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Why does Quirrel need Harry's help to obtain the Stone? What can Harry do that can't be done by Quirrel, Sprout, Snape (who is now controlled by Quirrel), the other students present (who want to get the Stone but not to use it, bypassing the Mirror), Harry's Cloak and Time-Turner (now in Quirrel's possession), and every other resource Quirrel could have prepared (e.g. Bellatrix)?

Finally, why did Quirrel have to bargain for Harry's help, instead of having Sprout or Snape use Imperius on him?

I haven't seen any theory that explains this, but surely such a major plot point should have been hinted in advance.

ETA: Harry agrees with my interpretation that we're missing something:

Harry knew that this was too good an offer to make to someone at whom you were pointing a gun. Unless you desperately needed their help to get the Philosopher's Stone out of the magic mirror.

Astazha10y10

32WalterL10y

I think we've got Dumbledore to thank for this one, honestly. CanonVoldemort went to every effort to kill Dumbledore, but it seems clear that RationalistVoldemort could have murdered him at leisure. He keeps Dumbledore around as a sort of Batman to his Joker. It puts the story where he taught him not to respond to hostage taking in perspective. Despite his disdain, Voldemort has to recognize that Dumbledore's madness is occasionally an advantage. Since he elects not to kill Dumbledore, he has to compensate for it. I'd argue that he actually enjoys it on some level. Thus, while all logic has Voldemort dead long ago (for all the reasons Harry/Quirrel discuss) Dumbledore leaps to the conclusion that Voldemort is alive and behind everything. That is, he leaps to the correct conclusion, for no reason. Similarly, given a belief in the existence of Voldemort somewhere in the world, any other wizard would be searching diligently and inventively. Dumbledore, by contrast, sets up a trap that couldn't be more obvious if it was a box propped up by a stick. Quirrel openly mocks it earlier in the tale. Its a trap that should never work, and yet, here we are, with Lord Volodemort entering the trap. Harry is, to Voldemort's mind, mostly just a subset of his own abilities. Not as smart, shackled by stupid teachings, not as magically powerful. If the creator of the defenses was some kind of RivalVoldemort there would be no need whatsoever for him to bring the potentially traitorous Harry, but the defenses were designed by Dumbledore, and will be just as stupidsmart as you'd expect. The traps set up by faculty are more or less just foreplay. They are set up by the Snapes of the world, just weaker and dumber versions of Voldemort. But Dumbledore's might be a whole other kettle of fish. Perhaps, in order to reach the mirror you must pass a Dementor? Its a stretch to imagine him having a dementor in the school, but maybe its trapped somehow so it can't kill students? Maybe you h

2HungryHippo10y

One theory voiced on the HPMOR subreddit is that Quirrell wants to use the stone to permanently transfigure himself into Harry.

See in context

12 Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapters 105-107

by b_sen

17th Feb 2015

1 min read

354

12

Two new short chapters! Since the next one is coming tomorrow and we know it'll be short, let's use one thread for both.

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 105 (and chapter 106, once it comes out tomorrow). EDIT: based on Alsadius' comment about thread creation for MOR chapters, let's also use this thread for chapter 107 (and future chapters until this nears 500 comments) unless someone objects to doing so. Given that this is the final arc we're talking about, thread titles should be updated to indicate chapters covered.

There is 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.)

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:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

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7Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 108

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapters 105-107

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[-]Viliam_Bur10y430

Quirrell will be killed by Harry at the end -- but this is all a part of the plan.

Suppose that Quirrell is not the original Riddle, but is just another Riddle's copy. If Quirrell and Harry are both copies of the original Riddle, the original Riddle had no reason to prefer Quirrell's life to Harry's life.

The story about a good hero saving the world by defeating a horrible villain: he did not have to fake it. He could make it real, by letting two of his own copies fight against each other. Realistic hero Harry will be better than a fake hero; he will be more authentic; there will be no risk of discovering his secret in the future.

Just like Harry had a magically induced blind spot in his mind, also Quirrell can be manipulated. (Memory changes, imperius, unbreakable oath... there are many options.) This is why Quirrell does not kill Harry, why he teaches him things, any why he is making him angry at the end. This all is Quirrell's purpose; he is just a tool to prepare Harry for the role of king of the world. Quirrell is not optimizing for Quirrell; he is optimizing for Riddle.

So, this is what I imagine: First Riddle created his copy, Quirrell. Maybe with a specific purpose, maybe just ... (read more)

[-]Ben Pace10y140

Of course! Why did no one realise this! When horcruxes are basically copying yourelf like an upload (cf. the work of Robin Hanson) then all of the standard theories apply; when you have many tasks to do, run copies of yourself to do them. What other Hansonian techniques could the horcruxes be used for?

I mean, Tom Riddle should be having an excellent life, whilst he's made a copy of himself to figure out how to run the world. Then that copy could be responsible setting up the above plan, and made two more copies.

This reminds me how it's said that Quirrell is inspired by Hanson. Not just his cynical explanations of human behaviour, but also his economics of copying minds. Neat.

5Bugmaster10y

Maybe Quirrel and Harry are just individual vectors in a massively parallel multiverse-spanning genetic algorithm, designed to produce the ultimate Tom Riddle.

3SilentCal10y

The challenge for this theory is squaring with ch. 102 Quirrell's Parseltongued dismissal of Horcruxes as "meaningless" and "not truly gainsaying death", and so on, and with Quirrell's more recent Parseltonged statement that he cannot be truly killed by any power known to him. I guess he's brainwashed into both these beliefs, with the latter being factually false?

1TobyBartels10y

The first was said as a snake animagus, and it's not clear whether the inability to lie applies there too.

0Viliam_Bur10y

Could have referred to generally known Horcrux 1.0, which is non-destructive. There could also be Horcrux 2.0, known only to Tom Riddle. (There is no mention of Horcrux 2.0 in the story, but we already know that at least two spells have advanced versions: Patronus, Avada Kedavra, and now possibly Transfiguration. Also, if non-destructivity of the copy is the only problem, this problem seems relatively easy to fix once a person is aware of it. There is a technical problem of mixing your personality with the original personality, which you reduce by copying into a baby, and saving your memories. Then there is another technical problem of becoming a helpless baby, which you can solve by creating a non-destructive copy that will protect the baby, which also helps to overcome the Interdict of Merlin.) Okay, this one is more serious. If horcrux is merely a copy, then this does not make sense: any number of copies can be killed. So either horcrux is not what Quirrell said, or there are other spells protecting Quirrell. (Also, "horcrux as a copy" would not explain how Quirrell is a spirit able to possess bodies, or how he can use the horcrux in the space, so there is obviously more than just copying.)

0SilentCal10y

I'd bank on other spells; "meaningless" is a pretty strong dismissal, and I don't think it could apply to something that let you become a disembodied possessing spirit. The Pioneer horcrux might just be an evil surprise for another planet some day.

0alienist10y

Probably not, space is incredibly empty.

0TobyBartels10y

The main danger, I would imagine, is that somebody searching for signs of extraterrestrial life [that is, extra-their-terra, not extra-our-terra] might actually seek it out. (Hopefully anyone with the technology to make such a search successful already knows about magic and can safeguard against it.)

2alienist10y

Well, that raises the question how exactly does magic interact with aliens? Come to think of it how do hocruxes interact with Terran non-human sentients?

2Ben Pace10y

This theory is flipping epic. Wow.

1JoshuaZ10y

This is a very interesting idea. What probability do you assign to it?

6Viliam_Bur10y

It is too complicated, and also my knowledge of HPMOR is suboptimal. (I forgot many parts, didn't read it again, and I have read other fanfics meanwhile. Also in the discussions about HPMOR I regularly read insights that I have completely missed.) This also contradicts my theory, unless Quirrell is planning to yet give Harry a last-minute ultra-compressed lesson. By the way, how much human education is necessary to overcome the Interdict of Merlin? Because the students still have to study the books, don't they? Could teachers just give 1% in speech and let them learn the remaining 99% from books? Could Quirrell give Harry the 1% of everything in this final lesson? His flaunting of overpowered magic could be an introduction to this lesson. Also he made sure they have enough time. Okay, here are a few silly numbers: * Quirrell is Riddle's non-destructive copy, Harry is the destructive copy -- 10% * Quirrell "wants" his body to be killed by Harry, without possessing Harry in turn -- 50% * there is a spell/curse/oath (other than prophecy) that forces Quirrell to decide suboptimally for his survival -- 10% * Quirrell could not kill Harry (with gun) and survive, if Harry now refused to obey him -- 30% * the mirror (or the room with the mirror) contains Riddle's memories -- 30% * Dumbledore suspects that Harry is Riddle, and expects him to reach the mirror -- 70%

6JoshuaZ10y

Those all sounds like reasonable estimates: too bad. I was hoping to possibly make a few quick bucks out of a conjunction fallacy bet. But given that it is you I shouldn't be surprised that the actual calibration level looks pretty sane.

2Viliam_Bur10y

I guess my time spent at the CFAR workshop wasn't completely wasted. :D

1gothgirl42066610y

This theory makes sense, but I'm not sure how it could be done in a narratively satisfying way. "Harry defeats Voldemort" is a lot better than "Voldemort wins, only Harry is Voldemort, so in a way Harry wins, but really there was no battle in the first place, and..."

1Viliam_Bur10y

A narratively satisfying ending could be Harry defeating Voldermort without getting Riddle's memories back. (But reader would be clearly told about the original Riddle's plan.) Dumbledore probably expected this, so maybe he separated Riddle's memories into two separate heaps: the technical skills, and the values. Harry will take the first part, but refuse to take the second part. (Okay, this feels dumb: why would Dumbledore even provide the opportunity to take the second part?) Or Harry may use the Philosopher Stone to somehow protect his "self" from being overwritten by Riddle.

2TobyBartels10y

Dumbledore will provide the opportunity to take the second part iff he predicts that Harry wouldn't take it.

-1Vaniver10y

By this reasoning, 2 Horcruxes is as many as 7. This seems possible. (The other details, as always, seem to reduce the probability.)

[-]dxu10y330

...Huh. Unless I've been Obliviated, the summary for HPMoR on fanfiction.net used to show "Hermione G., Harry P." on its character list. Now it says "Hermione G., Tom R. Jr." instead.

EY really doesn't miss anything, does he?

[-]JoshuaZ10y360

While amusing, it doesn't seem like a good idea for new readers. Is essentially a spoiler.

1Alsadius10y

...For canon?

3JoshuaZ10y

No. Spoiler that it essentially this story will emphasize that. No also that it isn't "canon"- in the canonical version there's a piece of Riddle in the real Harry but its influence is pretty minimal and the person making decisions is still Harry.

0Alsadius10y

I'd argue that's still the case in this story. If anything, it's more misleading than spoiler. (Which is fine for an in-joke, of course)

6Transfuturist10y

That is so evil.

[-]UnclGhost10y310

Professor Quirrell then turned back to where the Potions Master lay sprawled, bent over and placed his wand on Professor Snape's forehead. "Alienis nervus mobile lignum."

The Defense Professor stepped back, and began to move his left fingers in the air as though manipulating a puppet on strings.

Professor Snape pushed himself up from the ground by smooth motions, and stood once more before the corridor door.

From Chapter 88: Time Pressure, Part 1, before anyone knows about the troll yet:

"You know," Harry said, as he turned his head away to stare at the ceiling illusion of a clear blue sky, "that still creeps me out sometimes."

"What does?" said Fred or George.

The powerful and enigmatic Defense Professor was 'resting' or whatever-the-heck-was-wrong-with-him, his hands making fumbling, hesitant grabs at a chicken-leg that seemed to be eluding him on the plate.

Are there any other times that Quirrell is described making similar gestures? (Note that another time he apparently controls someone else--the centaur in Chapter 101--he doesn't do this, but that may be due to the centaur actually being dead as some have speculated.) [Edit for Ch. 106: Confirmed; the centaur and Fluffy became Infieri.]

[-]jaime200010y290

I just realized why some spells were causing Harry dread, apprehension, and anxiety in chapter 104. It's not because Professor Sprout is controlled by Professor Quirrell (which she is), since other spells of hers fail to trigger the effect and yet one of Tonk's spells does. It's because Quirell is using metamagic to influence the outcome of the battle! He empower's Sprout's brown bolt so that it tears through Professor Snape's shield, and he quickens her stunner so that Snape can't dodge. Then he empowers Tonk's spell to ensure that she will take out Sprout.

In retrospect, this makes perfect sense. There are too many people involved, and combat is inherently chaotic; there is simply no way Quirrell can predict exactly how the fight will go. But he can be there, using gentle nudges to actively steer it towards the small region in outcome-space that ranks high in his utility function, and hope that Harry Potter is too distracted by the battle to notice (which he was; his deduction that Quirrell is behind the plot never once mentions this fact). As a bonus, this explains how Sprout can defeat Snape, when normally we wouldn't expect her to stand a chance.

[-]Anatoly_Vorobey10y180

The entire point of that whole battle is to encourage Harry to commit his hidden resources (Lesath under the Cloak). The whole brawl is basically a show put on for Harry's benefit. Since Quirrell controls the time of Harry's coming to the scene, he could easily take out Snape himself and move him out of the way earlier. He didn't need to bring Sprout or manipulate others to come.

Since Quirrell neglected to ask Harry in Parseltongue whether he still has hidden resources Quirrell doesn't know about, it's still just about possible that Cedric Diggory, Time-Turned, is following them under the second Cloak. I hope he does.

[-]Michelle_Z10y280

I cannot be truly killed by any power known to me.

Prophecy, much? The power he knows not? I mean, that's a gimme but...

-1Velorien10y

It's also a misleading statement. In a world where there is an artefact granting permanent transfiguration just down the corridor, there is nothing to stop Harry (or anyone) incapacitating Voldemort long enough to permanently transfigure him into air.

4MarkusRamikin10y

Instead of air, I suggest Christmas present wrapping paper. Just for spite.

4Velorien10y

That would result in a twist ending. An act of such sheer pure evil would instantly catalyse his Tom Riddleness and transform him into Voldemort v2, complete with snake face and glowing red eyes. But the reason I suggest air is that once it disperses it cannot be Finite Incantatemed or Reparoed or targeted by any magical effect we know of. We don't know if Philosopher's Stone transfigurations are permanent in every sense or just in the duration sense, and you do not want any possibility of someone bringing Voldemort back with a first-year spell like Finite Incantatem.

2polymathwannabe10y

I would expect Finite Incantatem to work like Dispel Magic and require a caster level check.

3Velorien10y

That still wouldn't be safe. The possibility of using "massed Finite Incantatem", as raised by Quirrell, suggests that low-level casters can dispel high-level ones' spells, either by combining power (circumstantial help modifier?) or by getting a natural 20. And matters being as they are, if Voldemort gets transfigured, odds are good that it will be done by Harry (who has a low caster level).

0skeptical_lurker10y

Well, firstly the Horocruxes would keep him alive, so all you've done is kill Quirrel, and secondly I'm pretty sure Voldemort's sheilds would prevent Harry either incapacitating or transfiguring him.

5Velorien10y

On the contrary. Transfigured people don't die until the transfiguration wears off, which it never would, so Voldemort would be effectively dead but without any anti-death protections (such as turning into a disembodied spirit) triggering. Not the point. Voldemort said he couldn't be truly killed, not that he was invincible in battle. Any discussion of Voldemort's killability assumes that the attacker has somehow penetrated his ordinary defenses.

6skeptical_lurker10y

Horcruxes don't work that way in HPMOR: Horcruxes create copies, like uploads. I think what Voldemort means is that whatever happens to this copy, the Voyager copy will survive. However, if there is a second mechanism of surviving death availible to him, I would imagine he would set it up to be triggered by any form of permanent vegetative state.

0Vaniver10y

Hmm. Is Harry a Horcrux, or a part of Harry, like his scar? Does Harry have the ability to infect secondary victims?

-3skeptical_lurker10y

In canon, Harry is a Horcrux (created accidentally by the AK attempt), and Ginny is possessed by Tom Riddle because she is imprinted by his diary. Someone speculated earlier that Roger Bacon's diary is Tom Riddle's Horcrux in HPMOR, which has now pretty much been proven true, and so now Harry is a Horcrux and has been imprinted by a second Horcrux. I think if Harry's dark side has the ability to infect anyone, it would be Harry. I'm actually surprised that Harry hasn't gone far darker.

0gjm10y

It has? How?

0skeptical_lurker10y

Because Quirrel referred to Harry as Tom Riddle. Its possible that Quirrel put some other item which is a Horocrux of Tom Riddle in Harry's vicinity, but the diary is by far the most probable because it mirrors canon.

[-]gjm10y210

My interpretation of that was extremely different: that Harry got riddled when he was a baby, in Godric's Hollow.

In canon, Ginny reads the diary a lot and this enables Riddle to take her over when he wants to. When he does, she's basically a puppet: it's (fully aware) Riddle scrawling on walls and summoning basilisks, and Ginny's completely unaware of it; afterwards, Ginny is basically her normal self again, with no memory of what Riddle did while operating her body.

There's no sign in HPMOR of anything like that happening to Harry. The Harry whom QQ addresses as "Tom Riddle" has (so far as we can tell) psychological continuity with the Harry we've been following through the previous hundred-plus chapters. There's no sign of "absences" like Ginny had. After being addressed as "Tom Riddle" (and, again, with no indication of any personality changes or anything) Harry resolves explicitly that he is going to do whatever he can to stop QQ. So if we are supposed to understand that the diary had some major effect on Harry, it has to have done it in a way that doesn't "mirror canon" much at all.

What I think is being described here is something more li... (read more)

3lfghjkl10y

I agree with everything you said except that. Look at this line from chapter 17 after Harry picked up Neville's remembrall: It makes it pretty clear that the second spell Voldemort cast on baby-Harry was Obliviate. Since we know that obliviated memories can not be recovered only Riddle's thought-patterns are left in Harry, and that's his dark side.

0Izeinwinter10y

Not necessarily - infants brains are to plastic to retain memory, so it's entirely possible it just erased itself all on it's own. Uhm. I've been entertaining the idea that Slytherin did something to his descendants to make them immune to memory magics. In which case, maybe the entire point of horcruxing an infant was to get a fork of his mindstate without his memories, because the direct approach would not cut it. On the other hand, this chain of inferences is getting a wee bit longer than I am at all comfortable with.

0gjm10y

Yes, that's very plausible.

2skeptical_lurker10y

The problem with this is that presumably since Harry was AKed by adult Voldemort, his scar contains a Horocrux of adult Voldemort. Well, EY often mirrors canon, while making certain changes for the sake of plausibility - for instance the philosoper's stone works differently. I'm not exactly sure why he would want to change the effects of possession, but I could certainly see him changing the way it works. I suppose it would mean baby-Harry knowing how to walk and talk from day one. The more I think about it, the less sense any of this makes. I mean, sure I can buy that Harry's scar is a Horocrux subtly influencing his behaviour. I could imagine that there are multiple entities in his head. But 'Harry' seems to be the primary. If he can't remember any of Riddle's memories, what does it mean to say that he is Riddle?

0roystgnr10y

I agree that Harry has been Harrymort from infancy. But I can't agree that the diary has no major effect: Harry figures out Quirrell's identity almost immediately after Snape casts some sort of "Dispel Magical Confusion", yet the only character who would have the knowledge and incentive to magically confuse Harry about this is Quirrell himself, who seems to be incapable of directly using magic on Harry or Harry's magic. I'm not sure exactly how Riddle's horcrux-diary would get around that rule. If two copies of Riddle can't use magic on each other normally, what does it matter if the two copies are Harry+Quirrell or Harry+diary? But Quirrel does want to keep Harry confused about something, and then he gives Harry a fascinating book that resembles an object of Voldemort's which magically confuses someone in canon, and then Harry appears to lose focus regarding both the book and the questions that Quirrell wants him confused about, and then Harry appears to have been the subject of a magical confusion... The book sure looks suspect.

0gjm10y

Yes, I could certainly believe that having the diary has had some effect on Harry's mental state (though I think he's been a bit oblivious to Quirrell since before he had it). But that's quite a different matter from saying that since getting the diary he's been subject to such a transformation that before he was Harry Potter and now he's Tom Riddle.

0Vaniver10y

I seem to recall there being early evidence that McGonagall was influenced by Quirrell, one way or another, to ensure that he ended the school term as teacher. It seems out of character for her to knowingly enchant Harry, but I recall a line where she explicitly dismissed a felt sense of doom in a way that seemed out of character.

0jefftk10y

Wild speculation: hat-and-cloak is Harry possessed by Riddle via Bacon's diary.

[-]dxu10y250

I love how so many people are acting as though their pet hypotheses have already been confirmed (both here and on Reddit), despite the fact that the only evidence we've got at this point for most of those hypotheses is Quirrell's word. I don't know about anyone else, but this seems to me like a golden opportunity for EY to pull some sort of epic subversion of expectations and then lecture all of us about confirmation bias or overconfidence or something.

9RomeoStevens10y

Quirrell can even fool people IRL. Let's hope he doesn't escape the box of the fanfiction. Maybe writing the fan fiction installed him as a tulpa on EY's wetware.

[-]Quirinus_Quirrell10y100

I am not a tulpa and am not (in this instance) running on EY's wetware.

1Lumifer10y

Slightly paraphrasing the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, "Well you would say that, wouldn't you?" :-D

2DanArmak10y

Actually, that's already happened long ago. (Look at that user's post history.)

2ChristianKl10y

EY did write that it's not his intention to mislead readers.

2dxu10y

Not misleading readers, yes. Letting readers come to their own conclusion, which happens to be wrong, on the other hand...

1NancyLebovitz10y

I'm feeling somewhat reassured that my theory that Quirrell is evil is confirmed, but is there still room left for him to turn out to be benevolent?

4dxu10y

Seeing as HPMoR is in large part about pointing out how narrative logic doesn't work in reality, it seems plausible to me that even if Q == V, that doesn't necessarily imply that he's evil. (Well, I mean, he is pretty evil, but I'm not sure he's going to end up being the Big Bad of the story.)

6ReevesAnd10y

Following up on the idea of breaking narrative logic, might there not really be a Big Bad at all. Like, Voldemort has sobered up over the years and really just wants to be immortal. He'll go to great lengths to get there, but doesn't plan to destroy the world or anything. Just an idea.

[-]BloodyShrimp10y180

Harry made some serious mistakes in chapter 105.

First, the parseltongue honesty-binding could just be Quirrell's (selective!) wandless magic--I mean, he just forged a note "from yourself" (and why do you even MAKE a self-recognition ("I am a potato") policy if you just forget all about it once you're in a life-stakes intrigue) so you need a lot of extra suspicions going forward. But assuming it's real... there are crucial questions Harry can now profitably ask, with his help conditional on getting immediate Parseltongue answers, along the lines of:

"Why did you set up this elaborate ruse instead of just asking me? Most of what you're saying right now sounds like something I would've probably agreed to if you were open about it, but no, you had to pretend you were dying and kill my friend, so it sure seems like you're planning nefarious things I'd rather not aid even at the cost of my life and the hostages' lives... does my CURRENT utility function actually prefer your planned results to the death of me and the hostages?"

(This isn't the perfect phrasing; for one thing Quirrell doesn't necessarily know Harry's utility function to high accuracy, for anothe... (read more)

[-]dxu10y140

I agree that Harry's actions weren't even close to optimal in that situation, but you have to cut him some slack; after all, he just found out that he was a fork of Lord Voldemort, that his best friend had been killed by his trusted mentor, and, oh, let's not forget that that mentor also happens to be Lord Voldemort. He'd have been hard-pressed to be thinking completely clearly after a series of revelations like that. (Mind you, all of these revelations sans the last one came from Quirrell himself, who's hardly the most trustworthy character out there, but the shock and emotional impact is real nonetheless.)

[-]BloodyShrimp10y100

Certainly, and in the actual situation, I would have done worse than he actually did. But, this kind of armchair analysis is extremely enjoyable, and a good way to improve your in situ skills.

9imuli10y

Or Harry just wrote a note that looked like Quirrell had forged it, to help his past-self figure it out at the appropriate time.

1LauralH10y

Perhaps this is how Potter will "be seen to once again defeat the Dark Lord"? (re: ch65-66)

0Velorien10y

While Quirrell could have asked Harry to help him as a friend, it would have risked Harry balking at any step in the process which involved sufficiently unethical action, at which point Quirrell would have had to pause what he was doing in order to intimidate Harry into compliance (and wait for him to deal with the shock etc.).

[-]Viliam_Bur10y110

Quirrell sometimes makes the mistake of pushing people too much. Perhaps as a consequence of too much cynicism. Harry would probably help Quirrell just because he cares about him... but Quirrell does not understand the concept of "care" and thinks it is only a role that Harry feels obliged to play, which he does not trust as a sufficient motivation to overcome obstacles. So he add further motivation; things that seem sufficiently motivating in his model of Harry.

0DanielLC10y

I'm surprised Quirrell couldn't do a better job with the note. He could have given Harry the memory of making a new self-recognition policy, which would be a sensible thing for Harry to do after his occlumency training.

6ArisKatsaris10y

1) It's not clear how easy it is to Memory-charm an Occlumens. 2) As far as we know, Quirrel & Harry can't directly use magic on each other.

2BloodyShrimp10y

Your point 2 is another thing I'm getting pretty suspicious of. Quirrell has set up a very long plan, and could easily have faked this effect with wandless magic, or an enchantment he could later dispel, all along.

0LauralH10y

I find it highly unlikely that he faked the Avada Kedavra/Patronus effect in Azkaban...

2BloodyShrimp10y

That could just be a feature of the True Patronus, which is pretty anti-death and especially anti-indifference-to-other-people's-lives.

0LauralH10y

But that's the first time Potter sees their magic interact, so what effect did Quirrell fake?

2BloodyShrimp10y

The sense of doom. I thought the magic-can't-interact was mostly just the strongest edge of that--e.g. (maybe "i.e." too) their magic could interact but it would hurt them enough that they don't try.

0Velorien10y

Memory Charms on students set off the wards, so he'd be drawing attention to himself (plus he'd need to have Sprout do it, which may have various complications of its own).

0dxu10y

Why is this comment retracted?

4Gavin10y

Apparently Professors can cast memory charms without setting off the wards.

[-]imuli10y180

The spell in progress that may kill hundreds of students that the stone can fix — sounds like something transfigured into a gas.

[-]EricHerboso10y160

If the snitch is both the trigger and the epicenter of this spell in progress, then this would explain how the three wishes will be granted by "a single plot". The game is played/watched by mostly Slytherin/Ravenclaw students, so mostly Slytherin/Ravenclaw students would die. I can see a school like Hogwarts then giving both these houses the House Cup as a way to deal with the trauma for surviving students and honor the lost children. So that's all three wishes: both houses win the House Cup, and the snitch is removed from Qudditch, all using "a single plot".

(from Iron_Nightingale on r/hpmor)

[-]Viliam_Bur10y180

The snitch will explode exactly at the moment when Slytherins and Ravenclaws have the same number of points, higher than the remaining houses. It will kill all students, thus freezing the house points.

This is what happens when you waste your wish on winning a stupid competition.

7WalterL10y

Or rather, Voldemort is the first kind of genie, the kind to whom no wish is safe.

1solipsist10y

Ooooh, I like it! But Harry was out watching the Quidditch game breathing non-doomy breaths.

7Alsadius10y

The promise was "tonight", and Harry left the Quidditch game at about 11:30 PM. Using colloquial meanings gives Quirrelmort until roughly sunrise to make good, which leaves him plenty of time even using the short nights of Scotland in June.

[-]Astazha10y160

The Defense Professor sent Harry the forged message after 11:04pm, but early enough that Harry was able to arrive at 6:49 with 1 hour left on his time turner. The time-turner has been confiscated, but this is still a big security hole.

Example possibility: Harry and Quirrel arrive at the mirror, and time-turned Harry is already there with Dumbledore, Moody, Madam Bones and a dementor, which had not been detected by present Harry because patronus 2.0 is out and shielding everyone from it. Quirrel can't apparate away in Hogwarts, patronus 2.0 stops any AK, and Dumbledore & friends can hold Voldemort off long enough for the dementor to start sucking face with Voldemort, who is particularly vulnerable. Harry retrieves his time-turner and goes back an hour to message Dumbledore via patronus and set this ambush up. Asking Harry to state whether he has betrayed him is of limited use here, since the betrayal can happen in the future but impact the present.

Why has The Defense Professor deliberately preserved an hour on Harry's time-turner? It must be significant to his plan.

[-]alephphi10y100

That's been bothering me ever since chapter 104 came out. It doesn't seem likely that Quirrel would have just missed that, so I see a couple possibilities:

1) Part of Quirrel's plan somehow requires Harry to use the time turner once, so by having Harry go back five hours he limits Harry's use of it as much as possible.

2) It's a trap. Leaving via time turner is an excellent escape mechanism, and Quirrel knows that Harry has a tendency to overuse it for that purpose. So if Harry does manage to do something unexpected, Quirrel's hoping he'll go for the time turner--only to find that it doesn't work.

Why doesn't it work? Because Quirrel wrote the note at 12:04, went back via his own time turner, and handed the note to the anonymous Hufflepuff*. Thus, if Harry were to activate his time turner for the sixth time at 7:00, it would fail in some fashion ("for you couldn't send information further back in time than six hours, not through any chain of Time-Turners" -- chapter 61).

This is a pretty narrow window, though. Quirrel would have to anticipate that Harry might immediately go back from 11:04 to 6:04 once he got the message, so Quirrel wouldn't have written the note any... (read more)

4William_Quixote10y

I noticed that as well. However, at Azkahban QQ reserved an extra use of the time turner for the end and it proved necessary. He may just think that as a best practice for plotting one should leave an extra use of time turners in as margin of safety.

[-]jaime200010y150

Why are they having a normal conversation and occasionally switching to Parseltongue to confirm the more important bits? Why not conduct the entire conversation in Parseltongue? Seems like the best way to ensure full cooperation leading to superior outcomes for both parties. Harry has already sneaked one lie past Quirrell, and he has no idea how much of what Quirrell said is true outside of the parts he deliberately chose to speak in Parseltongue.

[-]Alsadius10y210

Parseltongue is a low-information-density language - it lacks a lot of technical terms, colloquial phrases, and the like. Communication is much faster in English.

6MarkusRamikin10y

Because EY wants the chapter to be not-annoying to read, might be one good reason.

[-]Velorien10y140

Quirrell models himself as more intelligent than Harry, and has had far more time to plan, so he expects to win in any even contest. Being able to lie grants both parties great flexibility of options, which he expects to make better use of than Harry.

1garabik10y

However, Quirrell seems to dislike lies - half truth, yes, misleading information, yes, but blatant lie is just not in his style. Whether this is an inherent feature of his character or sense of honour, or he wants to keep open the possibility to confirm his words later in Parseltongue if need be, that's an open question.

6gwern10y

Inherent feature. We're told this in chapter 51:

0[anonymous]10y

If Voldemort doesn't at least sometimes use English to tell the truth, he'll never be able to lie to Harry again.

[-]TsviBT10y140

[EDIT: the Dark Lord of the Matrix have fixed this.]

There's a glitch in the Matrix:

A blank-eyed Professor Sprout had now risen from the ground, had picked up Harry's wand and was wrapping it in a shimmering cloth.

Then Harry does some bargaining, and then...

After that, Professor Sprout picked up Harry's wand, and wrapped it in shimmering cloth; then she placed it on the floor, and pointed her own wand at Harry.

3avichapman10y

I noticed that too. It's often a sign of obliviation. My secondary hypothesis is that it was a mistake and will be corrected in a later update.

3calef10y

Yeah, it's already been changed:

[-]Vaniver10y130

Observations:

Quirrell does not say what the Stone really does. Harry does, in normal speech. (Presumably Parseltongue only prevents willful lies.)
"Anyone else in Hogwarts" is pretty weak, especially since Dumbledore is presumably absent, and most of the people are at the Quidditch match (where is Sprout leading the others?). Especially as Quirrell interprets Hogwarts as "castle" in Parseltongue, and "unlesss I musst" is a pretty wide exemption.

Speculation:

Harry will not be saved by the power of love. (80%?)
Everyone involved in the deal gets 'what they want'--that is, cooperation on the Prisoner's Dilemma with a rational agent who (somewhat) shares your source code is rational, especially when defect-defect is miserable (presumably, both of them dead). (60%?)
Hermione is revived (90%?) and is an Alicorn Princess (20%?).

4TsviBT10y

Quirrell also claims (not in Parseltongue): It seems like what you can say in Parseltongue should only depend on the actual truth and on your mental state. What happens if I Confundus / Memory Charm someone into believing X? Can they say X in Parseltongue? If they can say it just because they believe it, then Parseltongue is not so hard to bypass; I just Confundus myself (or get someone to do it for me), tell the lie, and then cancel the Confundus. If they can't say something because it is actually false, then Parseltongue is an instant win condition. You just use binary search to figure out the truth about anything. Or maybe Parseltongue checks the speaker for mind magic, since this is the same principle as the Dark Mark, and Salazar is not too many levels below Voldemort. Is this evidence against the "Harry was Confounded to not realize Quirrell was Voldemort" theory? I don't remember if he talked about that in Parseltongue...

[-]linkhyrule510y160

If Parseltongue depended only on the actual truth of the world, Voldemort would have won already, because you can then pull single bits of arbitrary information out of the aether one at a time.

8Izeinwinter10y

It was designed by Salazar to help his heirs cooperate - Presumably, all the obvious ways to fuck with it are well and truly walled off, because he'd expect a bunch of them to be morons about this and try to light the awesome gift horse of a working trust engine on fire. Also presumably, it isn't an universal oracle, the world not being currently ruled by Salazar Slytherin the God-King. At a guess, it either keeps a log of your life separate from your memory, or the ability to speak parseltounge depends on an intact mind, and the only thing you are able to say in parseltounge if you do memory charms on yourself is "I'm a moron who thinks obliviate is a toy".

7ChristianKl10y

That's the story Quirrell tells Harry.

1polymathwannabe10y

But then Harry could simply start saying, "The ssecret to vanquishh deathh iss..." and his entire mission would be over.

[-]gjm10y100

"... not known to me yet."

3hairyfigment10y

Harry, talking about his promise to take the killer of Narcissa Malfoy as an enemy:

0Alsadius10y

I called it long ago(well before the confession) that the killer was Dumbledore, and that this pledge would cause a rift between Harry and either Dumbledore or Draco. Not 100% sure which side Harry will come down on there, but I'd say I'm about 90% that he sides with honesty.

[-]DanArmak10y110

Finally, why did Quirrel have to bargain for Harry's help, instead of having Sprout or Snape use Imperius on him?

I haven't seen any theory that explains this, but surely such a major plot point should have been hinted in advance.

ETA: Harry agrees with my interpretation that we're missing something:

Harry knew that this was too good an offer to make to someone at whom you were pointing a gun. Unless you desperately needed their help to get the Philosopher's Stone out of the magic mirror.

[-]WalterL10y320

I think we've got Dumbledore to thank for this one, honestly.

CanonVoldemort went to every effort to kill Dumbledore, but it seems clear that RationalistVoldemort could have murdered him at leisure. He keeps Dumbledore around as a sort of Batman to his Joker. It puts the story where he taught him not to respond to hostage taking in perspective.

Despite his disdain, Voldemort has to recognize that Dumbledore's madness is occasionally an advantage. Since he elects not to kill Dumbledore, he has to compensate for it. I'd argue that he actually enjoys it on some level.

Thus, while all logic has Voldemort dead long ago (for all the reasons Harry/Quirrel discuss) Dumbledore leaps to the conclusion that Voldemort is alive and behind everything. That is, he leaps to the correct conclusion, for no reason.

Similarly, given a belief in the existence of Voldemort somewhere in the world, any other wizard would be searching diligently and inventively. Dumbledore, by contrast, sets up a trap that couldn't be more obvious if it was a box propped up by a stick. Quirrel openly mocks it earlier in the tale.

Its a trap that should never work, and yet, here we are, with Lord Volodemort entering the t... (read more)

9Astazha10y

I don't think Dumbledore does shit for no reason. I think he knows more than he can let on, so he acts on what he knows but doesn't provide the real justification because it would compromise his sources and methods. He probably has extensive access to prophecies, which are the only way we know about that information can travel back more than 6 hours. Dumbledore has done some very long range things, like "your father's rock", and the hint to Lily about thestral blood. This is a guy who has access to many more relevant prophecies than we have seen. He at least has bugged Trelawney's bedside, and he may have sorted out better access than that. Plus, by being someone who is very powerful and extensively engages with, interprets, and acts upon prophecy, he becomes a relevant actor that prophecies tend to come to. Dumbledore is an excellent tool for prophecy, and vice versa.

7WalterL10y

Univat ernq 108, V srry fhcre cebhq bs guvf thrff.

0TobyBartels10y

Spoilers for Chapter 108 should be in rot13 in the thread on Chapters 105–107. (At least, I think that's the rule, and I support such a rule. For now, I am having the good sense to not scroll up.) Edit: Thanks!

0TobyBartels10y

Reference for Steerpike syndrome please?

[-]WalterL10y110

The Gormenghast books are more or less about a castle full of what I'd call anti-rationalists. They are entirely ruled by customs passed down from prehistory, and are generally incapable of change or improvement.

Enter Steerpike, villain of the piece and scullery boy. He is, I guess I 'd call it awake, and strives to improve his lot rather than being content with what his birth dooms him to. He is resisted at every turn by the denizen's bloody minded traditionalism (Spoilers: at one point he murders the 90 year old Master of Rituals, hoping to take his place, only for his 70 year old apprentice to come creeping out of the Room of Abiding where he has been waiting for this moment his entire life.)

Steerpike ultimately descends into terrorism out of more or less pure frustration. There's an incident where his evil works are discovered, but he feels relief more than anything else, since he no longer has to pretend to swallow their dogmas. I see shades of him in Voldemort's expressed deep loathing of the ordinary folks. I think he's delighted to have Harry to talk to, despite being his enemy.

0TobyBartels10y

Thanks. Gormenghast is one thing that I found in my Google search, but the description that I read of Steerpike didn't highlight loneliness as a character trait.

2drethelin10y

It's a reference to the Gormenghast trilogy, of which one of the main characters is an isolated teenager named Steerpike.

0Bugmaster10y

I started reading the first book, but stopped about 20% of the way in (may have been less, it's been a while since then), because I found it stupefyingly boring. Does that trilogy get any better later on ?

0drethelin10y

If you find it boring it's probably not for you. I enjoy the language, the descriptions and so on. It's the same as my recommendation for LOTR. I liked it a lot but I don't think everyone should. I find both pleasant to read even when nothing is really happening in the story.

0Bugmaster10y

Oddly enough I really like LOTR as well as The Silmarillion... So maybe I should give this Gormenghast thing another shot, I don't know. I think the difference between LOTR/Simlarillion and Gormenghast is that Tolkien's books contain well-crafted language and descriptions of scenery that are punctuated by moments of sheer epic overload; whereas Gormenghast contains the former but not the latter. But again, I haven't made it that far into it, so I could be wrong.

2HungryHippo10y

One theory voiced on the HPMOR subreddit is that Quirrell wants to use the stone to permanently transfigure himself into Harry.

0DanArmak10y

That doesn't explain why he needs the real Harry to obtain the Stone.

0Luke_A_Somers10y

He wouldn't need Harry to obtain the stone. He'd need Harry as a model.

4DanArmak10y

But then why go through all the trouble of first trying to convince, and then coercing, Harry to cooperate in retrieving the Stone? He can just go get the Stone by himself, and then tackle Harry later. Or stun Harry and take his body along. Why do the complex plot that got Harry to come there at the same time as Quirrel, potentially disrupting his maneuvers against Snape, and risk Harry's interference while obtaining the Stone?

4Luke_A_Somers10y

I was too flat about that statement. It was more of a guess what they were thinking. Making more ideas up - If he retrieves the stone, then Dumbledore will be on-site very quickly. Evidence will point to Quirrell, and Harry will become inaccessible. He needs Harry there the moment he gets the stone so he can already be Harry by the time Dumbledore shows up.

4DanArmak10y

That still doesn't explain why he needs Harry to cooperate in obtaining the Stone. Even if it's more convenient to have Harry walking along, rather than towing his stunned body, Quirrel went to a lot of trouble to secure Harry's explicit help. He actually bargained and traded promises with him. Which also leads me to ask: why couldn't Quirrel just make Sprout or Snape mind-control Harry using Imperius? Why did he have to bargain with him?

4gjm10y

In canon, Harry is very good at resisting Imperius, even when cast by Voldemort himself.

2Alsadius10y

In canon, Harry has also resisted even scarier magic cast by Voldemort.

0DanArmak10y

Good point. Although there's also whatever mind control spell Quirrel just used on Snape: Which Google informs me is a quotation from Horace meaning '[puppet-]wires that others pull'. Still, I agree it might be too hard to control Harry on short notice using intermediaries.

4UnclGhost10y

Based on Harry apparently still feeling the aura of doom when Sprout was casting spells while Imperiused in Ch. 104, it's likely that casting spells on Harry through someone else is subject to the same problems that doing it directly causes. I guess he could still use more mundane means like a tranquilizer dart and some kind of gurney, but it would be difficult to accomplish without either touching or using magic on Harry in the process.

0DanArmak10y

That's a plausible answer as to why he couldn't make Sprout or Snape cast Imperius on Harry. But it doesn't explain why he seems to need Harry's active help. He could just put Harry into a small, nonmagical cage or box, and float the box along, without his magic ever touching Harry directly. Or he could stuff Harry into the pouch, like Harry did to him in the Azkaban arc. (Granted, Harry can't turn into a snake.) If he needed Harry to be stunned for the duration, he could have told Harry to stun himself, threatening to torture the other students if he didn't.

[-]avichapman10y150

I just made a mental connection - probably a stupid one. The pouch's capacity was recently expanded and Cedric has yet to make an appearence...

1Astazha10y

I think this is all part of Quirrel's long game. Voldemort could have taken Magical Britain by force, but didn't. Why Voldemort, then? To be a scary villain and make people rally to "David Munroe". Why? Political power is one answer, and it has been much talked about in the story, but I'm not convinced. "Rule Magical Britain" seems too small. But Magical Britain is the site of Merlin's creations. It contains the Philosopher's Stone. It contains Nicolas Flamel and his lore. It contains the Department of Mysteries, the Ministry has control over time-turners, and so on. Tom Riddle has been playing a very long game to obtain magical power. He has the secrets of Slytherin. He isn't stopping there. Because of the Interdict of Merlin and the resulting decline of magic, old magic is powerful magic. This makes Flamel (Baba Yaga?) a huge, obvious, and dangerous target for Riddle. Dumbledore is as powerful as he is in large part because of what Flamel has shared with him. Riddle wants that power too, and force will probably not do the trick. What he needs is to inhabit a personality that Flamel and/or Dumbledore would support during a time of great need. The Philosopher's Stone is a huge milestone on his journey to power, but it's not the end. I think Quirrel is setting up a narrative in which Harry destroys Voldemort/Quirrel, but Riddle actually ends up inhabiting Harry (or already does). "Voldemort" can, of course, be resurrected as a convenient antagonist at any time, creating a crisis that will induce Dumbledore to teach Harry all he knows. Dumbledore can be killed, in either that or a subsequent crisis, inducing Flamel to share with Harry even more than Dumbledore knew. And Harry, as leader of Magical Britain and potentially Head Warlock, etc., will have access to other powers as well. So that's why Harry has to be along, and possibly why Quirrel has suddenly turned obviously villainous instead of just taking Harry up on his offer to help get the stone. Harry is part of

1TobyBartels10y

Does Flamel live in Britain? In real life, Flamel lived (and died) in France; I can't remember if either canon or MOR said anything about his moving to Britain, but the Wikia doesn't.

2Astazha10y

I didn't know that and I may have made a bad assumption about Flamel's location.

[-]Unnamed10y100

Quirrell's Parseltongue statements could use a close reading.

I cannot be truly killed by any power known to me.

This could just mean that the Pioneer horcrux prevents him from being "truly killed".

And your girl-child friend sshall be revived by me, to true life and health

This seems quite explicit. Quirrell thinks that he can bring Hermione back to life.

Harry: You already have an idea for what you want from me. What is it?

Quirrell: Your help in obtaining the Philosopher's Stone.

(Not in Parseltongue.) Quirrell later asks Harry in Parseltongue to promise to help get the Stone, but he never says in Parseltongue that help getting the Stone is what he actually wants from Harry.

I do not intend to raisse my hand or magic againsst you in future, sso long ass you do not raisse your hand or magic againsst me.

Does this rule out Quirrell transferring his soul into Harry's body (wiping out Harry's identity and reuniting with the Tom Riddle groundwork that he laid in Harry's mind)? Because without this line, that would be my leading hypothesis for what Quirrell actually wants Harry for.

[-]Velorien10y250

I thought it was worth revisiting Quirrell's past uses of Parseltongue. Most are nothing noteworthy, but there are a few interesting ones in Chapter 58.

I did not sseek to sslay the protector man!

Quirrell was telling the truth about not trying to kill Bahry.

Obvioussly you will ssee persson pretending to be healer on arrival!

While this could be literally true, or only true in the context of the hypothetical scenario suggested by Harry, it is worth noting that Quirrell never says in Parseltongue that the healer waiting for Bellatrix is real.

plan iss for you to rule country, obvioussly

This one sounds important now that we know it is definitely true (or at least was at the time).

4HungryHippo10y

What does "you" mean, though? Tom Riddle? In which case Quirrell could just as well be speaking of himself. The physical body others designate "Harry"? In which case Quirrell could just permanently transfigure himself into Harry's body using the stone, shoot Harry and vanish the body and claim "Quirrell" had urgent business elsewhere.

[-]spriteless10y100

If Voldemort (or whatever created both Voldemort and Harry) consideres Potter the same person as himself, then "I do not intend to raisse my hand or magic againsst you in future, sso long ass you do not raisse your hand or magic againsst me." is a tautology and always true.

6Subbak10y

This is probably not the case however, as it would feel like a very cheap language trick given that Quirrel has used "you" and "I" in parseltongue in a non-ambiguous manner several times already. Even worse, if Quirrel was going by this then he'd risk Harry picking up the trick and promising to help himself get the stone, and not consider it a betrayal.

2Rukifellth10y

What if Quirrell is so good at dissociation that he can lie through parseltongue by convincing himself that what he's saying is true?

2Alsadius10y

Canon!Voldemort, maybe. MoR!Voldemort, not a chance.

1TobyBartels10y

But rationalists should win, so MoR!Voldie should self-modify to be less Spock-rational and more capable of deceiving himself.

0Alsadius10y

Only if the ability to lie to Harry Potter is more valuable than having a clearly-functioning mind that accurately represents the real world.

0TobyBartels10y

Well, I'm not denying that it's a Dark Art. He'd have to apply this very selectively. I couldn't pull it off. Eliezer probably couldn't pull it off. But this is Quirinus Quirrell we're talking about! Edit after Ch 109: That's actually pretty similar.

2falenas10810y

That definitely hints that part of the plan is to make use of Harrymort in some way, which makes the "why the hell did he bring Harry along" part make sense.

1jefftk10y

Were any of these said by Quirrell as a snake, as opposed to Parselspeaking as a human?

5LauralH10y

All of them, as this is the first time Q hasn't turned into his Snake form first...

6UnclGhost10y

For that matter, why did he ever bother turning into his snake form? Just to make Harry think he had the limitation of not being able to speak Parseltongue while human, for some reason?

[-]Kindly10y230

Voldemort is the last known Parselmouth, so it would be highly suspicious for Quirrell to also be one.

1UnclGhost10y

Looks like I misunderstood the relevant passage in Chapter 49--when Quirrell confirms that other snake Animagi can't overhear them, he isn't implying that you also have to be a Parselmouth, he's implying that he can only understand Harry because Harry wills it.

8Alsadius10y

For an obvious reason - pretend to have more limits than you do, to be underestimated.

3jefftk10y

This makes me wonder whether we can trust anything Quirrell said as a snake. Let's say Parseltongue is "the ability to speak in snake language" and was created by Slytherin so that his heirs would have a way to talk to each other in a trusting way (plus so they could talk to snakes, because he liked snakes). Then Harry or Quirrell speaking as humans in Parseltongue are using Slytherin's creation, but Quirrell speaking as a snake animagus is just doing normal snake-talk and wouldn't have the restriction.

0Velorien10y

But Quirrell's justification RE Parseltongue was "snakes can't lie". So if we believe his explanation to begin with, we must assume that normal snake-talk is equally trustworthy.

4jefftk10y

Another possibility is that snakes can't lie (lying depends on some brain feature they lack) and Parselmouthing people can't lie (part of how it works) but a snake animagus is neither and so can lie.

0TobyBartels10y

FWIW, I'm pretty sure that EY would endorse the claim that lying depends on a brain feature that snakes lack. Lying in the sense of deliberate deception requires a theory of mind of the one being deceived, and snakes aren't that intelligent, or so I believe that EY believes (and for that matter believe myself). OTOH, snakes aren't intelligent enough to talk either; in HPMOR, they only do so by borrowing the mind of the Parseltonguer. And Parseltonguers can conceive of other minds, both for the benefit of snakes and for their own speech. So this doesn't prove anything.

1jefftk10y

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's EY's model. But a snake animagus doesn't have a snake brain; you keep your normal mind while you're an animagus.

3TobyBartels10y

Yes, I agree. So if Quirrel were deliberately trying to mislead, ‘Snakes can't lie.’ would be a great statement to use.

0jefftk10y

Or it's almost all truth with one crucial lie.

0gjm10y

Does that matter? (If you're suggesting that snakes -- even ones that are actually human animagi -- can lie when speaking Parseltongue even though humans apparently can't, where does that come from? If conversely you're suggesting that snakes can't but humans can, surely Harry's failure to say 2+2=3 in Parseltongue is strong evidence against that.)

4LauralH10y

On the first point : he can only be defeated by the Power He Knows Not!

[-]Phigment10y150

On the contrary.

Voldemort can only be defeated by The Power He Knows: Nott!

Notice that Theodore Nott is right outside. He was (oddly) traveling with the Meddling Kids Squad.

2Velorien10y

Very good. However, there's nothing odd about his presence with the other children. He's a Slytherin who's been portrayed sympathetically ever since his induction into the Chaos Legion, so it's very plausible that he's a member of the Silvery Slytherins and thus someone Draco would turn to for help in an emergency.

[-]Phigment10y100

It's odd in the sense that he hasn't been especially prominent in the story so far. All the others were involved in the bullying storyline, or are Draco.

Therefore, by the principle of conservation of nonsense, Theodore Nott must actually be polyjuiced Dumbledore.

3linkhyrule510y

On a side note, note that Quirrell is wrong or lying about already fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. The person that Quirrell marked as his equal, who has powers that Quirrell knows not, is the version of Harry Potter after Quirrell forked himself. Hence, presumably, the sense of doom. (... what is odd, though, is that Quirrell seems to be on the losing end of that conflict of magic.)

0Scott Garrabrant10y

Quirrell marked Harry as his equal. I cannot imagine anything more marking someone as your equal than replacing their mind with your own.

2linkhyrule510y

... but that's not marking someone as your equal, it's killing them and replacing them entirely. That's like saying murdering someone is marking them - maybe, but only in the useless-prophecy "A great nation will fall" sense. Whereas HJPEV got the same mark that Quirrell got in his first year.

2Gondolinian10y

Memory magics also make "known" rather flexible.

2kilobug10y

Seems quite weak promise to me. He just has to take hostages or do other actions/threats against something Harry values until Harry tries to stop him, and then he'll be free to do whatever he wants to Harry. He can even already have that plan in mind, and still say that sentence in Parseltongue. But we are back to the problem of "no safe wish", promises made by Quirrell, even in Parseltongue, cannot be trusted. Same for If he does revive her to true life and health, and after 5 minutes kill her again, he would fulfill the promise.

8ChristianKl10y

Parseltogue doesn't seem to allow for careful evasive wording but actually makes people speak openly about their intentions. It's also worth noting that parseltogue doesn't produce binding promises. To do binding promising the unbreakable vow is required.

4kilobug10y

It's not as fuzzy/rich as human languages, so it's harder to do it, but it's always possible to only say half of the truth which opens all doors to careful manipulation Indeed, it doesn't prevent people from reconsidering/changing their mind later on. The speaker has to believe what he says is the truth when he says it, but he can be honestly wrong, and he can change his mind later on. It seems from the way Harry worded his own part of the deal that if the speak knows he's likely to reconsider, he cannot openly promise it, but it's just a matter of "Harry now knows that future Harry may reconsider, so Harry now can't say future Harry will do it", only about the knowledge of Harry now, and is non binding on the future.

4ChristianKl10y

Richness isn't the only limiting factor. When Harry did his 2+2=3 experiment he automatically said 4. That seems the language automatically makes things that reveal the intention to come out.

8TobyBartels10y

It's a good thing that he tried to say 3 and not 5. Otherwise we'd be debating whether snake-language might not be rich enough to include 5. (Compare rabbit language in Watership Down, which has a single word for all numbers above 4, variously translated in the text as 5 or 1000.)

2[anonymous]10y

This is a common feature of primitive languages (including Proto-Uralic, which Finnish and Hungarian are descended from, as well as possibly Proto-Indo-European according to this paper -- though it's best known from Australian languages), but there's no way Salazar Slytherin would have neglected to put a full system of numerals into a language designed to be used for trustworthily planning and executing plots.

0TobyBartels10y

What's a full system of numerals? Even in Proto-Uralic, you could say ‘four and one’, and a human mind would understand that (whereas rabbits start getting confused, if I remember my appendix correctly). Conversely, in English, we don't have a word for 21; we just say ‘twenty and one’ (abbreviating the ‘and’ to a hyphen, while in French and German the ‘and’ remains).

4[anonymous]10y

A semi-relevant paper: http://www.academia.edu/1917177/On_numeral_complexity_in_hunter-gatherer_languages A footnote: Also: https://numberwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/is-one-two-many-a-myth/ -- the urapon/ukasar thing suggests that you might be right, but that looks like the same structure as in Bardi. I note in passing that the patterns in that first paper (that is, limits on numeral systems lining up areally, with Australian and Khoisan languages not having many numerals, other African languages varying but tending toward low limits, and Asian languages having high limits) look like they line up well with the IQ data I've seen, although South America is mildly surprising.

0alienist10y

Are you sure? My understanding (from reading some anthropology paper I chanced across is that people in cultures without full number systems do get more confused by large numbers.

2[anonymous]10y

Right, that's the claim about the Piraha at least: their language has no numerals, only two terms for 'smaller amount' and 'larger amount' and then circumlocutions for things like 'many': I haven't seen other studies, but I'd assume that people in cultures without full number systems would get confused by large numbers, just since they don't have practice with them. Now, the claim about the Piraha is that they wanted to learn to count -- after Everett noticed they couldn't count, they got worried that they were getting ripped off in trade -- but couldn't. I don't know how much to trust that, though.

0TobyBartels10y

I still don't know what a full number system is, although you and nydrwracu refer to it again. Is the claim that English has one but Proto-Uralic didn't? If so, how is the distinction drawn? The case of the Pirahã is different. They have less of a number system than the rabbits of Watership Down, and less of a number system than has already been established for Parseltongue. It makes sense that they couldn't learn to count [although the children could, if I remember correctly what I've read about them]. But I find it much harder to believe that a culture that can count to 4 can't learn to count beyond that. As for confusion, I'll buy that you get confused much earlier if you grew up counting to smaller numbers. Most English speakers have no good idea how big a million is, even if they're comfortable with the word. Nobody has a good idea how big 3^^^3 is.

1Gondolinian10y

Well, earlier he did promise:

7garabik10y

But not necessarily the same physical form - thus the Alicorn Princess.

9jefftk10y

Maybe she needs to come back as a unicorn, so she can have steady access to unicorn blood?

0Velorien10y

Except that according to Quirrell, the unicorn has to die in the drinking for unicorn blood to have its healing effect.

8hairyfigment10y

Hence the wings - she's a phoenixcorn. /lie

7TobyBartels10y

And when House Potter is elevated to royalty, then she (as a member of that house) becomes a Princess … now everything is explained!

0Jiro10y

Memory charm him to believe that some random young female person is his friend, and restore that person. Alternately, just find a young female friend who is already alive. Doing your best to resurrect a living person == no action.

0[anonymous]10y

seems like that last one also doesn't explicitly prevent quirrell shooting harry with a gun.

4Vaniver10y

"Raise my hand," in standard usage, also contains the use of any weapons to harm.

0[anonymous]10y

Then one assumes he wouldn't have to specify the magic clause (which uses a wand as a weapon held in the hand).

0TobyBartels10y

Wandless magic

[-]aleksiL10y90

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there seem to be two separate challenges on the Potions room parchment: a simple one consistent with canon and the skills and abilities of the target audience, and a complex one requiring an hour or so of careful and precise work. Looks like Harry and Quirrelmort focus exclusively on the long formula, ignoring the puzzle.

On rereading the relevant part of Ch. 107, it appears that Harry has an idea he doesn't want to share shortly after the broomstick conversation. On a close reading, it appears that he manages to avoid the topic... (read more)

4b_sen10y

Ooooh. That may well be a challenge that behaves differently around people who were or weren't supposed to be there. Perhaps solving the logic puzzle is sufficient to gain entry, and most students will either not think to flip the parchment over or get bored before they finish brewing the potion it describes. But Snape expects Voldemort to notice the lack of wards and decide to brew the potion, and accordingly has booby-trapped the potion in some manner that triggers upon its completion or after some time sufficient that he expects students to get bored first. The duration may well also be significant for Time-Turning.

[-]Anatoly_Vorobey10y90

Seems a bit strange that Quirrell didn't ask Harry to confirm in Parseltongue that Harry didn't have any contingency measures beyond those Quirrell already knows about (Lesath under the cloak). In the last chapter's discussion there were theories that Cedric Diggory might be around, time-turned with Harry. Even if not, why wouldn't Q make sure H doesn't have anyone else around to help or set up any other measures? Harry's promise "shall call for no help" isn't enough, if things are already set in motion for someone to help him.

[-]major10y80

There's a theory going around about how it was Amelia Bones who killed Narcissa Malfoy, based on nothing more than the stray thought 'Someone would burn for this.' What she said to Dumbledore during Hermione's trial ('You know the answer you must give, Albus. It will not change for agonizing over it.') seems to be taken as further evidence.

sigh

Of course it was Voldemort who did it!

I think what most of you fail to realize is, the whole thing happened after Voldemort heard the prophecy from Snape. Dumbledore predictably ignored the blackmail, and would not h... (read more)

2hairyfigment10y

I did mention this, along with some other guesses.

[-]Velorien10y80

I think much of what we are being told about Parseltongue is a lie.

What we've been told: Parseltongue is the language of snakes. Because snakes cannot lie, Parselmouths also cannot lie in Parseltongue. Salazar Slytherin invoked the Parselmouth Curse on himself and his descendants to take advantage of this last fact by using it as a trust engine.

However, snakes have no spoken language. This is a fact established by Muggle science. So what is Parseltongue, really?

Parseltongue has four confirmed functions.

1) It can temporarily awaken snakes to the level of

... (read more)

[-]ourimaler10y80

What kind of impressed me about "The Truth, part 1" was the reveal.

Consider: In most mystery novels, the reveal scene(s) is where the detective explains what the reader has been struggling to figure out since the start of the story. It provides a powerful "ah-ha!" moment if done right.

Here, everything Harry figures out is stuff the reader most likely already knew, thanks to meta-knowledge. We're watching him figure out what we'd been hoping he'd figure out for dozens of chapters. By all rights, it shouldn't provide that ah-ha feeling.

And yet... it does. I think the stream of consciousness really sells it. It helped me feel like I was inside Harry's head, living through that realization.

[-]iceman10y80

One of the ongoing patterns in HPMoR is how certain spells require people to believe certain things or to be in certain emotional states. Harry can perform partial transfiguration because he actually believes in timeless physics. Harry can cast Patronus 2.0 because of his beliefs about life and death. Avada Kedavara requires hate (or indifference).

I see no references to the conversation between McGonigal and Quirrell. "Professor Quirrell made a sharp gesture, as though to indicate a concept for which he had no words." McGonigal reacts. That there... (read more)

[-]Viliam_Bur10y110

I think Quirrell wants to teach Harry to give up.

First he does it explicitly, during the lesson. Okay, that is not really giving up; it's rather "pretending to lose, so you survive and have your revenge later". But even that is difficult for Harry. So maybe learning this lesson is just a first approximation towards really giving up?

"The boy cannot be allowed to continue in this state of mind. He will become dangerous. ... It is my professional judgment ... that the boy could join the ranks of those whose rituals are inscribed upon the tombstones of countries."

And recently it seems like Quirrell is taking his time to break Harry psychologically, demonstrating his advantage by overpowered attacks, reminding him about all the hostages he can kill.

The sadness and horror that Harry had pushed down flared up again, and his dark side had no stored patterns for handling the emotions. Why, Professor Quirrell, why are you like this...
Professor Quirrell smiled. "That reminds me. Have you betrayed me yet?"

It seems as if Quirrell wants Harry to betray him. And then he would kill the hostages. And then he would tell Harry: "It's all your fault."

Whi... (read more)

0LizzardWizzard10y

But quirell knows that Harry possesses the power which kills dementors, so it can't be related to prophecy from his perspective

7Rob Bensinger10y

'"he has power the Dark Lord knows not" could mean that the Dark Lord doesn't know that the power exists, or it could mean the Dark Lord doesn't know how to use the power. The prophecy didn't say 'he has power the Dark Lord knows not of.'

0ChristianKl10y

"like" doesn't really get to the point. There a reason he calls him Tom.

0Viliam_Bur10y

So far, Harry is able to describe how to be an efficient killing machine, but he didn't kill anyone yet. Didn't even try.

0gjm10y

This isn't relevant to your comment here, but I was amused in the light of recent events by the following remark in that conversation: Back on topic: Maaaaybe. But in that conversation it seems to me as if the mental state he's referring to and gesturing at is something like "determination to do away with death by all means possible" and while Q might be bluffing when he indicates to anyone who'll listen that Harry's attempts are likely to have diastrous consequences, I'm more inclined to take him more or less at face value there.

[-]Vaniver10y70

We have a bunch of Parseltongue statements from earlier in the fic. Who wants to go back and see if any of them were lies?

[-]Tenoke10y100

Fwiw, I am not convinced that Quirrel is definitely telling the truth there. For one, "Sslytherin not sstupid. Ssnake Animaguss not ssame as Parsselmouth. Would be huge flaw in sscheme."

2linkhyrule510y

He's human when he talks in Parselmouth, though, and chances are the whole Harry's-a-Parselmouth-because-Voldie-is deal is carried over from canon too.

1TobyBartels10y

Only now. The past statements were made as an animagus.

0gjm10y

(Presumably because outing himself as a Parselmouth might have given the game away, but now Harry has already decided he's Voldemort so there's nothing to lose.)

[-]twanvl10y70

I cannot be truly killed by any power known to me, and lossing Sstone will not sstop me from returning, nor sspare you or yourss my wrath. Any impetuous act you are contemplating cannot win the game for you, boy.

The last sentence was not said in parseltongue. Could it be that Quirrell used English because it is a lie, and he believes that there is something that Harry could do to win?

8ChristianKl10y

Quirrell doesn't know whether Harry can do something he didn't think of.

5drethelin10y

Parseltongue is limited, and perhaps Quirrell felt the need to use big words like impetuous and contemplating.

[-]ChristianKl10y60

The last line of 107 says:

Those of you who have outstanding disputes regarding the Defense Professor's secrets should bet now, or forever hold your peace.

Anybody care to guess what secrets will be revealed in the next chapter?

[-]SilentCal10y60

Realization: when Harry first encountered the dementor and saw his parents' murder, he noted that the neutral patterns of the memory shouldn't have even existed. Maybe that's because it's a false memory? I note this now because it removes constraints from what V might have actually done that day.

[-]garabik10y110

Maybe that's because it's a false memory?

It is very likely. Also from Chapter 3, when McGonagall told Harry about his parents' murder:

And somewhere in the back of his mind was a small, small note of confusion, a sense of something wrong about that story; and it should have been a part of Harry's art to notice that tiny note, but he was distracted. For it is a sad rule that whenever you are most in need of your art as a rationalist, that is when you are most likely to forget it.

0hairyfigment10y

Yes, but who cast it? If V did it before the inability to cast spells on each other went into effect, would the memory still be there today? The absence of a Horcrux ritual would support your theory, but V could have done that with some guy he burned to death after the memory ends.

0ChristianKl10y

Voldemort had plenty of minions.

0TobyBartels10y

Voldemort didn't have nearly as many minions after his apparent death, although I admit that there would be some possibilities still available.

[-]BarbaraB10y60

Did I understand correctly, that the parchment contained 2 alternate instructions for dealing with the room enchanted by Snape ? One side of the parchment contained a comparatively short puzzle, similar to the canon HP, while the other side contained incredibly long and laborious recipe ? When a child or young student is given 2 alternate version of homework, one short and entertaing, while other a boring and laborious pain in the ass, which one do they normally choose ? Voldermort, however, does not believe in simple solutions, he tends to do overkills al... (read more)

[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply

6BarbaraB10y

I do not retract, I just pressed the wrong button... But, anyway, some people have hypothesis, that Voldermort plans for Harry to rule the world (as his copy). Quirrel says something like that in parseltongue during Azkaban arch. So some believe, he is showing Harry some of the most powerful spells in this chapter on purpose. That is also consistent with what is happening.

[-]Axel10y60

When Salazar Slytherin invoked the Parselmouth curse upon himself and all his children, his true plan was to ensure his descendants could trust one another's words, whatever plots they wove against outsiders.

You have two parents, four grandparents, eight grandparents, etc.
A generation is 20-25 years (depending on how young people have children)
Salazar Slytherin lived one thousand years ago.

In short, today either every wizard in Britain is a descendant of Salazar Slytherin or none is. It seems awfully convenient for Quirell to suddenly have a fool... (read more)

[-]UnclGhost10y350

Iirc, in canon, the Gaunt family (Voldemort's family) was the last living set of descendants of Salazar Slytherin, and they were very inbred by the time of the books, so it appears that JKR at least provided some workaround for this.

As for the reliability of Parseltongue, there's some precedent for it apparently serving as truth-enforcement. Chapter 49:

"I am not regisstered," hissed the snake. The dark pits of its eyes stared at Harry. "Animaguss musst be regisstered. Penalty is two yearss imprissonment. Will you keep my ssecret, boy? "
"Yess," hissed Harry. "Would never break promisse."
The snake seemed to hold still, as though in shock, and then began to sway again.
[...]
"You ssay nothing, to no one. Give no ssign of expectancy, none. Undersstand?"
Harry nodded.
"Ansswer in sspeech."
"Yess."
"Will do as I ssaid?"
"Yess."

Professor Quirrell is known for his aversion to unnecessarily redundant conversation, so it seems likely here that he wants to be sure Harry is telling the truth. Later, in Chapter 66:

"Lessson I learned is not to try plotss that would make girl-child friend think I am evil

... (read more)

5imuli10y

And might possibly have prompted Harry to insist on hearing about Bellatrix in Parselmouth.

3ChristianKl10y

Quirrell didn't reveal that he's a Parselmouth but instead went through the road of transforming in a snake that might not be bound by the Parselmouth truth saying bind.

0tim10y

I think this is strong evidence for Quirrell being bound by the same rules in animagus form. Discounted because he could have very easily been lying there.

5Kindly10y

The argument from number of descendants equally applies to the question "Why isn't every wizard in Britain, or none of them, a Parselmouth?" It does not make any particular feature of being a Parselmouth more likely.

[-]Izeinwinter10y450

.. I have a theory about that.

What is the number one piece of advice we give people about relationships? The one rule which is regarded as the key to success and happiness in romance?

Its honest communication.

Salazar's decendants can have a perfect, magically enforced, version of that. And all they have to do is marry their cousin. The family wasn't obsessed with blood purity at all, it is simply that after growing up in a household where harmony was routinely established via this glorious gift of Salazar, the very idea of intimacy with anyone that this could not be shared with was usually repugnant.

That's why Quirrel calls it a curse. It lead the entire clan down a path of inbreeding! Unintentional consequences are unintentional.

4Tripitaka10y

Canon!Salazar is a bloodpurist already. He and the other founders of Hogwarts have a big row about it- who should be able to attend Hogwarts? Only the pureblooded! Apparently this is the reason why he built the chamber of secrets in the first place... Awesome theory otherwise.

4fubarobfusco10y

Perhaps — but in canon, Voldemort himself is not a pureblood. For that matter, his mother was not exactly raised to know how to have healthy relationships.

7Izeinwinter10y

Riddle was born out of the near-final collapse of the bloodline. Grandparents were awful because of over 500 years of insularity and intermarriage. Mother whammies cute boy as escape tactic / because she's just seriously fucked up. But because his mother conceived him with someone not from the family, he ends up the first scion in, well, most likely centuries to be born with good health. Physically, anyway.

-2skeptical_lurker10y

By all rights, Volde should be an inbred retard, not a genius dark lord.

[-]Subbak10y180

That's not how inbreeding works, though... If one of your parents' family (in Voldie's case, his mother) has been inbred for generations but the other parents has a completely different gene pool, then you should be fine. Inbreeding just makes it more likely that you have two of the same recessive allelle (which is bad in many situations), but Voldie only got one of each from his mother.

0[anonymous]10y

That is only if all deleterious alleles are recessive. Though of course, we don't have any numbers and can imagine anything. ETA: and a single recessive deleterious allele in the father's genome would have disproportionate consequences. Although there would be about 50% chance of getting it, humans carry lots of such stuff, so overall probability of weak (but at least viable) progeny should still be high enough.

2Subbak10y

Inbreeding just makes it more likely you get two of the same allele (with bad consequences if said allele is deleterious), it does not make it inherently more likely that any single allele you have is deleterious.

0[anonymous]10y

True. And a progressively large portion of progeny would die before procreating, exactly because of that. Maybe there would even be bottlenecks along the way. Yet it seems to me that a squib (?) whom Merope chose could have a different set of heterozygous=hidden deleterious alleles, which in Merope's genome would not have been eliminated yet, but getting close to it. Also, how on Earth was Slytherin's curse even inherited? It would be something outside of genes, since he didn't know about their existence. So the ability would be develop undiminished with blood 'dilution', which means a Parselmouth cannot be seen as evidence of pure-bloodedness, which would be a blow to Draco's belief in his father's ethics... And in Harry's belief in genes-only inheritance... Now, if Salazar was secretly a woman, and only daughters would get to be Parselmouths, that would be another story...

0skeptical_lurker10y

I actually do understand genetics, but I forgot that Voldie had a muggle father. Been a long time since I read canon HP.

0BarbaraB10y

Unlike canon, Voldie's father in HPMoR could have lacked magical phenotype, but must have had one magic allele and at least some distant wizard/like ancestors, because of inheritance of magic in HPMOR (which is different from canon). If somebody sequenced the DNA of HPMoR version of Voldie's father, they would find the squib genetic make-up, not muggle. That is just a side technical note, though. The father was probably sufficiently unrelated to the mother's family, which probably really helped with the inbreeding problems.

3MathMage10y

That's not how ancestry works. First, generally speaking, exponentiation of ancestry breaks down rapidly (pedigree collapse), otherwise we arrive at the absurd conclusion that any living person has a trillion great-to-the-thirtieth-grandparents. In reality, go back far enough and ancestors start occupying many positions in the tree. Second, obvious counterexample: suppose Salazar Slytherin marries and has one child, who marries and has one child, etc...and fifty generations later, there is still only one descendant of Salazar Slytherin per generation. This counterexample can be broadened; suppose the descendants of Salazar Slytherin's second child all died in the Black Plague. In short, it's not the case that a distant ancestor is either everyone's ancestor or no one's...not until you get to mitochondrial Eve and y-chromosomal Adam, anyway, but that's another story (and much older than 1000 years ago).

4[anonymous]10y

Actually, the exponentiation of ancestry proves that Salazar is the ancestor of everyone in Great Britain by the pigeonhole principle, except in your case where each of his descendants only has one child. That is an extreme outlier and not likely to happen, all things considered. A recent paper shows that everyone who lived in Europe 1000 years ago is an ancestor of everyone living in Europe today (barring immigration of course): Great Britain is a lot smaller than Europe as a whole, so it probably takes even less than 1000 years for this effect to work.

7Kindly10y

It's true that a family tree either dies out or grows exponentially, but 2 is not necessarily the relevant exponent. If the expected number of children an average descendant of Slytherin has is N, after 33 generations we should expect to see N^33 heirs of Slytherin. (You should think that this manipulation is suspicious as well, but it can be justified mathematically in, say, the Galton-Watson model.) Taking N=1.25 gives us only around 1500 descendants after 1000 years. And this is, if anything, an overestimate that does not take any intermarriage into account. Powers of 2 only become relevant if you're looking backwards from a specific person; for example, if you want to know whether two people have a common ancestor. In that respect, I (tentatively) believe the paper you link to.

3[anonymous]10y

One of us must be wrong; it can't both be the case that everyone 1000 years ago is an ancestor of everyone living today, and that the average person 1000 years ago only had 1500 descendants. I think N is closer to two or higher; assuming the average person has two children, they will have four grandchildren on average, eight great-grandchildren on average, and so on. So there really should be 2^33 heirs, though not 2^33 unique heirs; many of those heirs are just different genealogical paths to the same people. I think if N were below two, it would be below the replacement rate and the population would shrink over time.

0Kindly10y

Indeed, I doubt that everyone 1000 years ago is an ancestor of everyone living today. I expect that everyone 1000 years ago is an ancestor of everyone [Edit: at least within a geographical region], of no-one, or is atypical in some way (for example, I expect a family that is well-off to have a number of children sampled from a different distribution, which has no reason to have mean greater than 2). You are right, though, that across the board N has to be greater than 2 or else the global population would shrink over time. Moreover, if (when we look at Slytherin's descendants specifically) N is 1 or less, we expect the Slytherin line to eventually die out. This leaves room for a line that neither dies out nor grows as quickly as population does overall.

0[anonymous]10y

True, bu 1) GB as a country has lots of immigration, 2) there are those Asian wizards sporadically mentioned before. Maybe the martial arts master whom Voldemort killed was another of Salazar's grand(...)children, and the girl living 'where they don't get invitations to Hogwarts' is yet another one? (Or maybe she's a resurrected, Obliviated and Time-turned Hermione. After all, Quirrell didn't say he will restore her to Harry, andsuch a resolution would, from Harry's point of view, equal the destruction of Hermione's self and so a sacrifice large enough... Though that would violate restrictions on Time-turners). On the other hand, it seems redundant of them to have discussed the possibility of a dying wizard making an Unspeakable Vow, and an opportunity for it not arising before the end).

-1MathMage10y

The pigeonhole principle doesn't say what you want it to. It guarantees that some ancestors will show up multiple times on everyone's trees; it does not guarantee or even suggest that every ancestor present on anyone's tree is present on everyone's trees. That aside, it's not clear that the descendants of Salazar Slytherin would mix sufficiently with the rest of magical Britain in 1000 years of wizard generations (possibly longer than Muggle generations, given differing lifespans) for the paper's findings to apply. Running with general experimental assumptions is not effective for specific and extraordinary cases.

1[comment deleted]5y

[-]CronoDAS10y60

WMG time:

Quirrell is dying because he's Tranfigured himself. (I don't know why at this point.)

7[anonymous]10y

I still think the illness is faked to give everyone a ready suspicion as to the nature of his inevitable failure as defense professor at the end of the year, rather than the true reason.

7LauralH10y

Well some of it is faked, but he didn't intend to get caught drinking Unicorns.

2linkhyrule510y

Too much of the illness is verified by other people. Pomfrey, for example - I can't imagine Dumbledore would leave Quirrell alone with Pomfrey and then not check her for mind magic.

0ChristianKl10y

In that case I don't see the need for drinking unicorn blood.

0[anonymous]10y

Increasing the credibility of the fake, of course.

2ChristianKl10y

Only towards Harry who's probably not in a good position to spot a fake illness anyway. On the other hand it adds exposure. Even with Harry it lead to the episode with the centaur.

3Astazha10y

From Ch 79: I think this is what is atrophying Quirrell's physical body.

[-]Gavin10y60

Quirrel seems on the road to get the Philosopher's Stone. It's certainly possible that he will fail or Harry ( / time-turned Cedric Diggory) will manage to swipe it at the last minute. But with around 80k words left to go, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of story left if Harry gets the stone in the next couple of chapters.

I draw your attention to a few quotes concerning the Philosopher's Stone:

His strongest road to life is the Philosopher’s Stone, which Flamel assures me that not even Voldemort could create on his own; by that road he would rise gre

... (read more)

[-]gRR10y50

I am confused about how Philosopher's stone could help with reviving Hermione. Does QQ mean to permanently transfigure her dead body into a living Hermione? But then, would it not mean that Harry could do it now, albeit temporarily? And, he wouldn't even need a body. He could then just temporarily transfigure any object into a living Hermione. Also, now that I think of it, he could transfigure himself a Feynman and a couple of Einsteins...

2skeptical_lurker10y

Transfiguring someone into existence just so they can die a few hours later would certainly be regarded as dark arts. If Harry ends the transfiguration on Hermione's dead body, they QQ can use it as a template, whereas it might not be possible to transfigure Feynman for the same reason you can't transfigure a lightsaber.

[-][anonymous]10y120

Hypothesis:

Quirrel will restore Hermione to life. He will also gain access to a Hermione template that he can use on inanimate matter to create more of her to threaten Harry with the torture of.

This doesn't even require him to have the stone. It would work perfectly well with temporary copies too.

5Subbak10y

If this was feasible then all Dark Wizards would probably be using temporary clones of their minions to do their bidding instead of real minions.

[-]skeptical_lurker10y110

There are three possibilities here:

1) It takes longer to clone someone than the transfigureation lasts, so by the time you have cloned their feet, their head has detransfigured. (This assumes that humans are so complex that you have to concentrate on one part of them at a time, like Harry's pencil.) In this case, cloning is useless.

2) It takes longer to clone someone than the transfigureation lasts, but the time-limit starts once the transfigureation is complete. In this case, cloning minions is still useful for increasing numbers before a battle, or for suicide missions, but the dark lord would also have to work out that the body needs to be kept cold (otherwise parts of it would die while you are transfiguring other parts) and then warmed and brought to life with a defibrillator. Its quite possible no-one would ever have thought of this, and had the skill and moral flexibility to implement it.

3) It takes less time to clone someone than the transfigureation lasts. In this case, the earth would quickly be overrun by self-replicating minions.

2TobyBartels10y

So (3) can be ruled out on empirical grounds.

0Subbak10y

It is still weird, though. Do we have any bounds on the relation between size of the object and time you can maintain the transfiguration. Harry can maintain (without contact) some transfigurations for a pretty long time, even with a large-ish object like a cauldron. Unless the time you can maintain a transfiguration decreases very fast with the size of the end object (Harry transfigured a unicorn and a big rock into something small and maintained it easily), there is no reason why Quirrel would not be able to create transfigured clones able to clone themselves. And we know that transfiguring an inanimate object into something living can easily be done for strong wizards, as McGonnagle proved early in the story with the desk into pig thing.

0skeptical_lurker10y

Right now, Quirrel holds all the cards, certainly against Harry, and Dumbledoor has shown himself to be immune to blackmail. But maybe later.

[-]cogitoprime10y50

Realization: Not only is it suspicious that Harry finally makes the Quirrell=Voldemort connection almost immediately after Snape hits him with an anti-Confundus spell but the fact that Quirrell hasn't obliviated Harry yet is positive proof that he intends Harry to know that Q=V for the time being. For what purpose?

4TobyBartels10y

Quirrell can't safely cast spells on Harry.

4cogitoprime10y

Oops, he could just have Snape do it though or wake up someone else to do it.

0Izeinwinter10y

.. It's possible Harry can't be obliviated. Salazar wanted his descendants to have a trust engine. Memory charms are a good way to break such an engine. So he may have taken steps to prevent that. Heck, Occlumency might suffice all on it's own to put a stop to that trick.

2linkhyrule510y

If Parseltongues couldn't be Obliviated, I would expect that to become something known in legend. Memory Charms get thrown around like candy, after all.

8Izeinwinter10y

Do we know it isn't? I mean, you have a very good point, and I didn't think of that problem - it is really not a secret you could plausibly keep for a thousand years, even with flawless commitment to family loyalty, because sooner or later someone will try to obliviate one of you and get away both alive and with their memory intact. But on the other hand, Parsel-tongue seems like the kind of thing that's going to just accumulate rumors about it's properties like it was coated in velcro. Picking out which of the properties attributed to that ability are actually real from all the baseless rumors might be quite difficult. Especially if there are other defenses against obliviate. .. And if defenses are possible, they have to exist. About 3 seconds after someone told me about memory charms and obliviate, I'd personally make "Become Safe From That Shit" priority number one, They're skincrawlingly, mindwarpingly awful spells. The kind of thing where if there isn't any other counters, I'd move to mars to preclude the possibility.

1linkhyrule510y

Hm. Point. It really depends on how rare Parseltongues were - I'm pretty sure the only ones left are Voldemort and, well, Voldemort, but that might well be because Voldy killed them all. If they used to be "uncommons" rather than "rares", to use the CCG terms, then I'd expect the true legends to stand out much more than if nobody really knew much of anything.

[-]SilentCal10y50

Given EY's noticeable penchant for echoing canon, I have a general guess as to what Quirrell's plans for the schoolmaster are...

[-]Michael Wiebe10y140

Snape kills Dumbledore?

4SilentCal10y

Yup. Once you think of it, he couldn't leave that one out. There has to at least be a big nod, though the actual murder won't necessarily happen.

2TobyBartels10y

Well, don't be shy! We're all free to make predictions, as long as we don't rely on private or retracted information from EY.

[-]Kawoomba10y50

Harry's commitment is quite weaksauce, and it was surprising that he wasn't called on it:

I sshall help you obtain the Sstone (...) sshall not do anything I think will annoy you to no good end. Sshall call no help if I expect them to be killed by you or for hosstagess to die.

So he's free to call help as long as he expects to win the ensuing encounter. After which he could hand the Stone to a subdued Quirrell for just a moment, technically fulfilling that clause as well. Also, the "to no good end" qualifier? "Winning against Voldemort" certainly would count as a good end, cancelling that part as well.

[-]ChristianKl10y210

Parseltongue doesn't produce binding promises. There no need to technically fulfill clauses. It doesn't function as a commitment device. It just makes someone talk frankly about his own intentions.

Harry can't provide any stronger commitment and is indeed sorry about his inability to provide a stronger commitment.

[-]SilentCal10y40

Prediction: the philosopher's stone is the resurrection stone. QQ said Flamel wasn't the true creator, and two stones with resurrectiony powers runs afoul of Occam. V can still do his best to make a true Hermione, but it'll really be his model of her.

2gjm10y

This seems a bit improbable as Q most likely already has the Resurrection Stone (in chapter 40, Harry relays to Q Dumbledore's description of the Resurrection Stone, and Q immediately realises that there are things he urgently has to do -- the obvious interpretation being that he has in fact seen the Stone before, not knowing what it is, and is off to get hold of it). Though, now I think about it, perhaps that obvious interpretation is a bit too obvious and we should conclude only that Q wanted Harry to think he knew where to find the Resurrection Stone. (But there's no indication that Harry drew any such conclusion.)

7Tenoke10y

I thought it is at least reasonable to suspect that the stone from Chapter 96 might actually be the resurrection stone.

3TobyBartels10y

That's the right symbol, but in canon the Resurrection Stone is much smaller. I interpreted this as the Peverells' gravestone, enchanted to give a Peverell descendant the ‘Thrayen beyn’ quote upon making a suitable vow.

2TobyBartels10y

FWIW, this is a true fact in canon.

[-]b_sen10y40

What could Harry use to get out of this pickle?

His mind, obviously, especially since negotiation is a possible action.
Wandless magic? (Presumably learned from Bacon's diary.) Probably not anything requiring lots of magical power, but recall from the Azkaban arc that he could dispel his own magic almost effortlessly even back then. Now that he finds second-year spells easy, he just might be able to wandlessly manage that or other spells requiring very little magical power, such as Somnium, Innervate, and the TPC. Or possibly very small transfigurations (

... (read more)

6ChristianKl10y

I don't think its something he'll do alone. Flamel + Dumbeldore aren't stupid. Especially Flamel's game plan is not known to us.

0b_sen10y

Snape may also have an unknown game plan.

0TobyBartels10y

Especially since Snape's loyalty to Dumbledore may be weaker now that Harry has talked to him about Lily.

3SilentCal10y

Well, it doesn't take a Seer to tell us the best hope is with capabilities V doesn't know about. Other things could still play a part, but don't expect them to make the decisive difference. What does that leave us? * Aspects of Harry's mind other than raw intelligence/creativity. In particular, V seems to have a hard time modeling goodness. * More accurate prophecy interpretation (Dark Lord is death) * Possibly control over dementors; V may not know the full extent, though he knows about the scaring and that Harry survived Azkaban. * Partial transfiguration. Dumbledore flagged this possibility way back, and I'm definitely calling Chekhov's Gun on the shaping exercises. The problem is how Harry will get to do any transfiguration. And in the event he does get a chance to do one "harmless" transfiguration, V can just ask him in Parseltongue if he's planning anything. It's also possible V won't be able to fully predict Harry's intelligence because he's never faced a copy of himself before, but Moody is a pretty good practice opponent. In particular, having fought Mad-Eye means V won't be caught of guard by the extent of Harry's precautions.

2UnclGhost10y

As for the last possibility, he doesn't leave from the Quidditch game until around a quarter past 11, so that can't help him for another five hours or so.

0b_sen10y

True, but that doesn't mean it won't help him eventually, and he may be able to hold out for those five hours. Or Draco might have ordered Crabbe and Goyle to come find him if he doesn't return, or set other backup plans in motion.

[-]Gondolinian10y30

[META]

EDIT: based on Alsadius' comment about thread creation for MOR chapters, let's also use this thread for chapter 107 (and future chapters until this nears 500 comments) unless someone objects to doing so.

I guess I kind of object? Not out of any principle or logic, but I just feel like this thread has kind of been stagnating and not really encouraging new top-level replies because they're crushed under all the highly upvoted posts and don't get as much attention.

Especially since everything is changing so fast in this final arc, I like the idea o... (read more)

[-]b_sen10y30

Adding to my previous prediction comment:

Predictions:

Harry attempted to obtain a useful object (such as Snape’s wand) when he knocked Snape over in Chapter 106. 75%

The ritual which promises to summon Death itself (Chapter 74) summons a Dementor. 80%

The lost counterspell to dismiss whatever is summoned by the ritual involving "a rope which has hanged a man and a sword which has slain a woman" (Chapter 74) is the True Patronus Charm. 80%

Harry’s mental development has been significantly influenced by his body’s descent from the Potter line. This in... (read more)

0TobyBartels10y

Particularly since Harry is just the sort of person who would send such a note. He knows not to mess with time! Fortunately for Quirrell, I expect that he also knows this of Harry and so is not doing what you suggest in your last observation.

[-]NancyLebovitz10y30

Did Harry ever give serious thought to whether his strong desire to never be responsible for a death actually makes sense when he's going to have to deal with violent situations?

0tim10y

Chapter 85. And arguably his scenes with Dumbledore regarding "the phoenix's price."

0linkhyrule510y

Well, it seems to be axiomatic. It's not a matter of "being responsible for a death" so much as "death is bad." Even in a violent situation, the ideal is to save everyone's life. As he then says, though, if you can't save everyone, you have no right playing batman.

[-]solipsist10y20

If Mr. Hat and Cloak turns out not to be Flamel, then Flamel is..... Hagrid? Filtch? Dumbledore? Ron? Unseen? If Hagrid had appeared in any scene not required by canon symmetry or Quirell's fake Parseltongue explanation then I would suspect him more. Dumbledore's fear of being a dark wizard would make sense, but he seems too young and had a family.

3Viliam_Bur10y

I am Ron Weasley(TM). :DD = Nay, Tom Riddle was me! Confirmed.

[-]avichapman10y20

I just had another thought in relation to Harry's second transfigured object. I had thought as Quirrel did that Harry's second transfigured object was Hermione's body. (Though Harry successfullly fooled Quirrel into thinking the second object was the steel ring. It wan't, but we know he has something because of the mention of 'the other one' in Chapter 104.)

But just after Hermione's body dissappeared, they throroughly searched Harry's person and stuff for transfigured objects and finite incantatem-ed the lot. Perhaps Harry's second transfigured object is not Hermione, but something aquired more recently? I'm thinking of Cedric. Can a living body be transformed into something solid like a rock without deleterious effects?

3Velorien10y

Emphatically not, according to McGonagall. "In a few hours you would be sick, and in a day you would be dead".

2garabik10y

The corpse could be transfigured into the necklace of the time-turner. This is such an incredibly stupid and dangerous idea that no-one would ever suspect Harry to do anything like this. Or he can transfigure Hermione into one chain link of the necklace (safer failure mode). Are there any (known) size limits to the transfiguration? If not, there's plenty of room at the bottom...

[-]TobyBartels10y20

Ch 107

the standard counter-Charm for a boggart is, of course, Fiendfyre

Why not Avada Kedavra, which is the usual countercharm for anything with a brain?

Because, if you get within sight to aim, it will scare you and you will flinch away.

9gjm10y

Also because it was (at least to my mind) funnier than if he'd said the counter-charm was AK and done what he usually does.

[-]Gondolinian10y20

Beneath the trapdoor was a gigantic plant, something like an enormous dieffenbachia with wide leaves emerging from the central stem like a spiral staircase, but darker-colored than a normal dieffenbacchia, and with tendril-like vines emerging from the central stem and hanging down.

Misspelling of dieffenbachia.

[-]cultureulterior10y20

There are two prophecies at work here that I don't understand, which even now have to be vital to the ending

HE IS HERE. THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY STARS IN HEAVEN. HE IS HERE. HE IS THE END OF THE WORLD.
Thrayen beyn Peverlas soona ahnd thrih heera toal thissoom Dath bey yewoonen

I really don't get why Quirrel is doing this knowing the prophecy of the stars.

1Velorien10y

Prophecies are told to those with the ability to fulfill or avert them, and Trelawney told her prophecy to Quirrell. Thus, he knows that his actions may be able to prevent Harry from ending the world.

[-]Alsadius10y20

I dislike this - the existing thread is only at 140 comments, and should be used for at least today's chapter. There's probably going to be another posted Wednesday, at this rate.

2b_sen10y

Is there a consensus on when to post new threads (and conversely, when to keep using the old thread for new chapters) that I should be aware of? If so, please let me know. For comparison, the thread before last is at 172 comments, although that's from late January.

5Alsadius10y

After a long gap, or when the old thread hits/gets close to 500 comments and starts getting cut off. During the last serious run of chapters, they were hitting 500 virtually every chapter, but that seemed to be the principle adhered to in past.

[-]DanielLC10y10

Given that the only thing Harry seemed to manage to keep a secret from Quirrel is what he really transfigured Hermione into, I suspect Harry might have to win by using the trick he did with the Troll, but with Hermione instead of a rock.

1polymathwannabe10y

Crazy hypothesis: he transfigured Hermione's body into a copy of himself, and sent the copy in his stead.

[-]skeptical_lurker10y10

I feel the need to point out that the first three rooms can be beaten very quickly in the manner that a first-year might (assuming that flying over the chessboard is ok) and yet Quirrel only slows down for the room which takes an hour. It would only have taken a moment to summon the snitch-key, and since they don't have a perfect read on Snape, if the potions room might have been trappeded, then so might have the other rooms.

2TobyBartels10y

The other rooms were trapped, but Quirrel detected and disarmed the wards. In Snape's room, he detected no wards, and that's what makes him suspicious.

6Izeinwinter10y

Snape has much better muggle lore than the average wizard. I'm guessing anyone trying to solve that room with violence will get a faceful of claymore mine or the equivalent. No wards detectable because the traps are not magic.

5TobyBartels10y

Snape is an asshole, but my model of him would not actually kill a first-year.

0tim10y

I doubt a first year would have any chance of brute-forcing their way through a fire door that normally requires such a ridiculously complex potion to nullify.

0TobyBartels10y

If Fiendfyre is the only way to force it, then I agree. But ‘anyone trying to solve that room with violence’ is pretty broad.

0skeptical_lurker10y

And if this is possible (I have no idea whether there is a 'detect claymore' spell) then the other rooms could have had claymores too.

3Subbak10y

Well, it's possible that all the rooms were designed by different professors with little to no cooperations so that one single breach would not compromise the security of the whole thing. If Snape wanted to put claymores in other rooms, he'd need to tell the other professors.

[-]cousin_it10y10

Does anyone else get the feeling that these "payoff" chapters are less exciting to read than the "mystery" chapters were? This isn't meant to take a stab at Eliezer, I've noticed that in many written works. Ra and Fine Structure were also more fun when they were mysterious. Worm and Pact somehow manage to avoid that, maybe because they don't rely so heavily on mystery, and have fight scenes and character drama to compensate.

9HungryHippo10y

Snape's big reveal in canon had a similar effect on me, since it was more or less solved by the readers ahead of time. IIRC, at the end of The Dark Tower series King breaks the fourth wall and basically says: are you certain you want to read the ending? It will not be as good as you expect, so you might as well stop right here and savor the journey rather than being disappointed by the destination.

0Fivehundred10y

That isn't what 'breaking the fourth wall' means- it would be some element of a fictional universe engaging with or acknowledging reality. I would also like to express my fiery and eternal hatred for the 'happy' ending he wrote. The final ending redeemed for me what was an irredeemable book.

0Fivehundred10y

Fine Structure is a terrible example, if we're critiquing fiction in general. It literally is a smattering of high-concept puzzle pieces prior to the final two chapters.

0[anonymous]10y

Damn. I had lost track of Ra until this comment implied that it was completed. So I read the ending and was soundly disappointed. It had the same ending as an earlier short story of his. Ah well. I guess it's time to write off sam512 for the foreseeable future.

4cousin_it10y

When the final chapter of Ra was released, I also felt pretty disappointed, so I went back over the story, trying to figure out where it went wrong. I concluded that the turning point was Abstract War, and actually came up with an explanation of everything before Abstract War that made more sense to me than Sam's explanation. It was pretty fun! I've posted it on reddit here.

2[anonymous]10y

Well done! That makes a great deal more sense.

0dxu10y

Same here, unfortunately, mostly because there haven't really been any surprising revelations so far. I'm holding out hope that Eliezer is going to pull something, though. (Well, not really "holding out hope". More like I'd be extremely surprised if he didn't have something up his sleeve.)

2gjm10y

He has said that HPMOR is intended to be "solvable" and that at least one person worked out what was going on (no, I have no idea how much detail that implies) very early on. So I wouldn't be astonished to find that all the remaining Big Ideas have been guessed.

2dxu10y

He also said that if someone guessed the entire plot, they'd "know" immediately. I don't think any reader has had a revelation like that yet (apart from the mystery reader who guessed it near the beginning).

2alienist10y

It could be that EY is overestimating how "obvious" (for lack of a better word) everyone else will find something "obvious" to him.

3dxu10y

That's possible, but (unless I'm misremembering) the one reader who did guess the plot said it seemed "obvious" to him/her as well, which is evidence in favor of it being obvious once you see it.

0TryingToThink10y

This could explain the reduced number of comments. As Alsadius pointed out, there used to be 500 comments per chapter, so it stands to logic that as the series advance more users figure it out and stop commenting so as not to spoil it.

1dxu10y

Without even leaving a comment saying, "I've figured it out"?

0TryingToThink10y

You have a point, though there's no need to. I know I wouldn't, since I can't see what benefit would come from it. Specially if they figured it out between arcs (since there were no discussion threads active, or nearly none at least.) But probably at least a few would've said it and taking into account how many people would've needed to figure it out for that to account for the reduced number of comments, it's strong evidence against it. Sorry, I guess I didn't think it through too much.

0jefftk10y

These are also way shorter chapters.

[-]vericrat10y10

"That is your condition for helping me to obtain the Stone?" said Professor Quirrell. Harry nodded, unable to form words.

Does that mean that Voldemort is freed from his previous offer to resurrect Hermione? Voldemort specifically says "That is your condition" which Harry agreed to. If so, Harry is going to be kicking himself later.

9Vaniver10y

Afterwards, Voldemort explicitly includes this in his statement of the deal:

4vericrat10y

My sincere thanks, I missed that.

3hairyfigment10y

From this, we conclude that Voldemort will transform himself into a girl.

[-]Vaniver10y220

More likely: Boy-Who-Lived gets Draco Malfoy pregnant. :P

0Epictetus10y

And here I was thinking I'd purged all memory of that fic...

[-]fezziwig10y00

So, Voldemort is explained, and in a way I find persuasive. I wasn't sure it was possible.

[-]fractalman10y00

So. you know how Dumbledore thinks that Fred and George are kinda/sorta the heirs of Gryffindor?

I give them 90% odds of at least showing up.

[-]major10y00

Hat and Cloak is Salazar's creature. He (it?) was put in the Chamber to be a counter to the second thing Merlin did when he laid the Interdict in force, namely biasing holders of time-displaced information toward simpler (non-catastrophic) loops - my best guess is, by creating random change in subject's mind which randoms into thoughts leading to paradox-free behavior; from this side of the 4th wall it can look like 'being stupid for the sake of plot'. (to clarify: the random thought is an extra degree of freedom by which the situation can be paradox-free ... (read more)

[-]cultureulterior10y00

If I were Snape, I would use a gas. Something which becomes hazardous after a certain time. Or merely change the nitrogen/oxygen balance after a certain time.

[-]ChristianKl10y-10

The gun jabbed slightly forward, causing prickles of sweat to appear on Harry's forehead. "Drop your wand. Now."

Harry dropped it.

That's a mistake. The response should be to transfigure air into a very thin net of carbon nanotube that's invisible and that can be between him an Quirrell's gun. Transfiguration doesn't seem to need speaking if I remember right.

[-]Nornagest10y180

What happens if he just bolts and tries to use the Time-Turner as soon as possible? He gets shot, obviously, or at least shot at; but wizards seem hard to kill by mundane means, bullet wounds usually aren't immediately fatal, and fast-moving targets in close quarters are hard to hit. I think he has a good chance of survival, maybe better than if he does what the legendary dark wizard wants.

On the other hand, if future Harry suddenly appeared, Time-Turned, in the forbidden corridor with serious wounds from Muggle weapons, I can't see that doing anything other than causing a massive stink. The fact that present him and the rest of the students got to the forbidden corridor without encountering a stink may count as evidence that it wouldn't work.

[-]imuli10y130

You cannot transfigure from air, hard physical limit. Harry tested this.

1TryingToThink10y

Can't you? If I recall correctly, Harry tried and failed before succeeding with Partial Transfiguration, while he was still thinking in the terms of atoms. Also, you could consider transfiguring air as a partial transfiguration unless it's within a closed system, since you can't think of air as a whole or defined object. So it stands to consideration that Harry might be able to do it using the model of timeless physics like he did to achieve partial transfiguration, since we have no proof that he tried again afterwards ( that I recall ). Still, this wouldn't be the best moment to try it. Besides, could've just tried to levitate the gun or something towards the gun he could use as a shield, and run away or retrieve his invisibility cloak or used the spare turn on the time-turner... There are countless possibilities. Even if he did appear on the corridor one hour before, when only Snape was there, he could probably convince him of acting as he did towards him... Which would've opened the possibility of another Harry hidden somewhere ready to try to take down professor Quirrell, or rather a Harry who had already sent a messenger Patronus to Dumbledore so he could quietly and without disrupting the Quidditch match take down the very charming Defence professor. Actually, this could still happen if Harry somehow retrieves his time-turner, or even if Cedric is hidden in Harry's pouch and uses it ( though I'm not sure how this would turn out... )

4Alsadius10y

Is a sheet of carbon nanotube so thin that it's invisible actually going to stop a bullet? And even if it does, once Quirrell realizes what happened, what are the odds Harry can keep such a wall up for more than three tenths of a second?

2ChristianKl10y

Glass also manages to let light through. Carbon nanotubes are very strong. To make them invisible you just have to get the structure right and have big enough pores in the net for the wavelength of light to pass through. The wall is Harry magic and as thus not able to be simply canceled by Quirrell. It also doesn't take that long to grab the time turner and activate it. Probably less than a second.

0avichapman10y

Good idea. Not enough time.

[+][anonymous]10y-120

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