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kilobug comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 28, chapter 99-101 - Less Wrong
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If Quirrell wanted Harry dead, he would kill him. Even without being able to use magic against him directly, there are plenty of ways for him to do it.
I think Quirrell still wants or hopes something from Harry. Maybe it's just that Harry needs to be still alive for the "blood, bones, flesh" rituals, but I think it's something much more specific, linked to Harry's dark side and why their magic can't interact.
Personally, I think Quirrell killed Hermione, in the hopes of getting Harry to actually figure out how to defeat death - something no one else has ever done.
The reason he was happy when he heard the prediction that Harry would break the Universe is that this was near-confirmation that Harry would be successful.
In short, here is my version of Quirrell's plan:
1) For deniability reasons, be anti-resurrection from the start, and horribly worried about what Harry will do - tell Harry this
2) Kill someone Harry won't allow to stay dead (Hermione)
3) Become convinced by Harry to help with the plan - provide magic knowledge he doesn't have access to on his own
4) Use any means necessary (Unicorn blood) to stay alive until Harry is close to success
5) Harry is now the solution to whatever is slowly killing you
That is the exact opposite of how he reacted.
His attitude after hearing the prophecy can be summed up by his words to McGonagall, which are consistent with everything he does thereafter:
I would say that his request to McGonagall is consistent with my theory - he knew that her attempts to stop Harry would have the opposite effect. I am guessing that Quirrell has some alternate interpretation to the prophecy.
One possibility for this is "The End of the World" corresponds to an change to the natural order that makes the world unrecognizable, such as the removal of mortality.
It is possible that instead of burning up his own life to destroy all the dementors or defeat death, Harry could burn up some stars, which could explain the rest of the prophecy.
I'm not saying that I am correct, but I still see no actions that are inconsistent with my theory.
I think part of the confusion is that we are interpreting the punctuation differently. I don't interpret your second quotation (first quotation from the text) as meaning that he was happy, until interrupted by hearing the prophecy, but rather that the prophecy was the reason he had smiled.
Regarding the sequence of events, here's how it goes:
(quoted from hpmor.com rather than the .pdf this time for greater accuracy)
I really don't see how you can get any sequence of events out of that other than "Trelawney is about to make prophecy -> Quirrell analyses Harry's emotions and is happy with what he finds -> Trelawney makes prophecy". Quirrell doesn't even get a full stop at the end of his thought before the quote marks open for Trelawney to speak.
Fair enough.
I must admit, this makes my theory less likely, but I still don't see your reading as the unambiguously correct interpretation, but I will freely cede that it look plausible that it is an interrupt, not an elaboration. This may, in part, stem from the fact that I am a big proponent of using "-" in my writing, and my usage is somewhat nonstandard.
Even if that is right, I don't think it rules out my guess about Quirrell's plan, but again, I'm significantly less confident now.
Not strictly true: if Quirrell both wanted Harry dead and was able to kill him then he would kill him.
It seems to me we have to consider two hypotheses, each of which is problematic:.
Both hypotheses contain a puzzle. If Quirrell is unable to kill Harry, why is that? (One guess: his offering to spare Harry in exchange for Lily's life created a binding dark ritual, and Quirrell can't get out of it.) Alternatively, if Quirrell is able to kill Harry, what exactly makes Harry so supremely valuable? Using Harry in a resurrection ritual, or as a puppet ruler of magical Britain, don't seem to be high enough value when measured against the risk, do they?
My initial thought was that Chapter 101 provides evidence against 1 and in favour of 2: if Quirrell's problem is an inability to kill Harry, then Quirrell could just let the centaur do the job instead. But then, the Time-Turner evidence means that Quirrell already knows that the centaur's attempt will fail anyway, so he might as well stop it himself (and stay in Harry's favour). I still don't think we can rule out hypothesis 1.
Quirrell said he considered killing Harry at some point, so there are 3 possibilities: 1) he's lying, 2) there is a dark binding ritual that he doesn't know about, or 3) there is no dark ritual. Considering his knowledge of dark rituals we can rule out number 2, and since there isn't a clear reason why he'd tell this specific lie, I'm going to go with 3.
If Quirrell doesn't want Harry dead then obviously he'd stop the Centaur, and if he does want Harry dead, he wants to do it on his own terms, with nothing left to chance and no loose ends, so again he'd stop the Centaur.
Or 4) He considered it, and discarded it because of a dark binding ritual.
Quirrell might have been referring to his initial plan (as Voldemort) to end Harry's life back when Harry was a baby. Quirrell/Voldemort could not have known about a dark ritual then, because he hadn't created it.
I still don't think the "dark ritual" hypothesis is very strong, because I can't see why Quirrell would have done it deliberately, so it happened accidentally. It's not clear whether "accidental" dark rituals are even possible in the HPMor universe, but if they are, Quirrell ought to be more careful to avoid them.