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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10
(The HPMOR discussion thread after this one is here.)
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. There haven't been any chapters recently, but it looks like there are a bunch in the pipeline and the old thread is nearing 700 comments. The latest chapter as of 7th March 2012 is Ch. 77.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes.
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:
You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).
If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it's fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that "Eliezer said X is true" unless you use rot13.
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Comments (641)
I was playing with a cat this morning, and I thought to myself:
As phoenixes are to Gryffindor, so are cats to Ravenclaw, and dogs to Hufflepuff.
Phoenixes know only bravery; dogs know only playfulness and loyalty; cats know only curiosity.
I think the dog one is best, but I couldn't think of anything for Slytherin.
Humans.
I'd like to "Hold Off on Proposing Solutions" or in this case hold off on advocating answers. I don't have time to list all the important bits of data we should be considering or enumerate all the current hypotheses, but I think both would be quite valuable.
Some quick hypothesis:
-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Quirrellmort & responsible for Hermione's 'condition'
-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Lucious & responsible for Hermione's 'condition'
-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Voldemort, but not the Quirrell body.
-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Quirrellmort and trying to take out Hermione as Harry's good side anchor.
-Mr. Hat & Cloak is NOT Quirrellmort.
-Mr. Hat & Cloak is Grindelwald
-Author has made massive continuity alterations many of which are unclear thus it follows that relying on continuity is difficult at best. This most severely impacts character personalities and motivations.
Some quick puzzle bits :
-Hermione thinks Draco and Snape are doing / plotting something evil and hates Draco.
-Hermione was subject to a "Groundhog Day Attack" (I'm not even sure what this in the context of this story).
-Hermione's tone of voice was all satisfaction just before being arrested for allegedly trying to kill Draco.
-Draco has no idea what's going on.
-Hermione defeated Draco's spell which was supposed to be extremely hard to do.
-Black Hat and Cloak did something to Hermione's mind / memory.
-Prof. Q. has some major plotting going.
-Prof. Q.'s goals are not very clear, but his speech in the dinning hall may have shed some light on it and is consistent w/ convo's w/ Harry.
-Author went out of his way to 'rationalize' how Harry didn't go talk to Hermione. Not entirely clear that's consistent w/ Harry or Hermione.
Okay, that's all I've got time for...
I completely read her tone of voice as "in shock and brain is stuck." Very much like Buffy after the 6:30min mark in The Body. Telling the paramedics "Good luck", cleaning up the vomit, etc.
The movie 'Groundhog Day' is about a man who relives the same day over and over again repeatedly. Because the day is reset, he is able to re-play each interaction with any person repeatedly until he can convince them of whatever he wants or work around them. Eg, he finds the hottest woman in town. The first day, he hits on her and is shot down but learns of her highschool. The second day, he says 'hey, didn't we go to highschool together at...?' He is quickly shot down again, but gets more information to keep the conversation longer. This repeats until he eventually gets her to have sex with him.
In chapter 77, H&C performs a similar hack. He tries to convince her, then obliviates her memory and uses his gained information to convince her even more, etc. Instead of resetting the day, he is resetting her mind back again and again. After enough iterations, he'll know exactly the right things to say to convince her to do whatever it is he wishes. As hinted in Chapter 77, what we viewed was not the first nor the last iteration of the attack.
If he is not constrained by ethics, he can also conveniently erase earlier memories of Hermione, if he suspects it would help to persuade her to do what he wants.
Effect - Dark!Hermione or at least different than she was before.
i know were all buzzing about this new chapter, but I found a gem in our newly placed 76 with this ""Grindelwald possessed an ancient and terrible device," said Dumbledore. "While he held it, I could not break his defense. In our duel I could not win, only fight him for long hours until he fell in exhaustion; and I would have died of it afterward, if not for Fawkes. But while his Muggle allies yet made blood sacrifice to sustain him, Grindelwald would not have fallen. He was, during that time, truly invincible. Of that grim device which Grindelwald held, none must know, none must suspect, there must be not a single hint. And therefore you must not speak of it, and I will say no more for now. That is all, Harry. There is no moral to it, and no wisdom. That is all there is."" Definitely Gur erfheerpgvba fgbar and we know this is probably not canonical.
For this chapter, V guvax vg jnf boivbhf nf fbba nf fur jnf natel ng Qenpb gung U&P jbhyq ghea ure ntnvafg uvz. Ur NPGHNYYL yvxrq Urezvabar naq ur pnag svtug ure pbeerpgyl juvyr urf fgvyy uheg bire ybfvat ure cfrhqb-sevraqfuvc. Can't believe were hitting the trial subgenre though, keep up the good work eleizer.
I thought last we heard Hermione was being brainwashed. Is this all happening afterward? What does Hermione think Draco is plotting? Why is Hermione so upset and why hasn't she been talking to Harry?
I am so confused.
Are you truly confused about these?
Yes, this is happening after the Groundhog-day attack. Obviously so.
We don't know yet what Hermione thinks Draco is plotting.
We don't know what exactly happened to make Hermione so upset.
What is there to be confused about? Don't misuse the word to merely signify lack of knowledge.
Presumably, Hermione has just been the subject of a Groundhog Day Attack, and is now believing whatever the mysterious figure wants her to believe. Said figure is presumably new to the concept, as he almost slipped several times. So Hermione thinks Draco is plotting something to exploit her mysterious destiny.
Hermione hasn't been talking to Harry for awhile, I believe.
When you're going to Obliviate the target anyway, there's little downside to letting some frustration slip through. I don't think that necessarily counts as a screwup.
Prediction: Lucious' questioning of Malfoy and subsequent discussion will have results such that Hermione will be saved by the restraint of the Malfoy family in choosing not to punish her severely if at all.
"Mr. Potter, I found my son's memories of your experiments most convincing. Teach me more of these Methods of Rationality you speak of."
Wait, what was it Harry said about optimism?
Chap 79 - EY's added #40 on list to read.
Chap 40
I also find it impossible to believe that Hermione lost to Malfoy, she just beat him fair & square in battle. That certainly sounds like a false memory.
Draco is the better duelist at this point. Draco tired himself out by casting all those tough spells someone his age should not even be able to do, let alone do many times in a row. This was pointed out by Quirrel and Madame Bones, which makes it unlikely that it was just Draco rationalizing it.
Hermione is more magically powerful and also more clever, but when it comes to dueling, Draco still probably has the edge.
They were pretty evenly matched during the Chapter 78 battle, and Draco was a bit drained from charming all the gloves, so it's by no means impossible that Draco beat Hermoine. I expect if they had 10 duels, each would win at least a few.
But it is true that our only sources regarding the outcome of the duel are Draco and Hermoine's memories along with Quirrell's testimony. If those memories were placed by Hat and Cloak, and if Hat and Cloak is Quirrel, then all of our information about what happened between midnight and 6.33am is based on what Quirrell wants us to know. The only bit that is confirmed by another party is that Draco was indeed at some point unconscious in the trophy room.
Maybe Malfoy's first self-defensive instinct was right? Maybe he really had worn himself down by casting all those spells on all those gloves, and that's the only reason he lost. Certainly he thought it was plausible enough that he could beat her that it was worth having a duel as a test.
A few points
Hat and Cloak almost slipped and said time travel.
Mary sue time travel is a common device in fan fiction.
The author has stated MoR includes elements that are necessary to ensure artistic completeness as a work of fan fiction.
Mary sue time travel was derisively referred to in the same conversation in which the idea of Sirius Black conspiracy theories were debunked.
There is a person in Azkaban who endlessly repeats "I'm not serious" (Sirius).
It is not possible to travel more than 6 hours back in time with a time turner.
Prophecies transmit information further back in time than 6 hours.
Atlantis was erased from time.
The Weasley twins remark that the Marauder's Map is showing errors.
The Sorting Hat still works.
From the above, I suspect that Mr. Hat and Cloak is a time traveler who has an earlier version running around in the present.
If Eliezer updates on the eve of the SAT, I'm going to track him down and read Vogon Poetry at him.
As a new lesswrongER, perhaps the most exciting thing about this community is the ability to reference Douglas Adams un-cited and assume that people will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Wow, which communities did you previously hang out in?
Welcome, both to LW and to the part of the internet where you can reference SciFi to your heart's content.
Well, then. I'm certainly glad I didn't wait until after Chapter 79 to register at Less Wrong and post all my theories about Santa Claus and S and H&C!
(Can't find a good place to insert my entire current edifice of theory elsewhere, so I'll put it as a top level comment.)
Quirrell is Voldemort is Mr. Hat and Cloak. Quirrell's ultimate goal is driving Harry permanently into his Dark Side, so as to be another Voldemort, either to rule alongside the real Voldie or to be led by the real Voldie.
Quirrell's first attempt at driving Harry over to his Dark Side was with the Dementor in the Humanism sequence. He would have succeeded, had Hermione not been there to bring him out of it. So from Quirrell's point of view, Hermione is Harry's anchor to his good side.
So then it makes perfect sense for all the events of Self Actualization and this new sequence to be Quirrel/Voldie/H&C's handiwork. Quirrell helped SPHEW win that last battle in Chapter 74 so as to paint a larger target on Hermione. When Harry came to him with his plan for that battle, he just laughed, because Harry had unknowingly come to him with a brilliant plan to further Quirrell's own goals for Hermione's doom. He poisoned Hermione against Draco (which was difficult, because Quirrell is pure evil and Hermione is pure good and he can't understand her) so as to provoke House Malfoy further.
Now Hermione is in deep trouble, just as Quirrell intended. All that remains is for something unspeakably awful to happen to her soon, which, Quirrell believes, will help do to Harry what the Dementor almost did in January.
So... Quirrel made that near-slip of "time travel" and "I'm going to go back in time and try again" in the Groundhog Day Attack? I'm afraid I'm not really buying it.
Why, in this theory, did Voldemort abandon his quite successful campaign, become the lame Quirrel, and begin fiercely criticizing his former self and attempting to reform magical Britain's children into tools that would defeat his former self?
My own (admittedly somewhat romantic) hypothesis is that Quirrelmort is trying to correct his past mistakes.
Recall the conversation that Dumbledore has with Harry regarding escalation and proportional response. Dumbledore tells Harry that the Light cannot, must not win every battle, because some victories come at too high a price. Harry, on the other hand, believes that the ends justify the means, and that it's all just a matter of thinking up a sufficiently clever solution. Without Dumbledore's intervention, he would've escalated the SPHEW-bully conflict to the point where it engulfs all of Magical Britain, and quite possibly plunges the Wizarding world into a new dark age of terror.
Does that sound familiar at all ?
My guess is that Voldemort, in his original body, was a bit like Harry. He wanted to optimize the Wizarding society, and in order to do so, he had to take over, and in order to make an omelette, you've got to break a few eggs, and there are people opposing you, and before you know it, you're a Dark Lord and people are skinning your opponents alive in your name. The only option was to fake your own death and start anew... which is exactly what Voldemort did.
He didn't abandon his campaign, he got blown out of his body when he tried to kill Harry Potter. Later on he possessed Quirrell, and as he said himself, "One can never quite disentangle the mind from the body it wears". Perhaps he's imbued with some of Quirrell's own opinions. Quirrell must have been somewhat Voldemort-ish before the possession, if Voldie chose him as a suitable vessel.
Incidentally, when all has he criticized Voldemort? I can think of one time, when he said that Voldie was foolish to wish the story of the dojo to be retold. But if Quirrell's part of the story was really Voldemort, then that was simply a lie; Voldie DIDN'T kill everyone on his first visit to the dojo, but later on, deliberately, to sow fear. At any rate, we shouldn't take Quirrell's opinions of Voldemort at face value, given that, to some extent, they're the same person. "Don't believe everything you read."
And Voldemort isn't training Britain's children to defeat a Dark Lord, he's training them to defeat the Muggles. In MoR, Voldemort actually has a good reason to hate Muggles and Muggleborns: their recklessness with power (nuclear weapons, etc.). In his speech before Christmas he all but stated his belief that there would someday be a climactic battle between wizardkind and the Muggle world, which only a united wizarding world could win. That is his ultimate purpose for Dark Harry: to lead the world (or help Voldie lead the world) against the Muggles.
So basically he accidentally torpedoed his original campaign and his life as Quirrel is just making the best of it? But then why didn't he just restart his original campaign? Quirrel seems quite powerful enough to credibly claim to be Voldemort resurrected and enforce his rule, based on his duel in Azkaban with a top Auror and his general position at Hogwarts.
Dumbledore was a credible threat to him even back when he had his full power. In his weakened state, there may be too much danger that he would end up in a direct confrontation with Dumbledore or some union of strong opponents and lose. McGonagall's reminiscences of having encountered Voldemort before, three times at Dumbledore's side, implies that they've faced each other head on before.
But even if he could manage it as a matter of convenience, he might not be able to as a matter of pride. Dumbledore said that he doesn't think Voldemort would settle for any less than the strongest instantiation of the spell that would return him to power. Even if he has some avenue to victory which would probably work, he may simply be dissatisfied with any plan which does not result in him completely regaining his powers.
When Dumbledore tells his closest colleagues that draining the life from a follower over a long period would render Voldemort weak compared to his former power, I'm inclined to believe him. Even if you're not, there's the rather inconvenient periods of near-catatonia to get around. (Unless you think that's an act for some reason?)
Everybody sleeps eventually, which is worse than Quirrel's catatonia.
The catatonia appears to be getting worse and worse over time. Channeling strong magic through Quirrell accelerates the decay. I suspect he'll crap out as a host by the end of the school year, and that's with Quirrell being reasonably conservative of his energy.
(Actually, I would expect that to be one of the first things Voldemort modified about himself, if it's at all possible.)
I meant more the problems it presents for intimidation value, but I guess if you've Marked your followers to ensure loyalty and/or obedience regardless, it's just a matter of not spending a lot of time in the public eye, which he'd be doing anyway. It's still pretty undignified, but that doesn't seem to bother Quirrell overmuch, so...
The real question, which I don't believe the duel with Bahry or the Massacre of the Bullies answers, is whether Quirrell could stand up to Dumbledore. If he couldn't - even if he just had significantly less endurance - that would make it pretty hard to claim the mantle of Voldemort.
If Quirrell was confident he could kill Dumbledore he would have done so by now, of that I'm certain. Gods, Eliezer better be planning to write this fight eventually.
For Quirrell it would be "in character" to kill Dumbledore in such a way, that everybody would think it was natural death. Or at least assasinate him quietly without witnesses, without time for Dumbledore to react.
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.
I can only think that Quirrell thinks everything is going according to plan, and no need to make the game more chaotic by killin Dumbledore now.
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.
"Polyfluis Reverso!"
If killing Dumbledore were as simple as yelling "Avada Kedavra" at him when his back is turned, he'd already be dead.
Dumbledore's death would probably be not worth the trouble right now, but I think that if it were possible Quirrell would have removed and impersonated him before Harry ever got to Hogwarts.
Quirrell probably has more raw talent than Albus, but when someone has an ancient wand that guarantees combat victory talent isn't enough. He's smart enough to know he'll need to plot his way to victory, because he is not beating the Elder Wand.
Even in canon, Voldemort rarely goes up against Dumbledore directly. They rarely ever meet after he graduates. IIRC, it's something like he applies for 1) Defense against the Dark arts & is rejected; 2) hides from Dumbledore on Quirrel's head (indefinite number of encounters); 3) fights Dumbledore in the Ministry to a draw; and that's about it.
At the beginning of Chapter 62, though, we learn that McGonagall has faced Voldemort four times:
"She had encountered the Dark Lord four times and survived each one, three times with Albus to shield her and once with Moody at her side."
This makes it likely that Dumbledore has faced Voldemort on other occasions without her.
Another MoR divergence, perhaps; nothing in canon comes to mind.
So in all that long period of open war, during which Lily & James Potter and Alice & Frank Longbottom both fought Voldemort and survived three times each, the strongest Light wizard in Britain never crossed wands with his foe?
Sure. We are told Voldemort feared Dumbledore, are we not? Does a chess player immediately send out his queen to duel the other player's queen? And is this not exactly what happened with the previous Dark Lord - were we not explicitly told in canon that Dumbledore only encountered Grindelwald at their final clash and they never met between that and the death of his sister?
I'd like to point out that after Azkaban, when Quirrell tries to talk Harry into his next plot, Harry refuses by citing what Hermione and Draco would say. Quirrell sits there and thinks for a really long time, and asks if Harry really cares about what they think. My guess is that right then and there is when Quirrell decides to take them out.
Update March 12: He's reading HPMoR, thanks presumably to the 7+ fan reviews from LWers, tvtropers, and whatever you call an xkcd fan. Still no fan reviews for Luminosity or Hamlet and the Philosopher's Stone.
Damien Walter reviews sci-fi and fantasy for The Guardian. He's looking for weird, self-published online fiction to read over the next month, and he'll review the best ones he finds. He's just asked people to recommend stories in the comments to his latest article. If you want to see Methods of Rationality, Luminosity, or my Hamlet and the Philosopher's Stone reviewed in a respected newspaper (there is precedent!), please consider heading over there and posting a short review (one link per comment, you can comment more than once). Each of the three is a hard sell even by online fantasy standards, and I imagine it would help if a disinterested party vouched for them.
Success!
It seems that the popular opinion around here is that Mr. Hat & Cloak is someone, anyone, other than Quirrellmort. I think this is a case of the same kind of thinking that led people to wonder whether Quirrell was Voldemort a lot longer than Eliezer intended.
I think Eliezer probably meant us to know that Quirrell was H&C the very first time he appeared. Quirrell follows after Zabini when he leaves Harry; Zabini says that Quirrell reacted exactly as H&C told him he would. He knew how Quirrell would react because he is Quirrell, and he told Zabini to do what he did specifically so Harry, who Quirrell knew would be around after the ceremony, could hear it and have another reason to distrust Dumbledore.
Eliezer has already dealt with this once. Everyone suppressed their own knowledge of canon and faculties of logic even in the face of nigh-incontrovertible evidence that Quirrell was Voldemort. He expressed his confusion at this in the author's notes, and I believe he vowed to make his blatant hints more blatant in the future.
I think Quirrell being H&C is even more blatant than Quirrellmort was, and here we are doing the exact same thing. We do it because we love the story and want to preserve as many surprises as we can for as long as possible. We want to wait, wait, wait for a bigger payoff later.
I think Eliezer is likely to be silently rolling his eyes at us on this, thinking "There they go again!" and chuckling quietly to himself. But I know that if he is, he's darn well going to let us figure it out for ourselves this time, rather than once again holding our hands as we step gingerly to conclusions to which he meant us to leap.
What really throws this for me is that Quirrell is said to go down the hallway in the same direction as Zabini, and then in the next section Zabini meets H&C. That is so blatant that I actually consider it an anti-clue. It's like someone pretending to steal something and whistling nonchalantly to draw attention to their jest-theft. Contrast to Quirrell trying to permanently Dement Harry during the Humanism arc, which was subtle enough that I completely missed it in the first reading (tho didn't hurt that I was very biased by my adoration of Quirrell at that point).
Wait, what? Has this been discussed somewhere?
Somewhere in the old threads I think, but I'm in a rush and can't look it up right now. Quick points:
All plausibly deniable, and exactly Quirrell's style.
Holy crap.
That implies he at least suspects Harry holds a horcrux...
Ha! Or maybe Eliezer has been rolling his eyes at us (or, rather, y'all), and gave us a blatant hint with the contrast of competent Quirrell interrogating sneaky Snape and less experienced H&C working on naive Hermione. I think you're just clinging to your one beautiful idea, instead of examining other possibilities - like, say, H&C is taking instructions from Quirrell, maybe?
See? Two can play that game.
I'm not sure why almost everyone assumes that the first and the second H&C is the same person. Is there any reason to think so, beside their appearance?
Same appearance is a clue to the two H&C-s being related, but not necessarily to identity. For example, a hat and a cloak may be a uniform in a secret society, to be worn in special circumstances. Or, maybe two of them were friends and did pranks like that in their youth. Or, one of them saw the other do this trick once long ago, was impressed, and remembered it. Etc etc.
What I'm leading to is the possibility of the first H&C being Quirrell, and the second being Lucius.
I think Eliezer referred to both of them as "Mr. Hat-and-Cloak" in the author's notes.
I much like the idea of this being a standard spell, as that provides further cover for your identity.
They Guy Fawkes mask is the modern equivalent.
The problem I have with this is that it's unnecessary from Quirrel's point of view.
If Quirrell wanted a 3 way tie, he could have managed that himself as the organizer.
If Quirrell wanted Blaise to testify about Dumbledore, he could have pulled the same trick Kingsley did in book 5 at far less risk.
If Quirrell wanted to convince Hermoine of something, he wouldn't have needed multiple tries reset with Obliviate.
Quirrell being H&C is superfluous frow Quirrell's point of view. He could have achieved all of those by himself.
You realize Dumbledore was the one who made the 3-way tie happen? Zabini was just reporting on it to quirrel and HnC.
Quirrel might want blaise to talk about dumbledore IN FRONT of quirrel and not give away that quirrel ordered him to a cunning observer, such as harry. This would mean giving him orders as someone other than quirrel.
As far as hermione goes, do you seriously think any idea she gained from quirrel would be as convincing to her as one conveyed by whatever entity he ends up using in the memory attack? As she said, she doesn't trust HnC when he appears extremely suspicious, and she would never trust quirrel for the exact same reasons.
Ah yes, Dumbledore did indeed wish for the 3-way tie to happen. Although it did occur with the full consent and knowledge of H&C. Whoever H&C was, he let that plan go through. I will point out that Zabini didn't just report it to Quirrell/Harry, but rather reported a distorted version that involved giving false information.
The trick I'm referring to in book 5 is when Cho's friend is testifying to Umbridge and Kingsley changes her testimony right before she gives it. It's been a while since I read it but it was probably the Imperius or Confundus. Eg, if Quirrell were willing to go these lengths to mislead Harry, he could have just cast a spell on Zabini and be done with it.
Also, I agree with you about Hermoine not trusting anything she heard from Quirrell. However, I only said that Quirrell wouldn't need so many tries, not that he'd talk to her with his face. He's had her as a student; he's interacted with her personally; hell, he's made her a general and has her marked as a person of interest. He would already know what it takes to convince her. He would have succeeded with a singly try instead of wasting hours in that corridor. What's more, Quirrell is a master legilimens; if he's willing to pull off a Groundhog Day attack on her he might as well just read her mind and get it right the first try. There's no point in wasting time, magic, and risk of getting caught when you could just do the job perfectly in 30 seconds.
I think you're overestimating Quirrel. Harry finds him extremely persuasive because he's inclined to agree with him, because he's grown to trust and like him. Hermione might respect him as teacher, but she doesn't trust OR like him, and this is obvious whenever harry tries to tell her something Quirrel told him. EVEN when you're extremely competent some things simply take some trial and error to get correct, and understanding a mind that's diametrically opposed to yours should be one of those things. Quirrel doesn't know EVERYTHING.
As far as legilimency goes, it's established that that the person needs to be thinking about a topic or atleast about similar topics before you can find out about it. This means that legilimizing someone in order to gain their inner motivations, worries, and handles is definitely gonna take way longer than 30 seconds.
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In chapter 75 Snape gives Hermione a rather thorough dressing-down in front of the school. Did the Groundhog Day attack in chapter 77 happen on the same day? I have been assuming that Snape & Harry were broadly correct, and the Groundhog Day attack was how that madness-guiding trick was done.
My working-theory is that the entire purpose of the attack was to produce a directed trauma, and an obsession, without a readily detectable cause.
Xachariah and Drethelin, if I've read you right you both believe that Hat and Cloak's purpose was to put some idea or belief into Hermione's head; to convince her of something. I think that there is something rather deeper and more subtly manipulative going on here.
[Edited for formatting.]
Having one's mind read for the first time seems to leave some kind of trace; if he's not sure she's ever had her mind read before he shouldn't try it because then Dumbledore or Snape could learn later that someone's been peeking.
This seems to be borne out by the events of Chapter 79:
Even if Hat and Cloak is Quirrell, the job had to be done the hard way, without Legilimency.
I disagree with this at least as strongly as you believe it. I'm pretty sure he meant Hat and Cloak to be a giant question mark. Hence the elaborate descriptions of the broad hat, the dark mist, and the gender-concealing cloak, all drawing your attention to the mystery of his identity. There have been hints, but they don't all point in the same direction the way they do for Quirrell and Voldemort. Some are red herrings. I conclude that we're not meant to be certain of who he is. We're meant to wonder and doubt.
I found stuff about the "Centre for Modern Rationality" hiding on hpmor.org!
There are more goodies there than just that.
Everyone seems to be holding the idiot ball with regards sending Snape to check Hermoine's room - this makes me suspect Dumbledore was behind the escalation.
If Harry does not manage to find the real culprit, then how does he save Hermione from having her wand broken?
Breakout/Direct Attack on the Wizengamot / Malfoy Manor
Transfigure a one-atom line of antimatter through the earth's crust all the way to the Wizengamot or Malfoy Manor, and then a small bubble there. His wand is then touching the item to be transformed, and it will work.
Go to Azkaban and round up a few hundred dementors.
Stealth
Bringing Hermione under the aegis of a noble house
He consults professor Quirrell, accuses him of setting this all up to rob him of friends, and demands that he free Hermione in order to prove his innocence and good-will.
Quirrell disappears, reappears, and informs Harry that Lucius had a change of heart and is dropping all charges.
Bribery, Trade, or Begging
Harry could offer to pay Lucius Malfoy something in restitution. It couldn't just be money or an incredible favor. As the original 'Taboo Tradeoffs' paper mentions, people only get more angry when you try to do that. Harry would need an accurate model of Lucius suspecting him as Harrymort and be able to trade him something that Harrymort would consider sacred.
Trade his invisibility cloak to Lucius for Hermione's freedom. Make sure to play up that it is 1/3rd of the Deathly Hallows and thus something Harrymort considers sacred/invaluable.
Trade Lucius a blood debt from the House of Potter.
Make an unbreakable vow to protect Draco or otherwise help Lucius (or some other ritual).
(Assuming Roger Bacon's diary is indeed the diary Horcrux and Harry manages to discover that) Trade Lucius a piece of Voldemort's soul as apology.
None of the trades seem particularly smart or likely, but Harry might consider a few of them if he got really desperate. They seem to be of sufficient value to Lucius (or rather, to Harry's model of Lucius' model of Harrymort) to prove that Harry is genuinely sorry and be worth Hermione's life/magic/future.
Stealth - not only he must transfer cloak to Hermione - he must also get Hermione out of court, and she must be in cloak at all times to prevent tracking magic, and Harry must have the cloak with himself, when Dumbledore will want to see it, when tracking magic will stop working (and there's spell that detects if cloak is nearby).
One way to do this - duplicate cloak using time turner for the moment Dumbledore will want to check it.
Scheme:
Harry takes cloak, mokesking pouch, and time turner with himself to the court
Harry waits for Hermione to disappear
Harry puts his mokeskin poach under the table or somewhere and not look at it
Hermione disappears
Dumbledore try to track Hermione and fails - so he checks if cloak is near - it is, so he asks Harry about it - Harry shows cloak to Dumbledore and it's empty
Harry goes back wearing cloak just before the moment Hemrione should disappear, takes the mokeskin poach that he left under the table, somehow makes everybody look elsewhere and put Hermione into his own mokeskin poach which he keeps under the duplicated cloak (may need to use potion or sth that will turn Hermione into animal or thing or sth that he can put into poach - like with Quirrell as a snake).
Harry in the past waits for Dumbledore to check the cloak that Harry in the present has with himself, waits for everybody to get out, and somehow passes the poach back to himself without looking at himself. Harry in the present puts poach into the cloak.
Possible failures - Dumbledore can keep the cloak, making it impossible to hide Hermione after the time turner is used up. I think Dumbledore won't do this - he didn't wanted to keep cloak to himself, he wants Harry to have cloak just in case, and even if he see throught this plot, he can let it slip, because he probably don't want Hermione to have wand snapped. But it's one failure mode.
Also Harry must be prepared to "prove" he didn't used up his TimeTurner, like he did after Azkaban Breaking.
I probbly missed something, and this won't work.
Items aren't held in stasis while in mid-transfiguration as far as I am aware.
I'm not sure he even needs a line anyway.
Ok, do the same with a radioactive substance- it won't do anything until enough has been transfigured to go critical.
Ten points to Slytherin for creativity. Minus ten bajillion points for holy shit, are you suicidal?!
That's just 15 joules per cubic meter of rock, until you get to the bomb. Not even detectable. I wonder, however, how the magic source is going to do turning energy back into matter afterwards.
Damn. Why are people not blowing things up with antimatter all the time?
Ignorance, high transfiguration skill level required, magical safeguards in place, possibly.
Makes sense. We could probably also build a power plant powered by transfigured antimatter.
How would blowing up Malfoy Manor help Harry anyway? He'd be hurting Draco, who loves his father, and the court case brought by Draco against Hermione would go forward.
Are we sure of that? The trial might vanish if the House of Malfoy is extirpated.
Won't save Slytherin, which is one of HP's goals.
I'm guessing that currently Hermione factors about 50 times more in Harry's utility function than the whole of Slytherin House put together.
Hermione is much more important, but HP would prefer a plan that did not inherently make Draco his enemy. I don't think it is much of a stretch to think exposing Malfoy Manor to anti-matter would make Draco become an enemy.
I'm sure Harry wouldn't want to extirpate the whole House, which includes Draco. Just killing Lord Malfoy (and any servants who happened to be near) is enough collateral damage that Harry wouldn't seriously consider it if Hermione isn't facing outright death herself.
Besides, I'm pretty sure there are other branches of the Malfoys that would inherit the title. Draco mentioned an uncle or some other relative not in the line of succession who used to visit him at least a few years ago.
Even better- That uncle will likely want the title, so Harry just needs to bargain with him.
"If you get the title, you'll drop all charges, right?"
New Disscussion Thread! Here.
Minor bug report: chapter 79 says "Blood-Cooling Charm" instead of "Blood-Chilling Charm" in one place.
So, possible Wild Guess, but has enough reinforcement that I'm going to throw it out there.
Right now, it seems like Eliezer is pushing to the trial. The chapter implies that Harry has done nothing else of note before Hermione's trial, meaning he will have limited ability to defend her. Without any sort of evidence to raise reasonable doubt, he'd basically have to manipulate the Wizengamot.
... Which, while beyond Harry's ability, is not beyond others. In particular: Quirrellmort.
If Quirrell manages to get Hermione acquitted...
1) Quirrell earns lots of Harry points. Regains trust after the Azkaban semi-fiasco.
2) Quirrell emphasizes his role as Harry's mentor and protector when even Dumbledore is helpless.
3) Meanwhile, this whole fiasco has convinced Harry even more that the wizarding society has issues.
4) Hermione is reinstated as an ally of Harry. If Quirrellmort's goal is to strengthen Harry, this is also a plus.
5) Draco is now a victim of a plan, and earns pity, not respect, destabilizing Lucius' power base.
If, simultaneously, Quirrell were to keep Lucius from undoing Harry's turning...
1) Again, adds another ally, Harry points, etc.
And if both... then we have two heroes of Slytherin and of Ravenclaw who survived an evil plot, and may well garner sympathy for that plot. And remember, Quirrell promised to make Slytherin and Ravenclaw simultaneously win the House Cup...
Quirrell storming into the trial when the majority of the audience believes him to be the one behind everything sounds quite like this story's style.
The trouble with this theory is that the arc is confirmed to last until chapter 84, and Quirrell being suddenly released from custody would be far too short of a resolution.
I suspect Harry and Co will come up with some sort of last-ditch effort during the trial, leading to some sort of awesome event like the previously suggested Trial-By-Combat (though obviously not that). I suspect Quirrell will play some part in the end, though.
Oh, and I'd like to predict that we find out H&C's identity during this arc.
It was mentioned that Fawkes was in the room. Maybe Harry threatens the chamber with having Fawkes teleport him to Azkaban and destroying all the dementors after demonstrating on the one in the room.
It is surprising that Quirrell would accidentally reveal himself as an impostor during interrogation; so, perhaps the Quirrell currently in custody is an impostor--meaning that he is not the Quirrell currently teaching at Hogwarts. If so, the imposter is there to give Quirrell time to do something else. He may be attempting to prove Hermione's innocence (even if he is to blame for the current situation), or he may also be after the Philosopher's stone.
Highly unlikely unless there are two Quirrels running around in possession of powerful wandless magic (remember the 'sneeze'?)
The "ending at 84" is actually another reason I thought this was likely, because frankly, there's only so much Harry can do at the trial itself. I'm imagining the next four chapters or so being about the aftermath of the trial, seeing Hermione's and Draco's reactions and the ripple effects of the trial.
So what are people's odds that Harry manages to get Hermione off?
I don't think they're at that stage in their relationship yet, do you?
Well if if were her final request...
Surely there are certain spells...
That might cause wireheading problems...
Yep... i don't think so either.. but then they aren't normal kids either so this ain't a normal relationship..:-P
Methinks there are some places conversations about 11-year-olds don't need to go...
Harry and co. have one untapped potential ally: Lucius Malfoy. If they gave him all their clues, he may be convinced, just as they have been. And he has a powerful motive to find out who really tried to kill his son, even if he goes through with the trial against Hermione to avoid losing face.
The problem is how to approach him. He would not trust Dumbledore (his political enemy), Harry (he believes he is Voldemort and will soon hate him for 'turning' Draco), or Snape or Minerva (Dumbledore's agents).
I nominate Quirrel (to be sent by Harry) - known (or at least publicly displaying himself to be) free of Dumbledore's influence, a powerful Slytherin, and the one who actually saved Draco's life. Lucius would listen to him. Whether Quirrel would want to cooperate is another matter, but he should have some difficulty saying no to Harry and Dumbledore at once.
For Lucius to trust them, some of them might have to volunteer to testify in front of him under Veritaserum that they really believe the theory that Hermione didn't do it. Dumbledore is a known Occlumens, Snape and Quirrel would at least be suspected of being such, Harry told Draco he is so now Lucius knows as well. A weaker character like Minerva would be useless because Lucius could easily believe Dumbledore misled her. This is a problem...
Does H&C want Lucius to try to destroy Harry? Because that's what's going to happen when Draco spills the beans about what they've been doing.
I figure being referenced in the author's notes is enough to justify cross posting. I guess I'll find out if that's the case. (In the choice between not posting and posting without updating speculation, I decided to rationalize my sloth with a false dichotomy, maybe.)
pervenit pasta
Chapter 14: The Unknown and the Unknowable
HJPEV tells McGonagall about the message for Slytherin's Heir, refuses point-based reward, receives Time Turner, freaks the fuck out about receiving a time machine to treat his sleep disorder, has another 'you turned into a cat' moment, receives invisibility cloak from unknown person, learns what getting lost in Hogwarts entails, pranks himself, learns "There was something wrong with Harry Potter."
Chapter 21: Rationalization
Hermione deludes herself about why she likes beating HJPEV, chooses love, displays knowledge of Planning Fallacy, claims her prize; HJPEV creeps it up with Draco, claims Hermione as his own, traps Draco with promises of power, mentions that Draco should test the strength of muggleborn magic personally, agrees that human sacrifice is easier than changing his mind, establishes tradition of secrecy in the magical sciences, establishes Bayesian Conspiracy, receives a book, advice, and petty cash from 'Santa Claus,' receives 12-candle cake from twins, hears "HE COMES-' prophecy, summarizes the first 21 chapters for us, and writes home.
Chapter 26: Noticing Confusion
Quirrell dishes a Take That on cannon, lowers room temperatures, thoughtfully tortures inkwell to death, concedes that remedial education for mugleborn students is worthwhile damage control, and is cheered up; HJPEV learns the results of his proxy-prank on Rita Skeeter, is permitted to see uncommon expressions on Quirrell's face, takes a papercut that this reader once thought might have left Quirrell with a drop of his blood, becomes frustrated when Quirrell claims to have figured the prank out and refuses to share, is thwarted and dismayed at the bank, realizes what he did to Skeeter, is forced to say some things contrary to his good nature, and receives Roger Bacon's stolen diary; Quirrell foreshadows knowing where the Resurrection Stone is and kills Skeeter.
Chapter 35: Coordination Problems
HJPEV stares down Quirrell in a dispute over government models, Blaise Zabini meets Quirrel's eyes, while lying, while possessing knowledge of Mr. Hat-and-Cloak, and tells Quirrell and the hidden HJPEV that Dumbledore sent bullies after his cousin; Quirrell sells the story of Dumbledore's plotting and tells HJPEV that Dumbledore is "insane pretending to be sane pretending to be insane," then telegraphs his additional meeting to the reader; HJPEV demonstrates a preference for Heroic Sacrifice and shows the reader his allegiance to the muggles, not the magic; Mr. Hat-and-Cloak checks in on Blaise, uses the phrase "Salazar Slytherin would have keyed his monster into the ancient wards at a higher level than the Headmaster himself" which is almost repeated by Quirrell in chapter 49, "some entity which Salazar Slytherin keyed into his wards at a higher level than the Headmaster himself," and wipes himself from Blaise's memories; McGonagall tries to talk to Hermione about reasonable safety concerns and what good girls should be up to, fails; HJPEV uses ham-fisted reverse psychology on Draco, succeeds, and confesses his unnatural love for Quirrell.
Chapter 40: Pretending to be Wise
Quirrell lectures HJPEV on becoming vulnerable to Let's You And Him Fight (which is tragically a trope that diverges from the original meaning of the phrase and so is not linked here), answers some questions about the afterlife, lowers room temperatures, makes a joke with two of his favorite words as the punchline, learns that he already knows where the Resurrection Stone is (despite having just told HJPEV that he should be careful when sharing information), drops a hint regarding his (modestly successful) quest for immortality, and runs off to steal a Deathly Hallow which he has almost certainly possessed since that very afternoon.
Chapter 43-47: Humanism & Personhood Theory
Dumbledore thinks Dementor Day is part of a cunning plan; Quirrell can teach AK to students who ask; Hermione and HJPEV want to Patronus, but cannot, and so they both embarass themselves and logically enough end up kissing after HJPEV experiences a memory a human brain could not contain and explores Utilitarianism; HJPEV explains his position on death, symbolically kills it while the author reveals the nature of Dementors, then refuses to tell anyone else how it's done; Quirrell punningly says that he does not mind being called a Death Eater, which is surprising considering what he did to the last person we know of who made that accusation, identifies Dumbledore as the most attractive target in all of Hogwarts, calls HJPEV on Confirmation Bias, and elicits a Top Five Hiding Places list from HJPEV, which turns out to be 'riddle' of some sort (or just another opportunity to pun his name in); HJPEV sends Hermione a How To (Symbolically) Defeat Death pamphlet, and figures some things out about his "I Was an Infant Honeypot" origin story, or so he thinks; Draco Patronuses, realizes that HJPEV is a Slytherin, hears about the insidious evils of discrimination, tells HJPEV about Dumbledore's evil deeds, the two boys talk about their dead mothers and bond under starlight; snakes briefly appear sentient
Chapter 56: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Constrained Optimization & Constrained Cognition
HJPEV lies to McGonagall; Dumbledore's Patronus can hunt; HJPEV dominates Bella, his dark side, his invisibility cloak, and a handful of Dementors, he hides from Dumbledore and transfigures some impressive things
Chapter 63: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Aftermaths
HJPEV & Hermione talk about what Phoenixes are for; HJPEV trusts Draco with a letter form Lucius; Neville does not get the support he might have expected from HJPEV in his proposed vengeance on Bella; Lesath Lestrange pledges himself to HJPEV, fails; Amelia Bones learns that someone was looking out for her people, draws the wrong conclusions in entirely an understandable fashion; Dumbledore tells the twins not to let HJPEV out of Hogwarts for any reason, appears successful; Moody supplies some of the best not-quite internal monologue in the whole fic while he and Snape punk the wrong bones; HJPEV muses on the nature and consequences of dishonesty and other depressing things related to human nature, then gets all mortal and human with Hermione, but not that way; Santa Claus strikes again; Sybill Trelawney speaks prophesies we are not told.
Chapter 66: Self Actualization
HJPEV cares about what Draco and Hermione think of him, tells Quirrell so; Hermione hears that HJPEV and Neville have been hanging with Edward and learning to be hardcore; HJPEV and Neville are hanging with Edward and learning to be hardcore.
Chapter 73-77: Self Actualization and Sunk Costs
It's an adventure. Lots of things happen. It's all too close to be sure of what parts are hints about what, except for Mr. Hat-and-Cloak, who we are to understand is most certainly Quirrell, hitting Hermione with a dictionary attack and turning her into someone less useful to HJPEV, I guess.
14
21
26
35
40
43-47
56-57
63
66
73-77
The prize was that Quirrell gets to teach students the killing curse.
Is Harry's guess at the twins' prank on Rita the correct one, and by corollary, are we supposed to believe that Quirrelmort couldn't come up with a hypothesis that basic, and/or that it had been that easy for the twins to successfully brainwash an adult witch? (And on a meta level: was it worth it to make such a hubbub with such a supremely, well, boring answer?)
Harry leaps to that conclusion before hearing from Dumbledore how difficult they are to create. Even if that was the method, there is still the question of how they managed to accomplish it.
My hypothesis — as of several chapters ago — is that Dumbledore assisted in the Rita prank. He certainly had the motive, since he's playing the game against Lucius and Rita was Lucius's pawn. He also had the means (being incredibly powerful). Why hadn't he acted against her earlier? Because he hadn't been clever enough to think up a good way to get at her without inviting retaliation.
So how did he ever get included in the twins' plan?
Easy: he's in the habit of routinely reading their mind. Evidence for this lies in chapter 63: "It wasn't that the Headmaster had popped up out of nowhere and was staring at them with a stern expression. Dumbledore was always doing that." There's also weak evidence in chapter 12, where Dumbledore knows Harry wants to reformulate Quidditch (he could know via F&G via Ron). And in chapter 79, where he knows about the map.
So: The twins are walking around thinking about how to implement their plan against Rita, Dumbledore pops up out of nowhere looking for some good gossip, sees their plans, seizes the opportunity. The exact implementation could either be a memory charm (maybe trap her when she shows up at Mary's room looking for gossip about Amelia Bones, Dumbledore's ally), or else Dumbledore could actually pull off the acts Quirrell calls impossible.
Yes. That was the point of the whole incident.
The twins didn't brainwash Rita, they paid somebody to do it for them.
Why would Quirrel go to Fuyuki City in 1983? The 5th Holy Grail War takes place around 2003, with the 4th 10 years before during 1993. Assuming that Quirrel knew about the Grail Wars, he'd also have known about the 60 year cycles and would have little reason to arrive earlier. The earliest Zero relevant information happens eight years earlier in 1985. The closest event in TYPE MOON chronology would be Shiki's birth or the first case of Agonist Disorder. But the former is related more to Misaki town than Fuyuki city and the latter is from DDD... which only has an obscure, mostly unread translation!
So I'm probably overthinking the connection to Fuyuki; it's probably just a one off reference. It's that or the timeline was 'magically' shifted forward by 10 years, with the 5th grail war in 1993 and the 4th in 1983...
This is a Harry Potter fic, not a crossover. It's a Shout Out, not an actual reference.
I admit, however, that if the dates were right I would totally be supporting one of the H&Cs being Heroic Spirit POTTER.
Am I the only one that's worried about Trelawney's prophecy? My vague recollection is that she's a joke of a diviner, but when you get right down to it, the fact that she predicted the same thing for each student in the class isn't such a huge likelihood burden if you consider that they are not necessarily independent events. That is to say, she may well be predicting the death of someone all the students know. Which would suggest a tragic ending to this story, probably, unless it's someone all the students Know-Who.
Or she's predicting a very imminent war.
Did anybody bothered to check previous spells on Hermione, Snape, and Quirrell wands? EDIT: Ok, we''re told Quirrell cast tens of spells since 06:33, still - they should check just to be sure.
Now it seems Harry should just kidnapp Hermione and hide here somewhere(And give her cloak to hide her from tracking spels).
"Professor Quirrell had cast tracking Charms because he had learned of a person with a motive to harm Mr. Malfoy. Professor Quirrell had refused to identify this person." hmm, why hadn't they used veritaserum on Quirrell to ask him who had the motive? Seems like usefull thing to know after murder attempt..
Also - Quirrell said he found out about Draco at 06:33 - just half an hour too late to use Time Turner and check what happened or to stop Hermione in the first place. Funny coincidence.
Quirrells suspect is Dumbledore, as has been clearly stated. He probably did not do it. Quirrell basically acted on a hunch and the Aurors do not really care about that.
Quirrell is, as an Occlumens, immune to veritaserum. Just like Harry.
Quirrell.
It's not just about him not bothering to check whether he had a visa to Fuyuki city.
It's about him always having claimed to be a Slytherin.
Despite actually being... a Ravenclaw?
That doesn't sound like the kind of claim you could get away with it, and Quirrell should know that, but he still makes it, and... gets away with it?
Doesn't any current Hogwarts student have parents/relatives/family friends who knew Quirrell from his time back at school?
And it's blindingly, blitheringly obvious by this point that Quirrell is H&C. Too obvious.
Why would Quirrell orchestrate this in a way that ends in him being interrogated by the DMLE? Compare with his attempted Dementation of Harry.
In fact, the same thing would apply even if he weren't H&C. I'd expect him to have come up with a better way of handling it. One with more plausible deniability.
Conclusion: Quirrell planned to be interrogated by the DMLE. Quirrell planned to have his cover blown. Why? I haven't the slightest idea.
I still don't know what to make of the Ravenclaw thing, though.
Edit: Just checked to see if Quirrell had actually claimed to be in Slytherin instead of just implying it. Yes, he had.
Chapter 16.
Edit: Of course he planned to be interrogated; he couldn't afford to be inside Hogwarts when Dumbledore began searching for Tom Riddle.
I still don't know why he'd want to blow his cover, though.
The line about having been sorted into Ravenclaw could be as fake as the Fuyuki City thing, Scrimgeour's play. Quirrell's apparent failure could just be a way of getting temporarily detained, while Dumbedore's looking for Riddle and Harry wants his help. His cover could actually be pretty solid, so he'd just shrug off Scrimgeour's suspicions once it's time to go.
Speculation on the Slytherin/Ravenclaw issue: Quirrell is a double impostor. He's Voldemort possessing a Slytherin (name unknown) and pretending to be that Slytherin pretending to be a Ravenclaw named Quirinus Quirrell. Dumbledore knows about one level of the masquerade, and accepts the explanation that the Slytherin of unknown name is a private person. Quirinus Quirrell may be an entirely constructed identity, although that would make it less likely for him to have failed to remember some of the details of it under interrogation.
Voldemort himself seems like a pretty artificial persona. I think it's better to think of both Voldemort and Quirrell as Riddle's inventions, not directly related to one another.
I don't think he's worried by the Marauder's Map. If he knew it could expose him he'd have already taken it from Fred and George.
Of course, there is no possible way that he does not have his exit from Hogwarts entirely planned out. But it's still April, so I don't think he plans on leaving quite yet.
He may not know of the Map's existence. He may be afraid of Dumbledore having some, possibly unknown to Quirrel, spells (or Hogwarts wards) for locating people by their names.
An important hint: "Obliviation cannot be detected by any known means, but only a Professor could have cast that spell upon a student without alarm from the Hogwarts wards."
This means no Lucius, no Sirius, no Lupin, etc.
In Chapter 79, Dumbledore speculates that Hermione's supposed attempted murder of Draco was a move by Voldemort to remove two of Harry's allies.
I wonder if it might rather be a move to turn Harry (even more) against Wizarding society by exposing the massive flaws of their justice system. (Of course, it could be both at once.)
End of Chapter 80: This result has come about.
Quirrel can turn Harry instantly and permanently against Dumbledore (edit: though not Wizarding society in general), any day he likes, by telling him that the Philosopher's stone exists and Dumbledore is allowing Flamel to hoard it (and the method for creating more) for himself.
No stronger method is needed. Harry would declare Dumbledore his enemy on the spot.
That could turn him against Dumbledore (and Flamel), but I don't see how it would turn him against Wizarding society. I doubt most wizards give Flamel or the Stone a second thought, if they even know he/it exists.
It's also notable that the revelation of the existence of Nurmengard, which imprisons wizards without using Dementors, did not really turn him any more against Dumbledore or Wizarding society.
You're right.
Would he? That might make Harry plot against Dumbledore, but it wouldn't incite the hate that Quirrell seems to desire from him.
Besides, I'm certain Quirrell doesn't want Harry to create a utopia, and thus wants him in the dark just as much as Dumbledore.
No hate for people who are deliberately keeping cheap immortality from the world's population? Who are directly responsible for all age-and-disease death in the last eight centuries? I think Harry can muster a little hate where it's really appropriate.
Harry would hate Dumbledore but he wouldn't succeed in getting his hands on the Stone, not if Voldemort can't. So, no utopia.
You are making assumptions about what how much immortality the Philosopher's Stone allows. For all you know it may allow e.g. a maximum of 7 people immortality, be only creatable once per five hundred years, and/or require the heart of an adult dragon per each person given immortality.
Revealing the presence of such a device (not cheap immortality, but rare immortality) might well cause more loss of life in the pursuit of its possession than it would cause otherwise.
Ofcourse Harry would still be furious at Dumbledore for not analyzing the stone in any way he can in attempts to find a way to mass-produce it or atleast its effects.
Least convenient world apples, but I'd bet Dumbledore and Flamel haven't been looking for cheaper ways to create more Stones, because it just isn't their goal. (And they're already in trouble because they have to guard the one stone from Voldemort.) If Harry knew, well, I'd bet his eyes would be ice and his voice would be distant darkness and... er, I mean, he'd go Librarian-poo crazy.
Hating Dumbledore for guarding the stone is no more rational than hating theists for trying to save everyone's souls. The headmaster's heart is in the right place, and while Harry might become extremely frustrated by him he would still seek to show Dumbledore the light, not to destroy him.
He would - he should - be willing to destroy him if it brings him any closer to possession of the Stone. Of course he probably can't destroy Dumbledore so it's a moot point.
Hating him is probably counterproductive anyway. I retract that part of what I said, it was wrong.
If this is a murder-mystery arc, then Quirrell is the obligatory Red Herring. He had motive, means and opportunity, and all three were revealed in the first part of 6-part arc. The laws of fiction demand it not be this easy.
Yes, that could be exactly what Eliezer wants us to think, but in the end I think Quirrell being responsible would just be too normal, even if suspicion is temporarily diverted from him by making him a false red herring.
I think the point of this arc is not to leave you wanting for complicated answers to obvious-seeming questions, but simply to keep you on the edge of your seat waiting to see how things play out. It's about knocking down dominoes, not setting them up.
Minor typo at the end of 78, repeated at the beginning of 79:
Actual speculation: what did Dumbledore know or suspect when he hired Quirrell?
What exactly was Dumbledore aware of? Merely that 'Quirrell' may have travelled without a visa (I guess this is illegal), or that he was an impostor? If the latter, why would Dumbledore hire him?
But if Dumbledore wasn't aware that Quirrell is an impostor, then Quirrell has made at least one foolish slip. During the interrogation, Scrimgeour says
But way back in Chapter 16, Quirrell says
The magical world is a small world, Hogwarts is a small school, at least some parents of current Hogwarts students would have remembered that Quirrell was in Ravenclaw not Slytherin. I'm guessing this is an inadvertent mistake by Eliezer.
I brought the same thing up here.
I doubt Eliezer would forget that the major spokesperson of Slytherin in his fic is... well, Slytherin.
There's something else going on here.
Because Q is someone very good at what he is about to teach who does not want to have his identity public. Dumblodore wants a decent teacher - as has been pointed out many times - and is willing to put up with a lot to get him. Now weather Dumbledore knows the true identity of Q is a different question.
I believe Dumbledore would have been a professor of the real Quirrell, so he must know it's an imposter he's hired. I suspect Quirrell fed him some convincing lie or another about his true identity.
My reading of the visa thing was that the Auror made it up on the spot to confirm that Quirrell had no idea of what trips he had taken in the past, and is therefore an impostor. Although I don't understand why Quirrell, if impersonating someone, would fail to look up these simple facts.
Quirrell is smart, but he's not omnipotent. He's had so many lives, he doesn't even consider any of them to be his true persona.
Quirrell is mentally disciplined, but it's possible that he could have simply forgotten or gotten facts mixed up, trying to hold so many personas in his head at one time.
Chapter 79:
I think we're supposed to be able to figure this one out. My mental model of Eliezer says he thinks he's given us more than enough hints, and we have a week to wait despite it being a short, high tension chapter. He makes a big deal out of how Harry only has thirty hours, which isn't enough; he gives us a week, and a lot of information Harry doesn't have.
Who benefits from isolating Harry from both of his friends, and/or making him do something stupid to protect Hermione in front of the most powerful people in the Wizarding World?
Evidence against Quirrell as Hat-and-Cloak: Apart from everything that's already been discussed, he's been trying to strengthen Harry. He chose Draco and Hermione for the armies knowing that the likely outcome would be them getting closer (especially when he set them up against Harry).
Evidence for Quirrell as Hat-and-Cloak: Apart from what has already been discussed, he seemed very interested when Harry mentioned Lucius's threat to set aside everything to protect Draco. And there's that line in the most recent author's note:
Which implies we're overthinking this and the obvious answer is the right one.
Quirrell conveniently rescuing Draco after seven hours makes sense if we assume he's also the one who almost killed him.
Evidence I can't sort: Quirrell's admission during interrogation can't have been an accident, and doesn't seem to serve his interests whether he's Hat-and-Cloak or not. If he is, he presumable wants to isolate Harry so he can talk him into stage 2 of the plan - but for that, he needs to be at Hogwarts or otherwise have access to Harry. If he's not Hat-and-Cloak, there's not much reason for him to tie himself up in the Ministry.
Unless he doesn't want Harry to be able to contact him and he wants to have a plausible reason for being unreachable?
I think this makes me update more toward "Quirrell is Hat-and-Cloak," but I'm not convinced.
My theory is that Lucius trumped up these charges against Hermione entirely independent of the midnight duel. He was furious that Hermione defeated Draco in combat, and this is his retaliation.
I doubt that Hermione attended the duel; or, if she did attend it, I doubt that anything bad happened.
My theory does not explain why Draco isn't at breakfast. So maybe my theory is wrong.
I am confused about why H&C wanted Hermione to be defeated by Draco during the big game when Lucius was watching. If you believe H&C is Quirrell (and I do): did Quirrell go to all that trouble just to impress Lucius with how his son was doing? That seems like an awful risk for not much reward.
...Followup: Holy crap! I know exactly one person who wants Hermione to be defeated by Draco when Lucius is watching. Could H&C be Dumbledore?
Why do you think H&C wants Hermione to be defeated by Draco?
(I think you may have misspoken but since you said it twice I'm not sure)
Chapter 25, Fred and George talking about the Marauder's Map, which is supposed to show all people in Hogwarts by name:
The intermittent one is probably Quirrell, going in and out of zombie mode. But what could be visibly wrong with the other one? My theory is that, unlike all the other dots on the Marauder's Map, one of them doesn't have a name. Who could that be?
I hypothesize that this is Mr. Hat and Cloak. That would mean it's not Quirrell and not anyone the Weasleys would pay much attention to, either. The map must get the names it displays from somewhere, and its reliability in doing so suggests that it gets them from people's minds. My hypothesis is that to appear on the map without a name, you'd have to (a) not be known by name and present appearance to anyone whose mind the map can read, and (b) be an occlumens.
Intermittent one is either people using time-turners, Weasley's don;t know about time-turners, so they think it's showing one person in two places or If it showed two names for the same person, that might be an intermittent bug too, ie Quirrel/Riddle based on who he is at the moment.
Permanent bug might be someone floating in the castle who they know shouldn't be there, perhaps Pettigrew, or Sirius, or someone who should be there but isn't - ie Quirrell being unplottable.
Dumbledore & Snape are known Occlumens, but they show up on the map just fine.
In canon, the bug that Harry saw was Pettigrew on the map but he wasn't actually there in reality.
I don't think either of the glitches are Time-Turners. Time-Turners have (presumably) been used regularly in Hogwarts since the twins arrived, and it's made clear that these glitches are new:
Also, bear in mind that the official story is that the time turners are used to treat "spontaneous duplication"; if the map occasionally registers multiple versions of a "spontaneous duplication" sufferer, that would be written off as a feature, not a bug (just not the feature that the twins think it is).
I think it's likely that Harry is one of those errors. We he goes dark-side his name might change.
I don't think George would describe a glitch where someone's name changes as being "same as ever".
I mean that he might be the intermittent one instead of Quirrell. If maps like these really do show one's true name, as with Scabbers and Crouch in Canon, then Quirrell probably knows about them and made himself generally unplottable, not just intermittently.
So, what kind of "miracle" will Harry produce for the next battle (assuming for a moment that Hermione is going to be released, and there will be a next battle)?
I thought that maybe he finds a way to learn wordless magic, thus having a huge advantage since the others don't know what spells will be coming. But then I realized that it's not even necessary -- in the heat of the battle it's enough not to shout the incantation, whispering it will mean that the opponent can't hear it.
It's a simple enough thing that I wonder why none of Harry, Hermione, and Draco seem to consider it.
At least I haven't found any indication that shouting the words of a spell make it more powerful.
It seems to me that potion making is still a clear advantage that Harry has over his rivals - they aren't going to discover the principal at the heart of potion making. At the moment, trying to invest additional effort in making more useful sorts of potions and or hiding the preparations better seems to be the easiest marginal increase in chaos' power.
Strategy, like markets, is anti-inductive. As Edward Luttwak says somewhere, "all success tends to failure". When you win a battle or a war, your enemies and onlookers concerned that you may turn on them will learn from what you did, and look for counters, while you will be tempted to rely on what worked. But if you do that, you are attributing your success to the wrong place: on what you did instead of on the relationship between what you did and what your enemies did.
Harry hasn't repeated himself yet: to all new challenges he has found new responses.
Sure, but I think it would be better to think of potion making at a very high level in strategy. Harry used transfiguration in battle after battle and managed to win. Do you think of that as not innovating? I think there is a similar relationship between ball bearings and skateboards and suits of armor in the transfiguration category and potion of sunlight and whatever comes next in the potion making category.
If I understood correctly, Harry didn't invent a new potion, he found it one of the books that Flitwick recommended. And if you assume that Draco still has Snape's support, it won't be easy for Harry to find more powerful potions than Draco.
It also seems clear that the teachers involved think that inventing new potions is far too dangerous with Harry's current level of experience (which is basically none). That's why I don't think that more potions will be the way to Chaos' success. At least not the critical factor.
That's quite a good idea, but not enough for Harry to win when outnumbered. I'm not so sure he really needs a new idea at the moment, it might be simply continue inventing potions with non-magical ingredients (Could you make the other team lose the will to fight with a potion made from tears?).
Of course, he'll probably have an epiphany on a completely different subject none the less.
Jumping in time just 6 hours back indicates to me that in the computer that is simulating MoR universe data is kept with 6-hours long cache.
As to Atlantis - they found a way to get out of the box - one level up, and they've left some cheat-codes for people that are still in this simulation. That also explains why some very important figures (like Dumbledore) think MoR runs on stories - somebody outside of simulation changes the simulation accordingnly. Maybe this simulation purpose is to make the best stories?
Also explains why prophecy works for more than 6 hours into the future - because simulation has some invariants, that make for best stories, and seers can well, "see" them, but only for very important events, and only guess ral meaning of these predictions. Hence mysterious prophecies.
What it doesn't explain - why cheat codes are in latinised English.
You're almost right.
The actual explanation is that they're all fictional characters in a Harry Potter fanfic. Dumbledore knows this, or at least knows they're in a story. The purpose is indeed to make a good story, and one that teaches Methods of Rationality.
Because it's a Harry Potter fanfic, and in the original Harry Potter series, the spells were in Latinized English, probably because Latin has an ancient mystical aura for readers in fantasy tradition.
It seems possible to me that MoR spells work a bit like the URLs for TvTropes pages. When a new spell is created, it is attached to an arbitrary incantation of the casters choosing. From then on, that incantation recalls that same set of effects no matter who performs it, like entering a URL into TvTropes to retrieve a page that someone else wrote, when just yesterday that URL led to a blank page.
What I want to know is whether Atlantis was the origin of the system or merely the last society to have edit privileges. (Maybe they abused the system and destroyed themselves so whatever's running the simulation brought the banhammer down on the inhabitants of the MoR verse, and thus began the decline of magic?)
Nobody has proposed yet that H&C #2 = Snape. The evidence for this hypothesis is that Snape's helping of SPHEW caused a serious escelation of conflict (with Hermoine Granger at the center), and whoever primed Hermoine to attack Draco with the Groundhog Day Attack got her to continue the escelation.
Though I don't know what goal this subgoal would serve...
That is a good point. I would love for it to turn out that Eliezer reversed what Rowling did with Snape. I don't think that you can abuse generations of children, for any reason, and still come out the other side of it a good guy.
It would be just like Eliezer to add another level to Cannon Snape's deception. Bad pretending to be good pretending to be bad. shudder
Two-color views...
Better than one...
There really isn't much way that you can abuse generations of children and still be the good guy. For whatever it is worth that is sufficient for the label. That doesn't mean he must be on the enemy team, he could well be a bad guy that plays for the same side Harry does and otherwise does some positive things.
The point is that the label is meaningless, because the dichotomy it's based on does not correspond to anything in the real world.
Sure it does. It responds to real world behaviors that include abusing generations of children! That is something that represents a particular configurations in the universal wave function and it a set of configurations that I do not like.
If you want to define it that way, of course Snape is evil!
But don't go around trying to sneak in any more connotations, now. Such as, for instance, that he kicks puppies, rapes Muggleborns, massacres Jews, plans to nuke Africa, or is secretly a frequentist.
Nobody was arguing by definition. The implied argument by link is invalid. Whatever the word used - bad, evil, dickish, deprecated, subjectively-obectively against my preferences - there is just a thing being described as undesirable and no attempt to prove anything by definitions.
This doesn't apply to anything I have done either. Did you include it just because it happens to be the follow up link on the argument by definition? (So as to give no pretense of subtlety, I endorse the implication behind my pointed emphasis on 'I'.)
This conversation is perhaps not entirely useful so I'm just going to claim the Godwin's violation and leave it alone.
Really, all I have to do is describe someone as not a good guy and you accuse me of having a two-color view?
Further evidence for this theory is that H&C is not great at modelling people, and Snape isn't good at mental models of others either.
If you think H&C2 is the same as H&C1 (I do, for conservation-of-detail reasons), Snape is a plausible candidate for competent plotter who isn't Quirrell or Dumbledore. Which isn't to say that there a clear motive in that case either.
The sticking point in my mind is that the groundhogs day attack should have been a lot more efficient if the attacker was a legilimens.
Abg fher vs Ryvrmre erjevgvat gur tebhaqubtf qnl nggnpx pbhagf nf "vafvqre vasbezngvba." Ebg13vat vg whfg gb or fher.
Guvaxvat nobhg guvf unf oebhtug nabgure vqrn gb zvaq. Gur nccnerag vapbzcrgrapr bs gur tebhaqubtf qnl nggnpx vf jung ernyyl pbashfrq zr bevtvanyyl nobhg gur vqragvgl bs U&P. Znal crbcyr zvfhaqrefgbbq jung unccrarq gurer naq Ryvrmre unq gb tb onpx naq erjevgr vg n ovg. Jung vs gung nccnerag vapbzcrgrapr jnf whfg n fvqr rssrpg bs Ryvrmre gelvat gb uryc gur ernqre haqrefgnaq JGS vf tbvat ba?
Gnxvat gung vagb nppbhag pnhfrf zl cebonovyvgl bs U&P orvat Dhveery be Fancr gb tb jnl hc.
Snape says this in both MoR and the original book:
Isn't this silly? Of course you can stopper death, because duh, poisons exist.
It might be just a slip-up in the original book, but I'm hoping it will somehow make sense in MoR. My first thought was that maybe a magical death potion couldn't be stopped using magical healing, unlike non-magical poisons.
I asked this on IRC and got some interesting ideas. feep thought it might mean that you can make a Potion of Dementor, which would fit since dementors are avatars of death in MoR and stoppering death would be actually impressive if it meant that. Orionstein suggested it might be a potion made from eg. a bullet that's killed someone, which, given what we know of how potions work from chapter 78, might also result in a potion with deathy effects above and beyond just those of poison.
What I got from that was snape claiming to be able to temporarily store or stop death. To extend someones life. Not a great interpretation in hindsight, but I was ~ten the last time I heard that line so I'll forgive myself.
I would assume that Snape was referring to the Draught of Living Death, which creates a temporary condition indistinguishable from death.
I thought it was made pretty clear that Dementors come from the ritual that Quirrel says summons Death, and that the True Patronus charm is the lost spell that banishes it. The other options seem more plausible, but really, I'd place my bet on some kind of poison that causes total and immediate brain death like Avada Kedavra does. I am not aware of any normal poisons that do that.
I was annoyed that I wasn't catching the clues about H&C other people pointed out, even after rereading some chapters.
But it did make me wonder if there are definite clues at all, and if Eliezer had written so far with a specific person in mind. When he chooses to reveal who it is, he could have a list of plausible H&Cs and randomnumber it. The clues are vague enough that massive hindsight bias seems possible.
Now, he probably wouldn't do this, considering that writing five plots is much harder than one, but if I were a talented enough writer I would try. Then laugh at everyone attempting to guess ahead of time.
I was annoyed too, then I read Eliezer's comment somewhere about deliberately embedding many clues on Quirrelmort and other things, and reading the reviews to figure out who got them.
After that, I just decided that what looked like a clue, smelled like a clue, was probably a clue - and not some mysterious writing which is meant to be mysterious. My eyes were opened :) Might work for you too :)
I see also that the theories about Santa Claus's identity are equally as varied as the ones about Mr. Hat & Cloak. My take on this is similar to my take on H&C: we're meant to understand that Santa Claus is simply Dumbledore.
The only person we know for whom all the above facts are true is Dumbledore.
However, the "S" who left notes for Hermione is not Santa Claus. It's Severus Snape, who we know for a fact was the mysterious person helping SPHEW in its mission. The two signatures happen to both begin with S, but that's a coincidence; if the writer had intended Harry and Hermione to figure out that the two note senders were the same, they would have signed the letters to Hermione "Santa Claus" or at least "SC". Therefore, "S" doesn't know about the first notes and was not trying to connect his notes to them.
Let me add to my previous hypotheses about Eliezer's state of mind while writing: The fact that something is entirely mysterious to the characters does not mean that it's supposed to be entirely mysterious to us. We are certainly meant to know that "S" is Snape. We know this because of Interlude with the Confessor. It could not be any more blatant without being stated in the Author's Notes.
I equally believe that we're meant to know that "Santa Claus" is Dumbledore. Everything in the Santa Claus notes is entirely 100% consistent with what we know of Dumbledore and his character from canon and from MoR. Likewise, the fact that Mr. Hat and Cloak is entirely mysterious to Zabini and Hermione does not mean that we are supposed to reach deep into the implausible for explanations.
Certainly I could be wrong about any of this. The simple answer is not always the best answer. But all other things being equal, it's a good bet. And the evidence for these "simple" explanations is at least equal to the evidence that, say, Hat and Cloak is a manifestation of Voldemort's essence that leaves Quirrell's body for unknown reasons.
Sirius Black fits Santa as well, if not better, though most of what we know about Sirius comes from Cannon.
In Cannon Dumbledore had possession of The Invisibility Cloak when the Potters were killed, but he didn't necessarily keep it. This wasn't mentioned in books 1-5 though, so EY is probably unaware of that detail.
James' best friend Sirius knows James' misdeeds better than anyone besides James himself, and is much more likely to speak proudly of them than Dumbledore.
The Portkey doesn't have to have been made by Santa - it could have been made by anyone at the Salem Witches' Institute. And it doesn't work on the Hogwarts grounds.
Santa Claus claimed Dumbledore would keep The Invisibility Cloak if he ever got his hands on it, which was completely wrong, and a rather insane thing to say if it's Dumbledore (which doesn't prevent it from being Dumbledore, but still...)
Sirius wouldn't know anything about Quirrell. Dumbledore presumably researched him before offering him the DA job. Neither would trust him.
As Harry's godfather, Sirius would care a great deal about Harry.
There is also the Meta level to consider.
Sirius Black is a major fixture of Harry Potter canon. He has not yet been featured or brushed off yet (eg the Weasleys). Every other major player from the first books has been given screentime so far. It seems incredibly unlikely for Sirius to make it to chapter 78 without a showing in one form or another.
I am pretty sure Santa is someone who works / lives in Hogwarts. Outsiders are not supposed to enter on their own.
The bit about not trusting Dumbledore makes sense, even if the cloak came from him, since it allows Dumbledore to show off how trustworthy he is with little effort. And he can check how well Harry can keep a secret.
I congratulate you on your 100% accurate pre-hoc explanation.
Eliezer suggests re-reading 14, 21, 26, 35, 43-47, 56-57, 63, 66, 73-77, chapters
What're the possible clues embedded in these chapters?
Now, any of you folks digging up anything from the suggested chapters?
The first thing I noticed is that the list contains the Santa Claus messages and H&C appearances (14, 21, 35, 63, 77). Presumably all chapters that contain strong and deliberate hints at H&C's identity are on the list. I notice that neither the chapter where Remus talks about Sirius and Peter, nor the chapter where a prisoner is mumbling "I'm not serious [Sirius]" are on the list, so H&C is unlikely to be Sirius. On the other hand 65 which has Quirrel explain that the port key Santa Claus sent had a misleading description attached is not on the list either, so that may not be definite.
I'm puzzled by Harry's sunlight potion. Did it not require a magical ingredient?
Since we are told that there are no magical ingredients in the lesser woods where the battles are fought, and that all the potions in the books that Harry looks through unlock and redistribute magical energy (rather than ostensibly non-magical energy like sunlight), does this mean that Harry discovered a way to brew potions without magical ingredients? I recall no hint that this is possible, and yet no one watching the battle seems to find the potion notable. To be fair, the fundamental potion-making law doesn't explicitly rule out an all-mundane potion ("A potion spends that which is invested in the creation of its ingredients").
I also find it unlikely that Harry invented the potion himself (I believe general potions-theory and the system for deducing the proper arbitrary stirring patterns would have been given a more complete coverage, if that were the case), so it appears that Harry found a suitable potion using Flitwick's recommended resources. But I still don't know whether the "magical ingredient requirement" is absolute (and Harry bypassed it just by, e.g., putting something of his own magic into the potion as a trigger but not as the main ingredient), whether it's a mere conceptual limit that wizards never thought to test, or whether potions with non-magical ingredients exist and are well-known, but are relatively so rare that Harry just didn't happen to run across any in his initial search.
What am I missing?
My theory is that potions which don't involve magical ingredients are obscure because they're usually less powerful and because they require a greater investment of energy from the creator to do the reshaping (explaining why Harry doesn't do very much in that battle). Given that Flitwick and McGonagal had suggestions of books to make at all after hearing what Harry wanted, it seems very likely that such potions do exist, just not in the standard textbooks. It seems very likely that Harry got his potion out of a book, because potions research is dangerous and presumably very time consuming, and because Harry with the ability to invent potions would be powerful enough to wreck the story.
Harry with time travel would be enough to wreak the story. Harry with an invisibility cloak would be enough to wreak the story, Hell, harry with rationality would be enough to wreak the story.
That is, unless the other obstacles were ramped up to deal with it. Give Harry a time turner and enemies clever enough to know how to check on him. Give harry an invisibility cloak but add spells that can detect the presence of a deathly hallow. Give Harry mastery of potions but make creating them slow or just plain difficult.
Remember how the professors made a big deal about Harry not discussing his discovery about potions?
Perhaps school manuals are picked to contain only potions with magic ingredients, as a misdirection for people not wise enough (students) to try to figure out the "well-known secret", the same way Harry was at first.
But Harry's potion didn't release a lot of magic, it only released light (note that in the coin example, it was the non-magical coin that furnished the "heat"), so probably Harry used a bit of magic (like in Potions class) to "rearrange" the light without need of magical ingredients.
(Also, why wouldn't "wizard hair" count as a magical ingredient?)
I think that if this were truly an original discovery it would have been a bigger deal. There are probably quite a few potions using only ingredients muggles know of, but I bet Harry will be able to invent quite a few more of them.
(EDIT: This theory was disproven in Chap. 79)
I think Hat and Cloak is Lucius Malfoy. First piece of evidence: timing of his first appearance.
Chapter 34: Harry says "Maybe I'll just do what Draco tried with Zabini, and write a letter to Lucius Malfoy and see what he thinks about that."
Chapter 35: Hat and Cloak appears on-screen for the first time, to talk to Zabini.
Second piece of evidence: He says "Lucius Malfoy has taken notice of you, Hermione."
Hat and Cloak told Hermione "you are a Muggleborn and yet you possess a power of wizardry greater than any pureblood."
Lucius can't believe that. He can't even afford for that belief to exist, so I don't see him uttering it, even as flattery he "knows" to be false.
Lucius knows that his enemies believe muggleborn can be powerful wizards, so he can say that flattery to look like his enemies.
For people that believe blood has nothing to do with magic - they won't state the obvious.
Hat and Cloak uttered that line by way of drawing attention to the reason that blood-purists have taken her for an enemy (which is relevant because H&C wants to give the appearance of courting Hermione as an ally). As an explanation of that hatred and danger it makes sense say it no matter who H&C turns out to be.
I concur that H&C is Lucius Malfoy. It seems very plain if you look at the proximate results instead assuming every character belongs in the cast of Death Note. A plan that requires that many conditionals is bound to fail.
-H&C succeeds in causing a 3 way tie: The school nearly riots.
-H&C gets Zabini to lie to Quirrell and Harry: Quirrell and Harry trust Dumbledore less.
-H&C messes with Hermoine so that she hates Draco: Draco and Hermoine stop being friends.
Not everyone has to be playing Xanatos Roulette. Some people can just use influence and get back solid and predictable returns from their actions. Lucious Malfoy makes good and predictable gains with each of these plans.
To quote Harry Potter: "This doesn't seem to be Lucius' style."
Lucius is evil and has reason to foster distrust of Dumbledore, two points in favor of H&C being him, but his taste in plotting seems to run far more to the political style, manipulating the press, using flattery and favors to gain control, than to weird, secretive manipulation.
Was the potions thing foreshadowed? Did we ever see a magical weakling brewing an advanced potion before this chapter?