I'm coming to the conclusion that Harry will lose, at least this time.
The only other "clever" thought I had was that he could zap the Dementor, explain how he did it, cause the entire Wizengamot to lose their Patronus, and then force them into Obliviating themselves (and the result of the trial vote) in order to get their power back. Very dramatic, but then what?
How exactly can he change the vote... can he force them to memory-charm each other to believe they've acquitted Hermione, because if they don't, he'll destroy the next Dementor, and keep on with the Groundhog Day effect until they get it right? Seem pretty unlikely.
Given that the vote is already happening, and there is a clear majority in favour of Azkaban, there doesn't seem to be any way he can avoid losing except for such Groundhog Day tricks. His dark side will probably come up with a solution (e.g. pinning the blame on Dumbledore or Quirrell) but too late, and that leads us into the rest of the arc. And I'm guessing we won't find the solution tomorrow either... another cliff-hanger.
Many of those in attendance probably can't cast a Patronus anyway, so they wouldn't have any reason to Obliviate themselves to get back what they never had.
The new thread, discussion 13, is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. With three chapters recently the previous thread has very quickly reached 1000 comments. The latest chapter as of 25th March 2012 is Ch 80.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: