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Logos01 comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 11 - Less Wrong
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Comments (1174)
Here's mine:
cold!Harry activates his Patronus charm, which depends on the wish to destroy Death, and therefore can be cast while "cold". This is done to disrupt the proceedings by destroying the Dementor. Since Harry never actually did this while at Azkaban, he wouldn't necessarily be associated w/ the prisonbreak of Bellatrix.
In the confusion, Harry cloaks himself, and timeturns back an hour. This is done to give himself time to contemplate exactly what he needs to say and do. Sicne he will be cloaked, this preserves the secret of the Time turner.
(version A) Immediately after destroying the Dementor, and the loop is closed, still-cloaked Harry takes advantage of his ability to get past any guards/defenses and whispers in Parseltongue into LM's ears: "No power can stop me. Even here in the Wizengamot I could reach you. If you do not relinquish your claim on Hermione your son is dead." IF LM doesn't understand Parseltongue, he would at least recognize it, and Harry could repeat himself in English.
Harry Time turns again, and uncloaks in a side hall, intentionally getting himself seen during the same time that cloaked!Harry was threatening Draco's life (the sole real leverage over LM Harry has.)
This is the scenario I view being conducted.
3 (version B): instead of repeating his words in English, he could leave the his mother's potions book at LM's feet, with a note in English that says the same... with the added phrase, "Contained within this manual is the key to a terrible secret that would destroy Dumbledore. You have gained, this day, Lucius Malfoy. I have uses for the Granger child yet. Do not interfere in my plans." This has the added benefit of ensuring that LM is likely to stay quiet about the threat -- because the pot was sweetened in favor of blackmail of Dumbledore by Lucius.
The problem is, that plan relies on Harry realizing that Malfoy thinks he's Voldemort. I don't think he has the evidence to reach that conclusion.
... I genuinely didn't think of the Voldemort angle. That only sweetens the pot. I think that ArisKatsaris's solution is far more effective/elegant than my own. (Especially since it's foreshadowed by the part about how Harry thought of the Wizengamot as 'wallpaper' and that 'this would change'. -- that could be viewed as a dropped-hint that the solution lies in manipulating the votes. I can't think of another way Harry could achieve that than through the former Death Eaters.)
You don't? I think he's already got it subconsciously:
seemed a pretty clear reference to
We're talking about a kid who literally spoke a language designed for a different species without noticing.
True, but that's in canon also. It may just be that instinctive.
Sure, but coming out with a scary voice when he's trying to sound intimidating is a lot less odd than coming out sounding like a snake. If he didn't notice the latter, he's not likely to notice the former, in canon or in MoR.
He has the conversation to interpret. (Also, Dumbledore probably figured that out.)
In addition, he was just recently told
So now that he knows it's theoretically possible...
Edit: I'm an idiot. He's known it was possible since Quirrell told him to pretend he was possessed by Voldemort in TSPE.
But Dumbledore's Patronus can identify Harry's Patronus, and so Dumbledore could find out that Harry was in Azkaban when Bella was broken out.
This would require Dumbledore to have his Patronus out, though.
He certainly might do it if the Dementor started acting oddly. Edit: oops, wrong scenario.
What are you talking about? The scenario under discussion is that Harry casts his Patronus out of the blue, destroying the Dementor.
Oops, right. I got confused from all the suggestions of Harry controlling the dementor in different threads.
Still Dumbledore might get suspicious and bring out his patronus to identify Harry's, but it's an acceptably small risk to take, I guess.
Plus -- would Dumbledore even sell out Harry?
Maybe not to others, but he himself would know Harry had broken Bella out of Azkaban and then lied to him about it. He would definitely force Veritaserum or Legilimency on Harry to find out the complete truth of what happened that day.
In fact, that's a point I haven't considered before. Why haven't Quirrel offered to Obliviate Harry of that day's events, maybe using a Pensieve first? This would protect them both a lot. It makes no sense if what Quirrel wanted was the lost lore of Slytherin that Bella might possess, or even Bella herself for some unknown purpose. But it makes perfect sense if Quirrel just wanted Azkaban to produce the emotional effect that it did on Harry. As a sort of prerequisite for this trial of Hermione.
That would require bringing someone else in on the secret. Quirrell can't cast magic on Harry directly, remember?
Obliviate the third party afterwards?
The third party doesn't need to know what the memories being obliviated are. Just that they're being paid to obliviate everything that happened that day, and that they will be obliviated themselves of this act immediately afterwards.
Yeah, in retrospect that's not really much of an impediment- he could just Imperius, say, Sprout into Obliviating Harry, then Obliviate her.
Why bother? It's been made clear that people with mental powers are commercially available. Remember Harry's Occlumency instructor.
Harry is an Occlumens. Neither of these strategies would work.
Legilimency would work, he's not a perfect Occlumens yet.
The distinction is that perfect Occlumens can show false thoughts to a Legilimens; regular Occlumens, of which Harry is one, are perfectly capable of blocking Legilimens from learning anything, they just know they've been blocked.
We know that Occlumens can project the persona of a rock in order to thwart Legilimency. Do we also know that there is no brute-force method for getting past the defenses?
I was wrong, then. Thanks.
Hmm.
There's no way Lucius will settle for a highly dubious IOU on Dumbledore's head after almost nailing Hermione and suffering a highly visible defeat, so this is not sufficient on its own. There's no need to bring it in.
Of course not. That's why 3B's additional verbiage was supplemental to 3A. So consider everything said in 3A and what's said in 3B, when assigning it a probability of success.
Sure there is. To keep it quiet, thereby allowing Harry to "get away with it." There is no victory like total victory. There is no kill like overkill. And cold!Harry is a Sith: he deals in absolutes.
How does he hold the inner hourglass motionless without disturbing the Unspeakable's protections?
He doesn't need to. He can just walk out of the Wizengamot while cloaked and then walk back in. Each turning gives him an hour, after all, and while he used up his six for the previous day he hadn't used any for the day of the vote itself, as of chapter 80.
What do you mean he doesn't need to? That's the only way to use it before it unlocks at 9pm. Unless you think the trial is after that?
... Harry's already beaten that restriction.
Since when? A while ago he convinced Dumbledore to give him the full six hours rather than two, but I don't think we were ever told that he can use it at will now.
ETA: From Chapter 77, Self-Actualization Aftermaths, emphasis mine:
I seem to have been mistaken. Still; Harry could simply destroy the protective measure.
Quirrell did, I don't think that Harry knows the spell that Quirrell used.