You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 26, chapter 97

5 Post author: palladias 15 August 2013 02:18AM

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 97The previous thread is at nearly 500 comments. 

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,  1415,  16,  17,  18,  19,  20,  21,  22,  23,  24,  25.

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:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

Comments (501)

Comment author: AlexMennen 15 August 2013 07:13:40AM 33 points [-]

I seem to recall that at some point, Quirrell told Harry that his ultimate plan involved Harry leading Britain. Now Harry tells Draco that his ultimate plan involves Draco leading Britain. I can't wait to see Draco reveal his plan that involves Quirrell leading Britain!

Comment author: Kindly 15 August 2013 12:15:30PM 5 points [-]

If we think that Quirrell is somehow Voldemort...

...and also think that Harry Potter is somehow Voldemort...

...and understand why Harry Potter's plan involves Draco leading Britain...

...then we should be able to make a guess why Quirrell's plan involves Harry Potter leading Britain, by analogy.

Comment author: Roxolan 15 August 2013 01:22:28PM *  27 points [-]

"I had to promise my keepers not to sign anything you gave me. So I made sure to compose this myself, and sign it before I left."

Like hell you did. Mad-Eye Moody just told you not to. But it sure is a game-theoretical advantage to convince the other player that the conditions of the deal cannot be renegotiated at all, and that it's now or never.

"I also promised not to touch a quill while I was in Gringotts,"

Similarly, what a convenient excuse to expose the muggle-hater to a small example of muggle technology just as you're trying to make him realize there may be a lot more to muggles than he thought.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 15 August 2013 01:33:26PM *  11 points [-]

I doubt Lucius was very impressed with a "muggle quill".

But if Harry keeps it up about the wealth of the Muggle world, I wonder if the Malfoys won't end up setting their sights on Muggles and their resources. I'm imagining a "what have I done" on Harry's part when that happens.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 15 August 2013 05:02:42PM 0 points [-]

I think Harry would laugh all the way to 10 Downing Street, as he allies with sixty million people who agree with him on human rights and have at least a notion of science, security, and total war, even though most of them, of course, aren't trained in it. Notice his remark about "[Muggle lawyers] would think yours are cute". Harry may be mistaken, but I think he believes that for Lucius to tangle with Muggle Britain would be the last mistake House Malfoy ever made.

Comment author: DanArmak 15 August 2013 05:40:38PM 3 points [-]

Lord Malfoy wouldn't bother with Muggle lawyers, he'd use magic and take what he wants. Remember, he doesn't see Muggles as people. The only ones who could stop him from doing anything he wanted would be other magic-users.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 August 2013 05:49:36PM 15 points [-]

There has to be some pre-existing mechanism in place to stop this (and also most plain trade). "Take what you want from other people" is too short a sentence in Human Language not to have occurred to various wizards over time, likewise "Imitate the way that person gained status".

Comment author: DanArmak 15 August 2013 06:46:04PM 11 points [-]

Minerva and Griphook weren't surprised by the idea of taking raw gold and turning into coins. Presumably this happens sometimes; it's not the case that all the Galleons in the world were first minted thousands of years ago. So how did the gold in the wizard economy get there in the first place? And what is the mechanism that prevents it now but didn't prevent it then?

Are all wizards in the world unaware that Muggles possess gold at all? Surely not; Muggles probably own much more gold, and operate many more gold mines, than wizards do. If wizards ever went looking for un-mined gold, they'd encounter Muggle competition.

Wizards have an apparently trivial method of acquiring gold: Apparate into a bank vault, fill your Bag of Holding, Apparate away to Gringotts. It's doable by most wizards, carries no real risk, is unnoticeable by the bank, untraceable when they do notice the gold is missing, and the other wizards and goblins probably don't care if some Muggles were robbed by an unknown wizard.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 15 August 2013 09:21:01PM 11 points [-]

Simplest; The goblins, and wizard society just do not approve of outright theft, even from muggles, and there are magics that will reliably mark stolen goods. So if you want to come up with gold by the tonne, you need to either actually engage muggles in trade (eewww) or go hunting for treasure with no (living) owners.

More amusingly: I am not at all sure competent wizards have much need to care about coin at all. Lucius is a political creature, so he needs ways to bribe idiots, but a wizard that keeps their newt skills up to scratch is pretty much carrying around a cornucopia machine in their pocket. Sure, you could spend a bunch of effort and rob a bank, then use that gold to have a house built.. Or, you know, save yourself the hassle and raise a cute little tower from the bones of the earth/bend space and live like a king in a post office box.. ect.

Comment author: DanArmak 16 August 2013 08:40:20AM 8 points [-]

Simplest; The goblins, and wizard society just do not approve of outright theft, even from muggles, and there are magics that will reliably mark stolen goods.

That is the first suggestion that would actually work. It's just that I can't believe that the average wizard thinks of muggles as persons (or humans) that can be stolen from. It's less plausible than that they would care about the stability of the economy.

Besides, what magic can create, magic can destroy. People would invest serious effort in developing magic that would erase the "magical signature" of stolen gold if it would help them become billionaires.

More amusingly: I am not at all sure competent wizards have much need to care about coin at all.

The reason bribing people with money works in the first place, is that most people don't have as much money as they would like. If wizards didn't really need money, as you suggest, then they wouldn't care about it and couldn't be bribed.

Since money translates into power over others, Lucius too would always want more money.

Comment author: wiserd 16 August 2013 03:55:48PM *  2 points [-]

"Simplest; The goblins, and wizard society just do not approve of outright theft, even from muggles, and there are magics that will reliably mark stolen goods"

This makes a lot of sense. In a society where theft from even most wizards should be theoretically pretty easy, blanket 'anti-theft' measures seem most workable. Which, of course, implies that ownership is an intrinsic property of matter in the wizarding verse. Ayn Rand would squee.

Alternative; HPMOR is a sometimes a sideways critique of the Rowling universe, and should, perhaps, sometimes be viewed in that light.

Rowling's universe does have poor wizards, and it does have money and currency constraints. Gold seems to be both intrinsically valuable and rare which is strange. There do seem to be strong cultural taboos against interaction with muggles, despite the obvious benefits (gold, sex, etc.) But the origin of those taboos have never been adequately explained. Such an explanation might allow for a Voldemort who was guided by something other than a quest for personal power, but who was some matrix-esque control mechanism from Atlantis. But I don't want to get too Deus Ex Maquina in my explanations if something better presents itself. In any case, the taboos could easily be outdated. The existence of long-lived wizards suggests a larger ratio of old people to young, and a more conservative society (as in 'resistant to change') in general.

Alternately perhaps Harry's experiment regarding inheritance was wrong or inadequate in some way and magic really can be diluted by interacting/breeding with muggles. We've been told that the most powerful wizards tend to have few children. Grindelwald seems to have been Gay. Dumbledore is both Gay and childless/asexual in his adult life. If we assume a given number of Atlantean 'magic markers' (genetic markers which confer magic ability, which is what a strict Mendelian wizarding gene is likely to be ;-) ) then perhaps having a larger number of a particular marker in a population really WOULD decrease the average power of anyone else who held one of those markers. This would allow for the cultural evolution of a wizarding world that was strongly insular, since familiarity breeds children and indiscriminate genetic dispersal would lead to collapse or diminishment of that family's wizarding powers.

Which suggests that either Neville has a lot of distant relatives somewhere, or remarkable magical potential.

Comment author: thomblake 16 August 2013 03:51:32PM 11 points [-]

Hypothesis: The muggles don't possess much gold. Most of the huge stacks of gold in places like Fort Knox are clever magical replicas, and have been for a very long time. Any wizard can easily see through the ruse, but the muggles are clueless.

How do we have gold that we use as a conductor? Perhaps when a muggle handles fake gold, it gets magically swapped with real gold from a small supply elsewhere. Or else, maybe fake magic gold is a really good conductor.

Comment author: DanArmak 16 August 2013 07:24:20PM 7 points [-]

If most of the gold we think is in the Muggle economy is really in the wizarding economy, then wizards possess up to 170,000 tons of gold. 100,000 tons of gold divided between 1 million wizards is 100 Kg = 20,000 Galleons per wizard on average.

We actually observe that 100,000 galleons is a princely ransom and a rich fortune. Lord Malfoy is one of the richest people in Britain and he probably has on the order of a million Galleons. This seems compatible but somewhat unlikely; I would estimate less gold in the wizarding economy than 100,000 tons. And yet if they stole all the Muggle gold they'd have closer to 150,000 tons, not counting whatever they may have mined themselves.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 16 August 2013 07:33:02AM *  3 points [-]

Maybe the goblins have established some sort of monopoly on Galleon production, and regulate the amount of it that may be produced in one year? Plausibly the wizards might support that kind of a monopoly to prevent rampant inflation and destabilization of the economy.

Even if their knowledge of economics hadn't caught up with muggles and they were still thinking in mercantilist terms (and so didn't properly understand the concept of inflation), they could still understand that things will remain more stable that way. There have always been monopolies on the production of the official currency, with counterfeiters being harshly punished, and the (guild-like) goblins controlling it would fit with the general "old-fashioned" nature of the wizarding world.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 August 2013 09:30:14PM 2 points [-]

Serious problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gold_production = 2700 metric tons annually produced today. If there are one million wizards in the world, it takes 1000 tons of gold to have one kilogram of gold / 200 Galleons per person (~$50K at today's prices). Or they have to produce a ton a year for a thousand years. How much gold was in pre-industrial e.g. Aztec civilization?

Comment author: DanArmak 16 August 2013 08:34:28AM *  3 points [-]

That's a good point. I also add that Wikipedia says that:

A total of 174,100 tonnes of gold have been mined in human history, according to GFMS as of 2012.

But still, if just a few wizards stole appreciable fractions of the Muggle gold vaults, they would be individually very rich. The same 1000 tons of gold would be a (ETA fixed calculation) 200 million Galleon fortune if owned by one wizard. Therefore, the question is how much gold is concentrated in one place (already mined) and available for stealing.

Wikipedia provides a list of officially reported gold holdings by country. The top few are: US, 8133 tons; Germany, 3391 tons; IMF, 2814 tons; Italy, 2451 tons; France, 2435 tons.

But where is the gold physically kept? Well, Wikipedia says that Fort Knox holds 4578 tons of gold. In any case, a wizard could Apparate to people, ask them where most of the gold is (Legilimency/Veritaserum/Imperius), Memory-Charm to erase the few minutes of the encounter, and Apparate away. If the person doesn't know where the gold is, they can tell you who does know. Start with someone like a bank CEO, unlikely to have magical protection (unlike heads of state), and work your way on - in a day or two you'll find the gold.

How do we know this hasn't actually happened? The gold in the bank vaults may not be actually there. But the wizarding economy doesn't have a known history of occasional sudden billionaires. Lucius probably never even heard about fortunes of more than a few million Galleons.

Comment author: Jadagul 16 August 2013 09:28:03AM *  3 points [-]

There's another big pile of gold, about 7,000 tonnes, in the New York Fed--that's actually where a lot of foreign countries keep a large fraction of their gold supply. It's open to tourists and you can walk in and look at the big stacks of gold bars. It does have fairly impressive security, but that security could plausibly be defeated by a reasonably competent wizard.

Comment author: Lumifer 16 August 2013 05:15:42PM *  5 points [-]

Trade is a bigger problem than theft.

It's (relatively) easy to handwave into being prohibitions on theft -- pretty much every society dislikes it and you can posit both morality and anti-theft magics as making outright thieving to be not too useful for wizards.

On the other hand trade is generally seen as good and there are huge and obvious benefits to trade between Muggles and wizards. Especially given how easy it would be for less scrupulous wizards to make sure the terms of trade are very very beneficial to them (and yet do not descend into outright theft).

I'm not sure the problem is solvable without introducing major new mechanisms of how the world works.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 August 2013 08:15:31AM 3 points [-]

Many, many post-agricultural societies have restrained trade, often to particular privileged individuals. I believe this is what a 'patent' used to be.

Comment author: Lumifer 19 August 2013 05:56:31PM 6 points [-]

Many, many post-agricultural societies have restrained trade, often to particular privileged individuals.

Yes, but notice what this implies. This implies that trade is such an awesome value-producing mechanism that we (=elites with political power) want to keep it for ourselves and our friends.

The idea is not to forbid trade, the idea is to restrict access and thus collect what the econospeak calls rents. Everyone wants to be a gatekeeper at a fountain of gold.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 August 2013 02:11:53PM 4 points [-]

This usually requires that the person holding the patent provide enough trade to satisfy demand. Otherwise the pressure to create a black market is irresistible. So trade could be restricted to a few powerful wizards - perhaps to each wizarding government - but it could not be eliminated entirely.

And since wizards can provide extremely valuable services to Muggles in trade, they would capture almost all the Muggle gold in return. Then we would observe wizarding billionaires, making fortunes of a 100,000 Galleons negligible in comparison. That we don't observe this is strong evidence that trade either doesn't exist at all or is universal and unrestricted. Since the story offers ample proof that trade isn't universal, it must be nonexistent. But it's not clear what is preventing trade.

Comment author: Alsadius 17 August 2013 09:52:11PM 6 points [-]

Wizarding culture. Trade with muggles was basically worthless until a single wizard's lifetime ago, so the prejudice hasn't had time to evolve away yet.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 August 2013 10:19:49PM 5 points [-]

Muggles had a lot of gold a hundred years ago, too. Certainly if you count in terms of just a few wizards taking possession of it. And it was easier to find because currencies were gold-backed.

If they were unwilling to just steal it (for whatever reason), then spending a few weeks performing services for the richest people in the world in exchange for half their wealth (amounting to many millions of Galleons) would have been a great bargain for wizards.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 18 August 2013 03:49:56AM 3 points [-]

I recall reading that somewhere (maybe Pottermore?), Rowling said that the Malfoys gained their great family wealth by trade with muggles, until the establishment of the statute of secrecy, at which point they were quick to join the "Yep, we knew those dirty muggles just wanted to exploit and burn us all along!" crowd. I don't remember if there is any similar detail about other wealthy families in canon or MoR; there's Flamel with the Philosopher's Stone, and the Potters with a combination family inheritance/bounty on Voldemort, but the Malfoys appear to be decidedly the richest family in Magical Britain, and I'd imagine that even with a 400 year gap, being those to most thoroughly exploit trade with muggles would be more than sufficient to explain their success.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 17 August 2013 06:51:36PM 4 points [-]

So that Hermione found a wizarding way to make money (as she was trying to do) through trade with the Muggle world, and was assasinated by this mechanism?

Comment author: elharo 16 August 2013 11:01:18AM *  4 points [-]

This is a huge problem with HP, and pretty much all urban fantasy; and most especially ones that posit an entire separate magical society. There are just too many plot devices like the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy needed to keep the story world looking anything like the real world does.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 15 August 2013 01:30:13PM *  19 points [-]

If Dumbledore is Harry's legal guardian and can overrule him, should Harry's 11-year-old signature be worth anything to Lord Malfoy?

Comment author: Watercressed 16 August 2013 01:55:05AM 26 points [-]

Dumbledore may be able to overrule the contract, but that would do little to stop the political effects of Harry's statement that Lucius did not kill Hermione. Since it would also reinstate the debt, it doesn't seem like a net benefit to Dumbledore.

Comment author: Velorien 15 August 2013 01:49:25PM 19 points [-]

A very good point.

Then again, if Dumbledore contests it, we might just end up with another round of

The Headmaster of Hogwarts, who acted as Harry Potter's legal guardian in the eyes of magical Britain, had overruled his ward's assent.

The Debts Committee of the Wizengamot had overruled the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

The Chief Warlock had overruled the Debts Committee.

The Wizengamot had overruled the Chief Warlock.

After all, Lord Malfoy has already secured the Wizengamot's support in the matter of the blood debt and his right to deal with it as he sees fit. Nor is it likely to defy Harry's attempt to pronounce House Malfoy innocent of Hermione's murder.

Comment author: DanArmak 15 August 2013 04:34:59PM 3 points [-]

Nor is it likely to defy Harry's attempt to pronounce House Malfoy innocent of Hermione's murder.

And nor is Dumbledore likely to argue before the Wizengamot that House Malfoy is not innocent.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 15 August 2013 04:09:26PM 7 points [-]

I think for the time being Malfoy wants this to happen and chose to accept Harry's right to enter an agreement...but if something goes wrong, I wouldn't put it past Lucius to spin this into an invalid contract due to Harry's age. Or maybe Harry has done so many crazily adult things so far this actually feels perfectly normal, not only to the readers, but the characters.

Comment author: atorm 15 August 2013 02:01:29PM 4 points [-]

Possibly he still has the power of the Scion of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter.

Comment author: monsterzero 15 August 2013 12:34:22PM 14 points [-]

Even if the other humanoid races are essentially human, it seems like Harry should be talking to them more. Getting different viewpoints and information could be incredibly helpful. If the differences are primarily cultural, well, there can be an awful lot of variation between cultures. Not to mention the differences in magical ability and techniques.

Of course, in canon, Harry didn't catch on to this until the fourth year or so.

Comment author: gthorneiii 15 August 2013 03:42:54PM 3 points [-]

I agree that it would be a useful exercise, but given constraints of time as well as opportunity cost, Harry may simply be prioritizing other pursuits.

Comment author: monsterzero 17 August 2013 09:51:07PM 6 points [-]

I wasn't thinking particularly about recent events. If Harry wanted to unravel the secrets of magic, he should have been interviewing goblins and house elves since he learned they existed. Hagrid would have been another good lead, as he could potentially be networked to allow introductions to centaurs, giants, etc.

Asking Draco about Dumbledore has yielded some really interesting new hypotheses. More viewpoints = more data!

Comment author: Izeinwinter 15 August 2013 10:00:08AM *  11 points [-]

...Thinking..

No. Persuasive theory, but it has flaws in it - specifically, the Troll was too successful at neutralizing Grangers defenses to have been a misfired plot. Arranging for her to be wandering the halls alone? Sure. Sabotaging her broom? sure. Invisibility cloak not doing what it was supposed to? Well, I can see that. Telling the troll to eat her feet first so that the emergency portkey does not work?

That absolutely requires lethal intent. The rest of it all fits, but having Granger get ported out of harms way if Harry flies into a wall while en-route or something does not even require D to put a backup plan in place, it merely requires him to not neutralize a precaution already in place.

The anti-troll weapon.. Well, if the troll got stolen from the philosopher stone defenses...

however, that does not mean D was not hat and cloak. Because, as Harry so ably demonstrated, breaking someone out of askaban is not difficult. Sending Granger there would not require D to intend to leave her there, even if he was expecting the wizengamot to enact a lesser sanction.

Comment author: Velorien 16 August 2013 12:23:51AM *  6 points [-]

Telling the troll to eat her feet first so that the emergency portkey does not work?

There's no need to do that. The portkey is already blocked by the Hogwarts wards prohibiting Apparition. If the murderer instructed the troll to eat Hermione feet-first to disable the portkey, that would mean they expected her to be able to make it out of the castle and across the grounds while being pursued by the (much faster) troll - something she could not do without a working broomstick or some other asset that in itself foiled the assassination attempt.

Comment author: gwern 16 August 2013 12:57:13AM 3 points [-]

There's no need to do that. The portkey is already blocked by the Hogwarts wards prohibiting Apparition.

Just like Harry was not portkeyed out of Hogwarts in Goblet of Fire?

Comment author: Velorien 16 August 2013 01:12:01AM 10 points [-]

Exactly like that. [sigh]

While your example is undeniable, Santa Claus does instruct Harry to get outside Hogwarts before using his playing card portkey, and I'm fairly confident there are other instances to the same effect. It seems that the state of the evidence, both in canon and MoR, roughly amounts to "Portkeys and Apparition do not work within Hogwarts wards except when they do".

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 26 August 2013 12:47:03PM 3 points [-]

All mentions of portkeys in HPMoR explicitly describe themselves needing to get out of the Hogwarts wards first. The "Santa Clause" letters, the emergency toe-ring portkey, when Quirrel and Harry leave together they walk out of the wards first before Quirrel throws a portkey to Harry, etc.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 16 August 2013 01:06:05AM 3 points [-]

Besides which, Dumbledore made the portkey in the first place - unless he's the culprit (which I doubt), he's very unlikely to forget to make the portkey bypass the wards somehow.

Comment author: BlindIdiotPoster 17 August 2013 05:54:59AM 3 points [-]

In GoF they had to set up an apparition-is-allowed-zone at the end of the maze in order for the portkey to work, which is why Crouch had to wait until Harry had won the cup instead of just turning a piece of silverware into a portkey or something.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 26 August 2013 12:42:20PM 3 points [-]

Problem is that in the book Crouch says:

"I offered to carry the Triwizard Cup into the maze before dinner," whispered Barty Crouch. "Turned it into a Portkey."

Doesn't say "added an extra Portkey location" or anything such. That would have been the perfect place for JKR to say so.

Comment author: ygert 18 August 2013 06:44:18PM 2 points [-]

This is definitely not canon. I think it's pure fanon, but it may be Word of God, I don't know. In any case, this makes the argument from this point a fair amount weaker.

Comment author: Sheaman3773 22 August 2013 05:02:12AM 1 point [-]

Nobody was surprised when Harry showed up with the Cup. They all just got up and started clapping.

To me, as well as many others, it makes sense that the Cup was made into a portkey that specifically bypassed the Hogwarts wards, which Barty Crouch then subverted to give it an extra stop along the way. It's also the only reason I can think of (besides Bahl's Stupefaction) for the Cup to then send Harry back to Hogwarts--not the center of the Maze, where it originated, but to another location, one that happened to be centered right before the audience.

If anyone can think of an alternate theory, I'd love to hear it.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 26 August 2013 12:11:45PM *  3 points [-]

Nobody was surprised when Harry showed up with the Cup. They all just got up and started clapping

You're thinking of the movie. In the book it just says: "A torrent of sound deafened and confused him; there were voices everywhere, footsteps, screams. ... He remained where he was, his face screwed up against the noise, as though it were a nightmare that would pass. . . ."

Comment author: Sheaman3773 26 August 2013 03:30:06PM 2 points [-]

...bugger. I hate making that kind of mistake.

Alright, granted. That does weaken my argument somewhat, but it still appears to stand overall.

Comment author: maia 15 August 2013 11:30:38AM 6 points [-]

Telling the troll to eat her feet first so that the emergency portkey does not work?

To be fair, it ate her legs, not just her feet. It seems likely enough that if a troll is trying to kill you, it might as well eat your legs as any other part of you.

On the other hand...

The powerful and enigmatic Defense Professor was 'resting' or whatever-the-heck-was-wrong-with-him, his hands making fumbling, hesitant grabs at a chicken-leg that seemed to be eluding him on the plate.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 15 August 2013 01:18:57PM *  8 points [-]

Try thinking the plots through from the perspective of whoever plotted them. The hat-and-cloak plot? That all fits someone who is reluctant to kill or overtly coerce, but free with memory charms. (Hi there Snape. Welcome to the suspect pool!) If the assumption is that the alarm on Draco was known, then at no point is anyone in serious danger. Worst case scenario, Hr gets to spend a night in azkaban before being quietly extracted. Heck, if Harry goes ballistic and kills off the dementors? Win for the light! .. and the fact that this might kill Harry is severely non-obvious. The standard patronus does not tax the caster.

.. Checking chapter 46. Right, first question. Dumbledore asks is what the toll of Patronus 2.0 is. Given Harrys answer, I think he may well be under the impression that Harry could safely kill off every dementor in britain if backed up by a phoenix. That could have been the entire point. Getting azkaban purified by Ûber-patronus..

So, yhea, this could all be the work of Dumbledore. If it was the work of someone else, the plotter still exercised some restraint. The plotter still fails actual etics, of course, but this could all be the work of someone who thinks they are one of the good guys.

But the troll plot? Uhm. Not so much. At some point while disabling Hr's defences and buffing the troll to the heavens, some niggling little thought along the lines of "Ehh.. this is quite likely to end up with a corpse on the ground" would have to present itself to the most senile Dumbledore I can plausibly model. It reeks of malice.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 15 August 2013 05:02:24PM 17 points [-]

More than that, it's trivial to nullify that possibility. Just watch the battle. If you know it's happening, and you know where it is, then just use one of the many, many scrying implements we know Dumbledore has to watch the battle. The moment the troll ate her legs Dumbledore should've been there; even if he wanted Harry to save her or something he could've discreetly stabilized her, Harry had no way to notice.

Comment author: redlizard 23 August 2013 04:00:13PM 4 points [-]

To figure out a strange plot, look at what happens, then ask who benefits. Except that Dumbledore didn't plan on you trying to save Granger at her trial, he tried to stop you from doing that. What would've happened if Granger had gone to Azkaban? House Malfoy and House Potter would've hated each other forever. Of all the suspects, the only one who wants that is Dumbledore. So it fits. It all fits. The one who really committed the murder is - Albus Dumbledore!

I think if you use this line of reasoning and then allow yourself to dismiss arbitrary parts of it as "not part of the plan", you can make a convincing argument for almost anything. For that reason, I consider the entire theory suspect.

Comment author: undermind 15 August 2013 07:16:11PM *  6 points [-]

I think it's relatively plausible, actually. The troll did not necessarily have specific orders to eat her feet-first.

As a matter of character, Dumbledore does have odd notions of what it takes to be a hero. And he may think Harry needed to see the real toll of wars by having someone close to him die.

Or he really was confident that Harry would save her, and he would use the troll attempt as evidence against Malfoy (which would have worked).

And my favourite part of your comment:

"Invisibility cloak not doing what it was supposed to? Well, I can see that."

Yes; that's the problem :)

Comment author: Tripitaka 15 August 2013 05:52:53PM *  1 point [-]

Telling the troll to eat her feet first so that the emergency portkey does not work?

Although this is often assumed, it has most likely not been the perpetrators real concern. CF:

Also a toe-ring with an emergency portkey to a safe location, in case someone kidnaps Mr. Longbottom and takes him outside Hogwarts's wards.

I strongly suspect it was to heighten the emotional impact on Mr. Potter, to be able to see her face.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 15 August 2013 02:35:20AM 8 points [-]

Would you believe I was expecting more of what we've gotten since Chapter 90, only starring Draco? I'm pretty sure Hermione would/will not like that contract one bit.

The transition from "Now I'm going to defeat death!" to "These are my plans to overthrow the government" was... actually pretty believable. I would like to know what Moody thought of Harry out-preparing him (and kinda wonder if someone in the wizarding world is going to invent a magical equivalent of the ball point pen--it shouldn't be that hard, just use a space-folded inkwell and maybe apparate it to the tip. Maybe the Weasely twins could do it in a couple years, if not already.).

Comment author: undermind 15 August 2013 06:29:42PM 8 points [-]

Moody should have expected Harry to outprepare him (and probably did) - based on past experiences, plus general caution. What Moody completely missed was the direction of Harry's preparation - of having set up the meeting with his own goal in mind.

Comment author: ThrustVectoring 17 August 2013 04:52:51AM 6 points [-]

Yeah, the entire direction of Moody's advice was basically "don't let the adults take advantage of you". It didn't even cross his mind that Harry was willing or able to get an advantage out of Lucius.

Comment author: malcolmocean 15 August 2013 09:02:37AM 4 points [-]

it shouldn't be that hard, just use a space-folded inkwell

This made me smile, Ahh, magic.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 15 August 2013 09:03:36AM 2 points [-]

On a side note - why didn't Moody see the pen and paper going in?

Comment author: Izeinwinter 15 August 2013 09:06:41AM 12 points [-]

He did. He also has never seen Harry without those things on him. I mean, really now? Harry is not going to go anywhere without pen and paper on his person. The real question is why he did not read it.

Comment author: Baughn 15 August 2013 10:19:06AM 8 points [-]

It doesn't look like he can read it while it's folded up, for whatever reason, or the reveal at the end of the chapter couldn't have gone as it did.

Comment author: Benito 15 August 2013 03:01:36PM 6 points [-]

That's a bit stretched. He can see through things but not when they're folded up? I think he was just waiting for the writing to stop being upside down.

Comment author: Velorien 15 August 2013 05:36:53PM 15 points [-]

Presumably while they're folded up, he's seeing two overlapping sets of writing at the same time, and they interfere with each other, like overlapping OHP slides. To overcome this effect, he'd have to spontaneously tune his x-ray vision to the fineness of a millimetre or so (the thickness of the parchment), which may plausibly be difficult or impossible.

Comment author: ygert 15 August 2013 03:35:32AM *  6 points [-]

A short time later Harry Potter handed his wand over to an armored goblin guard who frisked him with all manner of interesting-looking probes,

Huh. With all the "the goblins aren't allowed to have wands" stuff, I wouldn't expect that this is how they'd have done it. It is true that all in all, the goblins couldn't do all that much of practical value with the borrowed wands of those in Gringotts meetings, but still... It means that the prohibition on goblins using wands is far from absolute.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 15 August 2013 07:16:53AM 14 points [-]

You have to spend time practicing with a wand in order to effectively use one. This is like handing your laptop to someone who's literally never used a computer or even a keyboard before — they aren't going to guess your password and read your email; they'll have a hard enough time knowing what parts do something.

Comment author: Discredited 26 August 2013 04:47:22AM *  5 points [-]

Quirrell, Dumbledore, Snape, Harry, and (increasingly) Draco have something in common. They are all creepy. These characters are intentionally inauthentic - acting as though they posses the specific beliefs, preferences, and abilities that they want others to attribute to them.

I feel unusually strong revulsion about this kind of deception - more than toward someone hiding their faults to manage their appearance, much more than toward someone being tactful and withholding or biasing sensitive claims to avoid conflict.

When I try to unpack "creepy", my mind suggests it has components of outrage at violations of close interpersonal social norms, distrust of unfamiliar thought patterns, fear of people with motivations that need to be hidden, and a special kind of disgust related to fears of idols, photographs, glassy eyed dolls, humanoid robots, and other simulacra. - the disgust toward an exemplar that doesn't fall clearly in or out of the human-mind category, toward a soul that has been captured in the depiction of a face and deprived of its intelligence and agency.

Are very intelligent people generally creepy like that? If I were a standard deviation smarter, would my peer group consist of people strategically concealing their identities and mutually modelling their mutual modelling up to the nth order of meta? Or is that inauthenticity just an abnormal personality type that doesn't correlate much with intelligence, but does fit nicely into a rationalist literary drama?

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 31 August 2013 10:23:58AM *  8 points [-]

As a sidenote, intelligent people may seem creepy to the general population even if they don't try to deceive anyone. The mere fact of being more intelligent makes them more difficult to model for the average person. Then, when their actions violate the (wrong) model, the author of the model may feel deceived. The basic human irrationality: "if things don't work according to my model, the problem is not with my model but somewhere else".

Another contributing factor may be the illusion of transparency, when the more intelligent person thinks they made their intentions obvious to the people around them, but the average people don't get the message, and then they are surprised when the intelligent person does the (unclearly) announced thing.

EDIT: Even the rational thing of "changing your opinion when faced with evidence in the opposite direction" may feel like a dishonesty to a person not used to this. ("Yesterday you believed X, and today you believe non-X; were you lying to me?")

Comment author: Nornagest 26 August 2013 05:53:03AM 5 points [-]

Conscious control over social presentation is a learned skill; it doesn't come in the same box with intelligence or rationality, although either or both might make it easier to pick up. I suspect it's prominent in Methods mainly because it serves the particular type of wheels-within-wheels plotting that Eliezer seems fond of.

We could have a conversation at this point about whether constructed social presentation is unethical or "creepy", but I don't think it'd get us anywhere. Some people have the squick response, some don't.

(Incidentally, I don't feel like Snape's got this in-story. He's certainly got a facade, but it's the sort you build semi-involuntarily when you hate parts of yourself and desperately want to hide them, not the kind you consciously build to optimize social outcomes. Harry does have it, but shouldn't have had the opportunity to develop it; it may be part of his Mysterious Dark Side/possible Harrymort package.)

Comment author: Discredited 26 August 2013 08:59:40PM 2 points [-]

For Snape, I was specifically thinking of the scene in Dumbledore's office where Harry reveals that he knows about the prophecy and Snape reacts without hesitation as though he hadn't heard of it. Snape was also a double agent during the war, and continues to maintain close relationships with Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy. His actions do seem crude, awkward, uncontrolled or mostly defensive in other scenes such as in the bullying arc or his conversation with Quirrell in the forbidden forest in Chapter 77. But then, one can act with false impulsiveness too.

I suppose the characters are in a cold war and in the shadow of a hot war. That circumstance makes "offensive" deception in one's social presentation more useful.

Comment author: gattsuru 26 August 2013 10:18:34PM *  6 points [-]

They're also in an environment where creating an artificial persona is not merely useful, but a fundamental survival tactic: each of these characters would be dead by now if they were not Occlumens (and Lord Mafloy is an Occlumens, see chapter 47), which requires the person to also juggle a separate and highly artificial persona.

And of course, McGonagall acts similarly, even though her reaction is not similarly perfect, possibly because she's not a perfect Occlumens (and had just dealt with a full day of Rationalist!Harry).

There's some correlation between IQ and various measures of social awareness, despite the stereotype to the opposite, but it is a learned ability and many experts either don't learn it, or harness it to different ends. Feymann's writings on public speaking and instruction suggest that he, for one example, was highly aware of how he made his words and how his public face appeared. At the same time, I'm not sure how much of that was foresight and how much was later introspection -- and artificially controlling the flow of a Congressional inquiry may be less 'creepy' than artificially controlling the flow of information to an eleven-year-old.

((Yudkowsky's style may be part of the issue, as well. As in /Three Worlds Collide/ and /Sword of Good/, character dialogue, even from 'normal' characters, comes across as artificial at times. That more than the complexity of thought may trigger the creepy vibe.))

Comment author: cousin_it 16 August 2013 07:09:08AM 5 points [-]

What a clusterfuck. I love it. Reminds me of how Sam Hughes made his heroine summon a demon into her bed, explaining that stories are more interesting when characters don't have perfect reasoning.

Comment author: DaveX 20 August 2013 04:10:19PM 2 points [-]
Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 15 August 2013 05:11:00PM *  18 points [-]

I'm concerned if, this late in the game, Harry's only reason for suspecting the Defense Professor is "just because he's the Defense Professor." It would seem that he has way too many excellent reasons to suspect Quirrell no matter what his title. The sense of doom. The fact that he was able to cast Avada Kedavra on a random guard. The fact that he carried Harry off on a disastrous plot to free Bellatrix Black. The fact that he happened to be there on time to save Draco's life when the wards were disabled. The fact that he is one of only a handful of wizards with the ability to disable Hogwarts' wards. The impassioned speech advocating benevolent fascism. The fact that no one knows who he really is and Harry can think of at least three different identities he's taken on. The weird zombie mode that seems to roughly correlate with Bad Things happening. The excessively harsh and sometimes downright abusive way he runs his class. The lack of empathy and inability to accept or even understand love.

My question is, do you think Harry has realized all this and is really strongly suspecting Quirrell for other reasons, and he only told Lucius that the only reason was the curse on the Defense Professor's position? Or do you think Harry is still reluctant to seriously entertain the possibility that it was Quirrell?

Comment author: jaibot 16 August 2013 06:27:52PM *  16 points [-]

You left out "The wards explicitly say that the Defense Professor killed Hermione."

I mean, it is quite literally spelled out. I'm completely baffled at how both readers and characters are not promoting Quirrell to the top of the suspects list by a mile.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 17 August 2013 07:46:09PM *  20 points [-]

The old witch’s eyebrows rose. “How did he identify you to the Hogwarts wards, then?”
A slight smile. “ “The Headmaster drew a circle, and told Hogwarts that he who stood within was the Defense Professor. Speaking of which—”

Quirrell is Baba Yaga, a "she", and some "he" also in that circle is the Defense Professor. EDIT: The Troll is the Defense Professor.

Past Professors of Defense have included not just the legendary wandering hero Harold Shea but also the quote undying unquote Baba Yaga, yes, I see some of you are still shuddering at the sound of her name even though she’s been dead for six hundred years.

" quote undying unquote Baba Yaga"

Quote hint unquote.

“Here of course we have the Sorting Hat, I believe the two of you have met. It told me that it was never again to be placed on your head under any circumstances. You’re only the fourteenth student in history it’s said that about, Baba Yaga was another one

Gee, Baba Yaga's mind had the same effect on the Hat as Harry's. Do we hypothesize his brain being like anyone else's brain?

And I daresay that most wizards would be hard-pressed to name a single Dark Lady besides Baba Yaga.”

Yes, they'd be hard pressed to name a single Dark Lady besides Baba Yaga. Note how that doesn't say there weren't any, and indeed many. Maybe, let's say, the quote undying unquote Baba Yaga masquerading as other people? Do we know anyone else who masquerades as other people? Anyone else with a brain like Harry's?

I will say this much, Mr. Potter: You are already an Occlumens, and I think you will become a perfect Occlumens before long. Identity does not mean, to such as us, what it means to other people. Anyone we can imagine, we can be; and the true difference about you, Mr. Potter, is that you have an unusually good imagination. A playwright must contain his characters, he must be larger than them in order to enact them within his mind. To an actor or spy or politician, the limit of his own diameter is the limit of who he can pretend to be, the limit of which face he may wear as a mask. But for such as you and I, anyone we can imagine, we can be, in reality and not pretense.

There are 3 and only 3 mentions of Baba Yaga in the book so far, and they tie Harry, the Dark Lord, and Quirrell together.

“Oh, now I see!” said Tracey Davis, speaking up so suddenly that Hermione gave a small startle. “You’re joining our protest because you’re worried that not enough girls are becoming Dark Witches!”
There was a half-smile on Professor Quirrell’s face as he replied,...

Probably a good idea to pay close attention to what Quirrell says when he smiles to himself.

EDIT: Guess who else Harry is like?

“Congratulations indeed,” said Dumbledore. “Even I did not make any original discoveries in Transfiguration before the age of fourteen. Not since the day of Dorotea Senjak has any genius flowered so early.

Latest half baked idea. Harry is Quirrell. I'd been operating on the theory that Quirrell is preparing Harry to take over the world, and then take over Harry. He's actually already taken over Harry as a baby, and lived out a new life as Harry. There are multiple scense of Quirrell comparing events in his life to Harry's, with the implication that Harry's life is the new and improved one.

The whole "Sense of Doom" business is the potential coming together of one person in two time turned bodies in the same space time.

With the ridiculously rampant and specific foreshadowing, some kind of time turning solution seems likely. And causality back through time was already set up with the Comed-Tea incident

but it all makes sense once you draw the causal arrows going BACKWARDS IN TIME!”

Here's a fascinating quote by Dumbledore about Fawkes:

as close to undying as any creature that exists in this world, for whenever their bodies fail them they immolate themselves in a burst of fireand leave behind a hatchling, or sometimes an egg.”

And Harry is discovered as a baby next to the presumed immolated remains of Voldemort.

Comment author: gwern 17 August 2013 09:38:55PM 5 points [-]

You make a better case for Quirrel=BY than anyone I've seen to date.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 18 August 2013 12:06:03AM 7 points [-]

Reading the PDF and using the search function is very handy. 3 comments on BY doesn't take a lot of effort to analyze. I was surprised there were so few comments.

A harder piece of analysis would be to look at Quirrell's views on gender. Harder to search on.

But the SPHEW protests provide some interesting tidbits. First of all, that Quirrell is there at all. Of the faculty, it's predominantly the female faculty, and Quirrell doesn't seem your prototypical human rights protester. He even had a button.

“You mean that’s how men would treat us if we didn’t have wands to defend ourselves?”

There was a short, sardonic laugh from the direction of Professor Quirrell. When Hermione turned her head to look she saw that the Defense Professor was still idly toying with the button, not bothering to glance up at the rest of them, as he said, “Such is human nature, Miss Clearwater. Rest assured that you would be no kinder, if witches had wands and men lacked them.”
“I hardly think so!” snapped Professor Sinistra.
A cold chuckle. “I suspect it happens more often than any dare suggest, in the proudest pureblood families. Some lonely witch spies a handsome Muggle; and thinks how very easy it would be, to slip the man a love potion, and by him be adored alone and utterly. And since she knows he can offer her no resistance, why, it is only natural for her to take from him whatever she pleases—”

Maybe Quirrell speaks with some authority about what women with power would do. EY has a habit of having his characters smile or laugh to themselves when they're think thing they're not entirely sharing with others.

“Professor Quirrell was testing Hermione to see if he wanted to be her mysterious old wizard,”

So that Quirrell took Hermione seriously in ways that others didn't. He also awarded her "100 points for doing what's right". And he tried to get her out of Hogwarts before she died. He looks to be another character who values Hermione more than EY's "feminist" detractors.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 18 August 2013 02:24:18AM 13 points [-]

Maybe Quirrell speaks with some authority about what women with power would do.

The story Quirrell recounts here seems very much like the canon story of handsome muggle Tom Riddle's seduction by pureblood witch Merope Gaunt — the parents of Tom Riddle, Jr. aka Voldemort.

Comment author: Tenoke 18 August 2013 11:31:14PM 0 points [-]

Twist: Quirrell is Voldemort's mother.

Comment author: gwern 18 August 2013 03:07:07AM 3 points [-]

Reading the PDF and using the search function is very handy. 3 comments on BY doesn't take a lot of effort to analyze. I was surprised there were so few comments.

I think it's more that I never took the idea seriously enough to note the links between the Sorting Hat, Occlumency descriptions, etc all formed a reasonably persuasive picture.

Comment author: tegid 19 August 2013 02:22:52PM 2 points [-]

You make really good points. The 'laws' of storytelling go against it, though, in the sense that with only 3 mentions, Baba Yaga being important would be unsatisfying. In any case, if this were true there must be other things on top of it that are more meaningful (i.e. Quirrel is Voldie who is BY, or whatever...)

Comment author: Gurkenglas 16 August 2013 10:43:24PM 7 points [-]

You mean Dumbledore says that the wards say that the Defense Professor killed Hermione. We would have to trust both Dumbledore and the wards for that. But you are right, it leaves only Dumbledore and Quirrel as plausible suspects.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 16 August 2013 10:22:44PM 7 points [-]

This only narrows Harry's list to 'The Defense Professor and people who could rig the wards to say the Defense Professor killed her.' Dumbles is easily on that list.

Comment author: undermind 15 August 2013 06:24:59PM 15 points [-]

Harry's reason given to the Malfoys for suspecting Quirrell is "just because he's the defense professor." I'm sure he knows all of this other evidence as well, and would consider it appropriately if actually given a chance to sit down and consider the possibilities (though he might be rather distracted by Draco's Dumbledore hypothesis).

Comment author: Velorien 15 August 2013 05:28:39PM 13 points [-]

Given his extraordinary caution when meeting Quirrell in the woods earlier, he is at least willing to seriously entertain the possibility.

Comment author: Sheaman3773 05 September 2013 12:28:58AM 2 points [-]

Not to mention this, even before the troll:

Harry had politely declined tea, even knowing that Professor Quirrell would know what it meant. He’d considered bringing his own can of soda—but had decided against that as well, after realizing how easy it would be for the Defense Professor to teleport in a bit of potion, even if the two of them couldn’t touch each other with direct magic.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 15 August 2013 07:16:47PM 3 points [-]

Considering that (as of this comment) the story says that he only said that to avoid attracting attention to Quirrell, I'd go with option 1.

Comment author: Benquo 28 August 2013 12:49:07PM 4 points [-]

Well, Slytherin and Ravenclaw may both "win" the house cup now. But how is this going to result in the removal of the Snitch? A security measure?

Comment author: [deleted] 15 August 2013 05:31:16AM 25 points [-]

I really liked this chapter. I've always liked the HPMOR version of Draco, and now I like the HPMOR version of Lucius as well. It's fun to watch smart competent people being awesome at each other.

I wish the chapters with girls in them could be like this too.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 15 August 2013 05:53:55AM 7 points [-]

I think we'll be seeing more of Bones...

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 15 August 2013 04:32:26PM *  30 points [-]

I think this is the heart of feminist complaints about this story. Yes, the female characters are honest, and levelheaded, and moral, and quite a bit more realistic than male characters. Yes, the male characters have massive, gaping flaws in their character, and if you tried to have a conversation with them in the real world they would appear unbearably pompous. Yes, clever repartee does not replace genuine kindness. I agree with all that.

But the thing is, this fic (on its surface) doesn't value kindness and morality nearly as much as suave, articulate word-poker and beautifully intricate schemes and counter-schemes and "I know that you know that I know..." insanity. I think you're going to get people accusing you of sexism even if you provide your female characters with traits that are valued and truly matter in the real world, as long as you still hold back the traits that are valued in-story.

In the original Harry Potter, Hermione was quite a bit more immature in her first year than in HPMOR - but the backbone of HP was bold derring-do and wandsmanship and remembering the right spell, and she (and McGonagall and Ginny) was essential in that environment. Intricate conversations and ingenious plots like this are the backbone of HPMOR, and we don't see any women involved there. That's what people are complaining about, I think.

I predict that if Hermione's death had come at the end of a long, complicated plot/investigation carried out by her, there would be far fewer complaints. As it is, she did not win anything other than Harry's increased resolve - didn't reveal any schemes, didn't execute any of her own, didn't discover any MacGuffins (as far as I know).

Comment author: undermind 15 August 2013 06:33:06PM 12 points [-]

The character who seems to be the best response to this, and whom I hope we will see again shortly, is Amelia Bones. She seems to kick just as much ass as Moody, without the significant aid of a literally all-seeing eye. Watching her Azkaban defense was quite impressive, and I hope that the hints of "Bones" in this chapter mean we'll see her in action again, and not just as a potential signatory.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 15 August 2013 07:42:29PM *  12 points [-]

I would have loved to read a counterfactual HPMOR with Bones in the role of McGonagall (or McGonagall with the personality of Bones). It's true that her personality makes more sense in an Auror than a teacher, and that means we don't get to see her very much. But then again, virtually every major male authority figure in Hogwarts looks like he should belong in an elite war chamber rather than a classroom. Seriously, what are these people doing running a boarding school?

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 15 August 2013 08:15:29PM 5 points [-]

Draco seems to believe that Hogwarts is an impregnable fortress, a secure base for whatever power Dumbledore wants to project. Headmaster of Hogwarts appears to be a title awarded by the Wizengamot, which also elects the Chief Warlock, and Draco regards it as a significant increment to the power of the Chief Warlock. Its function as a boarding school may be secondary and incidental. :)

Comment author: ikrase 16 August 2013 02:28:36AM 2 points [-]

Hogwarts is more like a university than most boarding schools.

Comment author: knb 16 August 2013 06:35:55AM *  10 points [-]

Hogwarts is the entire British magical education system (with the exception of some private tutors). Controlling education is not optional for people who want to control a country. The fact that education is all centralized the most powerful fortress just makes it even more important to control.

Comment author: Velorien 16 August 2013 02:07:52PM 14 points [-]

Hogwarts is the entire British magical education system (with the exception of some private tutors).

Do we know this for a fact?

Objections:

  • Going to Hogwarts is prestigious, meaning there must be lower-status options available.

  • Hogwarts regularly hires apparently British replacement teachers, most of them with at least the appearance of educational experience. It is improbable that said experience comes exclusively from abroad or from being a private tutor.

  • There are too few pupils at Hogwarts to account for the entire underage wizarding population, given the size of the overall wizarding population and assuming the majority of wizards' children are also wizards (not to mention having to factor in Muggleborns).

  • It seems improbable that the booming school equipment business of Diagon Alley survives on one school's worth of customers, especially if most of them only shop once a year.

  • If most of the population of magical Britain have been through the same school, we would expect an extremely high degree of social interconnectedness, with most people knowing everyone of the same age at least by sight. There's no evidence of this.

On the other hand,

  • It is implied that letters coming on one's 11th birthday can only come from Hogwarts.

  • If one is expelled from Hogwarts, one is forbidden from practising further magic altogether.

  • No other British schools, or pupils or graduates thereof, are ever mentioned in canon that I can remember.

Comment author: Jadagul 16 August 2013 10:40:12PM 13 points [-]

Canon is fairly clear that Hogwarts is the only game in Britain. It also leads to glaring inconsistencies in scale which you just pointed out. (Rowling originally said that Hogwarts had about 700 students, and then fans started pointing out that that was wildly inconsistent with the school as she described it. And even that's too small to make things really work).

But the evidence, from HP7 (page 210 of my first-run American hardback copy):

Lupin is talking about Voldemort's takeover of Wizarding society, to Harry and the others.

"Attendance is now compulsory for every young witch and wizard," he replied. "That was announced yesterday. It's a change, because it was never obligatory before. Of course, nearly every witch and wizard in Britain has been educated at Hogwarts, but their parents had the right to teach them at home or send them abroad if they preferred. This way, Voldemort will have the whole Wizarding population under his eye from a young age."

"Most wizards" in Britain were educated at Hogwarts, and the exceptions were homeschooled or sent abroad. It's really hard to read that to imply that there's another British wizarding school anywhere.

Comment author: kilobug 16 August 2013 02:26:19PM 11 points [-]

It seems improbable that the booming school equipment business of Diagon Alley survives on one school's worth of customers, especially if most of them only shop once a year.

It didn't seem to me there were so much school equipment business. If you look at the shops Harry went to the first year, it's a dress shop, a book shop, a wand shop, a potion ingredient shop, a broomstick shop, a pet shop, ... none of them sound dedicated to school equipment. They probably have a lot of school equipment in stock/display during august, like supermarkets do here too, but continue selling their goods to adult wizards the rest of the time.

The rest of your objections do hold, but I just fold it into "canon HP isn't very consistent" suspension of disbelief... of course, it makes things tougher for EY when he's making a consistent version of it. But that's part of what makes HPMOR funny/interesting.

Comment author: Desrtopa 21 August 2013 03:16:45PM 3 points [-]

I took the implication from reading the books that Rowling had different ideas at different times whether there were intended to be multiple schools of magic in Britain or not. It was referred to in the beginning as the "best" school in Britain, but by the end of the series, the Voldemort-run Ministry instituted mandatory Hogwarts attendance for all youth, and a character remarked that parents had at least had the option of homeschooling their children before.

Comment author: knb 17 August 2013 11:33:35PM 2 points [-]

The Magical economy generally doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. In canon it seems like every witch/wizard works for the Ministry, Hogwarts, or for a small restaurant or shop. I think wizards can pretty much conjure every basic material into existence except food and gold. That does leave an interesting question of where magical Britain is getting its food and gold from. There might be some witch/wizard farmers out there that we never hear about, or they could be just stealing food from muggles. Maybe the ministry sanctions some small scale trade between the magic/muggle world?

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 19 August 2013 02:50:53PM *  1 point [-]

If one is expelled from Hogwarts, one is forbidden from practising further magic altogether.

It doesn't seem too implausible for them to have a law saying something along the lines of "a person who has been expelled from one magical school may not be admitted to any other magical school".

Comment author: undermind 15 August 2013 07:54:36PM 10 points [-]

On the topic of illogical career paths, Bones has a real job that requires being a very good auror, rather than being an errand-boy for Dumbledore, as Moody seems to be.

And as for "what are these people doing running a boarding school", they run a school based on reward and (mostly) punishment, rather than the growth of their pupils; they teach a rigid curriculum that seems to have remained unchanged for centuries, in spite of advances in both the magical and muggle worlds; and they socially condition people into narrow roles, largely defined by negative attitudes towards others, based solely on the House a piece of fabric sorts them into.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 August 2013 02:47:22AM 10 points [-]

To be fair, that's more support than Muggles give students choosing a major in college.

Comment author: Velorien 16 August 2013 12:31:28AM 7 points [-]

they teach a rigid curriculum that seems to have remained unchanged for centuries, in spite of advances in both the magical and muggle worlds

As a point of accuracy, it's been stated a couple of times that Hogwarts is meant to follow the Ministry-mandated curriculum, so this one is not entirely "these people"'s fault.

Comment author: undermind 16 August 2013 12:48:55AM 2 points [-]

Thanks for the correction.

Comment author: MugaSofer 21 August 2013 04:04:22PM 1 point [-]

they teach a rigid curriculum that seems to have remained unchanged for centuries, in spite of advances in both the magical and muggle worlds;

Source?

Comment author: CAE_Jones 17 August 2013 12:44:09AM 4 points [-]

I predict that if Hermione's death had come at the end of a long, complicated plot/investigation carried out by her, there would be far fewer complaints. As it is, she did not win anything other than Harry's increased resolve - didn't reveal any schemes, didn't execute any of her own, didn't discover any MacGuffins (as far as I know).

Vanishingly low-confidence idea: Hermione realized that the Philosopher's Stone is hidden at Hogwarts, went to retrieve it, and somehow in there the troll got loose.

Evidence against: canonically, the stone troll and the bathroom troll were distinct, Snape went to guard the third floor corridor, the troll was pretty deep within the gauntlet in canon, meaning that if it was placed similarly in methods, something complicated happened off screen, and Dumbledore's wards over the corridor would doubtless have alerted him. And it wouldn't be much of a victory for Hermione, since the stone's actual canon protection was the mirror of Erised charmed to give the stone only to someone who wanted it, but not to use it, and Hermione was seeking the stone to help pay off Harry's debt.

Evidence for: In Chamber of Secrets, Hermione manages to convey information in spite of being petrified, which would probably have been found sooner had Harry/Ron been more observant. And even then, she managed to get petrified rather than killed, since she knew what to expect. And in Philosopher's Stone, she was the one who figured out the stone was at Hogwarts (though, admitedly this wouldn't have been as likely without Hagrid's extremely loose tongue, but in MoR she was researching the stone last we saw of her).

So yeah, I could see Hermione having accomplished something off screen between chapter 87 and 89, but for now I'll keep my confidence of this happening below 50% barring stronger evidence.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 16 August 2013 09:07:19AM 2 points [-]

But the thing is, this fic (on its surface) doesn't value kindness and morality nearly as much as suave, articulate word-poker and beautifully intricate schemes and counter-schemes

Harry says:

“Don’t worry, Headmaster,” said the boy. “I haven’t gotten my wires crossed. I know that I’m supposed to learn goodness from Hermione and Fawkes, not from Professor Quirrell and you.

You learn goodness from Hermione, and how to kill things efficiently from Quirrell. Who do you think is being valued here?

What the fic values above all else is a love and respect for life. Even the child who wants a sparkly throne and minions feels that way. Especially that child. All the various high powered smarty pantsing is entertainment and eye candy, not the core values of the fan fic. Not by a wide margin.

These "I'm offended" isms seem to be a very effective way to entirely miss the point of what someone else is saying, as you root about for the offensive kernel. It's a fine hobby. You need never fail; find a difference and spin it negatively. Ta da! I'm offended! Whee! What fun!

Maybe I should try it. I suppose I could get my undies in a bunch over the misandrism in HPMOR, since as even you say

the female characters are honest, and levelheaded, and moral,

Huff huff huff. Stomp stomp stomp. I'm so offended.

Hmmm, just didn't work for me. I'm not offended, and don't want to be. Instead of getting huffy about how wonderful Hermione is portrayed relative to males in the story, I'd rather just love the Hermione character even though she doesn't have the same genitalia that I do. Imagine that.

I think it's sad that people are trapped in this ideology, looking for ways to be offended, casting a pall over everything they see.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 19 August 2013 12:57:56AM 15 points [-]

I think you misunderstood. I wasn't claiming to be offended myself, I was trying to get at the cause of people's emotional reactions. Whether or not you believe those emotions are justified, they are almost always triggered by something.

I also specified that HPMOR values wit and scheming on its surface - that is, the scheming is what provides almost all the entertainment value and keeps people in their chairs long enough to hear the deeper ideology. What do we want from characters in a story at their most basic level? We want to have fun watching them. That's why most people read stories, and it's why most people read HPMOR. And the ones who are the most fun to watch are the male characters.

I didn't claim this was intentional, nor that it was wrong, just that it was probably the cause of feminist complaints. It was in part an answer to "But the female characters are good people". Being a good person is not always the same as being good in the story. In Disney movies, you have to be a wide-eyed dreamer. In Tarantino movies you have to be a stone-cold killing machine. In HPMOR (and Death Note) you have to be a hyperintelligent byzantine plotter. And then comes the ideology.

Comment author: AndrewE 16 August 2013 03:13:58PM 5 points [-]

This may not have been put in the most diplomatic way possible, but I think the last sentence has merit. My first reaction upon reading the chapter was "wow, Harry did a masterful job of manipulating the hell out of the Malfoys" (not that the manipulation will be to the Malfoy's detriment, but that's beside the point). Then I find out that people are impressed with the competence of Lucius Malfoy and therefore sexism? I suppose it was good that Lucius wasn't blinded by irrational hatred or greed, but that's an awfully low bar to be setting for characters that impress you. He walked in with one plan that Harry saw through in a second.

I anticipate a few possibly short scenes where Harry does basically the same thing and manipulates Bones and Madam Longbottom into supporting him as well. If this scene is being held as evidence of sexism, the laws of evidence tell me those scenes should be held as evidence against, but somehow I don't see it happening that way.

That said, if other people can see what they're looking for then so can I, but that's my take.

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 16 August 2013 11:11:33PM 2 points [-]

I anticipate a few possibly short scenes where Harry does basically the same thing and manipulates Bones and Madam Longbottom into supporting him as well. If this scene is being held as evidence of sexism, the laws of evidence tell me those scenes should be held as evidence against, but somehow I don't see it happening that way.

Actually, the law is that the average scene that isn't Harry manipulating Lucius must be evidence against sexism, not that any such scene is evidence against sexism. Many of the possible scenes in the set {Harry doesn't manipulate Lucius} are sexist.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 16 August 2013 10:04:08PM -2 points [-]

If this scene is being held as evidence of sexism, the laws of evidence tell me those scenes should be held as evidence against, but somehow I don't see it happening that way.

Heads I'm offended. Tails I'm offended. As we used to say at the college poker game "Muahahahaha, I can't lose!"

Comment author: wedrifid 17 August 2013 12:30:24AM 3 points [-]

I'd rather just love the Hermione character even though she doesn't have the same genitalia that I do.

This tends to be my default preference...

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 15 August 2013 03:48:51PM 13 points [-]

"I only used you in ways that made you stronger. That's what it means to be used by a friend."

My favorite line in this chapter.

Comment author: Kindly 15 August 2013 04:05:33PM 16 points [-]

Which calls back to this bit in Chapter 51:

But then Professor Quirrell had also seen Harry taught Occlumency, he had taught Harry how to lose... if the Defense Professor wanted to make some use of Harry Potter, it was a use that required a strengthened Harry Potter, not a weakened one. That was what it meant to be used by a friend, that they would want the use to make you stronger instead of weaker.

Comment author: moritz 30 August 2013 02:13:44PM 4 points [-]

Did you notice that from Quirrel's perspective, that's exactly what he has done to/with Harry? Killing Hermione had the effect of hardening Harry's resolve, and removing some of his scrupels. For Quirrel that's "stronger".

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 03 September 2013 01:06:44AM 3 points [-]

And not just obvious current scruples. Hermione is an external scruple-generator for Harry.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 15 August 2013 09:00:52PM 4 points [-]

Why?

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 15 August 2013 10:53:32PM 21 points [-]

I don't know about the parent, but personally I liked this line because it debunks the cached thought that "using" someone is always wrong. Humans use one another all the time for all sorts of things, from a grad student using his mentor to advance his career to an overworked executive using her goofy laid-back friends to keep her blood pressure down. People tend to only consider one very narrow and destructive meaning of the word "use", and then come to the conclusion that you can't have a genuine caring relationship with someone if you pursue it for personal benefit. The grad student can still admire and love his mentor even though the main point of that relationship is so he can get a PhD. If you do care about the person, you'd try to arrange it so that your use will help them too.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 16 August 2013 03:03:42AM 9 points [-]

That's one reading, I guess. Another reading is that this is the kind of line you might use to justify the narrow and destructive kind of using to yourself. Seems a little dangerous is all.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 16 August 2013 04:34:12AM 2 points [-]

That's true, and in this context it doesn't seem like Harry was being entirely fair. I liked that line better the first time around, when Harry applied it to how Quirrell used him. He was wrong, but I thought it was interesting that he chose to view it in that light.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 16 August 2013 07:54:52AM 7 points [-]

Because of what OtherHandle said, basically. Yes, it can be a dangerous and self-serving attitude that you use merely to rationalize your abuse of another person, but I also find there to be something refreshingly honest about it, at least if you're open about it (which Harry admittedly wasn't).

Reading that line caused me and a friend to have a very pleasant conversation of the ways in which we are going to use each other for our mutual benefit in the future. :)

Comment author: EndlessStrategy 18 August 2013 09:23:27PM 3 points [-]

I don't quite understand: why is Draco so upset in this chapter? Is it because he's playing the role his father expects of him? It's not like he obtained any new information about what Harry was trying to do since the Self Actualization chapters. He already knew that he was being manipulated to give up blood purity. So what's the issue?

Comment author: Gurkenglas 19 August 2013 02:38:44AM *  2 points [-]

Up until then, he thought Harry accidentally took his belief in blood purism from him, along with his ability to become a faithful Death Eater. Now Lord Malfoy has told him that no such belief-sacrificing rituals exist, and Draco realizes that it was no accident and not everything that Harry taught Draco about how the world works (existence of Scientific Rituals) was true.

Comment author: shminux 16 August 2013 05:30:15PM 10 points [-]

Is there a list of currently remaining mysteries/Chekhov's guns/loose ends somewhere? Like, what happened to Hermione's body, what happened to Beatrix Black, who H&C is, who has the marauder map... And maybe a list of solved mysteries, too.

Comment author: JayDee 17 August 2013 12:56:15AM 13 points [-]

There is at least one list on Reddit.

Comment author: atorm 16 August 2013 08:32:36PM 12 points [-]

I'm currently rereading and annotating and will provide such a list when I am finished.

Comment author: WalterL 16 August 2013 06:39:18PM 9 points [-]

Hmm...a few thoughts.

I'd always read this series as Rationalist propoganda, and this chapter doesn't really work in that light.

Dumbledore, I'd figured, represented the world's Conventional Wisdom. Benevolent, on the whole, deranged, absolutely, and far more powerful than Harry could ever be. Harry and Co. can no more overcome him than the LW's readership can defeat the billions of non-rationalists.

With that interpretation in mind I didn't really doubt that Dumbledore could ever be guilty of something, but figured Harry would have to let him off the hook. People with good intentions do bad things but you can't go all Steerpike, ya know? I sort of figured that this was confirmed in Harry's speech to McGonagall about blaming Voldemort vs. himself. Heroic responsibility means save even those who have erred (and I can't really conceive of Dumbledore/humanity being judged to have sinned save by error).

But now we have Harry teaming up with Lucius and Draco, ostensibly to take down Dumbledore. I figured Draco represented your smart friend that you are trying to get to be a rationalist, and Lucius their peer structure. Inducting them into the Conspiracy shouldn't allow you to overcome the deranged and benevolent Majority.

I suspect that Harry is securing their agreement to investigate Dumbledore while, himself, believing Dumbledore will be shown to be free of malice. Basically the blood purity science experiment all over again. I figure his goal here is to bring them into alliance, just as he says to Draco. Once the Malfoys abandon Blood Purity there is no reason they can't be allies to the Dumbeldore power structure, save for both side's past sins. Harry is drawing Lucius and Draco into investigating one of these sings in the hopes of effectively explaining it away, which coupled with their renunciation of Blood Purity as a doctrine should allow the formation of an alliance.

Also, I'd like to add that its hilarious to watch all the characters try and figure out who HARRY's enemy is. They've been listening to Dumbledore's 'Life Is A Story' pitch a bit too much. If someone tries to have a girl sent to a hell dungeon and then has her eaten by a troll they don't like her. They aren't trying to impede the Hero's Quest by Sundering his Fellowship, they are acting out their animus. I predict that Hermione's framing and murder were about her, not Harry.

Thanks for reading this long comment

Comment author: ygert 16 August 2013 11:29:03PM *  2 points [-]

I think you are reading into it a bit too deeply, and making analogies where analogies aren't. It's a story, so read it as such. I am not convinced that, say, Lucius is meant to represent Draco's peer structure any more than the amount which he is part of Draco's peer structure in-universe (being his father).

Oh and one more thing: For Dumbledore's 'Life Is A Story' pitch, think a level up. The character's don't know it, and they probably never will, they are just that, when all else is stripped away. In the end, at the highest level, their life is a story. Ponder that for a while...

Comment author: JayDee 17 August 2013 12:49:24AM 3 points [-]

They've been listening to Dumbledore's 'Life Is A Story' pitch a bit too much.

Seems likely to me that tearing this down will be the climax of the Roles chapters. Dumbledore is the big character we have left who hasn't had a 'meeting' with Harry. And all throughout the story - referencing Gandalf and LotR, "that's not his style" - Dumbledore has been about playing a role in a story.

Also, revealing Dumbledore's secrets is one of the big elements of Rowlings' book 7, and one of the things HP:MoR would have to deal with to resolve all the canon plots in Harry's first year.

Comment author: Benito 18 August 2013 08:50:40AM 8 points [-]

Dumbledore is the big character we have left who hasn't had a 'meeting' with Harry

"The first meeting:

...

...Harry found himself, still in his pajamas, facing Albus Dumbledore..."

Comment author: JayDee 18 August 2013 10:55:24PM 3 points [-]

Facepalm, of course. I was thinking there would be a meeting along the lines of the previous private conferences - pretending to be wise in particular. Didn't actually get around to checking which meetings had happened versus which characters I'd expect.

Comment author: elharo 16 August 2013 11:16:49AM 5 points [-]

Harry was thinking about the Goblin Rebellions and goblins' ongoing resentment at not being allowed to own wands and certain facts which hadn't been in the first-year History textbook, which Harry had guessed at by pattern-matching and which Professor Flitwick had confirmed in a very quiet voice. Lord Voldemort had killed goblins as well as wizards - an incredibly stupid move on Lord Voldemort's part, unless Harry was really missing something.

Of course, Harry is really missing something; and he should be noticing his confusion about this. It's a failing that he isn't. For some reason, he seems very resistant to the idea that Voldemort was actually smart. I wonder if Harry's going to realize what he's missing before the big final battle in which the villain monologues his secret plan.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 16 August 2013 12:37:15PM 4 points [-]

It is hard for me to tell if this is that there is a big secret plan or more lampshading of problems with the original source material.

Comment author: BlindIdiotPoster 17 August 2013 05:37:35AM 2 points [-]

I used to think like this, but recently I've updated into seeing everything as potential foreshadowing.

Comment author: DanArmak 15 August 2013 06:40:54PM 5 points [-]

Lucius Malfoy nodded distantly. "I could not think of any reason why you would pay a hundred thousand Galleons to save a mudblood's life. No reason save one, which would account for her power and bloodthirst alike; but then she died at the hands of a troll, and yet you lived.

What was the reason Lucius Malfoy thought of?

Comment author: Kindly 16 August 2013 12:36:30AM 8 points [-]

None of the theories suggested thus far explain the last part of the quote:

but then she died at the hands of a troll, and yet you lived.

The way I see it, Lucius could have been thinking one of two things (originally, before Hermione's death) to say that:

  1. Killing Hermione would also kill Harrymort (e.g. Hermione is some quasi-Horcrux Lucius may have heard of).

  2. Hermione would certainly survive anything that Harrymort survives (e.g. Hermione also has all the magic skill of Voldemort).

Comment author: mjr 16 August 2013 08:13:19AM 4 points [-]

In the Bellatrix theory I'd interpret that as meaning that Lucius seriously doubts that Harry would survive something that manages to off Bellatrix. But I acknowledge that the phrase sounds like it means something more than that.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 15 August 2013 07:10:02PM 6 points [-]

Perhaps that Hermione is also Voldemort in the same way HJPEV is Voldemort (since, Horcrux or not, that seems the likely explanation for Harry's power and bloodthirst)?

Comment author: Izeinwinter 15 August 2013 08:12:39PM 16 points [-]

That Voldemort is her father, and her muggle background a lie. "Secretly a pureblood" really is a very credible explanation if you actually believe in blood purism.

Comment author: mjr 15 August 2013 08:35:31PM 4 points [-]

I'm only coming up with Hermione having perhaps been replaced by a certain escapee.

Comment author: Manfred 15 August 2013 06:50:48PM 4 points [-]

Bellatrix black, I assume.

Comment author: JTHM 15 August 2013 08:22:24PM *  13 points [-]

For those of you confused by this comment: I believe Manfred assumes Lucius suspected that Hermione was replaced by a polyjuiced Bellatrix Black. Lucius implies that he believes Harry to be a de-powered Voldemort in their discussion at the train station, and also believes Harry to be behind the rescue of Bellatrix from Azkaban. If you rescued your powerful minion, you would want to keep her close about you for your own protection and to accomplish tasks beyond your magical abilities. Hermione Granger is known to associate with Harry Potter, so she would be the ideal candidate for someone to replace with Bellatrix.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 15 August 2013 04:03:21AM *  5 points [-]

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?

Comment author: DanielLC 15 August 2013 04:13:16AM 13 points [-]

unlikely for him to have not known, and also not been responsible for killing her?

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.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 15 August 2013 08:58:26AM 1 point [-]

So that's interesting.

Bar yvar tbg erzbirq sebz gur svp:

Nyzbfg tbg zr gurer, Yhpvhf.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 15 August 2013 04:19:23PM *  8 points [-]

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?

Comment author: Larks 18 August 2013 12:45:08AM 0 points [-]

The pen is dirty; the dirt, now on Lucius's hands is something lethal, transfigured. Harry can of course just wash his own hands.

Comment author: pjeby 18 August 2013 06:34:54PM 2 points [-]

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.

Comment author: gwern 18 August 2013 07:32:54PM 3 points [-]

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...

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 19 August 2013 02:07:22AM 3 points [-]

Thief's Downfall probably does this.

Comment author: Velorien 19 August 2013 02:10:50PM 8 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Benito 15 August 2013 03:23:24PM 4 points [-]

I do not know if this is widespread, but I've always been confused by how Legilimency is used. I thought it was used only to read minds, and again, in this chapter, it is mentioned that Dumbledore Legilimensed Hermione as though this explained something. Reading this explained it for me.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 15 August 2013 09:30:19AM *  4 points [-]

I like that Harry's gloves have come off, and he's planning on making full use of transfiguration as a weapon. About time.

Harry had by now caught the general rhythm of Professor Quirrell's cynicism and was able to generate it independently.

Lot's of Quirrellness coming out.

Comment author: TrE 15 August 2013 10:16:36AM *  13 points [-]

And bear in mind that sulfuric acid is only one possibility among several!

Liquid oxygen, which is also pretty easy to produce or acquire, expands quite a bit when it evaporates, and rapidly oxidizes all of your pretty organic chemistry. If you could ship enough liquid oxygen (transfigured into something else) inside a human, they would burn and explode when the transfiguration wears off.

Botulinum toxin was also mentioned in the fic and is the weapon of choice for DIY genocide.

Pyrophoric substances, transfigured and then finely ground, will start burning in an oxygen-containing atmosphere.

Obtain nuclear weapons material (the hard part) and transfigure several subcritical pieces into iron, assemble them to give one large ball, drop it (or bury it underground), and run.

Certainly not all of these are practical, but all of them sound awesome.

Comment author: Dreaded_Anomaly 16 August 2013 03:57:48AM 12 points [-]

We could just run through the whole list of Things I Won't Work With.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 17 August 2013 08:56:00AM 9 points [-]

prolonged scream

Comment author: monsterzero 17 August 2013 12:28:16AM 2 points [-]

Thank you for that link. I particularly enjoyed reading about "Azidoazide Azides, More Or Less".

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 August 2013 03:00:52AM 5 points [-]

The compound exploded in solution, it exploded on any attempts to touch or move the solid, and (most interestingly) it exploded when they were trying to get an infrared spectrum of it.

Comment author: [deleted] 15 August 2013 08:43:15PM 5 points [-]
Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 August 2013 03:01:41AM 4 points [-]

It's been done, in Dungeon Keeper Ami.

Comment author: somervta 16 August 2013 01:34:27AM 4 points [-]

I'd like to think that Harry isn't crazy enough to play with ClF3.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 16 August 2013 05:07:27AM 7 points [-]

(...but we know he is.)

Comment author: Gurkenglas 18 August 2013 07:36:38PM *  2 points [-]

Get Fred and George to transfigure half a supercritical sphere of nuclearbombium each (lasts a few hours), transfigure Freds into the same shape made of lead (lasts maybe half an hour), combine them into a sphere and teleport away with the phoenix that plan undeniably earned. (Yes, I know it was said everyone gets only one chance for a phoenix and Harry failed his)

Comment author: undermind 15 August 2013 06:53:51PM 8 points [-]

Counterpoint: it appears that Harry is now serious about using Transfiguration as a weapon. However, he has not recently been considering very much else, meaning that he has fewer backups than perhaps he should, in the case where someone counters his Transfigurations (e.g. with good shields, or casting finite on Harry before a fight).

Comment author: linkhyrule5 15 August 2013 05:08:30PM 10 points [-]

Honestly, I'm more worried about this. See the Ethical Injunction mini-Sequence.

There are options now available to him that genuinely are more powerful, but... even Harry makes mistakes, and even Harry falls prey to overconfidence sometimes.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 16 August 2013 09:11:55AM 7 points [-]

I've never been impressed by the Ethical Injunction business. It seems a "get out of unpleasant implications of my explicit moral claims free" card.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 16 August 2013 06:44:12PM 3 points [-]

Not really. Ethical Injunctions really mean "design an AI to do this, but don't do it yourself because you're probably wrong."

It's entirely possible to create a problem involving an epistemic state a human can't hold: see Pascal's Muggle.

Comment author: ygert 28 August 2013 04:33:45PM *  2 points [-]

So... Draco in Leather Pants? Or Draco as Leather Pants? Awesome.

Comment author: cultureulterior 26 August 2013 10:48:23AM 2 points [-]

What steps has Harry taken to investigate the characters of those killed by Voldemort? You'd think that he'd kill/order killed, in particular, people that he did not care to have around in his future realm, once he took power. I'm assuming that the Dark Mark comes with its own self-destruct switch, so he does not have make sure any Death Eater dies. People killed by Death Eaters in self defence do not count.

This might explain why, for example, he did not kill Dumbledore, or any of the truly awesome people in the OOTP (Moody, et al), because he knew that they would be reasonable subjects.

Comment author: JTHM 15 August 2013 06:20:27PM *  2 points [-]

If Harry Potter already had the contract written before going into Gringotts, how did Moody's eye not see it? I suppose it is possible that Moody's eye cannot see into the folded space of Harry's pouch, but Harry has no reason to assume as much, and is smart enough not to take the risk. And whether or not Moody can see into folded pouch-space, this line makes no sense at all: "Moody paused as his Eye caught sight of the second half of the document as Harry Potter slowly, as though reluctantly, began to unfold the top upward." Moody's eye can easily see through mere paper. Why would he be able to see only the unfolded portion of the document?

This chapter would make a lot more sense if Harry committed the wording of the contract to memory beforehand and wrote it down at the meeting, and if McGonagall or Dumbledore was escorting Harry, not Moody.

Comment author: William_Quixote 16 August 2013 12:22:46AM 7 points [-]

Does the eye of Vance have infinite zoom or does it just see in all direction through all objects? I can't read small print that's on a piece of paper 8 feet away from me even if I have a clear view of it.

Comment author: undermind 15 August 2013 07:10:35PM 3 points [-]

It's even worse than this; Harry did not have his pouch as he went in.

A plausible response is that Harry wrote it out during the waiting period before the Malfoys entered.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 19 August 2013 01:21:28AM 4 points [-]

Wait, even if he did write it in the meeting room, can't the Eye of Vance see through walls?

Now I want to know what exactly the limit of Moody's superpower is. How far can the Eye see in every direction? How many barriers can it see through? How far can it "zoom", if at all? To what resolution? Can the Eye read fine print from 1000 feet away?

Comment author: Kawoomba 15 August 2013 07:27:48PM *  9 points [-]

Malfoy Manor exuded all the subtlety of a Baroque castle, overstuffed with the trappings of power, filled to the brim with trinkets, tapestries and timeless artifacts. It seemed excessive even in the dark of night, with only some of the item galleries illuminated.

Harry didn't care for any of them. Politics, let Draco deal with all this signalling nonsense.

Yet Draco was absent, it was only him and Lucius Malfoy, his unlikely new ally, planning and plotting over minutiae, phrasings, contracts.

Laying a foundation for the next decades of Magical Britain, a blueprint for a saner Magical world, even?

That didn't help in devising the statement to be read in the Wizengamot, at least not after the first few hours. Harry couldn't help but think that Lucius enjoyed being the superior mind for once, and dragged it out just to non-so-subtly remind Harry how out of his element he truly was.

They had already used the Time Turner to its fullest effects, working in the Witching Hours of the morning, to get the most out of the Borrowed Time. As far as Dumbledore was concerned, Harry was soundly sleeping in the Ravenclaw quarters.

Muffled sounds were coming from outside Malfoy's private study, in which they worked. At least they startled Harry back into wakefulness. He turned to Lucius. "You should've given Crabbe or Goyle a break, we're in one of the most secure places in Magical Britain, and you let them stand guard in front of your room?"

The door burst open. "I said no interruptions!" a clearly irked Lord Malfoy barked at his underling, seemingly annoyed at displaying this breach of etiquette in front of Harry Potter. He turned rigid as he picked up on the slumped over Crabbe lying lifelessly in the corridor, and on the wand Goyle was levelling. "What - ?" Malfoy's reflexes were fast, his cane springing to life in his hands, its eyes radiating with ruby fire.

Harry's own wand was in his hands quicker than he himself would have expected, a sudden rush of adrenaline firing him up. He was ready to support whatever stronger magic Malfoy would choose, silently cursing that he didn't bring any of his own new devices, too mindful that their detection would have caused the as-yet fragile alliance to crumble.

A bright shield sprang up around Malfoy, encompassing only himself. Which each pulse of his cane's flaming eyes, a new shimmering layer seemed to be added to the already daylight-bright protective bubble. At least that shows where your priorities lie, dear ally. Harry thought, as he noticed that Goyle's wand wasn't pointed at his master. It was pointed at Harry Potter, who suddenly twitched, his arms -- wand in hand -- pointing at the floor, unable to move.

I don't have much time, I can't aim, I need to do *something.*

Help. He needed to get help. From the only one who might be able to cross most of the mansion's wards, who would still instantly spring into action to help the wayward hero and who had the power to help.

EXPECTO PATRONUM! Harry thought, pouring all his energy into the thought, thinking of the ring with Hermione's remains which he left safely in his trunk in the Ravenclaw quarters, security by obscurity. Thinking of her coming back to life, amongst the last ever to have died.

For a terrible second, nothing happened. Then it was like a new sun blazing into existence right in Malfoy's study, as the humanoid made of starlight appeared between him and Goyle, who could not but flinch back. Harry felt the invisible strings weaken, and managed to mumble through clenched teeth. "Get Dumbledore here, tell him he is our only hope." The light winked out.

"Well, that ssshould make eventsss more interesssting. I had it planned out of courssse, but thisss particular branch was mossstly a tangent."

Harry instantly recognized the voice, and a fraction later realized it was spoken in Parseltongue, as the enormous snake -- as Professor Quirrell, Harry's mentor, his ancient wizard! -- slithered towards the door frame, oblivious of the crumbled heap that was Crabbe. Into the study stepped Quirrell's human form.

"Thank you, Lucius, for providing me with your very own weapons, ready to be Imperius'ed. How very thoughtful. I may have had a hard time constraining Harry Potter otherwise, our magic ... is, well, not meant to coexist in the same world. You may say our magics are two sides of a coin."

Lucius had gone pale through the shield.

"Or, you might say", Quirrell continued, "Two sides of the same coin". The Defense Professor pressed his wand -- which had appeared in his hand effortlessly -- against his forearm as Lucius let out a whelp of pain, gripping his arm to his chest, nearly dropping his cane.

"That was a good charade, hiding your mark. You know your binding to me went deeper than that. Would you like to know just how deep our ... bond ... truly goes?"

Comment author: Kawoomba 15 August 2013 07:28:06PM *  8 points [-]

Malfoy was staring transfixed at Quirrell, his cane quivering, as if he had suddenly lost his confidence in all those barriers.

"I am running out of time, I give you this one chance. You know what I can do, you know how little I care about your trinket. Remove all your barriers immediately, bow to me, bow to your Lord, to your God, to me, Voldemort!"

There was a deadly silence in the room. Quirrell -- Voldemort? -- Quirrell apparently did not see the need to add anything, Harry couldn't speak -- could barely think! -- Lucius might as well be a deer staring into a truck's headlights, his eyes flickering back and forth between his cane, Quirrell standing there with a seemingly relaxed poise, and the hearth. The hearth across the room, it could as well have been on another floor, impossibly far away.

The cane cluttered to the floor, Lucius Malfoy's forehead followed immediately as he prostrated himself on the floor, voice quavering. "Forgive me, my Lord, for I have sinned. I am yours, now and forever, I will prove my loyal - "

There was a flash, Harry didn't see Quirrell so much as move his lips, yet Lord Malfoy, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy, became part of history himself, his detached head plopping on the floor, looking -- surprised. Harry felt his patronus slipping beyond his grasp as he was looking at the ruins of his plans rolling across the study, leaving a trail of blood. I hope it delivered the message! I have to buy time, somehow.

"I hate this role, it was necessary right then, but I really hoped to never adopt it again." Quirrell wasn't missing a beat, switching his attention to Harry.

"I know you can't speak, and there's nothing much to be said. Nothing to make a difference. Suffice it to say, yes, I used to play that comically evil character 'Lord Voldemort', yes I did kill your parents, an exit strategy was needed when noone rallied behind my Monroe alter-ego, not even the Goblins. Noone questions death-by-innocent-infant, not even Dumbledore. So no, I'm not sorry for that, it was for the greater good. For differing values of good, I suppose", he added, musingly.

"I suspect you're wondering where Dumbledore is, well, he must have met my anti-Phoenix ward by now. Improved by your very own methods of rationality, if you can believe it. Thank you for that. The ward may have killed a lesser wizard, but with him, you never know. In any case, it may be best if we do not tarry."

Quirrell stepped towards Harry, a determined look on his face, staying well clear of the path that Harry's wand was pointing. Where it was pointing. Harry's mind was racing. It was pointing at nothing in particular, it was just pointing at air. Pointing at air! It's a dumb idea a part of Harry thought, but it was his only idea. This may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory; pro: you'll surprise him, con: you'll surprise him by killing yourself, probably.

Still, it was the last, best hope for victory -- any kind of victory -- that Harry had, a trump card he doubted Quirrell suspected. There was a glow emanating from his wand at Harry transfigured the air into nerve gas. Quirrell remained unaffected and a bubble head charm sprang up near instantly around Harry's head, but Goyle's head violently jerked backwards, his control wavering. Harry still couldn't move, but yet again the strings relented, ever so slightly. It was enough. I may not be able to touch Quirrell -- but my patronus might. Let's start our own version of the Big Bang, those were Harry's thoughts as he pictured Hermione coming back to life, "Expectopatronum!" once again bursting from his lips as fast as he could speak, as the glowing humanoid threateningly stepped towards Quirrell.

"Haaaaaaarryyyyy." It was Hermione's voice. It was impossible. The voice emanated from a walking husk, a corpse stumbling into the now crowded study. It was Hermione.

"I found your 'secret' 'ring', made her an Inferius, bound her to my will. She'll never live again. Watch!"

Events seemed to happen simultaneously, Quirrell twitched his wand, Hermione's tortured remains melting into a puddle on the floor, seeping between the wooden boards, Harry's glowing human reaching for Quirrell, a sense of doom heavily protruding upon the room. The patronus shattered into shards of lights that bounced harmlessly off the floor, missing Quirrell, as Harry processed his words, the reality of the deed done.

"I suspect that was the last patronus you'll ever cast, and right at the nick of time, too. We may finally be compatible enough. For what's it worth, I'll let you know that I am David Monroe, at least to a higher degree than any of my other sockpuppets. Much more so than I am evil Voldemort, the character I conjured up to unite the sheep. I'll make up a more convincing caricature this time. And, as I promised, you will rule Magical Britain. Those galaxies, too, in time."

David Monroe closed the gap between them. "At least, your body will." His head was touching his wand, his wand touching, impossibly touching, Harry's temple.

"Mens eo ipso imago infiniti est quo eius capax est!" [*The mind is the image of the Infinite, in that it is capable of it and can contain it.]

There was a splash as Goyle exploded as a magical vortex between Harry and Quirrell's empty shell tossed them like dolls to different corners of the room, splattered in blood.

Then, for a time, there was silence, apart from a young boy, heavily breathing.

The study's small window was ripped outward, taking most of the wall with it. A dishevelled Dumbledore appeared in the opening, eyes frantically scanning the room.

The-Boy-Who-Will-Live-Forever sat up.

"The danger is passed, Albus. The lingering illness is over at last. Voldemort is gone. I killed him."

The headmaster, looking all his long years, opened his mouth as if to speak, only to suddenly cough, as if sniffing something in the air. His grim wand twitched towards his own head, no that's not right, his hand did so. His wand had fallen out of his fingers which were flexing and unflexing uncontrollably, dropped on the floor. Dumbledore looked at his hand that had deserted him, a bewildered look on his face.

The boy watched dispassionately. "As I'm killing you now. Or rather, as Harry is killing you now."

There was a lot of work to be done, he thought as he picked up his new wand.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 15 August 2013 09:42:51AM 4 points [-]

The fourth is a catchall category called Everything Else."

Harry has been reading his Jaynes, keeping a "something else" alternative hypothesis.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 23 August 2013 12:16:51AM 2 points [-]

It occurs to me to wonder if Dementors=death can be tested experimentally by bringing a dementor into the Hall of Prophecy. Of course, if the Dementor isn't attacked by orbs about death, that could mean that there aren't any death-prophecies, they only react to Death rather than a single wound in the world, or something else; but if a dementor does run into a prophecy that is about death, that would determine that the hall recognizes them as death for the purposes of prophecies.

(Alternatively: if prophecies about something different, such as fear / depression / whatever show up, that'd be pretty strong evidence against.)

Comment author: bogdanb 28 August 2013 08:26:43PM 3 points [-]

I think the orbs only come to people (things that think, and can make decisions), and it’s not clear Dementors pass that test. (In particular, Harry leans against that hypothesis. He’s certainly not infallible, but he’s basically the best expert on the subject whose thoughts we have access to.)

Otherwise prophecies mentioning things like life, wands and clothes would attack everyone.

Comment author: Larks 18 August 2013 12:49:26AM 2 points [-]

Why did Harry admit he had a pen he could use? He wasted his advantageous bargaining position. Perhaps poison.

Also, Harry seems to have lost a lot in this chapter. All he's gotten out of Malfoy

  • Some debt cancelled he cares not for
  • Agreement that Draco will be King

but Lucius already wanted Draco to be King! On top of that, Harry has given away much information:

  • That he isn't Voldermort
  • That Dumbledore gave him a special weapon
  • That he manipulated Draco

and Draco can attest to these under Veritaserum!

Comment author: drethelin 18 August 2013 02:36:16AM 25 points [-]

Giving away the information that you're NOT voldemort is actually pretty useful when you're trying to cooperate with people

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 August 2013 04:30:38AM 9 points [-]

Erm, he also got 40,000 Galleons.

Comment author: Larks 18 August 2013 10:42:10AM 5 points [-]

A trifling amount of money by muggle standards, even if he didn't have the arbitrage trick, or the ability to make arbitrarily large amounts of money using the time-turner on FX markets.

Comment author: Gurkenglas 18 August 2013 04:35:09PM 5 points [-]

He doesn't have to explain where the money came from, and the tricks you named require starting capital.

Comment author: hairyfigment 18 August 2013 08:33:37PM 4 points [-]

It was also unclear to me that Harry could take enough gold from the wizard economy to wind up with 100,000 galleons (even in sickles) without someone noticing and perhaps interfering. And that ignores the problem of leaving Hogwarts.

Comment author: drethelin 20 August 2013 05:39:41PM 3 points [-]

I would wager that neither of those methods would actually work. We know that quirrel, snape, and other very intelligent wizards know both about the muggle world and about time turners. An idea about Arbitrage harry had within a few days of finding out about the ENTIRE wizarding world is extremely unlikely to have never been thought of. Harry is able to come up with new techniques and things no wizard would come up with but things like partial transfiguration took him days and are extremely non-obvious. Plans to make millions upon millions of dollars are something people have all the time.

Another important concern: Be careful what you call a "trifling" amount of money. You can get a LOT MORE done with a hundred thousand dollars than you can with zero dollars. You can hire bodyguards, you can rent a house, you can buy equipment, there are a vast world of things you can do that are prohibitively expensive without needing to be bill gates. We talk about vast amounts a lot when we're talking effective altruism and existential risk ending but Harry's not fighting to end hunger, he's simply fighting a relatively small-scale war.

Comment author: fractalman 23 August 2013 04:49:44AM 2 points [-]

He gets it NOW. without having to run a risky feedback scheme between gringots and the muggle economy with only 100 galleons of seed money.

Comment author: tadrinth 19 August 2013 06:42:39PM 2 points [-]

He got Lucius to agree to proposed next steps which we don't know about and secured an alliance with House Malfoy.

Also, when he added the bit about exonerating House Malfoy, he showed Lucious one wording, then wrote down his original wording. He might have changed something important, and Lucius might not have noticed.

Comment author: Benquo 19 August 2013 06:59:07PM 6 points [-]

That seems like exactly the sort of thing Lucius Malfoy would be sure to notice, and even if it weren't, it wouldn't be worth the risk.

Comment author: hairyfigment 18 August 2013 06:41:05AM 3 points [-]

They actually agreed that if Dumbledore gets removed because of Harry, then Draco Malfoy will take power when he comes of age. This replaces a strong position for Lucius with something less predictable.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 15 August 2013 03:39:50AM 1 point [-]

I'm confused: why does the amount owed to the Malfoys seem to keep changing? I read first 58,203, then 100,000, then 40,000 Galleons.

Comment author: Coscott 15 August 2013 03:43:53AM 13 points [-]

The amount is 100,000. About 40,000 has already been paid, so he still owed 58,203.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 15 August 2013 03:56:37AM *  4 points [-]

Thanks! I think I missed when Harry paid off the 40,000. Did he empty his vaults and give Lucius a 40,000 lump sum, leaving him with 60,000 to pay off over a few years?

Edit: I remember, that is what he did, which is why it was such a huge deal and Harry is broke on top of being in debt.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 28 August 2013 09:17:23AM 1 point [-]

Observations from Chapter 98:

  • We might have an answer for what the twins and Floom did to scam Rita Skeeter soon, since Harry just pointed the twins back toward that chain (I'm still betting on Gildaroy Lockheart as the Memorymancer, but Lockheart is probably a terrible candidate for smuggling whatever scary muggle equipment Harry wants).
  • I think Daphne has joined Susan in the "SPHEW girls who are not useless comic relief" camp. (Padma can probably outrational both of them, but she doesn't appear to be doing anything useful at the moment. Susan did exactly the sort of thing Harry would have done during SA (see Harry's strategy against Moody in 86 Vs Susan recruiting Tonks).) I don't expect them to be competing with the powerful male characters any time soon, but at least they're doing something and can probably keep it up even if Harry and Draco go off to do something more explody.
  • Lord Jugson has been built up as an irredeemable bastard (he was the one who brought up Azkaban at Hermione's trial, is all but confirmed as a Death Eater, and in spite of most certainly being a political enemy of Dumbledore, opposed the security measures put forth by Harry's coalition... and his son beats up 11 year old girls, though his approval of that isn't outright stated anywhere). I can see four likely fates for him, if he isn't ignored outright; two of them involve Harry or one of his allies being some kinda master manipulater (n spite of leaving Jugson out in the current plotting--maybe there was a reason for that beyond Lord Jugson just not being on board?), the others look rather unpleasant for Lord Jugson (and involve less manipulation and more pain and possible humiliation).
  • I'm not the only one whose first reaction upon Daphne encountering the figure in silver was "Hermione!". (Other reactions I went through were "A ghost (the bloody Barron maybe?)?" and "Hat-and-Cloak?")
  • Dumbledore is not having a good year. Odds that it will get better for him in the final arc are quite slim, so far as I can tell. Still wish I hadn't forgotten that wonderful idea on how him setting fire to a chicken made sense.

I certainly don't expect Harry to be going on a Horcrux hunt in the final arc, though. That took one giant book in canon--that after two had already been destroyed in two separate preceeding books--so I'm counting it unlikely that Voldemort gets wiped out by the end, barring epilogs (including "leaving the Pioneer Plaque alone" endings). But from the looks of it, Voldemort is about to get what he wanted anyway, so the more important questions are whether Harry gets what he wants, and how many stars get torn apart in the process. And how steep the escalation curve for this arc will be; it almost has to escalate as quickly as things did from 87 to 88. All of which is to say "Give me three chapters for Christmas plz". (Which, of course, is internet for "Very good, Author! Have a (secretly IQ-boosting) cookie!")

Comment author: [deleted] 15 August 2013 06:52:52PM *  1 point [-]

So, would someone explain to me the exonerate/indemnify subplot? I don't understand the drama over the wording first being "indemnify" and then later changing to "exonerate" even after Harry makes it sound like Malfoy was pulling a fast one by suggesting "exonerate".

EDIT: I misread the relevant sentence. Harry originally wrote "exonerate", not "indemnify." It seems likely writing the latter would have given Malfoy room to claim compensation at a later date.

Comment author: thomblake 15 August 2013 07:36:46PM 7 points [-]

Theoretically, indemnity implies compensation which makes the person indemnified as well-off as they would have been before the harm occurred. At the least, this change could have later been construed as a debt owed to Malfoy from Potter.

Comment author: jkaufman 15 August 2013 07:20:22PM 3 points [-]

Malfoy: "Good enough, I suppose. Though to have the proper meaning, you should use the legal term indemnify rather than exonerate -"

Potter: "Nice try, but no. I know exactly what that word means, Lord Malfoy."

The word is "exonerate" in Potter's prepared text, Malfoy suggests "indemnify" as if it's a legal term that means the same thing, Potter rejects this and stays with "exonerate".

There's probably something tricky Malfoy could do with "indemnify", but looking up their definitions it's not obvious to me:

exonerate:

  1. (esp. of an official body) Absolve (someone) from blame for a fault or wrongdoing, esp. after due consideration of the case.

  2. Release someone from (a duty or obligation).

indemnify:

  1. Compensate (someone) for harm or loss: "insurance carried to indemnify the owner for loss".

  2. Secure (someone) against legal responsibility for their actions.

Comment author: Benquo 15 August 2013 07:36:21PM 6 points [-]

Indemnify applies to future evidence as well, and possibly to future actions.

Comment author: JoachimSchipper 15 August 2013 09:04:27PM 5 points [-]

Unless I am badly mistaken, indemnify would mean that Harry has to pay etc. if e.g. Dumbledore decides to demand recompense of his own. (Note that Dumbledore may well have similar power over her as he has over Harry himself.)

This is obviously much worse than just giving up his own claim ("exonerate").

Comment author: William_Quixote 15 August 2013 10:37:48PM 2 points [-]

Exonerate means hold not responsible for. Indemnify mean cover all costs incurred in relation to. So Lucious was trying to trick Harry in to covering any costs incurred by the Malfoy family in relation to this case. Harry obviously wants no part of LM's legal fees.