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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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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: ygert 28 August 2013 04:33:45PM *  2 points [-]

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

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: DanArmak 28 August 2013 05:48:51PM 1 point [-]

And how is it going to be credited to a cunning plot by the Defense Professor, when he had no part in the current initiative?

Comment author: Benquo 29 August 2013 08:33:17PM 5 points [-]

A true Slytherin never reveals the secrets of how he did it. The fact that he made the promise, and then the outcome happened, will be sufficient.

Comment author: kilobug 28 August 2013 06:29:17PM -1 points [-]

If he's the one who attacked Hermione and framed her, it could be said that he was planning for Hogwarts uniting itself. In fact, seeing his previous speech where he wanted Magical Britain to unite under a dictatorship, it would perfect sense for him to do so.

Comment author: DanArmak 28 August 2013 09:05:06PM 0 points [-]

But he's not going to explain to his students, at the end of the year, that that was the cunning plot that he had promised them. Think of the legacy he wants to leave behind as the greatest Defense Professor in history!

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: 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: 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: Dentin 07 September 2013 06:02:40PM -1 points [-]

I've traditionally avoided seeming 'creepy' by blatantly violating various unimportant norms early in relationships. People don't like feeling deceived, and they don't like it when they are shown to be wrong after assembling a model. The trick is to make it clear from the outset that 'this person is extremely hard to model', or 'this person doesn't fit into any of my prefab models'. That way they don't get irritated about being wrong, they just assume it's par for the course.

Examples of norm violation:

  • I am male and maintain a prominent 3 foot long braid which I often wrap around my neck

  • I make childish faces at people and things

  • My default vocabulary is apparently pretty exotic

  • I don't flinch and easily participate in sexual topics when they come up

  • I squeeze in comments about how the human race is going to fix this 'death' problem whenever I can

  • When asked occupation, I say that I started as an engineer, then started a video game company (wtf?)

  • When asked belief (common in the US), I state 'true nihilist/atheist' and that I'm quite possibly the least spiritual person they will ever meet

All this stuff combined generally jams up people's predictors to the point where they give up on being correct, which largely fixes the creepy problem. Most people have stuff like this available, the trick is to emphasize and export the pieces which generate the most conflict with existing models.

Be aware that there's also 'sexually creepy', which is a whole different ball of wax. Openness and being comfortable with sexual topics helps tremendously. It's also a very good idea to focus your attention and eyes on faces, not reproductive hardware, when you interact with someone.

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: TobyBartels 23 August 2013 01:52:44PM 0 points [-]

it turned out that sulfuric acid would freeze at just ten degrees Celsius

That does not appear to be correct. If http://science.howstuffworks.com/sulfuric-acid-info.htm is accurate, then frozen sulfuric acid ice cannot get much warmer than frozen water and the more usual concentrations freeze at much lower temperatures. However, high concentrations (98%, freezing at 3°C), while more expensive, are easily available online http://www.sciencecompany.com/Sulfuric-Acid-Concentrated-1L-P6550.aspx (plus it doesn't seem hard to concentrate yourself http://chemistry.about.com/od/makechemicalsyourself/a/How-To-Make-Sulfuric-Acid-At-Home.htm), so Harry could probably get a supply that would still work; he'd just have to keep it in ice, rather than merely keep it refrigerated.

Comment author: bogdanb 28 August 2013 08:20:53PM *  1 point [-]

Wikipedia claims 10°C, but it also says “Sulfuric acid in solution with water causes significant freezing-point depression of water's melting point”, which suggests that both Harry and HowStuffWorks are right. Harry is probably thinking of the pure acid.

(Also, that wouldn’t affect his plan. He only needs it solid so he can transfigure it, and the only significance of the freezing point is that it’s easily reachable, not exactly how high it is above 0°C.)

Comment author: TobyBartels 31 August 2013 07:59:39PM 2 points [-]

So it does; that must be Harry's source (^_^). It would be consistent that 98% freezes at 3° and 100% freezes at 10°, but HSW also says that you can't get more than 98% (presumably because it draws water from the air, it doesn't say).

I agree, this doesn't really affect anything. If Harry can't make a concentration that freezes at 10° but can make one that freezes at 3°, then that's what he'll use. (I only looked into this because it was such a surprising claim.)

Comment author: Dentin 07 September 2013 06:13:27PM 0 points [-]

And, he can easily get to 4 degrees on fairly large masses using the cooling spell he used on Hermionie's corpse.

Comment author: TobyBartels 14 September 2013 07:14:28AM 0 points [-]

Cooling spell, right, no need for ice!

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: 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: Velorien 19 August 2013 01:48:00PM 0 points [-]

How would Lord Malfoy be able to refute the existence of Scientific Rituals?

Comment author: Gurkenglas 19 August 2013 07:32:48PM *  3 points [-]

We don't know, but it is quite likely that he did since the lies/tricks-exchange, containing this:

What I told you was a self-fulfilling prophecy; you believed that you couldn't deceive yourself, so you didn't try.

clearly can only have referred to Harry telling Draco that he doesn't believe in Blood Purism anymore, and Draco must have figured that one out somehow.

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: bogdanb 28 August 2013 08:36:23PM 1 point [-]

and Draco can attest to these under Veritaserum!

Technically speaking, Draco can only attest that Harry claimed those things. (Harry’s an Occlumens, and the way Occlumency works in MoR implies that an Occlumens is very good at lying. So he can plausibly claim that he lied to his enemies.)

I don’t remember, does Eliezer allow unbreakable vows, or are those nerfed in MoR like Felix Felicis? Because I’m pretty sure even an Occlumens can’t lie if he vows to say the truth without suffering the penalty.

Comment author: Dentin 07 September 2013 06:08:01PM 1 point [-]

IIRC unbreakable vows require some large, permanent sacrifice of magical power and as such are fairly rare in HPMoR.

Comment author: bogdanb 09 September 2013 08:21:46AM 1 point [-]

You’re right, I remember now.

Hmm, it still sounds like they should be used more often. If you’re falsely accused and about to be condemned to Azkhaban, wouldn’t you sacrifice a portion on of your magic if it could compel your accuser to confess? As corrupt as the Wizengamot is, it should still happen on occasion.

Comment author: ChristianKl 27 August 2013 10:21:16PM 1 point [-]

If Draco speaks under Versitaserum that Harry successfully manipulated him into disbelieving in blood puritythat's not something that Lucius wants to happen.

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

Erm, he also got 40,000 Galleons.

Comment author: cultureulterior 19 August 2013 09:08:04PM -1 points [-]

But not in a particularly interesting way

Comment author: Velorien 20 August 2013 03:02:12PM 5 points [-]

He got Lucius Malfoy to give him a huge sum of money in exchange for admitting something true at no cost to himself, and gained goodwill from Lucius in the process (which set up for his subsequent conditional alliance), and probably left Lucius feeling he'd got the better side of the deal. All in a matter of minutes.

Personally, I find that somewhat more interesting than half a chapter of watching Harry mess about with economics.

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: 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: 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: 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 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: 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: 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: 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: bogdanb 28 August 2013 08:43:29PM *  0 points [-]

In the end, at the highest level, their life is a story

I wouldn’t put it above Eliezer to find a way of having Harry be “the End of the World” literally by just ending the story somehow. But I can’t think of any explanation in that vein for destroying the stars, other than maybe breaking the ceiling in the Hogwards hall, which doesn’t fit. And style-wise it doesn’t feel right.

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: 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: ChristianKl 17 August 2013 05:50:40AM 1 point [-]

I think the things that's missing is that we or Harry don't know Voldemorts goals.

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: 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: 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: EternalStargazer 15 August 2013 09:15:45PM 0 points [-]

... Interesting, if an incredibly anticlimactic ending.

Is this supposed to be a theoretical future?

Comment author: Kawoomba 18 August 2013 10:15:33AM 0 points [-]

anticlimactic ending

Changed the ending, better now?

Comment author: EternalStargazer 18 August 2013 02:22:20PM 4 points [-]

I think the anticlimax comes from the fact that Harry has basically no agency in the story at all. We get 4 lines of internal monologue, but really, this is Quirrelmort's story, not Harry's.

This isn't because he wins, so much as it is because his winning suddenly in this manner basically invalidates the entire rest of the story. While this might be an accurate rendition of events according to characterization, it ignores almost every subplot, begs the question of why this didn't happen at any other earlier event in the story, and doesn't really fit Quirrell's wistfulness over Harry's similarity yet difference from himself. Obviously that could all have been a lie, but even assuming everything done recently was to bring Harry to the point of matching Quirrell enough for the spell, this doesn't seem like the cutoff. The loss of Hermione's body shouldn't be the Despair Event Horizon for Harry - he was dedicated to getting to godlike power so he could just will it to happen.

Quirrell's knowledge of Ringmione also puts him in the reader's shoes really, it is something he could not have known, unless we assume a lot of things about the story were false.

I suppose a better term to describe the ending is "unsatisfying and plot ignoring".

Comment author: Kawoomba 15 August 2013 09:32:44PM 1 point [-]

An alternate ending: Quirrell taking over Harry as a final host, Quirrell admitting to his true identity: being Monroe more so than Voldemort, and to staging his own death, also tying up a few loose ends.

Probably my last prose contribution, judging by the reception. I did have an hour to kill, so I thought why not contribute the above speculation in a more interesting format.

What did you find so anticlimactic? Maybe the "Boy-Who-Will-Live-Forever" is easy to accidentally skip over, the last line is a reference to a poem and a chapter ending of Sanderson's The Way of Kings.

Comment author: Kindly 16 August 2013 03:48:28PM 0 points [-]

It seems weird for Harry to actually be disinterested in "all that signaling stuff". He says he is to Draco in Chapter 24 (in nearly the same words), but this is because he wants Draco to try to plot against him.

Comment author: Kawoomba 16 August 2013 07:09:09PM -1 points [-]

Well, Harry probably was on the certain fora on the (early) internet too much and got annoyed at the high signalling-to-((object level) information) ratio. He did. Harry, I mean.

Comment author: Velorien 16 August 2013 01:04:54AM 10 points [-]

Probably my last prose contribution, judging by the reception.

Speaking as one individual, it's not that I dislike what you've written, or do not find it interesting in its own right.

It's just that I come here, to a discussion and analysis thread, for information-dense texts which present their ideas clearly and concisely, because I find they give me the most value relative to time spent reading. Accordingly, when I see here a long prose text which is written to prioritise quality of narrative over efficiency of communication, I skim it quickly or not at all, and move on to other posts. They will contain a similar amount of value, but take a tiny fraction of the time to read and comprehend.

Also, I speculate that some people will think it inappropriate for you to "showcase" your own writing in a thread meant for discussion of someone else's work, though I realise that's not your intention.

Comment author: undermind 16 August 2013 12:55:53AM 3 points [-]

I, for one, liked it. I'm not sure here is where it belongs (though I couldn't say where else it does).

Seems pretty well-written and reasonably plausible; I like being reminded that Voldemort winning is a real possibility, and this seems like a way he might do so.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 16 August 2013 02:09:30AM 5 points [-]

Maybe on ff.net as a one-shot spinoff?

Comment author: David_Gerard 17 August 2013 10:32:05PM 1 point [-]

"Commentfic" is a thing, after all.

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: [deleted] 16 August 2013 10:25:07PM -1 points [-]

I don't know why everyone is making this so complicated. Basically, the two words have opposite meanings. In context, "exonerate" means "absolve of", "indemnify" means "secure against". So in the original contract, the clause gets Harry off the hook, while Lucius' suggestion would change the meaning to have Harry still liable. He's just trying his luck because Harry is 11 and might not know big words.

Comment author: Kindly 16 August 2013 10:49:07PM 1 point [-]

Harry's not on the hook. The wording of the document is "exonerate House Malfoy of any involvement in Hermione Granger's death". Nobody's suggesting Harry should be exonerated of anything; this clause benefits the Malfoys only, and presumably "indemnify" would benefit them more.

Comment author: pjeby 17 August 2013 03:57:30PM 3 points [-]

Off the hook for the debt, in exchange for the exoneration. Indemnification would just replace Harry's debt with another form of debt.

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.

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

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

Comment author: Kindly 15 August 2013 07:09:28PM 1 point [-]

It's not quite that confusing: Malfoy suggests "indemnify" rather than "exonerate", and Harry refuses, and in the end it is kept "exonerate".

I'm not sure what the difference between the two means. I think in Muggle law the term "indemnify" suggests some sort of monetary compensation, while "exonerate" does not, but this doesn't quite make sense. I don't think it will be relevant to the plot, however. Just a minor detail to show us that Harry did his homework.

Comment author: [deleted] 15 August 2013 07:32:28PM *  0 points [-]

Oh, I must have read that line backwards. I thought Malfoy was suggesting "exonerate".

Just a minor detail to show us that Harry did his homework.

I don't know, it could be relevant wrt to the deleted line (see rot13 in another thread).

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: ikrase 16 August 2013 02:18:58AM -1 points [-]

That she is Bellatrix Black? That... doesn't quite make sense...

Comment author: fractalman 23 August 2013 04:22:58AM 0 points [-]

It makes sense enough, if you already believed Harry Potter was voldemort and don't have harry's perspective.

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: EternalStargazer 15 August 2013 09:06:45PM *  0 points [-]

To save her in order to use her as Voldemort used Bellatrix, to bind her to him with the bonds of love as Voldemort did, because she was a powerful witch to be used as a tool.

Hence the bloodthirst comment.

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: 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: DanArmak 16 August 2013 08:41:40AM 1 point [-]

And Bellatrix Black is her mother?

But why would they place her in custody of Muggles, instead of purebloods?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 16 August 2013 02:08:42PM 0 points [-]

Break the trail connecting her to Bellatrix?

Comment author: Izeinwinter 16 August 2013 07:39:29PM 14 points [-]

Fostering her out would be insurance against defeat. Placing her with pure-blood allies would not suffice for that eventuality, as such allies would most likely be going down with the ship too. Placing her with muggles takes her out of the war entirely, and the trace means she gets back into the wizarding world 11 years later no matter what happens..

Uhm. This is spookily compatible with Canon. For a girl with supposedly loving parents, she spends an inordinate number of holidays at hogwarts and the burrow. Worse, we never actually meet said parents at all in canon. We are told. By Hermione, that they get shipped to Australia with a case of amnesia. And I mean, "my parents are dentists" is exactly the kind of lie a clever 11 year old orphan might tell people to get them to iose all interest in further enquiries. So, basically, her family could oh-so-easily be entirely fiction in-universe.

Comment author: Atelos 16 August 2013 09:42:34PM 7 points [-]

Actually her parents, or at least people claiming to be such do appear in canon, if barely. They get no dialogue, but during the shopping trip in the second book there's some mention of them being uncertain around all the magic and weirdness, Arthur Weasley saying something along the lines "oh wow, I get to meet real muggles, look they're exchanging muggle money!", and few lines about them being unnerved by the confrontation between Arthur and Lucius in the bookshop.

Comment author: TobyBartels 23 August 2013 05:47:28AM 4 points [-]

‘The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.’

Comment author: Baughn 18 August 2013 03:22:18AM 0 points [-]

Ah, but surely an orphan's guardians might be similarly uneasy.

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: DanArmak 15 August 2013 07:34:26PM 1 point [-]

Unlike Harry, Hermione has no past link to Voldemort. And, if you're unaware of how Horcruxes work, it would seem much more likely that Voldemort's spirit is possessing some one person, rather than two.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 15 August 2013 07:56:03PM 0 points [-]

True, Hermione doesn't have a link to Voldemort.

I am aware of how horcruxes work and V had eight in canon (although only one was another human - the only example of such a horcrux that we have. There is no mention anywhere whether it's impossible to horcrux two humans). I tried to leave the possibility open that V and Harry's connection is something other than a horcrux, although my wording wasn't as clear as it could have been.

I like the Bellatrix possession idea a bit better than my own, but I don't think we've hit on Lucius' reason yet.

Comment author: elharo 16 August 2013 10:51:58AM 2 points [-]

Actually in canon (or at least word of Rowling) there were two human Horcruxes: HP and Quirrell. That Quirrell was a Horcrux isn't explicit, and isn't relevant by the time Harry learns about Horcruxes, but Rowling has confirmed that he was.

Comment author: fractalman 29 August 2013 05:04:04PM 0 points [-]

Er, really? every thing i've read in the books indicates that quirrel was NOT a horcrux, but was posessed by the central voldemort who had previously been possessing snakes...or any other animal he could get ahold of.

So it was probably a blunder on her part when she said that quirrel was a horcrux, IF she said that.

Comment author: MugaSofer 21 August 2013 04:00:05PM -1 points [-]

Having looked into this, it appears that Harry was "technically" not a Horcrux, due to being an accident rather than prepared with the correct rituals; while Quirrel simply contained the soul fragment that was "original" Voldemort, temporarily.

Comment author: Alsadius 19 August 2013 06:35:28AM 0 points [-]

How does that tie into the numerology? It's stated that Voldemort wanted to have seven total shards of his soul - Riddle himself, diary, cup, diadem, snake, ring, and locket. Seems like she's contradicting herself.

Comment author: fractalman 23 August 2013 04:15:52AM *  0 points [-]

He DID want 7 total fragments. Then he accidentally turned harry into one and didn't realize he'd done so. I can't quit recall if he made nagini before or after the diary got zapped.

Quirrel is not a horcrux. he is possessed by voldemort himself.

Cannon Harry is an Accidental horcrux. Canon voldemort never realized harry was a horcrux BECAUSE he'd never used the incantation to seal the soul fragment within harry.

Comment author: Alsadius 23 August 2013 06:50:00AM 0 points [-]

Quirrel is not a horcrux. he is possessed

This is my point.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 August 2013 02:55:20AM 0 points [-]

????

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 19 August 2013 03:43:08AM 1 point [-]

Last paragraph of this Pottermore screenshot describes him as an 'effective horcrux' I presume because he's possessed by the remaining part of Voldemort's soul.

Comment author: Aureateflux 19 August 2013 04:00:04AM 1 point [-]

"Effective" is not the same as "actual." Quirrel wasn't a horcrux in the sense that Harry or Nagini were horcruxes, even with what she's saying there. She just meant to say that Quirrel was like a horcrux. No ritual was done to make him into a horcrux.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 19 August 2013 04:13:13AM 1 point [-]

Not the same; agreed. However, there was no ritual done to Harry!Horcrux in JKR-canon either.

Comment author: Aureateflux 19 August 2013 05:55:53AM 1 point [-]

I think the idea was that with Harry the requirements of the ritual were fulfilled, though accidentally. One of those requirements is the death of an innocent.

But the HP wiki says that there's some kind of incantation that goes along with it, so that's either optional or... whatever. It seems to be like the Goblet of Fire portkey. The rule is the rule except when it isn't.

The biggest difference between Harry-as-horcrux and Quirrel-as-horcrux is that Voldemort doesn't seem to have killed anyone (as far as we know) to possess Quirrel. So even if Harry might have accidentally become a horcrux, Quirrel didn't, although he might have served the same purpose a horcrux does in "keeping the soul anchored to the mortal world."

I'm definitely not trying to argue that these things are consistent here, though. The point is that when people say something is "effectively" something else, they mean "practically" or "almost" rather than "actually." Unless someone finds some corpus data that suggests that Rowling's dialect (or, hell, her ideolect might be workable since she HAS written several rather large books) has a different usage...

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: DanArmak 15 August 2013 06:56:32PM 0 points [-]

I don't understand. Lucius thought that Harrymort wanted to bring up Hermione as his new Bella?

Comment author: Kindly 15 August 2013 07:04:19PM 2 points [-]

Or that Hermione was possessed by Bellatrix in the same way that Harry Potter was presumably possessed by Voldemort.

Comment author: DanArmak 15 August 2013 07:35:49PM 0 points [-]

That makes no sense. First, Bellatrix is not dead (or whatever state Voldemort is in). Second, she could have had no contact with Hermione before escaping Azkaban.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 15 August 2013 08:07:39PM 4 points [-]

Lucius thinks in terms of plots within schemes within intrigues; he does not necessarily assume that the body in Azkaban belongs to the real Bellatrix Black, or that the escape was real.

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: bramflakes 17 August 2013 01:08:23PM 0 points [-]

Why would he be able to see only the unfolded portion of the document?

Because in the folded parts, the words would be all on top of each other and difficult to make out. Take a sheet of transparent cellulose acetate and write some words on it, roll it up, then try to make out what the words say.

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: somervta 16 August 2013 01:42:15AM 1 point [-]

But it would make him suspicious to see Harry carrying paper (with words already written on it - he may carry paper around as a matter of course)

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: Gurkenglas 19 August 2013 02:41:29AM 0 points [-]

Harry promptly reached into his robes and drew out a parchment, unfolding it and spreading it across the golden table. "I've taken the liberty myself, actually," Harry said. He'd spent some careful hours in the Hogwarts library with the law books available.

Nope.

Comment author: Velorien 19 August 2013 01:50:16PM 1 point [-]

Technically, that quote doesn't say where he wrote it. It just says he did his research first.

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: JTHM 15 August 2013 08:28:15PM *  0 points [-]

Ah, you're right. This raises the question: is this a plot hole, or is Eliezer giving us a subtle hint that the person we think is Moody was in fact someone polyjuiced as Moody, without the real Eye of Vance?

Comment author: undermind 16 August 2013 12:59:58AM *  17 points [-]

Now you're just being paranoid.

Which is totally appropriate.

So...maybe.

Comment author: fezziwig 19 August 2013 02:46:59PM 4 points [-]

"What the crap" is also not a very Moody-like exclamation.

Comment author: gjm 20 August 2013 11:54:26PM 0 points [-]

I could OTOH easily imagine him saying "What the hell" instead.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 20 August 2013 08:04:51PM 1 point [-]

...That's a very Harry-like exclamation. But I don't think even HJPEV could manage to replace Mad-Eye Moody with a Polyjuiced and Time-Turned version of himself. But then again, this whole chapter was in distant third person, and we don't know what Harry knows or how he knows it...

Comment author: snafoo 16 August 2013 10:03:16PM 5 points [-]

CONSTANT VIGILANCE

Comment author: DanArmak 15 August 2013 06:05:30PM 1 point [-]

[...] with Moody's bright-blue eye rotating wildly in every direction, as though to signal to any possible attacker that he was On Guard and Constantly Vigilant

Why does he advertise it? Why not hide it behind an eyepatch, as a secret advantage in a fight?

Comment author: undermind 15 August 2013 07:06:41PM 14 points [-]

You miss the point - he is still hiding it. The eye provides full 360-degree vision at all times, but few people know this, so he maintains an appearance of some level of vigilance.

This means that anyone who sees him respond quickly to a threat (i.e. evidence of vigilance) will have an immediate explanation of how he was able to do so (being vigilant), and not look beyond it to find out the extent of his abilities.

Quite well thought out, really.

Comment author: EternalStargazer 15 August 2013 07:03:00PM 18 points [-]

He does hide it. In the part in the graveyard where he is talking to Snape while they are poisoning Riddle Sr's grave, he keeps spinning around, despite the fact that the eye lets him see 360 degrees regardless of where it is pointing.

If he's escorting Potter around, everyone KNOWS he'd be on high alert, so they expect to see the thing whizzing around. Then they expect that when it isn't whizzing around, it means he can't see behind him.

And when they try to exploit that, that's how he catches them.

Comment author: Kindly 16 August 2013 01:34:52PM 4 points [-]

It's somewhat like the reason the Dark Mark isn't always invisible. People will look for a weakness to exploit, so before they find one you should provide them with a fake one.

(If the Dark Mark were invisible and Moody wore an eyepatch, you'd just look for a different avenue of attack.)

Comment author: [deleted] 15 August 2013 06:39:38PM 3 points [-]

It seems to already be widely known among magical Britain what his noble phantasm is. (Curiously, this didn't seem to be the case in canon -- the Eye doesn't even have a name there -- but Moody is still not sufficiently cautious about it there.)

Comment author: DanArmak 15 August 2013 06:40:23PM 0 points [-]

It wouldn't have been known if he always had hidden it behind an eyepatch. People need not even suspect that there was anything other than a missing eye.

Comment author: [deleted] 15 August 2013 06:48:49PM *  7 points [-]

When Alastor Moody had lost his eye, he had commandeered the services of a most erudite Ravenclaw, Samuel H. Lyall, whom Moody mistrusted slightly less than average because Moody had refrained from reporting him as an unregistered werewolf; and he had paid Lyall to compile a list of every known magical eye, and every known hint to their location.

When Moody had gotten the list back, he hadn't bothered reading most of it; because at the top of the list was the Eye of Vance, dating back to an era before Hogwarts, and currently in the possession of a powerful Dark Wizard ruling over some tiny forgotten hellhole that wasn't in Britain or anywhere else he'd have to worry about silly rules.

That was how Alastor Moody had lost his left foot and acquired the Eye of Vance, and how the oppressed souls of Urulat had been liberated for a period of around two weeks before another Dark Wizard moved in on the power vacuum.

He'd considered going after the Left Foot of Vance next, but had decided against it after he realized that would be just what they were expecting.

Apparently he was unable to obtain the Eye of Vance secretly. Besides, the presence of Moody plus the death of a dark wizard known to possess the Eye of Vance plus the missing Eye of Vance is enough to conclude Moody has the Eye.

Comment author: DanArmak 15 August 2013 06:57:59PM 0 points [-]

There's still a big difference between a very few very knowledgeable wizards hearing about it, and flaunting it everywhere he goes.

Comment author: [deleted] 15 August 2013 07:43:52PM 0 points [-]

I've already outlined how a merely knowledgeable wizard can conclude with some degree of certainty that Moody became the owner of the Eye of Vance.

It only required specialist Ravenclaw research to obtain an extensive list of magical eyes. We don't know how famous the Eye itself is.

Comment author: ikrase 16 August 2013 02:38:38AM 2 points [-]

What about signalling / intimidation?

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: buybuydandavis 03 September 2013 01:18:10AM *  0 points [-]

On the original point, of who the Defense Professor is, I saw a great idea on Reddit - the Troll is the Defense Professor.

“Not so,” said Dumbledore. “If Voldemort has not fully mastered the wards, then the wards had to believe that some Professor’s hand was at work. Else they would have cried out at Miss Granger’s injury, and not only upon her death.”

So if you need an agent in Hogwarts to kill a student, you want the wards to think that they're a Professor.

Also, about Quirrell stealing bodies

The smile that the Auror gave had absolutely no mirth in it. “So where’s the real Quirinus Quirrell, eh? Under an Imperius in the bottom of a trunk somewhere, while you take a hair now and then for your illegal Polyjuice?”
“You are making highly questionable assumptions,” the Defense Professor said with an edged voice. “What makes you think I did not steal his body outright using incredibly Dark magic?”

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 24 August 2013 03:51:20PM -1 points [-]

Quirrell aka Baba Yaga aka Voldemort is Harry's biological mother. (James Potter is his father.) That would explain their similarities better than the hypothetical brain surgery / horcrux thing.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 27 August 2013 11:48:46PM *  -1 points [-]

That's interesting. Baba Yaga, traveling through time by uploading her mind into host after host, decides to make a more compatible host, and produces a child to be her next host.

My position for a while is that Quirrell is grooming Harry to be his next host, and who better for the Dark Lord to move into, than the Boy Savior as he defeats the Dark Lord?

Though as Quirrell, presumably "he" could have fathered Harry through Lily. However, it kind of fits the story of that Munroe guy that Harry is actually a replacement baby left behind when the Potter family was exterminated. That would be the 2nd Old House that was killed off and left with a single replacement survivor.

But the thing is, if uploading is an integral part of the story, he's already committed to that complication, and so it adds little further complexity to say that he uploaded some chunk of himself to Harry, and a biological explanation becomes superfluous.

Comment author: atorm 26 August 2013 12:01:11PM 0 points [-]

Boy-Who-Lived Gets Draco Malfoy Pregnant

Comment author: buybuydandavis 27 August 2013 11:53:47PM 0 points [-]

Given the extreme and multiple foreshadowing EY indulges in, I wouldn't count it out.

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: Dentin 18 August 2013 08:41:54PM 0 points [-]

Probably just pattern matching on it, and Quirrell is ridiculously powerful, but he was the one to notice and stun 100+ females summoning Harry to the ground.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 19 August 2013 04:03:01AM 1 point [-]

And note Quirrell's comment:

“I should have foreseen it myself,” Professor Quirrell said,

He thinks he should have anticipated the actions of young girls taking actions based in romance. That's about the last context a grown man expects to be able to anticipate events.

Pattern matching as well, but the pattern matches quite a lot.

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: 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: 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: buybuydandavis 03 September 2013 12:38:24AM 1 point [-]

Very good catch. It lessens the support of that particular response to my thesis, but I still think the scene as a whole still does lend some support.

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

Twist: Quirrell is Voldemort's mother.

Comment author: Fhyve 19 August 2013 08:36:35PM -1 points [-]

aka Baba Yaga

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: OnTheOtherHandle 19 August 2013 12:49:18AM 1 point [-]

Yes, but "The Defense Professor" and "anyone else who can rig the wards" shouldn't have the same probability in his mind. What with all the rest of Quirrell's strange behavior and the curse on the position, "The Defense Professor" should be allotted a massive probability, with a comparatively smaller piece left for "whoever else has the ability to do this." He should be suspect number one by far.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 19 August 2013 01:57:36AM 2 points [-]

For that, I'd point to undermind's comment that this is only what Harry wants the Malfoys to know.

There might also be an element of Harry's art as a rationalist being forgotten when he needs it most.

Comment author: westward 15 August 2013 08:36:05PM 1 point [-]

Harry has been suspicious of Quirrell for a long time.

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: 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: Houshalter 17 August 2013 09:02:37PM 1 point [-]

I thought that he just didn't want to talk to Quirrell at the time and wanted to continue his walk alone for another hour.

Comment author: Kindly 18 August 2013 05:17:46AM 5 points [-]

Aside from that, he also prepares to use his Time-Turner to "flee upon an instant's notice"; furthermore, after the starlight spell wears off, Harry's first thought is to guard against an attack from the Defense Professor while Harry is temporarily blinded.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: hirvinen 19 August 2013 07:59:24PM 0 points [-]

From what we have seen so far, it would rather appear that Harry's signature is just as valid as if he had been an adult. He can be overruled by Dumbledore but it is not required that Dumbledore signs the papers for him.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 19 August 2013 11:11:52PM 0 points [-]

I don't think we've seen evidence that normal minors can make and enter contracts - I think Harry's just been implicitly granted an exception to all the rules of normal minors because he's the Chosen One. But the bad thing about implicit agreements is that the ones with official power can revoke them when convenient and the other party has no recourse.

Comment author: hirvinen 20 August 2013 03:01:47PM 4 points [-]

I do not recall Harry or Hermione requiring adult input to enter their contract except for McGonagall advising them on the form and possibility of such contract. Granted, it was overseen by the Wizengamot and their legal guardian, but if they could not have done it legally by themselves, we should have seen Dumbledore's explicit approval instead of just lack of overruling it.

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: 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: 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: hirvinen 19 August 2013 06:53:22PM 1 point [-]

"Do not sign anything that Lucius Malfoy gives you," Mad-Eye Moody said. "Nothing, do you understand me, lad? If Malfoy hands you a copy of The Wonderful Adventures of the Boy-Who-Lived and asks you for an autograph, tell him that you've sprained a finger. Don't pick up a quill for a single second while you're in Gringotts. If someone hands you a quill, break the quill and then break your own fingers. Do I need to explain further, son?"

"Not particularly," Harry said. "We also have lawyers in Muggle Britain, and they'd think your lawyers are cute."

That's close enough to a promise. Besides, Dumbledore could have made him promise more explicitly off-screen and this is just Moody doing the same independently or reiterating it.

Comment author: Roxolan 19 August 2013 09:08:58PM *  1 point [-]

That's not a promise. It's not even agreement.

Besides, Dumbledore could have made him promise more explicitly off-screen and this is just Moody doing the same independently or reiterating it.

This is quite possible. However, it does not sound like Moody's reiterating. And I find it improbable that Dumbledore included the "don't touch a pen" clause (that's more Moody's style), but no other clause, and then Moody independently, coincidentally added that clause and no other clause.

Comment author: hirvinen 20 August 2013 07:19:03AM 1 point [-]

A: "<statement>. [<suggestion/imperative to behave accordingly>] Do you understand?" B: "I understand."

I claim that in normal human communication that type of exchange is viewed as B accepting what A says, unless B somehow signals explicit disagreement. Then, if B knows this, and assumes that A thinks likes this, and only explicitly affirms understanding while withholding knowledge of their disagreement, B is at the very least deceiving A.

Of course Moody should know to be more paranoid in what he forbids Harry from doing. Especially with him having witnessed Harry showing cunning and paranoia on a level he finds promising.

Comment author: undermind 15 August 2013 07:17:58PM 1 point [-]

Thank you for pointing out these subtle clevernesses.

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: RolfAndreassen 15 August 2013 05:49:59PM 2 points [-]

The point about lawyers is just that Harry sees the wizard world as rather quaint and old-fashioned; Lucius is a big frog in a very tiny pond. Let the Masquerade be broken in any serious way, and within a year or two Muggle Britain will have produced anti-curse body armour (possibly made of tinfoil) and guns that will reliably break a wizard's shields. In other words, it's not just wizard lawyers that are cute; wizard soldiers are also fundamentally non-serious. This may not be actually true, but I think it is what Harry believes.

By the way, in the Rowling-verse, the Prime Minister is supposed to know about the Ministry of Magic; he's the one official point of contact between Muggles and wizards. I wonder if that's also true in the canonical version?

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 18 August 2013 08:43:00AM *  4 points [-]

It's not body armor and such that matters. It's control. Wizards have mind magic. They can alter memories and control people. That would let them act through agents who already possess muggle resources, and who already understand (and can explain whenever necessary) the strengths of the muggle world.

At the end of the day, if wizards seriously get interested in the muggle world, and muggles in the wizard world (not that they should get the chance, if the Malfoys are smart), and both learn about each others' strengths, wizards will still be the ones with the edge.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 18 August 2013 07:24:14PM 0 points [-]

Wizards have mind magic. They can alter memories and control people.

Hence my mention of anti-curse body armour made of tinfoil. :)

Comment author: tadrinth 19 August 2013 06:53:26PM 1 point [-]

Body armor only protects against weak curses like Somnium that are standard first year hexes. Stupefy, which is castable by first years, is not blocked by armor.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 20 August 2013 03:49:48PM 2 points [-]

I think you are rather missing my point, here. The body armour that Muggle Britain would invent would not be the kind available to Harry as a desperate improvisation. In a year or two, after a crash research program, Muggle Britain would understand how magic works, what materials block it, and would mass-produce the resulting body armour that does block curses up to and including Avada Kedavra. It would be based on tinfoil because everyone knows that tinfoil hats block the government's mind-controlling rays.

Comment author: Alsadius 17 August 2013 09:54:23PM 0 points [-]

Why would a gun be more lethal than current combat magic?