Desrtopa comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10 - Less Wrong

11 Post author: Oscar_Cunningham 07 March 2012 04:46PM

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Comment author: Desrtopa 15 March 2012 01:17:53AM 2 points [-]

BTW - what stops Quirrell from polyjuicing as Harry, asking for private audience in Dumbledore apartment, doing quick surprise Avada Kedavra, and flying out of window? Or better yet - put Albus body to magical pouch, polyjuice as Dumbledore and run Hogward ever since. Dumbledore behaves quite strange, and rarely shows publicly, so it wouldn't be hard to do.

Dumbledore might have other methods of recognizing such a disguise. Perhaps, for instance, he can detect the approximate magical strength of a person regardless of their appearance? In Half-Blood Prince, while seeking out one of Voldemort's horcruxes, he and Harry encounter a device which is supposed to detect when a wizard passes through by registering their power, and Dumbledore notes that next to him, it's not even going to notice Harry. Perhaps while a switch like Barty Crouch Junior for Alastor Moody could slip his notice, a huge disparity like Quirrell for an eleven year old Harry would be an immediate red flag in his senses.

Comment author: pedanterrific 15 March 2012 04:35:04AM 10 points [-]

Perhaps, for instance, he can detect the approximate magical strength of a person regardless of their appearance?

Yep:

"I know," said the old wizard. "My apologies, Amelia." He sighed. "Some of the more recent prisoners had scraps of their magic left, when I looked upon them, but I sensed no uneaten power; the strongest had only as much magic left as a first-year child.