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linkhyrule5 comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 26, chapter 97 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Two things made me confused in this chapter.
First, the false dichotomy: it is obviously unlikely for Lucius to not know that Draco was framed, and yet kill Hermione - it presumes two people capable of evading and manipulating Hogwart's wards - but why is it unlikely for him to have not known, and also not been responsible for killing her?
(A caveat is that whatever the answer is, it needs to make sense from the perspective of a random person reading the Daily Prophet.)
The second: what is Harry's plot with the pen, or alternatively with whatever's happening as Lucius signs the paper? What is he really up to here?
It's unlikely for him to currently not know, and also not be responsible for killing her, since the fact that she was murdered shortly afterwards shows that someone wanted her dead, and is powerful evidence that she was framed.
Neeevermind. Reread that section. Fair enough.
Reminds me a little of Komponisto's argument about the Amanda Knox case: to show that she and Raffael killed Meredith, it is sufficient to show that they tried to cover up her murder by faking a breakin: http://lesswrong.com/lw/35d/inherited_improbabilities_transferring_the_burden/
Well, that's how Encyclopedia Brown solves all his cases.
Well, yes. But that's not the context - it's something that Lucius' fans could figure out - Harry says that "they can't have it both ways, either Lucius knew she was framed at the time or killed Hermione."
So that's interesting.
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That line confused me - I think we were expected to draw a lot of subtle inferences to figure out why it would make sense in this context.
On a side note, it is really jarring not to know everything Harry knows this late in the game. I always just read the third-person point of view as a matter of convenience, and accepted that we were fully immersed into the head of the current speaker. This distant outsiders' perspective ("I've done some research", "I have a plan") is making it really hard for me to draw conclusions.
It's also showing me just how much I relied on Harry running me through all the steps of some ridiculously complicated deduction. I wonder - does having a character who is both very intelligent and very honest mean that the reader has to be significantly less intelligent and active to follow along?
I figured that referred to him changing the wording of the contract, from exonerated.
The pen is dirty; the dirt, now on Lucius's hands is something lethal, transfigured. Harry can of course just wash his own hands.
That is not at all sane; the same dirt would be equally lethal to Harry, and Draco, and anyone else the pen or those people's hands encounter.
My trouble with this theory is not that the dirt is lethal - after all, Harry has already decided Lucius's life is forfeit the moment he ceases to cooperate and that could happen at any time, contract or not contract, signing just means Lucius doesn't die soon - but rather that it seems like an extremely risky booby trap which could blow up (literally) the moment someone casts a finite-incantatem (which could happen anywhere by anyone for any reason), and it's actually more than a little suspicious if the ultra-high-security Gringotts meeting room where everyone is supposedly disarmed didn't involve a precaution like eliminating any transfigurations...
Thief's Downfall probably does this.
You know, I'm suddenly starting to see why goblins aren't allowed wands.
Compare what we've seen of Gringotts and Hogwarts security, given that the latter arguably contains the more valuable resource.
IIRC, there is such a thing as "goblin nations", meaning they've managed to preserve national sovereignty despite being being as inferior in magic to their oppressors as the Native Americans were in technology. And despite starting a number of wars (the Goblin Rebellions) against said oppressors.
They hold exclusive control over Britain's only bank, and this goes unquestioned by the general public.
They can already legally hire wizards to do magic for them (cf. Bill Weasley, Curse-Breaker for Gringotts).
The fact that spellcasting is an enormous force multiplier in battle (free teleportation, perfect camouflage, armour-piercing hexes...) may be the only reason why they're not already the master race.
Harry washes his hands as soon as he leaves the room (or even cuts off his hand!) and then undoes the transfiguration before Lucius has a chance to do the same.
That would be stupid. Come on.
In canon, Thief's Downfall undoes transfigurations.
Do you have an example of this happening?
Ron's disguise in the book 7 Gringrotts break-in was a transfiguration (as contrasted to the polyjuice used by Hermoine), and explicitly removed by Thief's Downfall. It's not clear that Rational!Harry's transfiguration operates by the same rules as conventional ones, and could have been stored in some way to protect against exposure, but this provides both narrative and practical evidence against the theory.
I expect that point of the pen is to demonstrate to Lord Malfoy that a) Harry is a man of his word, and thus his words are worth examining, and b) Harry is a man of /exactly/ his word, and thus worth respecting.
Thank you!
It occurs to me that for a normal person "his words are worth examining" and "worth respecting" would be the other way round in that sentence.
The point is not what he knew then, but what he knows now. If he didn't kill Hermione, someone else did. Whatever would motivate someone to kill Hermione is very likely to motivate them to frame her and get her sent to Azkaban, and require the same ability to evade the Hogwarts wards. So if Lucius did not kill Hermione, this is strong evidence that she was framed. Contrapositively, if Lucius still denies that Hermione was framed, that is a tacit admission that he probably killed her.