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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapters 105-107

6 Post author: b_sen 17 February 2015 01:17AM

Two new short chapters! Since the next one is coming tomorrow and we know it'll be short, let's use one thread for both.

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 105 (and chapter 106, once it comes out tomorrow).  EDIT: based on Alsadius' comment about thread creation for MOR chapters, let's also use this thread for chapter 107 (and future chapters until this nears 500 comments) unless someone objects to doing so.  Given that this is the final arc we're talking about, thread titles should be updated to indicate chapters covered.

There is 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.)

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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 (353)

Comment author: Alsadius 17 February 2015 01:23:30AM 1 point [-]

I dislike this - the existing thread is only at 140 comments, and should be used for at least today's chapter. There's probably going to be another posted Wednesday, at this rate.

Comment author: b_sen 17 February 2015 01:30:36AM 1 point [-]

Is there a consensus on when to post new threads (and conversely, when to keep using the old thread for new chapters) that I should be aware of? If so, please let me know.

For comparison, the thread before last is at 172 comments, although that's from late January.

Comment author: Alsadius 17 February 2015 01:31:53AM 3 points [-]

After a long gap, or when the old thread hits/gets close to 500 comments and starts getting cut off. During the last serious run of chapters, they were hitting 500 virtually every chapter, but that seemed to be the principle adhered to in past.

Comment author: dxu 17 February 2015 01:28:08AM *  19 points [-]

I love how so many people are acting as though their pet hypotheses have already been confirmed (both here and on Reddit), despite the fact that the only evidence we've got at this point for most of those hypotheses is Quirrell's word. I don't know about anyone else, but this seems to me like a golden opportunity for EY to pull some sort of epic subversion of expectations and then lecture all of us about confirmation bias or overconfidence or something.

Comment author: RomeoStevens 17 February 2015 03:11:49AM 7 points [-]

Quirrell can even fool people IRL. Let's hope he doesn't escape the box of the fanfiction. Maybe writing the fan fiction installed him as a tulpa on EY's wetware.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 February 2015 10:44:03AM 3 points [-]

Actually, that's already happened long ago. (Look at that user's post history.)

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 17 February 2015 03:46:36AM 1 point [-]

I'm feeling somewhat reassured that my theory that Quirrell is evil is confirmed, but is there still room left for him to turn out to be benevolent?

Comment author: dxu 17 February 2015 04:17:52AM 3 points [-]

Seeing as HPMoR is in large part about pointing out how narrative logic doesn't work in reality, it seems plausible to me that even if Q == V, that doesn't necessarily imply that he's evil. (Well, I mean, he is pretty evil, but I'm not sure he's going to end up being the Big Bad of the story.)

Comment author: ReevesAnd 17 February 2015 02:39:42PM 4 points [-]

Following up on the idea of breaking narrative logic, might there not really be a Big Bad at all. Like, Voldemort has sobered up over the years and really just wants to be immortal. He'll go to great lengths to get there, but doesn't plan to destroy the world or anything. Just an idea.

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 February 2015 04:12:33PM 1 point [-]

EY did write that it's not his intention to mislead readers.

Comment author: dxu 17 February 2015 04:15:45PM 2 points [-]

Not misleading readers, yes. Letting readers come to their own conclusion, which happens to be wrong, on the other hand...

Comment author: imuli 17 February 2015 01:33:44AM 12 points [-]

The spell in progress that may kill hundreds of students that the stone can fix — sounds like something transfigured into a gas.

Comment author: solipsist 17 February 2015 01:39:51AM 1 point [-]

Ooooh, I like it!

But Harry was out watching the Quidditch game breathing non-doomy breaths.

Comment author: Alsadius 17 February 2015 01:51:03AM 5 points [-]

The promise was "tonight", and Harry left the Quidditch game at about 11:30 PM. Using colloquial meanings gives Quirrelmort until roughly sunrise to make good, which leaves him plenty of time even using the short nights of Scotland in June.

Comment author: EricHerboso 17 February 2015 04:37:21AM 12 points [-]

If the snitch is both the trigger and the epicenter of this spell in progress, then this would explain how the three wishes will be granted by "a single plot". The game is played/watched by mostly Slytherin/Ravenclaw students, so mostly Slytherin/Ravenclaw students would die. I can see a school like Hogwarts then giving both these houses the House Cup as a way to deal with the trauma for surviving students and honor the lost children. So that's all three wishes: both houses win the House Cup, and the snitch is removed from Qudditch, all using "a single plot".

(from Iron_Nightingale on r/hpmor)

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 17 February 2015 01:05:44PM 12 points [-]

The snitch will explode exactly at the moment when Slytherins and Ravenclaws have the same number of points, higher than the remaining houses. It will kill all students, thus freezing the house points.

This is what happens when you waste your wish on winning a stupid competition.

Comment author: WalterL 17 February 2015 09:36:18PM 5 points [-]

Or rather, Voldemort is the first kind of genie, the kind to whom no wish is safe.

Comment author: TsviBT 17 February 2015 02:27:46AM *  10 points [-]

[EDIT: the Dark Lord of the Matrix have fixed this.]

There's a glitch in the Matrix:

A blank-eyed Professor Sprout had now risen from the ground, had picked up Harry's wand and was wrapping it in a shimmering cloth.

Then Harry does some bargaining, and then...

After that, Professor Sprout picked up Harry's wand, and wrapped it in shimmering cloth; then she placed it on the floor, and pointed her own wand at Harry.

Comment author: avichapman 17 February 2015 05:02:36AM 3 points [-]

I noticed that too. It's often a sign of obliviation. My secondary hypothesis is that it was a mistake and will be corrected in a later update.

Comment author: calef 17 February 2015 05:22:02AM 3 points [-]

Yeah, it's already been changed:

A blank-eyed Professor Sprout had now risen from the ground and was pointing her own wand at Harry.

Comment author: dxu 17 February 2015 02:35:44AM *  24 points [-]

...Huh. Unless I've been Obliviated, the summary for HPMoR on fanfiction.net used to show "Hermione G., Harry P." on its character list. Now it says "Hermione G., Tom R. Jr." instead.

EY really doesn't miss anything, does he?

Comment author: Transfuturist 17 February 2015 02:45:24AM 4 points [-]

That is so evil.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 17 February 2015 03:03:16AM 26 points [-]

While amusing, it doesn't seem like a good idea for new readers. Is essentially a spoiler.

Comment author: Alsadius 17 February 2015 04:13:10AM 0 points [-]

...For canon?

Comment author: JoshuaZ 17 February 2015 12:29:05PM 2 points [-]

No. Spoiler that it essentially this story will emphasize that. No also that it isn't "canon"- in the canonical version there's a piece of Riddle in the real Harry but its influence is pretty minimal and the person making decisions is still Harry.

Comment author: Alsadius 17 February 2015 04:53:26PM *  0 points [-]

I'd argue that's still the case in this story. If anything, it's more misleading than spoiler. (Which is fine for an in-joke, of course)

Comment author: vericrat 17 February 2015 02:43:16AM 1 point [-]

"That is your condition for helping me to obtain the Stone?" said Professor Quirrell. Harry nodded, unable to form words.

Does that mean that Voldemort is freed from his previous offer to resurrect Hermione? Voldemort specifically says "That is your condition" which Harry agreed to. If so, Harry is going to be kicking himself later.

Comment author: Vaniver 17 February 2015 02:47:50AM 8 points [-]

Afterwards, Voldemort explicitly includes this in his statement of the deal:

And your girl-child friend sshall be revived by me, to true life and health

Comment author: hairyfigment 17 February 2015 02:50:32AM 0 points [-]

From this, we conclude that Voldemort will transform himself into a girl.

Comment author: Vaniver 17 February 2015 02:52:47AM 12 points [-]

More likely: Boy-Who-Lived gets Draco Malfoy pregnant. :P

Comment author: Epictetus 17 February 2015 04:45:33AM 0 points [-]

More likely: Boy-Who-Lived gets Draco Malfoy pregnant. :P

And here I was thinking I'd purged all memory of that fic...

Comment author: vericrat 17 February 2015 02:58:37AM 2 points [-]

My sincere thanks, I missed that.

Comment author: Unnamed 17 February 2015 02:59:01AM 7 points [-]

Quirrell's Parseltongue statements could use a close reading.

I cannot be truly killed by any power known to me.

This could just mean that the Pioneer horcrux prevents him from being "truly killed".

And your girl-child friend sshall be revived by me, to true life and health

This seems quite explicit. Quirrell thinks that he can bring Hermione back to life.

Harry: You already have an idea for what you want from me. What is it?

Quirrell: Your help in obtaining the Philosopher's Stone.

(Not in Parseltongue.) Quirrell later asks Harry in Parseltongue to promise to help get the Stone, but he never says in Parseltongue that help getting the Stone is what he actually wants from Harry.

I do not intend to raisse my hand or magic againsst you in future, sso long ass you do not raisse your hand or magic againsst me.

Does this rule out Quirrell transferring his soul into Harry's body (wiping out Harry's identity and reuniting with the Tom Riddle groundwork that he laid in Harry's mind)? Because without this line, that would be my leading hypothesis for what Quirrell actually wants Harry for.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 17 February 2015 05:18:06AM 3 points [-]

On a side note, note that Quirrell is wrong or lying about already fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. The person that Quirrell marked as his equal, who has powers that Quirrell knows not, is the version of Harry Potter after Quirrell forked himself.

Hence, presumably, the sense of doom.

(... what is odd, though, is that Quirrell seems to be on the losing end of that conflict of magic.)

Comment author: Velorien 17 February 2015 11:09:43AM 17 points [-]

I thought it was worth revisiting Quirrell's past uses of Parseltongue. Most are nothing noteworthy, but there are a few interesting ones in Chapter 58.

I did not sseek to sslay the protector man!

Quirrell was telling the truth about not trying to kill Bahry.

Obvioussly you will ssee persson pretending to be healer on arrival!

While this could be literally true, or only true in the context of the hypothetical scenario suggested by Harry, it is worth noting that Quirrell never says in Parseltongue that the healer waiting for Bellatrix is real.

plan iss for you to rule country, obvioussly

This one sounds important now that we know it is definitely true (or at least was at the time).

Comment author: falenas108 17 February 2015 02:51:31PM -1 points [-]

That definitely hints that part of the plan is to make use of Harrymort in some way, which makes the "why the hell did he bring Harry along" part make sense.

Comment author: jkaufman 17 February 2015 06:54:43PM 1 point [-]

Were any of these said by Quirrell as a snake, as opposed to Parselspeaking as a human?

Comment author: gjm 17 February 2015 07:58:12PM 0 points [-]

Does that matter?

(If you're suggesting that snakes -- even ones that are actually human animagi -- can lie when speaking Parseltongue even though humans apparently can't, where does that come from? If conversely you're suggesting that snakes can't but humans can, surely Harry's failure to say 2+2=3 in Parseltongue is strong evidence against that.)

Comment author: LauralH 17 February 2015 08:40:28PM *  3 points [-]

All of them, as this is the first time Q hasn't turned into his Snake form first...

Comment author: UnclGhost 17 February 2015 10:30:20PM 4 points [-]

For that matter, why did he ever bother turning into his snake form? Just to make Harry think he had the limitation of not being able to speak Parseltongue while human, for some reason?

Comment author: Alsadius 18 February 2015 01:32:11AM 6 points [-]

For an obvious reason - pretend to have more limits than you do, to be underestimated.

Comment author: Kindly 18 February 2015 01:40:47AM 16 points [-]

Voldemort is the last known Parselmouth, so it would be highly suspicious for Quirrell to also be one.

Comment author: UnclGhost 18 February 2015 02:24:50AM 1 point [-]

Looks like I misunderstood the relevant passage in Chapter 49--when Quirrell confirms that other snake Animagi can't overhear them, he isn't implying that you also have to be a Parselmouth, he's implying that he can only understand Harry because Harry wills it.

Comment author: jkaufman 18 February 2015 03:26:53PM 2 points [-]

This makes me wonder whether we can trust anything Quirrell said as a snake. Let's say Parseltongue is "the ability to speak in snake language" and was created by Slytherin so that his heirs would have a way to talk to each other in a trusting way (plus so they could talk to snakes, because he liked snakes). Then Harry or Quirrell speaking as humans in Parseltongue are using Slytherin's creation, but Quirrell speaking as a snake animagus is just doing normal snake-talk and wouldn't have the restriction.

Comment author: Velorien 18 February 2015 03:29:48PM 1 point [-]

But Quirrell's justification RE Parseltongue was "snakes can't lie". So if we believe his explanation to begin with, we must assume that normal snake-talk is equally trustworthy.

Comment author: jkaufman 18 February 2015 03:59:14PM 0 points [-]

Or it's almost all truth with one crucial lie.

Comment author: HungryHippo 17 February 2015 08:11:28PM 3 points [-]

plan iss for you to rule country, obvioussly This one sounds important now that we know it is definitely true (or at least was at the time).

What does "you" mean, though? Tom Riddle? In which case Quirrell could just as well be speaking of himself. The physical body others designate "Harry"? In which case Quirrell could just permanently transfigure himself into Harry's body using the stone, shoot Harry and vanish the body and claim "Quirrell" had urgent business elsewhere.

Comment author: Rukifellth 18 February 2015 01:29:58PM 1 point [-]

What if Quirrell is so good at dissociation that he can lie through parseltongue by convincing himself that what he's saying is true?

Comment author: kilobug 17 February 2015 12:35:23PM 0 points [-]

I do not intend to raisse my hand or magic againsst you in future, sso long ass you do not raisse your hand or magic againsst me.

Seems quite weak promise to me. He just has to take hostages or do other actions/threats against something Harry values until Harry tries to stop him, and then he'll be free to do whatever he wants to Harry. He can even already have that plan in mind, and still say that sentence in Parseltongue.

But we are back to the problem of "no safe wish", promises made by Quirrell, even in Parseltongue, cannot be trusted. Same for

And your girl-child friend sshall be revived by me, to true life and health

If he does revive her to true life and health, and after 5 minutes kill her again, he would fulfill the promise.

Comment author: Gondolinian 17 February 2015 12:50:00PM 1 point [-]

If he does revive her to true life and health, and after 5 minutes kill her again, he would fulfill the promise.

Well, earlier he did promise:

Help me obtain Sstone of Transsfiguration, and I sshall try my hardesst to ressurrect your girl-child friend to true and lassting life.

Comment author: Jiro 17 February 2015 05:04:11PM *  0 points [-]

Memory charm him to believe that some random young female person is his friend, and restore that person.

Alternately, just find a young female friend who is already alive. Doing your best to resurrect a living person == no action.

Comment author: garabik 17 February 2015 09:03:35PM 3 points [-]

Help me obtain Sstone of Transsfiguration, and I sshall try my hardesst to ressurrect your girl-child friend to true and lassting life.

But not necessarily the same physical form - thus the Alicorn Princess.

Comment author: jkaufman 18 February 2015 03:44:23PM 6 points [-]

Maybe she needs to come back as a unicorn, so she can have steady access to unicorn blood?

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 February 2015 04:40:40PM 5 points [-]

Parseltogue doesn't seem to allow for careful evasive wording but actually makes people speak openly about their intentions.

It's also worth noting that parseltogue doesn't produce binding promises. To do binding promising the unbreakable vow is required.

Comment author: kilobug 18 February 2015 01:53:50PM 2 points [-]

Parseltogue doesn't seem to allow for careful evasive wording but actually makes people speak openly about their intentions.

It's not as fuzzy/rich as human languages, so it's harder to do it, but it's always possible to only say half of the truth which opens all doors to careful manipulation

It's also worth noting that parseltogue doesn't produce binding promises.

Indeed, it doesn't prevent people from reconsidering/changing their mind later on. The speaker has to believe what he says is the truth when he says it, but he can be honestly wrong, and he can change his mind later on.

It seems from the way Harry worded his own part of the deal that if the speak knows he's likely to reconsider, he cannot openly promise it, but it's just a matter of "Harry now knows that future Harry may reconsider, so Harry now can't say future Harry will do it", only about the knowledge of Harry now, and is non binding on the future.

Comment author: ChristianKl 18 February 2015 02:06:06PM 3 points [-]

It's not as fuzzy/rich as human languages, so it's harder to do it, but it's always possible to only say half of the truth which opens all doors to careful manipulation

Richness isn't the only limiting factor. When Harry did his 2+2=3 experiment he automatically said 4. That seems the language automatically makes things that reveal the intention to come out.

Comment author: Gondolinian 17 February 2015 12:43:47PM 2 points [-]

I cannot be truly killed by any power known to me.

Memory magics also make "known" rather flexible.

Comment author: [deleted] 17 February 2015 06:01:02PM 0 points [-]

seems like that last one also doesn't explicitly prevent quirrell shooting harry with a gun.

Comment author: Vaniver 17 February 2015 06:31:12PM *  3 points [-]

seems like that last one also doesn't explicitly prevent quirrell shooting harry with a gun.

"Raise my hand," in standard usage, also contains the use of any weapons to harm.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 February 2015 04:35:05AM 0 points [-]

Then one assumes he wouldn't have to specify the magic clause (which uses a wand as a weapon held in the hand).

Comment author: LauralH 17 February 2015 08:38:07PM 2 points [-]

On the first point : he can only be defeated by the Power He Knows Not!

Comment author: BloodyShrimp 17 February 2015 02:59:31AM *  12 points [-]

Harry made some serious mistakes in chapter 105.

First, the parseltongue honesty-binding could just be Quirrell's (selective!) wandless magic--I mean, he just forged a note "from yourself" (and why do you even MAKE a self-recognition ("I am a potato") policy if you just forget all about it once you're in a life-stakes intrigue) so you need a lot of extra suspicions going forward. But assuming it's real... there are crucial questions Harry can now profitably ask, with his help conditional on getting immediate Parseltongue answers, along the lines of:

"Why did you set up this elaborate ruse instead of just asking me? Most of what you're saying right now sounds like something I would've probably agreed to if you were open about it, but no, you had to pretend you were dying and kill my friend, so it sure seems like you're planning nefarious things I'd rather not aid even at the cost of my life and the hostages' lives... does my CURRENT utility function actually prefer your planned results to the death of me and the hostages?"

(This isn't the perfect phrasing; for one thing Quirrell doesn't necessarily know Harry's utility function to high accuracy, for another Harry might have disagreed to the "open" proposal at weaker dispreference than "this is worse than my death". But something similar...)

Iff Quirrell is at all "innocent" at this point, he'd want to answer these, and never mind the "my policy is never to reveal that much or people will know I'm guilty later when I actually need to keep mum" stuff; these stakes seem high enough to outweigh any future similar dealings. If he's guilty, then just die like you'd apparently prefer.

[the only edits I made here after getting responses were to correct my spelling of "Quirrell", and this note]

Comment author: dxu 17 February 2015 03:53:28AM *  11 points [-]

I agree that Harry's actions weren't even close to optimal in that situation, but you have to cut him some slack; after all, he just found out that he was a fork of Lord Voldemort, that his best friend had been killed by his trusted mentor, and, oh, let's not forget that that mentor also happens to be Lord Voldemort. He'd have been hard-pressed to be thinking completely clearly after a series of revelations like that. (Mind you, all of these revelations sans the last one came from Quirrell himself, who's hardly the most trustworthy character out there, but the shock and emotional impact is real nonetheless.)

Comment author: BloodyShrimp 17 February 2015 03:59:07AM 9 points [-]

Certainly, and in the actual situation, I would have done worse than he actually did. But, this kind of armchair analysis is extremely enjoyable, and a good way to improve your in situ skills.

Comment author: DanielLC 17 February 2015 06:31:59AM 0 points [-]

I'm surprised Quirrell couldn't do a better job with the note. He could have given Harry the memory of making a new self-recognition policy, which would be a sensible thing for Harry to do after his occlumency training.

Comment author: Velorien 17 February 2015 10:45:39AM 0 points [-]

Memory Charms on students set off the wards, so he'd be drawing attention to himself (plus he'd need to have Sprout do it, which may have various complications of its own).

Comment author: dxu 17 February 2015 04:19:11PM 0 points [-]

Why is this comment retracted?

Comment author: Gavin 17 February 2015 05:35:17PM 4 points [-]

Apparently Professors can cast memory charms without setting off the wards.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 17 February 2015 01:19:13PM 4 points [-]

1) It's not clear how easy it is to Memory-charm an Occlumens. 2) As far as we know, Quirrel & Harry can't directly use magic on each other.

Comment author: BloodyShrimp 17 February 2015 08:06:29PM *  2 points [-]

Your point 2 is another thing I'm getting pretty suspicious of. Quirrell has set up a very long plan, and could easily have faked this effect with wandless magic, or an enchantment he could later dispel, all along.

Comment author: LauralH 17 February 2015 08:44:58PM 0 points [-]

I find it highly unlikely that he faked the Avada Kedavra/Patronus effect in Azkaban...

Comment author: BloodyShrimp 17 February 2015 10:18:52PM 2 points [-]

That could just be a feature of the True Patronus, which is pretty anti-death and especially anti-indifference-to-other-people's-lives.

Comment author: LauralH 17 February 2015 11:40:43PM 0 points [-]

But that's the first time Potter sees their magic interact, so what effect did Quirrell fake?

Comment author: BloodyShrimp 18 February 2015 12:13:09AM 2 points [-]

The sense of doom. I thought the magic-can't-interact was mostly just the strongest edge of that--e.g. (maybe "i.e." too) their magic could interact but it would hurt them enough that they don't try.

Comment author: Velorien 17 February 2015 10:47:40AM 1 point [-]

While Quirrell could have asked Harry to help him as a friend, it would have risked Harry balking at any step in the process which involved sufficiently unethical action, at which point Quirrell would have had to pause what he was doing in order to intimidate Harry into compliance (and wait for him to deal with the shock etc.).

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 17 February 2015 01:02:22PM *  9 points [-]

Quirrell sometimes makes the mistake of pushing people too much. Perhaps as a consequence of too much cynicism. Harry would probably help Quirrell just because he cares about him... but Quirrell does not understand the concept of "care" and thinks it is only a role that Harry feels obliged to play, which he does not trust as a sufficient motivation to overcome obstacles. So he add further motivation; things that seem sufficiently motivating in his model of Harry.

Comment author: LauralH 17 February 2015 08:46:51PM 1 point [-]

Perhaps this is how Potter will "be seen to once again defeat the Dark Lord"? (re: ch65-66)

Comment author: imuli 17 February 2015 10:39:31PM 6 points [-]

I mean, he just forged a note "from yourself"

Or Harry just wrote a note that looked like Quirrell had forged it, to help his past-self figure it out at the appropriate time.

Comment author: Michelle_Z 17 February 2015 03:02:58AM 18 points [-]

I cannot be truly killed by any power known to me.

Prophecy, much? The power he knows not? I mean, that's a gimme but...

Comment author: Velorien 17 February 2015 10:43:41AM 0 points [-]

It's also a misleading statement. In a world where there is an artefact granting permanent transfiguration just down the corridor, there is nothing to stop Harry (or anyone) incapacitating Voldemort long enough to permanently transfigure him into air.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 17 February 2015 10:51:02AM 4 points [-]

Instead of air, I suggest Christmas present wrapping paper. Just for spite.

Comment author: Velorien 17 February 2015 11:36:43AM 3 points [-]

That would result in a twist ending. An act of such sheer pure evil would instantly catalyse his Tom Riddleness and transform him into Voldemort v2, complete with snake face and glowing red eyes.

But the reason I suggest air is that once it disperses it cannot be Finite Incantatemed or Reparoed or targeted by any magical effect we know of. We don't know if Philosopher's Stone transfigurations are permanent in every sense or just in the duration sense, and you do not want any possibility of someone bringing Voldemort back with a first-year spell like Finite Incantatem.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 17 February 2015 01:13:20PM -1 points [-]

I would expect Finite Incantatem to work like Dispel Magic and require a caster level check.

Comment author: Velorien 17 February 2015 03:59:58PM 3 points [-]

That still wouldn't be safe. The possibility of using "massed Finite Incantatem", as raised by Quirrell, suggests that low-level casters can dispel high-level ones' spells, either by combining power (circumstantial help modifier?) or by getting a natural 20. And matters being as they are, if Voldemort gets transfigured, odds are good that it will be done by Harry (who has a low caster level).

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 17 February 2015 10:56:36AM 0 points [-]

Well, firstly the Horocruxes would keep him alive, so all you've done is kill Quirrel, and secondly I'm pretty sure Voldemort's sheilds would prevent Harry either incapacitating or transfiguring him.

Comment author: Velorien 17 February 2015 11:28:29AM 5 points [-]

Well, firstly the Horocruxes would keep him alive, so all you've done is kill Quirrel

On the contrary. Transfigured people don't die until the transfiguration wears off, which it never would, so Voldemort would be effectively dead but without any anti-death protections (such as turning into a disembodied spirit) triggering.

I'm pretty sure Voldemort's sheilds would prevent Harry either incapacitating or transfiguring him.

Not the point. Voldemort said he couldn't be truly killed, not that he was invincible in battle. Any discussion of Voldemort's killability assumes that the attacker has somehow penetrated his ordinary defenses.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 17 February 2015 07:15:01PM 3 points [-]

so Voldemort would be effectively dead but without any anti-death protections (such as turning into a disembodied spirit) triggering.

Horcruxes don't work that way in HPMOR:

Horcrux sspell channelss death-bursst through casster, createss your own ghosst insstead of victim'ss, imprintss ghosst in sspecial device. Ssecond victim pickss up horcrux device, device imprintss your memoriess into them. But only memoriess from time horcrux device wass made. You ssee flaw?"

Horcruxes create copies, like uploads. I think what Voldemort means is that whatever happens to this copy, the Voyager copy will survive.

However, if there is a second mechanism of surviving death availible to him, I would imagine he would set it up to be triggered by any form of permanent vegetative state.

Comment author: Vaniver 17 February 2015 10:20:18PM 1 point [-]

Ssecond victim pickss up horcrux device, device imprintss your memoriess into them.

Hmm. Is Harry a Horcrux, or a part of Harry, like his scar? Does Harry have the ability to infect secondary victims?

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 18 February 2015 11:39:52AM -2 points [-]

In canon, Harry is a Horcrux (created accidentally by the AK attempt), and Ginny is possessed by Tom Riddle because she is imprinted by his diary. Someone speculated earlier that Roger Bacon's diary is Tom Riddle's Horcrux in HPMOR, which has now pretty much been proven true, and so now Harry is a Horcrux and has been imprinted by a second Horcrux.

I think if Harry's dark side has the ability to infect anyone, it would be Harry. I'm actually surprised that Harry hasn't gone far darker.

Comment author: gjm 18 February 2015 11:45:45AM 0 points [-]

which has now pretty much been proven true

It has? How?

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 18 February 2015 11:49:32AM 0 points [-]

Because Quirrel referred to Harry as Tom Riddle. Its possible that Quirrel put some other item which is a Horocrux of Tom Riddle in Harry's vicinity, but the diary is by far the most probable because it mirrors canon.

Comment author: gjm 18 February 2015 12:19:19PM *  12 points [-]

My interpretation of that was extremely different: that Harry got riddled when he was a baby, in Godric's Hollow.

In canon, Ginny reads the diary a lot and this enables Riddle to take her over when he wants to. When he does, she's basically a puppet: it's (fully aware) Riddle scrawling on walls and summoning basilisks, and Ginny's completely unaware of it; afterwards, Ginny is basically her normal self again, with no memory of what Riddle did while operating her body.

There's no sign in HPMOR of anything like that happening to Harry. The Harry whom QQ addresses as "Tom Riddle" has (so far as we can tell) psychological continuity with the Harry we've been following through the previous hundred-plus chapters. There's no sign of "absences" like Ginny had. After being addressed as "Tom Riddle" (and, again, with no indication of any personality changes or anything) Harry resolves explicitly that he is going to do whatever he can to stop QQ. So if we are supposed to understand that the diary had some major effect on Harry, it has to have done it in a way that doesn't "mirror canon" much at all.

What I think is being described here is something more like a personality-upload from Voldemort to baby-Harry, so that what remained in Godric's Hollow that day was (at least according to Voldemort's plans) Tom Riddle implanted in baby-Harry.

(What I can't work out is whether we're supposed to understand that it went wrong, with the Riddle personality getting kinda isolated, like grit in a pearl, as Harry's "dark side", or that it worked exactly as planned and the Harry we see now is what you get when Tom Riddle's mind grows up in baby-Harry's brain, raised by his adoptive parents. I'm not even sure what the latter means exactly. Perhaps the idea is something like this: after the upload, what we get is more or less the same as what we'd have got if baby-Riddle had been raised in Harry's place, but Riddle's adult memories are also stashed away for later use and the latter are the "dark side".)

[EDITED several hours after posting to fix an embarrassing word-omission. I don't think the sense was ever unclear.]

Comment author: Vaniver 17 February 2015 03:12:40AM *  9 points [-]

Observations:

  1. Quirrell does not say what the Stone really does. Harry does, in normal speech. (Presumably Parseltongue only prevents willful lies.)
  2. "Anyone else in Hogwarts" is pretty weak, especially since Dumbledore is presumably absent, and most of the people are at the Quidditch match (where is Sprout leading the others?). Especially as Quirrell interprets Hogwarts as "castle" in Parseltongue, and "unlesss I musst" is a pretty wide exemption.

Speculation:

  1. Harry will not be saved by the power of love. (80%?)
  2. Everyone involved in the deal gets 'what they want'--that is, cooperation on the Prisoner's Dilemma with a rational agent who (somewhat) shares your source code is rational, especially when defect-defect is miserable (presumably, both of them dead). (60%?)
  3. Hermione is revived (90%?) and is an Alicorn Princess (20%?).
Comment author: hairyfigment 17 February 2015 03:31:50AM 1 point [-]

especially when defect-defect is miserable

Harry, talking about his promise to take the killer of Narcissa Malfoy as an enemy:

Look, Draco, a pledge like this is just begging to go terribly wrong somehow, you know it would go wrong if this were a play -

Comment author: Alsadius 17 February 2015 05:01:27AM *  0 points [-]

I called it long ago(well before the confession) that the killer was Dumbledore, and that this pledge would cause a rift between Harry and either Dumbledore or Draco. Not 100% sure which side Harry will come down on there, but I'd say I'm about 90% that he sides with honesty.

Comment author: TsviBT 17 February 2015 12:41:12PM 4 points [-]

(Presumably Parseltongue only prevents willful lies.)

Quirrell also claims (not in Parseltongue):

Occlumency cannot fool the Parselmouth curse as it can fool Veritaserum, and you may put that to the trial also.

It seems like what you can say in Parseltongue should only depend on the actual truth and on your mental state. What happens if I Confundus / Memory Charm someone into believing X? Can they say X in Parseltongue? If they can say it just because they believe it, then Parseltongue is not so hard to bypass; I just Confundus myself (or get someone to do it for me), tell the lie, and then cancel the Confundus. If they can't say something because it is actually false, then Parseltongue is an instant win condition. You just use binary search to figure out the truth about anything.

Or maybe Parseltongue checks the speaker for mind magic, since this is the same principle as the Dark Mark, and Salazar is not too many levels below Voldemort. Is this evidence against the "Harry was Confounded to not realize Quirrell was Voldemort" theory? I don't remember if he talked about that in Parseltongue...

Comment author: linkhyrule5 17 February 2015 02:21:47PM 10 points [-]

If Parseltongue depended only on the actual truth of the world, Voldemort would have won already, because you can then pull single bits of arbitrary information out of the aether one at a time.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 17 February 2015 03:02:21PM *  -1 points [-]

But then Harry could simply start saying, "The ssecret to vanquishh deathh iss..." and his entire mission would be over.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 17 February 2015 04:20:25PM 4 points [-]

It was designed by Salazar to help his heirs cooperate - Presumably, all the obvious ways to fuck with it are well and truly walled off, because he'd expect a bunch of them to be morons about this and try to light the awesome gift horse of a working trust engine on fire. Also presumably, it isn't an universal oracle, the world not being currently ruled by Salazar Slytherin the God-King. At a guess, it either keeps a log of your life separate from your memory, or the ability to speak parseltounge depends on an intact mind, and the only thing you are able to say in parseltounge if you do memory charms on yourself is "I'm a moron who thinks obliviate is a toy".

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 February 2015 04:24:29PM 5 points [-]

It was designed by Salazar to help his heirs cooperate

That's the story Quirrell tells Harry.

Comment author: jaime2000 17 February 2015 06:25:56AM *  12 points [-]

Why are they having a normal conversation and occasionally switching to Parseltongue to confirm the more important bits? Why not conduct the entire conversation in Parseltongue? Seems like the best way to ensure full cooperation leading to superior outcomes for both parties. Harry has already sneaked one lie past Quirrell, and he has no idea how much of what Quirrell said is true outside of the parts he deliberately chose to speak in Parseltongue.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 17 February 2015 08:11:57AM 4 points [-]

Because EY wants the chapter to be not-annoying to read, might be one good reason.

Comment author: Velorien 17 February 2015 10:39:34AM 9 points [-]

Quirrell models himself as more intelligent than Harry, and has had far more time to plan, so he expects to win in any even contest. Being able to lie grants both parties great flexibility of options, which he expects to make better use of than Harry.

Comment author: garabik 17 February 2015 08:53:50PM 1 point [-]

However, Quirrell seems to dislike lies - half truth, yes, misleading information, yes, but blatant lie is just not in his style. Whether this is an inherent feature of his character or sense of honour, or he wants to keep open the possibility to confirm his words later in Parseltongue if need be, that's an open question.

Comment author: gwern 17 February 2015 10:50:04PM 6 points [-]

Inherent feature. We're told this in chapter 51:

"You can skip this part," Harry said.

The lips twitched again, and then went flat. "Then I shall skip it. Mr. Potter, you sometimes make a game of lying with truths, playing with words to conceal your meanings in plain sight. I, too, have been known to find that amusing. But if I so much as tell you what I hope we shall do this day, Mr. Potter, you will lie about it. You will lie straight out, without hesitation, without wordplay or hints, to anyone who asks about it, be they foe or closest friend. You will lie to Malfoy, to Granger, and to McGonagall. You will speak, always and without hesitation, in exactly the fashion you would speak if you knew nothing, with no concern for your honor. That also is how it must be."

There was silence, then, for a time.

That was a price measured in a fraction of Harry's soul.

Comment author: Alsadius 17 February 2015 11:39:38AM *  15 points [-]

Parseltongue is a low-information-density language - it lacks a lot of technical terms, colloquial phrases, and the like. Communication is much faster in English.

Comment author: Anatoly_Vorobey 17 February 2015 07:53:02AM 7 points [-]

Seems a bit strange that Quirrell didn't ask Harry to confirm in Parseltongue that Harry didn't have any contingency measures beyond those Quirrell already knows about (Lesath under the cloak). In the last chapter's discussion there were theories that Cedric Diggory might be around, time-turned with Harry. Even if not, why wouldn't Q make sure H doesn't have anyone else around to help or set up any other measures? Harry's promise "shall call for no help" isn't enough, if things are already set in motion for someone to help him.

    -
Comment author: cultureulterior 17 February 2015 07:54:50AM 1 point [-]

There are two prophecies at work here that I don't understand, which even now have to be vital to the ending

  • HE IS HERE. THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY STARS IN HEAVEN. HE IS HERE. HE IS THE END OF THE WORLD.
  • Thrayen beyn Peverlas soona ahnd thrih heera toal thissoom Dath bey yewoonen

I really don't get why Quirrel is doing this knowing the prophecy of the stars.

Comment author: Velorien 17 February 2015 10:37:43AM 1 point [-]

Prophecies are told to those with the ability to fulfill or avert them, and Trelawney told her prophecy to Quirrell. Thus, he knows that his actions may be able to prevent Harry from ending the world.

Comment author: twanvl 17 February 2015 11:00:06AM 5 points [-]

I cannot be truly killed by any power known to me, and lossing Sstone will not sstop me from returning, nor sspare you or yourss my wrath. Any impetuous act you are contemplating cannot win the game for you, boy.

The last sentence was not said in parseltongue. Could it be that Quirrell used English because it is a lie, and he believes that there is something that Harry could do to win?

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 February 2015 11:15:21AM 7 points [-]

Could it be that Quirrell used English because it is a lie, and he believes that there is something that Harry could do to win?

Quirrell doesn't know whether Harry can do something he didn't think of.

Comment author: drethelin 17 February 2015 05:45:27PM 3 points [-]

Parseltongue is limited, and perhaps Quirrell felt the need to use big words like impetuous and contemplating.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 February 2015 02:03:52PM *  8 points [-]

Why does Quirrel need Harry's help to obtain the Stone? What can Harry do that can't be done by Quirrel, Sprout, Snape (who is now controlled by Quirrel), the other students present (who want to get the Stone but not to use it, bypassing the Mirror), Harry's Cloak and Time-Turner (now in Quirrel's possession), and every other resource Quirrel could have prepared (e.g. Bellatrix)?

Finally, why did Quirrel have to bargain for Harry's help, instead of having Sprout or Snape use Imperius on him?

I haven't seen any theory that explains this, but surely such a major plot point should have been hinted in advance.

ETA: Harry agrees with my interpretation that we're missing something:

Harry knew that this was too good an offer to make to someone at whom you were pointing a gun. Unless you desperately needed their help to get the Philosopher's Stone out of the magic mirror.

Comment author: HungryHippo 17 February 2015 02:14:16PM 1 point [-]

One theory voiced on the HPMOR subreddit is that Quirrell wants to use the stone to permanently transfigure himself into Harry.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 February 2015 02:52:43PM 0 points [-]

That doesn't explain why he needs the real Harry to obtain the Stone.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 17 February 2015 04:06:20PM 0 points [-]

He wouldn't need Harry to obtain the stone. He'd need Harry as a model.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 February 2015 04:58:38PM *  2 points [-]

But then why go through all the trouble of first trying to convince, and then coercing, Harry to cooperate in retrieving the Stone? He can just go get the Stone by himself, and then tackle Harry later. Or stun Harry and take his body along.

Why do the complex plot that got Harry to come there at the same time as Quirrel, potentially disrupting his maneuvers against Snape, and risk Harry's interference while obtaining the Stone?

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 17 February 2015 05:04:07PM 2 points [-]

I was too flat about that statement. It was more of a guess what they were thinking. Making more ideas up - If he retrieves the stone, then Dumbledore will be on-site very quickly. Evidence will point to Quirrell, and Harry will become inaccessible.

He needs Harry there the moment he gets the stone so he can already be Harry by the time Dumbledore shows up.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 February 2015 05:26:54PM *  2 points [-]

That still doesn't explain why he needs Harry to cooperate in obtaining the Stone. Even if it's more convenient to have Harry walking along, rather than towing his stunned body, Quirrel went to a lot of trouble to secure Harry's explicit help. He actually bargained and traded promises with him.

Which also leads me to ask: why couldn't Quirrel just make Sprout or Snape mind-control Harry using Imperius? Why did he have to bargain with him?

Comment author: UnclGhost 17 February 2015 06:05:33PM 2 points [-]

Based on Harry apparently still feeling the aura of doom when Sprout was casting spells while Imperiused in Ch. 104, it's likely that casting spells on Harry through someone else is subject to the same problems that doing it directly causes. I guess he could still use more mundane means like a tranquilizer dart and some kind of gurney, but it would be difficult to accomplish without either touching or using magic on Harry in the process.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 February 2015 07:07:08PM 0 points [-]

That's a plausible answer as to why he couldn't make Sprout or Snape cast Imperius on Harry. But it doesn't explain why he seems to need Harry's active help.

He could just put Harry into a small, nonmagical cage or box, and float the box along, without his magic ever touching Harry directly. Or he could stuff Harry into the pouch, like Harry did to him in the Azkaban arc. (Granted, Harry can't turn into a snake.) If he needed Harry to be stunned for the duration, he could have told Harry to stun himself, threatening to torture the other students if he didn't.

Comment author: avichapman 17 February 2015 09:15:29PM 10 points [-]

I just made a mental connection - probably a stupid one. The pouch's capacity was recently expanded and Cedric has yet to make an appearence...

Comment author: gjm 17 February 2015 07:02:13PM 2 points [-]

In canon, Harry is very good at resisting Imperius, even when cast by Voldemort himself.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 February 2015 07:13:20PM 1 point [-]

Good point. Although there's also whatever mind control spell Quirrel just used on Snape:

Alienis nervus mobile lignum

Which Google informs me is a quotation from Horace meaning '[puppet-]wires that others pull'.

Still, I agree it might be too hard to control Harry on short notice using intermediaries.

Comment author: Alsadius 18 February 2015 01:36:30AM 1 point [-]

In canon, Harry has also resisted even scarier magic cast by Voldemort.

Comment author: WalterL 17 February 2015 10:13:04PM 21 points [-]

I think we've got Dumbledore to thank for this one, honestly.

CanonVoldemort went to every effort to kill Dumbledore, but it seems clear that RationalistVoldemort could have murdered him at leisure. He keeps Dumbledore around as a sort of Batman to his Joker. It puts the story where he taught him not to respond to hostage taking in perspective.

Despite his disdain, Voldemort has to recognize that Dumbledore's madness is occasionally an advantage. Since he elects not to kill Dumbledore, he has to compensate for it. I'd argue that he actually enjoys it on some level.

Thus, while all logic has Voldemort dead long ago (for all the reasons Harry/Quirrel discuss) Dumbledore leaps to the conclusion that Voldemort is alive and behind everything. That is, he leaps to the correct conclusion, for no reason.

Similarly, given a belief in the existence of Voldemort somewhere in the world, any other wizard would be searching diligently and inventively. Dumbledore, by contrast, sets up a trap that couldn't be more obvious if it was a box propped up by a stick. Quirrel openly mocks it earlier in the tale.

Its a trap that should never work, and yet, here we are, with Lord Volodemort entering the trap.

Harry is, to Voldemort's mind, mostly just a subset of his own abilities. Not as smart, shackled by stupid teachings, not as magically powerful. If the creator of the defenses was some kind of RivalVoldemort there would be no need whatsoever for him to bring the potentially traitorous Harry, but the defenses were designed by Dumbledore, and will be just as stupidsmart as you'd expect.

The traps set up by faculty are more or less just foreplay. They are set up by the Snapes of the world, just weaker and dumber versions of Voldemort. But Dumbledore's might be a whole other kettle of fish.

Perhaps, in order to reach the mirror you must pass a Dementor? Its a stretch to imagine him having a dementor in the school, but maybe its trapped somehow so it can't kill students?

Maybe you have to persuade a phoenix to bring the mirror? Or casting the spell to get to it requires your life energy so that if you don't have a phoenix giving you strength you'll die in the process.

Perhaps its as simple as the magical equivalent of a rock that only Dumbledore is strong enough to life. Or it is just keyed to only open for Harry Potter, because Dumbledore irrationally believes that Harry will be the next Great Hero.

The edges of Voldemort's abilities, those minor tricks and habits that Harry has that Voldemort hasn't deigned to acquire yet, might be the key to Dumbledore's final barrier. Its worth bringing Harry along for that.

Beyond that, I think there is a bit of Steerpike syndrome here. Voldemort is probably, on some level, lonely, and Harry/Tom is useful as a sop to this.

Comment author: TobyBartels 18 February 2015 04:01:53AM 1 point [-]

Reference for Steerpike syndrome please?

Comment author: drethelin 18 February 2015 07:08:15AM 1 point [-]

It's a reference to the Gormenghast trilogy, of which one of the main characters is an isolated teenager named Steerpike.

Comment author: WalterL 18 February 2015 05:04:19PM 7 points [-]

The Gormenghast books are more or less about a castle full of what I'd call anti-rationalists. They are entirely ruled by customs passed down from prehistory, and are generally incapable of change or improvement.

Enter Steerpike, villain of the piece and scullery boy. He is, I guess I 'd call it awake, and strives to improve his lot rather than being content with what his birth dooms him to. He is resisted at every turn by the denizen's bloody minded traditionalism (Spoilers: at one point he murders the 90 year old Master of Rituals, hoping to take his place, only for his 70 year old apprentice to come creeping out of the Room of Abiding where he has been waiting for this moment his entire life.)

Steerpike ultimately descends into terrorism out of more or less pure frustration. There's an incident where his evil works are discovered, but he feels relief more than anything else, since he no longer has to pretend to swallow their dogmas. I see shades of him in Voldemort's expressed deep loathing of the ordinary folks. I think he's delighted to have Harry to talk to, despite being his enemy.

Comment author: Vaniver 17 February 2015 02:12:27PM 5 points [-]

We have a bunch of Parseltongue statements from earlier in the fic. Who wants to go back and see if any of them were lies?

Comment author: Tenoke 17 February 2015 05:02:12PM 6 points [-]

Fwiw, I am not convinced that Quirrel is definitely telling the truth there. For one, "Sslytherin not sstupid. Ssnake Animaguss not ssame as Parsselmouth. Would be huge flaw in sscheme."

Comment author: linkhyrule5 18 February 2015 08:04:16AM 1 point [-]

He's human when he talks in Parselmouth, though, and chances are the whole Harry's-a-Parselmouth-because-Voldie-is deal is carried over from canon too.

Comment author: Kawoomba 17 February 2015 04:34:03PM 4 points [-]

Harry's commitment is quite weaksauce, and it was surprising that he wasn't called on it:

I sshall help you obtain the Sstone (...) sshall not do anything I think will annoy you to no good end. Sshall call no help if I expect them to be killed by you or for hosstagess to die.

So he's free to call help as long as he expects to win the ensuing encounter. After which he could hand the Stone to a subdued Quirrell for just a moment, technically fulfilling that clause as well. Also, the "to no good end" qualifier? "Winning against Voldemort" certainly would count as a good end, cancelling that part as well.

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 February 2015 05:02:39PM 15 points [-]

Parseltongue doesn't produce binding promises. There no need to technically fulfill clauses. It doesn't function as a commitment device. It just makes someone talk frankly about his own intentions.

Harry can't provide any stronger commitment and is indeed sorry about his inability to provide a stronger commitment.

Comment author: SilentCal 17 February 2015 05:26:43PM 2 points [-]

Given EY's noticeable penchant for echoing canon, I have a general guess as to what Quirrell's plans for the schoolmaster are...

Comment author: TobyBartels 18 February 2015 04:03:36AM 1 point [-]

Well, don't be shy! We're all free to make predictions, as long as we don't rely on private or retracted information from EY.

Comment author: Macaulay 18 February 2015 04:09:11AM 8 points [-]

Snape kills Dumbledore?

Comment author: SilentCal 18 February 2015 05:38:18PM 3 points [-]

Yup.

Once you think of it, he couldn't leave that one out. There has to at least be a big nod, though the actual murder won't necessarily happen.

Comment author: Gavin 17 February 2015 06:51:01PM *  4 points [-]

Quirrel seems on the road to get the Philosopher's Stone. It's certainly possible that he will fail or Harry ( / time-turned Cedric Diggory) will manage to swipe it at the last minute. But with around 80k words left to go, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of story left if Harry gets the stone in the next couple of chapters.

I draw your attention to a few quotes concerning the Philosopher's Stone:

His strongest road to life is the Philosopher’s Stone, which Flamel assures me that not even Voldemort could create on his own; by that road he would rise greater and more terrible than ever before. (Chapter 61)

“It’s not a secret.” Hermione flipped the page, showing Harry the diagrams. “The instructions are right on the next page. It’s just so difficult that only Nicholas Flamel’s done it.” (Chapter 87)

“I was looking to see if there was anything here I could figure out how to do. I thought, maybe the difficult part about making a Philosopher’s Stone was that the alchemical circle had to be super precise, and I could get it right by using a Muggle microscope—” “That’s brilliant, Hermione!” The boy rapidly drew his wand, said “Quietus,” and then continued after the small noises of the rowdier books had died down. “Even if the Philosopher’s Stone is just a myth, the same trick might work for other difficult alchemies—” “Well, it can’t work,” Hermione said. She’d flown across the library to look up the only book on alchemy that wasn’t in the Restricted Section. And then—she remembered the crushing letdown, all the sudden hope dissipating like mist. “Because all alchemical circles have to be drawn ‘to the fineness of a child’s hair’, it isn’t any finer for some alchemies than others. And wizards have Omnioculars, and I haven’t heard of any spells where you use Omnioculars to magnify things and do them exactly. I should’ve realized that!” (Chapter 87)

So we have multiple mentions of the possibility of creating a Philosopher's Stone. We also have Quirrel's promise not to kill anyone within Hogwarts for a week. And Flamel may still be out there, with the knowledge of how he created the Stone in the first place.

All this leads to the possibility that Quirrel gets ahold of the current Philosopher's Stone, and Harry learns enough in seeing the stone in person to be able to recreate it using a combination of magic and technology.

You can't transfigure anything that doesn't exist yet, so just having a Stone doesn't mean an instant singularity. You can't just will a superwizard or an AI into existence. This leaves plenty of space for a war between two sides, both of which have permanent transfiguration at their disposal.

Comment author: UnclGhost 17 February 2015 07:33:56PM *  20 points [-]

Professor Quirrell then turned back to where the Potions Master lay sprawled, bent over and placed his wand on Professor Snape's forehead. "Alienis nervus mobile lignum."

The Defense Professor stepped back, and began to move his left fingers in the air as though manipulating a puppet on strings.

Professor Snape pushed himself up from the ground by smooth motions, and stood once more before the corridor door.

From Chapter 88: Time Pressure, Part 1, before anyone knows about the troll yet:

"You know," Harry said, as he turned his head away to stare at the ceiling illusion of a clear blue sky, "that still creeps me out sometimes."

"What does?" said Fred or George.

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

Are there any other times that Quirrell is described making similar gestures? (Note that another time he apparently controls someone else--the centaur in Chapter 101--he doesn't do this, but that may be due to the centaur actually being dead as some have speculated.) [Edit for Ch. 106: Confirmed; the centaur and Fluffy became Infieri.]

Comment author: cousin_it 17 February 2015 07:52:10PM *  1 point [-]

Does anyone else get the feeling that these "payoff" chapters are less exciting to read than the "mystery" chapters were? This isn't meant to take a stab at Eliezer, I've noticed that in many written works. Ra and Fine Structure were also more fun when they were mysterious. Worm and Pact somehow manage to avoid that, maybe because they don't rely so heavily on mystery, and have fight scenes and character drama to compensate.

Comment author: dxu 18 February 2015 01:54:13AM *  0 points [-]

Same here, unfortunately, mostly because there haven't really been any surprising revelations so far. I'm holding out hope that Eliezer is going to pull something, though. (Well, not really "holding out hope". More like I'd be extremely surprised if he didn't have something up his sleeve.)

Comment author: gjm 18 February 2015 09:12:35AM 1 point [-]

He has said that HPMOR is intended to be "solvable" and that at least one person worked out what was going on (no, I have no idea how much detail that implies) very early on. So I wouldn't be astonished to find that all the remaining Big Ideas have been guessed.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 February 2015 03:27:49AM 1 point [-]

Damn.

I had lost track of Ra until this comment implied that it was completed.

So I read the ending and was soundly disappointed. It had the same ending as an earlier short story of his.

Ah well. I guess it's time to write off sam512 for the foreseeable future.

Comment author: cousin_it 18 February 2015 11:46:50AM *  3 points [-]

When the final chapter of Ra was released, I also felt pretty disappointed, so I went back over the story, trying to figure out where it went wrong. I concluded that the turning point was Abstract War, and actually came up with an explanation of everything before Abstract War that made more sense to me than Sam's explanation. It was pretty fun! I've posted it on reddit here.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 February 2015 04:05:54PM 2 points [-]

Well done! That makes a great deal more sense.

Comment author: HungryHippo 18 February 2015 05:27:57PM *  7 points [-]

Snape's big reveal in canon had a similar effect on me, since it was more or less solved by the readers ahead of time.

IIRC, at the end of The Dark Tower series King breaks the fourth wall and basically says: are you certain you want to read the ending? It will not be as good as you expect, so you might as well stop right here and savor the journey rather than being disappointed by the destination.

Comment author: jaime2000 17 February 2015 08:17:00PM *  22 points [-]

I just realized why some spells were causing Harry dread, apprehension, and anxiety in chapter 104. It's not because Professor Sprout is controlled by Professor Quirrell (which she is), since other spells of hers fail to trigger the effect and yet one of Tonk's spells does. It's because Quirell is using metamagic to influence the outcome of the battle! He empower's Sprout's brown bolt so that it tears through Professor Snape's shield, and he quickens her stunner so that Snape can't dodge. Then he empowers Tonk's spell to ensure that she will take out Sprout.

In retrospect, this makes perfect sense. There are too many people involved, and combat is inherently chaotic; there is simply no way Quirrell can predict exactly how the fight will go. But he can be there, using gentle nudges to actively steer it towards the small region in outcome-space that ranks high in his utility function, and hope that Harry Potter is too distracted by the battle to notice (which he was; his deduction that Quirrell is behind the plot never once mentions this fact). As a bonus, this explains how Sprout can defeat Snape, when normally we wouldn't expect her to stand a chance.

Comment author: CronoDAS 17 February 2015 09:01:03PM 4 points [-]

WMG time:

Quirrell is dying because he's Tranfigured himself. (I don't know why at this point.)

Comment author: CellBioGuy 18 February 2015 03:36:06AM 5 points [-]

I still think the illness is faked to give everyone a ready suspicion as to the nature of his inevitable failure as defense professor at the end of the year, rather than the true reason.

Comment author: LauralH 18 February 2015 04:26:21AM 5 points [-]

Well some of it is faked, but he didn't intend to get caught drinking Unicorns.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 18 February 2015 07:48:01AM 1 point [-]

Too much of the illness is verified by other people. Pomfrey, for example - I can't imagine Dumbledore would leave Quirrell alone with Pomfrey and then not check her for mind magic.

Comment author: ChristianKl 18 February 2015 05:33:06PM 0 points [-]

In that case I don't see the need for drinking unicorn blood.

Comment author: CellBioGuy 18 February 2015 06:08:54PM 0 points [-]

Increasing the credibility of the fake, of course.

Comment author: b_sen 17 February 2015 10:00:29PM 2 points [-]

What could Harry use to get out of this pickle?

  • His mind, obviously, especially since negotiation is a possible action.
  • Wandless magic? (Presumably learned from Bacon's diary.) Probably not anything requiring lots of magical power, but recall from the Azkaban arc that he could dispel his own magic almost effortlessly even back then. Now that he finds second-year spells easy, he just might be able to wandlessly manage that or other spells requiring very little magical power, such as Somnium, Innervate, and the TPC. Or possibly very small transfigurations (like a millionth of a gram of botulinium toxin), since he's had so much practice with that branch of magic.
  • Anything he's already transfigured and is carrying with him. Sulphuric acid chips?
  • His control over Dementors, which he doesn't need spells for.
  • Ritual magic? He may not need a wand to perform a ritual.
  • Possibly a backup wand / Time-Turner / other useful device?
  • Mastery over his Cloak? He didn't give it to anyone as a possession.
  • Mastery / ownership of other objects? Perhaps the Philosopher's Stone also has an "owner" property?
  • Summoning a phoenix? Even if he can't get a phoenix of his own, he may be able to call one to aid him in a selfless act of heroism.
  • Plans (for help or otherwise) already set in motion? Someone might look for him at the Quidditch game (probably as part of the debate about the Snitch), realize that he's not there despite setting up the banner and being interested in the outcome of the debate, and go look for him. Or maybe he's hidden someone in his pouch, or told Cedric about what he's doing. Or due to the Bayesian Conspiracy, Draco will realize that he's been Obliviated and help Harry.

I've probably missed something, so feel free to add more in the replies.

Comment author: UnclGhost 17 February 2015 10:19:42PM 1 point [-]

As for the last possibility, he doesn't leave from the Quidditch game until around a quarter past 11, so that can't help him for another five hours or so.

Comment author: b_sen 18 February 2015 05:41:55PM 0 points [-]

True, but that doesn't mean it won't help him eventually, and he may be able to hold out for those five hours.

Or Draco might have ordered Crabbe and Goyle to come find him if he doesn't return, or set other backup plans in motion.

Comment author: ChristianKl 18 February 2015 05:34:47PM 5 points [-]

I don't think its something he'll do alone.

Flamel + Dumbeldore aren't stupid. Especially Flamel's game plan is not known to us.

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 February 2015 11:20:47PM -1 points [-]

The gun jabbed slightly forward, causing prickles of sweat to appear on Harry's forehead. "Drop your wand. Now."

Harry dropped it.

That's a mistake. The response should be to transfigure air into a very thin net of carbon nanotube that's invisible and that can be between him an Quirrell's gun. Transfiguration doesn't seem to need speaking if I remember right.

Comment author: avichapman 17 February 2015 11:44:46PM 0 points [-]

Good idea. Not enough time.

Comment author: Nornagest 17 February 2015 11:47:16PM *  12 points [-]

What happens if he just bolts and tries to use the Time-Turner as soon as possible? He gets shot, obviously, or at least shot at; but wizards seem hard to kill by mundane means, bullet wounds usually aren't immediately fatal, and fast-moving targets in close quarters are hard to hit. I think he has a good chance of survival, maybe better than if he does what the legendary dark wizard wants.

On the other hand, if future Harry suddenly appeared, Time-Turned, in the forbidden corridor with serious wounds from Muggle weapons, I can't see that doing anything other than causing a massive stink. The fact that present him and the rest of the students got to the forbidden corridor without encountering a stink may count as evidence that it wouldn't work.

Comment author: imuli 18 February 2015 12:14:23AM 8 points [-]

You cannot transfigure from air, hard physical limit. Harry tested this.

Comment author: Alsadius 18 February 2015 01:44:09AM 3 points [-]

Is a sheet of carbon nanotube so thin that it's invisible actually going to stop a bullet? And even if it does, once Quirrell realizes what happened, what are the odds Harry can keep such a wall up for more than three tenths of a second?

Comment author: ChristianKl 18 February 2015 01:32:30PM 1 point [-]

Is a sheet of carbon nanotube so thin that it's invisible actually going to stop a bullet?

Glass also manages to let light through. Carbon nanotubes are very strong. To make them invisible you just have to get the structure right and have big enough pores in the net for the wavelength of light to pass through.

what are the odds Harry can keep such a wall up for more than three tenths of a second?

The wall is Harry magic and as thus not able to be simply canceled by Quirrell. It also doesn't take that long to grab the time turner and activate it. Probably less than a second.

Comment author: Axel 18 February 2015 12:29:17AM *  3 points [-]

When Salazar Slytherin invoked the Parselmouth curse upon himself and all his children, his true plan was to ensure his descendants could trust one another's words, whatever plots they wove against outsiders.

  • You have two parents, four grandparents, eight grandparents, etc.
  • A generation is 20-25 years (depending on how young people have children)
  • Salazar Slytherin lived one thousand years ago.

In short, today either every wizard in Britain is a descendant of Salazar Slytherin or none is. It seems awfully convenient for Quirell to suddenly have a foolproof way to make Harry believe certain claims. It seems to me that the whole "snakes can't lie" thing would have been revealed when Quirell was trying to convince Harry he didn't want to kill Bahry in Azkaban. In fact, that would have shortened that particular discussion considerably, in a situation where time was essential.
It has already been established that ventriloquism and silencing charms exist and that Quirell can do silent and wandless spell casting, so the "two plus two" test could easily have been faked.

Comment author: Kindly 18 February 2015 12:38:23AM 3 points [-]

The argument from number of descendants equally applies to the question "Why isn't every wizard in Britain, or none of them, a Parselmouth?" It does not make any particular feature of being a Parselmouth more likely.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 18 February 2015 02:06:48AM 26 points [-]

.. I have a theory about that.

What is the number one piece of advice we give people about relationships? The one rule which is regarded as the key to success and happiness in romance?

Its honest communication.

Salazar's decendants can have a perfect, magically enforced, version of that. And all they have to do is marry their cousin. The family wasn't obsessed with blood purity at all, it is simply that after growing up in a household where harmony was routinely established via this glorious gift of Salazar, the very idea of intimacy with anyone that this could not be shared with was usually repugnant.

That's why Quirrel calls it a curse. It lead the entire clan down a path of inbreeding! Unintentional consequences are unintentional.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 18 February 2015 06:53:41AM -1 points [-]

It lead the entire clan down a path of inbreeding!

By all rights, Volde should be an inbred retard, not a genius dark lord.

Comment author: Subbak 18 February 2015 08:46:29AM 11 points [-]

That's not how inbreeding works, though... If one of your parents' family (in Voldie's case, his mother) has been inbred for generations but the other parents has a completely different gene pool, then you should be fine. Inbreeding just makes it more likely that you have two of the same recessive allelle (which is bad in many situations), but Voldie only got one of each from his mother.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 18 February 2015 10:41:35AM 1 point [-]

I actually do understand genetics, but I forgot that Voldie had a muggle father. Been a long time since I read canon HP.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 18 February 2015 07:12:55AM 1 point [-]

That's why Quirrel calls it a curse. It lead the entire clan down a path of inbreeding! Unintentional consequences are unintentional.

Perhaps — but in canon, Voldemort himself is not a pureblood. For that matter, his mother was not exactly raised to know how to have healthy relationships.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 18 February 2015 10:12:47AM 2 points [-]

Riddle was born out of the near-final collapse of the bloodline. Grandparents were awful because of over 500 years of insularity and intermarriage. Mother whammies cute boy as escape tactic / because she's just seriously fucked up. But because his mother conceived him with someone not from the family, he ends up the first scion in, well, most likely centuries to be born with good health. Physically, anyway.

Comment author: Tripitaka 18 February 2015 06:05:04PM 1 point [-]

Canon!Salazar is a bloodpurist already. He and the other founders of Hogwarts have a big row about it- who should be able to attend Hogwarts? Only the pureblooded! Apparently this is the reason why he built the chamber of secrets in the first place... Awesome theory otherwise.

Comment author: UnclGhost 18 February 2015 01:27:17AM *  23 points [-]

Iirc, in canon, the Gaunt family (Voldemort's family) was the last living set of descendants of Salazar Slytherin, and they were very inbred by the time of the books, so it appears that JKR at least provided some workaround for this.

As for the reliability of Parseltongue, there's some precedent for it apparently serving as truth-enforcement. Chapter 49:

"I am not regisstered," hissed the snake. The dark pits of its eyes stared at Harry. "Animaguss musst be regisstered. Penalty is two yearss imprissonment. Will you keep my ssecret, boy? "

"Yess," hissed Harry. "Would never break promisse."

The snake seemed to hold still, as though in shock, and then began to sway again.

[...]

"You ssay nothing, to no one. Give no ssign of expectancy, none. Undersstand?"

Harry nodded.

"Ansswer in sspeech."

"Yess."

"Will do as I ssaid?"

"Yess."

Professor Quirrell is known for his aversion to unnecessarily redundant conversation, so it seems likely here that he wants to be sure Harry is telling the truth. Later, in Chapter 66:

"Lessson I learned is not to try plotss that would make girl-child friend think I am evil or boy-child friend think I am sstupid," Harry snapped back. He'd been planning a more temporizing response than that, but somehow the words had just slipped out.

It would have helped Quirrell convince Harry in Azkaban, but it's possible he thought it would be more useful for Harry not to know yet how much information his unwittingly-true answers were giving Quirrell.

Comment author: cogitoprime 18 February 2015 02:55:26AM *  3 points [-]

Realization: Not only is it suspicious that Harry finally makes the Quirrell=Voldemort connection almost immediately after Snape hits him with an anti-Confundus spell but the fact that Quirrell hasn't obliviated Harry yet is positive proof that he intends Harry to know that Q=V for the time being. For what purpose?

Comment author: TobyBartels 18 February 2015 04:20:27AM 2 points [-]

Quirrell can't safely cast spells on Harry.

Comment author: cogitoprime 18 February 2015 04:34:16AM 2 points [-]

Oops, he could just have Snape do it though or wake up someone else to do it.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 18 February 2015 11:52:24AM -2 points [-]

.. It's possible Harry can't be obliviated. Salazar wanted his descendants to have a trust engine. Memory charms are a good way to break such an engine. So he may have taken steps to prevent that. Heck, Occlumency might suffice all on it's own to put a stop to that trick.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 18 February 2015 06:28:31PM 1 point [-]

If Parseltongues couldn't be Obliviated, I would expect that to become something known in legend. Memory Charms get thrown around like candy, after all.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 18 February 2015 06:49:46PM *  3 points [-]

Do we know it isn't? I mean, you have a very good point, and I didn't think of that problem - it is really not a secret you could plausibly keep for a thousand years, even with flawless commitment to family loyalty, because sooner or later someone will try to obliviate one of you and get away both alive and with their memory intact.

But on the other hand, Parsel-tongue seems like the kind of thing that's going to just accumulate rumors about it's properties like it was coated in velcro. Picking out which of the properties attributed to that ability are actually real from all the baseless rumors might be quite difficult. Especially if there are other defenses against obliviate.

.. And if defenses are possible, they have to exist. About 3 seconds after someone told me about memory charms and obliviate, I'd personally make "Become Safe From That Shit" priority number one, They're skincrawlingly, mindwarpingly awful spells. The kind of thing where if there isn't any other counters, I'd move to mars to preclude the possibility.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 18 February 2015 03:00:56AM 2 points [-]

Did Harry ever give serious thought to whether his strong desire to never be responsible for a death actually makes sense when he's going to have to deal with violent situations?

Comment author: linkhyrule5 18 February 2015 07:43:22AM 0 points [-]

Well, it seems to be axiomatic. It's not a matter of "being responsible for a death" so much as "death is bad." Even in a violent situation, the ideal is to save everyone's life.

As he then says, though, if you can't save everyone, you have no right playing batman.

Comment author: gRR 18 February 2015 06:08:09AM 4 points [-]

I am confused about how Philosopher's stone could help with reviving Hermione. Does QQ mean to permanently transfigure her dead body into a living Hermione? But then, would it not mean that Harry could do it now, albeit temporarily? And, he wouldn't even need a body. He could then just temporarily transfigure any object into a living Hermione. Also, now that I think of it, he could transfigure himself a Feynman and a couple of Einsteins...

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 18 February 2015 06:49:19AM 0 points [-]

Transfiguring someone into existence just so they can die a few hours later would certainly be regarded as dark arts. If Harry ends the transfiguration on Hermione's dead body, they QQ can use it as a template, whereas it might not be possible to transfigure Feynman for the same reason you can't transfigure a lightsaber.

Comment author: CellBioGuy 18 February 2015 07:26:01AM *  8 points [-]

Hypothesis:

Quirrel will restore Hermione to life. He will also gain access to a Hermione template that he can use on inanimate matter to create more of her to threaten Harry with the torture of.

This doesn't even require him to have the stone. It would work perfectly well with temporary copies too.

Comment author: Subbak 18 February 2015 08:49:55AM 4 points [-]

If this was feasible then all Dark Wizards would probably be using temporary clones of their minions to do their bidding instead of real minions.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 18 February 2015 11:30:31AM 8 points [-]

There are three possibilities here:

1) It takes longer to clone someone than the transfigureation lasts, so by the time you have cloned their feet, their head has detransfigured. (This assumes that humans are so complex that you have to concentrate on one part of them at a time, like Harry's pencil.) In this case, cloning is useless.

2) It takes longer to clone someone than the transfigureation lasts, but the time-limit starts once the transfigureation is complete. In this case, cloning minions is still useful for increasing numbers before a battle, or for suicide missions, but the dark lord would also have to work out that the body needs to be kept cold (otherwise parts of it would die while you are transfiguring other parts) and then warmed and brought to life with a defibrillator. Its quite possible no-one would ever have thought of this, and had the skill and moral flexibility to implement it.

3) It takes less time to clone someone than the transfigureation lasts. In this case, the earth would quickly be overrun by self-replicating minions.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 18 February 2015 11:43:42AM 0 points [-]

Right now, Quirrel holds all the cards, certainly against Harry, and Dumbledoor has shown himself to be immune to blackmail.

But maybe later.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 18 February 2015 09:56:16AM *  25 points [-]

Quirrell will be killed by Harry at the end -- but this is all a part of the plan.

Suppose that Quirrell is not the original Riddle, but is just another Riddle's copy. If Quirrell and Harry are both copies of the original Riddle, the original Riddle had no reason to prefer Quirrell's life to Harry's life.

The story about a good hero saving the world by defeating a horrible villain: he did not have to fake it. He could make it real, by letting two of his own copies fight against each other. Realistic hero Harry will be better than a fake hero; he will be more authentic; there will be no risk of discovering his secret in the future.

Just like Harry had a magically induced blind spot in his mind, also Quirrell can be manipulated. (Memory changes, imperius, unbreakable oath... there are many options.) This is why Quirrell does not kill Harry, why he teaches him things, any why he is making him angry at the end. This all is Quirrell's purpose; he is just a tool to prepare Harry for the role of king of the world. Quirrell is not optimizing for Quirrell; he is optimizing for Riddle.

So, this is what I imagine: First Riddle created his copy, Quirrell. Maybe with a specific purpose, maybe just as a backup copy. But later he was not satisfied with the outcome, when he realized that his new memories will not be preserved. So he later created another copy, Harry, killing himself in the process. Before that, he somehow magically commanded Quirrell to train Harry for the role of the king.

Quirrell may not be aware of this, because he was magically brainwashed. This is the power he knows not, the power that will cost him his life at the end. He is actually magically forbidden from killing Harry.

Not sure if the original Riddle was a sociopath (that would explain why he doesn't mind his two copies fighting to death against each other), or whether Quirrell's personality is another effect of the magic, preparing him to be the perfect villain.

Anyway, when Harry outsmarts and kills Quirrell at the end... this is exactly what Riddle has planned from the beginning. This was his plan for becoming a hero. (Maybe there will be a moment when the victorious Harry/Riddle will regain all original Riddle's memories. Or maybe not, because that could make him behave less authentically afterwards. Or maybe yes, because discovering that your favorite teacher was actually Lord Voldemort and defeating him is the most appropriate moment for a minor personality change.)

EDIT: Oh, now it's obvious what is in the mirror, any why Harry has to be there. The mirror contains Riddle's memories that are to be implanted in Harry soon. By the way, Dumbledore already knows many of these things, and has his own plans.

Comment author: Vaniver 18 February 2015 03:17:56PM -1 points [-]

If Quirrell and Harry are both copies of the original Riddle, the original Riddle had no reason to prefer Quirrell's life to Harry's life.

By this reasoning, 2 Horcruxes is as many as 7.

Quirrell may not be aware of this, because he was magically brainwashed. This is the power he knows not, the power that will cost him his life at the end. He is actually magically forbidden from killing Harry.

This seems possible. (The other details, as always, seem to reduce the probability.)

Comment author: Gondolinian 18 February 2015 05:43:28PM *  1 point [-]

Beneath the trapdoor was a gigantic plant, something like an enormous dieffenbachia with wide leaves emerging from the central stem like a spiral staircase, but darker-colored than a normal dieffenbacchia, and with tendril-like vines emerging from the central stem and hanging down.

Misspelling of dieffenbachia.