What I meant is, I do not think Dumbledore would confess that he murdered Narcissa to Lucius, if he did not do it. I would rather expect evasive statements instead of a confession. Similar evasive statements as he used in confrontation with Harry. On the other hand, it seems more like Dumbledore to apologize for Narcissa's murder to Lucius, if he actually killed her. Well, this dilemma can be solved by assuming, that Dumbledore used evasive statements, which Lucius understood as confession. But Lucius was supposed to be intelligent, huh ?
Why would Dumbledore use evasive statements to Lucius if Dumbledore's purpose back then was to convince Lucius that he did kill Narcissa?
His words to Harry are different because the context is different - he wants Harry to understand the necessity behind the Death Eaters thinking he burned Narcissa alive, but there exists disutility both in saying "no, I didn't burn her alive" and this potentially leaking back to the Death Eaters, and in saying "yes, I did burn her alive" and this potentially leaking back to the Wizengamot.
So he gives Harry the reasons that the belief is necessary, but he doesn't tell him if it's true.
The new discussion thread (part 15) is here.
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 82. The previous thread passed 1000 comments as of the time of this writing, and so has long passed 500. Comment in the 13th thread until you read chapter 82.
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: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
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: