I'm wondering why Lucius tried to get out of the deal.
I see it as a status game. Previously Lucius had suggested that Dumbledore take Hermione's place in Azkaban, not because Lucius thought there was much of a chance that Dumbledore accept this offer, but rather to strike at the idea of Dumbledore's supposed heroic altruism.
Now when Lucius named 100,000 galleons as the price to erase the debt, he was trying a similar tactic -- Lucius didn't expect that Harry accept this, Lucius wanted to strike at the idea of his enemies being heroic and altruistic.
But Harry accepts - which in terms of impressiveness is a blow in Harry's favor and against Lucius, despite the fact that Harry's now endebted to Lucius, and because the sum named is so outrageously large.
But then Lucius thought he saw a opportunity to strike back at Dumbledore and Harry, because he thought they were pretending a play to raise Harry's status even further (not just heroically altruistic, but super-heroically tough, able to destroy Azkaban, all by himself).
So he attempted to call Harry and Dumbledore's bluff. And it failed again.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 81, which should be published later today. The previous thread passed 400 comments as of the time of this writing, so it will pass 500 comments soon after the next chapter is posted, if not before. I suggest refraining from commenting here until chapter 81 is posted; comment in the 12th thread until you read chapter 81. After chapter 81 is posted, I suggest all discussion of previous guesses be kept here, with links to comments in the previous thread.
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. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.) When posted, chapter 81 should appear here.
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, ten, eleven, twelve.
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: