Why wasn't one of the first things Harry did when returning from the trial exposing Hermione to the light of the True Patronus while she was still unconscious (it looks like it didn't happen at least)? He already knows it restores recent Dementor damage, has a plausible reason to know in that he experienced it himself under Dumbledore's eyes and could have told Dumbledore to secure his cooperation. Is his anger at Dumbledore getting in the way?

Yay!

"Not this again!" Minerva said. "Albus, it was You-Know-Who, not you, who marked Harry as his equal. There is no possible way that the prophecy could be talking about you!"

The old wizard nodded, but his eyes still seemed distant, fixed only on the road head.

This is another brick in the wall of the Prophecy and Potter massacre being a setup by Dumbledore.

I needed chocolate to recover from reading this chapter. ;_;

In 1971, while visiting Diagon Alley, he fended off an attempt by Bellatrix Black to kidnap the daughter of the Minister of Magic

Is this a reference to A Black Comedy?

This chapter significantly increased my probability estimate that Quirrell was entirely behind the plot to > 90%. Also, the humming torture was awesome, but not helping his case.

Also, who the hell was Bones' story referring to? That whole section heavily confused me.

I would never have guessed that Quirrell was such a fan of Atlas Shrugged. Also, I'm slightly confused at how he's being portrayed in this chapter. Its been made explicitly clear that Quirrell is Voldemort, and Eliezer has expressed annoyance at people who fail to notice this. I understand that such a ruse would further his goals, but I can't imagine why false clues would be given to distract from a twist that everyone should see coming.

So, it seems more likely that Quirrel was behind the plot.

The thing about there only being seven houses seems big, though, and as far I can tell isn't from canon. (The list of purebloods, for example, doesn't include Jugson, though 500 years old might not be enough to be Most Ancient. I think we have HPMOR confirmation of Malfoy, Potter, Greengrass, and Longbottom, and I think in canon the only ones that get that description are Malfoy, Black, and maybe Potter (really, Peverell).

The 1926 hint narrows it down to four canon characters (though, of course, Bones might be mistaken). Interestingly enough, all of them were sorted into Slytherin- Tom Riddle, Rosier, Avery, and Lestrange. All of them were Death Eaters, and so it seems most likely it's Tom Riddle. (He would be the last of the female line of the Gaunt family, descended from Salazar Slytherin, which seems like it qualifies for Most Ancient. But I suspect the female line doesn't count for things like the Wizengamot, in canon at least.)

(Interestingly, in canon, Morfin Gaunt was memory-charmed to believe that he was the murderer of Voldemort's parents. Riddle did that to cover up a number of his murders. Even more pieces falling into place.)

Tom Riddle as hero seems... really bizarre, though. Who was Voldemort instead? (It seems implausible that Voldemort could have been an alterego; I suspect quite a bit of his pureblood support came from his lineage.)

Does Quirrel have cataplexy?

EY doesn't seem so fond of Rand, and it's like he's building her up as the great bugaboo of the story. That whole talk with Hermione was one of those "Gault Recruits a Striker" speeches.

If you live in a world where you are punished for what was called Good:

And yet it was as if they tried to do everything they could to make his life unpleasant. To throw every possible obstacle into his way. I was not naive, Miss Granger, I did not expect the power-holders to align themselves with me so quickly - not without something in it for themselves. But their power, too, was threatened; and so I was shocked how they seemed content to step back, and leave to that man all burdens of responsibility. They sneered at his performance, remarking among themselves how they would do better in his place, though they did not condescend to step forward."

And rewarded for what was called Evil:

"And it was the strangest thing - the Dark Wizard, that man's dread nemesis - why, those who served him leapt eagerly to their tasks. The Dark Wizard grew crueler toward his followers, and they followed him all the more. Men fought for the chance to serve him, even as those whose lives depended on that other man made free to render his life difficult... I could not understand it, Miss Granger."

What should you do?

Voldemort Shrugged:

"Why, no," said Professor Quirrell. "I stopped trying to be a hero, and went off to do something else I found more pleasant."

At that point, it's hard to complain. But I'm seeing Rand paired with Lord Foul. Consider Harry, Dumbledore, and Quirrell.

Harry: Harry's eyes were very serious. "Hermione, you've told me a lot of times that I look down too much on other people. But if I expected too much of them - if I expected people to get things right - I really would hate them, then.

"No..." said Professor Quirrell. "That was not why I came here. You have made no effort to hide your dislike for me, Miss Granger. I thank you for that lack of pretense, for I much prefer true hate to false love.

Dumbledore: There is evil in this world which knows itself for evil, and hates the good with all its strength. All fair things does it desire to destroy."

The Moral of the Story seems to be Harry finding an answer to the weakness, stupidity, and evil of others besides hating them and destroying them.

You get a lot of interesting passages just by searching for Hate.

The Killing Cure is formed of Pure Hate

And it’s not that I hate this Ron guy,” Harry said, “I just, just...” Harry searched for words. “Don’t see any reason for him to exist?” offered Draco. “Pretty much.”

“Sometimes,” Professor Quirrell said in a voice so quiet it almost wasn’t there, “when this flawed world seems unusually hateful, I wonder whether there might be some other place, far away, where I should have been.

Right now this flawed world seemed unusually hateful. And Harry couldn’t understand Professor Quirrell’s words, it might have been an alien that had spoken, or an Artificial Intelligence, something built along such different lines from Harry that his brain couldn’t be forced to operate in that mode. You couldn’t leave your home planet while it still contained a place like Azkaban. You had to stay and fight.

There’s no light in the place the Dementor takes you, Hermione. No warmth. No caring. It’s somewhere that you can’t even understand happiness. There’s pain, and fear, and those can still drive you. You can hate, and take pleasure in destroying what you hate.

But then something in the world changed, and now you can’t find any great scientists who still think skin color should matter, only loser people like the ones I described to you. Salazar Slytherin made the mistake when everyone else was making it, because he grew up believing it, not because he was desperate for someone to hate.

“I guess I was stupid too,” Draco said. “All this time, all this time I forgot that you must hate the Death Eaters for killing your parents, hate Death Eaters the way I hate Dumbledore.”

“No,” Harry said. “It’s not—it’s not like that, Draco, I, I don’t even know how to explain to you, except to say that a thought like that, wouldn’t,” Harry’s voice choked, “you wouldn’t ever be able to use it, to cast the Patronus Charm...”

Harry remembered it from the night the Dark Lord killed his parents: the cold amusement, the contemptuous laughter, that high-pitched voice of deathly hate.

Fury blazed in Harry then, blazed up like fire, it might have come from where a phoenix now rested on his own shoulder, and it might have come from his own dark side, and the two angers mixed within him, the cold and the hot, and it was a strange voice that said from his throat, “Tell me something. What does a government have to do, what do the voters have to do with their democracy, what do the people of a country have to do, before I ought to decide that I’m not on their side any more?”

The old wizard’s voice was pleading. “And it is possible to oppose the will of your fellows openly or in secret, without hating them, without declaring them evil and enemy! I do not think the people of this country deserve that of you, Harry! And even if some of them did—what of the children, what of the students in Hogwarts, what of the many good people mixed in with the bad?”

“Don’t go!” The voice came in a scream from behind the metal door. “No, no, no, don’t go, don’t take it away, don’t don’t don’t—” Why had Fawkes ever rested on his shoulder? He’d walked away. Fawkes should hate him. Fawkes should hate Dumbledore. He’d walked away. Fawkes should hate everyone—

rage grew in him alongside the self-loathing, a terrible hot wrath / icy cold hatred, for the world which had done that to her / for himself, and in his half-awake state Harry fantasized escapes, fantasized ways out of the moral dilemma,

You have everything now that I wanted then. All that I know of human nature says that I should hate you. And yet I do not. It is a very strange thing.

A couple more that I recalled showing the difference between Harry answer and Quirrells. See the last in particular.

There was a pause at this. Then the boy said, “Professor, I have to ask, when you see something all dark and gloomy, doesn’t it ever occur to you to try and improve it somehow? Like, yes, something goes terribly wrong in people’s heads that makes them think it’s great to torture criminals, but that doesn’t mean they’re truly evil inside; and maybe if you taught them the right things, showed them what they were doing wrong, you could change—” Professor Quirrell laughed, then, and not with the emptiness of before. “Ah, Mr. Potter, sometimes I do forget how very young you are. Sooner you could change the color of the sky.” Another chuckle, this one colder. “And the reason it is easy for you to forgive such fools and think well of them, Mr. Potter, is that you yourself have not been sorely hurt. You will think less fondly of commonplace idiots after the first time their folly costs you something dear.

“I’m certainly becoming a bit frustrated with... whatever’s going wrong in people’s heads.” “Yes,” said that icy voice. “I find it frustrating as well.” “Is there any way to get people not to do that?” said Harry to his teacup. “There is indeed a certain useful spell which solves the problem.” Harry looked up hopefully at that, and saw a cold, cold smile on the Defense Professor’s face. Then Harry got it. “I mean, besides Avada Kedavra.” The Defense Professor laughed. Harry didn’t.

If you'll all forgive me a few moments of horrible nerdiness, and the attendant fictional evidence, I've said before that MoR's construction of heroic effort makes a good deal more sense once you've played Fate/stay night. This chapter certainly hasn't given me any reason to doubt that, but after Quirrell's speech with Hermione I think I might need to add watching Revolutionary Girl Utena as another prerequisite. The early parts of that exchange could have been lifted wholesale from Utena's princes and witches, and the world's expectations of them.

1926 is the date Amelia Bones gives for what she suspects to be Quirrell's true identity. It is also the date of Tom Marvolo Riddle's birth in canon. This and other details suggest that Bones believes Quirrell is Riddle. But for that to be true, it must be that during Voldemort's first campaign, Riddle was still appearing as Riddle until, apparently, 1973

Bones must not know Riddle is Voldemort, or she would be behaving very differently towards Dumbledore. Dumbledore, on the other hand, appears to believe Riddle is Voldemort, because just a few chapters ago he told the Marauder's Map to find Tom Riddle when he was looking for Voldemort. Therefore Dumbledore must not know Quirrell is Riddle. It's maddening how many problems could be solved here by the characters' sharing information with each other.

Anyway, given that Riddle is Bones' hero, much of what Riddle told Hermione may have been perfectly truthful. And here is what especially caught my eye:

I stopped trying to be a hero, and went off to do something else I found more pleasant.

So it sounds like Riddle initially created Voldemort so he could make himself into a hero, but then decided to be Voldemort full-time, because it would be more fun. This he did for eight years, from 1973-1981.

Similarly, Riddle previously told Harry (in chapters nineteen and twenty) that he decided not to become a Dark Lord, and that he realized that if he did everything necessary to do that Dark Lord gig right, there would be no point. What if he was telling the truth? What if Riddle decided to dispose of the Voldemort persona because it stopped being fun?

Personally, the thought of someone totally amoral and willing to totally change around their plans based on what is most fun is rather frightening.

EDIT: See also this comment of mine, which lays out the story I am proposing in chronological order. Note that my confidence in what Riddle was originally planning on doing when he first went full-time as Voldemort, and my confidence in his motives for abandoning the Voldemort persona, is lower than my confidence in the rest of my theory.

A problem with Quirrell's heroic alter ego being Tom Riddle, even if the only ones who know Tom Riddle is Voldemort are the inner circle of the Order of the Phoenix, is, why wouldn't madam Bones tell Dumbledore that Tom Riddle is currently inhabiting Quirrell's body?

Quirrell said that he "reported to the headmaster" by which I interpret Dumbledore wants to know in what ways the defense professor was involved in this whole debacle, from which we can infer that he will have or has had Bones report to him as well. The fact that a war hero that was an incredibly powerful wizard as well and led forces against death eaters in various occasions is inhabiting the body of your defense proffesor is not trivial. And then Quirrell also outright TELLS Bones that Dumbledore doesn't know his identity, so we can be sure that Amelia will be reporting that this alleged hero, whatever his identity is, is currently posing as professor Quirrell.

I had assumed before that Dumbledore knew Quirrell's identity, that perhaps he was told that upon his travels after his graduation, Quirinus Quirrell had stumbled upon an ancient tomb containing the soul of a powerful and clever dark wizard, and this spirit had taken possession of Quirrell's body. Dumbledore, accepting this, agrees to let him teach at Hogwarts given that he will be able to teach things to his students few other wizards will be able to. Or something along those lines.

But not before a warning the staff about his nature and making sure things don't get too freaky. From chapter 15:

"Now repeat after me," said Professor McGonagall. (...)

"Even if the current Defense Professor at Hogwarts tells me that a Transfiguration is safe, and even if I see the Defense Professor do it and nothing bad seems to happen, I will not try it myself."

After all, they've had all sorts of wacko defense professors already. From chapter 70:

"My goodness," said Penelope Clearwater. "I think that's the most overtly evil Defense Professor we've ever had."

Professor McGonagall coughed warningly, and the Head Boy said, "You weren't around for Professor Barney," which made several people twitch.

So it's just another year at defense class.

But now it turns out Dumbledore doesn't know his identity? Or does he actually know it and it turns this fabricated heroic identity is not Tom Riddle? If he actually doesn't know, what is he playing at, hiring some incredibly powerful wizard from Merlin knows where who is obviously untrustworthy and likes to plot an awful lot? Dumbledore at one point states the three most powerful wizards in the school are him, Snape, and Professor Quirrell.

And the worst thing is that it actually does fit if the slytherin hero who rose against the death eaters and disappeared suddenly happened to be Riddle.

-Born in 1926

-Sorted into Slytherin

-People speaking of him as the next Dumbledore

-Likes to wander off in Albania

-Of noble house descent

I'm assuming that given how the politics and nobility work in MoR, House Gaunt didn't lose all their gold, or at least not in the same fashion as in canon given that there is probably some sort of convenient system to prevent this. But then again, House Potter did just go broke. And we are told that his grandmother is the Lady of his House. We do never see Merope's mother in canon; so I'm assuming that if the differences from canon are enough to keep House Gaunt from poverty, perhaps it's not all that strange if her mother is alive as well. However, it was Riddle's grandfather, not grandmather, who bore the name of Gaunt. If he died, would her wife inherit his title? I'm thinking not. Or perhaps yes if she was of noble ancestry herself, which is a given considering we are talking about someone who married a Gaunt. And if this new heroic figure wasn't Tom Riddle, then can we assume it was an actual heroic person and Voldemort it taking advantage of his story to cover his usage of Quirrell's body? After all, they were born in the same year, and I can't imagine Riddle manipulating another person since he was eleven years old into being Voldemort's nemesis for a huge social experiment in years to come. Or could he?

I notice I am terribly confused.

And Quirrell does speak about playing the two sides in different occasions, and he did sound to me like he was talking about a social experiment when talking to Hermione, on which he was a leader in both sides of the conflict, and whose outcome he did not expect:

Professor Quirrell shook his head as though in bemusement. "And it was the strangest thing - the Dark Wizard, that man's dread nemesis - why, those who served him leapt eagerly to their tasks. The Dark Wizard grew crueler toward his followers, and they followed him all the more. Men fought for the chance to serve him, even as those whose lives depended on that other man made free to render his life difficult... I could not understand it, Miss Granger."

I've edited the birthdate of the person Amelia refers to, to be 1927 - too many people were interpreting that as "She thinks he's Tom Riddle" despite the House incongruence, an interpretation I'd honestly never thought of due to Illusion of Transparency.

Aw, I just noticed Auror QQQ got renamed. Here I was wondering how Bones managed to pronounce that, and how he avoided getting stuck with "Mike".

I had this idea about Tom Riddle's plan that I appreciated having criticized.

Tom Riddle grew up in the shadow of WWII. He saw much of the Muggle world unite against a threat they all called evil, and he saw Europe's savior, the US, eventually treated as the new world leader afterward, though it was somewhat contested, of course. That threat strongly defined it's own presentation and style, and so that style and presentation were associated with evil afterward.

Tom didn't want to be Hitler. Tom wanted to actually win and to rule in the longer term, not just until people got tired of his shit and went all Guy Fawks on his ass. He knew that life isn't easy for great rules, but thought that was worthwhile. He knew that life was even harder for great rulers who ruled by fear, so that wasn't his plan.

So Tom needed two sides, good and evil. To this end he needed two identities, a hero and a villain.

I guess he didn't think the villain didn't need to have any kind of history. Maybe he didn't think the villain would matter much or for long. Voldemort was just there for the hero to strike down. That was a mistake, because he lacked a decoy his enemies were eventually able to discover his identity.

Then there's this hero. The hero is a what passes for a minor noble in magical Britain. He's from a 'cadet' branch of the family, which means he doesn't stand to inherit anything substantial because he's not main line.

Most importantly, he goes missing in Albania. That's a shout out to canon and a code phrase for "became Tom RIddle's bitch."

As Voldemort, Tom sows terror and reaps fear. He's ridiculously evil and for Dumbledore redefines evil because he is apparently evil without necessity. Dumbledore can't tell what function that outrageous evil serves because Dumbledore thinks that evil is done sincerely. He doesn't know it's just a show.

Tom stages a dramatic entrance into the drama for his hero: he saves the president's daughter, or something like that. Totally Horatio Alger. It's a cliche, which may be EY's way of helping us to understand that Tom is fallible, more then than now.

Tom promotes his hero from Minor Noble to Last Scion of House X by killing off the rest of his hero's family. Tom simultaneously builds legitimacy for his hero's authority and leverages the tragedy to build sympathy for his hero's cause.

Tom's mistake was thinking that would be enough. There was a threat to the peace. There was a solution. The people instead chose to wallow in their failure and doom. He made it all so clear, so simple, and yet the morons just didn't get it.

I'm sure anyone whose been the biggest ego in the room during improv could sympathize.

When Tom realizes that his plan has failed and cannot be made to work in the intended fashion, he exits his hero, stage left. At that point, 75 or so, he doesn't have a good plan to leave the stage as his villain, so he kind of kicks it for a few years, tolerating the limits of his rule and getting what meager entertainment he can out of being a god damned theater antagonist.

When Tom gets a chance, he pulls his villain off the stage and may or may not have done something to the infant Harry Potter.

Now he's using the Scion of X as an identity layer to keep the fuzz off his back, while manipulating Harry into a position of power, and I'm guessing he plans to hit Harry with the Albanian Shuffle a little while later and give World Domination another try.

Tom Riddle is a young immortal. He makes mistakes but has learned an awful lot. He is trying to plan for the long term and has nothing but time, and so can be patient.

No one seems to be commenting on the way that dumbledore identified quirrel to the wards. It seemed to me to be a very clear hint that someone else was somehow within that circle and so is also recognised as the defence professor, has top level Hogwarts permissions etc. Possibly Mr hat and cloak?

In the spirit of making people flee screaming out of the room, propelled by a bone-deep terror as if Cthulhu had erupted from the podium:

One thing I really enjoy about HPMoR is how it likes to show intelligent people taking unreasonable-seeming ( = actually reasonable) precautions. Amelia Bones in chapter 84, and also in the Azkaban arc, Dumbledore and Snape and even Minerva on various occasions... not quite sure why but I really enjoy reading that sort of a thing.

Harry nodded. " At least nobody's going to try hexing you, not after what the Headmaster said at dinner tonight. Oh, and Ron Weasley came up to me, looking very serious, and told me that if I saw you first, I should tell you that he's sorry for having thought badly of you, and he'll never speak ill of you again."

"Ron believes I'm innocent?" said Hermione.

"Well... he doesn't think you're innocent, per se..."

Ron approves of trying to murder Draco Malfoy?

Eliezer, in an edit, just reminded me that Tom Riddle is 65 years old. And from there I got to looking that other ages. Dumbledore is 110. Bahry One-Hand and Mad Eye Moody are each at least ~120. From chapter 39, I got the impression that 150 years old is uncomfortably old (maybe 90 in muggle years) and 200 is unthinkably old (110+ for muggles). So now I'm confused again.

Where are all the old people? What would family trees look like if people really lived to be 120+ regularly? If you're a child you've got two parents, and 4 grandparents, but what about the 8 great grandparents...and the 16 great^2 grandparents...32 great^3 grandparents...64 great^4 grandparents... 128 great^5 grandparents...256 ...512 etc? Plus, imagine the number of children each couple would have if people jumped from 40 fertile years to 80. I could buy that with older ages, people would wait longer to have kids (In canon they mention that it was slightly unusual for people to be having children at 20 years old). That would explain why there aren't 7-10 generations of family at the reunions, but on the other hand, I wouldn't expect Wizards to be big fans of birth control or abortion. Plus, that doesn't explain where all the grandparents are.

So many things don't match up. In retrospect, it seems odd for Lucius Malfoy to be alone in front of the Wizengamot when he ought to have four grandparents roughly Dumbledore's age and two parents at around Voldemort's age (though canonically his father dies of an old age disease prior to 1996...what?). That hearing doesn't seem like the kind of event his family would skip out on. The bureaucracy and government structures don't make sense either. When I first read the story, I thought the Ministry and other power structures were dominated by old fogies, but now I realize that they're damn near children! Plus, education for 7 years makes no sense if you expect to live another hundred; muggles spend 1/5-1/6th of their life in education, but wizards only 1/15th. And heck, how does Harry go to his muggle relatives when he ought to have dozens of still surviving wizard relatives up higher in the family tree?

I suppose the real answers to these questions is that JK Rowling didn't think through the societal implications of living 150+ years old and HPMoR adopted it rather than having to overhaul the entire canon. But that's not quite a satisfying answer. So, can anyone think of any thoughts or theories on how the magical world looks the way it does with regard to age? I'd rather save my suspension of disbelief for birds of fire and talking hats, not have to spend it on census statistics.

Nicholas Flamel (born 1340) could be almost as good a source of ancient spells lost to the Interdict of Merlin as Slytherin's Monster (exact creation date unknown, but Godric Gryffindor was alive in 1202 and Slytherin was a contemporary). He also seems to be dependent on Albus Dumbledore for protection; maybe it's time Dumbledore called in some quid pro quo if he hasn't already?