Yes, my theory definitely depends on believing that Quirrell COULD predict Harry’s actions when he cast the killing curse on the auror. You also have to be willing to believe that Quirrell knew Harry would figure out a way to observe the battle, even though he was ostensibly lying out of sight. I think the first is more of a stretch than the second. Anyone who knows Harry at all could predict that he would try to find a way to spy on the battle: using the Patronus to block the Killing Curse is a much more specific action that only somebody who understands Harry really well would be able to predict. I guess I’m willing to believe that Quirrell does understand Harry that well.
Patronus to block the Killing Curse is a much more specific action that only somebody who understands Harry really well would be able to predict. I guess I’m willing to believe that Quirrell does understand Harry that well.
Harry really isn’t that hard to predict… If he had a few moments spare I can even imagine him giving an impassioned speech on the subject before he used the patronus.
Is it possible that any magical interaction between Voldemort and Harry would cause that effect—a kind of blast radius that cancels both their magic, causing painful feedback in the process?
Then Quirrell wouldn’t need to know exactly what magic Harry would use in response, just that he would do something, and that in doing so both of them would be temporarily shut down...causing Harry to lose his Patronus no matter what kind of magic he’d used to try and block the Killing Curse. This might be consistent with the sense of doom that Harry feels when close to Quirrell—it’s kind of a magical matter/antimatter thing, for lack of a better metaphor.
I concede that Quirrell should have have known that Harry would intervene if possible, and that he might have guessed that painful feedback would be the outcome of any intervention. I would also offer that Quirrell throwing away his wand does imply he had some idea of what was happening.
However, I still don’t see that Quirrell intended for the fight to occur.
He gave Harry instructions for what to do in the event that they encountered an auror, so clearly he’d at least anticipated the possibility that a duel would happen at some point during the prison break. We’re also told that Harry’s maneuver with the mirror is something he’d “practiced...in the Chaos Legion,” so Quirrell should also have anticipated that Harry would be watching the duel if/when it happened. At the very least, he knows that Harry will be able to hear it.
So. The duel was not outside Quirrell’s plan. Therefore his actions during the duel must also have been deliberate and have been part of the plan. If those actions seem to foil the plan, then...it was never the real plan. And the real plan must somehow be furthered by Quirrell’s actions. So the only way I can make sense of Quirrell’s behavior is to think that he was deliberately trying to provoke the reaction he got from Harry.
Why? What does it gain him? Well, it leaves Harry exposed to Dementors. And coincidentally enough, this is the second time that Quirrell’s actions have left Harry exposed to Dementors. At which point I decide that it’s not coincidence at all. So my theory is really just trying to answer the question, “Why does Quirrell want Harry exposed to Dementors?”
I agree that we can’t reasonably assume that the Patronus teleport, magical feedback and subsequent Dementor exposure had been part of Quirrell’s plan.
However, the much more limited and much more certain prediction that AK’ing a guard Auror while in Harry’s earshot would cause a mess and make the stated “perfect crime” plan impossible is easily within Quirrell’s ability to figure out beforehand, even on the spot.
Therefore, his casting of AK—if not the very unusual result—is sufficient evidence that the “perfect crime” plan was at least to some degree horsecrap. Not that he must have wanted Harry to get caught, but, unless he had a doppelganger of Bahry in his pocket to replace him with, he certainly wasn’t as interested in a clean breakout as he had claimed.
I agree. The exact disastrous consequences of Harry’s reaction were most likely not part of the plan, and can’t be seen as a serious flaw or rationalized-in-hindsight as having been part of the plan all along.
But there’s nothing in the situation that would have come as a surprise to Quirrell. If his goals were the ones he stated to Harry, then Quirrell is indeed left holding the Idiot Ball.
EDIT: By “nothing in the situation that would have come as a surprise,” I mean the fact that there’s a duel with an auror in Azkaban, and that Harry is present and observing. In that situation casting a Killing Curse is idiotic, if the goal is simply to keep moving with minimum fuss. Quirrell would have known that perfectly well when he was making his plan.
He could have confidently foreseen that the AK would have ruined the “perfect crime” and pissed Harry off.
He could not have confidently foreseen that Harry’s Patronus would teleport in the way, block the Killing Curse, cause a magical backlash, and disappear.
I realized after I wrote that line about “nothing in the situation that would have come as a surprise” that it could be read that way, and I edited to clarify.
My speculation is that Quirrell might have reason to assume that any intervention by Harry would cause the magical backlash, but that really is just speculation, I freely admit.
Why does Quirrell want Harry exposed to Dementors?
At the risk of building this theory on top of another unconfirmed theory… It’s been speculated that Quirrell himself is Demented. He doesn’t appear so when Voldemort is telepathically controlling him, but when Voldy takes a cigarette break or whatever Quirrell enters zombie mode. Quirrell is just kind of an empty body, zombie-like unless Voldemort is logged in.
Maybe Voldemort wants to control Harry’s body in a similar fashion. What the difference is between dementing and then telepathically inhabiting, versus simply using the Imperius Curse… /shrug.
Alternatively, Voldemort has tried killing Harry, it didn’t work, so he wants to eliminate Harry as a potential obstacle through other means. If Harry’s soul is sucked out (or whatever the Dementor’s Kiss does, actually) then he is still alive technically but not an obstacle. It’s worth a shot as an alternative approach to just trying to kill Harry over and over, which is what canon Voldemort tries to do.
Also, and this can’t possibly be Quirrell’s reasoning, but it’s still an interesting thought: the MOR version of The Prophecy says that “either must destroy all but a remnant of the other”. If Harry is subjected to irreversible Dementation, all but a remnant of him is destroyed.
Therefore his actions during the duel must also have been deliberate and have been part of the plan.
I am confused by Quirrell’s behavior in attempting to kill the auror, so I assume that there is something that I don’t know or understand about Quirrell’s motives.
What I don’t see yet is that Quirrell was relying on the dual to occur, only that it was a possibility that he accounted for.
“Why does Quirrell want Harry exposed to Dementors?”
Assuming that this was part of the Plan, in some sense, then it comes across to me as a test. Perhaps to force Harry to confront his sensitivity dementors, perhaps simply to test him in an apparent no-win situation.
I am confused by Quirrell’s behavior in attempting to kill the auror, so I assume that there is something that I don’t know or understand about Quirrell’s motives.
What I don’t see yet is that Quirrell was relying on the dual to occur, only that it was a possibility that he accounted for.
You’re right, that’s all we can know for sure from the story so far. My theory is purely speculative, a guess at Quirrell’s true motives. It springs more from earlier chapters than from this one: I think it was really suspicious of Quirrell to go to all that trouble to bring Dementors into Hogwarts, and I’m inclined to believe that Hermione got true information from her encounter with the Dementor (namely, that Quirrell wanted Harry drained). Given that background, it seems more than a little suspicious that Quirrell has brought Harry into the same danger all over again, which is why I’m so quick to believe that stripping Harry of his Patronus was part of the plan. But I definitely don’t think I have all the details worked out.
Assuming that this was part of the Plan, in some sense, then it comes across to me as a test.
But in that case isn’t he risking a lot for very little reward?
Yes, my theory definitely depends on believing that Quirrell COULD predict Harry’s actions when he cast the killing curse on the auror. You also have to be willing to believe that Quirrell knew Harry would figure out a way to observe the battle, even though he was ostensibly lying out of sight. I think the first is more of a stretch than the second. Anyone who knows Harry at all could predict that he would try to find a way to spy on the battle: using the Patronus to block the Killing Curse is a much more specific action that only somebody who understands Harry really well would be able to predict. I guess I’m willing to believe that Quirrell does understand Harry that well.
Harry really isn’t that hard to predict… If he had a few moments spare I can even imagine him giving an impassioned speech on the subject before he used the patronus.
Could Quirrell have guessed that Harry’s patronus would block a killing curse? That seems like a stretch.
Is it possible that any magical interaction between Voldemort and Harry would cause that effect—a kind of blast radius that cancels both their magic, causing painful feedback in the process?
Then Quirrell wouldn’t need to know exactly what magic Harry would use in response, just that he would do something, and that in doing so both of them would be temporarily shut down...causing Harry to lose his Patronus no matter what kind of magic he’d used to try and block the Killing Curse. This might be consistent with the sense of doom that Harry feels when close to Quirrell—it’s kind of a magical matter/antimatter thing, for lack of a better metaphor.
I concede that Quirrell should have have known that Harry would intervene if possible, and that he might have guessed that painful feedback would be the outcome of any intervention. I would also offer that Quirrell throwing away his wand does imply he had some idea of what was happening.
However, I still don’t see that Quirrell intended for the fight to occur.
He gave Harry instructions for what to do in the event that they encountered an auror, so clearly he’d at least anticipated the possibility that a duel would happen at some point during the prison break. We’re also told that Harry’s maneuver with the mirror is something he’d “practiced...in the Chaos Legion,” so Quirrell should also have anticipated that Harry would be watching the duel if/when it happened. At the very least, he knows that Harry will be able to hear it.
So. The duel was not outside Quirrell’s plan. Therefore his actions during the duel must also have been deliberate and have been part of the plan. If those actions seem to foil the plan, then...it was never the real plan. And the real plan must somehow be furthered by Quirrell’s actions. So the only way I can make sense of Quirrell’s behavior is to think that he was deliberately trying to provoke the reaction he got from Harry.
Why? What does it gain him? Well, it leaves Harry exposed to Dementors. And coincidentally enough, this is the second time that Quirrell’s actions have left Harry exposed to Dementors. At which point I decide that it’s not coincidence at all. So my theory is really just trying to answer the question, “Why does Quirrell want Harry exposed to Dementors?”
A Bayesian villain plots under uncertainty, and shouldn’t be judged with Hindsight bias.
I agree that we can’t reasonably assume that the Patronus teleport, magical feedback and subsequent Dementor exposure had been part of Quirrell’s plan.
However, the much more limited and much more certain prediction that AK’ing a guard Auror while in Harry’s earshot would cause a mess and make the stated “perfect crime” plan impossible is easily within Quirrell’s ability to figure out beforehand, even on the spot.
Therefore, his casting of AK—if not the very unusual result—is sufficient evidence that the “perfect crime” plan was at least to some degree horsecrap. Not that he must have wanted Harry to get caught, but, unless he had a doppelganger of Bahry in his pocket to replace him with, he certainly wasn’t as interested in a clean breakout as he had claimed.
I agree. The exact disastrous consequences of Harry’s reaction were most likely not part of the plan, and can’t be seen as a serious flaw or rationalized-in-hindsight as having been part of the plan all along.
But there’s nothing in the situation that would have come as a surprise to Quirrell. If his goals were the ones he stated to Harry, then Quirrell is indeed left holding the Idiot Ball.
EDIT: By “nothing in the situation that would have come as a surprise,” I mean the fact that there’s a duel with an auror in Azkaban, and that Harry is present and observing. In that situation casting a Killing Curse is idiotic, if the goal is simply to keep moving with minimum fuss. Quirrell would have known that perfectly well when he was making his plan.
He could have confidently foreseen that the AK would have ruined the “perfect crime” and pissed Harry off.
He could not have confidently foreseen that Harry’s Patronus would teleport in the way, block the Killing Curse, cause a magical backlash, and disappear.
I realized after I wrote that line about “nothing in the situation that would have come as a surprise” that it could be read that way, and I edited to clarify.
My speculation is that Quirrell might have reason to assume that any intervention by Harry would cause the magical backlash, but that really is just speculation, I freely admit.
At the risk of building this theory on top of another unconfirmed theory… It’s been speculated that Quirrell himself is Demented. He doesn’t appear so when Voldemort is telepathically controlling him, but when Voldy takes a cigarette break or whatever Quirrell enters zombie mode. Quirrell is just kind of an empty body, zombie-like unless Voldemort is logged in.
Maybe Voldemort wants to control Harry’s body in a similar fashion. What the difference is between dementing and then telepathically inhabiting, versus simply using the Imperius Curse… /shrug.
Removing happiness makes for better evil.
Alternatively, Voldemort has tried killing Harry, it didn’t work, so he wants to eliminate Harry as a potential obstacle through other means. If Harry’s soul is sucked out (or whatever the Dementor’s Kiss does, actually) then he is still alive technically but not an obstacle. It’s worth a shot as an alternative approach to just trying to kill Harry over and over, which is what canon Voldemort tries to do.
Also, and this can’t possibly be Quirrell’s reasoning, but it’s still an interesting thought: the MOR version of The Prophecy says that “either must destroy all but a remnant of the other”. If Harry is subjected to irreversible Dementation, all but a remnant of him is destroyed.
I am confused by Quirrell’s behavior in attempting to kill the auror, so I assume that there is something that I don’t know or understand about Quirrell’s motives.
What I don’t see yet is that Quirrell was relying on the dual to occur, only that it was a possibility that he accounted for.
Assuming that this was part of the Plan, in some sense, then it comes across to me as a test. Perhaps to force Harry to confront his sensitivity dementors, perhaps simply to test him in an apparent no-win situation.
You’re right, that’s all we can know for sure from the story so far. My theory is purely speculative, a guess at Quirrell’s true motives. It springs more from earlier chapters than from this one: I think it was really suspicious of Quirrell to go to all that trouble to bring Dementors into Hogwarts, and I’m inclined to believe that Hermione got true information from her encounter with the Dementor (namely, that Quirrell wanted Harry drained). Given that background, it seems more than a little suspicious that Quirrell has brought Harry into the same danger all over again, which is why I’m so quick to believe that stripping Harry of his Patronus was part of the plan. But I definitely don’t think I have all the details worked out.
But in that case isn’t he risking a lot for very little reward?
Your point would seem to apply to the whole rescue attempt, and especially to Quirrell’s attempt at murder.