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Velorien comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 22, chapter 93 - Less Wrong
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From the Author's Note One Should Not Read:
Here's the thing - based on both the tendency of characters in HPMOR to state the literal truth as a "joke" to hide the truth in plain sight (when asked where the real Quirrell is, the Defense Professor says "What makes you think I did not steal his body outright using incredibly Dark magic?"), and Eliezer's own admitted reluctance to speak outright falsehoods... well... this could be a joke. But (perhaps scarily) I'm putting a high probability on this in fact being true. Like, at least 40%.
Alicorn is the author of Luminosity, the rationalist Twilight fanfic, right? Could it be that this is to imply Hermione comes back as a vampire?
[ducks from rotten tomatoes]
Yep.
As it happens, I have written no characters who are both undead vampires and also princesses. There is one princess half-vampire, but half-vampires in that universe are not a form of undead. </missing the point>
Although, arguably full vampires are not very undead either.
The original vampires were definitely dead people who rose from the grave. The post-Dracula modern conception of vampire is not really the same thing as the eastern European legend.
Their hearts stop beating, and they stop needing to breathe during the turning process.
The same would be true of a real-world medical procedure that replaces the heart and lungs with support-reliable mechanical equivalents. (There are "heart and lung machines" but I believe they're cumbersome and greatly inferior to the natural organs they substitute for. I'm envisaging something much better than that.) Would you consider someone "undead" merely for having been through such a procedure?
My interpretation of 'undead' is that it is based on some form of vitalism....
Could you then give an example of what you would accept as a legitimate undead creature?
That's... actually complicated.
Frankly, the cyborg zombie beetles of Professor Mahrabiz seem more undead than Twilight vampires. Decaying zombies are probably undead, and Harry Potter Inferi are definitely undead, as are Dungeons and Dragons undead (where the vitalistic dualism is very explicit.)
That would be an interesting crossover, Hermione coming back as Elspeth and inventing a knowledge pushing spell, radically improving the effectiveness of Hogwarts' classes.
This is as, previously mentioned, perfectly plausible. Harry injected her with something immediately prior to her death. The potterverse has vampires. Timeturning + a bit of stealthy substitution, and she may have died under the correct circumstances for rising undead. Given chapter 93, it would have to be the work of Snape, as the other players are all ruled out for time turning to the correct period, and making a shot of vampire blood look like an oxygen potion would not exactly stretch his abilities. Or he could have faked her demise with more conventional alchemy, but that would require him to either brew the necessary potion in <4 hours, or to just have it prepared already on general principles. (for faking his own death in extremis? Just general "Ways I could have saved Lily" brooding?)
The main thing "vamping" has going for it is that vampires do die and come back, so that plan does not involve faking the death, and locating some vampire blood quickly is presumably simple.