Before that meeting Harry fiddled briefly under his sheets. Maybe he took the Transfigured ring off and put the real one on at that time?
Alternatively, he might have used a different hiding-place for Hermione back then and only Transfigured her into the toe-ring later.
Where’s he getting the spirit?
Harry’s Patronus appears to have solved that problem, although we don’t know how. “Not another Tom Riddle” suggests that it worked.
How does the Stone help?
Hermione’s body needs significant repair, and the only way we know of for the repairs in question (once the person is dead) is permanent Transfiguration.
I think it’s more plausible that the mirror acts like it does in canon; that is, you see the room you’re in, plus some features that you deeply desire; you don’t see yourself leave the room unless you actually leave the room.
They did leave the room and go to a graveyard before Hermione was resurrected.
Voldemort would not have given the properties to his body before now, because he had not had the Stone, and without its permanence effect, after a few hours the transferred properties would wear off.
Voldemort also says that the subject sometimes dies when the properties wear off, so he has very good reason not to give them to his body earlier.
True, but then Voldemort performed magical rituals on Hermione. I imagine that ritual magic would also count as magic interacting, although it’s possible that it doesn’t.
It’s also possible that the Patronus is somehow protective from whatever Dark magic Voldemort just attempted (and needed to kill Quirrell for). Good point, in any case.
Some quick predictions before the next chapter, adding to my previous prediction comment:
Conditional on the Mirror being involved in a test meant to distinguish some subset of rationalists (not necessarily a proper subset) from other people, Harry will pass its test by the end of the story. 95% (See my previous prediction comment for why I think this is a sufficiently plausible hypothesis to condition on.)
Conditional on the Mirror being involved in a test meant to distinguish Light Rationalists from other people, Voldemort will not pass its test without significant change to his values. 95% (See my previous prediction comment for why I think this is a sufficiently plausible hypothesis to condition on.)
So it looks like some of Harry’s magic is on the diary for whatever reason, because Voldemort casting a spell on the diary sets off the resonance hard. Did Harry cast a spell on it earlier?
Grab the Elder Wand, Harry!
...
Is Dumbledore also passing the Line of Merlin to Harry? We don’t know what’s required to pass the Line between holders.
My previous prediction comment is here.
Also, the subtle hints at reflective consistency are both funny and hints to Harry about the Mirror’s nature.
Observe that the writing on the back of the Mirror is in runes, not any particular alphabet. The fact that Harry can read anything out of them at all suggests that there is an effect meant to make them ‘readable’ regardless of what languages / alphabets the reader knows. This effect was presumably placed by someone who knew what the Mirror does and wanted to make sure that knowledge was preserved even if languages changed and the history of the Mirror was lost.
But then why would someone want to obscure the answer by making those runes the Words of False Comprehension? The end result of having both effects in place is that readers get a simple puzzle in a language they know, hidden behind a magical effect that makes them believe they understand the runes without any further effort. What goal would motivate a great effort to make the puzzle solvable, but only if you realize it’s there to be solved?
My answer is that it’s not a test of “can you read backwards and fix some spacing in a language you know,” it’s a test of basic rationality skills. The word reversal and changed spacing is just to prevent bypassing the rationality test.
What would someone reading the back of the Mirror need to do, to solve the puzzle? Ask the fundamental question of rationality: “What do I think I know, and why do I think I know it?” Realize that their initial beliefs about the meaning of the runes are free-floating beliefs, ones that don’t connect to the rest of their beliefs and don’t constrain anticipations. Realize that the free-floating beliefs are useless, discard them, and look past the false feeling of comprehension. Find the real puzzle, possibly aided by hearing that the runes are Words of False Comprehension.
And then once they’ve found it and converted it to words they recognize, put in the effort to understand what the words actually mean and connect those words to the rest of their beliefs rather than guessing the teacher’s password. We know that “coherent extrapolated volition” has a specific technical meaning, but Harry doesn’t and is going to have to work it out from his knowledge of English and stories about the Mirror.
Also: “It is claimed by several authorities that the Mirror alone of all magics possesses a true moral orientation”.
So here are my predictions:
At the end of Chapter 109, Quirrell and Harry are trapped in an alternate plane generated by the Mirror. 65%
Harry and Quirrell are going to wind up on different sides of the Mirror. 60%
Confunded!Quirrell received a fake Stone. 50%
Quirrell’s conception of Dumbledore, as Quirrell used to Confund himself, lacks full human wish complexity. 80%
There is a magical ‘translation’ effect (not the False Comprehension effect, although both may be part of the same spell) on the runes on the Mirror which enables people to ‘read’ the runes. 95%
The Mirror is involved in a test meant to distinguish some subset of rationalists (not necessarily a proper subset) from other people. 80%
The Mirror is involved in a test meant to distinguish Light Rationalists from other people, under some conception of Light / Good. 75%
Conditional on the Mirror being involved in a test meant to distinguish some subset of rationalists (not necessarily a proper subset) from other people, passing the test grants some type of additional power (including from knowing more about the Mirror and therefore being better able to use it). 90%
I think you’re right; on reflection, that’s exactly the sort of thing I would expect rational!Peverells to do, plus the stone appears about the right age to be set up by the Peverells. Based on the same reflection, I agree with your predictions and the probabilities you’ve given them. Quoting for posterity:
Harry is the Master of Death, in the sense of being the primary magical owner of all three Hallows − 75%.
HJPEV counts as Tom Riddle, to the point that on death, the Horcrux network will attempt to update based on him. − 60%.
And I’ll just make this my prediction comment for this thread. (Previous prediction comment.)
The prophecy stone in Chapter 96 (“the tall stone worn as though from a thousand years of age, upon it a line within a circle within a triangle glowing ever so faintly silver”) and/or its behavior will become plot-relevant. 95% Otherwise it’s a major unfired Chekhov’s Gun.
The wand Quirrell produced from a false tooth in Chapter 107 (the one that he then uses to cast Fiendfyre) is the brother to Harry’s wand. 90%
Riddle’s Horcrux 2.0 (the improved version that resembles the ‘false’ description, but before he integrated the Resurrection Stone) is actually a lost earlier version of the Horcrux spell; Riddle rediscovered it. 70%
Observations:
This whole segment from Chapter 108 reminds me strongly of having something to protect:
“And you,” said Professor Quirrell, “have no right to speak of happiness either. Happiness is not what you hold precious above all. You decided that in the beginning, all the way back in the beginning of this year, when the Sorting Hat offered you Hufflepuff. Which I know about, because I received a similar offer and warning all those years ago, and I refused it just as you did. Beyond this there is little more to say, between Tom Riddles.”
B. Harry himself is absorbed into the network. I’m not sure about all the implications of this. Obviously, he could attempt possessing someone, but this seems mostly against his moral code (unless he thought he could prevent more suffering by doing so.) Or he could potentially mess with the Horcux network internally.
I recall Quirrell saying that his spirit could fly free and choose a consenting person to possess if he so desired. Perhaps Lesath would let Harry borrow his body for a while?
Snape may also have an unknown game plan.
You could have a account for every prediction technique.
That seems like an excessive amount of work, especially once overlapping categories and domains come into play.
Ooooh. That may well be a challenge that behaves differently around people who were or weren’t supposed to be there.
Perhaps solving the logic puzzle is sufficient to gain entry, and most students will either not think to flip the parchment over or get bored before they finish brewing the potion it describes. But Snape expects Voldemort to notice the lack of wards and decide to brew the potion, and accordingly has booby-trapped the potion in some manner that triggers upon its completion or after some time sufficient that he expects students to get bored first.
The duration may well also be significant for Time-Turning.
Adding to my previous prediction comment:
Predictions:
Harry attempted to obtain a useful object (such as Snape’s wand) when he knocked Snape over in Chapter 106. 75%
The ritual which promises to summon Death itself (Chapter 74) summons a Dementor. 80%
The lost counterspell to dismiss whatever is summoned by the ritual involving “a rope which has hanged a man and a sword which has slain a woman” (Chapter 74) is the True Patronus Charm. 80%
Harry’s mental development has been significantly influenced by his body’s descent from the Potter line. This includes genetic effects, heritable magical effects, and interactions between such effects and his environment, but excludes purely environmental effects of being raised in the Verres-Evans household. 70% (In other words, suppose the following counterfactual: Voldemort came to believe that the prophecy referred to a different wizarding infant child who had been living in a similar environment up to that point (canonically Neville also fits the prophecy), attacked that household in order to perform whatever mind-altering magic he actually performed on the infant Harry on the other infant child, and leaves all blood relatives who would otherwise care for the child dead / insane / otherwise unable to do so. Suppose further that Dumbledore asks Petunia to adopt this infant, so this hypothetical other child is also raised in the Verres-Evans household. My prediction is that there would be some significant difference between this hypothetical child’s mental development and Harry’s mental development.)
The procedure Voldemort describes that “destroyed all but a remnant of Harry Potter” (Chapter 105) involved a Horcrux. 75%
Quirrell was enhancing Sprout’s and Susan’s magic in the battle in Chapter 104. 70%
Snape is still capable of somehow intervening in Voldemort’s plot, despite the bodily control spell Voldemort used. 50%
Speculations:
Snape may be an Occlumens. In Chapter 27, Harry recalls that “the book said that a successful Legilimens was extremely rare, rarer than a perfect Occlumens, because almost no one had enough mental discipline.” Since Snape clearly has the discipline, the awareness of mind magics, the (at least outward) ability to pretend, and motivation to learn Occlumency (it would be extremely useful to someone in his position), he may well have become an Occlumens at some point.
Observations:
Quirrell is messing with Time. Recall Harry’s experiment with Time in Chapter 17, where he precommitted to an algorithm for recovering prime factors of a large number that relies on the stable-loop property of Time-Turners, but got the unexpected result of “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” instead. His precommitment had failed to rule out the logical universe where he got “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME”.
Quirrell is clearly relying on the stable-loop property of Time-Turners when he says “Oh, we have time. There would be a great uproar if we were discovered here, guarded by an Inferius. You did not act like you had heard of such an uproar at your Quidditch match, before you arrived in this time and spoke to Snape as you did.” (Chapter 107) Leaning on this property to get what you want seems to be the definition of messing with Time, and also something we can expect Quirrell to be inclined towards based on his similarities with Harry.
Now suppose that Quirrell made the following precommitment in order to further lean on this property: “If my plot involving the boy known as Harry Potter succeeds in its objectives by 10:30 PM, I will then arrange for the note asking him to come to the forbidden corridor to be sent to him at such a time that he must use five spins of his Time-Turner. Otherwise, I will send no note to him.” This precommitment appears to guarantee his success if Harry shows up, and in particular appears to rule out universes where Harry shows up and defeats Quirrell. But it doesn’t rule out logical universes where Harry shows up and defeats Quirrell because it doesn’t rule out logical universes that can be described by “Harry shows up, defeats Quirrell, and then arranges to have such a note sent to his past self for the purposes of paradox avoidance.” So Quirrell just might wind up with a much nastier message not to mess with Time.
How is PredictionBook for sharing evidence for one’s predictions, back-and-forth discussion, logging ‘categories’ of predictions, detailed statistics (such as calibration changes over time, more granularity than 10% increments, etc.) and so on? Are there any specific features of PredictionBook you would recommend to me?
I ask because:
I want to participate in readable discussion as well as log my predictions; browsing as a not-logged-in user, PredictionBook appears to have a much less readable presentation for discussions.
I often have domain-specific prediction techniques and would want to check my calibration for each technique (and each domain) as well as overall. (To take MOR predictions as an example, I might make some predictions based on a feeling of “this looks like foreshadowing”, others based on looking for themes, still others based on knowledge outside MOR itself, … ) Come to think of it, both domains and categories can also overlap, but I still want to have that kind of feature available whether I make the graphs myself or not.
I do intend to check my calibration on my MOR predictions once MOR ends, regardless of where I put the predictions up.
I see. Point taken, then.