pangel comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 23, chapter 94 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: elharo 08 July 2013 12:04PM

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Comment author: William_Quixote 08 July 2013 01:19:50PM *  28 points [-]

You're right Harry's mood is some evidence for his having the body. And from his behavior I think it's clear where it is:

"The gem upon your ring," Dumbledore said. "It is no longer a clear diamond. It is brown, the color of Hermione Granger's eyes, and the color of her hair." A sudden tension filled the room. "That's my father's rock," Harry said. "Transfigured the same as before. I just did it to remember Hermione -" "I must be sure. Take off that ring, Harry, and place it upon my desk." Slowly, Harry did so, removing the gem and setting the ring off to the other side of the desk. Dumbledore pointed his wand at the gem and -

From this and putting the ring as far away as possible I'm pretty sure the body is the ring and the rock sits on it to fool the magic detector. Someone called it in the comments on last chapter, when I get a chance to check I'll edit their name in so they get the appropriate Bayes points.

Comment author: pangel 08 July 2013 01:40:31PM 3 points [-]

Or Harry transfigured Hermione's body into a rock and then the rock into a brown diamond. Unless the story explicitly disallows double transfigurations and I missed it.

Comment author: Benito 08 July 2013 03:28:02PM 5 points [-]

I thought this, but the spell used to undo a transformation by Harry in 89 is 'Finite Incantatem' which sounds more like 'stop magic happening here' rather than 'undo a single transformation', especially considering its varied other uses. Assuming Dumbledore didn't make a basic error (he didn't) I feel as though my stone hypothesis from earlier has been falsified.

Comment author: gwern 08 July 2013 03:41:59PM 2 points [-]

My problem with that is that the rock should then still be a 'transfigured object' for the purposes of the spells and detected when Dumbledore examines the untransfigured diamond.