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MinibearRex comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 11 - Less Wrong
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Dumbledore correctly surmises part of Quirrellmort's motivation for this arc's events: he's neutralizing all of Light Harry's allies. What Dumbledore hasn't realized, what is completely outside his hypothesis space, is that he's not doing so to attack Harry, or at least not as part of a plan to defeat Harry. He's doing it to remove all of Harry's support except Quirrellmort himself, so as to hasten Harry's consumption by his Dark Side. With only Quirrell to rely upon in the magical world, his conversion into Dark Harry will be much swifter.
Therefore, when speculating abut the rest of this arc, we must speculate about how this plan will neutralize the rest of Light Harry's allies: Dumbledore and McGonagall. Harry has already hinted that he intends to investigate Dumbledore the next time he sees Quirrell. Assuming Quirrell gets out of the Ministry without causing a scene, he will almost certainly have manufactured evidence that implicates Dumbledore, which he will show Harry.
So perhaps one of the "taboo tradeoffs" of the arc will be Harry successfully politically attacking the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, the rediscoverer of the twelve uses of Dragons' blood, the defeater of Grindelwald, and the defender of magical Britain in order to get a first-year Hogwarts student off the hook.
That would leave only McGonagall, and Minerva would drop Harry in a heartbeat if he successfully neutralized Dumbledore. Thus his isolation from all except Quirrellmort would be complete.
I like the guess about Quirrellmort trying to remove Harry's allies, but there's a further detail I'm considering. Quirrellmort knows that Harry knows how to break people out of Azkaban. If Hermione is sent there, I would estimate a pretty high probability Harry would make a move to get her out. He would have to do something clever to divert suspicion away from himself, but that doesn't seem to be an insoluble problem. If Quirrell wanted to prevent this, the simplest way would be to blackmail Harry, but doing so would require him to overtly take a position as Harry's enemy, which he may not wish to do. Alternatively, he could sabotage Harry's plans, but Harry would almost certainly try again.
Any situation in which Harry knows that Hermione is in trouble is an unstable equilibrium, and Quirrell presumably knows that.
Additionally, you take it for granted that Quirrellmort is trying to turn Harry dark. What's the basis for that conclusion? I've got one guess, but it seems far-fetched.
Quirrellmort doesn't have to stop Harry, just make sure Hermione is already broken by the time he succeeds.
The simplest way would be not to help him. Harry can't make portkeys to and from Azkaban himself, he can't Disillusion himself once inside, fight random Aurors in the corridors (bet they've tightened security for a while), and now he can't even leave Hogwarts against Dumbledore's will.
Disillusionment isn't a real problem, since Harry has a cloak, and I'm fairly confident he could find other ways to hide. Polyjuice might be another way, but it has some disadvantages. The upshot is that I would expect Harry to be able to pull it off, given enough time to prepare.
Except that Dumbledore's pretty sure Hermione won't be sent to Azkaban. No reason not to take his word on this.
We still haven't heard from Lucius, who'll decide what punishment to request from the Wizengamot. Maybe Quirrel has influenced him somehow. Either way I feel Lucius' POV is a major piece of missing information that may be preventing us from predicting the future.
You're right of course. I only really paid attention to Dumbledore saying it would be something in between the kiss and snapping her wand. But in any case, Hermione can't suffer any long term punishment without Harry trying to do something about it.
Quirrellmort is trying to turn Harry Dark because it's now his best way of averting his death. He tried to kill Harry once and that was a miserable failure, so now he's trying to recruit him instead. The only way he can do that, though, is by turning him Dark.
I take it for granted that this is the case because I think Quirrell brought the Dementor to Hogwarts with the goal of turning Harry Dark that day. He almost succeeded then, and now he's destroying Harry's connections to his Light side to make his second attempt succeed.
I don't really buy that motivation. Even if Harry becomes Dark, it's unlikely that he will then instantly become buddies with everyone else on the Dark side. Instead, I would expect Dark Harry and Dark Voldemort to be bitter enemies, trying to be the sole ruler of the world.
The best motivation I came up with for Voldemort turning Harry dark is that he intends to possess him, or dispose of him and sustain himself on polyjuice. In that case, Quirrellmort might well take actions that look like actions intended to help Harry rule, in addition to moves intended to separate Harry from his allies, since Quirrellmort presumably doesn't want to side with Dumbledore, McGonagall, etc. (BTW, this is not the far-fetched theory I alluded to earlier)