It’s also a misleading statement. In a world where there is an artefact granting permanent transfiguration just down the corridor, there is nothing to stop Harry (or anyone) incapacitating Voldemort long enough to permanently transfigure him into air.
That would result in a twist ending. An act of such sheer pure evil would instantly catalyse his Tom Riddleness and transform him into Voldemort v2, complete with snake face and glowing red eyes.
But the reason I suggest air is that once it disperses it cannot be Finite Incantatemed or Reparoed or targeted by any magical effect we know of. We don’t know if Philosopher’s Stone transfigurations are permanent in every sense or just in the duration sense, and you do not want any possibility of someone bringing Voldemort back with a first-year spell like Finite Incantatem.
That still wouldn’t be safe. The possibility of using “massed Finite Incantatem”, as raised by Quirrell, suggests that low-level casters can dispel high-level ones’ spells, either by combining power (circumstantial help modifier?) or by getting a natural 20. And matters being as they are, if Voldemort gets transfigured, odds are good that it will be done by Harry (who has a low caster level).
Well, firstly the Horocruxes would keep him alive, so all you’ve done is kill Quirrel, and secondly I’m pretty sure Voldemort’s sheilds would prevent Harry either incapacitating or transfiguring him.
Well, firstly the Horocruxes would keep him alive, so all you’ve done is kill Quirrel
On the contrary. Transfigured people don’t die until the transfiguration wears off, which it never would, so Voldemort would be effectively dead but without any anti-death protections (such as turning into a disembodied spirit) triggering.
I’m pretty sure Voldemort’s sheilds would prevent Harry either incapacitating or transfiguring him.
Not the point. Voldemort said he couldn’t be truly killed, not that he was invincible in battle. Any discussion of Voldemort’s killability assumes that the attacker has somehow penetrated his ordinary defenses.
so Voldemort would be effectively dead but without any anti-death protections (such as turning into a disembodied spirit) triggering.
Horcruxes don’t work that way in HPMOR:
Horcrux sspell channelss death-bursst through casster, createss your own ghosst insstead of victim’ss, imprintss ghosst in sspecial device. Ssecond victim pickss up horcrux device, device imprintss your memoriess into them. But only memoriess from time horcrux device wass made. You ssee flaw?”
Horcruxes create copies, like uploads. I think what Voldemort means is that whatever happens to this copy, the Voyager copy will survive.
However, if there is a second mechanism of surviving death availible to him, I would imagine he would set it up to be triggered by any form of permanent vegetative state.
In canon, Harry is a Horcrux (created accidentally by the AK attempt), and Ginny is possessed by Tom Riddle because she is imprinted by his diary. Someone speculated earlier that Roger Bacon’s diary is Tom Riddle’s Horcrux in HPMOR, which has now pretty much been proven true, and so now Harry is a Horcrux and has been imprinted by a second Horcrux.
I think if Harry’s dark side has the ability to infect anyone, it would be Harry. I’m actually surprised that Harry hasn’t gone far darker.
Because Quirrel referred to Harry as Tom Riddle. Its possible that Quirrel put some other item which is a Horocrux of Tom Riddle in Harry’s vicinity, but the diary is by far the most probable because it mirrors canon.
My interpretation of that was extremely different: that Harry got riddled when he was a baby, in Godric’s Hollow.
In canon, Ginny reads the diary a lot and this enables Riddle to take her over when he wants to. When he does, she’s basically a puppet: it’s (fully aware) Riddle scrawling on walls and summoning basilisks, and Ginny’s completely unaware of it; afterwards, Ginny is basically her normal self again, with no memory of what Riddle did while operating her body.
There’s no sign in HPMOR of anything like that happening to Harry. The Harry whom QQ addresses as “Tom Riddle” has (so far as we can tell) psychological continuity with the Harry we’ve been following through the previous hundred-plus chapters. There’s no sign of “absences” like Ginny had. After being addressed as “Tom Riddle” (and, again, with no indication of any personality changes or anything) Harry resolves explicitly that he is going to do whatever he can to stop QQ. So if we are supposed to understand that the diary had some major effect on Harry, it has to have done it in a way that doesn’t “mirror canon” much at all.
What I think is being described here is something more like a personality-upload from Voldemort to baby-Harry, so that what remained in Godric’s Hollow that day was (at least according to Voldemort’s plans) Tom Riddle implanted in baby-Harry.
(What I can’t work out is whether we’re supposed to understand that it went wrong, with the Riddle personality getting kinda isolated, like grit in a pearl, as Harry’s “dark side”, or that it worked exactly as planned and the Harry we see now is what you get when Tom Riddle’s mind grows up in baby-Harry’s brain, raised by his adoptive parents. I’m not even sure what the latter means exactly. Perhaps the idea is something like this: after the upload, what we get is more or less the same as what we’d have got if baby-Riddle had been raised in Harry’s place, but Riddle’s adult memories are also stashed away for later use and the latter are the “dark side”.)
[EDITED several hours after posting to fix an embarrassing word-omission. I don’t think the sense was ever unclear.]
but Riddle’s adult memories are also stashed away for later use and the latter are the “dark side”.
I agree with everything you said except that. Look at this line from chapter 17 after Harry picked up Neville’s remembrall:
The Remembrall was glowing bright red in his hand, blazing like a miniature sun that cast shadows on the ground in broad daylight.
It makes it pretty clear that the second spell Voldemort cast on baby-Harry was Obliviate. Since we know that obliviated memories can not be recovered only Riddle’s thought-patterns are left in Harry, and that’s his dark side.
Not necessarily—infants brains are to plastic to retain memory, so it’s entirely possible it just erased itself all on it’s own.
Uhm. I’ve been entertaining the idea that Slytherin did something to his descendants to make them immune to memory magics. In which case, maybe the entire point of horcruxing an infant was to get a fork of his mindstate without his memories, because the direct approach would not cut it.
On the other hand, this chain of inferences is getting a wee bit longer than I am at all comfortable with.
My interpretation of that was extremely different: that Harry got riddled when he was a baby, in Godric’s Hollow.
The problem with this is that presumably since Harry was AKed by adult Voldemort, his scar contains a Horocrux of adult Voldemort.
So if we are supposed to understand that the diary had some major effect on Harry, it has to have done it in a way that doesn’t “mirror canon” much at all.
Well, EY often mirrors canon, while making certain changes for the sake of plausibility—for instance the philosoper’s stone works differently. I’m not exactly sure why he would want to change the effects of possession, but I could certainly see him changing the way it works.
the Harry we see now is what you get when Tom Riddle’s mind grows up in baby-Harry’s brain, raised by his adoptive parents. I’m not even sure what the latter means exactly.
I suppose it would mean baby-Harry knowing how to walk and talk from day one.
The more I think about it, the less sense any of this makes. I mean, sure I can buy that Harry’s scar is a Horocrux subtly influencing his behaviour. I could imagine that there are multiple entities in his head. But ‘Harry’ seems to be the primary. If he can’t remember any of Riddle’s memories, what does it mean to say that he is Riddle?
I agree that Harry has been Harrymort from infancy. But I can’t agree that the diary has no major effect:
There’s no sign in HPMOR of anything like that happening to Harry.
Harry figures out Quirrell’s identity almost immediately after Snape casts some sort of “Dispel Magical Confusion”, yet the only character who would have the knowledge and incentive to magically confuse Harry about this is Quirrell himself, who seems to be incapable of directly using magic on Harry or Harry’s magic.
I’m not sure exactly how Riddle’s horcrux-diary would get around that rule. If two copies of Riddle can’t use magic on each other normally, what does it matter if the two copies are Harry+Quirrell or Harry+diary?
But Quirrel does want to keep Harry confused about something, and then he gives Harry a fascinating book that resembles an object of Voldemort’s which magically confuses someone in canon, and then Harry appears to lose focus regarding both the book and the questions that Quirrell wants him confused about, and then Harry appears to have been the subject of a magical confusion… The book sure looks suspect.
Yes, I could certainly believe that having the diary has had some effect on Harry’s mental state (though I think he’s been a bit oblivious to Quirrell since before he had it). But that’s quite a different matter from saying that since getting the diary he’s been subject to such a transformation that before he was Harry Potter and now he’s Tom Riddle.
the only character who would have the knowledge and incentive to magically confuse Harry about this is Quirrell himself, who seems to be incapable of directly using magic on Harry or Harry’s magic
I seem to recall there being early evidence that McGonagall was influenced by Quirrell, one way or another, to ensure that he ended the school term as teacher. It seems out of character for her to knowingly enchant Harry, but I recall a line where she explicitly dismissed a felt sense of doom in a way that seemed out of character.
Prophecy, much? The power he knows not? I mean, that’s a gimme but...
It’s also a misleading statement. In a world where there is an artefact granting permanent transfiguration just down the corridor, there is nothing to stop Harry (or anyone) incapacitating Voldemort long enough to permanently transfigure him into air.
Instead of air, I suggest Christmas present wrapping paper. Just for spite.
That would result in a twist ending. An act of such sheer pure evil would instantly catalyse his Tom Riddleness and transform him into Voldemort v2, complete with snake face and glowing red eyes.
But the reason I suggest air is that once it disperses it cannot be Finite Incantatemed or Reparoed or targeted by any magical effect we know of. We don’t know if Philosopher’s Stone transfigurations are permanent in every sense or just in the duration sense, and you do not want any possibility of someone bringing Voldemort back with a first-year spell like Finite Incantatem.
I would expect Finite Incantatem to work like Dispel Magic and require a caster level check.
That still wouldn’t be safe. The possibility of using “massed Finite Incantatem”, as raised by Quirrell, suggests that low-level casters can dispel high-level ones’ spells, either by combining power (circumstantial help modifier?) or by getting a natural 20. And matters being as they are, if Voldemort gets transfigured, odds are good that it will be done by Harry (who has a low caster level).
Well, firstly the Horocruxes would keep him alive, so all you’ve done is kill Quirrel, and secondly I’m pretty sure Voldemort’s sheilds would prevent Harry either incapacitating or transfiguring him.
On the contrary. Transfigured people don’t die until the transfiguration wears off, which it never would, so Voldemort would be effectively dead but without any anti-death protections (such as turning into a disembodied spirit) triggering.
Not the point. Voldemort said he couldn’t be truly killed, not that he was invincible in battle. Any discussion of Voldemort’s killability assumes that the attacker has somehow penetrated his ordinary defenses.
Horcruxes don’t work that way in HPMOR:
Horcruxes create copies, like uploads. I think what Voldemort means is that whatever happens to this copy, the Voyager copy will survive.
However, if there is a second mechanism of surviving death availible to him, I would imagine he would set it up to be triggered by any form of permanent vegetative state.
Hmm. Is Harry a Horcrux, or a part of Harry, like his scar? Does Harry have the ability to infect secondary victims?
In canon, Harry is a Horcrux (created accidentally by the AK attempt), and Ginny is possessed by Tom Riddle because she is imprinted by his diary. Someone speculated earlier that Roger Bacon’s diary is Tom Riddle’s Horcrux in HPMOR, which has now pretty much been proven true, and so now Harry is a Horcrux and has been imprinted by a second Horcrux.
I think if Harry’s dark side has the ability to infect anyone, it would be Harry. I’m actually surprised that Harry hasn’t gone far darker.
It has? How?
Because Quirrel referred to Harry as Tom Riddle. Its possible that Quirrel put some other item which is a Horocrux of Tom Riddle in Harry’s vicinity, but the diary is by far the most probable because it mirrors canon.
My interpretation of that was extremely different: that Harry got riddled when he was a baby, in Godric’s Hollow.
In canon, Ginny reads the diary a lot and this enables Riddle to take her over when he wants to. When he does, she’s basically a puppet: it’s (fully aware) Riddle scrawling on walls and summoning basilisks, and Ginny’s completely unaware of it; afterwards, Ginny is basically her normal self again, with no memory of what Riddle did while operating her body.
There’s no sign in HPMOR of anything like that happening to Harry. The Harry whom QQ addresses as “Tom Riddle” has (so far as we can tell) psychological continuity with the Harry we’ve been following through the previous hundred-plus chapters. There’s no sign of “absences” like Ginny had. After being addressed as “Tom Riddle” (and, again, with no indication of any personality changes or anything) Harry resolves explicitly that he is going to do whatever he can to stop QQ. So if we are supposed to understand that the diary had some major effect on Harry, it has to have done it in a way that doesn’t “mirror canon” much at all.
What I think is being described here is something more like a personality-upload from Voldemort to baby-Harry, so that what remained in Godric’s Hollow that day was (at least according to Voldemort’s plans) Tom Riddle implanted in baby-Harry.
(What I can’t work out is whether we’re supposed to understand that it went wrong, with the Riddle personality getting kinda isolated, like grit in a pearl, as Harry’s “dark side”, or that it worked exactly as planned and the Harry we see now is what you get when Tom Riddle’s mind grows up in baby-Harry’s brain, raised by his adoptive parents. I’m not even sure what the latter means exactly. Perhaps the idea is something like this: after the upload, what we get is more or less the same as what we’d have got if baby-Riddle had been raised in Harry’s place, but Riddle’s adult memories are also stashed away for later use and the latter are the “dark side”.)
[EDITED several hours after posting to fix an embarrassing word-omission. I don’t think the sense was ever unclear.]
I agree with everything you said except that. Look at this line from chapter 17 after Harry picked up Neville’s remembrall:
It makes it pretty clear that the second spell Voldemort cast on baby-Harry was Obliviate. Since we know that obliviated memories can not be recovered only Riddle’s thought-patterns are left in Harry, and that’s his dark side.
Not necessarily—infants brains are to plastic to retain memory, so it’s entirely possible it just erased itself all on it’s own.
Uhm. I’ve been entertaining the idea that Slytherin did something to his descendants to make them immune to memory magics. In which case, maybe the entire point of horcruxing an infant was to get a fork of his mindstate without his memories, because the direct approach would not cut it.
On the other hand, this chain of inferences is getting a wee bit longer than I am at all comfortable with.
Yes, that’s very plausible.
The problem with this is that presumably since Harry was AKed by adult Voldemort, his scar contains a Horocrux of adult Voldemort.
Well, EY often mirrors canon, while making certain changes for the sake of plausibility—for instance the philosoper’s stone works differently. I’m not exactly sure why he would want to change the effects of possession, but I could certainly see him changing the way it works.
I suppose it would mean baby-Harry knowing how to walk and talk from day one.
The more I think about it, the less sense any of this makes. I mean, sure I can buy that Harry’s scar is a Horocrux subtly influencing his behaviour. I could imagine that there are multiple entities in his head. But ‘Harry’ seems to be the primary. If he can’t remember any of Riddle’s memories, what does it mean to say that he is Riddle?
I agree that Harry has been Harrymort from infancy. But I can’t agree that the diary has no major effect:
Harry figures out Quirrell’s identity almost immediately after Snape casts some sort of “Dispel Magical Confusion”, yet the only character who would have the knowledge and incentive to magically confuse Harry about this is Quirrell himself, who seems to be incapable of directly using magic on Harry or Harry’s magic.
I’m not sure exactly how Riddle’s horcrux-diary would get around that rule. If two copies of Riddle can’t use magic on each other normally, what does it matter if the two copies are Harry+Quirrell or Harry+diary?
But Quirrel does want to keep Harry confused about something, and then he gives Harry a fascinating book that resembles an object of Voldemort’s which magically confuses someone in canon, and then Harry appears to lose focus regarding both the book and the questions that Quirrell wants him confused about, and then Harry appears to have been the subject of a magical confusion… The book sure looks suspect.
Yes, I could certainly believe that having the diary has had some effect on Harry’s mental state (though I think he’s been a bit oblivious to Quirrell since before he had it). But that’s quite a different matter from saying that since getting the diary he’s been subject to such a transformation that before he was Harry Potter and now he’s Tom Riddle.
I seem to recall there being early evidence that McGonagall was influenced by Quirrell, one way or another, to ensure that he ended the school term as teacher. It seems out of character for her to knowingly enchant Harry, but I recall a line where she explicitly dismissed a felt sense of doom in a way that seemed out of character.
Wild speculation: hat-and-cloak is Harry possessed by Riddle via Bacon’s diary.