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gwern comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 11 - Less Wrong
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PredictionBook registry - take one prediction a day to keep the hindsight bias away! - based on the speculation:
Harry's solution will be...
using the Time-turner
(These are not all mutually exclusive, and I didn't set down and make them all sum to 100%.)
Something about the last paragraph
Makes me afraid he'll end up stabbing Lucius with the bones of a Hufflepuff.
If I have to be massively wrong on my predictions and Harry really does resort to violence, there had darn well better be Hufflepuff-stabbing!
There's no conveniently available Hufflepuff in the room.
Pretty sure Amelia Bones was a Hufflepuff.
The Wikia infers this from the tendency of house membership to run in families (and that her niece is a Hufflepuff, of course).
Harry has the legendary Lost Sword of Humerus Hufflepuff in his pouch.
There's dozens of wizards there - surely at least one was a Hufflepuff.
My reasons for assigning ~0% to some of these:
They would lock him away to protect the Dementors who are Britain's most powerful magical weapon in reserve in case of war with another magical nation. (Quoth Dumbledore.)
Harry doesn't know that fact, so he can't offer it. Anyway, how would it help to reverse the judgement against Hermione?
Can't use it to change what's already happened. Hermione has already given her testimony, and Harry didn't even listen so he wouldn't be in a good position to subtly modify it. And the Veritaserum on her is already wearing off, precluding further testimony.
Harry and Hermione can't be both under the Cloak at once. People under the Cloak can still be caught by physically feeling around. The Aurors would stop them (certainly the one who wasn't under the Cloak at the time), and if they didn't, Hermione would be running around the building Cloaked but with no real way out.
Wizengamot would have to vote to make the trial-by-combat's results binding (otherwise why should it reverse the standing Wizengamot vote to punish Hermione?) Lucius will ask them not to vote so, because Dumbledore would be Harry's champion, and so they won't.
More generally, if Dumbledore could challenge Lucius to a duel every time a vote went against him, he'd have total control of the vote outcomes by virtue of being undefeatable in combat. And we know that's not the case.
What would be the explanation presented for why Bella comes forward to confess, without implicating Quirrel? Just "Voldemort ordered me to do this and then Obliviated me"? Everyone would suspect Voldemort also false-memory-charmed Bella into believing she did it. And why would Voldemort sacrifice his most trusted and powerful lieutenant, whom he recently rescued at great risk, and not some smaller pawn? And why would Voldemort execute a plan to murder Draco or to frame Hermione in the first place? And how would Bella have gotten into Hogwarts without the wards detecting it, or Dumbledore's Map? And how could she be recovered enough already (if she appears to testify everyone will see she's not very recovered yet)?
And to begin with you'd have to explain to members of the Wizengamot that Voldemort is still alive and that he broke out Bella from Azkaban. Imagine the panic - no reasoned debate would be possible after that. But without telling them this, how to explain that Bella is turning herself in, and that she has been Obliviated of everything during and after her escape?
Oh, and by inspecting Bella they will notice she does not in fact have her Animagus form again, which will cause Dumbledore to rethink some conclusions... (Edit: she has probably regained her Animagus form on Quirrel's instructions, it would be stupid not to. See below.)
Regarding the Cloak, one possibility is that Harry could duplicate it using the Time Turner. (Harry[1] goes back in time, equips himself with Cloak[1], sneaks up to Harry[2] and take Cloak[2] from his pouch. He could use both cloaks to perform an impossible rescue, then return Cloak[2] to Harry[2]'s pouch.)
They could in canon.
But Harry and Bella couldn't both be under the Cloak at once in Azkaban. That's why Harry had to face the Dementors after he turned off his Patronus to evade Dumbledore. So MoR!verse differs from canon here.
Edit: seems I'm wrong and the cloak is barely big enough for two children but not big enough for a child+adult. This is so in canon and presumably in MoR as well.
Bellatrix is forty years old. Even half-starved, she's a lot bigger than a twelve-year-old Hermione. (In canon, the Cloak got increasingly impractical for more than one person to use as time went on and the characters grew up.)
You're right then, it's just my lack of knowledge of canon showing.
In canon, they thought they heard Buckbeak die, too. It could already be that Hermione gave altered testimony and Harry isn't aware of it because he didn't hear what she said because he wasn't listening. In fact, that makes sense.
But since that altered testimony hasn't swayed the vote in her favor, why alter it in the first place?
Well... you know, this actually wasn't my idea and I'm not sure it would actually work, but playing devil's advocate here...
...anybody notice that Hermione's testimony contradicted itself? No; if they had, it would already have mattered.
...anybody notice that Hermione knew something she shouldn't at her age? No; she reads too much.
...anybody notice that Hermione knew something she shouldn't about Important Player In This Game? For instance, being able to mention what Voldemort looked like. It could be a subtle reference that Harry would have to point out because it flew under the radar. But it would really hurt Harry's relationship with Lucius.
...hey, notice how Hermione didn't know something Hermione should have known? It'd have to be subtle, but maybe if she mentioned uncertainty about something she should have known, it could do something...
Well, I don't know. Eliezer's got me stumped this time.
Harry didn't listen, and Harry is coming up with a suggestion next week. (Or in a few seconds, depending on your POV.) So this can't be relevant to that solution. So unless Harry's solution will fail, this altered-testimony thing should not exist.
But it can be. Harry knows what the altered testimony will be because he just decided on how to alter it. He comments on the oddity, then goes back in time and causes it. Just like when he asked for a teacher's help when Draco was torturing him.
Causality is screwy in this universe, isn't it?
It's possible. But he'd be risking someone flatly contradicting him the moment he made his statement about the testimony - "no, you didn't listen correctly, she didn't really say that". And afterwards, of course, there's no point for him to go back in time because he's received evidence that she did not in fact testify as he wished.
Your scheme would work a lot better if he'd just listened to her testimony. Then he would know what he had to go back in time to cause, regardless of the way he used her testimony now. (grin)
He would risk it the same way he risked not actually being found by a teacher.
Sure, that would be the smarter thing to do, but then it wouldn't come as a surprise to the audience. This way it gives us and Harry a puzzle.
I would be very surprised if Quirrell did not instruct Bellatrix to regain her Animagus form after she had sufficiently recovered from Azkaban. It would not be like him to go to all the trouble to present an alternative explanation for her escape but then fail to follow through.
True. The real question is how much she has recovered.
And Harry doesn't yet know what has already happened - he wasn't listening.
But whatever happened has already caused the Wizengamot to find her guilty and vote to sentence her to Azkaban.
Yes, but the Wizengamot is stupid and Dumbledore etc wouldn't be listening for changes; all Harry needs is one clear contradiction or impossibility. (What is it? Dunno.)
Except that the Wizengamot is stupid. They might not care that Hermoine's testimony is inconsistent, or they might put it down to bad memory.
OK, but he hasn't listened and hasn't caught this contradiction, and nobody else has, either. So he won't go back to plant anything.
And if he did, it would just raise a huge question of why her testimony differed in an important respect from the testimony she had given a day before on the same subject, also under Veritaserum.
This is a bit of a nitpick, but although ~0% is justified from an in-universe perspective, out-of-universe shouldn't you allow for the probability Elizier is planning one of these and has inadvertently introduced a massive plot hole?
My p. estimate that Eliezer introduced a plot hole (that I pointed out above, or that someone else here has pointed out) is indeed slightly higher than ~0. However, since Eliezer reads this thread, I believe in such a case he would rewrite the next several chapters. My final estimate is still emotionally-indistinguishable from 0.
Indeed, I was thinking destroy the Dementor as a show of force and threaten with challenging Draco to a duel to the death (I'm presuming he can do that as a Noble House). For, I don't know, willingly participating in a travesty of justice against a friend of Harry's or whatever. Close enough to a trial by combat, which also is presumably possible in this "justice" system, so yeah, maybe that after the show of force.
I'm still slightly rooting for Draco to intervene, though. Slightly.
Edit: Oh yeah, that torture thing. Even if Draco has been wiped of it and it's thus unprovable (aside from being not sufficient debt to cancel Hermione's supposed debt), the claim would probably be sufficient grounds for such duel.
I'm doubting he can do that, practically, as a student in Hogwarts.
Here's another idea: Draco uses his Patronus to tell the assembly he forgives the blood debt. Harry can use his own Patronus to beg Draco to do this.
Draco doesn't have authority to forgive it on his own. The blood debt is said to be owned to the House of Malfoy, and Lucius is Lord of that House, and Draco is a minor.
Besides, Draco would never antagonize and publicly embarrass his father that way. Draco is also very angry at Hermione himself, now.
I'd say Harry would trade with Lucius - Harry would testify under Veritaserum that Dumbledore confesed to Him, that he burned Narcissa. In exchange Lucius would let Hermione free.
Harry don't know if Dumbledore burned Narcissa, but probably can beat Veritaserum (according to Quirell), and with his evil side enabled he can risk trying it.
Similiar to "make Dumbledore turn himself in", but Dumbledore had chance to do that, and declined, and I don't know if Harry can blackmail Dumbledore serioulsy enough for this. But Harry don't need to blackmail Dumbledore.
I assign 0.3 probability to my post from 23 March 2012 10:19:07PM.
0.2 to Harry going back in time and rescuing Hermione with time turner.
0.5 to Harry doing something nobody predicted yet :)
I think the probabilities work out roughly as follows: - 50% Malfoy's Imperius debt. - 20% nothing anyone here has thought of - 10% Something involving the true Patronus(Hermione casting it, etc.) - 10% all the other wacky theories proposed combined - 10% Harry fails and Hermione goes to Azkaban.
I realize that this looks like a list designed to make me not look like too much of an idiot no matter what the result is, but I am not particularly confident, so I'll leave my error bars wide.
I thought you couldn’t change the past with a Time-turner.
Harry didn't pay much attention to the testimony after the beginning, thus the timeline doesn't have to change if he goes back to make sure it contains some new False Memoried tidbits, if he can get someone to do the charm. But I don't think there's been much indication that he can override his Time Turner limitations by himself and there may be little time left to try and get someone to do it for him before Hermione is hauled off.
Edit: Silly me, he could just decide what to make her say later and do a quick check from McGonagall if they were included (thus checking if he will manage to go back to do the deed) and go from there. But it'd be difficult to insert subtle enough bits to make a difference only when lampshaded by Harry afterward (since many others presumably listened to the whole testimony already without noticing). Not impossible though. [Re-edited for semi-clarity...]
He could alter Hermione's testimony in a way that's contradicted by new evidence that hasn't yet been presented.
Missing from your list: - Make Draco testify to his crime; use the newly won blood debt to save Hermione (or stall - see my reply to Daniel_Starr: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/axe/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/63rw)
I'm thinking that Harry is about to try to either command or destroy the dementor. To do either, he'd have to leave his dark side, so I'm not sure how successful he'll be. I'm close to certain that the Eliezer put the dementor there for a reason, and that the reason probably wasn't so that Harry could say, "dementors are bad" again.
It could be there to highlight the moral bankruptcy of the Wizengamot and also mislead the readers into searching for a stereotypically heroic solution (vanquish the monster and rescue the fair-complexioned maiden!) when cleverness is called for.
Indeed: