very odd smile” is that he did already think of it as a thing to do with a horcrux. I think it’s reasonable to call this a hint that maybe there is a Voldemort horcrux buried deep underground. (Certainly far from a proof that there is, though.)
Assuming those are horcruxes, not like parts of the Philosopher’s stone or something (but Horcruxes are more likely).
Totally-not-going-to-happen reason for Hogwarts to stop playing with a snitch: the “air” horcurx is a snitch. Dumbledore realizes that Snitches are dangerous, and bans touching them. (Much more likely: Mcgonagall becomes headmistress).
Quirrell in Ch46 said they ” sound like something of a riddle,” which I guess could be interpreted to mean Tom Riddle, which may be evidence in favor of horcrux-status or something similar.
OMG I never thought of that!
The entire world plays with a snitch. It seems very unlikely that any one school would stop playing with a snitch (and thereby ruin their preparation for games against other schools, adult competition etc).
But, if the whole of Hogwarts stops playing altogether, perhaps because the school has been destroyed, then technically they have stopped playing with a snitch.
The last act of whoever is the head (Dumbeldoor might have died) is to declare that in the last year of Hogwarts, all houses won the cup, as a symbolic act of unity in the face of tragedy.
Harry’s wish was for quidditch to be played without a snitch. Not playing quidditch doesn’t fulfill the wish.
Is the present king of France bald? I’m not sure where Quirrell and Harry stand on the truth of vacuous statements- if Hogwarts plays zero games of quidditch, all of them do not involve the snitch.
Also, technically Harry wished that “in Hogwarts we should play quidditch without the Snitch.” Should can mean “will” but it can also mean Quirrell will somehow make it a moral fact that quidditch should be played that way, not a factual matter of actually playing that way.
I believe so. Chapter 102:
By which I infer that if the horcrux is alive, you can pass powerful spells through it.
Also, that whole discussion simply screams of Quirrell setting Harry up for a ritual where Quirrell will transfer his mind to Harry’s body, and set up shop there, the end.
Harry musing on what Q might have done to the Pioneer Plaque:
Q later describing the Horcrux spell.
It seems another case where someone’s musing turns up in detail later in the book. There are lots of these. Often, it just seems like EY foreshadowing (and possibly making the story nature of the events part of the plot), but in this case, it also seems very much like making up a lie that fits in with Harry’s preconceptions.
...but the amount of antimatter you’d use for that is very small indeed; about 0.000023 grams for an explosive yield equivalent to 1 ton of TNT, going by Wikipedia’s numbers. I wouldn’t put it past Quirrell to figure out a way to transmute quantities that small, but it’d be tricky; everything we’ve seen transmuted onscreen has been macroscopic.
Also, all the initial yield would be in the form of highly energetic gamma rays, so we’d likely be looking at something more like a hard radiation pulse than a bomb.
Hermione transfigured single walled carbon nanotubes
Hermione transfigured a macroscopic volume into single-walled carbon nanotubes. Barely macroscopic, if memory serves, but still macroscopic.
Do wizards generally have a reason to transmute microscopic things?
There’s also the possibility of transmuting a larger portion of antimatter, levitated within a vacuum (bubble head charm maybe?) and then subdivde it, if that is possible.
You could transmute something into something containing trace amounts of antimatter. Once the gamma rays hit something and get absorbed, they’ll turn to heat. The bomb will make the floor explode.