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sanyasi comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 5 - Less Wrong
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This is unrelated to the current plot, but rather a more general thought: We know Severus is the most accomplished occlumens in the world. Might he also be the most accomplished legilimens as well? It seems that Severus, being Voldemort's spy who spends inordinate amounts of time under Dumbledore's command, would natually come under the Dark Lord's suspicions, prompting plenty of sessions of eye-staring where Voldemort verifies his allegience. Severus, of course, passes all these checks, but could he not also be legilimensing Voldemort at the same time? If the only prerequisite of Legilimency is a staring match, could Severus be probing Voldemort's mind as well as receiving the reverse probe (and successfully defending it).
I feel as if Severus' role in the story could be even more important (especially post Voldemort's resurrection) in HPMOR than it was in canon, simply because he has so many opportunities for strategic play that were not fully explored in canon. (Admittedly, the Dumbledore killing double-play was staggeringly magnificent bastard worthy.)
I don't recall Snape being said to be the most accomplished occlumens in the world. He's good enough to prevent Voldemort from reading his mind, but unless there's some indication otherwise that I've forgotten about, I think there's supposed to be a number of perfect occlumens, who are good enough that nobody is capable of performing leglimency on them.
I highly doubt that Snape is capable of performing leglimency on Voldemort. Not only does Voldemort have tremendous incentive to become a perfect occlumens, but if Snape could read his mind and not have his mind read in turn, he could probably have ended the war himself.
But training to become an occlumens seems to involve letting people perform legilimency on you. Voldemort seems to have an incentive to avoid that.
Imperius a Legilimens, or have him Imperiused; use him; kill him. We already know from canon that someone under the Imperius curse can in turn Imperius another, so it seems likely that being under the curse doesn't affect one's magical ability too much.
That was my first thought. Possibly add in some obliviate-and-confine based recycling of the legilimens just as a practical consideration.
Tom Riddle got a Time-Turner in his third year and Legilimized himself.
Then why all the brouhaha about not seeing yourself while messing with time, if this is doable?
(To be fair, though, the canon justifications - "you wouldn't know what was going on, you might even attack yourself!" - do not make sense if both the past and future selves are aware of the presence of the Time-Turner.)
Why, to ensure that nobody else does it! The brouhaha could easily have been stirred up by Voldemort himself through any number of means in order to further restrict the Good Guys' options.
Of course, it could have been stirred up by the first wizard to discover the power of working with yourself, and it's been passed down for so long that it's accepted without question, and Voldemort was either mad or foolhardy to have ignored the dire warnings. It just so happened that the dire warnings were wrong - Voldemort is incentivised not to correct them.
That's one of those hyped up rule for do gooders. It even makes kind of sense for people before they know what they are doing. But you get to ignore it when you are evil (and hence practical!)
Canon itself agrees that the canon risk is exaggerated; Harry and Herminone did see their past selves, and Harry even saw his future self (but thought that it was his father). Nothing bad happened.
However, the canon warning can be justified: If you attempt to change what you remember from your past, then the time-consistency force will stop your contradiction, and that can be dangerous. If the easiest way to enforce consistency is to mess with your memories, it just might drive you mad!
All this is trivially circumvented. Remember those instruments Dumbledore regretted inspecting? Well, just build a backdoor into them to modify their readings, and make sure that you're the only one that the backdoor lets through. Messing with sensory input is less dangerous than messing with the mind. Can't use rely on some vague instruments when you are an active participant of events? What about plain old glasses or a mask? Can't unsee your future self? Well, as long as your previous self knows that your future self is able to make glasses show you anything they wish, you're free not to believe your eyes. Might throw an extra hallucination once in a while just to make sure. Plausible deniability FTW!
The force isn't so simple. While the time turner use will increase the prevalence of a stable loop involving distorted memories this is far from the easiest way for a stable loop to result. It is far more likely to ensure that the world of which you are a part to not to have ever existed, with the measure diverted to the possible stable loop that is the result of iterating from the effects of your new interference.
The way I use the word ‘exist’, the world that I'm a part of necessarily exists. In any case, it's the only world that I care about.
All this stuff about iterating unstable loops to a stable limit (assuming that one even exists) can be a good way to think about time travel from the outside, but that can't be how it appears to the people on the inside. (The world isn't going to notice that I'm a mind with a right to existence and change around me while preserving my unusual memories, despite what Doc Brown told Marty would happen to Jennifer in Back to the Future II.)
Enough times to train himself in Occlumency? By the book? There are sooo many ways this should have fail, even not counting the Interdict. By the way, do you have any canon evens in mind that tie in with the Interdict of Merlin, or is it fully specific to your 'verse?
Occlumency is a mental skill, not a powerful spell, so there's no reason the Interdict of Merlin should apply to it. And there's no reason he shouldn't have been able to do this every day once he got the time turner.
Tom wins.