Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10

[Oscar_Cunningham]

(The HPMOR discussion thread after this one is here.)

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. There haven’t been any chapters recently, but it looks like there are a bunch in the pipeline and the old thread is nearing 700 comments. The latest chapter as of 7th March 2012 is Ch. 77.

There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes.

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/​or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

[75th]

I see also that the theories about Santa Claus’s identity are equally as varied as the ones about Mr. Hat & Cloak. My take on this is similar to my take on H&C: we’re meant to understand that Santa Claus is simply Dumbledore.

• Santa Claus had possession of the Cloak of Invisibility and passed it down to Harry, who Santa somehow knew was its rightful heir.

• Santa Claus also somehow knows about the full misdeeds of James Potter, many of which are known to no one else.

• Santa Claus has the political and magical power to create Portkeys on the Hogwarts grounds and get away with it.

• Santa Claus has deep insight into Dumbledore’s true motives, and makes true statements about him without ever stating that Dumbledore is a different person.

• Santa Claus knows little about Quirrell, but doesn’t trust him.

• Santa Claus says that he cares about Harry Potter’s well being and wants him to be more careful in the future.

The only person we know for whom all the above facts are true is Dumbledore.

However, the “S” who left notes for Hermione is not Santa Claus. It’s Severus Snape, who we know for a fact was the mysterious person helping SPHEW in its mission. The two signatures happen to both begin with S, but that’s a coincidence; if the writer had intended Harry and Hermione to figure out that the two note senders were the same, they would have signed the letters to Hermione “Santa Claus” or at least “SC”. Therefore, “S” doesn’t know about the first notes and was not trying to connect his notes to them.

Let me add to my previous hypotheses about Eliezer’s state of mind while writing: The fact that something is entirely mysterious to the characters does not mean that it’s supposed to be entirely mysterious to us. We are certainly meant to know that “S” is Snape. We know this because of Interlude with the Confessor. It could not be any more blatant without being stated in the Author’s Notes.

I equally believe that we’re meant to know that “Santa Claus” is Dumbledore. Everything in the Santa Claus notes is entirely 100% consistent with what we know of Dumbledore and his character from canon and from MoR. Likewise, the fact that Mr. Hat and Cloak is entirely mysterious to Zabini and Hermione does not mean that we are supposed to reach deep into the implausible for explanations.

Certainly I could be wrong about any of this. The simple answer is not always the best answer. But all other things being equal, it’s a good bet. And the evidence for these “simple” explanations is at least equal to the evidence that, say, Hat and Cloak is a manifestation of Voldemort’s essence that leaves Quirrell’s body for unknown reasons.

[Anubhav]

I congratulate you on your 100% accurate pre-hoc explanation.

[anotherblackhat]

Sirius Black fits Santa as well, if not better, though most of what we know about Sirius comes from Cannon.

• In Cannon Dumbledore had possession of The Invisibility Cloak when the Potters were killed, but he didn’t necessarily keep it. This wasn’t mentioned in books 1-5 though, so EY is probably unaware of that detail.

• James’ best friend Sirius knows James’ misdeeds better than anyone besides James himself, and is much more likely to speak proudly of them than Dumbledore.

• The Portkey doesn’t have to have been made by Santa—it could have been made by anyone at the Salem Witches’ Institute. And it doesn’t work on the Hogwarts grounds.

• Santa Claus claimed Dumbledore would keep The Invisibility Cloak if he ever got his hands on it, which was completely wrong, and a rather insane thing to say if it’s Dumbledore (which doesn’t prevent it from being Dumbledore, but still...)

• Sirius wouldn’t know anything about Quirrell. Dumbledore presumably researched him before offering him the DA job. Neither would trust him.

• As Harry’s godfather, Sirius would care a great deal about Harry.

[Xachariah]

There is also the Meta level to consider.

Sirius Black is a major fixture of Harry Potter canon. He has not yet been featured or brushed off yet (eg the Weasleys). Every other major player from the first books has been given screentime so far. It seems incredibly unlikely for Sirius to make it to chapter 78 without a showing in one form or another.

[MartinB]

I am pretty sure Santa is someone who works /​ lives in Hogwarts. Outsiders are not supposed to enter on their own.

The bit about not trusting Dumbledore makes sense, even if the cloak came from him, since it allows Dumbledore to show off how trustworthy he is with little effort. And he can check how well Harry can keep a secret.

[coldlyrationalogic]

One thing i Just wanted to point out, Mr. Hat&Cloak (or, as Hermione calls him, Mr. Extremely Shifty Guy) appears to shape-shift when talking to her. Has anyone considered that he could be a manifestation of Tonks? Thats a bit far fetched, but whoever he is, he either can shape-shift, OR create illusions to make it look like he does.

[glumph]

But why would Dumbledore give Harry a Portkey in the first place? What reason could he have for giving Harry a route out of Hogwarts?

[Alicorn]

Nothing says the Portkey goes where it says it does. It could be a reasonably good test of “Harry Potter is desperately seeking a way out” if one just monitored his arrival in the destination.

[grautry]

Ch 78 You know, of all the things in the chapter, the law of Potion-Making seems the most important, by far—if I understand it correctly, it has staggering implications.

It’s clear that you can extract more than purely physical processes from ingredients—since we have potions that bestow even entirely abstract concepts like luck(and canon!Snape claimed to be capable of brewing fame and glory, I’m unsure if MoR!Snape claimed the same).

So, could you, say, take a CD with some software on it and use it as a Potions ingredient in order to extract the mental work that went into programming that software, creating a Potion of Excellent Programming or something? Or, even better—could you take a copy of some brilliant scientific research paper, extract the brilliant scientific genius out of it and use the resulting Potion in order to create an even more brilliant scientific breakthrough? That’s godhood in one shot right there.

I also have to wonder how Potion-Making interacts with the Mind Projection Fallacy. If you use a video game as an ingredient, can you create a Potion of Fun out of the video game or no? Fun isn’t an inherent property of video games, it’s in the minds of the players.

[HonoreDB]

Might explain all those Nazi book-burnings. Grindelwald’s human allies weren’t just providing human sacrifices.

My intuition, my sense of fairness, says that you can’t get back the work required to create information without sacrificing an appreciable fraction of the number of extant copies of that information.

I would guess that Magic and the Mind Projection Fallacy are sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

[DanArmak]

You can make copies of books and of software CDs very cheaply. Given a law of conservation, it can’t be the case that destroying (sacrificing) a cheap copy would gain you powerful results, or else you could generate infinite resources very quickly (and wizards would realize this).

Maybe destroying the last extant copy of a software would achieve the effect. One wonders what great magic was fueled by the burning of the Library of Alexandria.

[grautry]

True, using copies to achieve that kind of power doesn’t seem to make much sense—the law even says that you can get as much… let’s call it “work” out of the ingredient as was “invested”. It’s true that there isn’t much of an investment of resources in copies.

So, forget the copies, let’s use the originals.

For example, could you take Einstein’s original notes/​notebooks(copying them beforehand, of course, so that you don’t lose information), liquefy them into a Scientific Breakthrough Potion and use that Potion to quickly figure another brilliant breakthrough? That’s the kind of thing I’m wondering about.

[pedanterrific]

If this were the case, could Hermione sacrifice the paper marked 42 for a Potion of Humanism?

Or if Harry wrote down his thesis on Partial Transfiguration, Hermione could make a potion from that (without reading it), and write down whatever discovery she made under the influence of the Breaking the Laws of Magic Potion, which Harry could then use to make a potion...

[RolfAndreassen]

No, because the notebooks do not “contain” the work Einstein did, Einstein’s brain contains it. So you’d need the living brain of a scientist as brilliant as Einstein. Which may not be that difficult; Einstein was good but he was also lucky—he glommed onto exactly the right Big Problem at exactly the right time. It’s quite possible that there are any number of equally-brilliant scientists alive today who just happened never to find their Big Problem. The point remains, however, that paper and notebooks are not sufficient, you need the brain which actually contains the comprehension.

Moreover, since magic works by sensible-to-humans laws in the MoRverse, even if you copied the brain you’d have to use the original in the potion, and you only have one of those. The reason being, the copy hasn’t “done the work” even though it contains the comprehension; and you can only get back out the work that was put in. This of course makes no sense, information should be information, but the laws of magic were apparently designed by a human.

[DanArmak]

So you’d need the living brain of a scientist as brilliant as Einstein.

Not necessary living. And Einstein’s brain just happens to be preserved.

In fact, it sounds very much like people quarreled over magical ingridients:

Harvey then removed, weighted and dissected into several pieces Einstein’s brain; some of the pieces he kept to himself while others were given to leading pathologists. [....] Harvey also removed Einstein’s eyes, and gave them to Henry Abrams.[2] He was fired from his position at Princeton Hospital shortly thereafter for refusing to relinquish the organs.

[DanArmak]

the laws of magic were apparently designed by a human.

Or the same entity (not Azatoth) designed or modified both humans and the laws of magic.

[liamiak]

Or perhaps the original diary of Sir Francis Bacon?

[ajuc]

For it to be “fair” destruction of General Relativity you’ll need the information to be destroyed, not container.

So everybody everywhere in the universe would need to forget it AND you need to destroy every physic book with it, and wikipedia, etc, etc.

[bogdanb]

Well, “invested” seems to be interpreted weirdly by magic. Sunlight is stored in acorns in the form of chemical energy, and the light you could get from a few acorns is about the same amount you’d get by burning them thoroughly (say, in oxygen flux). The effects of Harry’s potion seemed to be much more powerful than that, I’d say of the level of the light absorbed by the entire oak for a year or more.

So it seems like you can get something like “the entire effort” spent to produce something (grow a tree for a year) from just some of the results (nothing indicates they got all or even most acorns from a single tree).

[Dentin]

Actually, I don’t find the amount of light released to be far from the mark. Burning several pounds of acorns and converting all the released energy into light would be ridiculous—consider that even at a MJ per kilo, you’re looking at a million watts worth of incandescent bulbs for 50-100 seconds (incandescents are only 1-2% efficient IIRC.)

[bogdanb]

Actually, you might be right. I was thinking in terms of a pound or so of gasoline deflagrating, which would be bright if it happened really quickly but doesn’t seem blinding when stretched over more than ten seconds (intuitions based on fires and movie explosions being much brighter than the real stuff). But I was ignoring the spectral focus and the lack of kinetic energy released.

Lets’s see: Wikipedia gives wood (red oak!) 14.89 MJ per kilogram. Spent over 60 seconds (the Chaos-Dragon battle is said to have lasted “a lot longer” than “very quickly”) that would generate 248 kW.

Direct sunlight is quoted at reaching 130,000 lux, but even with an albedo near 1 (conservativ, snow reaches .9) that’s not bright enough to make you unable to see by shielding your eyes with an arm (based on recent experience of noon sun while skiing). So I’d guess the cauldrons would have to generate more than 1M lux for the effects described (maybe significantly more, brightness is nonlinear).

Assuming conservatively that the illuminated surfaces in a battle to be a square at least twenty meters on the side, that’s 400 square meters and 400M lumens. With pure green light (the brightest kind) you get 683 lumens/​W. But the cauldrons gave everything except green, so let’s say 400 lumens per W.

So you’d need about 1MW of power to light a square of snow 20m on the side to ten times brightest daylight during one minute, or about four kilograms of red oak.

Given that the illuminated area is probably much larger (including light lost to the sky), it’s surface has much lower albedo (grass: .25, bare soil: .17, deciduous trees: .15 to .18), acorns probably take more than a gallon per four kilos (and I doubt they had time to gather ten kilos of acorns for both cauldrons), and that the quoted figures for oak involve burning with oxygen, I’d say that the energy in the acorns themselves falls short by at least an order of magnitude.

But then again my errors are likely more than an order of magnitude, and we’re talking magic here, so it’s surprisingly close.

(See http://​​en.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​Wood_fuel#Energy_content http://​​en.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​Lux http://​​en.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​Albedo for the numbers.)

Damn, I think I just killed a catgirl.

[Mass_Driver]

Obviously it powered first Julius Caesar’s conquest of the Mediterranean, and then Islam’s conquest of North Africa.

[Psy-Kosh]

Another thought: write down a description of a complex magical principle that you understand, but that the interdict of merlin would prevent someone else who was reading it from understanding. Use the parchment you wrote on as an ingredient in a potion to make a potion with the mental work needed to discover/​comprehend that principle.

Poof, Interdict of Merlin loses its teeth entirely. :)

Another thought that occurred to me: Felix Felicis. No wonder it’s hard to brew. Only way you could brew it is if you literally got lucky in the process of brewing it, by chance, so that you can take that “chance” and put it into the potion.

(hrm… might be able to automate the process of making Felix: Have a machine that keeps mixing the ingredients many times in parallel, ie, many “potential potions”, and in the process does something like for each potential potion, has a coin (or some random bit source which can then be physically placed in the potion) which it flips a 100 times. It also tracks the results, and when one of the coins comes up all heads, it drops it into the candidate potion then calls up the wizard to complete the potion.)

Oh, and MoR!Snape did claim you could brew fame and stuff. That was one of the things MoR!Harry challenged him on, saying something like “How does that work anyways? You drink it and turn into a celebrity?”

Or, wait, an even more recursive version of your science power potion:

Make a clever potion. Use that potion as an ingredient in a potion to extract the mental work of creating a clever potion.

Use that potion as an ingredient… repeat. :)

[Bakkot]

[Psy-Kosh]

Hee hee. But no, I didn’t mean a “potion of cleverness”, I simply mean “be clever and invent a potion. Then use that potion as an ingredient to place the quality of the mental work of inventing a potion into a potion… then use that potion as an ingredient, etc..”

And actually, we know Harry meant to investigate mental magic, but we’re not sure if he ever got around to it. (And, of course, there is Rowena’s Diadem, which would seem to be an intelligence augmentation device. If that’s in MoR, Harry’s got to do something with it at some point. (But then, harry hasn’t yet really jumped onto the existence of the Philosopher’s Stone, so… well, I guess everyone here’s already waiting for when he notices that and Epic Rages at the wizarding world along the lines of “you mean you already know how… you… ARGH!”)

[gwern]

And we’d expect Ravenclaw members to already be using any clever potions or at least have rules against them (either imposed by the school or by themselves as ‘cheating’). In canon, they all know about the Ravenclaw diadem which is supposed to make you more clever. So it’s reasonable if there were any such thing, Harry would have been told about it (everyone knowing his interest in self-improvement or being more clever), heard of it, or read about it by now.

[Anubhav]

So it’s reasonable if there were any such thing, Harry would have been told about it

Yes, because people want Harry Potter to be smarter than he is.

[Fergus_Mackinnon]

If it existed and was semi-public knowledge, then Lucius would have made a priority of acquiring some for Draco.

[sketerpot]

Who says he didn’t? I notice that Draco is unusually bright, as are Crabbe and Goyle. It would certainly be convenient for the Malfoys if the youngest sons of all three families were significantly above average....

[marchdown]

Draco doesn’t even need to know about this.

[Anubhav]

^ Truth.

[aladner]

On the topic of potion invention, what ever happened to the cloak from the dementor Harry killed? Based on the rules of potions given so far, that could probably make a nice Potion of the True Patronus™.

[JoshuaZ]

Or a potion of instant death if it instead stored the decay effect from the dementor.

[Eugine_Nier]

That’s so easy to do you don’t even need magic.

[aladner]

I’d imagine that would be determined by the other ingredients and stirring patterns. It could also be used to make someone invisible to dementors, immune to the effects of dementors, temporarily unkillable, give off their own dementor-like aura, or just look like a dementor. Depending on what the other rules are, that cloak could be very valuable.

[ajuc]

Testing which potion we got by such and such stirring pattern would be fun.

You give it to your hero and he is instantly dead. Or you give it to some criminal sentenced to death/​Azkaban and he becomes unkillable for a month, or invisible to Dementors :)

Or you give it to rat and nothing happens—you try to kill the rat and he’s killed—maybe that was potion that makes you invisible to dementors?

[gwern]

That sounds a lot like modern drug testing, actually...

[tadrinth]

I think you would need a remnant of the destroyed dementor itself, not just a cloak a dementor happened to be wearing when you killed it, and I don’t think dementors leave anything behind when you kill them.

[Psy-Kosh]

Either Dumbledore or Quirrel took it, or it’s long since locked away in the Department of Mysteries.

But yeah, as JoshuaZ points out, just as easily could be a Potion-of-Death. (Or heck, “potion-of-anthropomorphic-personification”)

[aladner]

I guess Harry’s got another reason to destroy more dementors. Also, I suspect the cloaks will have more than one use. Dragons blood apparently has twelve uses, after all.

[pedanterrific]

Um. It’s not like Dementors come with cloaks, you know. If cloaks-that-have-been-worn-by-Dementors were really valuable potions ingredients, there’s lots of easier ways to get them than by destroying Dementors. The Aurors manage to get the things to put them on in the first place, after all.

[Desrtopa]

Dementors are implied to cause their cloaks to rapidly deteriorate, so they probably don’t last long. Maybe “living” dementors accept new cloaks, but don’t let the people take the ones they’re wearing any more than you’d let a stranger make off with your shirt.

[aladner]

Yes, but the magic that was used to acquire that particular cloak was capable of blinding/​destroying dementors, so it should be possible to get that magic back out using the newly revealed rule of potions.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I’m not so sure obtaining an object is the same as creating it. Using Accio on a potion-ingredient will not allow you to make a summoning Potion.

[Psy-Kosh]

It’s already established that obtaining a crushed ingredient will let you access the strength involved in crushing it. So obtaining an ingredient that had to be taken by invoking extreme powerful magic might let you access that...

[Tripitaka]

Regarding possible ingredients of Felix Felicis, Malaclaw Venom bestows upon the victim an unnatural misfortune; maybe this effect can be reversed and exponentiated by the process of brewing, and thats the hard part? (EY knows about this; second flask in case you ever wondered what that did.)

[Mass_Driver]

This thread is a little silly, even by local standards. First of all, the fact that a potion can be no stronger than its ingredients doesn’t imply that a potion will always be as strong as its ingredients—there are probably all kinds of other restrictions on what can be effectively brewed. By way of analogy, most Volvo engines don’t run at Carnot efficiencies and most split pea soups don’t run at more than 0.01 efficiency.

Second, all of the canon/​fanon magical ingredients are non-copiable...a feather or a squished animal is not like a CD or a video game or a piece of parchment. Perhaps you could use the original of a piece of parchment if you didn’t keep a spare copy, but EV drops lots of clues—potion conservation was apparently designed by someone who thought the universe was fair, potion brewing is a substitute for a small, safe sacrifice, etc. -- everyone who’s trying to figure out how to make a potion out of costless intellectual property is playing a different game than the one Harry’s playing.

Third, advanced electronics tend to malfunction in proximity to strong magical auras—so far the most advanced Muggle artifact that’s been successfully used to interact with wizards are a car battery and a solid-fuel rocket—both of which basically just discharged their stored energy, without any controls more subtle than an “on” button.

Fourth, would it really be fun if Harry put Science into a cauldron and took out a flask full of Win? A major theme in the fanon so far is the importance of working together in teams and coalitions. Harry already has enough power to singlehandedly overcome most casual bands of students. He destroys Dementors, outwits Headmasters, is fabulously wealthy, incredibly famous, has above-average magical strength, bloody single-minded discipline & determination, and of course an excellent background in basic cognitive science. If he suddenly became an expert programmer, researcher, etc. and broke Merlin’s Interdict, he’d have enough power to singlehandedly overwhelm adult powerhouses like Lucius or Flitwick...I don’t buy it. I predict that Harry will be prompted to learn how to play politics on a national scale, just as Harry has recently learned how to lead teams on a school-wide scale.

[gwern]

most split pea soups don’t run at more than 0.01 efficiency.

Wait, someone’s calculated this?

[Xachariah]

As I interpreted it, potions are doubly bound. The ingredients only ‘remember’ as much of an affect (light, luck, heat, strength) as was put into them, but they’re also constrained by magic. Everything is bound by Magic In, Magic Out. Hence the talk of potions requiring magical ingredients.

Under this interpretation, it means that potions act only as a coiled spring or temporary battery. Sacrificing software would only be useful if you needed intelligence right then and couldn’t afford the magic at the time; if you just wanted to be generally smarter, you would just continually cast intellect charms on yourself (or perform a ritual). This also fits in cannonically, with many of the most powerful potions (Polyjuice, Felix Felicis, Veritaserum) taking months to brew and providing short duration benefits.

[pedanterrific]

As I interpreted it, potions are doubly bound. The ingredients only ‘remember’ as much of an affect (light, luck, heat, strength) as was put into them, but they’re also constrained by magic. Everything is bound by Magic In, Magic Out. Hence the talk of potions requiring magical ingredients.

So, I guess I missed something. What was the magical ingredient in Harry’s potion of light?

[tadrinth]

Just because every potion in the two textbooks Harry looked at involved magical ingredients doesn’t mean all potions require a magical ingredient. As I read it, Harry found the potion he used in a more obscure book suggested by Prof. McGonnagal or Flitwick, probably something like a wilderness survival guide. Converting acorns into a beacon would be pretty helpful for getting found by search parties.

[Incorrect]

It turns out the common Oak is actually a magical plant.

[Luke_A_Somers]

That’s what the Druids thought, anyway, right?

[Xachariah]

From the story:

...and the whole time it had been right in front of him in every Potions class. Potions-Making didn’t create magic, it preserved magic, that was why every potion needed at least one magical ingredient. And by following instructions like ‘stir four times counterclockwise and once clockwise’ - Harry had hypothesized—you were doing something like casting a small spell that reshaped the magic in the ingredients. (And unbound the physical form so that ingredients like porcupine quills dissolved smoothly into a drinkable liquid; Harry strongly suspected that a Muggle following exactly the same recipe would end up with nothing but a spiny mess.) That was what Potions-Making really was, the art of transforming existing magical essences. So you were a little tired after Potions class, but not much, because you weren’t empowering the potions yourself, you were just reshaping magic that was already there. And that was why a second-year witch could brew Polyjuice, or at least get close.

[snip] Harry had stared at the recipes and their warnings, forming a second and stranger hypothesis. [snip] A potion spends that which is invested in the creation of its ingredients.

This leaves me with two possibilities:

1) Harry invested the energy himself in the potion. Instead of just using his magic to release the ingredients’ potential, he poured in the required magic from his own cores.

2) Harry can now create potions from any non-magical substance as if it were a magical substance.

I believe option 1 is the correct one. First, Harry didn’t play a part in the battle, probably because he was magically depleted. He’s learned just as much dueling as Neville, and yet contributed nothing and died offscreen. Second, Harry wasn’t rejoicing the next day and testing out a dozen different types of potions. He didn’t act like someone who just uncovered a global victory condition or new branch of magic. Third, wizards would have discovered this if you could simply make potions without investing in magic of some kind. As the name of the chapter implies, Harry discovered a tradeoff, not a loophole.

[tadrinth]

The fact that the light was impossible to Finite suggests that Harry did tap the energy of the acorns. It’s implied that the magical cost to the creator of making a potion is a minor cost to reshape the components. So, the potion taps the light stored in the acorns, and Harry’s magic is tapped only to do the reshaping. Probably most magical potions use the magic of the magical ingredient to do most of the reshaping work, so the user only has to invest a tiny bit of magic, while a potion not involving any magical ingredients might require much more input from the creator for the reshaping. That would explain why Harry is drained, but also why the light can’t easily be dispelled.

The other critical limitation on potions is that you must known the stirring pattern and the recipe in general. Figuring out the stirring pattern is the sort of thing that gets you permanently turned into a cat. So, Harry does not have god-mode because he doesn’t have the time or expertise to do all the potion experimentation necessary to invent new potions without blowing himself up; he’s limited to potions with known (but possibly obscure) recipes.

[Xachariah]

The Finite charm was trained to be used en masse by an entire army. It’s a brute force spell requiring lots of power to dispel it’s opposing spell. The usefulness of the sunlight potion wasn’t in it’s raw magical strength, but how quickly it disabled it’s opponents.

So Harry had retrieved his copy of Magical Drafts and Potions, and begun looking for a safe but useful potion he could brew in the minutes before the battle started—a potion which would win the battle too fast for counterspells, or produce spell effects too strong for first-years to Finite.

He entertains either option, but he chose the more risky one that immediately finishes the battle. It merely needed to stand up to a handful of Finite spells, rather than a massed and coordinated dispel. I say it is the more risky one because he did in fact lose by choosing this option instead of brewing an invulnerability to sleep potion. If he could have chosen to make potions of any potency, he would have obviously chosen a certainly victorious spell of a risky spell.

The other critical limitation on potions is that you must known the stirring pattern and the recipe in general. Figuring out the stirring pattern is the sort of thing that gets you permanently turned into a cat.

This is evidence towards him putting in the magic himself. In order to deduce the stirring pattern, he looked up a potion with the similar ingredients and the same spell function from a preexisting recipe. If potionmakers could make the same potion using non-magical ingredients, then why wouldn’t any of them have already invented a potion with nonmagical ingredients unless there was a significant drawback?

[drethelin]

I think this is almost certainly what harry actually discovered.The other option is simply too powerful. He can use the essence of acorns to lead his own magic to a place he does not know how to take it, but he still uses his own power to get there.

[Joshua Hobbes]

There wasn’t one, as he wasn’t making something magical. He was making sunlight.

[pedanterrific]

Sure. And the potion of fire breathing doesn’t make anything magical, it just makes fire. It still requires Ashwinder eggs.

[bogdanb]

Not quite, I think it actually makes (well, regains) fire breathing, not just fire, just as Ashwinder eggs need fire breathing, not just fire or heat AFAIK. If only heat or fire was needed, a copper coin has lots of it (see the other example) and isn’t magical in itself.

[[deleted]]

The copper coin example is arguably a magical ingredient: the text emphasizes that it stores the heat of the goblin forges, and I imagine that those are somehow magical in nature.

[sketerpot]

The sun features prominently in so many mythologies that I would be mildly surprised if sunlight didn’t count as magical in some way.

[occlude]

As I understand it, there was no magical ingredient. Other potions stored and released the magical energy of their reagents, but Harry’s potion stored and released the light energy that went into making the acorns.

[Desrtopa]

I’m guessing he used some kind of magical plant, possibly even a magical oak tree, since the text does specifically say it’s lucky that the battle takes place in the Forbidden Forest, where actually magical plants grow, as opposed to the regular non-forbidden forests surrounding the grounds which have only mundane plants.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong.

Every recipe in Magical Drafts and Potions used at least one ingredient from a magical plant or animal. Which was unfortunate, because all the magical plants and animals were in the Forbidden Forest, not the safer and lesser woods where battles were held.

[Desrtopa]

I stand corrected.

[Anubhav]

Quirrell.

It’s not just about him not bothering to check whether he had a visa to Fuyuki city.

It’s about him always having claimed to be a Slytherin.

Despite actually being… a Ravenclaw?

That doesn’t sound like the kind of claim you could get away with it, and Quirrell should know that, but he still makes it, and… gets away with it?

Doesn’t any current Hogwarts student have parents/​relatives/​family friends who knew Quirrell from his time back at school?

And it’s blindingly, blitheringly obvious by this point that Quirrell is H&C. Too obvious.

Why would Quirrell orchestrate this in a way that ends in him being interrogated by the DMLE? Compare with his attempted Dementation of Harry.

In fact, the same thing would apply even if he weren’t H&C. I’d expect him to have come up with a better way of handling it. One with more plausible deniability.

Conclusion: Quirrell planned to be interrogated by the DMLE. Quirrell planned to have his cover blown. Why? I haven’t the slightest idea.

I still don’t know what to make of the Ravenclaw thing, though.

Edit: Just checked to see if Quirrell had actually claimed to be in Slytherin instead of just implying it. Yes, he had.

Yes, I was in Slytherin and I am offering to formulate a cunning plot on your behalf, if that is what it takes to accomplish your desire.

Chapter 16.

Edit: Of course he planned to be interrogated; he couldn’t afford to be inside Hogwarts when Dumbledore began searching for Tom Riddle.

I still don’t know why he’d want to blow his cover, though.

[Nominull]

Speculation on the Slytherin/​Ravenclaw issue: Quirrell is a double impostor. He’s Voldemort possessing a Slytherin (name unknown) and pretending to be that Slytherin pretending to be a Ravenclaw named Quirinus Quirrell. Dumbledore knows about one level of the masquerade, and accepts the explanation that the Slytherin of unknown name is a private person. Quirinus Quirrell may be an entirely constructed identity, although that would make it less likely for him to have failed to remember some of the details of it under interrogation.

[Vladimir_Nesov]

Voldemort himself seems like a pretty artificial persona. I think it’s better to think of both Voldemort and Quirrell as Riddle’s inventions, not directly related to one another.

[Anubhav]

But why would he go out and tell all his students that he was a Slytherin? That’s effectively admitting that he’s an impostor.

(Unless, of course, it is a purely constructed identity. In which case even the records about his time at Hogwarts would’ve had to be fabricated. In which case… Why would he pick Ravenclaw rather than Slytherin?)

[Normal_Anomaly]

I am noticeably confused. I think the simplest explanation for this mixup about Quirrel’s house is that EY forgot that he’d said he was in Slytherin earlier.

[Vladimir_Nesov]

The line about having been sorted into Ravenclaw could be as fake as the Fuyuki City thing, Scrimgeour’s play. Quirrell’s apparent failure could just be a way of getting temporarily detained, while Dumbedore’s looking for Riddle and Harry wants his help. His cover could actually be pretty solid, so he’d just shrug off Scrimgeour’s suspicions once it’s time to go.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I don’t think he’s worried by the Marauder’s Map. If he knew it could expose him he’d have already taken it from Fred and George.

Of course, there is no possible way that he does not have his exit from Hogwarts entirely planned out. But it’s still April, so I don’t think he plans on leaving quite yet.

[DanArmak]

He may not know of the Map’s existence. He may be afraid of Dumbledore having some, possibly unknown to Quirrel, spells (or Hogwarts wards) for locating people by their names.

[glumph]

But no doubt Dumbledore will hold on to the map for when Quirrell returns. But seeing as he may well be (intentionally) blowing his cover, that may not be for some time.

[Quirinus_Quirrell]

Thanks, Eliezer, for unpausing one of my substrates!

[glumph]

Minor typo at the end of 78, repeated at the beginning of 79:

The Aurors swept toward him with swift strides, Auror Goryanof approaching from the other side of the Ravenclaw as though to block any escape...

Actual speculation: what did Dumbledore know or suspect when he hired Quirrell?

“If you consult Headmaster Dumbledore,” said the Defense Professor, “you will find that he is well aware of this matter, and that I agreed to teach his Defense class on the explicit condition that no inquiry be made into my—”

What exactly was Dumbledore aware of? Merely that ‘Quirrell’ may have travelled without a visa (I guess this is illegal), or that he was an impostor? If the latter, why would Dumbledore hire him?

But if Dumbledore wasn’t aware that Quirrell is an impostor, then Quirrell has made at least one foolish slip. During the interrogation, Scrimgeour says

“Born the 26th of September, 1955, to Quondia Quirrell, of an acknowledged tryst with Lirinus Lumblung...” intoned the Auror. “Sorted into Ravenclaw…

But way back in Chapter 16, Quirrell says

Yes, I was in Slytherin and I am offering to formulate a cunning plot on your behalf, if that is what it takes to accomplish your desire.

[[deleted]]

My reading of the visa thing was that the Auror made it up on the spot to confirm that Quirrell had no idea of what trips he had taken in the past, and is therefore an impostor. Although I don’t understand why Quirrell, if impersonating someone, would fail to look up these simple facts.

[Xachariah]

Quirrell is smart, but he’s not omnipotent. He’s had so many lives, he doesn’t even consider any of them to be his true persona.

Quirrell is mentally disciplined, but it’s possible that he could have simply forgotten or gotten facts mixed up, trying to hold so many personas in his head at one time.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I believe Dumbledore would have been a professor of the real Quirrell, so he must know it’s an imposter he’s hired. I suspect Quirrell fed him some convincing lie or another about his true identity.

[MartinB]

If the latter, why would Dumbledore hire him?

Because Q is someone very good at what he is about to teach who does not want to have his identity public. Dumblodore wants a decent teacher—as has been pointed out many times—and is willing to put up with a lot to get him. Now weather Dumbledore knows the true identity of Q is a different question.

[cousin_it]

The magical world is a small world, Hogwarts is a small school, at least some parents of current Hogwarts students would have remembered that Quirrell was in Ravenclaw not Slytherin. I’m guessing this is an inadvertent mistake by Eliezer.

[Anubhav]

I brought the same thing up here.

I doubt Eliezer would forget that the major spokesperson of Slytherin in his fic is… well, Slytherin.

There’s something else going on here.

[Oscar_Cunningham]

I found stuff about the “Centre for Modern Rationality” hiding on hpmor.org!

[Anubhav]

There are more goodies there than just that.

[loserthree]

I figure being referenced in the author’s notes is enough to justify cross posting. I guess I’ll find out if that’s the case. (In the choice between not posting and posting without updating speculation, I decided to rationalize my sloth with a false dichotomy, maybe.)

pervenit pasta

Chapter 14: The Unknown and the Unknowable

HJPEV tells McGonagall about the message for Slytherin’s Heir, refuses point-based reward, receives Time Turner, freaks the fuck out about receiving a time machine to treat his sleep disorder, has another ‘you turned into a cat’ moment, receives invisibility cloak from unknown person, learns what getting lost in Hogwarts entails, pranks himself, learns “There was something wrong with Harry Potter.”

Chapter 21: Rationalization

Hermione deludes herself about why she likes beating HJPEV, chooses love, displays knowledge of Planning Fallacy, claims her prize; HJPEV creeps it up with Draco, claims Hermione as his own, traps Draco with promises of power, mentions that Draco should test the strength of muggleborn magic personally, agrees that human sacrifice is easier than changing his mind, establishes tradition of secrecy in the magical sciences, establishes Bayesian Conspiracy, receives a book, advice, and petty cash from ‘Santa Claus,’ receives 12-candle cake from twins, hears “HE COMES-′ prophecy, summarizes the first 21 chapters for us, and writes home.

Chapter 26: Noticing Confusion

Quirrell dishes a Take That on cannon, lowers room temperatures, thoughtfully tortures inkwell to death, concedes that remedial education for mugleborn students is worthwhile damage control, and is cheered up; HJPEV learns the results of his proxy-prank on Rita Skeeter, is permitted to see uncommon expressions on Quirrell’s face, takes a papercut that this reader once thought might have left Quirrell with a drop of his blood, becomes frustrated when Quirrell claims to have figured the prank out and refuses to share, is thwarted and dismayed at the bank, realizes what he did to Skeeter, is forced to say some things contrary to his good nature, and receives Roger Bacon’s stolen diary; Quirrell foreshadows knowing where the Resurrection Stone is and kills Skeeter.

Chapter 35: Coordination Problems

HJPEV stares down Quirrell in a dispute over government models, Blaise Zabini meets Quirrel’s eyes, while lying, while possessing knowledge of Mr. Hat-and-Cloak, and tells Quirrell and the hidden HJPEV that Dumbledore sent bullies after his cousin; Quirrell sells the story of Dumbledore’s plotting and tells HJPEV that Dumbledore is “insane pretending to be sane pretending to be insane,” then telegraphs his additional meeting to the reader; HJPEV demonstrates a preference for Heroic Sacrifice and shows the reader his allegiance to the muggles, not the magic; Mr. Hat-and-Cloak checks in on Blaise, uses the phrase “Salazar Slytherin would have keyed his monster into the ancient wards at a higher level than the Headmaster himself” which is almost repeated by Quirrell in chapter 49, “some entity which Salazar Slytherin keyed into his wards at a higher level than the Headmaster himself,” and wipes himself from Blaise’s memories; McGonagall tries to talk to Hermione about reasonable safety concerns and what good girls should be up to, fails; HJPEV uses ham-fisted reverse psychology on Draco, succeeds, and confesses his unnatural love for Quirrell.

Chapter 40: Pretending to be Wise

Quirrell lectures HJPEV on becoming vulnerable to Let’s You And Him Fight (which is tragically a trope that diverges from the original meaning of the phrase and so is not linked here), answers some questions about the afterlife, lowers room temperatures, makes a joke with two of his favorite words as the punchline, learns that he already knows where the Resurrection Stone is (despite having just told HJPEV that he should be careful when sharing information), drops a hint regarding his (modestly successful) quest for immortality, and runs off to steal a Deathly Hallow which he has almost certainly possessed since that very afternoon.

Chapter 43-47: Humanism & Personhood Theory

Dumbledore thinks Dementor Day is part of a cunning plan; Quirrell can teach AK to students who ask; Hermione and HJPEV want to Patronus, but cannot, and so they both embarass themselves and logically enough end up kissing after HJPEV experiences a memory a human brain could not contain and explores Utilitarianism; HJPEV explains his position on death, symbolically kills it while the author reveals the nature of Dementors, then refuses to tell anyone else how it’s done; Quirrell punningly says that he does not mind being called a Death Eater, which is surprising considering what he did to the last person we know of who made that accusation, identifies Dumbledore as the most attractive target in all of Hogwarts, calls HJPEV on Confirmation Bias, and elicits a Top Five Hiding Places list from HJPEV, which turns out to be ‘riddle’ of some sort (or just another opportunity to pun his name in); HJPEV sends Hermione a How To (Symbolically) Defeat Death pamphlet, and figures some things out about his “I Was an Infant Honeypot” origin story, or so he thinks; Draco Patronuses, realizes that HJPEV is a Slytherin, hears about the insidious evils of discrimination, tells HJPEV about Dumbledore’s evil deeds, the two boys talk about their dead mothers and bond under starlight; snakes briefly appear sentient

Chapter 56: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Constrained Optimization & Constrained Cognition

HJPEV lies to McGonagall; Dumbledore’s Patronus can hunt; HJPEV dominates Bella, his dark side, his invisibility cloak, and a handful of Dementors, he hides from Dumbledore and transfigures some impressive things

Chapter 63: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Aftermaths

HJPEV & Hermione talk about what Phoenixes are for; HJPEV trusts Draco with a letter form Lucius; Neville does not get the support he might have expected from HJPEV in his proposed vengeance on Bella; Lesath Lestrange pledges himself to HJPEV, fails; Amelia Bones learns that someone was looking out for her people, draws the wrong conclusions in entirely an understandable fashion; Dumbledore tells the twins not to let HJPEV out of Hogwarts for any reason, appears successful; Moody supplies some of the best not-quite internal monologue in the whole fic while he and Snape punk the wrong bones; HJPEV muses on the nature and consequences of dishonesty and other depressing things related to human nature, then gets all mortal and human with Hermione, but not that way; Santa Claus strikes again; Sybill Trelawney speaks prophesies we are not told.

Chapter 66: Self Actualization

HJPEV cares about what Draco and Hermione think of him, tells Quirrell so; Hermione hears that HJPEV and Neville have been hanging with Edward and learning to be hardcore; HJPEV and Neville are hanging with Edward and learning to be hardcore.

Chapter 73-77: Self Actualization and Sunk Costs

It’s an adventure. Lots of things happen. It’s all too close to be sure of what parts are hints about what, except for Mr. Hat-and-Cloak, who we are to understand is most certainly Quirrell, hitting Hermione with a dictionary attack and turning her into someone less useful to HJPEV, I guess.

14

• time travel

• unknown ex-cloak-possessor who says the cloak itself wanted to return to HJPEV and references history repeating itself

• what is wrong with HJPEV

21

• Hermione rationalizes

• HJPEV claims Hermione in front of Draco and threatens harm to any who’d do her harm

• unknown ex-cloak-possessor appears to possess incomplete information

26

• the big damn prank

• the Resurrection Stone

• Roger Bacon’s diary

35

• Quirrell wouldn’t leave Blaise’s mind unread while Blaise lied to him, so knows about Mr. Hat-and-Cloak

• Quirrell runs off after Blaise, then Blaise meets Mr. Hat-and-Cloak

• Quirrell is Mr. Hat-and-Cloak. We’re supposed to get this.

40

• Lucius is a gun pointed at whomever he thinks threatens his son.

• You got that part where You-Know-Damn-Well-Who has the fucking Resurrection Stone now, didn’t you?

• It’s possible we should find and compare all the times the narrator comments on the things cooling down. This could be some Sixth Sense shit, you know?

43-47

• Hermione’s feelings for HJPEV?

• What was everyone else to on Dementor Day?

• The hiding places and how HJPEV guessed them?

• There’s a lot of material here, but I don’t understand what of it is related to chapter 78

56-57

• How to fuck with Dementors?

• Dumbledore’s Patronus can ID HJPEV’s Patronus?

• Again, I don’t understand how this relates to chapter 78

63

• There are probable clues in every Santa Claus letter that we’re supposed to make sense out of now or soon

• There’s another prophesy, but once again it’s kept from the readers

• Just who was meant to hear that prophesy, anyway?

• What role, if any, did Lesath play in the Bully arc?

66

• Almost certainly the clue here is that HJPEV values Hermione and Draco’s regard for him, and Quirrell means to change that

73-77

• Mr. Hat-and-Cloak asks Hermione important questions and gives out important details in the asking

• Mr. Hat-and-Cloak might almost have justified his opinion of HJPEV based on time travel, maybe

[[deleted]]

Quirrell wins a bet against Dumbledore with an unknown prize

The prize was that Quirrell gets to teach students the killing curse.

[loserthree]

Thank you. I’ve corrected the post.

[HonoreDB]

Update March 12: He’s reading HPMoR, thanks presumably to the 7+ fan reviews from LWers, tvtropers, and whatever you call an xkcd fan. Still no fan reviews for Luminosity or Hamlet and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Damien Walter reviews sci-fi and fantasy for The Guardian. He’s looking for weird, self-published online fiction to read over the next month, and he’ll review the best ones he finds. He’s just asked people to recommend stories in the comments to his latest article. If you want to see Methods of Rationality, Luminosity, or my Hamlet and the Philosopher’s Stone reviewed in a respected newspaper (there is precedent!), please consider heading over there and posting a short review (one link per comment, you can comment more than once). Each of the three is a hard sell even by online fantasy standards, and I imagine it would help if a disinterested party vouched for them.

[Sly]

How about Three Worlds Collide?

[HonoreDB]

Go for it if you want! I love the story, but I’m not sure how well it works as Rationality Outreach.

[HonoreDB]

Success!

[ajuc]

Jumping in time just 6 hours back indicates to me that in the computer that is simulating MoR universe data is kept with 6-hours long cache.

As to Atlantis—they found a way to get out of the box—one level up, and they’ve left some cheat-codes for people that are still in this simulation. That also explains why some very important figures (like Dumbledore) think MoR runs on stories—somebody outside of simulation changes the simulation accordingnly. Maybe this simulation purpose is to make the best stories?

Also explains why prophecy works for more than 6 hours into the future—because simulation has some invariants, that make for best stories, and seers can well, “see” them, but only for very important events, and only guess ral meaning of these predictions. Hence mysterious prophecies.

What it doesn’t explain—why cheat codes are in latinised English.

[EphemeralNight]

What it doesn’t explain—why cheat codes are in latinised English.

It seems possible to me that MoR spells work a bit like the URLs for TvTropes pages. When a new spell is created, it is attached to an arbitrary incantation of the casters choosing. From then on, that incantation recalls that same set of effects no matter who performs it, like entering a URL into TvTropes to retrieve a page that someone else wrote, when just yesterday that URL led to a blank page.

What I want to know is whether Atlantis was the origin of the system or merely the last society to have edit privileges. (Maybe they abused the system and destroyed themselves so whatever’s running the simulation brought the banhammer down on the inhabitants of the MoR verse, and thus began the decline of magic?)

[Blueberry]

You’re almost right.

The actual explanation is that they’re all fictional characters in a Harry Potter fanfic. Dumbledore knows this, or at least knows they’re in a story. The purpose is indeed to make a good story, and one that teaches Methods of Rationality.

What it doesn’t explain—why cheat codes are in latinised English.

Because it’s a Harry Potter fanfic, and in the original Harry Potter series, the spells were in Latinized English, probably because Latin has an ancient mystical aura for readers in fantasy tradition.

[TobyBartels]

Oh Blueberry, you so Doylist!

[Blueberry]

Not me, Harry. Harry, being a rationalist, wants to know the truth about his world, and he wouldn’t be happy with a Watsonian explanation that ignored important facts about how the world he lives in came to be.

[anotherblackhat]

From chapter 14

“Turning into a cat doesn’t even BEGIN to compare to this. You know right up until this moment I had this awful suppressed thought somewhere in the back of my mind that the only remaining answer was that my whole universe was a computer simulation like in the book Simulacron 3 but now even that is ruled out because this little toy ISN’T TURING COMPUTABLE! A Turing machine could simulate going back into a defined moment of the past and computing a different future from there, an oracle machine could rely on the halting behavior of lower-order machines, but what you’re saying is that reality somehow self-consistently computes in one sweep using information that hasn’t… happened… yet...”

[ajuc]

But Harry later tested time loops, and system somehow told him to stop messing with time. EDIT: If the computer MoR runs on is really able to compute infinite loops in one sweep, then there’s no reason not to allow Harry to compute his primes. Instead something scarry happened so Harry had to tell himself not to mess with time.

So maybe it is Turing computable after all, it just have watchdogs to stop loops after some iteration.

[Incorrect]

A simpler explanation is that “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” was the simplest piece of information that could be generated by time travel that resulted in a stable loop because Harry’s precommitment to follow the experimental protocol was weak.

Also, it’s impossible to prove the universe non-turing-computable.

[wedrifid]

A simpler explanation is that “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” was the simplest piece of information that could be generated by time travel that resulted in a stable loop because Harry’s precommitment to follow the experimental protocol was weak.

Simplest isn’t quite as important as easiest (or most probable in terms of how reality fluid flows in a loop until it forms a stable equilibrium). The latter of course encompasses the former. In this case not only is it simple (not requiring many ontological loops) it is utterly trivial given the psychology of Harry. It only has to amplify Harry’s paranoia only slightly to make him pull a reaction like that. And, in fact, given that Harry hadn’t put any effort into even considering risks before doing something so extreme some reaction from him that is not the brute-forced-decryption result isn’t unreasonable—so could have even happened without much consistency pressure beyond a single iteration required.

If Harry were a bit more stable and had better judgement in assessing safety he would probably have taken his time when replying and written something like “Don’t be a reckless fool! Forcing black swans much?” As it happens though Harry has inherited from the author an outright dangerous way of dealing with risk—he panics, doesn’t think things through and makes things worse!

In the above I am referring most significantly to the incident with transfiguration experiments. As far as I know Eliezer and Harry both believe Hermione’s response was appropriate—not absolutely insane! Her reacting quickly and decisively was good but the nature of her intervention was just stupid. You don’t go in there and dispel the enchantement when it is the consequences of dispelling that cause the problems. You get Harry the hell out of there, seal the room as best you can then run as fast as you can to McGonnagal. She is the one best equipped to minimize the repurcussions. At very least she would get Pompfrey on hand to heal damage before it becomes fatal and most likely would be able to detect transfigured materials and do something to prevent the worst of any damage.

Harry’s response to Hermione should have been “Ok, I really appreciate the thought and I was an idiot to experiment like this… but WTF were you thinking?! If there was actually a problem with my experiment you probably would have just killed me instantly.”

Likewise the appropriate response upon realising that doing things like trying to solve NP complete problems with a time turner is stupid is not to abandon all use except as a sleep enhancer. It is to implement only the simplest of protocols involving the time turner. ie. as a primitive failsafe signalling mechanism that gives a warning and (potentially) prevents certain death of his friends or worse disasters in his vicinity. This is far simpler than all the other childish things he has done with the time turner and not implementing it is outright irresponsible.

[TobyBartels]

Voted up for the last paragraph

[wedrifid]

But Harry later tested time loops, and system somehow told him to stop messing with time.

More specifically Harry told himself to stop messing with time, Harry being part of the system.

If the computer MoR runs on is really able to compute infinite loops in one sweep, then there’s no reason not to allow Harry to compute his primes.

Sure, if there isn’t something that is more likely to happen given the state of the universe before the loop.

Instead something scarry happened so Harry had to tell himself not to mess with time.

That scary thing being Harry telling himself not to mess with time. What we infer from this depends on what we know about Harry and what sort of things are most likely to make him respond in this way.

So maybe it is Turing computable after all, it just have watchdogs to stop loops after some iteration.

Watchdogs are a possibility. This evidence should increase the probability to this sort of thing being the case. But not by much.

[cafesofie]

Harry is stated to only have access to about half of the easier parts of the sequences.

I assume the timeless physics sequence is one of the parts he doesn’t have access to...

I can no longer conceive that there might really be a universal time, which is somehow “moving” from the past to the future. This now seems like nonsense.

Something like Barbour’s timeless physics has to be true, or I’m in trouble: I have forgotten how to imagine a universe that has “real genuine time” in it.

From this I read that Harry’s mistake is the notion that there are things that “[haven’t] happened yet”.

http://​​lesswrong.com/​​lw/​​qp/​​timeless_physics/​​

[pedanterrific]

Nope:

“Quantum mechanics wasn’t enough,” Harry said. “I had to go all the way down to timeless physics before it took. Had to see the wand as enforcing a relation between separate past and future realities, instead of changing anything over time—but I did it, Hermione, I saw past the illusion of objects, and I bet there’s not a single other wizard in the world who could have. Even if some Muggleborn knew about timeless formulations of quantum mechanics, it would just be a weird belief about strange distant quantum stuff, they wouldn’t see that it was reality, accept that the world they knew was just a hallucination. I Transfigured part of the eraser without changing the whole thing.”

[jimrandomh]

(EDIT: This theory was disproven in Chap. 79)

I think Hat and Cloak is Lucius Malfoy. First piece of evidence: timing of his first appearance.

Chapter 34: Harry says “Maybe I’ll just do what Draco tried with Zabini, and write a letter to Lucius Malfoy and see what he thinks about that.”
Chapter 35: Hat and Cloak appears on-screen for the first time, to talk to Zabini.

Second piece of evidence: He says “Lucius Malfoy has taken notice of you, Hermione.”

[LucasSloan]

To quote Harry Potter: “This doesn’t seem to be Lucius’ style.”

Lucius is evil and has reason to foster distrust of Dumbledore, two points in favor of H&C being him, but his taste in plotting seems to run far more to the political style, manipulating the press, using flattery and favors to gain control, than to weird, secretive manipulation.

[Normal_Anomaly]

I agree with this. Everything or nearly everything Lucius does is technically legal and much of it is something of an open secret (e.g. everyone knows he controls the papers). That gives him the plausible deniability critical to someone who thinks as long-term as he does.

[Xachariah]

I concur that H&C is Lucius Malfoy. It seems very plain if you look at the proximate results instead assuming every character belongs in the cast of Death Note. A plan that requires that many conditionals is bound to fail.

-H&C succeeds in causing a 3 way tie: The school nearly riots.

-H&C gets Zabini to lie to Quirrell and Harry: Quirrell and Harry trust Dumbledore less.

-H&C messes with Hermoine so that she hates Draco: Draco and Hermoine stop being friends.

Not everyone has to be playing Xanatos Roulette. Some people can just use influence and get back solid and predictable returns from their actions. Lucious Malfoy makes good and predictable gains with each of these plans.

[anotherblackhat]

Hat and Cloak told Hermione “you are a Muggleborn and yet you possess a power of wizardry greater than any pureblood.”

Lucius can’t believe that. He can’t even afford for that belief to exist, so I don’t see him uttering it, even as flattery he “knows” to be false.

[ajuc]

Lucius knows that his enemies believe muggleborn can be powerful wizards, so he can say that flattery to look like his enemies.

For people that believe blood has nothing to do with magic—they won’t state the obvious.

[GeorgieChaos]

Hat and Cloak uttered that line by way of drawing attention to the reason that blood-purists have taken her for an enemy (which is relevant because H&C wants to give the appearance of courting Hermione as an ally). As an explanation of that hatred and danger it makes sense say it no matter who H&C turns out to be.

[PlatypusNinja]

The new Update Notifications features (http://​​hpmor.com/​​notify/​​) is pretty awesome but I have a feature request. Could we get some sort of privacy policy for that feature?

Like, maybe just a sentence at the bottom saying “we promise to only use your email address to send you HPMOR notifications, and we promise never to share your email address with a third party”?

It’s not that I don’t trust you guys (and in fact I have already signed up) but I like to check on these things.

[shokwave]

Hat-and-Cloak is Voldemort but not Quirrell. When in Quirrell, Voldemort has a whole (probably quite powerful!) brain to run his computation on. Outside of Quirrell, he relies only on what computation he can do purely as a ‘ghost’, or as magic, or whatever. Hat-and-Cloak is thusly disguised because Voldemort lacks a body. Or maybe Voldemort possesses someone else, who isn’t as smart as Quirrell, and is proportionally dumber and more prone to mistakes. Quirrell is zombie while Voldemort’s away because Voldemort set it up that way. Don’t want your robot walking away without you.

Part of the groundhog-day attack involved setting up a trigger in Hermione, that when she can attack Malfoy, she should try to kill him. This explains her behaviour in the battle, and her apparent behaviour in the duel.

Hat-and-Cloak is a player in this story. Players in this story are clever and powerful. A sensible way of resolving this apparent contradiction is to postulate some form of disability or restriction applying to Hat-and-Cloak. Then all you need is Conservation of Characters.

[[deleted]]

It would simply be bad writing to set up a mysterious and malevolent figure like Hat and Cloak and then reveal him as one of the story’s established villains. It’s redundant, a wasted move, to reveal that the villain was secretly a villain. It drains tension from the story to reveal that the heroes were only facing one opponent, not two. I would rule out the possibility just by assuming a competent author.

A point in favor of Hat and Cloak being Grindelwald: the playing card he chose to represent Dumbledore was the King of Hearts. ♥

[shokwave]

It would simply be bad writing to set up a mysterious and malevolent figure like Hat and Cloak and then reveal him as one of the story’s established villains.

Unless the reveal involved learning about the Voldemort-Quirrell symbiosis, or Voldemort-Hat-and-Cloak outsmarting Voldemort-Quirrell, or any of a dozen other dramatic reveals.

A point in favor of Hat and Cloak being Grindelwald: the playing card he chose to represent Dumbledore was the King of Hearts. ♥

At first I wanted to say “reading too deeply”, but you have a point: the choice of card was not a throwaway line, it was intended to be mysterious, so it should have some depth worth plumbing.

[[deleted]]

I like it here! Everyone’s so gracious. Upvoted and thank you.

[LucasSloan]

Unless the reveal involved learning about the Voldemort-Quirrell symbiosis, or Voldemort-Hat-and-Cloak outsmarting Voldemort-Quirrell, or any of a dozen other dramatic reveals.

You’re postulating increasingly complex (ie unlikely) explanations to defend your theory. Donny’s statement is strong evidence for H&C not being one of the existing villains.

[shokwave]

That’s a disjunction of several unlikely explanations; any one alone is enough to ‘defend’ my theory.

[prasannak]

Why do you think that particular Santa Claus was H & C ?

Sounded more like Lupin to me, with the ‘getting into more trouble than James’ reference.

[[deleted]]

That Santa Claus is Hat and Cloak was the implication I took from this exchange. Still seems correct to me. It’s the combination of his paranoid advice and ignorance of current events. Why would Lupin tell Harry to avoid Dumbledore? (That’s the letter with the ‘more trouble than James’ reference.)

[LucasSloan]

Why would Lupin tell Harry to avoid Dumbledore?

This is a good question, and we do in fact have evidence that Lupin doesn’t totally trust Dumbledore—he worries that Dumbledore may have sent Harry off to evil step-parents.

[tadrinth]

What evidence is there that H&C isn’t just Quirrell wrapped in an illusion?

There’s no need for Hermione to have cast the lethal hex. She wins the duel, then the real perpetrator stuns both of them, hexes Draco, and then memory charms Hermione into thinking she did it. However, if that’s the case, unless the perpetrator then used Hermione’s wand to cast the hex, checking what spells her wand had cast would reveal something fishy.

Why are we proposing the H&C is not clever and powerful?

[shokwave]

Why are we proposing the H&C is not clever and powerful?

Slips and mistakes H&C has made point to incompetence.

[cousin_it]

I’m confused about H&C. On one hand, yes, he looks incompetent. On the other hand, in Ch.35 he knew that Quirrell would be questioning Zabini about Dumbledore’s plot, and instructed Zabini accordingly. How could he know that, given that Quirrell decided to question Zabini on the spur of the moment, when he heard Harry mention Dumbledore favorably? The most likely explanation seems to be that H&C is Quirrell and instructed Zabini just in case.

ETA: if I ignore logic and judge only by manners, then H&C seems to be Snape. But why?

[TuviaDulin]

If Voldemort’s possession ability worked like that, though, why wouldn’t he just use Quirrel’s body for that? You’d think that he would make sure to use his smartest host for anything requiring puzzle solving or careful manipulation.

[shokwave]

Perhaps Voldemort doesn’t want Quirrell to know certain going plans? Perhaps Voldemort thinks not involving Quirrell is the most effective method of convincing targets that someone other than Quirrell is doing this? Perhaps Hat-and-Cloak’s secrecy is to normal people what Quirrell’s brilliance is to Harry (convincing), and Voldemort thinks or know that Quirrell can’t pull off being H-&-C properly? Perhaps Quirrell is monitored in some way that he can’t safely or nonsuspiciously avoid (I can believe Dumbledore setting up some such thing) and so Voldemort does just enough to fly under the “openly hostile” rader, using Hat-and-Cloak to strike the tinder as it were?

I don’t know, but I suspect that if my claim is the case, the answer to your question is a reason the story itself does not reveal.

You’d think that he would make sure to use his smartest host for anything requiring puzzle solving or careful manipulation.

He certainly does the lion’s share. Perhaps Hat-and-Cloak only handles less challenging or less dangerous-to-fail situations.

[GeorgieChaos]

I was under the impression that Quirrellmort’s zombie-time meant that the Quirrell host-body had been lobotomized. If so, any intelligence that Voldemort can bring to bear is already native to him. Of course, there is that comment in one of his early discussions with Harry about never being able to fully disentangle the mind from the body that it wears...I’m not yet entirely sure what to think about this. I don’t think we have any direct evidence that Voldemort can step out of Quirrell without great inconvenience.

[TimS]

When H&C drops the disguise, Hermoine recognizes him/​her. I don’t think it is particularly likely that ghost-Voldemort looks anything like any picture of him from a history book. So how would Hermoine recognize him?

[GeorgieChaos]

I feel that I should point out that when the black mist lifts and Hermione recognizes the face of her assailant we have no reason to believe that the face she recognizes is not itself an illusion.

Since we already know that she has been obsessing about Draco, I suspect that it may even have been his face (though with the information we readers have it is obvious that H&C is not actually he), though I don’t put a great weight on that suspicion.

[cultureulterior]

If Harry does not manage to find the real culprit, then how does he save Hermione from having her wand broken?

Breakout/​Direct Attack on the Wizengamot /​ Malfoy Manor

• Transfigure a one-atom line of antimatter through the earth’s crust all the way to the Wizengamot or Malfoy Manor, and then a small bubble there. His wand is then touching the item to be transformed, and it will work.

• Go to Azkaban and round up a few hundred dementors.

Stealth

• Transferring the cloak of invisibility to her somehow.

Bringing Hermione under the aegis of a noble house

• Adoption or marriage

[pedanterrific]

Transfigure a one-atom line of antimatter through the earth’s crust all the way to the Wizengamot or Malfoy Manor, and then a small bubble there. His wand is then touching the item to be transformed, and it will work.

Ten points to Slytherin for creativity. Minus ten bajillion points for holy shit, are you suicidal?!

[cultureulterior]

That’s just 15 joules per cubic meter of rock, until you get to the bomb. Not even detectable. I wonder, however, how the magic source is going to do turning energy back into matter afterwards.

[Blueberry]

Damn. Why are people not blowing things up with antimatter all the time?

[Manfred]

Ignorance, high transfiguration skill level required, magical safeguards in place, possibly.

[Blueberry]

Makes sense. We could probably also build a power plant powered by transfigured antimatter.

[Blueberry]

Why would the magic source do that? Wouldn’t the antimatter just react with the surrounding matter and turn into energy under the laws of physics, and stay that way?

How did you get 15J, by the way?

[cultureulterior]

Cube root(number of atoms in a 1m^3 cube of silicon(simplification)=number of atoms in a one atom line, assuming that the atoms were arranged in an cubic crystal(simplification). Mass-energy of those atoms, times two (for complete destruction) and then subtract for the particles that do not decay immediately (I had to look that up, I think I got about 5/​6th remaining)

[DanArmak]

How would blowing up Malfoy Manor help Harry anyway? He’d be hurting Draco, who loves his father, and the court case brought by Draco against Hermione would go forward.

[cultureulterior]

Are we sure of that? The trial might vanish if the House of Malfoy is extirpated.

[DanArmak]

I’m sure Harry wouldn’t want to extirpate the whole House, which includes Draco. Just killing Lord Malfoy (and any servants who happened to be near) is enough collateral damage that Harry wouldn’t seriously consider it if Hermione isn’t facing outright death herself.

Besides, I’m pretty sure there are other branches of the Malfoys that would inherit the title. Draco mentioned an uncle or some other relative not in the line of succession who used to visit him at least a few years ago.

[cultureulterior]

Even better- That uncle will likely want the title, so Harry just needs to bargain with him.

“If you get the title, you’ll drop all charges, right?”

[TimS]

Won’t save Slytherin, which is one of HP’s goals.

[ArisKatsaris]

I’m guessing that currently Hermione factors about 50 times more in Harry’s utility function than the whole of Slytherin House put together.

[TimS]

Hermione is much more important, but HP would prefer a plan that did not inherently make Draco his enemy. I don’t think it is much of a stretch to think exposing Malfoy Manor to anti-matter would make Draco become an enemy.

[DanArmak]

Only because she’s in more and more immediate danger. It might be possible to build another plot to help Slytherin later, but Hermione needs help now.

[Xachariah]

Bribery, Trade, or Begging

Harry could offer to pay Lucius Malfoy something in restitution. It couldn’t just be money or an incredible favor. As the original ‘Taboo Tradeoffs’ paper mentions, people only get more angry when you try to do that. Harry would need an accurate model of Lucius suspecting him as Harrymort and be able to trade him something that Harrymort would consider sacred.

• Trade his invisibility cloak to Lucius for Hermione’s freedom. Make sure to play up that it is 1/​3rd of the Deathly Hallows and thus something Harrymort considers sacred/​invaluable.

• Trade Lucius a blood debt from the House of Potter.

• Make an unbreakable vow to protect Draco or otherwise help Lucius (or some other ritual).

• (Assuming Roger Bacon’s diary is indeed the diary Horcrux and Harry manages to discover that) Trade Lucius a piece of Voldemort’s soul as apology.

None of the trades seem particularly smart or likely, but Harry might consider a few of them if he got really desperate. They seem to be of sufficient value to Lucius (or rather, to Harry’s model of Lucius’ model of Harrymort) to prove that Harry is genuinely sorry and be worth Hermione’s life/​magic/​future.

[Joshua Hobbes]

He consults professor Quirrell, accuses him of setting this all up to rob him of friends, and demands that he free Hermione in order to prove his innocence and good-will.

Quirrell disappears, reappears, and informs Harry that Lucius had a change of heart and is dropping all charges.

[ajuc]

Stealth—not only he must transfer cloak to Hermione—he must also get Hermione out of court, and she must be in cloak at all times to prevent tracking magic, and Harry must have the cloak with himself, when Dumbledore will want to see it, when tracking magic will stop working (and there’s spell that detects if cloak is nearby).

One way to do this—duplicate cloak using time turner for the moment Dumbledore will want to check it.

Scheme:

• Harry takes cloak, mokesking pouch, and time turner with himself to the court

• Harry waits for Hermione to disappear

• Harry puts his mokeskin poach under the table or somewhere and not look at it

• Hermione disappears

• Dumbledore try to track Hermione and fails—so he checks if cloak is near—it is, so he asks Harry about it—Harry shows cloak to Dumbledore and it’s empty

• Harry goes back wearing cloak just before the moment Hemrione should disappear, takes the mokeskin poach that he left under the table, somehow makes everybody look elsewhere and put Hermione into his own mokeskin poach which he keeps under the duplicated cloak (may need to use potion or sth that will turn Hermione into animal or thing or sth that he can put into poach—like with Quirrell as a snake).

• Harry in the past waits for Dumbledore to check the cloak that Harry in the present has with himself, waits for everybody to get out, and somehow passes the poach back to himself without looking at himself. Harry in the present puts poach into the cloak.

Possible failures—Dumbledore can keep the cloak, making it impossible to hide Hermione after the time turner is used up. I think Dumbledore won’t do this—he didn’t wanted to keep cloak to himself, he wants Harry to have cloak just in case, and even if he see throught this plot, he can let it slip, because he probably don’t want Hermione to have wand snapped. But it’s one failure mode.

Also Harry must be prepared to “prove” he didn’t used up his TimeTurner, like he did after Azkaban Breaking.

I probbly missed something, and this won’t work.

[DanArmak]

How would Harry even get to the trial in the first place? Dumbledore won’t let him leave Hogwarts, and if he did, why should the Wizengamot admit him to the proceedings unless e.g. Dumbledore requested it? And why would D. do that unless he expected Harry to succeed in helping Hermione escape? But if D. wanted Hermione to escape illegally (possible but unlikely IMO), he could surely arrange that himself without Harry’s help and presence. (Maybe he’d borrow the cloak...)

[ajuc]

“Harry had used up all six hours from his Time-Turner, and there were still no clues, and he had to go to sleep now if he wanted to be functional at Hermione’s trial the next day.”

I assumed this means Harry will be at trial. Probably as a witness?

[DanArmak]

He could only be a character witness, at most. Not very relevant to the trial at hand.

Maybe Dumbledore will just bring him in as a spectator, and wouldn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. We don’t know what the rules for that are.

[LucasSloan]

He is a member of a noble house. He is probably entitled to observe, even if his age prevents him from taking his seat.

[Incorrect]

Transfigure a one-atom line of antimatter through the earth’s crust all the way to the Wizengamot or Malfoy Manor, and then a small bubble there. His wand is then touching the item to be transformed, and it will work.

Items aren’t held in stasis while in mid-transfiguration as far as I am aware.

I’m not sure he even needs a line anyway.

[cultureulterior]

Ok, do the same with a radioactive substance- it won’t do anything until enough has been transfigured to go critical.

[pedanterrific]

Items aren’t held in stasis while in mid-transfiguration as far as I am aware.

It took me a while to figure out what you meant by this. I’m pretty sure, from the descriptions we’ve been given, that while transfiguration requires some time spent concentrating, the actual change happens instantaneously at the end- if you’re interrupted before you finish, nothing happens.

[loserthree]

As an airborne scout, Goyle was able to report what HJPEV & Blaise were in the process of transfiguring during the battle in chapter 78.

Is that less than conclusive evidence that the transformation is gradual?

[pedanterrific]

You know, you’re right. I was going off the demonstration of partial Transfiguration:

And a few minutes later, Harry was strapped into the safety chair and resting his wand against a metal ball—one that, based on his current test scores, should have been too large for him to Transfigure in less than thirty minutes.

And a few minutes after that, Minerva was leaning against the wall, feeling faint.

There was a small patch of glass on the ball where Harry’s wand had rested.

Which seemed to me to indicate that the glass didn’t appear until a few minutes after he started the transfiguration. And the bit where Harry cuts through Azkaban’s interior wall seems to make somewhat less sense if it’s gradual- the motor oil would just drip out, for instance.

But the fact that Goyle could recognize the cauldrons before the transfiguration was done pretty conclusively rules the idea out. Oops.

[JoshuaZ]

The transfiguration idea is very clever, but I suspect that the Wizengamot and Malfoy Manor would both have powerful defenses which would block harmful transfigurations. It also isn’t clear what the range is on transfiguration.

[DanArmak]

Go to Azkaban and round up a few hundred dementors.

Harry would never use dementors as his army.

Bringing Hermione under the aegis of a noble house

Adoption or marriage

Problem one, Dumbledore is Harry’s legal guardian and would need to approve such acts. Problem two, there is then a blood debt from House Potter to House Malfoy, so maybe Harry has his wand snapped instead of Hermione, and how is that any better?

[cultureulterior]

I’m assuming that the evidentiary standards are higher for conflicts between noble houses. I could also imagine a trial by combat alternative.

[Joshua Hobbes]

As much as I’d love it, there’s no chance of a trial by combat. “If we did it your way, Kingslayer, you’d win. We’re not doing it your way.”

[DanArmak]

I’m assuming that the evidentiary standards are higher for conflicts between noble houses

I’m getting the sense there isn’t an evidentiary standard at all, not in any case. Each side argues their case and presents whatever evidence they like, and then the Wizengamot votes whatever the hell they feel like, nonwithstanding evidence to the contrary. Remember what Draco told Potter back at the train station: the Malfoys can get out of any accusations before the Wizengamot, like a non-noble accusing Draco of rape, simply because they’ve got the votes. Or the case with clearing Hagrid of blame: Quirrel said it would go ahead “because Lucius would have no reason to oppose it” (my words).

[DanArmak]

What, Lord (Harry) Potter against Lord Lucius Malfoy? What a fine trial by combat that would be.

[Joshua Hobbes]

No, they’d be allowed champions, and Dumbledore would win.

[DanArmak]

If it were that easy, Lucius couldn’t contest Dumbledore politically. I suppose the Wizengamot would have to rule to adjudicate by combat, and they won’t in an apparently clearcut murder attempt case.

[cultureulterior]

Well, for underage wizards, they get a champion, obviously. Dumbledore or Quirrel, I’d assume.

[Anubhav]

Go to Azkaban and round up a few hundred dementors.

Harry would never use dementors as his army.

Before the Heaven’s Feel arc, you mean.

[QuicklyStarfish]

Can somebody dereference “Heaven’s Feel arc” for those of us who aren’t familiar with it?

[gwern]

Fate/​Stay Night comes up in MoR as the franchise whose Fuyuki City trips up Quirrel in the interrogation*; the ‘Heaven’s Feel’ route is one possible plot in the FSN franchise. Plot summary, ref is probably to evil-Sakura’s ‘army of shadows’, which matches up well with Dementors.

* I looked it up, and Quirrel’s visit there in 1983 or whatever would have coincided with the birth of a few minor characters but nothing else important in the FSN universe, as far as I could tell.

[prasannak]

Eliezer suggests re-reading 14, 21, 26, 35, 43-47, 56-57, 63, 66, 73-77, chapters

What’re the possible clues embedded in these chapters?

• 14 - Time-turner given to HP, Santa Claus gives inv Cloak

• 21 - Hermione worried that she was going ‘bad’ + Bayesian Conspiracy starts + Draco wants to learn about blood + SC gifts 2 galleons, Occlumency book, advice about Quirrell, and warnings about Dumbledore

• 26 - Noticing Confusion. A Muggle casts a dangerous spell on a Slytherin without knowing what the spell would do, also the Weasley’s plot in the Prophet. Bacon’s book to HP, Killing of Rita Skeeter

• 35 - After HP/​Q talk at the end of the battle. Also, Blaise Zabini + H&C interaction, Harry teasing Draco about Draco/​Hermione working together.

• 43-47 - Killing of the dementor, ends with HP & Draco discussion, Harry taking an oath against Narcissa’s murderer, Harry shown to be a Parselmouth

• 56-57 - Couple of chapters in Azkaban

• 63 - TSPE Aftermath, Harry recognizes Hermione as ‘good’, Trelawney’s aborted prophecy, HP receives SC gift of pack of cards.

• 66 - SA Part I, key seems to be “Lessson I learned is not to try plotss that would make girl-child friend think I am evil or boy-child friend think I am sstupid,” & “You will losse patience long before sseventh year, perhapss before end of thiss one. I sshall plan accordingly.”

• 73-77 - SA more thereof, ends with H&C groundhog attack on Hermione

Now, any of you folks digging up anything from the suggested chapters?

[FAWS]

The first thing I noticed is that the list contains the Santa Claus messages and H&C appearances (14, 21, 35, 63, 77). Presumably all chapters that contain strong and deliberate hints at H&C’s identity are on the list. I notice that neither the chapter where Remus talks about Sirius and Peter, nor the chapter where a prisoner is mumbling “I’m not serious [Sirius]” are on the list, so H&C is unlikely to be Sirius. On the other hand 65 which has Quirrel explain that the port key Santa Claus sent had a misleading description attached is not on the list either, so that may not be definite.

[prasannak]

In 14 - Harry’s Invisibility Cloak is not given by Santa Claus—the letter is unsigned unlike future letters—and is almost surely given by Dumbledore himself. Perhaps this is a hint toward the use of a time-turner? (Does Hermione know about Harry’s time-turner yet? )

63 is on the list—where Harry actually receives the gift from Claus.

Also, 43-47 has Harry going deep into his dark side, that’s probably more the clue than killing of the dementor.

OT—Whoa! I didn’t realize that http://​​hpmor.com/​​chapter/​​58 had someone saying “I’m not serious”—awesome!

[FAWS]

In 14 - Harry’s Invisibility Cloak is not given by Santa Claus—the letter is unsigned unlike future letters -

The reason the later letters are signed “Santa Claus” is to signify that they are from the same anonymous person who was wishing Harry a merry Christmas and giving him an early Christmas present with the first note. Otherwise there would have been no reason to use the alias Santa Claus. It’s possible that they are from another person merely pretending to be that anonymous gift giver, but then it’s also possible for any appearance of a non-POV character to be someone else under the influence of polyjuice.

if you were going to make an objection of that kind it would have made a lot more sense to object to calling Hermione’s assailant H&C.

[prasannak]

Aah, somehow I read your earlier statement to mean H&C & Santa Claus were the same.

And you’re absolutely right, Santa Claus is one person, and the name signifies it is the same person.

Looks like Harry told Quirrell that it was signed Santa Claus—we should assume in the future letters are from the same person or Q, since Q would definitely forge such letters if it was to his advantage.

“Although of course Harry hadn’t told Professor Quirrell who’d sent him the card, nor what it was supposed to do, before he’d asked Professor Quirrell if it was possible to tell where the portkey would send him.” … Harry had shown Professor Quirrell the note that had accompanied the deck of cards, saying nothing of the earlier notes.

My hypothesis for now is SC = Dumbledore/​Nicholas Flamel. H&C = Quirrell.

And 75th above makes a strong case for SC=D—http://​​lesswrong.com/​​lw/​​ams/​​harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/​​60uj

[75th]

It seems that the popular opinion around here is that Mr. Hat & Cloak is someone, anyone, other than Quirrellmort. I think this is a case of the same kind of thinking that led people to wonder whether Quirrell was Voldemort a lot longer than Eliezer intended.

I think Eliezer probably meant us to know that Quirrell was H&C the very first time he appeared. Quirrell follows after Zabini when he leaves Harry; Zabini says that Quirrell reacted exactly as H&C told him he would. He knew how Quirrell would react because he is Quirrell, and he told Zabini to do what he did specifically so Harry, who Quirrell knew would be around after the ceremony, could hear it and have another reason to distrust Dumbledore.

Eliezer has already dealt with this once. Everyone suppressed their own knowledge of canon and faculties of logic even in the face of nigh-incontrovertible evidence that Quirrell was Voldemort. He expressed his confusion at this in the author’s notes, and I believe he vowed to make his blatant hints more blatant in the future.

I think Quirrell being H&C is even more blatant than Quirrellmort was, and here we are doing the exact same thing. We do it because we love the story and want to preserve as many surprises as we can for as long as possible. We want to wait, wait, wait for a bigger payoff later.

I think Eliezer is likely to be silently rolling his eyes at us on this, thinking “There they go again!” and chuckling quietly to himself. But I know that if he is, he’s darn well going to let us figure it out for ourselves this time, rather than once again holding our hands as we step gingerly to conclusions to which he meant us to leap.

[major]

Ha! Or maybe Eliezer has been rolling his eyes at us (or, rather, y’all), and gave us a blatant hint with the contrast of competent Quirrell interrogating sneaky Snape and less experienced H&C working on naive Hermione. I think you’re just clinging to your one beautiful idea, instead of examining other possibilities—like, say, H&C is taking instructions from Quirrell, maybe?

See? Two can play that game.

[[deleted]]

I think Eliezer probably meant us to know that Quirrell was H&C the very first time he appeared.

I disagree with this at least as strongly as you believe it. I’m pretty sure he meant Hat and Cloak to be a giant question mark. Hence the elaborate descriptions of the broad hat, the dark mist, and the gender-concealing cloak, all drawing your attention to the mystery of his identity. There have been hints, but they don’t all point in the same direction the way they do for Quirrell and Voldemort. Some are red herrings. I conclude that we’re not meant to be certain of who he is. We’re meant to wonder and doubt.

[gRR]

I’m not sure why almost everyone assumes that the first and the second H&C is the same person. Is there any reason to think so, beside their appearance?

Same appearance is a clue to the two H&C-s being related, but not necessarily to identity. For example, a hat and a cloak may be a uniform in a secret society, to be worn in special circumstances. Or, maybe two of them were friends and did pranks like that in their youth. Or, one of them saw the other do this trick once long ago, was impressed, and remembered it. Etc etc.

What I’m leading to is the possibility of the first H&C being Quirrell, and the second being Lucius.

[JamesAndrix]

For example, a hat and a cloak may be a uniform in a secret society, to be worn in special circumstances.

I much like the idea of this being a standard spell, as that provides further cover for your identity.

They Guy Fawkes mask is the modern equivalent.

[AlexMennen]

I think Eliezer referred to both of them as “Mr. Hat-and-Cloak” in the author’s notes.

[Xachariah]

The problem I have with this is that it’s unnecessary from Quirrel’s point of view.

If Quirrell wanted a 3 way tie, he could have managed that himself as the organizer.

If Quirrell wanted Blaise to testify about Dumbledore, he could have pulled the same trick Kingsley did in book 5 at far less risk.

If Quirrell wanted to convince Hermoine of something, he wouldn’t have needed multiple tries reset with Obliviate.

Quirrell being H&C is superfluous frow Quirrell’s point of view. He could have achieved all of those by himself.

[drethelin]

You realize Dumbledore was the one who made the 3-way tie happen? Zabini was just reporting on it to quirrel and HnC.

Quirrel might want blaise to talk about dumbledore IN FRONT of quirrel and not give away that quirrel ordered him to a cunning observer, such as harry. This would mean giving him orders as someone other than quirrel.

As far as hermione goes, do you seriously think any idea she gained from quirrel would be as convincing to her as one conveyed by whatever entity he ends up using in the memory attack? As she said, she doesn’t trust HnC when he appears extremely suspicious, and she would never trust quirrel for the exact same reasons.

[Xachariah]

Ah yes, Dumbledore did indeed wish for the 3-way tie to happen. Although it did occur with the full consent and knowledge of H&C. Whoever H&C was, he let that plan go through. I will point out that Zabini didn’t just report it to Quirrell/​Harry, but rather reported a distorted version that involved giving false information.

The trick I’m referring to in book 5 is when Cho’s friend is testifying to Umbridge and Kingsley changes her testimony right before she gives it. It’s been a while since I read it but it was probably the Imperius or Confundus. Eg, if Quirrell were willing to go these lengths to mislead Harry, he could have just cast a spell on Zabini and be done with it.

Also, I agree with you about Hermoine not trusting anything she heard from Quirrell. However, I only said that Quirrell wouldn’t need so many tries, not that he’d talk to her with his face. He’s had her as a student; he’s interacted with her personally; hell, he’s made her a general and has her marked as a person of interest. He would already know what it takes to convince her. He would have succeeded with a singly try instead of wasting hours in that corridor. What’s more, Quirrell is a master legilimens; if he’s willing to pull off a Groundhog Day attack on her he might as well just read her mind and get it right the first try. There’s no point in wasting time, magic, and risk of getting caught when you could just do the job perfectly in 30 seconds.

[drethelin]

I think you’re overestimating Quirrel. Harry finds him extremely persuasive because he’s inclined to agree with him, because he’s grown to trust and like him. Hermione might respect him as teacher, but she doesn’t trust OR like him, and this is obvious whenever harry tries to tell her something Quirrel told him. EVEN when you’re extremely competent some things simply take some trial and error to get correct, and understanding a mind that’s diametrically opposed to yours should be one of those things. Quirrel doesn’t know EVERYTHING.

As far as legilimency goes, it’s established that that the person needs to be thinking about a topic or atleast about similar topics before you can find out about it. This means that legilimizing someone in order to gain their inner motivations, worries, and handles is definitely gonna take way longer than 30 seconds.

[GeorgieChaos]

“There is a Charm called Obliviation.”

Harry froze in place. “A spell that erases memories?”

McGonagall nodded. “But not all the effects of the experience, if you see what I’m saying, Mr. Potter.”

-

“Obliviation cannot be detected by any known means”

-

“Miss Granger has been obsessing over Mr. Malfoy since the day that Severus… yelled at her. She has been thinking of how Mr. Malfoy might be in league with Professor Snape, how he might be planning to harm her and harm Harry—imagining it for hours every day—it would be impossible to create false memories for so much time.”

“The appearance of insanity...” Severus murmured softly, as though he were speaking to himself. “Could it be natural? No, it is too disastrous to be pure accident; too convenient for someone, I have no doubt. A Muggle drug, perhaps? But that would not be enough—Miss Granger’s madness would have to be guided-”

“Ah!” Harry said suddenly. “I get it now. The first False Memory Charm was cast on Hermione after Professor Snape yelled at her, and showed, say, Draco and Professor Snape plotting to kill her. Then last night that False Memory was removed by Obliviation, leaving behind the memories of her obsessing about Draco for no apparent reason, at the same time she and Draco were given false memories of the duel.”

In chapter 75 Snape gives Hermione a rather thorough dressing-down in front of the school. Did the Groundhog Day attack in chapter 77 happen on the same day? I have been assuming that Snape & Harry were broadly correct, and the Groundhog Day attack was how that madness-guiding trick was done.

My working-theory is that the entire purpose of the attack was to produce a directed trauma, and an obsession, without a readily detectable cause.

Xachariah and Drethelin, if I’ve read you right you both believe that Hat and Cloak’s purpose was to put some idea or belief into Hermione’s head; to convince her of something. I think that there is something rather deeper and more subtly manipulative going on here.

[Edited for formatting.]

[Alicorn]

What’s more, Quirrell is a master legilimens; if he’s willing to pull off a Groundhog Day attack on her he might as well just read her mind and get it right the first try. There’s no point in wasting time, magic, and risk of getting caught when you could just do the job perfectly in 30 seconds.

Having one’s mind read for the first time seems to leave some kind of trace; if he’s not sure she’s ever had her mind read before he shouldn’t try it because then Dumbledore or Snape could learn later that someone’s been peeking.

[glumph]

This seems to be borne out by the events of Chapter 79:

Albus said heavily, “A person who looked like Madam McJorgenson told us that a single Legilimens had lightly touched Miss Granger’s mind some months ago. That is from January, Harry, when I communicated with Miss Granger about the matter of a certain Dementor.”

Even if Hat and Cloak is Quirrell, the job had to be done the hard way, without Legilimency.

[Eneasz]

What really throws this for me is that Quirrell is said to go down the hallway in the same direction as Zabini, and then in the next section Zabini meets H&C. That is so blatant that I actually consider it an anti-clue. It’s like someone pretending to steal something and whistling nonchalantly to draw attention to their jest-theft. Contrast to Quirrell trying to permanently Dement Harry during the Humanism arc, which was subtle enough that I completely missed it in the first reading (tho didn’t hurt that I was very biased by my adoration of Quirrell at that point).

[Nisan]

Quirrell trying to permanently Dement Harry during the Humanism arc

Wait, what? Has this been discussed somewhere?

[Eneasz]

Somewhere in the old threads I think, but I’m in a rush and can’t look it up right now. Quick points:

• Quirrell organized the whole Dementor visit from the beginning

• Quirrell waited until Hermione was running up to the Dementor and would’ve seen it herself anyway to “suddenly notice” Harry’s wand next to the Dementor’s cage

• Quirrell suggested the Headmaster leave early, before it was Harry’s turn

• Quirrell instructed Harry’s friends to “give him space” even though he probably knew that it was better for Harry to be surrounded by his friends as Dumbledore said

• Quirrell undermines Harry’s confidence just before he goes in front of the Dementor (If you can’t do it, I at least will understand)

All plausibly deniable, and exactly Quirrell’s style.

[Fergus_Mackinnon]

That implies he at least suspects Harry holds a horcrux…

[Nisan]

Holy crap.

[Blueberry]

Why would he want to kill Harry? And if he wanted to, wouldn’t he have done it by now?

[Eneasz]

Demented Harry is Evil Harry, not dead.

[Blueberry]

What? The people in Azkaban were close to dead, not cunning evil geniuses. Dementors weaken you and suck the life out of you.

[Eneasz]

Chapter 44 is the goal-state

[Nominull]

Am I the only one that’s worried about Trelawney’s prophecy? My vague recollection is that she’s a joke of a diviner, but when you get right down to it, the fact that she predicted the same thing for each student in the class isn’t such a huge likelihood burden if you consider that they are not necessarily independent events. That is to say, she may well be predicting the death of someone all the students know. Which would suggest a tragic ending to this story, probably, unless it’s someone all the students Know-Who.

[Larks]

Or she’s predicting a very imminent war.

[prasannak]

1. HPJEV has told Quirrel that Lucius threatened him with dire consequences if anything happened to Draco.

2. Q can’t make HPJEV do anything directly

3. Q, in the form of H&C, makes Hermione hurt Draco,

4. Why? One or more of …

   • To get Lucius to hurt Hermione

   • To get HPJEV to his dark side, moving him away from Hermione

   • To show HPJEV that no one is really ‘good’, ie even Hermione can hurt someone else

If that’s not true, then all I can say is “I am confused”.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I quite doubt Lucius is upset with Harry at the moment. He’s not stupid, and Harry is not to blame for what happened to his son.

And I’m quite confident Quirrell is not H&C, as the Defense Professor would have been considerably better at brain-washing Hermione. Besides, Harry will know that Hermione truly going dark is far more unlikely than interference via mind-magic or blackmail. He is going to stay on her side and investigate what happened, and Quirrell would anticipate this and not expect Harry to fall into darkness.

[pedanterrific]

Harry’s not to blame, but the person Lucius believes is posing as Harry might well be.

From Lucius’s perspective it must seem more likely that Hermione is a cat’s paw than that she’s actually strong enough to beat Draco fairly. Plus, having a Muggleborn arrested for the attempted murder of another student hurts Dumbledore as well. It would be far from unreasonable for Lucius to leap to conclusions at this point.

[75th]

He would not have been considerably better at brain-washing Hermione. Others, yes, but not Hermione. Quirrell is Voldemort, the ultimate evil (that we know of). Dumbledore has said that “Evil is that which does not love, and cannot know love without ceasing to be evil,” or similar.

Quirrell has already tried to convince Harry that Hermione is making a show of goodness to further her own ends. If he really believes that to some extent, given that he’s the ultimate evil, he would have a hard time modeling Hermione’s thought process well enough to get it right on the first try.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Eliezer thoroughly deconstructed Dumbledore’s (And Gandalf’s) view of evil in Lord of the Rationality. “If the Enemy thought that all his foes were moved by desire for power alone—he would guess wrongly, over and over, and the Maker of this Ring would see that, he would know that somewhere he had made a mistake!”

Even if somehow Quirrell was stupid enough to not truly understand non-sociopathic motives, he would not make the obvious mistake of revealing this weakness to Harry. Harry thinks that Quirrell can’t comprehend good because that’s what Quirrell wants him to think.

And H&C didn’t even fail because of a miscalculation about Hermione’s altruism. It was a rookie mistake to not use a different appearance than you did with Zabini. Even if you still wanted to look dark and mysterious, you wouldn’t pick the exact same disguise you used earlier, just in case.

Finally, H&C’s dialogue is highly unquirrellish. “I hoped for better from you, Hermione. Surely such a Ravenclaw as you, the most intelligent Ravenclaw to grace Hogwarts in a generation, knows that appearances can be misleading.” Those are not the words of a Dark Lord who doesn’t care about your opinion and is about to wipe your memory.

[75th]

Those are not the words of a Dark Lord who doesn’t care about your opinion and is about to wipe your memory.

They are precisely the words of a mysterious person who’s trying to persuade you of something. It’s simple flattery.

Eliezer thoroughly deconstructed Dumbledore’s (And Gandalf’s) view of evil in Lord of the Rationality.

Excellent point, but I hardly think this is a Sauron-level mistake. He may not absolutely fail to consider the actions and thoughts of moral people, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take him a few tries to find what buttons to push on an almost absolutely moral little girl.

Quirrell has to have some weakness, after all, if Harry is to ever beat him, as he presumably will. Why couldn’t it be that Quirrell is truly cynical and does truly believe all people act selfishly most of the time? Why couldn’t that omake be a foreshadowing of Quirrell’s downfall? Quirrell would never have left Mount Doom unguarded, but that doesn’t mean he won’t make some other, smaller critical mistake.

He might have revealed a weakness to Harry, even as brilliant as he is. He certainly doesn’t love Harry, he’s certainly not fond of him, but I think he feels a kinship with him, given that Harry houses a piece of Voldemort’s mind/​soul/​whatever. In his effort to turn Harry Dark, he might yet reveal more than he should.

Quirrell doesn’t have to be perfect. If he were, then Harry could never defeat him. Just that he never holds the Idiot Ball doesn’t mean he doesn’t make small, insignificant-seeming mistakes that may haunt him later.

[gjm]

Finally, H&C’s dialogue is highly unquirrellish.

I have no strong opinion on whether H&C = Quirrell, but Harry has already remarked on Quirrell’s facility at playing different roles.

[Desrtopa]

The strongest evidence that H&C is not Quirrell seems to me to be how much more amateurish he is at manipulating people than Quirrell is. I don’t believe it would have taken Quirrell dozens of iterations to realize he ought to change his appearance. It probably wouldn’t have taken him one.

[Vladimir_Nesov]

Those are not the words of a Dark Lord who doesn’t care about your opinion and is about to wipe your memory.

As you should know, appearances can be misleading. (This was not the first iteration, so whatever the default, this iteration already incorporates some adjustments.)

[linkhyrule5]

Yes, but he wouldn’t have made obvious slip-ups. H&C came within two words of blurting out “Time travel.” No way Quirrel did that, unless he’s playing a nth-level game through the fourth wall. (Which I wouldn’t put past him at this point, but anyway...)

[linkhyrule5]

So, possible Wild Guess, but has enough reinforcement that I’m going to throw it out there.

Right now, it seems like Eliezer is pushing to the trial. The chapter implies that Harry has done nothing else of note before Hermione’s trial, meaning he will have limited ability to defend her. Without any sort of evidence to raise reasonable doubt, he’d basically have to manipulate the Wizengamot.

… Which, while beyond Harry’s ability, is not beyond others. In particular: Quirrellmort.

If Quirrell manages to get Hermione acquitted...

1) Quirrell earns lots of Harry points. Regains trust after the Azkaban semi-fiasco.

2) Quirrell emphasizes his role as Harry’s mentor and protector when even Dumbledore is helpless.

3) Meanwhile, this whole fiasco has convinced Harry even more that the wizarding society has issues.

4) Hermione is reinstated as an ally of Harry. If Quirrellmort’s goal is to strengthen Harry, this is also a plus.

5) Draco is now a victim of a plan, and earns pity, not respect, destabilizing Lucius’ power base.

If, simultaneously, Quirrell were to keep Lucius from undoing Harry’s turning...

1) Again, adds another ally, Harry points, etc.

And if both… then we have two heroes of Slytherin and of Ravenclaw who survived an evil plot, and may well garner sympathy for that plot. And remember, Quirrell promised to make Slytherin and Ravenclaw simultaneously win the House Cup...

[Joshua Hobbes]

Quirrell storming into the trial when the majority of the audience believes him to be the one behind everything sounds quite like this story’s style.

The trouble with this theory is that the arc is confirmed to last until chapter 84, and Quirrell being suddenly released from custody would be far too short of a resolution.

I suspect Harry and Co will come up with some sort of last-ditch effort during the trial, leading to some sort of awesome event like the previously suggested Trial-By-Combat (though obviously not that). I suspect Quirrell will play some part in the end, though.

Oh, and I’d like to predict that we find out H&C’s identity during this arc.

[Incorrect]

It was mentioned that Fawkes was in the room. Maybe Harry threatens the chamber with having Fawkes teleport him to Azkaban and destroying all the dementors after demonstrating on the one in the room.

[David_Allen]

Quirrell storming into the trial when the majority of the audience believes him to be the one behind everything sounds quite like this story’s style.

The trouble with this theory is that the arc is confirmed to last until chapter 84, and Quirrell being suddenly released from custody would be far too short of a resolution.

It is surprising that Quirrell would accidentally reveal himself as an impostor during interrogation; so, perhaps the Quirrell currently in custody is an impostor—meaning that he is not the Quirrell currently teaching at Hogwarts. If so, the imposter is there to give Quirrell time to do something else. He may be attempting to prove Hermione’s innocence (even if he is to blame for the current situation), or he may also be after the Philosopher’s stone.

[gwern]

so, perhaps the Quirrell currently in custody is an impostor—meaning that he is not the Quirrell currently teaching at Hogwarts

Highly unlikely unless there are two Quirrels running around in possession of powerful wandless magic (remember the ‘sneeze’?)

[linkhyrule5]

The “ending at 84” is actually another reason I thought this was likely, because frankly, there’s only so much Harry can do at the trial itself. I’m imagining the next four chapters or so being about the aftermath of the trial, seeing Hermione’s and Draco’s reactions and the ripple effects of the trial.

[jimrandomh]

Chapter 25, Fred and George talking about the Marauder’s Map, which is supposed to show all people in Hogwarts by name:

“Still on the fritz,” said George.
“Both, or—”
“Intermittent one fixed itself again. Other one’s same as ever.”

The intermittent one is probably Quirrell, going in and out of zombie mode. But what could be visibly wrong with the other one? My theory is that, unlike all the other dots on the Marauder’s Map, one of them doesn’t have a name. Who could that be?

I hypothesize that this is Mr. Hat and Cloak. That would mean it’s not Quirrell and not anyone the Weasleys would pay much attention to, either. The map must get the names it displays from somewhere, and its reliability in doing so suggests that it gets them from people’s minds. My hypothesis is that to appear on the map without a name, you’d have to (a) not be known by name and present appearance to anyone whose mind the map can read, and (b) be an occlumens.

[prasannak]

Intermittent one is either people using time-turners, Weasley’s don;t know about time-turners, so they think it’s showing one person in two places or If it showed two names for the same person, that might be an intermittent bug too, ie Quirrel/​Riddle based on who he is at the moment.

Permanent bug might be someone floating in the castle who they know shouldn’t be there, perhaps Pettigrew, or Sirius, or someone who should be there but isn’t—ie Quirrell being unplottable.

Dumbledore & Snape are known Occlumens, but they show up on the map just fine.

In canon, the bug that Harry saw was Pettigrew on the map but he wasn’t actually there in reality.

[glumph]

I don’t think either of the glitches are Time-Turners. Time-Turners have (presumably) been used regularly in Hogwarts since the twins arrived, and it’s made clear that these glitches are new:

The Map was an extraordinarily powerful artifact, capable of tracking every sentient being on the school grounds, in real time, by name. Almost certainly, it had been created during the original raising of Hogwarts. It was not good that errors were starting to pop up.

[taelor]

Also, bear in mind that the official story is that the time turners are used to treat “spontaneous duplication”; if the map occasionally registers multiple versions of a “spontaneous duplication” sufferer, that would be written off as a feature, not a bug (just not the feature that the twins think it is).

[Joshua Hobbes]

I think it’s likely that Harry is one of those errors. We he goes dark-side his name might change.

[jimrandomh]

I don’t think George would describe a glitch where someone’s name changes as being “same as ever”.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I mean that he might be the intermittent one instead of Quirrell. If maps like these really do show one’s true name, as with Scabbers and Crouch in Canon, then Quirrell probably knows about them and made himself generally unplottable, not just intermittently.

[major]

My guess is, the intermittent one is H&C taking the appearance (and name, on the map) of students who are elsewhere to walk among the children, listening to rumours, maybe even talking to them. I’m going to assume he can disappear as well as change shape when out of sight, otherwise it would be too easy to track him down; plus, that’s why it’s ‘intermittent’.

[gwern]

The last chapter to me indicates strongly that the glitch is Voldemort’s spirit. Now you might ask, ‘wouldn’t George & Fred be scared witless by Voldemort appearing on their map occasionally and maybe even report it?’ But Voldemort is a pseudonym and the spirit would show up as ‘Tom Riddle’, as Dumbledore’s PoV indicates (notice Dumbledore has no problem saying ‘Voldemort’ in other contexts, but when he uses the Map, he asks for ‘Tom Riddle’).

Canon indicates that Voldemort’s origin is a secret: Dumbledore spends years digging out the link and the diary in Chamber of Secrets seems to think it’s telling Harry something good when it explains the anagram ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’ = ‘I am Lord Voldemort’ or whatever. So the twins wouldn’t make the link.

What probably happened is they noticed the glitch—maybe it claimed Riddle was in the same room as them at some point? - and investigated carefully, not finding anyone where the Map said a Riddle was. Perhaps they did some more digging and turned up Riddle’s old school history as Head Boy etc. Naturally, they conclude the Map is buggy: ‘old students from half a century ago are showing up! Bugs in the Map are not good!’

[loserthree]

Perhaps the twins were very careful with the Map, as would be appropriate for illicit tools of mischief, and never used it while they were in the same room as anyone else. It would be dangerous to do so, and their mischievous uses for it could easily work around such a restriction.

That, greater concerns, and a little bit of narrative/​circumstance, could keep them from ever laying eyes on the people that corresponded to their glitches.

[gwern]

Perhaps the twins were very careful with the Map, as would be appropriate for illicit tools of mischief, and never used it while they were in the same room as anyone else.

Well, yes, so imagine their shock when after the usual precautions they solemnly swear and see a third person listed in the room with them.

[loserthree]

The Disillusionment Charm is commonly known, yes?

That wouldn’t be mysterious, I don’t think. It would be shocking and frightening and frankly it ought to have happened at some point and the twins ought to have lost their Map because of it.

Or maybe they take precautions that would protect them against all the hiding tricks they know about and, you’re right, still encountered an extra name now and then. Still, I have a bit set that suggests the narrative would be more specific about that case, though I can’t justify it.

[Larks]

Everyone seems to be holding the idiot ball with regards sending Snape to check Hermoine’s room—this makes me suspect Dumbledore was behind the escalation.

[Yuu]

Dumbledore just can know about Snape’s schemes, and also want him to believe, that he doesn’t know. If he consider Snape’s game mostly harmless...

[NihilCredo]

Is Harry’s guess at the twins’ prank on Rita the correct one, and by corollary, are we supposed to believe that Quirrelmort couldn’t come up with a hypothesis that basic, and/​or that it had been that easy for the twins to successfully brainwash an adult witch? (And on a meta level: was it worth it to make such a hubbub with such a supremely, well, boring answer?)

[LucasSloan]

The twins didn’t brainwash Rita, they paid somebody to do it for them.

[matheist]

Harry leaps to that conclusion before hearing from Dumbledore how difficult they are to create. Even if that was the method, there is still the question of how they managed to accomplish it.

My hypothesis — as of several chapters ago — is that Dumbledore assisted in the Rita prank. He certainly had the motive, since he’s playing the game against Lucius and Rita was Lucius’s pawn. He also had the means (being incredibly powerful). Why hadn’t he acted against her earlier? Because he hadn’t been clever enough to think up a good way to get at her without inviting retaliation.

So how did he ever get included in the twins’ plan?

Easy: he’s in the habit of routinely reading their mind. Evidence for this lies in chapter 63: “It wasn’t that the Headmaster had popped up out of nowhere and was staring at them with a stern expression. Dumbledore was always doing that.” There’s also weak evidence in chapter 12, where Dumbledore knows Harry wants to reformulate Quidditch (he could know via F&G via Ron). And in chapter 79, where he knows about the map.

So: The twins are walking around thinking about how to implement their plan against Rita, Dumbledore pops up out of nowhere looking for some good gossip, sees their plans, seizes the opportunity. The exact implementation could either be a memory charm (maybe trap her when she shows up at Mary’s room looking for gossip about Amelia Bones, Dumbledore’s ally), or else Dumbledore could actually pull off the acts Quirrell calls impossible.

[gwern]

Easy: he’s in the habit of routinely reading their mind.

Hold on—didn’t Lawful Good Dumbledore make a big deal earlier in the Snape fight that he didn’t invade student’s minds?

[LucasSloan]

He promised that Snape would not read student’s minds.

[Xachariah]

Also, they aren’t students. They’re Fred and George.

[Anubhav]

was it worth it to make such a hubbub with such a supremely, well, boring answer?

Yes. That was the point of the whole incident.

[brilee]

An important hint: “Obliviation cannot be detected by any known means, but only a Professor could have cast that spell upon a student without alarm from the Hogwarts wards.”

This means no Lucius, no Sirius, no Lupin, etc.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Very Interesting. Are we certain he doesn’t just mean that Hogwarts only detects student’s spells? Probably not.

Do you think individuals who were professors in the past but are no longer might not be detected?

[pedanterrific]

If only Zabini had spoken more with his older cousin, he might have remembered that five years ago, Defense was taught by Professor Hat-and-Cloak.

More seriously, if Dumbledore thought to make sure no one could bring the same Dementor back the next day, he probably wouldn’t neglect to revoke, say, Slughorn’s permissions.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Presuming this all does lead up to a trial, I look forward to Harry’s reaction to the Magical Justice System.

“Hasn’t it ever occurred to anyone to have a suspect’s guilt decided by an unbiased panel of judges?!”

[Joshua Hobbes]

Oh, and I suspect that the Sorting Hat Summoning is going to happen during the trial, perhaps as a means of impartial mind-reading.

[Anubhav]

Oh, and I suspect that the Sorting Hat Summoning is going to happen during the trial

Yes, it is.

Either that or Eliezer anticipated this train of thought (not unlikely) and is playing at the second level (slightly unlikely). Multiplying that out, the probability is miniscule.

[ArisKatsaris]

Eh, by now you know you overthought this. Eliezer could have just meant that he knew there was a trial coming up, or that the song in question mentions the word “hat”, or a number of other possibilities.

Seriously, don’t limit the hypothesis space to “Either my current theory is exactly right to the letter” or “Eliezer tricked me into thinking the current theory is exactly right to the letter”. It’s always possible that the other guy just meant something different, no deception involved.

[Anubhav]

Lesson learned:

When you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains is often more improbable than your having made a mistake with one of your impossiblity proofs.

(However, if the Sorting Hat is summoned again, during the trial, this time with Pervenit Judex, I shall be very, very, tempted to conclude that Eliezer is just trolling us.)

[FiftyTwo]

Eleizer is always playing at one level higher than you…

[arundelo]

Even after you’ve accounted for the fact that Eliezer is always playing at one level higher than you.

[Anubhav]

Reminds me of this.

[Anubhav]

Eleizer is always playing at one level higher than you...

In this case, yes.

[cultureulterior]

Have we excluded the possibility of the Sorting Hat, either by accident or design, can help you violate the Interdict of Merlin? I mean, it doesn’t seem to be alive under the sense of the terms of the curse, but you never know. And, also, personally, I’ve always thought it was peculiar that Ravenclaw didn’t do anything to preserve his knowledge in the same way as Slytherin.

[lavalamp]

I’ve always thought it was peculiar that Ravenclaw didn’t do anything to preserve his knowledge in the same way as Slytherin.

Rowena was a woman.

[TobyBartels]

This doesn’t really contradict your hypothesis, but the Sorting Hat is Gryffindor-aligned.

[pedanterrific]

Could you explain what you mean by this? I know the original mundane hat the Founders enchanted happened to belong to Gryffindor, but I don’t see how that’s relevant.

[TobyBartels]

In canon, the hat is considered a relic of Gryffindor specifically, which is why his sword can be drawn from it. The Wikia seems pretty clear on this, so we should expect EY to follow that. OTOH, Salazar managed to insert his own subroutine into the hat, so as I said, this doesn’t really contradict cultureulterior’s hypothesis about Rowena.

[pedanterrific]

In canon, the hat is considered a relic of Gryffindor specifically, which is why his sword can be drawn from it. The Wikia seems pretty clear on this

Quoth the wiki:

The Sorting Hat was sewn roughly one thousand years ago and was merely a normal hat belonging to Godric Gryffindor. When Gryffindor, along with Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff, wondered how they would continue to sort the students when the four were dead, Gryffindor pulled his hat off of his head and, with the other founders, enchanted it with brains and some amount of personality. [...] Godric Gryffindor’s Sword, one of the founder’s only other known relics, can be magically pulled out of the hat by any Gryffindor considered worthy, no matter how secure the sword’s location.

It was a joint effort from the beginning.

Also, do you think that the crystal rod thingy is actually Gryffindor’s Crystal Rod Thingy?

[TobyBartels]

It was a joint effort from the beginning.

Enchanting the hat was done by all four? Yes, I already tacitly agreed with you about that. But as you can see from your quotation, the Hat is still considered a relic of Godric’s specifically. It is aligned with him. It is narratively imperfect for the Hat to serve individual tasks of other founders. On the other hand, Eliezer has already used it to serve a task of Salazar’s, so it could do one for Rowena as well. That just doesn’t fit as well. Nothing deeper than that.

Also, do you think that the crystal rod thingy is actually Gryffindor’s Crystal Rod Thingy?

More likely his than anyone else’s. But who knows, maybe it’s Helga Hufflepuff’s Crystal Rod Thingy, and then all four of them can have done something extra to the hat.

[Joshua Hobbes]

If Eliezer updates on the eve of the SAT, I’m going to track him down and read Vogon Poetry at him.

[TheOtherDave]

Will you do that before or after taking the SATs?

[CasioTheSane]

As a new lesswrongER, perhaps the most exciting thing about this community is the ability to reference Douglas Adams un-cited and assume that people will know exactly what I’m talking about.

[Eugine_Nier]

Wow, which communities did you previously hang out in?

[Normal_Anomaly]

Welcome, both to LW and to the part of the internet where you can reference SciFi to your heart’s content.

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

What’s the eve of the SAT?

[Anubhav]

March 9, apparently.

Although I don’t see why this is important enough to consider. How many HPMOR readers do you expect will be taking the SAT on March 10?

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

Oh bloody hell. Well, now I have a cute little Moral Dilemma on my hands.

[Anubhav]

Huh? Looks easily resolvable to me.

If disutility of Locke (possibly) doing significantly worse on his SAT outweighs the utility of hundreds (thousands?) of readers getting an HPMOR chapter a day early, release on March 9. Otherwise, release on March 10.

Or, you know, release on March 8. No one would complain about that.

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

Moving on March 10th. Board meeting March 11th. Said I’d try to get to it by 11th.

The SAT really matters to a lot of people’s lives, though. But maybe some people would get a nice hedonic boost? Ugh.

[Benquo]

I’m a reader who would not be directly affected by the timing relative to the SAT, and I say, please don’t stick to the earlier date on my account. I would feel bad suspecting that other readers, who are taking the SAT, were harmed for my pleasure.

Don’t know if I am a representative reader, though.

[Rhwawn]

I agree.

[Anubhav]

Moving on March 10th. Board meeting March 11th. Said I’d try to get to it by 11th.

How long does it take to post a chapter? o.O

I’d have thought you could do it in 2 minutes of off-time.

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

My current plan is to try to do it during the Board meeting on Sunday. 7pm on Saturday I’ll probably be driving, or if not driving, supervising a move with no Internet access set up yet.

[asr]

Awesome. Thanks so much for making time for your enthusiastic and eager followers during what must be a hectic period.

[Joshua Hobbes]

You have my gratitude. Do you think you can post a status update so people who don’t browse Less Wrong can know?

I’ll get back to studying now.

[ArisKatsaris]

I’d have thought you could do it in 2 minutes of off-time.

Eh, if on March 11th the guy will have just moved, it’d probably take him significantly more than 2 minutes to just unpack his computer, set up his internet connection (if it has been set up all), etc, etc.

Still, I’d tell him to leave it for the 11th, or even the 12th if that’s not possible, rather than distract SAT students on the 9th or 10th. (Not that this relates to me personally, btw, I’m neither an American nor a student). He can leave a small note saying he leaves it for the 12th, if need be.

[Anubhav]

it’d probably take him significantly more than 2 minutes to just unpack his computer, set up his internet connection (if it has been set up all), etc, etc.

That possibility had just not occurred to me. Everyone I know has a laptop or a phone with internet access for when they’re on the move. And I live in India. I’d have expected America to have better always-on internet connectivity.

[ArisKatsaris]

Everyone I know has a laptop or a phone with internet access for when they’re on the move. And I live in India.

I myself live in Greece and do have an IPhone with internet access, but I’d still not try to upload a whole chapter onto fanfiction.net with it.

[gwern]

Presumably the writing is the major factor. I doubt he’s sitting around going ‘where could I possibly fit in 2 minutes of Internet access?’

[Joshua Hobbes]

He’s already written all but the last chapter, I believe.

[gwern]

There you go, then.

[Anubhav]

There you go, then.

What? Doesn’t that mean it should be easy for him to post?

Anyhow, we’d forgotten about the 7 pm rule.Reading between the lines here, he doesn’t have any way of automating it. So not only must he find two minutes of free time, he must find two minutes of free time at 7 pm.

And he doesn’t have an internet connection while he’s moving.

[DanArmak]

Harry and co. have one untapped potential ally: Lucius Malfoy. If they gave him all their clues, he may be convinced, just as they have been. And he has a powerful motive to find out who really tried to kill his son, even if he goes through with the trial against Hermione to avoid losing face.

The problem is how to approach him. He would not trust Dumbledore (his political enemy), Harry (he believes he is Voldemort and will soon hate him for ‘turning’ Draco), or Snape or Minerva (Dumbledore’s agents).

I nominate Quirrel (to be sent by Harry) - known (or at least publicly displaying himself to be) free of Dumbledore’s influence, a powerful Slytherin, and the one who actually saved Draco’s life. Lucius would listen to him. Whether Quirrel would want to cooperate is another matter, but he should have some difficulty saying no to Harry and Dumbledore at once.

For Lucius to trust them, some of them might have to volunteer to testify in front of him under Veritaserum that they really believe the theory that Hermione didn’t do it. Dumbledore is a known Occlumens, Snape and Quirrel would at least be suspected of being such, Harry told Draco he is so now Lucius knows as well. A weaker character like Minerva would be useless because Lucius could easily believe Dumbledore misled her. This is a problem...

[Joshua Hobbes]

Lucius would obey a direct order from Voldemort, I should think. Maybe not from Harrymort, but if Quirrell could reveal himself...

[DanArmak]

If revealed as Voldemort, yes. But Harry doesn’t know that Quirrel can do this, and Quirrel isn’t going to volunteer that bit of information for Hermione’s sake.

Or do you mean exploiting Lucius’ apparent belief in Harrymort? (Edit, see you added that.) I don’t think he’s going to obey an order from him. Maybe consider a request. Probably not even that, given his threat of destroying Harrymort if he hurt Draco, which by Lucius’ lights he probably has while ‘turning’ him.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Harry needn’t know how Quirrell convinces Lucius. So if the professor really is innocent, and Harry threatens to end their relationship if Hermione is sentenced, then Quirrell might arrange a highly secret meeting with Lucius in order to preserve his grasp on the Boy-Who-Lived.

If the professor is Hat and Cloak, he’s probably going to be certain he’s detained until the trial ends.

[DanArmak]

So if the professor really is innocent, and Harry threatens to end their relationship if Hermione is sentenced, then Quirrell might arrange a highly secret meeting with Lucius in order to preserve his grasp on the Boy-Who-Lived.

Why would Harry make such a demand unless he believed Quirrel could deliver? Do you imagine Harry asking Quirrel to Imperius Lucius, or mess with his memory? Harry’s knowledge of such (presumed) acts would give him a way too big lever against Quirrel for as long as he continues under his Quirrel identity (which Harry would think is forever). Lucius or his allies might also find out and try to retaliate in the long term. And Quirrel has no personal motive to help Hermione.

So while Harry would ask Quirrel for help (if he could reach him), he would not demand that particular help, not with a threat of severing their relationship. And I imagine that even if he did Quirrelmort would probably refuse. Agreeing to such a huge price just to keep their relationship would not be in character.

Edit: I see now that you didn’t specify Harry would ask Quirrel to act against Lucius, just to resolve the situation somehow. Still, if the observed result was a change in Lucius’s behavior, and if later Lucius (through Draco) didn’t supply a convenient excuse for it, Harry would forever wonder what presumably-political levers Quirrel could have at that level.

Also, Quirrel clearly isn’t leaving Auror custody until the trial and so Harry can’t ask him and Quirrel can’t act.

If the professor is Hat and Cloak, he’s probably going to be certain he’s detained until the trial ends.

Now that Dumbledore is using the map (and perhaps other means?) to search for, presumably, Tom Riddle on the grounds of Hogwarts, it’s not clear how Quirrel can ever risk going back. I’d expect Dumbledore to keep checking the map once or twice a day, indefinitely, since he seems to believe it can find Voldermort if he’s not in the Chamber of Secrets.

[Xachariah]

Harry already has (he would think) an ultimate lever: The breakout from Azkaban. If he so wished, he could inform Dumbledore and the DMLE and bring all the wrath of Britain down on Quirrell. It would mean incredible costs for Harry, but he could do it. Although, my mental model of Harry says that he would never actually do that.

Even as an occlumens, Harry could prove he and Quirrell did it. Harry has knowledge of Azkaban that no 10 year old should know. He can communicate with dementors to identify himself. He could recreate the rocket he used. Dumbledore can identify his patronus, etc. He’s also got a good chance of getting off without many repercussions due to being a minor under someone else’s influence and being the boy-who-lived.

Now, Harry doesn’t seem like the trust authority like that, but he could pull it off. Heck, even if Quirrell wouldn’t agree to help Harry, Harry could probably just lie and say Quirrell planned this against Hermoine and get this crime pinned on Quirrel if he really wanted to. I don’t think Harry would actually do this, but it’s a possibility. Harry has an untapped resource to save her that nobody knows about (Knowledge of the Azkaban heist), but he either wouldn’t think of it or he’d consider it not worth it.

[Jonathan_Elmer]

Harry also knows that Quirrell is an unregistered animagus.

[Joshua Hobbes]

The thing is, If Quirrell is behind all this and is being detained unnecessarily is his plan, then Harry has got to realize that everything that has transpired has been according to his design. In fact, if he were H&C I’d expect him to be present so he could put on a show of doing his best to save Hermione. So it’s very possible that the real culprit has planned for the professor’s absence in order to turn Harry against him. That might be exactly what Quirrell will tell Harry when he is released post-trial, but frankly I don’t see why he’d go through the extra trouble and cast doubt on himself just so as to avoid pretending to help.

Unless, as you say, he is avoiding the map. However, the battle-map in 78 demonstrates that the Marauders did not invent the device. Thus, there is almost definitely one at the Ministry, where security is paramount. So if Quirrell did show up as Tom Riddle on such maps, he’d be assaulted by a hundred Aurors the moment he stepped foot on the premises.

Therefore, I conclude that Quirrell is innocent.

[LucasSloan]

The founders of Hogwarts created the map. Dumbledore considers the wards at Hogwarts stronger than those in the Department of Mysteries, so it stands to reason that all the aspects of the Hogwarts security system are stronger than those at the Ministry, including the map.

[pedanterrific]

No, Fred and George think that Salazar might have created the map.

[LucasSloan]

Dumbledore asked for the map, and used the sorting hat to procure a crystal rod which allowed him to manipulate it. It is an artifact of the founders.

[pedanterrific]

Dumbledore didn’t order the map to obey on his authority as Headmaster, he summoned a tool with which to fiddle with it. How do you know that crystal rods aren’t a standard way to affect enchanted objects, and the one kept in the Sorting Hat is just unusually high-quality?

I mean, if it was created by the founders, the Marauders would have had to do something very similar in the first place. So either Dumbledore undid the Marauders’ alterations, or he altered their (or whoever’s) creation the same way they would have had to, counterfactually. How do you distinguish between the options?

[LucasSloan]

Ryvrmre unf fgngrq gung nyy fhssvpvragyl cbjreshy bowrpgf ner negvsnpgf. Bar bs gur bowrpgf ersreraprq jnf gur znenhqref znc.

[pedanterrific]

Oh yeah. Uh, nevermind then.

Out of curiosity, why the rot13? Did Eliezer retract this statement somewhere?

[LucasSloan]

I think I got that information privately.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Actually, if in MoR it doesn’t mention Moody, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, then the founders are a good guess.

[pedanterrific]

The Map was an extraordinarily powerful artifact, capable of tracking every sentient being on the school grounds, in real time, by name. Almost certainly, it had been created during the original raising of Hogwarts. It was not good that errors were starting to pop up. Chances were that no one except Dumbledore could fix it if it was broken.

And the Weasley twins weren’t about to turn the Map over to Dumbledore. It would have been an unforgivable insult to the Marauders—the four unknowns who’d managed to steal part of the Hogwarts security system, something probably forged by Salazar Slytherin himself, and twist it into a tool for student pranking.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Ah. In that case the Ministry probably doesn’t have one. Though I still doubt there’s not a way Quirrell could get around it.

[drethelin]

I think quirrel couldn’t get around it because he might not know it even exists.

[gwern]

Yes. There are a couple routes he might have learned of it, though:

• Slytherin’s monster, as a high-level creature keyed into the deepest wards, might be expected to know of it or be able to learn of it.

• If my speculation about the Map’s anomaly is right, Voldemort’s spirit could have learned of it by directly observing the twins.

• The Map has been passed down through the ages and sometimes even been in official possession, so it could be mentioned in some obscure book. Possibly it might be a headmaster secret, explaining how Dumbledore learned of it without requiring him to invade their minds.

• The twins could have been suspiciously—to Quirrel—adept at avoiding professors and obstacles, prompting him to spy on them as one would expect Quirrel to do.

• The Map could be revealed at a future date; Quirrel’s suspiciously good priors have long been speculated as being related to time travel.

None of them seem especially likely, but in aggregate with other strategies I have failed to think of...

[Nominull]

Well, it doesn’t stand to reason exactly, but it stands to guess given a lack of contradictory evidence, at least.

[mstevens]

Possible reference for the Chapter 78 title:

http://​​faculty.bschool.washington.edu/​​ryalch/​​M581/​​Postmodern/​​McGraw-Tetlock.pdf

Taboo Trade-Offs, Relational Framing, and the Acceptability of Exchanges A. Peter McGraw University of Colorado, Boulder Philip E. Tetlock University of California, Berkeley

[KPier]

It’s also mentioned in Circular Altruism.

This matches research showing that there are “sacred values”, like human lives, and “unsacred values”, like money. When you try to trade off a sacred value against an unsacred value, subjects express great indignation (sometimes they want to punish the person who made the suggestion).

My favorite anecdote along these lines—though my books are packed at the moment, so no citation for now—comes from a team of researchers who evaluated the effectiveness of a certain project, calculating the cost per life saved, and recommended to the government that the project be implemented because it was cost-effective. The governmental agency rejected the report because, they said, you couldn’t put a dollar value on human life. After rejecting the report, the agency decided not to implement the measure.

Trading off a sacred value (like refraining from torture) against an unsacred value (like dust specks) feels really awful. To merely multiply utilities would be too cold-blooded—it would be following rationality off a cliff...

I’m sure there’s a hint in there, but I don’t know what it is.

[Grognor]

Also here:

I can’t end without mentioning that there has been some empirical work done on investigating which cognitive features make people libertarians. The main example that comes to mind is Philip Tetlock’s investigation of taboo tradeoffs. Roughly, if you present subjects with a dilemma about a hospital administrator who has to choose whether to spend a million dollars on buying a six-year-old child a kidney, or spend the same million dollars on hospital equipment, doctor salaries, et cetera, what you discover is that most subjects, liberal or conservative, want to punish an administrator who even thinks about the question. People who identify as libertarian don’t get angry at the administrator for thinking about it. And the first obvious interpretation of an experimental result isn’t always the correct one, but sometimes, you know, it is.

[CountlessArgonauts]

My first thought was that the mantra of “shut up and calculate” clearly means that we shouldn’t get angry at the administrator for doing that. But Harry’s conversations with Dumbledore seemed to go the opposite way. Dumbledore was trying to calculate how to do the most good even if some of the kids get hurt, and Harry was getting angry at him for it.

My guess now is that Harry’s not angry at the administrator for calculating. He’s angry at the administrator for not calculating how to parley a million dollars into a kidney and a bunch of equipment, salaries, et cetera, and a breakthrough cancer treatment as long as you’re spending money, anyway. And that, I presume, is what the “Cheating” subtitle on the prelude means.

[mstevens]

I didn’t spot that.

Probably a better source than mine, as it reflects EY’s thoughts on things.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Quite a few ways this could be relevant.

Lucius and the sacred value of his son, Dumbledore giving up on Hermione so as not to be blackmailed by Lucius, Harry considering throwing away all his plans to save Hermione from Azkaban, Hermione having to abandon one of her host of sacred values, the list goes on.

[Joshua Hobbes]

This seems like it could offer some excellent hints. I’m going to try to read it later. If anyone scientifically-literate wants to summarize it for the rest of us, we’d be quite gratefully.

[Anubhav]

Just google it. The summaries I found were understandable enough.

[mstevens]

http://​​www.scientificamerican.com/​​article.cfm?id=psychology-of-taboo-tradeoff looks fairly understandable and a bit less formal than the paper.

[Joshua Hobbes]

If this is a murder-mystery arc, then Quirrell is the obligatory Red Herring. He had motive, means and opportunity, and all three were revealed in the first part of 6-part arc. The laws of fiction demand it not be this easy.

Yes, that could be exactly what Eliezer wants us to think, but in the end I think Quirrell being responsible would just be too normal, even if suspicion is temporarily diverted from him by making him a false red herring.

[75th]

I think the point of this arc is not to leave you wanting for complicated answers to obvious-seeming questions, but simply to keep you on the edge of your seat waiting to see how things play out. It’s about knocking down dominoes, not setting them up.

[KPier]

Chapter 79:

I think we’re supposed to be able to figure this one out. My mental model of Eliezer says he thinks he’s given us more than enough hints, and we have a week to wait despite it being a short, high tension chapter. He makes a big deal out of how Harry only has thirty hours, which isn’t enough; he gives us a week, and a lot of information Harry doesn’t have.

Who benefits from isolating Harry from both of his friends, and/​or making him do something stupid to protect Hermione in front of the most powerful people in the Wizarding World?

Evidence against Quirrell as Hat-and-Cloak: Apart from everything that’s already been discussed, he’s been trying to strengthen Harry. He chose Draco and Hermione for the armies knowing that the likely outcome would be them getting closer (especially when he set them up against Harry).

Evidence for Quirrell as Hat-and-Cloak: Apart from what has already been discussed, he seemed very interested when Harry mentioned Lucius’s threat to set aside everything to protect Draco. And there’s that line in the most recent author’s note:

anything you think won’t confuse the readers, will.

Which implies we’re overthinking this and the obvious answer is the right one.

Quirrell conveniently rescuing Draco after seven hours makes sense if we assume he’s also the one who almost killed him.

Evidence I can’t sort: Quirrell’s admission during interrogation can’t have been an accident, and doesn’t seem to serve his interests whether he’s Hat-and-Cloak or not. If he is, he presumable wants to isolate Harry so he can talk him into stage 2 of the plan—but for that, he needs to be at Hogwarts or otherwise have access to Harry. If he’s not Hat-and-Cloak, there’s not much reason for him to tie himself up in the Ministry.

Unless he doesn’t want Harry to be able to contact him and he wants to have a plausible reason for being unreachable?

I think this makes me update more toward “Quirrell is Hat-and-Cloak,” but I’m not convinced.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Harry isn’t stupid, he has to realize that getting Hermione and Draco out of the way obviously benefits the defense professor. And Quirrell would know this, and not want to make Harry think he’s someone who would ruin an innocent 12-year-old girl’s life. Their next conversation is going to be interesting.

[malderi]

I suppose it is for attempted murder, but I can’t imagine it being normal procedure for three Aurors and the Headmaster to arrest a student.

My prediction: The sequence of events leading up to Hermione’s arrest will not be predicted, because we don’t have enough information currently to do so.

[Mass_Driver]

Prediction: Dumbledore is pretending to lose, probably to Lucius. The Auror trio is personally loyal to Dumbledore, and Amelia Bones either doesn’t know this or can plausibly deny knowing this.

Confidence for conjunction of all events above: 15%.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I don’t think it’ll come completely out of the blue. Come to think of it, perhaps the reason they need so many aurors is that they suspect Hermione of being more than she appears? Accusing a muggleborn of beating up your son is shameful, accusing a secret evil double-witch isn’t. Maybe they’ll accuse her of being an adult in disguise or something.

[malderi]

Well, I don’t think it’ll come completely out of the blue either, but I don’t think predictions are possible at this time. (Should’ve clarified). I’m sure it’ll all make total and perfect sense… In a few chapters.

By the way, EY, if you’re reading this: for whatever it’s worth, your writing is amazing, and stuff like the theory of potion making and then using acorns to make bright light is one of the best things I’ve read. Thanks for being awesome

[Joshua Hobbes]

Oh, he’s reading this all right. The only question is in what manner he is laughing at us.

[Yuu]

I look forward to description of general rules of magic in HPMOR, and maybe Harry can find some of that rules later in the book. This may be even better part than the episode with acorns.

And I agree, that is great book, mostly because it promotes scientific ideas.

[marchdown]

They don’t need many aurors, it’s just that aurors come in trios.

[Joshua Hobbes]

When was this established, some time in TSPE? Because the fact that Dumbledore had three aurors for the dementor is fairly irrelevant.

[LucasSloan]

There are auror trios guarding azkaban, Draco has his soldiers fight in trios in the first battle, causing harry to ask if that is how adult armies act.

[Dentin]

Perhaps I’m just overly simple here, but it seems to me that Draco decided to do the murder setup when he was writing the letter. I understand that it could be a lot more complex than that—but not everything -has- to be complex.

My prediction: Draco dueled with intent to frame Hermione for attempted murder. Hermione sat next to HP because she knows she’s screwed and there’s nothing she can do about it, and she wanted to be near him when the inevitable caught up to her.

This prediction creates what I’d consider an extremely messy political problem for HP, one that quite frankly I don’t see an easy magical or non-magical solution to. That may be the point.

[[deleted]]

Nobody has proposed yet that H&C #2 = Snape. The evidence for this hypothesis is that Snape’s helping of SPHEW caused a serious escelation of conflict (with Hermoine Granger at the center), and whoever primed Hermoine to attack Draco with the Groundhog Day Attack got her to continue the escelation.

Though I don’t know what goal this subgoal would serve...

[Jonathan_Elmer]

That is a good point. I would love for it to turn out that Eliezer reversed what Rowling did with Snape. I don’t think that you can abuse generations of children, for any reason, and still come out the other side of it a good guy.

It would be just like Eliezer to add another level to Cannon Snape’s deception. Bad pretending to be good pretending to be bad. shudder

[Anubhav]

I don’t think that you can abuse generations of children, for any reason, and still come out the other side of it a good guy.

Two-color views...

[wedrifid]

Two-color views...

Better than one...

There really isn’t much way that you can abuse generations of children and still be the good guy. For whatever it is worth that is sufficient for the label. That doesn’t mean he must be on the enemy team, he could well be a bad guy that plays for the same side Harry does and otherwise does some positive things.

[Anubhav]

For whatever it is worth that is sufficient for the label

The point is that the label is meaningless, because the dichotomy it’s based on does not correspond to anything in the real world.

[wedrifid]

The point is that the label is meaningless, because the dichotomy it’s based on does not correspond to anything in the real world.

Sure it does. It responds to real world behaviors that include abusing generations of children! That is something that represents a particular configurations in the universal wave function and it a set of configurations that I do not like.

[Anubhav]

It responds to real world behaviors that include abusing generations of children!

If you want to define it that way, of course Snape is evil!

But don’t go around trying to sneak in any more connotations, now. Such as, for instance, that he kicks puppies, rapes Muggleborns, massacres Jews, plans to nuke Africa, or is secretly a frequentist.

[wedrifid]

If you want to define it that way, of course Snape is evil!

Nobody was arguing by definition. The implied argument by link is invalid. Whatever the word used—bad, evil, dickish, deprecated, subjectively-obectively against my preferences—there is just a thing being described as undesirable and no attempt to prove anything by definitions.

But don’t go around trying to sneak in any more connotations

This doesn’t apply to anything I have done either. Did you include it just because it happens to be the follow up link on the argument by definition? (So as to give no pretense of subtlety, I endorse the implication behind my pointed emphasis on ‘I’.)

Such as, for instance, that he kicks puppies, rapes Muggleborns, massacres Jews, plans to nuke Africa, or is secretly a frequentist.

This conversation is perhaps not entirely useful so I’m just going to claim the Godwin’s violation and leave it alone.

[Anubhav]

Nobody was arguing by definition. This doesn’t apply to anything I have done either.

Reread this.

Your claim: (paraphrased)

A binary classification of people into “good” and “evil” is possible. I define certain actions as “evil”, and classify people who perform those actions as “evil”. Snape performs those actions, therefore, he is evil.

I seem to have missed this part, though:

That doesn’t mean he must be on the enemy team, he could well be a bad guy that plays for the same side Harry does and otherwise does some positive things.

Which is more or less exactly what I’d anticipate, meaning that this whole debate is over semantics.

I’m just going to claim the Godwin’s violation and leave it alone.

Looking at TVTropes, I find that Godwin’s Law is defined more broadly than I’d thought it was. OK, you win.

[wedrifid]

Huh? So what on earth was this whole discussion about?

Something about badness, child abuse and Snape still being a @#$% no matter who he is secretly working for.

Why would you accuse me of a one-color view for accusing the OP of a two-color view?

Because The Fallacy of the Gray is an awesome point, applies to your accusation of Elmer and said accusation should be rejected as an inappropriate reply to what Elmer said. While having a surface appearance of sophistication your criticisms there and in the subsequent replies are based on incorrect application of the principles of each of “two color views, no meaning in the real world, arguing by definition, and sneaking in connotations”.

“You asked” does count for something but I wonder if it would be better not to answer that question literally and directly. Pardon the violation of tact—don’t take that as an escalation but rather an explanation of existing position without expectation that you would agree.

[Anubhav]

Note: The comment you replied to was edited heavily since after it was posted.

Something about badness, child abuse and Snape still being a @#$% no matter who he is secretly working for.

Ok, what do all these words like “evil” and “badness” and “dickishness” mean? What do they cause you to anticipate? Apart from Snape bullying children, which no one’s denying he does.

Your justification for calling him “evil” is “he bullies children, which is evil, therefore he’s evil”. Your justification for that is “there are certain things that are evil; there just are”. And of course if bullying is evil and doing evil things makes a person evil, then Snape is evil, he’s evil because you’re defining evil that way.

And then you’re sneaking in all the connotations associated with the word “evil”, whether you want to admit to it or not. (If you aren’t, then the only thing you should anticipate from labelling Snape as “evil” is that he bullies children. If that’s the case, it’s a semantic dispute. If it isn’t, you’re sneaking in a connotation somewhere.)

As for Elmer, let me paraphrase his point:

Snape, in the earlier books, performed actions that made me classify him as “evil”. Then, later, her performed actions better suited to the label “good”. No fair! He can’t really be “good”!

Note the conflation of “good” actions with the “good” label, as if doing “good” things was a right exclusive to “good” people.

How is that not a two-color view? Or did I misunderstand something?

[Jonathan_Elmer]

Really, all I have to do is describe someone as not a good guy and you accuse me of having a two-color view?

[TimS]

Further evidence for this theory is that H&C is not great at modelling people, and Snape isn’t good at mental models of others either.

If you think H&C2 is the same as H&C1 (I do, for conservation-of-detail reasons), Snape is a plausible candidate for competent plotter who isn’t Quirrell or Dumbledore. Which isn’t to say that there a clear motive in that case either.

[Jonathan_Elmer]

The sticking point in my mind is that the groundhogs day attack should have been a lot more efficient if the attacker was a legilimens.

Abg fher vs Ryvrmre erjevgvat gur tebhaqubtf qnl nggnpx pbhagf nf “vafvqre vasbezngvba.” Ebg13vat vg whfg gb or fher.

Guvaxvat nobhg guvf unf oebhtug nabgure vqrn gb zvaq. Gur nccnerag vapbzcrgrapr bs gur tebhaqubtf qnl nggnpx vf jung ernyyl pbashfrq zr bevtvanyyl nobhg gur vqragvgl bs U&P. Znal crbcyr zvfhaqrefgbbq jung unccrarq gurer naq Ryvrmre unq gb tb onpx naq erjevgr vg n ovg. Jung vs gung nccnerag vapbzcrgrapr jnf whfg n fvqr rssrpg bs Ryvrmre gelvat gb uryc gur ernqre haqrefgnaq JGS vf tbvat ba?

Gnxvat gung vagb nppbhag pnhfrf zl cebonovyvgl bs U&P orvat Dhveery be Fancr gb tb jnl hc.

[Desrtopa]

The sticking point in my mind is that the groundhogs day attack should have been a lot more efficient if the attacker was a legilimens.

Quirrell is also a leglimens, although I believe that he has stated that using leglimency on students makes things too easy to be amusing.

[loserthree]

It also leaves a mark. This is first mentioned when Dumbledore checks HJPEV after Quirrell set thugs on him in, I think, chapter 19 or 20.

[Jonathan_Elmer]

Ya, it turns out that mark can be seen months later. I did not expect that.

[TimS]

You make a good point. All I can really do is distinguish between being able to read someone’s thought-at-the-moment and understanding a person’s mental methodology. Knowledge of the first doesn’t imply knowledge of the second. That is, if you were talking in stream-of-thought with little filter, I still probably wouldn’t be able to predict what you would say 30 sec in the future.

And I’m sure that Q is not H&C1, because that would be pointless from Q’s POV. If we assume the Hermione-Draco duel and aftermath was the intended effect of the groundhog day attack, I also think Q has easier ways of creating similar effects on Harry’s psyche. I think Q would not need or desire to falsify the blood purity thesis (“true blood is stronger”) to create a rift between HP and Draco. And if the Hermione-HP link was the target, involving Draco and Lucius seems an excessively dangerous complication.

In short, I’m not sold on Snape, but I’m fairly sure it isn’t Q. And the text is explicit that Hermione recognized undisguised H&C.

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

LATIN REQUEST: I need a spell that Dumbledore uses to summon the Sorting Hat. So far, Google Translate on “Attend, Sorter!” got me “Adtendite Ordinarium!” but I’ll take other appropriate phrases if they’ve got better translations.

[ahel]

Premise: I’ve studied latin for about 5 years, so I’m not going to use gTranslate for Latin :)

my dictionary sounds better for this scope.

• Verb:

The verb prodeo [pro-eo] is the best I could think.

• the particle pro- means something like in front of, even between (me) and something, or near (me): this last one is peculiar and happens only sometimes.

• eo is the most common and even one of the ancient verbs (that’s why is defective/​irregular) that means simply go.

So when Cicero (Br. 39) said :

prodire in lucem

he probably meant something like

come out from dark in the light.

Other times is used, like in Caesar (Bg):

in proelium prodire

that should sound like

come out and go to the battle.

OT:
(If you need for other occasion for a “incantation” in a more militar situation , a good one could be subject in ablative case+ proelium proditu (prò-e-li-um prò-di-tu), but that’s another topic :) )

Even flowers prodent and in a figurative way, even

lacrimae de gaudio prodeunt

(Apuleio)

tears of joy appeared/​came out of (him)

but this sense doesn’t matter that much for our problem, i guess.

• Subject:

Since you don’t use “Hat” for the Sorting Hat, but it seems to me that you want to stress the fact that this “entity” is that important because is a Sorter I would guess

Deligitor

would be the best.

Also Eligitor would be nice there is a subtle difference: the last one means “the one who choose what he prefears”. Deligo[de-lego → de-eligo] means choose what (or who) is more apt to a peculiar aim.

A Cicero’s quote:

ex civitate in senatum delecti

meant something like

choosen among the cives/​citizens to form the senate(to be senators)

Deligitor is the noun formed by the verb, means “who choose, who looks for the fittest men (or stuff) for a task and choose them for that task”

• The spell: JKR spells are really more naive, but that’s not the point: they are not meant to be real Latin, but they are meant to sound like “Ancient powerful spell with complicated and forgotten words”, imho.

• The best grammatical looking phrase would be:

Deligitor prodi

that means “Chooser, be present”

because the verb is in the imperative mode, second person singular: prod-i. But that doesn’t sound that good, imho.

A more free construction could be

Deligitor prode

That literally means “(the)Chooser has come to be present here.”

and could be quite nice (not too far from Latin, not too boring for a fan-fic).

Or dozen of combination of this ones: deligit[or;-us,-um] prod[i,it,es,

oh! that could be nice also:

deligitor prodeas

is exhortative(or exhorting, i don’t know) conjunctive, that simply means:

please, do this or would you mind doing this or it could be perfect/​awesome if you bother to do this

that would sound like Chooser, please come here asap , or Sorting hat, come here since we need you

I’ll stop here, waiting for some feedback, because otherwise my mind would be lost in this long trip.

[fezziwig]

I had a lot of fun reading this post.

‘Deligitor prodi’ was my favorite. Not sure what you didn’t like about it, but the longword-shortword construction gives it a nice imperative feel, and I mildly prefer ‘prodi’ to ‘prode’.

[TobyBartels]

Upvoted for ‘deligitor prodeas’.

[HonoreDB]

Pervenit Judex translates to “Here Comes the Judge”.

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

...that is oddly appropriate.

[Joshua Hobbes]

What’s wrong with “Accio Sorting Hat”?

[faul_sname]

Accio Ordinarium?

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

This is a special spell, not Accio.

[Whit3Noise]

pileum dictionis, affluere!

It would make Vergilius turn over in his grave, but it roughly means “(felt)hat (of the) talking, flow (to me) (i.e. appear)”

took the liberty to base it on the german translation of the sorting hat, which is “talking hat”

Edit: Adtendite Ordinarium means something like “mind the order”. google really sucks at latin ;)

[ahel]

fluo and its derived verbs (like ad-fluo → affluo) refer mainly to a liquid that flows. I don’t think is the more appropriate. Edit: also pileus is a different hat: it is the one used by ex-slaves to mark their acquired freedom. It was high and conic, only made by wool, with no brim. (I know they are nitpicking but maybe they could improve the book and could help sound more professional)

[Whit3Noise]

The original reference to liquid is of course correct, e.g. ibi Isara Rhodanusque amnes … confluunt in unum—where the rivers Rhodanus and Isere flow together [merge], but it can also be used figuratively, for example for crowds of people “flowing” together: undique ad hoc spectaculum confluere. In the context of calling the hat, I was thinking of “flow of magic” mainly to have a more nicely sounding phrase.

I agree that pileus is not a good choice, because it is actually dome-shaped and the basis for the pileolus that is worn by roman-catholic dignitarys, but then the Romans never had the concept of a pointy wizards hat. Also it was not technically the sign of an ex-slave—it might gained recognition, because the were allowed to wear the pileus—but usually worn by fishermen and workmen.

Anyway, when I realized that Eliezer is after a phrase that emphasizes the deciding/​choosing trait of the hat, I remembered a description of a football (soccer) game in latin, and the term it used to describe the referee, so here’s my new proposition:

disceptator, accede!

the one who decides/​arbitrates, step up /​ step here! (imperative form)

or one could also use

disceptator, appare!

which again is the imperative of apparere—appear/​show yourself

Edit: You might have confused the pileus with the phrygian cap, which is sort of pointy and looks like a smurf cap. Funny factoid, the french revolutioners mixed it up as well and chose the phrygian as a symbol of liberty.

[Origin]

Wait, you mean you wrote so condescendingly about JKRs use of fake Latin while you don’t know any Latin yourself? That’s disappointing.

That aside, shouldn’t you contact someone who actually does speak Latin to think up some spells for you from the ground up instead of sort of reverse-engineering them from English? Because that’s exactly what Rowling did and look how that worked out...

Plus, if you do ever need to translate Latin, screw Google, Whitaker is your best friend. http://​​archives.nd.edu/​​words.html

[75th]

(Can’t find a good place to insert my entire current edifice of theory elsewhere, so I’ll put it as a top level comment.)

Quirrell is Voldemort is Mr. Hat and Cloak. Quirrell’s ultimate goal is driving Harry permanently into his Dark Side, so as to be another Voldemort, either to rule alongside the real Voldie or to be led by the real Voldie.

Quirrell’s first attempt at driving Harry over to his Dark Side was with the Dementor in the Humanism sequence. He would have succeeded, had Hermione not been there to bring him out of it. So from Quirrell’s point of view, Hermione is Harry’s anchor to his good side.

So then it makes perfect sense for all the events of Self Actualization and this new sequence to be Quirrel/​Voldie/​H&C’s handiwork. Quirrell helped SPHEW win that last battle in Chapter 74 so as to paint a larger target on Hermione. When Harry came to him with his plan for that battle, he just laughed, because Harry had unknowingly come to him with a brilliant plan to further Quirrell’s own goals for Hermione’s doom. He poisoned Hermione against Draco (which was difficult, because Quirrell is pure evil and Hermione is pure good and he can’t understand her) so as to provoke House Malfoy further.

Now Hermione is in deep trouble, just as Quirrell intended. All that remains is for something unspeakably awful to happen to her soon, which, Quirrell believes, will help do to Harry what the Dementor almost did in January.

[gwern]

Why, in this theory, did Voldemort abandon his quite successful campaign, become the lame Quirrel, and begin fiercely criticizing his former self and attempting to reform magical Britain’s children into tools that would defeat his former self?

[Bugmaster]

My own (admittedly somewhat romantic) hypothesis is that Quirrelmort is trying to correct his past mistakes.

Recall the conversation that Dumbledore has with Harry regarding escalation and proportional response. Dumbledore tells Harry that the Light cannot, must not win every battle, because some victories come at too high a price. Harry, on the other hand, believes that the ends justify the means, and that it’s all just a matter of thinking up a sufficiently clever solution. Without Dumbledore’s intervention, he would’ve escalated the SPHEW-bully conflict to the point where it engulfs all of Magical Britain, and quite possibly plunges the Wizarding world into a new dark age of terror.

Does that sound familiar at all ?

My guess is that Voldemort, in his original body, was a bit like Harry. He wanted to optimize the Wizarding society, and in order to do so, he had to take over, and in order to make an omelette, you’ve got to break a few eggs, and there are people opposing you, and before you know it, you’re a Dark Lord and people are skinning your opponents alive in your name. The only option was to fake your own death and start anew… which is exactly what Voldemort did.

[75th]

He didn’t abandon his campaign, he got blown out of his body when he tried to kill Harry Potter. Later on he possessed Quirrell, and as he said himself, “One can never quite disentangle the mind from the body it wears”. Perhaps he’s imbued with some of Quirrell’s own opinions. Quirrell must have been somewhat Voldemort-ish before the possession, if Voldie chose him as a suitable vessel.

Incidentally, when all has he criticized Voldemort? I can think of one time, when he said that Voldie was foolish to wish the story of the dojo to be retold. But if Quirrell’s part of the story was really Voldemort, then that was simply a lie; Voldie DIDN’T kill everyone on his first visit to the dojo, but later on, deliberately, to sow fear. At any rate, we shouldn’t take Quirrell’s opinions of Voldemort at face value, given that, to some extent, they’re the same person. “Don’t believe everything you read.”

And Voldemort isn’t training Britain’s children to defeat a Dark Lord, he’s training them to defeat the Muggles. In MoR, Voldemort actually has a good reason to hate Muggles and Muggleborns: their recklessness with power (nuclear weapons, etc.). In his speech before Christmas he all but stated his belief that there would someday be a climactic battle between wizardkind and the Muggle world, which only a united wizarding world could win. That is his ultimate purpose for Dark Harry: to lead the world (or help Voldie lead the world) against the Muggles.

[gwern]

So basically he accidentally torpedoed his original campaign and his life as Quirrel is just making the best of it? But then why didn’t he just restart his original campaign? Quirrel seems quite powerful enough to credibly claim to be Voldemort resurrected and enforce his rule, based on his duel in Azkaban with a top Auror and his general position at Hogwarts.

[pedanterrific]

When Dumbledore tells his closest colleagues that draining the life from a follower over a long period would render Voldemort weak compared to his former power, I’m inclined to believe him. Even if you’re not, there’s the rather inconvenient periods of near-catatonia to get around. (Unless you think that’s an act for some reason?)

Chapter 49: … the Defense Professor, who was slumped over with a small stream of drool coming out of his slack mouth and puddling on his robes.

Chapter 72: …and Quirrell, face slack, was taking trembling stabs at his soup using a spoon gripped in a fist.

[gwern]

Everybody sleeps eventually, which is worse than Quirrel’s catatonia.

[tadrinth]

The catatonia appears to be getting worse and worse over time. Channeling strong magic through Quirrell accelerates the decay. I suspect he’ll crap out as a host by the end of the school year, and that’s with Quirrell being reasonably conservative of his energy.

[gwern]

Worse? What makes you say that? We seem to be seeing ever more action on his part, I actually would have said: from the Azkaban duel to his commentary in battles (and setting them up too) to his casual displays of sheer power/​skill in the interrogation of chapter the last.

[tadrinth]

Harry comments at some point that “He’d noticed the correlation between the effort Professor Quirrell expended and the time he had to spend ‘resting’.” (74)

Harry notices after Azkaban that Quirrell looks older (65).

What I meant was that it seems like Quirrell has spent more and more of his time active using his body as little as possible. Maybe we’ve just seen it more because he’s hid less from Harry? In the most recent battle he talked and made the tiniest possible shrug but otherwise didn’t move at all. When he was grading papers he did it purely by magic as well. Whenever he can let his body sit around and not move, he seems to try to do that.

[sketerpot]

Harry notices after Azkaban that Quirrell looks older (65).

That could simply be Quirrell looking very tired and worn out, like he had just run a marathon while watching Grave of the Fireflies. It’s fairly common to describe someone as looking older in circumstances like that.

[gwern]

Mm. Maybe. Not very strong evidence either way. If it’s meant to be a plot point, I would expect it to be telegraphed more strongly.

[thomblake]

If it’s meant to be a plot point, I would expect it to be telegraphed more strongly.

I’m not sure we’re reading the same story.

[gwern]

My comment was made before the chapter was posted with the explicit statement by Bones that the catatonia was increasing, which I accept; I stand by my characterization of previous chapters indicating any progression as extremely subtle...

[thomblake]

My point was intended the opposite way: It seems to me that many plot-relevant details are extremely subtle.

[gwern]

Well, then we get into other issues. For example, Quirrelmort. If that’s true, then we have an extremely non-subtle massively plot-relevant point, and if it’s false, then Eliezer has laid so many red herrings we can trust little or nothing not explicitly shown or stated.

[thomblake]

I did not intend to imply that no plot-relevant points are non-subtle.

[pedanterrific]

(Actually, I would expect that to be one of the first things Voldemort modified about himself, if it’s at all possible.)

I meant more the problems it presents for intimidation value, but I guess if you’ve Marked your followers to ensure loyalty and/​or obedience regardless, it’s just a matter of not spending a lot of time in the public eye, which he’d be doing anyway. It’s still pretty undignified, but that doesn’t seem to bother Quirrell overmuch, so...

The real question, which I don’t believe the duel with Bahry or the Massacre of the Bullies answers, is whether Quirrell could stand up to Dumbledore. If he couldn’t—even if he just had significantly less endurance—that would make it pretty hard to claim the mantle of Voldemort.

[Joshua Hobbes]

If Quirrell was confident he could kill Dumbledore he would have done so by now, of that I’m certain. Gods, Eliezer better be planning to write this fight eventually.

[ajuc]

For Quirrell it would be “in character” to kill Dumbledore in such a way, that everybody would think it was natural death. Or at least assasinate him quietly without witnesses, without time for Dumbledore to react.

BTW—what stops Quirrell from polyjuicing as Harry, asking for private audience in Dumbledore apartment, doing quick surprise Avada Kedavra, and flying out of window? Or better yet—put Albus body to magical pouch, polyjuice as Dumbledore and run Hogward ever since. Dumbledore behaves quite strange, and rarely shows publicly, so it wouldn’t be hard to do.

I can only think that Quirrell thinks everything is going according to plan, and no need to make the game more chaotic by killin Dumbledore now.

[pedanterrific]

what stops Quirrell from polyjuicing [...] Or better yet … polyjuice

“Polyfluis Reverso!”

what stops Quirrell from [...] asking for private audience in Dumbledore apartment, doing quick surprise Avada Kedavra

If killing Dumbledore were as simple as yelling “Avada Kedavra” at him when his back is turned, he’d already be dead.

[ajuc]

I’ve thought if you’re not Harry Potter, and you have brain, then the only way to survive Avada Kedavra is not to be there?

And when Harry sneaked to Dumbledore last time he (D.) had not cast anything to check if it was Harry. Maybe he can do this quietly.

[pedanterrific]

Dumbledore seems to do just fine animating things to move between him and the curse. Maybe DumbleMoR can conjure a steel shield faster than it’s possible to say Avadakedavra.

[Desrtopa]

BTW—what stops Quirrell from polyjuicing as Harry, asking for private audience in Dumbledore apartment, doing quick surprise Avada Kedavra, and flying out of window? Or better yet—put Albus body to magical pouch, polyjuice as Dumbledore and run Hogward ever since. Dumbledore behaves quite strange, and rarely shows publicly, so it wouldn’t be hard to do.

Dumbledore might have other methods of recognizing such a disguise. Perhaps, for instance, he can detect the approximate magical strength of a person regardless of their appearance? In Half-Blood Prince, while seeking out one of Voldemort’s horcruxes, he and Harry encounter a device which is supposed to detect when a wizard passes through by registering their power, and Dumbledore notes that next to him, it’s not even going to notice Harry. Perhaps while a switch like Barty Crouch Junior for Alastor Moody could slip his notice, a huge disparity like Quirrell for an eleven year old Harry would be an immediate red flag in his senses.

[pedanterrific]

Perhaps, for instance, he can detect the approximate magical strength of a person regardless of their appearance?

Yep:

“I know,” said the old wizard. “My apologies, Amelia.” He sighed. “Some of the more recent prisoners had scraps of their magic left, when I looked upon them, but I sensed no uneaten power; the strongest had only as much magic left as a first-year child.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Dumbledore’s death would probably be not worth the trouble right now, but I think that if it were possible Quirrell would have removed and impersonated him before Harry ever got to Hogwarts.

Quirrell probably has more raw talent than Albus, but when someone has an ancient wand that guarantees combat victory talent isn’t enough. He’s smart enough to know he’ll need to plot his way to victory, because he is not beating the Elder Wand.

[gwern]

Even in canon, Voldemort rarely goes up against Dumbledore directly. They rarely ever meet after he graduates. IIRC, it’s something like he applies for 1) Defense against the Dark arts & is rejected; 2) hides from Dumbledore on Quirrel’s head (indefinite number of encounters); 3) fights Dumbledore in the Ministry to a draw; and that’s about it.

[glumph]

At the beginning of Chapter 62, though, we learn that McGonagall has faced Voldemort four times:

“She had encountered the Dark Lord four times and survived each one, three times with Albus to shield her and once with Moody at her side.”

This makes it likely that Dumbledore has faced Voldemort on other occasions without her.

[gwern]

Another MoR divergence, perhaps; nothing in canon comes to mind.

[pedanterrific]

So in all that long period of open war, during which Lily & James Potter and Alice & Frank Longbottom both fought Voldemort and survived three times each, the strongest Light wizard in Britain never crossed wands with his foe?

[gwern]

Sure. We are told Voldemort feared Dumbledore, are we not? Does a chess player immediately send out his queen to duel the other player’s queen? And is this not exactly what happened with the previous Dark Lord—were we not explicitly told in canon that Dumbledore only encountered Grindelwald at their final clash and they never met between that and the death of his sister?

[pedanterrific]

We are told Voldemort feared Dumbledore, are we not?

Well, were we, though? What chapter was that in? Or are we discussing canon now? I admit I’m somewhat confused.

were we not explicitly told in canon that Dumbledore only encountered Grindelwald at their final clash and they never met between that and the death of his sister?

Yes, but that was due to Dumbledore’s rather cowardly dithering. The situation with Voldemort is rather different.

If your idea is correct, I would expect there were a few well-publicized instances of Dumbledore interrupting a Death Eater raid in a flash of phoenix fire, sending Voldemort running with his tail between his legs. That… doesn’t really sound like MoRdemort, does it?

[gwern]

Or are we discussing canon now?

Canon. MoR introduces extra difficulties like the implied Nazi blood-sacrifice empowering of Grindelwald.

I don’t know what to make of MoRdemort. If I did, I think a fair number of obscurities or mysteries would snap into place.

[Eneasz]

I’m pretty sure MoRdemort (pre-Quirrell-meld) is meant to be very much like canon!Voldemort—nasty, ruthless, very magically powerful, in possession of exactly one good idea (the dark mark), and as intelligent as Rowling could write him (not an insult to Rowling). When asked to outwit a dark lord (in chapter 39, I believe?) Harry thinks that Voldemort wouldn’t be much of a challenge, but Quirrell would be another matter entirely.

As Dumbledore says, Voldemort was never Dumbledore’s destined foe. But he wasn’t Harry’s destined foe either. He had to be shattered by Dumbledore so he could transmute into Quirrellmort, who is Harry’s destined foe. So Voldemort is an intermediate step, and obviously not as smart/​dangerous as his final incarnation as Quirrellmort.

[pedanterrific]

Harry thinks that Voldemort wouldn’t be much of a challenge, but Quirrell would be another matter entirely.

Doubtless Harry based that belief on his extensive experience with Voldemort. Dumbledore’s opinion, on the other hand:

“Aye, it is he,” Albus said. “Azkaban has endured impenetrable for ages, only to fall to an ordinary Animagus potion. It is too clever and too impossible, which was ever Voldemort’s signature since the days he was known as Tom Riddle. Anyone who wished to forge that signature must needs be as cunning as Voldemort himself to do so. And there is no one else in the world who would accidentally overestimate my wit, and leave me a message I cannot understand at all.”

[Desrtopa]

Dumbledore was a credible threat to him even back when he had his full power. In his weakened state, there may be too much danger that he would end up in a direct confrontation with Dumbledore or some union of strong opponents and lose. McGonagall’s reminiscences of having encountered Voldemort before, three times at Dumbledore’s side, implies that they’ve faced each other head on before.

But even if he could manage it as a matter of convenience, he might not be able to as a matter of pride. Dumbledore said that he doesn’t think Voldemort would settle for any less than the strongest instantiation of the spell that would return him to power. Even if he has some avenue to victory which would probably work, he may simply be dissatisfied with any plan which does not result in him completely regaining his powers.

[anotherblackhat]

… reform magical Britain’s children into tools that would defeat his former self?

Maybe he knows how Minister Fudge will react (badly) and hopes to get Dumbledore sacked.

[ajuc]

Complicated and risky plot (he teach well his future enemies). Sacking Dumbledore doesn’t seem worthy such big risk. Quirrell now has the possibility to teach future wizards what he thinks will serve him, is impossible to fire, has influence on Harry, and Dumbledore doesn’t seem to get much value out of being head of the Hogward.

I think Quirrell wants to unite wizards using some external enemy, and conquer the world/​stop muggles from nuking themselves. Harry has great PR, so he’ll be the fuhrer of united magical Brittain, and Quirrell will provide common enemy somehow to make it easier for Harry to rule.

[tadrinth]

I’d like to point out that after Azkaban, when Quirrell tries to talk Harry into his next plot, Harry refuses by citing what Hermione and Draco would say. Quirrell sits there and thinks for a really long time, and asks if Harry really cares about what they think. My guess is that right then and there is when Quirrell decides to take them out.

[linkhyrule5]

So… Quirrel made that near-slip of “time travel” and “I’m going to go back in time and try again” in the Groundhog Day Attack? I’m afraid I’m not really buying it.

[ArisKatsaris]

It wasn’t time-travel (which through Time-Turner can only go back an hour per turn, 6 times used in total), it was repeated Obliviations of Hermione.

Other than that, your point stands.

[wedrifid]

It wasn’t time-travel (which through Time-Turner can only go back an hour per turn, 6 times used in total), it was repeated Obliviations of Hermione.

It was Obvliations in this case but don’t be confused by the limitations in time travel. When it comes to this kind of task, one days worth of turner use done smart and with preparation would give more information than a month of constant obliviation use, without the pesky side effects of death by starvation, dehydration or sleep deprivation.

Similar strategies would give Harry a full index of the entire Hogwarts library ranked according to a reliable indication of potential usefulness, difficulty level, and possible risk. Even with the crippled turner as he currently has it, if Harry was out to win and not tell interesting stories, he probably would have won already.

[linkhyrule5]

He tried that, a while back. Ontological loops just give him “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME.”

[wedrifid]

He tried that, a while back. Ontological loops just give him “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME.”

Or, if kept at a reasonable scale, fun with pies and bullies?

I’m entirely familiar with the earlier experiments with time and maintain what I said in the grandparent. See the discussion from back then if necessary. The only reasons that Harry doesn’t use his time turner carefully, for practical benefit, are narrative convenience and an irrational protagonist. Much the same as in just about any fantasy fiction.

I am overwhelmingly unimpressed with Harry as a rationalist avatar most of the time. To the extent that I’d call “Methods of Rationality” something of a misnomer. He’s reasonably clever and flamboyant but his strategic thinking is abysmal.

[Jello_Raptor]

Wait, I can’t find this discussion and I am very interested, mind linking it?

[orthonormal]

It’s the Good Story Bias at work. Compare the very first Omake.

[major]

So, we have a guy who preaches a lot about rationality, writing a fiction of rationality, and his main character isn’t acting rationally at times… Gee, I wonder how long it’ll take for you to notice your confusion. Oh, but there isn’t one, right? He is just a Bad Writer. Right? ;)

[wedrifid]

He is just a Bad Writer. Right?

Maybe he is a good writer and creating a story with a perfectly rational protagonist is neither optimal story-writing nor Eliezer’s expressed intent.

[MartinB]

Please note that HP is beyond reason when his girlfriend being such is brought up. He also completely fails to realize his unreasonableness in those instaces. He is ubersmart, but not a perfect rational actor, and of course makes mistakes. That has been established.

[major]

Of course. Otherwise Eliezer would be a Bad Writer. There are circumstances where ‘heat conduction’ is the correct answer, you know.

[MartinB]

Good/​Bad writer is too crude a distinction.

[major]

At this point it’s almost funny how everyone seems to think I’m dissing Eliezer. Oh, well. Sarcasm clearly doesn’t work in writing.

:(:

[ArisKatsaris]

What makes you think that others think you’re dissing Eliezer?

I didn’t downvote you for dissing Eliezer, I downvoted you for that rude and unproductive usage of sarcasm against fellow readers. I got your sarcasm, I just hated it.

[MartinB]

I often don’t get it, and also hate it.

I think there is room for improvement in the writing of MoR, but it is very very very far away from bad.

Regarding the upper posting: pointing out one flaw does not make the writing bad. It would be just one flaw.

[75th]

Forgive me if I’m being dense, but I don’t understand what remains of his point, given that he was wrong about how the Groundhog Day Attack worked.

[ArisKatsaris]

Cloak & Hat kept saying “Hello, again”, when for all Hermione knew he’d not talked to her before. That’s indeed a somewhat bizarre slip for Quirrel to make. And regardless of whether he was going to tell “Time travel” or not, regardless of whether it was a lie or not, it seems a bit out-of-character for Quirrel to be catching himself mid-sentence.

[ahartell]

Hmm, I just thought he was being, I guess, playful or something, rather than it being a slip.

[Larks]

Or he might just have been planning on Obliviating her again.

[linkhyrule5]

Doesn’t seem like Quirrel to slip even if he can’t see a way for it to hurt him. He’s too careful for that.

[linkhyrule5]

Quirrel wouldn’t have made any near slips. Apparently I don’t know what he was about to say, but Quirrel wouldn’t even have gotten that far.

[75th]

Quirrell has slipped up before, when he tried to kill Bahry. Every rationalization Quirrell later gave for why it would have been stupid was absolutely correct, but I believe he did sincerely try to kill him. In the heat of the moment, in the depths of his hate, he decided to do what he felt like rather than what was smart.

Of course, this encounter with Hermione is not like his encounter with Bahry. But he is pretty agitated; he sounds agitated, anyway, and it fits, given that it took him a few hours to find the right lever to pull with Hermione. At any rate, he has no reason to be particularly careful with what he says to someone he’s planning to Obliviate anyway. And given all that, I think Eliezer was not acting out of character to pick that moment as a time to throw us some scraps.

[linkhyrule5]

Wait, but it seemed to be fairly clear that it’s time travel from the slip-ups H&C made. (Of course, you’d have to postulate a different form of time travel that allows for paradoxes, so I suppose Obliviation has a point up on that...)

[ArisKatsaris]

The sentence “Time...” is in response to a question from Hermione about how H&C knows Harry will turn dark and destroy her, not in regards to anything having to do with the conversation itself.

Also if you reread the passage in question, you’ll see several hints that indicate a long time passed for Hermione also, even though she didn’t remember it, e.g. *”Her hand was almost slipping on her wand, there was a sense of fatigue in her fingers like she’d been holding the wand for hours instead of minutes”, and ofcourse the fact that the rush of adrenaline at the beginning of the conversations corresponds to the rush of fear at H&C decloaking at the end.

[JoshuaZ]

There’s a subtle joke in chapter 78 that I’m not sure is deliberate or not. While the most obvious thing connected to polyjuice potion and catgirls is what happens to Hermione in The Chamber of Secrets, what Harry does is mix physics and magic in a way that is also connected to catgirls. In some forums devoted to Dungeons and Dragons there’s a saying that goes more or less like “Whenever you try to apply physics to magic, God kills a catgirl.” I have to wonder if there’s a deliberate reference to this.

[gwern]

I think that’s a stretch. It’s just another poke at canon.

(To Eliezer: if you’re ever worried about the legal status of MoR, parody is the most obvious way to protect yourself under fair use doctrine, and these pokes at canon will be a main part of your case. I suggest not going light on them to the extent possible.)

[Luke_A_Somers]

The spokesman for the Christopher Little literary agency said: “JK Rowling’s reaction is that she is very flattered by the fact there is such great interest in her Harry Potter series and that people take the time to write their own stories. “Her concern would be to make sure that it remains a non-commercial activity to ensure fans are not exploited and it is not being published in the strict sense of traditional print publishing.”

Having said that, is it not rather more difficult to back up and start protecting your IP more carefully?

[TobyBartels]

This permission means nothing; they can change their mind about being ‘flattered’ as easily as they can change their mind about the Harry Potter Lexicon being ‘great’.

[gwern]

Typical copyfraud intimidation—there’s nothing to stop Eliezer from publishing commercially or as traditional print publishing, if he thinks it can be defended as fair use.

Having said that, is it not rather more difficult to back up and start protecting your IP more carefully?

IANAL, but I don’t see how pre-emptive addition of parodic elements could be a bad thing—at this point it’s just part of the ongoing editing process in which Eliezer has revised many passages, swapped chapters, etc. If a threat had been mailed him and then he frantically began revising it, that might be different.

[Pavitra]

Minor bug report: chapter 79 says “Blood-Cooling Charm” instead of “Blood-Chilling Charm” in one place.

[Serpentsong]

I’m puzzled by Harry’s sunlight potion. Did it not require a magical ingredient?

Since we are told that there are no magical ingredients in the lesser woods where the battles are fought, and that all the potions in the books that Harry looks through unlock and redistribute magical energy (rather than ostensibly non-magical energy like sunlight), does this mean that Harry discovered a way to brew potions without magical ingredients? I recall no hint that this is possible, and yet no one watching the battle seems to find the potion notable. To be fair, the fundamental potion-making law doesn’t explicitly rule out an all-mundane potion (“A potion spends that which is invested in the creation of its ingredients”).

I also find it unlikely that Harry invented the potion himself (I believe general potions-theory and the system for deducing the proper arbitrary stirring patterns would have been given a more complete coverage, if that were the case), so it appears that Harry found a suitable potion using Flitwick’s recommended resources. But I still don’t know whether the “magical ingredient requirement” is absolute (and Harry bypassed it just by, e.g., putting something of his own magic into the potion as a trigger but not as the main ingredient), whether it’s a mere conceptual limit that wizards never thought to test, or whether potions with non-magical ingredients exist and are well-known, but are relatively so rare that Harry just didn’t happen to run across any in his initial search.

What am I missing?

[bogdanb]

Remember how the professors made a big deal about Harry not discussing his discovery about potions?

Perhaps school manuals are picked to contain only potions with magic ingredients, as a misdirection for people not wise enough (students) to try to figure out the “well-known secret”, the same way Harry was at first.

But Harry’s potion didn’t release a lot of magic, it only released light (note that in the coin example, it was the non-magical coin that furnished the “heat”), so probably Harry used a bit of magic (like in Potions class) to “rearrange” the light without need of magical ingredients.

(Also, why wouldn’t “wizard hair” count as a magical ingredient?)

[Joshua Hobbes]

I think that if this were truly an original discovery it would have been a bigger deal. There are probably quite a few potions using only ingredients muggles know of, but I bet Harry will be able to invent quite a few more of them.

[tadrinth]

My theory is that potions which don’t involve magical ingredients are obscure because they’re usually less powerful and because they require a greater investment of energy from the creator to do the reshaping (explaining why Harry doesn’t do very much in that battle). Given that Flitwick and McGonagal had suggestions of books to make at all after hearing what Harry wanted, it seems very likely that such potions do exist, just not in the standard textbooks. It seems very likely that Harry got his potion out of a book, because potions research is dangerous and presumably very time consuming, and because Harry with the ability to invent potions would be powerful enough to wreck the story.

[staticIP]

Harry with the ability to invent potions would be powerful enough to wreck the story.

Harry with time travel would be enough to wreak the story. Harry with an invisibility cloak would be enough to wreak the story, Hell, harry with rationality would be enough to wreak the story.

That is, unless the other obstacles were ramped up to deal with it. Give Harry a time turner and enemies clever enough to know how to check on him. Give harry an invisibility cloak but add spells that can detect the presence of a deathly hallow. Give Harry mastery of potions but make creating them slow or just plain difficult.

[tadrinth]

If potion invention is slow, Harry must have gotten the light potion from a book, since I don’t think there’s enough time between battles to do serious potion research safely between classes and homework, even for Harry’s 30 hours a day. If he can invent potions that fast, he potentially has a huge number of instant win conditions available (that’s what I really meant, that rapid potion invention would be a huge pain in the ass to write around). I think at this point it’s clear that Harry probably does know enough to invent potions, but not without probably months or years of experimentation per new recipe. If he didn’t know enough to be dangerous he wouldn’t have freaked out Flitwick.

[glumph]

I noticed that the MediaFire link for the PDF version is dead—is that still being actively maintained?

[sketerpot]

There’s a PDF link on the front page of hpmor.com that’s actively maintained, and thankfully doesn’t require dealing with MediaFire. I would link directly, but the URL changes with each update.

[glumph]

Very cool, thanks.

I’ve noticed a few typos throughout the text; should they be submitted to the hpmor.com webmaster? I wonder if it would be better to have the LaTeX files hosted on a public Git repository. That way anyone could submit corrections (and not just typos but the retroactive changes that are sometimes made).

[bogdanb]

You can send corrections to me directly. (I make the PDFs.) I don’t have time to set-up a Git repo (and I’m not very good with Git anyway), but if someone were to set one up and devise some sort of procedure for cooperating on it I can upload the code.

[Dreaded_Anomaly]

In Chapter 79, Dumbledore speculates that Hermione’s supposed attempted murder of Draco was a move by Voldemort to remove two of Harry’s allies.

I wonder if it might rather be a move to turn Harry (even more) against Wizarding society by exposing the massive flaws of their justice system. (Of course, it could be both at once.)

[DanArmak]

Quirrel can turn Harry instantly and permanently against Dumbledore (edit: though not Wizarding society in general), any day he likes, by telling him that the Philosopher’s stone exists and Dumbledore is allowing Flamel to hoard it (and the method for creating more) for himself.

No stronger method is needed. Harry would declare Dumbledore his enemy on the spot.

[Dreaded_Anomaly]

That could turn him against Dumbledore (and Flamel), but I don’t see how it would turn him against Wizarding society. I doubt most wizards give Flamel or the Stone a second thought, if they even know he/​it exists.

It’s also notable that the revelation of the existence of Nurmengard, which imprisons wizards without using Dementors, did not really turn him any more against Dumbledore or Wizarding society.

[DanArmak]

That could turn him against Dumbledore (and Flamel), but I don’t see how it would turn him against Wizarding society. I doubt most wizards give Flamel or the Stone a second thought, if they even know he/​it exists.

You’re right.

[TobyBartels]

In canon, at least, people know about Flamel, from Dumbledore’s Chocolate Frog card if nothing else. The Stone’s not a secret either, although it’s not common knowledge.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Would he? That might make Harry plot against Dumbledore, but it wouldn’t incite the hate that Quirrell seems to desire from him.

Besides, I’m certain Quirrell doesn’t want Harry to create a utopia, and thus wants him in the dark just as much as Dumbledore.

[DanArmak]

Would he? That might make Harry plot against Dumbledore, but it wouldn’t incite the hate that Quirrell seems to desire from him.

No hate for people who are deliberately keeping cheap immortality from the world’s population? Who are directly responsible for all age-and-disease death in the last eight centuries? I think Harry can muster a little hate where it’s really appropriate.

Besides, I’m certain Quirrell doesn’t want Harry to create a utopia, and thus wants him in the dark just as much as Dumbledore.

Harry would hate Dumbledore but he wouldn’t succeed in getting his hands on the Stone, not if Voldemort can’t. So, no utopia.

[ArisKatsaris]

No hate for people who are deliberately keeping cheap immortality from the world’s population?

You are making assumptions about what how much immortality the Philosopher’s Stone allows. For all you know it may allow e.g. a maximum of 7 people immortality, be only creatable once per five hundred years, and/​or require the heart of an adult dragon per each person given immortality.

Revealing the presence of such a device (not cheap immortality, but rare immortality) might well cause more loss of life in the pursuit of its possession than it would cause otherwise.

Ofcourse Harry would still be furious at Dumbledore for not analyzing the stone in any way he can in attempts to find a way to mass-produce it or atleast its effects.

[DanArmak]

Least convenient world apples, but I’d bet Dumbledore and Flamel haven’t been looking for cheaper ways to create more Stones, because it just isn’t their goal. (And they’re already in trouble because they have to guard the one stone from Voldemort.) If Harry knew, well, I’d bet his eyes would be ice and his voice would be distant darkness and… er, I mean, he’d go Librarian-poo crazy.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Hating Dumbledore for guarding the stone is no more rational than hating theists for trying to save everyone’s souls. The headmaster’s heart is in the right place, and while Harry might become extremely frustrated by him he would still seek to show Dumbledore the light, not to destroy him.

[DanArmak]

He would—he should—be willing to destroy him if it brings him any closer to possession of the Stone. Of course he probably can’t destroy Dumbledore so it’s a moot point.

Hating him is probably counterproductive anyway. I retract that part of what I said, it was wrong.

[TobyBartels]

I wonder if it might rather be a move to turn Harry (even more) against Wizarding society by exposing the massive flaws of their justice system.

End of Chapter 80: This result has come about.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I’m fairly certain that could be accomplished just by giving him a book on wizarding law. So probably not a factor in H&C’s plotting.

[Dreaded_Anomaly]

I think Quirrell would believe that seeing one’s best friend imprisoned/​subjugated/​otherwise punished unfairly would have more of an effect than a book, even on Harry. I think he would be right, too.

It turns out, after a few minutes’ contemplation, there was a previous discussion between Quirrell and Harry lurking in the background of this thought. From Chapter 60, The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 10: (emphasis added)

There was a pause at this. Then the boy said, “Professor, I have to ask, when you see something all dark and gloomy, doesn’t it ever occur to you to try and improve it somehow? Like, yes, something goes terribly wrong in people’s heads that makes them think it’s great to torture criminals, but that doesn’t mean they’re truly evil inside; and maybe if you taught them the right things, showed them what they were doing wrong, you could change—”

Professor Quirrell laughed, then, and not with the emptiness of before. “Ah, Mr. Potter, sometimes I do forget how very young you are. Sooner you could change the color of the sky.” Another chuckle, this one colder. “And the reason it is easy for you to forgive such fools and think well of them, Mr. Potter, is that you yourself have not been sorely hurt. You will think less fondly of commonplace idiots after the first time their folly costs you something dear. Such as a hundred Galleons from your own pocket, perhaps, rather than the agonizing deaths of a hundred strangers.”

Harry didn’t need a friend in Azkaban to be horrified at it, but visiting it had much more of an impact on him than just hearing about it.

[Normal_Anomaly]

I was hoping to post that quote. Kudos for getting there first.

[MartinB]

It is more involving when it is personal.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Maybe for most people, but Harry didn’t need a friend in Azkaban to appreciate it’s horror.

[Nominull]

He needed to visit it and hear the tortured captives crying out in anguish before he really appreciated its horror. Before he visited, he said “wow, that’s awful, somebody should do something”. After he visited he swore to the phoenix to dedicate his life to smashing it.

[75th]

Well, then. I’m certainly glad I didn’t wait until after Chapter 79 to register at Less Wrong and post all my theories about Santa Claus and S and H&C!

[Joshua Hobbes]

Alright, let’s get this speculation-train started. My first and most obvious thought is this: Hermione beat Draco to a pulp, and Lucius reported it. He was definitely intending to do something, and would have been monitoring his son. The trouble with this theory is that it involved admitting that Hermione beat Draco fair and square. Still, for Dumbledore to cooperate Lucius is probably involved somehow.

Also, there’s Professor Quirrell to account for. I find it unlikely his absence in unrelated, especially when he probably knew Lucius would be up to something. And come to think of it, he probably has his own Marauder’s Map(we now know they’re in play). Hell, come to think of it I wonder who wouldn’t make one if they could. Anyways, he probably doesn’t want Granger thrown in Azkaban. Perhaps we’ll finally get to see him up against Lord Malfoy?

[Jonathan_Elmer]

It is highly unlikely that Hermione would agree to the duel considering her reaction to whatever H&C convinced her of, and Draco saw attacking her on the spot as a forced move. So, Hermione declined Draco’s duel and Draco attacked her on the spot.

I think Hermione fought it life-or-death and did Draco serious damage.

Edit: Actually she should not have been able to do him serious damage if the wards actually work as they are alleged to work. Maybe she tried to do him serious damage, the wards did… whatever they do and Dumbledore felt compelled to report the attempt? I’m not sure any more.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Now that she’s H&C’s Mind-Rape slave, Hermione probably told him/​her as soon as she got Draco’s letters. So the question is what H&C would tell Hermione to do.

Come to think of it, all this has been the result of Hermione being convinced Draco is a bad egg. So, whoever benefits from this may well be or command H&C.

[Jonathan_Elmer]

Hmm, I assumed that H&C did what he did with Zabini and just planted the ideas that he wished in Hermione and left the results to play out rather then engaging with Hermione in a ongoing conversation.

[Joshua Hobbes]

H&C presumably contacted Zabini more than once when using him as a pawn. I imagine he’d talk to hermione after the battle regardless of whether she was able to summon him when she got the letter.

[Jonathan_Elmer]

Ok, that sounds reasonable enough.

[gwern]

My first thought is this: Hermione beat Draco to a pulp, and Lucius reported it. He was definitely intending to do something, and would have been monitoring his son.

My own immediate reaction was ‘this in no way serves Hermione or Draco’s plans, so it must be a third party, and Lucius just stormed out of the battle’. Except how could Lucius know, and what exactly good does prosecuting Hermione do? It’s implied he can’t be monitoring Draco in real time by his ignorance and the letter-writing, and it also runs afoul of the Hogwarts magical defenses—so what happened, Draco got beaten, crawled to his room, wrote a letter to Lucius, got it delivered, and Lucius roused the law which rushed to arrest Hermione, all in the <~8 hours after the duel? And while Lucius may have influence in the courts and so risks little by this tactic, it makes Draco’s reputation hugely worse to basically everyone (either because he looks extremely weak and dependent on his father or because he’s attacking an innocent or because he’s using outrageously disproportionate retaliation), and I don’t see how it helps Lucius or Draco very much. Dumbledore being imprisoned would be one thing, but Hermione?

[linkhyrule5]

It’s entirely possible that this is entirely natural. Hermione beat Draco badly enough to put him in the Hospital Wing; either he’s legitimately near-death, or Lucius blew it out of proportion.

Alternatively, Hermione and Draco actually talked it out and are currently laying a mutual trap to figure out who’s using them both as pawns. I like this option, but it’s also probably the least likely one.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Draco being legitimately injured would explain a bit. If a cover-up was impossible and he was going to be shamed regardless, Lucius might as well have Hermione punished.

[gwern]

It’s entirely possible that this is entirely natural.

Sure. It’s just… I feel this would violate the idiot-ball rule—Hermione going berserk enough to put Draco in the hospital wing? Yes, she was angry before, but losing control is an idiot-ball thing to do.

I like this option, but it’s also probably the least likely one.

Agree. Not sure how such a mutual trap would expose their manipulators either.

[linkhyrule5]

It could be an accident—Hermione hits a chandelier with a cutting cures, etc. It’s a fight, things like that happen.

Agree. Not sure how such a mutual trap would expose their manipulators either.

Whoever’s manipulating them is probably not anticipating a team up. (And if they are, they’re beyond the two’s ability to deal with anyway, so no point in worrying about that option.) So, Hermione apparently gets taken out of the picture, while Draco is free to investigate what’s going on with a manipulator who’s moving ahead with his plan.

… Okay, so that was kind of nonsensical since I was deciding what my opinion was while I wrote it. Let’s try this again:

Hermione and Draco meet, and actually talk it out. They decide to work together against their mysterious puppetmaster by playing along with the plot, as opposed to completely derailing it and then not knowing who was behind it.

[Jonathan_Elmer]

I really like that option as well. Rereading about Hermione’s demeanor at the breakfast table it does come across to me more as playing it cool then resignation at an impending arrest.

[Jonathan_Elmer]

Additionally, to meta-speculate a bit. I think it is more likely that Eliezer would pretend to destroy the relationship between Draco and Hermione that he has been carefully nudging together for many many chapters then to actually destroy the relationship.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Draco definitely won’t be pleased by these accusations. I wonder if he’s going to have to reveal himself as a non-racist before this arch is up.

[drethelin]

I actually think their likelihood of talking it out based on them being alone and unwatched is pretty high, and given hermione’s apparent lack of worry in the morning I think that’s what happened. It’s possible someone else interfered after the duel to incapacitate draco and incriminate hermione.

[linkhyrule5]

To be honest, she reads more “hysterical and hiding it” then “unworried” to me.

[Joshua Hobbes]

One way or another she seems to have been expecting this. Otherwise she’d have been freaking out that Harry had done something. So that might eliminate the possibility of the duel having gone perfectly fine and then some plotting going on afterwards.

[linkhyrule5]

Yeah, one way or another Draco is either injured or “injured” (with quotes), but the duel definitely didn’t go off as might be expected.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Furthermore, if Draco was seriously harmed there is absolutely no way Hermione wouldn’t have seen him to Madam Pomfrey. Perhaps it’s going to be made to look like Hermione did something unfair, like tried to cast the Killing Curse?

As for the monitoring, it’s possible Lucius didn’t need to write but also didn’t want his son to know how much he knew about what goes on in Hogwarts.

And as to his goal, I suspect getting the twelve-year-old’s wand snapped is not his end-game. However, he could definitely get some leverage over Dumbledore if he has a serious case.

[ArisKatsaris]

Furthermore, if Draco was seriously harmed there is absolutely no way Hermione wouldn’t have seen him to Madam Pomfrey

What makes you think she didn’t see him to Madam Pomfrey?

Though it’s always possible the wards in the castle immediately warn the teachers of a student wounded to the point of danger to life , and that therefore she wouldn’t have time to get him to Madam Pomfrey before she or a teacher arrived to the scene.

[anotherblackhat]

Furthermore, if Draco was seriously harmed there is absolutely no way Hermione wouldn’t have seen him to Madam Pomfrey

Only applies if Hermione is aware of Draco being seriously harmed.

Suppose she stuns Draco, leaves, then someone else decides to do a number on him, either hoping Hermione will take the blame, or just not thinking about it.

[smk]

Furthermore, if Draco was seriously harmed there is absolutely no way Hermione wouldn’t have seen him to Madam Pomfrey.

Hermione is a kind, caring person with a strong moral core, a “Milgram resister” who wouldn’t even cast a Simple Strike Hex on orders from a teacher. But she’s not a pacifist, is she? Perhaps she could be convinced that harming someone, or letting them be harmed, was the right thing to do. Especially if she was brainwashed a bit.

[shokwave]

Hermione beat Draco in a duel; he is trying a Xanatos gambit: I win? I trumpet the win loudly, purebloods rule! You win? The evil mudblood broke the rules (that she probably didn’t know) and tried to kill me.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I don’t think Draco would choose to have Hermione’s life completely destroyed. He wants her shamed, not imprisoned, dead, or wandless.

[shokwave]

Re-read the chapter: he’s furious and working himself further into a state where he could want that. Xanatos Gambit is maybe not the right concept; it sounds pre-planned. This could have been rage-driven, spur of the moment.

[Joshua Hobbes]

His thoughts clearly state that the purpose of the duel is to be a test for the real thing.

[linkhyrule5]

Personally, I’m worried about how Harry will react. He’s not going to take this well, certainly.

Now, the question here is how intelligent Hermione was. If she left the letter somewhere Harry can find it—or would know to look—then Harry would at least know what happened. Probably couldn’t be used as evidence, but it would help.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Hermione probably won’t be cut off from any outside contact, so she will be able to tell Harry about the duel if she wants to/​is able to. We can’t discount the possibility of obvliation.

[tadrinth]

The terms of the challenge state that she can’t tell anyone about it before or after the duel or it goes to the Wizangamot. So, no, presumably she can’t tell Harry about it.

Heck, she might have severely injured Draco by accident, rendered basic medical care, and then just left, because she can’t tell anyone. If someone found Draco unconscious and half-dead later, and they figured out Hermione did it and left him, that would look like attempted murder.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Oooh, now that’s interesting. If mentioning the duel means she automatically gets declared guilty as per the Ancient Rules, it’s going to be damned tricky to walk away from this.

[linkhyrule5]

Hence, a dead-drop, assuming she thought of it.

[Oscar_Cunningham]

New Disscussion Thread! Here.

[LucasSloan]

So what are people’s odds that Harry manages to get Hermione off?

[pedanterrific]

I don’t think they’re at that stage in their relationship yet, do you?

[MarkusRamikin]

Methinks there are some places conversations about 11-year-olds don’t need to go...

[LucasSloan]

Well if if were her final request...

[Joshua Hobbes]

Surely there are certain spells...

[Blueberry]

That might cause wireheading problems...

[anandjeyahar]

Yep… i don’t think so either.. but then they aren’t normal kids either so this ain’t a normal relationship..:-P

[LucasSloan]

Rot13 so people don’t anchor.

V tvir nebhaq friragl creprag punapr ur trgf ure bss sbe zheqre ol gur raq bs gur nep. Vg frrzf yvxr vg jbhyq or n tbbq jnl gb vapernfr grafvba, fgnxrf naq punenpgre zbgvingvba vs Urezvbar vf haqre qherff.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I’ll be astounded if he manages to win outright. So the question is what he’ll have to give up for his best friend’s sake.

[LucasSloan]

Very good point. Most of the evidence suggesting that Harry will lose Hermione is also evidence in favor of him losing something else with equal (or given the title of the sequence, greater) value.

[LucasSloan]

A few points

1. Hat and Cloak almost slipped and said time travel.

2. Mary sue time travel is a common device in fan fiction.

3. The author has stated MoR includes elements that are necessary to ensure artistic completeness as a work of fan fiction.

4. Mary sue time travel was derisively referred to in the same conversation in which the idea of Sirius Black conspiracy theories were debunked.

5. There is a person in Azkaban who endlessly repeats “I’m not serious” (Sirius).

6. It is not possible to travel more than 6 hours back in time with a time turner.

7. Prophecies transmit information further back in time than 6 hours.

8. Atlantis was erased from time.

9. The Weasley twins remark that the Marauder’s Map is showing errors.

10. The Sorting Hat still works.

From the above, I suspect that Mr. Hat and Cloak is a time traveler who has an earlier version running around in the present.

[Incorrect]

I thought last we heard Hermione was being brainwashed. Is this all happening afterward? What does Hermione think Draco is plotting? Why is Hermione so upset and why hasn’t she been talking to Harry?

I am so confused.

[linkhyrule5]

Presumably, Hermione has just been the subject of a Groundhog Day Attack, and is now believing whatever the mysterious figure wants her to believe. Said figure is presumably new to the concept, as he almost slipped several times. So Hermione thinks Draco is plotting something to exploit her mysterious destiny.

Hermione hasn’t been talking to Harry for awhile, I believe.

[75th]

I wouldn’t say that H&C is necessarily new to the concept of Groundhog Day Attacks. If Quirrell is Voldemort and also H&C, he would not likely have a good mental model of the pure and innocent and good and upright Hermione Granger. It would take him a few tries to find the right levers to push.

But I’m not sure that Hermione isn’t simply under the Imperius Curse at this point. When she’s fighting Draco, she gives her wand a “mysterious flick” in a very un-Hermione-like feint. I don’t know why Eliezer would deliberately place that word “mysterious” there unless he wanted to hint that Hermione isn’t fully in control of her faculties.

[Dentin]

It just occurred to me that while some artifacts have not surfaced in canon order, there’s no reason other artifacts can’t surface out of canon order.

What about the diary, which was apparently in the possession of Lucius in canon?

[linkhyrule5]

See above. Quirrel wouldn’t have made the slip that alerted the readers to a Groundhog Day Attack.

Now, the imperius… I could believe a confundus, maybe. She’s not mindless enough for an imperius.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I don’t know, Canon!Harry was the only one in his class who could resist it if I recall. And that was in their fourth year.

[ArisKatsaris]

I think linkhyrule5 means that she isn’t acting mindless enough for an Imperius.

[Joshua Hobbes]

IIRC, a well-cast Imperius can be very convincing. I don’t think it’s likely though, considering H&C’s apparent incompetence.

That’s not to say other characters we know aren’t already under the Imperius. It seems like a spell that would be used often than in cannon if no one is holding any idiot balls.

[rdb]

Perhaps Imperius is one of the charms detected by Hogwart’s wards.

[sketerpot]

If that were so, then it would have made detecting Imperiused infiltrators during the war trivial: just floo everyone in the Ministry through a room in Hogwarts, with in- and out-fireplaces, and arrest any who set off the wards. You could do it once a week, or every morning, or randomly thrice a week, or whatever. It’s too obvious, and too easy and non-controversial, for someone like Dumbledore not to have noticed and put in place. This did not happen.

[ameriver]

The ministry was clearly not actually trying to catch Death Eaters during the first war. Even simpler than this (as a first pass to catch spies) would be to make all ministry employees roll up their left sleeve on a regular basis.

[Sheaman3773]

Was I truly the only person who read that and thought that it would make a hell of a lot more sense for the Death Eaters to control whether or not the Mark was visible? Why does everyone persist in assuming that it is permanently visible, rather considering the possibility that Voldemort wasn’t quite that stupid, especially in MoR?

[[deleted]]

Perhaps casting Imperius is detected by Hogwarts wards. This is in fact more likely (that is, it better fits my impression of what wards should be like) than supposing that Hogwarts wards detect ongoing Imperius enchantments.

[gwern]

‘ongoing’ doesn’t seem to be the germane distinction. For example, in canon book 7, don’t the Gringotts wards and mechanisms detect both ongoing polymorph and an Imperius when Harry et al break in?

[pedanterrific]

No, the Imperius was cast inside the bank.

[[deleted]]

If that were valid here, then wouldn’t Gringotts be the place to send Ministry employees at random thrice a week?

[gwern]

Yup. Why does Gringotts have better and useful wards than the Ministry? Because they’re all idiots.

[sketerpot]

Goblins have a history of taking certain things very seriously, and security is one of them. The Ministry is very serious about looking like they take security seriously. The difference is not a small one.

[ajuc]

You could’t apparate to Hogward in cannon, if I recall correctly?

[sketerpot]

Correct! You can’t apparate into or out of Hogwarts. The ancient wards on the school have prevented this since its founding. The Floo network, on the other hand, works just fine, as has been demonstrated several times in HP:MoR and in canon. The Hogwarts wards can also be easily bypassed by the vanishing cabinet, phoenix teleportation, or portkeys. In HP:MoR, the use of portkeys can be blocked by wards like the ones on Azkaban (and presumably a handful of other ultra-high-security places, like Nurmengard).

While we’re on the subject of easily-exploitable security holes, Harry J. P. E. Verres might find these interesting:

• House-elf apparition uses a different mechanism that effortlessly bypasses anti-apparition jinxes, such as (canonically) the ones in the Malfoy manor’s cellar-cum-dungeon.

• If it’s possible to make small portable portkeys that can be activated on a whim, as Quirrell and Santa Claus have both shown themselves able to do, then this offers an excellent escape method from areas under anti-apparition jinxes, and Harry should definitely carry one at all times. Having such a panic button available could save his life. Unauthorized portkeys are very illegal, but this does not seem to be effectively enforced.

• Easy, secure information transmission is possible by using the protean charm to link small items together. This is apparently a fairly difficult charm, but it may well be just a matter of skill, and therefore something that a sufficiently determined young genius can learn quickly. This is faster than using a Patronus to carry messages, less conspicuous, and can be used to broadcast information. Canonically, this was used by people on both sides of the Second Wizarding War.

[tadrinth]

It’s possible that H&C never did figure out an effective lever. In that case, he might have given up on Memory Charming her (requires the target’s defenses to be lowered, at least in the case of an experienced Auror and possibly for a very pissed off first year) and just oblivated her. If he’d managed to memory charm her, I don’t think she’d have been so freaked out. She also wouldn’t have ‘lost track of time’, she’d have had a perfectly reasonable legitimate excuse put in place.

Also, have we seen Quirrell use Legilimancy at all? If we have, that’s an argument for H&C not being Quirrell, because if you’ve thoroughly read someone’s mind you it shouldn’t take that many tries for a groundhog day attack.

[drethelin]

I think you’re reading too much into it. Mysterious makes sense when you’re describing a feint.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Quirrell told Harry that reading minds takes the fun out of things, but then that’s just what he’d say if that wasn’t true.

[tadrinth]

Especially when the person in question has been fighting a lot of bullies lately AND is royally pissed off.

[tadrinth]

When you’re going to Obliviate the target anyway, there’s little downside to letting some frustration slip through. I don’t think that necessarily counts as a screwup.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Hat & Cloak is almost definitely going to play a part in whatever happens to Hermione now. Come to think of it, he/​she might have somehow been involved in Draco’s injuries. Or might even be the one who arranged for Hermione’s arrest, since it isn’t obvious how that helps Lucius.

[ArisKatsaris]

Are you truly confused about these?

Yes, this is happening after the Groundhog-day attack. Obviously so.
We don’t know yet what Hermione thinks Draco is plotting.
We don’t know what exactly happened to make Hermione so upset.

What is there to be confused about? Don’t misuse the word to merely signify lack of knowledge.

[Incorrect]

Yes, this is happening after the Groundhog-day attack. Obviously so.

It wasn’t so obvious to me because the chapter started by stating the date and time.

What is there to be confused about?

I wasn’t sure whether I was missing information because I wasn’t understanding the story properly or because it was for dramatic tension.

If the answer was dramatic tension, then I was merely missing information, however, if I wasn’t understanding the story properly then I would consider that confusion.

I believe if you don’t know whether you are confused then it is acceptable to call yourself confused.

[ArisKatsaris]

It wasn’t so obvious to me because the chapter started by stating the date and time.

Okay, but there was this paragraph, which clearly indicated the groundhog attack had already happened:
”Hermione had even missed her Sunshine Regiment Official Planning Meeting, which seemed understandable enough; but when Susan had offered her sympathy afterward, Hermione had stammered that she’d lost track of time, which wasn’t at all a usual thing for her to say, and the girl had looked exhausted and frightened like she’d just spent three days locked in a bathroom stall with a Dementor. ”

[Joshua Hobbes]

Does H&C want Lucius to try to destroy Harry? Because that’s what’s going to happen when Draco spills the beans about what they’ve been doing.

[loserthree]

Halving the Bayesian Conspiracy would only be a setback.

What else do you predict Lucius would do?

[wedrifid]

Halving the Bayesian Conspiracy would only be a setback.

Lucius killing Harry wouldn’t be what I would call halving the conspiracy. There’d be nothing left.

[loserthree]

Halving was meant to mean that Lucius would take Draco form HJPEV.

Do you believe killing the protagonist is within Lucius power, just now, even discounting plot-armor? I see no reason to beleive that Lucius will be more capable of killing the protagonist after this fiasco than he was before. HJPEV remains sheltered in a magical fortress and under the protection of what might be the world’s most powerful wizard.

I don’t mean to ask “What else do you predict would Lucius desire to do?” but “What else do you predict Lucius would do?”

[wedrifid]

Halving was meant to mean that Lucius would take Draco form HJPEV.

Ahh, right. Just a setback.

Do you believe killing the protagonist is within Lucius power, just now, even discounting plot-armor? I see no reason to beleive that Lucius will be more capable of killing the protagonist after this fiasco than he was before. HJPEV remains sheltered in a magical fortress and under the protection of what might be the world’s most powerful wizard.

Even canon shows us ways to bypass Hogwarts security, and this MoR!Lucius is far, far more cunning. Harry himself could do far, far more to see to his own personal safety too, rather than being largely passive in that regard.

The actual reason I agree with you that killing Harry will be difficult for Lucius is Quirrel. Quirrel is much better at being evil than Lucius is. If Quirrel wants Harry alive Lucius will struggle to have him killed.

That said, Lucius has an ace up his sleeve, if he is ruthless enough to use it. Draco. There is more that Lucius can do with Draco than preventing Harry from using him. Lucius is a dark wizard. He can use imperius and has an abundance of resources with which to make the most of that opening.

[MarkusRamikin]

and this MoR!Lucius is far, far more cunning.

MoR!Dumbledore is also more awesome than his weaksauce Rowling equivalent, or should I say, this Dumbledore is actually competent.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I’d equate it to a bronze-age theist discovering someone was an proselytizing atheist and had deconverted their child.

[TobyBartels]

I’m not sure that a Bronze Age theist could really comprehend atheism. How about a mediaeval Catholic?

[cultureulterior]

I’m expecting Lucius to be manipulated into asking questions under veritaserum of his son that he really doesn’t want the Wizengamot to hear the answer to, e.g Blood Purity, and the plausibility of same.

[Micaiah_Chang]

Why would Quirrel go to Fuyuki City in 1983? The 5th Holy Grail War takes place around 2003, with the 4th 10 years before during 1993. Assuming that Quirrel knew about the Grail Wars, he’d also have known about the 60 year cycles and would have little reason to arrive earlier. The earliest Zero relevant information happens eight years earlier in 1985. The closest event in TYPE MOON chronology would be Shiki’s birth or the first case of Agonist Disorder. But the former is related more to Misaki town than Fuyuki city and the latter is from DDD… which only has an obscure, mostly unread translation!

So I’m probably overthinking the connection to Fuyuki; it’s probably just a one off reference. It’s that or the timeline was ‘magically’ shifted forward by 10 years, with the 5th grail war in 1993 and the 4th in 1983...

[linkhyrule5]

This is a Harry Potter fic, not a crossover. It’s a Shout Out, not an actual reference.

I admit, however, that if the dates were right I would totally be supporting one of the H&Cs being Heroic Spirit POTTER.

[Anubhav]

agonist disorder

Doesn’t look like there was an outbreak in Fuyuki. Besides, it’s made clear that Quirrell never actually visited the place.

The 5th Holy Grail War takes place around 2003, with the 4th 10 years before during 1993

Which means that either (a) Kayneth Archibald el-Melloi will be replaced by Lucius Malfoy or (b) the dates need to be moved around.

[gwern]

Besides, it’s made clear that Quirrell never actually visited the place.

Why is that clear? It’s a powerfully magical place which might draw someone like Quirrel, and Quirrel’s mistake was about whether he had a visa—so he could have gone but not known whether his later cover identity was officially registered or not.

[Anubhav]

If Grail Wars do occur in this continuity, I’d be very surprised if Riddle didn’t visit their site when he was wandering the world looking for knowledge and power.

But I doubt that the reference is anything more than yet another shout-out.

[prasannak]

Chap 79 - EY’s added #40 on list to read.

Chap 40

• HP discloses to Q, Lucius’s conversation, and also speculates that Dumbledore will kill Draco, making it seem as if Harry did it, to get Lucius to stop his game against Dumbledore and go after Harry.

• Q suggests only way to remove cognitive dissonance in others is to kill them

• Q talks about ways to stay alive and does not mention Horcruxes, instead leading on to the resurrection stone.

• HP shows the Deathly Hallows symbol to Q who seems to have been oblivious of the Hallows till now, same as canon, & unsurprising given his Muggle upbringing. So he knows about the cloak, and now the stone, very likely that he knows about the wand as well

I also find it impossible to believe that Hermione lost to Malfoy, she just beat him fair & square in battle. That certainly sounds like a false memory.

[glumph]

I also find it impossible to believe that Hermione lost to Malfoy, she just beat him fair & square in battle. That certainly sounds like a false memory.

They were pretty evenly matched during the Chapter 78 battle, and Draco was a bit drained from charming all the gloves, so it’s by no means impossible that Draco beat Hermoine. I expect if they had 10 duels, each would win at least a few.

But it is true that our only sources regarding the outcome of the duel are Draco and Hermoine’s memories along with Quirrell’s testimony. If those memories were placed by Hat and Cloak, and if Hat and Cloak is Quirrel, then all of our information about what happened between midnight and 6.33am is based on what Quirrell wants us to know. The only bit that is confirmed by another party is that Draco was indeed at some point unconscious in the trophy room.

[knb]

Draco is the better duelist at this point. Draco tired himself out by casting all those tough spells someone his age should not even be able to do, let alone do many times in a row. This was pointed out by Quirrel and Madame Bones, which makes it unlikely that it was just Draco rationalizing it.

Hermione is more magically powerful and also more clever, but when it comes to dueling, Draco still probably has the edge.

[Joshua Hobbes]

I wonder if Harry’s lessons with Edward might have pushed him ahead? He did have a great proficiency for it in canon, as I recall.

[Nominull]

Maybe Malfoy’s first self-defensive instinct was right? Maybe he really had worn himself down by casting all those spells on all those gloves, and that’s the only reason he lost. Certainly he thought it was plausible enough that he could beat her that it was worth having a duel as a test.

[ajuc]

Did anybody bothered to check previous spells on Hermione, Snape, and Quirrell wands? EDIT: Ok, we″re told Quirrell cast tens of spells since 06:33, still—they should check just to be sure.

Now it seems Harry should just kidnapp Hermione and hide here somewhere(And give her cloak to hide her from tracking spels).

“Professor Quirrell had cast tracking Charms because he had learned of a person with a motive to harm Mr. Malfoy. Professor Quirrell had refused to identify this person.” hmm, why hadn’t they used veritaserum on Quirrell to ask him who had the motive? Seems like usefull thing to know after murder attempt..

Also—Quirrell said he found out about Draco at 06:33 - just half an hour too late to use Time Turner and check what happened or to stop Hermione in the first place. Funny coincidence.

[Nominull]

Quirrell is, as an Occlumens, immune to veritaserum. Just like Harry.

[MarkusRamikin]

I’m a little embarassed to ask this, but could someone please point me to where exactly in the story it’s explained about Occlumency beating Veritaserum? I’m trying to find it, I think I managed to search out every instance of the word Veritaserum, and I only keep running into sentences that sound like it should already be obvious to the reader.

[pedanterrific]

I can’t for the life of me find anything earlier than Chapter 47′s offhanded-seeming

And Father couldn’t testify under Veritaserum because he was an Occlumens, he couldn’t even get Dumbledore put on trial, [...]

which comes right before

“I was trained by Mr. Bester. Professor Quirrell set it up. Look, Draco, I’ll take one drop of Veritaserum if you can get it, I’m just warning you that I’m an Occlumens. Not a perfect Occlumens, but Mr. Bester said I was putting up a complete block, and I could probably beat Veritaserum.”

I know the Occlumency > Veritaserum thing is canon, but it seems like it wasn’t actually explained or foreshadowed in this fic until it became plot-relevant, which seems a little sloppy.

[MarkusRamikin]

Hm… I can’t find it in canon, either. HP Wiki cites Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as the source, but I’ve scanned for all instances of verita and occlu and still no luck. Curses!

[MartinB]

Quirrells suspect is Dumbledore, as has been clearly stated. He probably did not do it. Quirrell basically acted on a hunch and the Aurors do not really care about that.

[moritz]

So, what kind of “miracle” will Harry produce for the next battle (assuming for a moment that Hermione is going to be released, and there will be a next battle)?

I thought that maybe he finds a way to learn wordless magic, thus having a huge advantage since the others don’t know what spells will be coming. But then I realized that it’s not even necessary—in the heat of the battle it’s enough not to shout the incantation, whispering it will mean that the opponent can’t hear it.

It’s a simple enough thing that I wonder why none of Harry, Hermione, and Draco seem to consider it.

At least I haven’t found any indication that shouting the words of a spell make it more powerful.

[LucasSloan]

It seems to me that potion making is still a clear advantage that Harry has over his rivals—they aren’t going to discover the principal at the heart of potion making. At the moment, trying to invest additional effort in making more useful sorts of potions and or hiding the preparations better seems to be the easiest marginal increase in chaos’ power.

[Richard_Kennaway]

Strategy, like markets, is anti-inductive. As Edward Luttwak says somewhere, “all success tends to failure”. When you win a battle or a war, your enemies and onlookers concerned that you may turn on them will learn from what you did, and look for counters, while you will be tempted to rely on what worked. But if you do that, you are attributing your success to the wrong place: on what you did instead of on the relationship between what you did and what your enemies did.

Harry hasn’t repeated himself yet: to all new challenges he has found new responses.

[LucasSloan]

Sure, but I think it would be better to think of potion making at a very high level in strategy. Harry used transfiguration in battle after battle and managed to win. Do you think of that as not innovating? I think there is a similar relationship between ball bearings and skateboards and suits of armor in the transfiguration category and potion of sunlight and whatever comes next in the potion making category.

[moritz]

If I understood correctly, Harry didn’t invent a new potion, he found it one of the books that Flitwick recommended. And if you assume that Draco still has Snape’s support, it won’t be easy for Harry to find more powerful potions than Draco.

It also seems clear that the teachers involved think that inventing new potions is far too dangerous with Harry’s current level of experience (which is basically none). That’s why I don’t think that more potions will be the way to Chaos’ success. At least not the critical factor.

[Joshua Hobbes]

That’s quite a good idea, but not enough for Harry to win when outnumbered. I’m not so sure he really needs a new idea at the moment, it might be simply continue inventing potions with non-magical ingredients (Could you make the other team lose the will to fight with a potion made from tears?).

Of course, he’ll probably have an epiphany on a completely different subject none the less.

[Bongo]

Snape says this in both MoR and the original book:

“I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death”

Isn’t this silly? Of course you can stopper death, because duh, poisons exist.

It might be just a slip-up in the original book, but I’m hoping it will somehow make sense in MoR. My first thought was that maybe a magical death potion couldn’t be stopped using magical healing, unlike non-magical poisons.

I asked this on IRC and got some interesting ideas. feep thought it might mean that you can make a Potion of Dementor, which would fit since dementors are avatars of death in MoR and stoppering death would be actually impressive if it meant that. Orionstein suggested it might be a potion made from eg. a bullet that’s killed someone, which, given what we know of how potions work from chapter 78, might also result in a potion with deathy effects above and beyond just those of poison.

[Slackson]

I thought it was made pretty clear that Dementors come from the ritual that Quirrel says summons Death, and that the True Patronus charm is the lost spell that banishes it. The other options seem more plausible, but really, I’d place my bet on some kind of poison that causes total and immediate brain death like Avada Kedavra does. I am not aware of any normal poisons that do that.

[WrongBot]

I would assume that Snape was referring to the Draught of Living Death, which creates a temporary condition indistinguishable from death.

[staticIP]

“even stopper death”

What I got from that was snape claiming to be able to temporarily store or stop death. To extend someones life. Not a great interpretation in hindsight, but I was ~ten the last time I heard that line so I’ll forgive myself.

[gyokuro]

I was annoyed that I wasn’t catching the clues about H&C other people pointed out, even after rereading some chapters.

But it did make me wonder if there are definite clues at all, and if Eliezer had written so far with a specific person in mind. When he chooses to reveal who it is, he could have a list of plausible H&Cs and randomnumber it. The clues are vague enough that massive hindsight bias seems possible.

Now, he probably wouldn’t do this, considering that writing five plots is much harder than one, but if I were a talented enough writer I would try. Then laugh at everyone attempting to guess ahead of time.

[prasannak]

I was annoyed too, then I read Eliezer’s comment somewhere about deliberately embedding many clues on Quirrelmort and other things, and reading the reviews to figure out who got them.

After that, I just decided that what looked like a clue, smelled like a clue, was probably a clue—and not some mysterious writing which is meant to be mysterious. My eyes were opened :) Might work for you too :)

[Anubhav]

Was the potions thing foreshadowed? Did we ever see a magical weakling brewing an advanced potion before this chapter?

[Xachariah]

Do you mean aside from in Canon? If you are not familiar with the canon version, gur pngtvey Ryvrmre ersref gb vf Urezvbar va UC naq gur Punzore bs Frpergf.

[Normal_Anomaly]

Please don’t rot13 parts of books that came out in the previous century. It gets on my nerves, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.

[NancyLebovitz]

I think spoilers, even for old stories, are a courtesy, especially if the parts being spoilered aren’t part of common knowledge. I read King Lear as a teenager without knowing how it was going to end, and I think it was better that way.

[Blueberry]

Possibly relevant

Also

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

[NancyLebovitz]

Maybe I’m an outlier about spoilers. As far as I can tell, there are some stories which I very much prefer having been surprised by, and I regret having read internet discussions which explained Focus rather than having read A Deepness in the Sky cold.

[Blueberry]

Now I’m curious: explain Focus to me? I haven’t read anything Vinge wrote, so all I know about it is the one sentence from the Wikipedia page. (You can rot13 or PM me if you’re worried about spoiling it for anyone else.)

[NancyLebovitz]

The wikipedia page is pretty much what I was going to say—vg’f orvat noyr gb pbageby gur bowrpg bs nhgvfz-fglyr ulcresbphf, jvgu gur pbzcyrkvgl bs gur jbex orvat yvzvgrq ol gur vagryyvtrapr bs gur Sbphfrq crefba. Vg’f n irel anfgl fbeg bs fynirel, jbexrq bhg va pbafvqrenoyr qrgnvy ol Ivatr. V qba’g erzrzore gur zrpunavfz.

[Blueberry]

I did notice the target of the wikipedia link, and I haven’t read the book, but is it literally orvat noyr gb pbageby gur bowrpg bs nhgvfz-fglyr ulcresbphf? It sounds a lot stronger and weirder and deeper than that, with only a superficial similarity.

[NancyLebovitz]

It’s been a while since I’ve read the book, ohg vg tbrf snegure guna nhgvfz orpnhfr Sbphfrq crbcyr trarenyyl pna’g gnxr pner bs gurzfryirf. Nyfb, lbh znl abg or vzntvavat ubj n fynir-bjavat qvpgngbefuvc jbhyq znxr hfr bs gur grpu—be vg’f cbffvoyr V’z abg qbvat gur fhowrpg whfgvpr.

[Anubhav]

Do you mean aside from in Canon?

Yes.

More specifically, I meant in this fic.

[linkhyrule5]

Nope. It’s new. Well, aside from the fact that it can be logically induced the moment you see a potion’s effects.

[Anubhav]

IIRC the only potions we’ve seen so far have been the ones brewed by Quirrell for the Azkaban arc.

[GeorgieChaos]

Though when Tonks is masquerading as a member of SPHEW one of the bullies does level a spell at her intended to dispel the effects of Polyjuice.

[NancyLebovitz]

This may have been covered already, but are there reasons why the armies (especially Harry, of course) aren’t using magic to increase their mental, magical, and/​or physical endurance? For that matter, what about ordinary stimulants?

[Joshua Hobbes]

You aren’t allowed to bring stuff into the battles, and human-transfiguration is far beyond their level. But now Harry’s figured out how to invent potions, who knows what he’ll come up with for the next match.

[Luke_A_Somers]

Invent? I don’t think he invented that potion so much as found the principle that led him to believing it existed, then looking in the right section of a book.

[drethelin]

I agree with what Locke said, and also probably for the same reason wizards aren’t CONSTANTLY using magic to improve themselves, whatever that reason is.

As far as regular stimulants, most of them would probably count as bringing in muggle technology.

[wedrifid]

I agree with what Locke said, and also probably for the same reason wizards aren’t CONSTANTLY using magic to improve themselves, whatever that reason is.

Narrative convenience combined with human psychology. We don’t constantly use all the knowledge we have available to improve ourselves and so can’t expect wizards to either (who have plenty more reason just to be conditioned into laziness.)

[Eugine_Nier]

Possibly for the same reason real armies don’t constantly use stimulants.

[gwern]

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding your point, but they (at least the American one) do constantly abuse stimulants; the US military even has special exemptions to use otherwise illegal amphetamines, and it’s no accident that a ton of the early modafinil research was done for, by, or was related to the military.

[Douglas_Knight]

What do you mean by “constantly”? Do you have a reference quantifying use?

My understanding is that modern military use of amphetamines is pretty much the same today as was figured out independently by both sides in WWII. Amphetamines are not useful for most soldiers doing most activities. They are mainly useful for pilots, because flight is boring and solitary. They are useful for sleep deprivation, but for most activities it’s better to schedule sleep. They are useful for bombing raids, where you know how many hours out and back the pilot has to fly, and then can rest afterwards. Similarly, they are probably useful for commando raids, which are a lot more popular now.

If all pilots are on amphetamines when they are in the air, you might say that the military constantly uses amphetamines, but the individual pilots are not constantly using them, which is probably Eugine’s point, and relevant to drethelin’s question.

Since modafinil interferes much less with sleep, using it constantly may be a good idea, but I don’t think militaries do.

[gwern]

Amphetamines are also used in ground forces; special forces are widely rumored to use them on many missions (with, of course, no official statements like we have confirming air force use).

[wedrifid]

Out of interest, do American special forces units constantly (at least as per cycling guidelines) abuse AA-steroids? It seems like the sort of thing I’d want my special forces doing and I’m sure that the individual commandos in question use them but I’m curious as to whether it is officially sanctioned.

[Percent_Carbon]

Steroid use does not make good soldiers. Soldier-fit is different than gym-fit in appearance and function. Bulk does not provide performance increases in soldier duties and does cost more calories to maintain. Testosterone-related behavior issues are inconvenient in a rigid hierarchy.

Judicious use of stimulants, on the other hand, makes very good soldiers and may be started and stopped almost at will. Dopamine-reuptake-inhibition-related and withdrawal-related behavior issues are almost identical to the stress-induced behavior issues already ubiquitous throughout all armed forces.

[wedrifid]

Steroid use does not make good soldiers. Soldier-fit is different than gym-fit in appearance and function. Bulk does not provide performance increases in soldier duties and does cost more calories to maintain.

This is largely nonsense. AA-Steroids are not just toys that are used to make muscles pump up at look pretty. They are performance enhancers. There is a reason they are banned and heavily controlled for in all top level sports. They work. They allow athletes to be faster, stronger and train more heavily. The usefulness of these traits to soldiers is obvious. To the extent that elite soldiers wish to be fast, strong and heavily conditioned without just ending up overtrained, steroids will be useful.

Judicious use of stimulants, on the other hand, makes very good soldiers and may be started and stopped almost at will.

Stimulants are great. But if you were really concerned about testosterone based aggression you probably shouldn’t pump the meat heads full of amphetamines either.

[gwern]

The rumors say they use them on any long missions. Details? From rumors? Not really happening. I could probably dig up some more informative descriptions, but I don’t care enough beyond the basic point ‘they use them routinely on missions’.

[wedrifid]

The rumors say they use them on any long missions.

Really? There is some benefit from that—enhanced recovery and reduced atrophy as the mission distracts them from their training protocol. But the greatest benefit from the steroids I would have expected to come during training. ie. They’d be able to do much more of it as well as come in with 15kg more thug.

[SkyDK]

The Danish army, which I’m currently a part of, do not condone steroids; they particularly campaign against them. Long term use isn’t worth it compared to the investment they make in the soldiers. But it’s probably fair to note that the Danish army and the American one aren’t quite agreeing on a lot of issues regarding the health of their soldiers. Mental or otherwise.

[gwern]

Oh, sorry, I completely missed that you were asking about steroids, not amphetamines. I don’t know anything specific about those. My best guess would be that they are used by various members but with no particular official sanction beyond a disinclination to pry (‘whatever gets the job done and you meeting your physicals’).

[Joshua Hobbes]

So does HPMOR.com not update as quickly as I thought? They’re quite late with this latest author’s note.

[Bugmaster]

It seems like HPMoR is on hiatus… not sure if it’s been abandoned yet, but I wouldn’t expect an update any time soon.

[ArisKatsaris]

It seems like HPMoR is on hiatus… not sure if it’s been abandoned yet, but I wouldn’t expect an update any time soon.

This was rather lazy of you. If you had just checked the latest author’s notes you’d have noticed that Eliezer mentions a hope to post the next chapter before March 11th.

Even if you don’t expect his update to come that soon, this hardly qualifies for a “hiatus” or even worse “abandonment”, when the author expresses the desire to post the next chapter at start of next week...

[Bugmaster]

I guess I had the author’s notes page cached; I force-refreshed it just now, and saw the latest update. Good catch.

[Anubhav]

What bothers me is that the AN dated 28 Feb was posted on 7 Mar. What happened in the intervening time?

(My personal guess is that Eliezer was attacked by ninjas.)

Edit: Oops, that’s exactly what the great-grandparent is about. Never mind.

[Vladimir_Nesov]

The note was edited-in as part of the 77th chapter, so it probably updated as part of the mirror of that chapter quickly, but was explicitly recognized as a note only a few days later and copied in the correct section.

[aladner]

I’m thinking that Harry is about to try to either command or destroy the dementor. To do either, he’d have to leave his dark side, so I’m not sure how successful he’ll be. I’m close to certain that the Eliezer put the dementor there for a reason, and that the reason probably wasn’t so that Harry could say, “dementors are bad” again.

[magfrump]

I was playing with a cat this morning, and I thought to myself:

As phoenixes are to Gryffindor, so are cats to Ravenclaw, and dogs to Hufflepuff.

Phoenixes know only bravery; dogs know only playfulness and loyalty; cats know only curiosity.

I think the dog one is best, but I couldn’t think of anything for Slytherin.

[TobyBartels]

I couldn’t think of anything for Slytherin.

Humans.

[lavalamp]

I think the dog one is best, but I couldn’t think of anything for Slytherin.

Snakes are associated with Slytherin pretty heavily in the books.

[magfrump]

Yes, but snakes don’t live their lives constantly being ambitious.

Lions are the mascot of Gryffindor, not phoenixes. But phoenixes embody the virtues of Gryffindor.

Badgers are the mascot of Hufflepuff. But if you ever encounter an animal more Hufflepuff than Lassie I will eat my hat.

My point isn’t that there aren’t animals that are associated to houses, it’s that dogs don’t understand anything except Hufflepuff, just like Phoenixes don’t understand anything except Gryffindor.

[wedrifid]

But phoenixes embody the virtues of Gryffindor.

I don’t see it. They burn up and are reborn. They heal stuff. They make things light. They are loyal and from what I can tell excessively empathetic. Sound like baddass Hufflepuffs to me.

If they constatly charged into fights trying to show off (then getting killed and reborn all the time) then sure, Gryffindor!

[TobyBartels]

And eagles for Ravenclaw, again, not particularly Ravenclaw in real life.

[wedrifid]

And eagles for Ravenclaw, again, not particularly Ravenclaw in real life.

A more suitable mascot in terms of behavioral traits and abilities would be, well, a Raven.

[loserthree]

Ravens are hoarding thieves, rather than scholars. There is a similarity, there, but typically a mascot reflects aspects more flatteringly, no?

[wedrifid]

Ravens are hoarding thieves, rather than scholars. There is a similarity, there, but typically a mascot reflects aspects more flatteringly, no?

When you are creating animal mascots to represent your defining features and your defining feature is IQ and cleverness you run into something of a problem. The only scholars I know are humans.

I’d obviously go with crows rather than ravens (both have respectable levels of intelligence). The ravenclaw mascot being a crow just doesn’t quite seem right for some reason.

[pedanterrific]

I’m actually not sure that Ravenclaw has anything to do with IQ or cleverness. Harry thinks it does- he notes at one point that “the 75th percentile of Hogwarts students a.k.a. Ravenclaw House is not the world’s most exclusive program for gifted children”- but in actual practice it seems more like studiousness, or curiosity, or love of knowledge for its own sake, is the unifying trait. I mean, Dumbledore is a Gryffindor, Voldemort and Snape and Draco are Slytherins...

[wedrifid]

And Hermione and McGonnagal are both Gryffindor (in canon). House assignment is broken.

I think you are right about ‘love of knowledge for its own sake’. A certain level of intelligence would also seem to be required.

[TobyBartels]

They have to answer riddles to enter the dorms. But this may not require intelligence so much as genre-savviness. (Particularly in canon.)

[pedanterrific]

How this is supposed to keep anyone out is beyond me. For all we know, canon!Hermione spent most of her spare time hanging out in the Ravenclaw common room tutoring seventh-years.

[pedanterrific]

Yeah, I have to agree that “If Hermione Granger didn’t go to Ravenclaw then there was no good reason for Ravenclaw House to exist.”

Of course, in canon Pettigrew is a Gryffindor. It’s enough to make one wonder about the whole idea of unifying traits.

[vali]

Chapter 79 is out!

My first thought was that Quirrell is behind this, and he is trying to strip away Harry’s friends and isolate him. It’s pretty clear that Mr. Hat and Cloak is Quirrell (I can argue this elsewhere if you disagree), and we know that Mr H&C is behind Hermione’s recent brainwashing.

The problem is that this plot ends with Quirrell blowing his cover. We can guess that Quirrell cast those spells protecting Draco in chapter 40, after learning that Lord Malfoy had threatened to give his entire game away as revenge against Harry should his son come to harm. So Quirrell was protecting Draco to prevent anyone (Dumbledore?) from killing Draco in order to turn Lord Malfoy against Harry. But Quirrell can’t tell anyone else this. He has no good reason to have those spells on Draco. Quirrell is a clever guy; I’m sure he could have come up with some excuse to make sure Draco was found OTHER than “Oh, I just happened to be watching over this one student with spells since last January”. He could have gotten past this point in the story still free of suspicion. So why didn’t he? How does this development benefit Quirrell?

My ideas so far: 1: Quirrell blew his cover on purpose, knowing he would be questioned by Scrimgeour. He is going to take over Scrimgeour’s mind in the next chapter, knowing that Scrimgeour is an important man in government. And we already know from the Canon that Scrimgeour would get elected if a crises like the reappearance of Voldemort took place. And we already know Quirrell has plans for creating a fake Voldemort crises. Harry is too young to run the country, but Scrimgeour could make for a good front for a while, while Harry builds up his own popularity.
Result: Harry loses his friends and comes to depend more on Quirrell, Quirrell gains time alone with someone he can use to create a foothold in the government.
Problems: Getting arrested seems to be an overly-elaborate and dangerous method for getting some alone time with a Auror.

2: Snape is behind this most recent plot twist. The second appearance of Mr. H&C (when Hermione is mindraped) is actually Snape. If, for some reason, Snape knew of Quirrell’s protective spells then he might have done the mind rape and arranged the duel, knowing that Quirrell would intervene. Which would result in Quirrell being caught.
Result: Quirrell, the only person who know’s Snape’s secret, is discredited, Harry, who Snape hates, loses his best friends, and finally Draco, who Snape is responsible for, stops hanging out with a loser mudblood, and with Harry, who Lord Malfoy fears. Problems: I was really sure Mr. H&C was Quirrell every time.

3: Too many intersecting plots = a giant mess that no one could anticipate.

My biggest question right now is what Snape is up too. We’ve had a lot of screen time with Quirrell so I think I understand what he wants pretty well, but Snape’s anti-bullying campaign doesn’t make much sense. All that work, just to make Hermione hate Draco? I don’t know. But I really doubt Snape gone to all that effort, and hurt the reputation of his own house, just because he hates bullies.

I will be very shocked if this ends with Quirrell killing a bunch of Aurors. Quirrell KNOWS that doing this would destroy his relationship (such as it is) with Harry. Quirrell has built up Harry for a purpose; he isn’t going to throw that away. Nor, I suspect, does he have any intention of going to prison. Most likely he will just disappear after the next chapter, and leave a bunch of people scratching their heads.

[AlexMennen]

I’m a bit confused about what punishment Hermione is facing. Dumbledore said that Lucius’s proposal is that Hermione’s blood debt to Draco be repaid, but I don’t know what that means except that Dumbledore also says that she will not be killed or put in Azkaban. Fred and George heard a rumor that she’s going to be forced to be Draco’s slave, which sounds like a plausible interpretation for “repaying a blood debt.” If that’s true, then I don’t see what the big rush about unframing Hermione is for. It would make more sense in that case to focus on getting Draco out of his predicament, and then convince Draco to forgive the debt later. The only way I can think of to save Draco is to memory-charm him into believing him that he had not been helping Hermione out of altruism (e.g. to court Harry, which seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation). On the other hand, this particular strategy might not be practical since they would have to restructure enough of Draco’s memories that Lucius wouldn’t get suspicious, which could take forever, and they likely don’t have long until Lucius gets Draco under Veritaserum. And they’d have to undo it afterwards.

[lavalamp]

Fred and George heard a rumor that she’s going to be forced to be Draco’s slave, which sounds like a plausible interpretation for “repaying a blood debt.”

The word “slave” isn’t in the text. When I read their statement, I had the horrifying thought that maybe I knew where house elves came from...

[linkhyrule5]

Well, first… I don’t like bringing this up, but Draco brought up rape waaaay back in the first few chapters we see him in. Probably not relevant at this age, but...

Aside from this, Hermione will still be ruined as wizard—wand snapped, remember? And with Lucius back into the picture getting him to release Hermione would be a nightmare.

[Joshua Hobbes]

Wand-Snapping will definitely be involved, so time is of the essence (Although I suppose Dumbledore could repair it if the pieces aren’t destroyed).

Perhaps Lucius will demand all her memory of Wizardry be removed and she be sentenced to muggle life.

[NihilCredo]

It has been said that Hagrid would just be allowed to get a new wand, so if Hermione’s wand is snapped she could later do the same.

[malderi]

Comment on 79, which was just posted 45 minutes ago, so go read it.

Well, 79 certainly funneled the story a bit. Answered lots of questions and a clear path forward. I was kind of hoping for it to end like, “At the end of a hallway, the Defense Professor walked out of the newly empty room.” That part could still be told in the next chapter, of course...

[NihilCredo]

Speaking of funnelling, am I remembering correctly that Eliezer recently said that the story was past the halfway point, or is my memory misattributing that statement?

[Richard_Kennaway]

It seemed to me that I’d read a lot of chapter 77 before. Not all of it, but most of the conversation in Dumbledore’s memorial room. Did Eliezer already use this scene earlier? Or was the chapter posted earlier, withdrawn, and then revised?

[ArisKatsaris]

The current chapter 77 had been chapter 76. These two were swapped.

[gwern]

The author’s note for the latest chapter mentioned something about swapping chapters; maybe that’s what is confusing you.

[Incorrect]

Prediction: Lucious’ questioning of Malfoy and subsequent discussion will have results such that Hermione will be saved by the restraint of the Malfoy family in choosing not to punish her severely if at all.

[Joshua Hobbes]

“Mr. Potter, I found my son’s memories of your experiments most convincing. Teach me more of these Methods of Rationality you speak of.”

Wait, what was it Harry said about optimism?

[Incorrect]

Not like that. I was thinking more along the lines of manipulating Harry.

[MatthewBaker]

i know were all buzzing about this new chapter, but I found a gem in our newly placed 76 with this “”Grindelwald possessed an ancient and terrible device,” said Dumbledore. “While he held it, I could not break his defense. In our duel I could not win, only fight him for long hours until he fell in exhaustion; and I would have died of it afterward, if not for Fawkes. But while his Muggle allies yet made blood sacrifice to sustain him, Grindelwald would not have fallen. He was, during that time, truly invincible. Of that grim device which Grindelwald held, none must know, none must suspect, there must be not a single hint. And therefore you must not speak of it, and I will say no more for now. That is all, Harry. There is no moral to it, and no wisdom. That is all there is.”″ Definitely Gur erfheerpgvba fgbar and we know this is probably not canonical.

For this chapter, V guvax vg jnf boivbhf nf fbba nf fur jnf natel ng Qenpb gung U&P jbhyq ghea ure ntnvafg uvz. Ur NPGHNYYL yvxrq Urezvabar naq ur pnag svtug ure pbeerpgyl juvyr urf fgvyy uheg bire ybfvat ure cfrhqb-sevraqfuvc. Can’t believe were hitting the trial subgenre though, keep up the good work eleizer.

[ArisKatsaris]

Definitely Gur erfheerpgvba fgbar and we know this is probably not canonical.

A rather strange conclusion, since what Dumbledore says about a “an ancient and terrible device” in this altered paragraph fits much better to the canonical Ryqre Jnaq.

[drethelin]

That would also fall well into HPMOR style ideas of what ryqre means in terms of requiring human sacrifices, cthulu style.

[MatthewBaker]

I don’t mind it being the death stick, but for some reason resurrection stone seemed to be quite possible to me when I read it last night. I cant wait to see what happens nonetheless :)

[FAWS]

Voted down for rot13-ing non-spoilers. Doing so wastes the readers time and makes people more likely to accidentally read actual spoilers they expected to be similarly harmless.

[pedanterrific]

Since you brought it up, just thought I’d mention for anyone who might benefit: I recently realized there’s a rot13 extension for Chrome that saves a lot of time (relative to using rot13.com).

[NancyLebovitz]

Leetkey is handy for firefox.

[MatthewBaker]

I like rot13-ing my predictions, but if its bothering you I apologize.

[Duncan]

I’d like to “Hold Off on Proposing Solutions” or in this case hold off on advocating answers. I don’t have time to list all the important bits of data we should be considering or enumerate all the current hypotheses, but I think both would be quite valuable.

Some quick hypothesis:

-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Quirrellmort & responsible for Hermione’s ‘condition’

-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Lucious & responsible for Hermione’s ‘condition’

-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Voldemort, but not the Quirrell body.

-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Quirrellmort and trying to take out Hermione as Harry’s good side anchor.

-Mr. Hat & Cloak is NOT Quirrellmort.

-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Grindelwald

-Author has made massive continuity alterations many of which are unclear thus it follows that relying on continuity is difficult at best. This most severely impacts character personalities and motivations.

Some quick puzzle bits :

-Hermione thinks Draco and Snape are doing /​ plotting something evil and hates Draco.

-Hermione was subject to a “Groundhog Day Attack” (I’m not even sure what this in the context of this story).

-Hermione’s tone of voice was all satisfaction just before being arrested for allegedly trying to kill Draco.

-Draco has no idea what’s going on.

-Hermione defeated Draco’s spell which was supposed to be extremely hard to do.

-Black Hat and Cloak did something to Hermione’s mind /​ memory.

-Prof. Q. has some major plotting going.

-Prof. Q.’s goals are not very clear, but his speech in the dinning hall may have shed some light on it and is consistent w/​ convo’s w/​ Harry.

-Author went out of his way to ‘rationalize’ how Harry didn’t go talk to Hermione. Not entirely clear that’s consistent w/​ Harry or Hermione.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got time for...

[Xachariah]

-Hermione was subject to a “Groundhog Day Attack” (I’m not even sure what this in the context of this story).

The movie ‘Groundhog Day’ is about a man who relives the same day over and over again repeatedly. Because the day is reset, he is able to re-play each interaction with any person repeatedly until he can convince them of whatever he wants or work around them. Eg, he finds the hottest woman in town. The first day, he hits on her and is shot down but learns of her highschool. The second day, he says ‘hey, didn’t we go to highschool together at...?’ He is quickly shot down again, but gets more information to keep the conversation longer. This repeats until he eventually gets her to have sex with him.

In chapter 77, H&C performs a similar hack. He tries to convince her, then obliviates her memory and uses his gained information to convince her even more, etc. Instead of resetting the day, he is resetting her mind back again and again. After enough iterations, he’ll know exactly the right things to say to convince her to do whatever it is he wishes. As hinted in Chapter 77, what we viewed was not the first nor the last iteration of the attack.

[ajuc]

If he is not constrained by ethics, he can also conveniently erase earlier memories of Hermione, if he suspects it would help to persuade her to do what he wants.

Effect—Dark!Hermione or at least different than she was before.

[Eneasz]

-Hermione’s tone of voice was all satisfaction just before being arrested for allegedly trying to kill Draco.

I completely read her tone of voice as “in shock and brain is stuck.” Very much like Buffy after the 6:30min mark in The Body. Telling the paramedics “Good luck”, cleaning up the vomit, etc.

[Anubhav]

Author has made massive continuity alterations many of which are unclear thus it follows that relying on continuity is difficult at best.

Anyone going to explain this? Sounds important, but I have no idea what it’s referring to.

Edit: The groundhog day attack has been rewritten.

[PlatypusNinja]

My theory is that Lucius trumped up these charges against Hermione entirely independent of the midnight duel. He was furious that Hermione defeated Draco in combat, and this is his retaliation.

I doubt that Hermione attended the duel; or, if she did attend it, I doubt that anything bad happened.

My theory does not explain why Draco isn’t at breakfast. So maybe my theory is wrong.

---

I am confused about why H&C wanted Hermione to be defeated by Draco during the big game when Lucius was watching. If you believe H&C is Quirrell (and I do): did Quirrell go to all that trouble just to impress Lucius with how his son was doing? That seems like an awful risk for not much reward.

[PlatypusNinja]

...Followup: Holy crap! I know exactly one person who wants Hermione to be defeated by Draco when Lucius is watching. Could H&C be Dumbledore?

[ahartell]

Why do you think H&C wants Hermione to be defeated by Draco?
(I think you may have misspoken but since you said it twice I’m not sure)

[MartinB]

#79: Wham chapter!!