Desrtopa comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 - Less Wrong
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(Just to save everyone some time, here are the relevant quotes.)
HPMoR Chapter 61, Dumbledore to McGonagall and Snape:
Dumbledore, at least, thinks the obviousness of the trap won't preclude its success.
HPMoR Chapter 76, Quirrell to Snape:
That second bit is particularly interesting. It seems to suggest that Flamel would have been capable of protecting the Stone himself just as well as it's being protected now, in which case why have it at Gringotts in the first place?
The question in my mind is: how could Voldemort know if the Stone in Hogwarts is fake or not? I mean, the situation seems to be that Dumbledore went to visit his old teacher Nicholas and came back with a "Philosopher's Stone" in a small leather bag, which he deposited at Gringotts, and later took to Hogwarts. If you assume he actually is trying to protect the Stone, it would pretty much have to be a fake, wouldn't it? (It'd be pretty funny if the real one was teleported into the Marianas Trench or something.)
And I think it's something of a mistake to assume the only reason for breaking Bellatrix out of Azkaban is the resurrection ritual. Suppose that he does already have the Stone - maybe he replaced it with a fake months ago, maybe he invented it on his own, whatever - wouldn't it still be useful to him to retrieve his most powerful and loyal servant?
Bellatrix isn't remotely his most powerful servant anymore after her stay in Azkaban, and he could probably do to someone else what he did to her in the first place. Plus, in canon, once he returned to his former power, he was able to break everyone out of Azkaban. It might not be a great idea to sacrifice the element of surprise by doing so, but still, if he already had a route to power even greater than he possessed before, I don't see why he'd stall on using it.
Interesting. I hadn't even considered the possibility that the story about brainwashing Bellatrix might actually be true.
Personally I'm assuming that Quirrelmort rescued Bellatrix to influence Harry. He now has first-hand evidence that Harry was engaged in a major crime, has shown Harry a part of the Wizarding world which he could never accept which was enabled by democracy, has shown Harry that Dumbledore isn't as proactive as Harry would want him to be, almost convinced Harry that a revolution is necessary, convinced Harry to lie to protect him, and has made Harry feel sorry for Bellatrix. Generating a 'false alarm' of Voldemort's return is a nice side effect as well if he doesn't plan on acting immediately, Dumbledore may well have just expended significant political capital too early. If he was planning on going through with the ritual, then he had Harry right there with him. (Although he could have just taken some blood while Harry was asleep, of course.)
The only motivation I can see for him to retrieve her otherwise is that he couldn't remember what happened at Godric's Hollow or to the Longbottoms, so he wanted to retrieve Bellatrix to find out, he regretted what he did to her (seems unlikely), or he's not Quirrelmort, and is really just a powerful but neutral wizard who wants to try and retrieve some of Slytherin's magics.
The most obvious motivation given what we know about Quirrelmort and what he needs to regain his old power is that he retrieved her for use in the spell that will restore his body. For his motive to be anything else would constitute a twist.
I would be rather surprised if, after all the characterization and buildup we've been given so far, MoR!Voldemort turned out to be capable of this as well.
As a suggestion: he may have decided that his goals are better served by remaining in his current guise (which he presumably could not do if he regained his body) than by sheer magical power, at least for now.