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JTHM comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 18, chapter 87 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I think this chapter just proved that someone, most likely Quirrell, has modified Harry's memory. Remember how Harry easily figured out how to quickly make large sums of money by trading gold and silver between the wizard and muggle markets? And now, he doesn't seem to recall that brilliant insight when Hermione mentions that they need a way to make lots of money fast. Moreover, the occlumency teacher with whom Quirrell set up a lesson (possibly Quirrell himself in disguise) mentioned that he would like to be able to remember that same trick after he read it in Harry's thoughts. Clearly, whatever the villian is planning, it requires Harry not having large sums of money.
The creation of a philosopher's stone would, therefore, pose a direct threat to this plan. Hermione is in even more danger than before.
First: Harry and Quirrell can't interact magically. Quirrell didn't Obliviate or Legilimize Harry, and he is not Mr Bester in disguise. (Theoretically he could have Imperiused Sprout to do it, though.)
Second: why would Harry mention that idea here? What purpose would that serve other than to make Hermione feel even more useless and stupid?
Not damaging her emotionally even more severely if circumstances force him to use the arbitrage?
Do you think Hermione expects Harry to have not thought about the problem, or to have no ideas about how to solve it?
Edit:
Hermione ought to think that if Harry knew how to pay off the debt, he would already be working on it. We have every reason to think that as well. But he isn't. And that's what's very, very odd.
He has bigger and more urgent problems, is the short version. So?
In your own quote, you said:
'it's more important to get that sorted immediately than which one of us gets it sorted."
Regardless of whether it is urgent, Harry obviously believes it to be so.
That says nothing about priorities. It's more important to find the person who framed Hermione than it is to solve the debt, and it's more important to solve the debt than it is which of them solves it. There's no contradiction.
There's no reason he can't work on both problems simultaneously.
Well, he can't work on them to-the-moment simultaneously, so investing time in solving the debt means less time invested in solving the frame up. The debt is on hold for years, whereas the trail for the frame up may be getting colder by the day.
Ah, yes, that would prevent Quirrell from being the occlumency teacher. But Mr. Bester could have been allied with or imperiused by Quirrell, and so Quirrell could use Bester or another person to do the memory modifications for him.
And Harry should have mentioned that gold-and-silver scheme here because if Hermione fails to make a philosopher's stone--which for all Harry knows, she very well may--then if Harry does indeed remember his original gold-and-silver scheme, he will use it anyway. And then Hermione would know that Harry deceived her into thinking that he was actually relying on her, and their relationship would be tarnished.
Moreover, we often hear Harry's thoughts. And he wasn't thinking about his gold-and-silver scheme during his conversation with Hermione.
This scene was narrated from Hermione's point of view.
Oh, yeah. slaps forehead. Still, my other points stand.
That could just as easily imply that Harry hasn't thought of a way to pay off the debt as it could imply that he has.
He's explicitly saying he's not relying on her to do it. How could that be any clearer?
But if he does remember the gold-and-silver scheme, then he's telling Hermione to go work on a problem that isn't necessary to solve--and there's every likelihood that she'd find out.
Do we know if Imperiusing someone into casting a spell counts as him casting the spell for Doom purposes?
Well no, we don't, not specifically. I'd find it a little odd if it did, but I suppose blackmail or threats or FMCs would also work.
Well, in canon it's described as similar to having them as an extension of your body, albeit one with it's own skills and knowledge. So it might count less as "coercing someone into casting" than "casting with someone else's wand".
But yeah, it's hardly impossible to force people into helping you.
It can be useful to have more than one brilliant-but-speculative idea for making huge amounts of money, in case one of them fails. Harry sounds like the kind of person who would hold off on proposing uncertain but alluring solutions when the problem is difficult, important, and not urgent.
Hell, they might even come across something a lot better than currency arbitrage -- mass-producing immortality, for instance.
Didn't he already talk about it? He has several plans, but they're all risky. For example, if he tries to make money on gold arbitrage, he runs the risk of the goblins noticing and realizing what he's doing before he can get far.
When Harry wants to withdraw money for Christmas presents Dumbledore outright says he doesn't want Harry to have "access to large amounts of gold with which to upset the game board" I'd say he's as likely to memory charm Harry's gold/silver scheme as Quirrell.
In fact (on a more tangential note) who says that isn't exactly what Flamel is doing? Exchanging silver for gold in such quantities as to make himself rich but not terribly upset Muggle economics. Maybe Flamel is the occlumency teacher, memory charming anyone who comes up with the same plan.
Well, Flamel could just use the philosopher's stone to transmute base metals to gold. So I doubt he would bother with commodity-trading. But, yeah, Dumbledore should be a suspect at this point, though I assign a low probability to him being behind this. Dumbledore does not want Harry to be indebted to Malfoy (unless MoR Dumbledore is secretly completely different from canon Dumbledore), and so he would not hinder Harry in his quest to pay off the debt quickly.
No, no, no. What Axel is saying is that there is no such thing as the philosopher's stone, Flamel is only using that as an excuse to explain where all his gold came from. (And to explain where his immortality came from, which he also is getting another way in this scenario, perhaps from a horcrux.)
It's strongly implied that in MoR, just as in canon, Dumbledore is hiding a philosopher's stone in Hogwarts at Flamel's request. Dumbledore even tries to tempt Harry to use Alohomora on the door leading to the stone.
And if Dumbledore has had a chance to examine it, we can be assured that it is real.
Implied, yeah.