Some of the melodramatic parts have already been proven right:
You will die horribly, dramatically, grotesquely, and utterly.
Both of her legs were eaten by a troll before she died, and as she died, she whispered to Harry, “Not your fault.” Check.
You will die horribly, and Harry Potter will watch, and Harry Potter will crack open and fall apart and explode, but even he in all his desperation and fury will not be able to save you.
Interesting that Harry uses his med pack he bought in anticipation of almost exactly the scenario which played out when he used it, except that Hermione absolves him instead of cursing him.
“One of my classmates gets bitten by a horrible monster, and as I
scrabble frantically in my mokeskin pouch for something that could help
her, she looks at me sadly and with her last breath says, ‘Why weren’t you
prepared?’ And then she dies, and I know as her eyes close that she won’t
ever forgive me—”
The detailed foreshadowing often seems like part of the story, not just as aspect of the story. What is said comes true much more than it should, and in much more detail than it should. “Bitten” is a very specific way to die.
That very quote led into McGonagall’s theory that Harry had suffered some kind of trauma and had it Obliviated. And then there was that business with the Remembrall in chapter 17. I’d have to go back and check for more instances of Harry specifically foreshadowing a future event like this, but more and more I’m beginning to think that Harry has forgotten or locked foreknowledge that’s leaking into his subconscious.
But in Chapter 17, McGongall rejects the theory that remembralls detect Obliviation.
“More importantly, why did the Remembrall go off like that?” Harry said. “Does it mean I’ve been Obliviated?”
“That puzzles me as well,” Professor McGonagall said slowly. “If it
were that simple, I would think that the courts would use Remembralls,
and they do not. I shall look into it, Mr. Potter.” She sighed. “You can
go now.”
But, strange that Harry doesn’t think to keep experimenting with the Remembrall.
That’s plausible, but if so, it seems like a very disproportionate response from the Remembrall; that is assuming that under ordinary circumstances Remembralls light up like they do in canon, which I suppose is not necessarily a given.
Don’t go making that second checkmark yet—we’re still within the Time-Turner window here. (I’d put it at maybe 2% that he manages to save her—EY doesn’t seem the type for cheap copouts like that—but that’s still high enough for a bit of bet-heging)
It’s not going to happen. You don’t hang that much drama on an event if you intend to reverse it quickly, unless you’re going for comedy, and comedy doesn’t make sense in this context.
That said, if you’d asked me a day ago I would have said that there are too many dangling plot threads surrounding her for the story to do what it just did, so it’s probably a good idea to adjust your confidence of predictions based on narrative mechanics appropriately.
Like I said, very low odds. But Eliezer is a clever guy, he could plausibly figure out some way of bringing her back without tripping off too many narrative bullshit detectors.
It sounds like you might be mistaking Eliezer’s role in this, and mistaking your desires for desires we can reasonably assign to Eliezer.
This isn’t something that happened to the HP&tMoR version of Hermione Granger, this is something that Eliezer, the author did to the HP&tMoR version of Hermione Granger.
He did it for a reason. He’s almost certainly been planning it all along. If it made him sad then it first made him sad quite some time ago. He’s not feeling the surprised dismay you have today.
He wanted the words written on the page to be written on the page, yes. That does not, strictly speaking, mean that he wants Hermione to be dead. He’s been known to play with our expectations before, after all.
Edit: To clarify, this is almost certainly wishful thinking talking, and I acknowledge that. But a guy can dream.
Harry would learn whatever he had to learn, invent whatever he had to invent, rip the knowledge of Salazar Slytherin from the Dark Lord’s mind, discover the secret of Atlantis, open any gates or break any seals necessary, find his way to the root of all magic and reprogram it. He would rip apart the foundations of reality itself to get Hermione Granger back.
And now...well, I think the odds are below 1%. There’s no elegant way to walk that back.
Time turners cannot alter anything the user knows about (for some value of `know’), so it would require reenacting this exact scene. So someone would have to simulate Harry’s experiences, including the magical event, confuse Harry’s patronus as to location of Hermione (or cause Hermione to actually be on scene, albeit invisible), and control the troll, so that it behaved exactly in the way Harry remembers it to have behaved. Also, Dumbledore would need not to tell Harry anything that he couldn’t have lied when he said he was responding to the death of a student.
I’m betting Hermione is really, really dead (though Harry may yet resurrect her). However, remember that writing a story is often the inverse of reading it. It’s like solving a maze by starting from the goal and working backward to the beginning: often much easier.
If (big if) Hermione is resurrected and/or not really dead, then Eliezer very likely started from a narrative goal of having Harry see Hermione’s horrible but fake/reversible death and then worked backwards from there to make it happen. As readers we have the much tougher task of working forward from the clues to the correct conclusion.
That is, Eliezer did not have to figure out how to write himself out of this series of events. He constructed these events to lead to the conclusion he wants.
The soul releasing seems easy enough to fake, as does Hermione’s comment to the Patronus. Hermione being under an invisibiliy cloak near fake-Hermione would do for the Patronus taking Harry to her(though screaming mid-combat would be quite dangerous, even invisible).
The hardest part would be creating a fake Hermione sufficiently well to convince both the troll and Harry. Do we know of any magic sufficient to that task? Copying the form can be done, as was done with the Azkaban breakout, but the blood and the talking both seem outside the capabilities of that spell.
Here’s a miserable plot possibility. Hermione was concealed, something went wrong, and the feeling of her mind going past was because a number of other things happened, and the concealed Hermione was killed.
Neutral plot possibility: usually, dying minds aren’t felt in the wizarding world. Something unusual was going on, and I don’t know what it was.
Here’s a miserable plot possibility. Hermione was concealed, something went wrong, and the feeling of her mind going past was because a number of other things happened, and the concealed Hermione was killed.
This seems unlikely. This would end up sounding a lot like “don’t tamper with fate”. That sort of thing is very common in time travel stories where someone tries to save someone’s life, but it has a massively anti-transhumanist, pro-deathist vibe. I doubt Eliezer would do it.
I’m assuming that Hermione is going to be brought back somehow, so the implication isn’t that you can’t fight fate, it’s that the world has wildly complicated plot twists.
Neutral plot possibility: usually, dying minds aren’t felt in the wizarding world. Something unusual was going on, and I don’t know what it was.
This seems unlikely. There was a mention about ghosts being caused by “the burst of magic that accompanied the violent death of a wizard” (or something along those lines—I don’t feel like looking up the exact quote right now.)
Neutral plot possibility: usually, dying minds aren’t felt in the wizarding world. Something unusual was going on, and I don’t know what it was.
Thank you for saying this. I’ve been hoping someone would make note of this. Don’t people remember the fight with the bullies in ch 73?
Three blasts of brilliance slammed into Susan at once, she had her wand raised as though she could counter them and there was a white flash as the hexes struck the magical wood, but then Susan’s legs convulsed and sent her flying into a corridor wall. Her head hit with a strange cracking sound, and then Susan fell down and lay motionless with her head at an odd-seeming angle, her wand still clutched in one outstretched hand.
There was a moment of frozen silence.
Parvati scrambled over to where Susan lay, pressed a thumb over the pulse point on Susan’s wrist, and then—then slowly, tremblingly, Parvati rose to her feet, her eyes huge -
“Vitalis revelio,” said Lee just as Parvati opened her mouth, and Susan’s body was surrounded by a warm red glow. Now the seventh-year boy really was grinning. “Probably just a broken collarbone, I’d say. Nice try, though.”
“Merlin, they are tricky,” said Jugson.
“You had me going for a second there, dearies.”
If the mad burst of intellect and magic and etc. was standard, they wouldn’t have been able to fake it for even a second.
Now, I’m not necessarily saying that the feeling was only because of something fishy going on. I’m just saying that it cannot be the standard.
Hmm. How about having someone else die in Hermione’s place?
I don’t recall offhand if the death burst was recognizable as Hermione, but otherwise it seems doable. Dumbledore said he felt a student die and only realized it was Hermione once he saw her.
You’d need polyjuice for the visual appearance, and either Hermione’s presence or a fake Patronus for past-Harry to follow. Hermione is unlikely to go along with the plan willingly sho she’d need to be tricked or incapacitated. Hard to tell which would be easier.
Given the last words, Hermione’s doppelganger might need to be complicit with the plan. Easy to accomplish if it was Harry, but I think he’s too utilitarian for that. He’d need someone loyal but expendable. Lesath would seem to fit the bill, but I wonder if he’d agree to literally die on Harry’s command.
Hmm. How about having someone else die in Hermione’s place?
Either Dumbledore is on it and lied to Harry, or it was a student.
I don’t recall offhand if the death burst was recognizable as Hermione, but otherwise it seems doable. Dumbledore said he felt a student die and only realized it was Hermione once he saw her.
Harry seemed to think so, but he was obviously biased by seeing Hermione.
You’d need polyjuice for the visual appearance, (...)
Doesn’t it wear off after death?
Lesath would seem to fit the bill (...)
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Overall, this plan requires at least 2 hard things to happen correctly: identical fake magic burst and getting real Hermione there and screaming or Patronus shenanigans. I disbelieve this strongly.
That’s true, it’s still possible. Nonetheless, there is still a scene where Harry watches Hermione die and can do nothing about it. So I’d consider that it checked even if he brings her back / somehow prevents it retroactively.
Some of the melodramatic parts have already been proven right:
Both of her legs were eaten by a troll before she died, and as she died, she whispered to Harry, “Not your fault.” Check.
Check.
Interesting that Harry uses his med pack he bought in anticipation of almost exactly the scenario which played out when he used it, except that Hermione absolves him instead of cursing him.
The detailed foreshadowing often seems like part of the story, not just as aspect of the story. What is said comes true much more than it should, and in much more detail than it should. “Bitten” is a very specific way to die.
You know, speaking of foreshadowing…
That very quote led into McGonagall’s theory that Harry had suffered some kind of trauma and had it Obliviated. And then there was that business with the Remembrall in chapter 17. I’d have to go back and check for more instances of Harry specifically foreshadowing a future event like this, but more and more I’m beginning to think that Harry has forgotten or locked foreknowledge that’s leaking into his subconscious.
But in Chapter 17, McGongall rejects the theory that remembralls detect Obliviation.
But, strange that Harry doesn’t think to keep experimenting with the Remembrall.
This bothered me as well. It’s a mysterious phenomenon that directly relates to Harry’s own mental state. He should have been all over that.
Harry had forgotten that he was not to use his timeturner in front of other people- a fact which got him a very stern rebuke from Mcgonagall.
That’s plausible, but if so, it seems like a very disproportionate response from the Remembrall; that is assuming that under ordinary circumstances Remembralls light up like they do in canon, which I suppose is not necessarily a given.
From what we’ve seen of Wizard courts, they aren’t exactly bastions of prudence and rationality.
And we never did hear back from her on that topic, did we?
Could he have forgotten without obliviation?
Don’t go making that second checkmark yet—we’re still within the Time-Turner window here. (I’d put it at maybe 2% that he manages to save her—EY doesn’t seem the type for cheap copouts like that—but that’s still high enough for a bit of bet-heging)
It’s not going to happen. You don’t hang that much drama on an event if you intend to reverse it quickly, unless you’re going for comedy, and comedy doesn’t make sense in this context.
That said, if you’d asked me a day ago I would have said that there are too many dangling plot threads surrounding her for the story to do what it just did, so it’s probably a good idea to adjust your confidence of predictions based on narrative mechanics appropriately.
Like I said, very low odds. But Eliezer is a clever guy, he could plausibly figure out some way of bringing her back without tripping off too many narrative bullshit detectors.
It sounds like you might be mistaking Eliezer’s role in this, and mistaking your desires for desires we can reasonably assign to Eliezer.
This isn’t something that happened to the HP&tMoR version of Hermione Granger, this is something that Eliezer, the author did to the HP&tMoR version of Hermione Granger.
He did it for a reason. He’s almost certainly been planning it all along. If it made him sad then it first made him sad quite some time ago. He’s not feeling the surprised dismay you have today.
He wanted this.
He wanted the words written on the page to be written on the page, yes. That does not, strictly speaking, mean that he wants Hermione to be dead. He’s been known to play with our expectations before, after all.
Edit: To clarify, this is almost certainly wishful thinking talking, and I acknowledge that. But a guy can dream.
Edit: I just reread
And now...well, I think the odds are below 1%. There’s no elegant way to walk that back.
Time turners cannot alter anything the user knows about (for some value of `know’), so it would require reenacting this exact scene. So someone would have to simulate Harry’s experiences, including the magical event, confuse Harry’s patronus as to location of Hermione (or cause Hermione to actually be on scene, albeit invisible), and control the troll, so that it behaved exactly in the way Harry remembers it to have behaved. Also, Dumbledore would need not to tell Harry anything that he couldn’t have lied when he said he was responding to the death of a student.
I’m betting Hermione is really, really dead (though Harry may yet resurrect her). However, remember that writing a story is often the inverse of reading it. It’s like solving a maze by starting from the goal and working backward to the beginning: often much easier.
If (big if) Hermione is resurrected and/or not really dead, then Eliezer very likely started from a narrative goal of having Harry see Hermione’s horrible but fake/reversible death and then worked backwards from there to make it happen. As readers we have the much tougher task of working forward from the clues to the correct conclusion.
That is, Eliezer did not have to figure out how to write himself out of this series of events. He constructed these events to lead to the conclusion he wants.
The soul releasing seems easy enough to fake, as does Hermione’s comment to the Patronus. Hermione being under an invisibiliy cloak near fake-Hermione would do for the Patronus taking Harry to her(though screaming mid-combat would be quite dangerous, even invisible).
The hardest part would be creating a fake Hermione sufficiently well to convince both the troll and Harry. Do we know of any magic sufficient to that task? Copying the form can be done, as was done with the Azkaban breakout, but the blood and the talking both seem outside the capabilities of that spell.
It’s not obvious to me how to fake the soul releasing. It was perceived by the magic-sense, not just with the muggle senses.
Here’s a miserable plot possibility. Hermione was concealed, something went wrong, and the feeling of her mind going past was because a number of other things happened, and the concealed Hermione was killed.
Neutral plot possibility: usually, dying minds aren’t felt in the wizarding world. Something unusual was going on, and I don’t know what it was.
This seems unlikely. This would end up sounding a lot like “don’t tamper with fate”. That sort of thing is very common in time travel stories where someone tries to save someone’s life, but it has a massively anti-transhumanist, pro-deathist vibe. I doubt Eliezer would do it.
I’m assuming that Hermione is going to be brought back somehow, so the implication isn’t that you can’t fight fate, it’s that the world has wildly complicated plot twists.
This seems unlikely. There was a mention about ghosts being caused by “the burst of magic that accompanied the violent death of a wizard” (or something along those lines—I don’t feel like looking up the exact quote right now.)
Thank you for saying this. I’ve been hoping someone would make note of this. Don’t people remember the fight with the bullies in ch 73?
If the mad burst of intellect and magic and etc. was standard, they wouldn’t have been able to fake it for even a second.
Now, I’m not necessarily saying that the feeling was only because of something fishy going on. I’m just saying that it cannot be the standard.
Hmm. How about having someone else die in Hermione’s place?
I don’t recall offhand if the death burst was recognizable as Hermione, but otherwise it seems doable. Dumbledore said he felt a student die and only realized it was Hermione once he saw her.
You’d need polyjuice for the visual appearance, and either Hermione’s presence or a fake Patronus for past-Harry to follow. Hermione is unlikely to go along with the plan willingly sho she’d need to be tricked or incapacitated. Hard to tell which would be easier.
Given the last words, Hermione’s doppelganger might need to be complicit with the plan. Easy to accomplish if it was Harry, but I think he’s too utilitarian for that. He’d need someone loyal but expendable. Lesath would seem to fit the bill, but I wonder if he’d agree to literally die on Harry’s command.
Either Dumbledore is on it and lied to Harry, or it was a student.
Harry seemed to think so, but he was obviously biased by seeing Hermione.
Doesn’t it wear off after death?
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Overall, this plan requires at least 2 hard things to happen correctly: identical fake magic burst and getting real Hermione there and screaming or Patronus shenanigans. I disbelieve this strongly.
That’s true, it’s still possible. Nonetheless, there is still a scene where Harry watches Hermione die and can do nothing about it. So I’d consider that it checked even if he brings her back / somehow prevents it retroactively.