This is probably not the solution Harry’s going to use in Chapter 81 (I’m writing this before it was posted), but a friend and I were discussing it and came up with a possible solution. I decided it would be much more fun as a piece of fanfanfiction rather than an abstract description, so here it is. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing.
Chapter 81b: Alternate Solution
Beyond all panic and despair his mind began to search through every fact in its possession, recall everything it knew about Lucius Malfoy, about the Wizengamot, about the laws of magical Britain; his eyes looked at the rows of chairs, at every person and every thing within range of his vision, searching for any opportunity it could grasp -
And the start of an idea formed—not a plan, but a tiny fragment of one. He spelled out N-O-T-E on his fingers, and, as discretely as he could, drew a piece of paper out from his bag that he did not remember putting there. It read:
"Mess with time if you want!"
And then he heard a loud bang, and another while he was stuffing the note back in his bag, and he looked up to see that a circular piece had pushed out from the wall, (that wall that could’ve withstood a nuclear explosion), far in the back where no one had been looking. Heads turned in unison to look as four glowing, silver human shapes emerged from the three-foot diameter hole, and began walking down the aisle towards Hermione. No one in the room but Harry and Dumbledore suspected they were Patronuses.
Prime Minister Fudge should have been angry, that magical creatures would dare barge in; but for some reason he couldn’t quite place, he was calm. Auror Gawain was too busy casting shield spells to acknowledge how scared he was. Harry had a pretty good idea where this was going, but decided that “confused” was the best expression to wear. Professor McGonagall nearly had a stroke. Lucius Malfoy’s angry expression had vanished, leaving his face perfectly blank. His entire row had stood up, and drawn their wands. To his left, five wizards Harry didn’t recognize were pointing at the human Patronuses; to his right, seven wizards pointed their wands at Dumbledore.
Lucius himself had his wand, and his gaze, fixed firmly on Harry. For a brief and accidental moment, the boy who thought he was a rock looked back.
Wands too numerous to count followed those glowing figures, as they walked down the aisle towards Hermione. Harry noticed that Fawkes had perched silently on her shoulder, and she was taking slow, deep breaths.
Behind each wand, a wizard thought that someone else ought to do something. A rare upside to the bystander effect, Harry would later note. For the time being, his mind was busy choreographing the movements of four invisible figures, who were definitely not bumping into each other. When the Patronuses had reached the bottom-most platform, where Hermione sat, they stopped, and looked up at Dumbledore’s platform.
“Who dares interrupt these proceedings?” Dumbledore’s voice boomed out. In fact, he was glad that they had been interrupted, and knew exactly who he was talking to; but as Chief Warlock, he had to express indignance, or else someone else would have gone and done it for him.
This better be good, Harry thought, because I won’t be able to think of anything else once I’ve been anchored.
“We are the Guardians of Merlin”, said the first Patronus, in Harry’s best impression of a Scottish accent.
“In that case, I yield the floor to the Guardians of Merlin”, said Dumbledore. “May I ask why you are here?”
“We were a safeguard created by Merlin, to protect the purity of the Wizengamot. In his wisdom, Merlin set down a list of especially vile deeds; should this assembly should decide to perform one, we awaken. And so we are here.”
Lucius turned away from Harry, and towards the front. “Ridiculous. This is no different than the many other times we have punished murderers, and no ghosts or apparitions appeared then.” He put a slight emphasis on “ghosts or apparitions”. He had no idea what they really were, but there was ample precedent saying ghosts and apparitions weren’t allowed to do things.
Harry wondered what lie his future self would tell. Then the second patronus spoke, in exactly the same voice as the first. “It is different, because sending this girl to Azkaban would satisfy the first requirement for a ritual!”
The murmurs stopped. Several members of the audience suddenly noticed the dementor in the room, on a level where they had not noticed it before. Professor McGonagall actually did have a stroke, but it was a small one, of a kind that could be fully repaired by magic later. For a moment, Dumbledore lost himself in his role and forgot that he was speaking to four copies of Harry Potter.
Five seconds passed before Dumbledore broke the silence. “Are you saying that this trial is part of a dark ritual?”
“Yes”, said all four patronuses simultaneously, convincing several members of the assembly to abandon the idea that they were all controlled by one person. The figures were new, important, and mysterious. Hermione was no longer salient.
“Do you know who could be behind this?” Dumbledore asked.
Heads turned towards Lucius, who looked around and noted exactly whose heads they were, handling the sudden deluge of important information by recording only the ways in which it differed from what he would have expected. Lucius knew then, that he had to lose; not only was he facing four new and completely unknown pieces, pieces which had been powerful enough to carve a hole in the indestructible wall of the Wizengamot, his own role was looking altogether too suspicious. He looked left, met the eyes of his servant, August Stoessel, and sent a thought.
Two seats left, August stood up and shouted, “It must be Lord Voldemort!” The audience’s attention shifted slightly. Lucius decided that four days later, Stoessel—Imperiused and falsely rumored to be a perfect occlumens—would confess to the whole thing, claiming (though no one would believe the last part) to have been Imperiused by Lord Voldemort himself.
Dumbledore looked very disturbed. Onlookers did not find this surprising, but they would have been surprised by the reason, if they knew. Dumbledore had just put the pieces together—Harry had performed an advanced plot, and time turned in spite of his time turner’s locked shell, just as he must have done on the day Bellatrix Black broke out of Azkaban.
“Talk of dark rituals is unfit for discussion here”, Dumbledore said, a little shakily. “If there are no objections, I believe we can suspend the previous vote and reconvene tomorrow morning, after the Ministry has had a chance to speak with these Guardians. We will vote whether to release or punish Hermione then, with fuller information.”
Lucius did not object. He would have a whole day to plan his next move. Harry did not object. He would have a whole day to plan his next move.
The Guardians of Merlins left first, through the strange hole from which they had come. Then the Aurors left, taking Hermione, their patronuses, and the dementor, slightly smaller but still intact. Then the audience left, Harry among them, and he excused himself to go to the bathroom, where he anchored his time turner inside its shell like Quirrell had shown him, and spun the shell twice. Finally Dumbledore left; but he was only two steps out the door when he disillusioned himself, spun his time turner twice, and reentered.
Two hours earlier, an invisible Harry Potter was wandering around the Wizengamot building, first looking for his earlier self so he could place the “Mess with time if you want” note, then looking for the other side of the wall he had seen cut open. He found it in a secluded storeroom, with ten minutes to spare, set down a piece of paper and marked it with a single tally. Soon he was joined by another Harry, who had used his time turner only once, and another, and another. Rather than take off their invisibility cloaks, they announced their arrival by marking the paper with a second, third, and fourth tally.
Dumbledore watched invisibly from inside the Wizengamot chamber as four invisible Harry Potters used partial transfiguration to cut a hole in the wall. He watched invisibly as four Human Patronuses entered the room. And then an invisible Harry Potter bumped into the invisible Dumbledore, changing events from how they were meant to go; and the entire twisted tangle of time loops collapsed into a paradox and never was. Reality would take a different path, one in which Harry chose a simpler solution, one that did not require three things to all happen.
and he excused himself to go to the bathroom, where he spun his time turner twice.
So, you didn’t explain how he could do that. Last time it took a spell from Quirrel to hold the shell in place. I’m guessing it’s not as simple as holding the shell with one hand and spinning the hourglass inside it.
Also, Harry can’t clone (loop) himself four times during the trial if he goes back two hours. That would result in looping himself four times for the time period from 2 to 1 hours before present. To loop himself four times (or he could make it five) during the trial itself, he should go back only one hour.
So, you didn’t explain how he could do that. Last time it took a spell from Quirrel to hold the shell in place. I’m guessing it’s not as simple as holding the shell with one hand and spinning the hourglass inside it.
Quirrell anchored the hourglass with a spell, and then Harry spun the shell around it. We never see Harry perform the anchoring spell, but we don’t have any information about its difficulty, so presumably Harry could do it too if he prepared.
Also, Harry can’t clone (loop) himself four times during the trial if he goes back two hours. That would result in looping himself four times for the time period from 2 to 1 hours before present. To loop himself four times (or he could make it five) during the trial itself, he should go back only one hour.
He’s giving himself an extra hour to prepare. The second, third, and fourth iterations only involve going back one hour, so that leaves a turn to spare. I’ll edit to make that clearer.
There’s a tiny problem with it: Patronuses speak with the voice of the one who cast them, and the members of the Wizengamot have already heard Harry talking, so they’d notice there’s something wrong with the Merlin connection.
This may be pushing the limits of Harry’s control over his Patronus, but humans can speak in funny voices even without magic, and doing so to prevent characters from recognizing who they are is a standard trope. This deserves mention, though, so I’ll edit to include one.
This is probably not the solution Harry’s going to use in Chapter 81 (I’m writing this before it was posted), but a friend and I were discussing it and came up with a possible solution. I decided it would be much more fun as a piece of fanfanfiction rather than an abstract description, so here it is. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing.
Chapter 81b: Alternate Solution
Beyond all panic and despair his mind began to search through every fact in its possession, recall everything it knew about Lucius Malfoy, about the Wizengamot, about the laws of magical Britain; his eyes looked at the rows of chairs, at every person and every thing within range of his vision, searching for any opportunity it could grasp -
And the start of an idea formed—not a plan, but a tiny fragment of one. He spelled out N-O-T-E on his fingers, and, as discretely as he could, drew a piece of paper out from his bag that he did not remember putting there. It read:
And then he heard a loud bang, and another while he was stuffing the note back in his bag, and he looked up to see that a circular piece had pushed out from the wall, (that wall that could’ve withstood a nuclear explosion), far in the back where no one had been looking. Heads turned in unison to look as four glowing, silver human shapes emerged from the three-foot diameter hole, and began walking down the aisle towards Hermione. No one in the room but Harry and Dumbledore suspected they were Patronuses.
Prime Minister Fudge should have been angry, that magical creatures would dare barge in; but for some reason he couldn’t quite place, he was calm. Auror Gawain was too busy casting shield spells to acknowledge how scared he was. Harry had a pretty good idea where this was going, but decided that “confused” was the best expression to wear. Professor McGonagall nearly had a stroke. Lucius Malfoy’s angry expression had vanished, leaving his face perfectly blank. His entire row had stood up, and drawn their wands. To his left, five wizards Harry didn’t recognize were pointing at the human Patronuses; to his right, seven wizards pointed their wands at Dumbledore.
Lucius himself had his wand, and his gaze, fixed firmly on Harry. For a brief and accidental moment, the boy who thought he was a rock looked back.
Wands too numerous to count followed those glowing figures, as they walked down the aisle towards Hermione. Harry noticed that Fawkes had perched silently on her shoulder, and she was taking slow, deep breaths.
Behind each wand, a wizard thought that someone else ought to do something. A rare upside to the bystander effect, Harry would later note. For the time being, his mind was busy choreographing the movements of four invisible figures, who were definitely not bumping into each other. When the Patronuses had reached the bottom-most platform, where Hermione sat, they stopped, and looked up at Dumbledore’s platform.
“Who dares interrupt these proceedings?” Dumbledore’s voice boomed out. In fact, he was glad that they had been interrupted, and knew exactly who he was talking to; but as Chief Warlock, he had to express indignance, or else someone else would have gone and done it for him.
This better be good, Harry thought, because I won’t be able to think of anything else once I’ve been anchored.
“We are the Guardians of Merlin”, said the first Patronus, in Harry’s best impression of a Scottish accent.
“In that case, I yield the floor to the Guardians of Merlin”, said Dumbledore. “May I ask why you are here?”
“We were a safeguard created by Merlin, to protect the purity of the Wizengamot. In his wisdom, Merlin set down a list of especially vile deeds; should this assembly should decide to perform one, we awaken. And so we are here.”
Lucius turned away from Harry, and towards the front. “Ridiculous. This is no different than the many other times we have punished murderers, and no ghosts or apparitions appeared then.” He put a slight emphasis on “ghosts or apparitions”. He had no idea what they really were, but there was ample precedent saying ghosts and apparitions weren’t allowed to do things.
Harry wondered what lie his future self would tell. Then the second patronus spoke, in exactly the same voice as the first. “It is different, because sending this girl to Azkaban would satisfy the first requirement for a ritual!”
The murmurs stopped. Several members of the audience suddenly noticed the dementor in the room, on a level where they had not noticed it before. Professor McGonagall actually did have a stroke, but it was a small one, of a kind that could be fully repaired by magic later. For a moment, Dumbledore lost himself in his role and forgot that he was speaking to four copies of Harry Potter.
Five seconds passed before Dumbledore broke the silence. “Are you saying that this trial is part of a dark ritual?”
“Yes”, said all four patronuses simultaneously, convincing several members of the assembly to abandon the idea that they were all controlled by one person. The figures were new, important, and mysterious. Hermione was no longer salient.
“Do you know who could be behind this?” Dumbledore asked.
Heads turned towards Lucius, who looked around and noted exactly whose heads they were, handling the sudden deluge of important information by recording only the ways in which it differed from what he would have expected. Lucius knew then, that he had to lose; not only was he facing four new and completely unknown pieces, pieces which had been powerful enough to carve a hole in the indestructible wall of the Wizengamot, his own role was looking altogether too suspicious. He looked left, met the eyes of his servant, August Stoessel, and sent a thought.
Two seats left, August stood up and shouted, “It must be Lord Voldemort!” The audience’s attention shifted slightly. Lucius decided that four days later, Stoessel—Imperiused and falsely rumored to be a perfect occlumens—would confess to the whole thing, claiming (though no one would believe the last part) to have been Imperiused by Lord Voldemort himself.
Dumbledore looked very disturbed. Onlookers did not find this surprising, but they would have been surprised by the reason, if they knew. Dumbledore had just put the pieces together—Harry had performed an advanced plot, and time turned in spite of his time turner’s locked shell, just as he must have done on the day Bellatrix Black broke out of Azkaban.
“Talk of dark rituals is unfit for discussion here”, Dumbledore said, a little shakily. “If there are no objections, I believe we can suspend the previous vote and reconvene tomorrow morning, after the Ministry has had a chance to speak with these Guardians. We will vote whether to release or punish Hermione then, with fuller information.”
Lucius did not object. He would have a whole day to plan his next move. Harry did not object. He would have a whole day to plan his next move.
The Guardians of Merlins left first, through the strange hole from which they had come. Then the Aurors left, taking Hermione, their patronuses, and the dementor, slightly smaller but still intact. Then the audience left, Harry among them, and he excused himself to go to the bathroom, where he anchored his time turner inside its shell like Quirrell had shown him, and spun the shell twice. Finally Dumbledore left; but he was only two steps out the door when he disillusioned himself, spun his time turner twice, and reentered.
Two hours earlier, an invisible Harry Potter was wandering around the Wizengamot building, first looking for his earlier self so he could place the “Mess with time if you want” note, then looking for the other side of the wall he had seen cut open. He found it in a secluded storeroom, with ten minutes to spare, set down a piece of paper and marked it with a single tally. Soon he was joined by another Harry, who had used his time turner only once, and another, and another. Rather than take off their invisibility cloaks, they announced their arrival by marking the paper with a second, third, and fourth tally.
Dumbledore watched invisibly from inside the Wizengamot chamber as four invisible Harry Potters used partial transfiguration to cut a hole in the wall. He watched invisibly as four Human Patronuses entered the room. And then an invisible Harry Potter bumped into the invisible Dumbledore, changing events from how they were meant to go; and the entire twisted tangle of time loops collapsed into a paradox and never was. Reality would take a different path, one in which Harry chose a simpler solution, one that did not require three things to all happen.
Highly unlikely for something like this to happen in the actual HPMOR—but I actually enjoyed it, so I thank you for posting it.
Seconding this.
The next time Eliezer puts up an omake page, he definitely needs to include this.
Hell, you could damn near make an omake page out of all the alternate theories we posted.
I love it!
Especially the last paragraph.
So, you didn’t explain how he could do that. Last time it took a spell from Quirrel to hold the shell in place. I’m guessing it’s not as simple as holding the shell with one hand and spinning the hourglass inside it.
Also, Harry can’t clone (loop) himself four times during the trial if he goes back two hours. That would result in looping himself four times for the time period from 2 to 1 hours before present. To loop himself four times (or he could make it five) during the trial itself, he should go back only one hour.
Quirrell anchored the hourglass with a spell, and then Harry spun the shell around it. We never see Harry perform the anchoring spell, but we don’t have any information about its difficulty, so presumably Harry could do it too if he prepared.
He’s giving himself an extra hour to prepare. The second, third, and fourth iterations only involve going back one hour, so that leaves a turn to spare. I’ll edit to make that clearer.
I love it. I didn’t realize you could write fiction so well!
Thanks for writing that, I enjoyed it.
There’s a tiny problem with it: Patronuses speak with the voice of the one who cast them, and the members of the Wizengamot have already heard Harry talking, so they’d notice there’s something wrong with the Merlin connection.
This may be pushing the limits of Harry’s control over his Patronus, but humans can speak in funny voices even without magic, and doing so to prevent characters from recognizing who they are is a standard trope. This deserves mention, though, so I’ll edit to include one.