Presumably shields let air through, so they probably also let nanotubes through.
Subbak
Karma: 164
We know for a fact that the Hogwarts wards do not raise an alarm when they should, because they did not detect Draco being under a Blood-Cooling Charm. And we also know that Voldie had a better idea regarding those wards (whether he actually had said wards in place around Draco is debatable, but still, he had the idea).
So I think it’s extremely probable that the wards he has to detect his own death are more efficient than the Hogwarts wards, and he’s currently riding Bella’s body and kicking himself for once more not having just used Avada Kedavra.
As Weaver, she said something like “Drugs are awesome kids, but it’s what comes after that really sucks. Being a supervillain is the same”.
So I decided not too look at comments during the hunt. I then got a “solution”, but decided to wait a bit for something better to post it. And then I did not have time to post it. Well, silly me...
Anyway, because I have not seen this discussed (but maybe it was and I missed it?), here’s my take on defending yourself from most ways to kill you. Note that this would not have worked for Harry for various reasons (as I said, my solution was unsatisfying), but I still think it could be debated.
Fact 1: Killing Curses cannot be blocked by magic or material shields Fact 2: Killing Curses can be dodged Fact 3: Dark Wizards don’t go around murdering people from far away by just casting Killing Curses in their general direction.
From this I deduce that it is very plausible that any legal target from a Killing Curse absorbs its entirety. Therefore, since it can kill anything with a brain, pulling a Skitter and coating your skin in a layer of insects should do the trick. Harry could transfigure himself a platinum armor (against bullets and similar things) and an armor of insects.
The main problem I see with this idea in the context of Chapter 113 is that any DE can just Finite Incantem Harry’s Magic. So it’s a strategy better suited to epic-level wizards who have stronger magic than first-years at Hogwarts. Also, I thought it was too ambitious a PT fro 60 seconds, but then Harry did manage to stall successfully.
I guess micro-managing the nanotubes isn’t so different conceptually from micro-managing bugs carrying silk ropes...
Another possibility if that “unbreakable” works fine on things that have very few moving parts, but if you try that on a human body then they become utterly incapable of changing. Their muscles don’t flex, which means they can’t breathe and their heart stops beating, and they die very quickly.
And changing the genre when the story is over 90% complete would be a questionable move.
And now I feel stupid for not thinking of option 3. While it would be very amusing to have everyone fooled into forgetting that mirrors also reflect things (duh), there are convincing arguments for option 1, the main one being timing.
Bella wasn’t entirely arbitrary, it was to set up a joke when Harry thought Quirrel was talking about Sirius.
Well, given his actions in the past he can hardly call this idiocy worthy of being killed. Also, Firenze was not annoying him by being an idiot, he was annoying him by threatening Harry, for whom he had other plans.
No, I mean she had an intact hymen probably, but it’s just the fact that “virgin = intact hymen” is a pretty silly notion to begin with. Especially since it outright says she’d been Baba Yaga’s lover for some time already. Having sex pretty much means you’re not a virgin any more. Kind of the point.
I must say, the thought of Voldie kicking himself (well, wanting to, but he couldn’t because no legs) while spending nine years as a disembodied spirit in the Voyager Plaque was extremely amusing.
I also loved the fact that his Voldemort persona was designed to be a stupid Dark Lord that would last weeks at most and ended up being way too strong for Magical Britain.
The Dark Lady’s heart was captured, and they became lovers. And then one night (...) they lay together in the fashion of a >man and a woman. But Perenelle had been a virgin until that night.
I get what is meant, but if they had been lovers for some time then I would say that Perenelle was not a virgin in any meaningful sense of the word. Of course, from an old-fashioned point of view she might have been, but this sentence is not accompanied by a modifier expressing the change in values as the next one is.
Well, it’s possible that all the rooms were designed by different professors with little to no cooperations so that one single breach would not compromise the security of the whole thing. If Snape wanted to put claymores in other rooms, he’d need to tell the other professors.
Inbreeding just makes it more likely you get two of the same allele (with bad consequences if said allele is deleterious), it does not make it inherently more likely that any single allele you have is deleterious.
It is still weird, though. Do we have any bounds on the relation between size of the object and time you can maintain the transfiguration. Harry can maintain (without contact) some transfigurations for a pretty long time, even with a large-ish object like a cauldron. Unless the time you can maintain a transfiguration decreases very fast with the size of the end object (Harry transfigured a unicorn and a big rock into something small and maintained it easily), there is no reason why Quirrel would not be able to create transfigured clones able to clone themselves. And we know that transfiguring an inanimate object into something living can easily be done for strong wizards, as McGonnagle proved early in the story with the desk into pig thing.
This is probably not the case however, as it would feel like a very cheap language trick given that Quirrel has used “you” and “I” in parseltongue in a non-ambiguous manner several times already. Even worse, if Quirrel was going by this then he’d risk Harry picking up the trick and promising to help himself get the stone, and not consider it a betrayal.
If this was feasible then all Dark Wizards would probably be using temporary clones of their minions to do their bidding instead of real minions.
That’s not how inbreeding works, though… If one of your parents’ family (in Voldie’s case, his mother) has been inbred for generations but the other parents has a completely different gene pool, then you should be fine. Inbreeding just makes it more likely that you have two of the same recessive allelle (which is bad in many situations), but Voldie only got one of each from his mother.
Well, yes, but it had to be believable that Hermione had cast it, therefore we can assume that it would not have triggered the wards even if Quirrel had not cast it.