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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116
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 116.
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.)
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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.
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Comments (302)
Adding to my previous prediction comment:
Predictions:
Harry did at least one plot-relevant thing in the time we haven’t seen (between him time-turning back at the graveyard in Chapter 115 and returning to the Quidditch match for Chapter 116). 80%
Harry intentionally made his scar bleed in Chapter 116. 95% (Perhaps using Muggle special effects?)
Someone will see through Harry’s acting (in Chapter 116 at the Quidditch match), whether by deducing things themselves or being told some part of what really happened, by the end of the story. 90%
Draco will figure out that Harry was involved in Voldemort’s recent defeat. 70% (This does not specify how he figures it out, although Harry has left several big clues besides his bad acting. For example, the stone in his ring changing colour before Voldemort dies and him falling to his knees only when he hears the explosion rather than 20 seconds earlier.)
Some thought in-universe will be given to saving Lucius from death by Harry’s partial Transfiguration by the end of the story. 75%
The "luminous white quiver running over the holly" and "drifting motes of silver light like tiny specks of Patronus Charm" when Harry Obliviates Voldemort in Chapter 115 are not normal for Obliviation. 90%
The "luminous white quiver running over the holly" and "drifting motes of silver light like tiny specks of Patronus Charm" when Harry Obliviates Voldemort in Chapter 115 indicate something. 80%
Obliviated Voldemort will retain the memory of at least one instance of casting the starlight spell for Harry. 50%
Harry will insist that Hermione learn to protect her mind. 75%
The following seems like a very obvious observation, but I don't recall seeing it made so far.
Tom Riddle Jr #1 (aka Lord Voldemort, aka Quirinus Quirrell) attempted to create an intelligent being in his own image, with the intention that it would share his values and cooperate with him in bringing about the sort of future he wanted.
This didn't go well, for reasons including (1) that Tom Riddle Jr #2 turned out not to share TR#1's values after all, and (2) that TR#2 developed new abilities TR#1 never suspected and that TR#2 was able to use against TR#1 when they happened to come into conflict.
Oh, and TR#2 might just destroy the world.
Application of all this to a problem Eliezer is known to be interested in is left as an exercise to the interested reader.
(The suggestion that Harry might be kinda like an UFAI has been made here before and my response was that Quirrelmort was a better candidate. But Quirrelmort is probably out of the picture at this point.)
I've argued before that HPMOR probably includes some kind of mind/body dualism. It occurs to me that an interesting experiment is about to be performed.
The body of Hermione Granger has been infused with the life and magic of Harry Potter. I assume for narrative reasons that Hermione will wake up as Hermione. But a copy of Harry could wake up in Hermione's body instead.
The mechanisms behind a person' life force, magic force, and mind are unknown to us. We don't also don't know whether or to what extent these aspects of a person are separate or connected. It should be assumed throughout this post that I am talking about the minds of magical people, and that muggles could be a separate case.
If Hermione wakes up as Hermione after being resurrected by Harry's life force and magic force I will conclude:
A mind is probably not made up only of a person's life force and/or magic force. The only exception I can think of is if the mind runs on a substrate of your life and/or magic force but the Patronus 2.0 or resurrection process strip that information out of the projected life and magic, passing the substrate but not the pattern on it.
Either the mind has at least something to do with the body OR magic will, upon resurrection, retrieve the mind that is supposed to go with the body OR Harry's intent is sufficient to establish what was supposed to happen here.
Related to #1, atomic souls in the sense of "an animating force that contains a person's life, magic, and mind all in one non-physical object that persists beyond that person's death" would be ruled out. Life beyond death would not be ruled out, but souls could not be things with no smaller components if they exist at all.
I would update to consider possibilities like "your mind is just your brain but magic stores it in other dimensions or on a magical substrate when required" more likely than I previously did.
If Hermione wakes up as a copy of Harry in Hermione's body I will conclude:
Mind/body monism is almost certainly false. Your mind is not your brain in any sense; the brain is at best an interface that the mind uses or a home that it resides in. Monism could only be rescued if magic turned Hermione's brain into Harry's brain during the resurrection process.
Your mind either is inseparable from your life and/or magic or it is a pattern on a life/magic substrate that is transmitted with that subtrate through the Patronus 2.0 resurrection process.
I will update to consider atomic souls as described above to be more likely than I previously did.
Separately, in a world with mind/body monism, I wonder whether regeneration as a magic that always transfigures you back into yourself would prevent learning. Probably not. Magic tends to have the intended effect rather than a strictly mechanistic one.
(edited for formatting and grammar)
Also if Hermione wakes up as a copy of Harry:
4 - Harry and most of the HPMOR readers will be extremely dismayed at this development.
"No, what you remembered was how you considered lining up all the blood purists and guillotining them. And now you are telling yourself you were not serious, but you were. If you could do it this very moment and no one would ever know, you would. "
The Sorting Hat sees the future! Tom lined up the blood purists and guillotined them, and no one will ever know.
Not all blood purists are death eaters. And quite possibly not all the death eaters were blood purists.
In fairness, Tom#1 lined them up and Tom#2 guillotined them. I'm sure that makes all the difference.
The stage seems to be set for a sequel adventure series, The Three Immortals. Three great heroes, each blessed with a fragment of immortality, work together to fend off the forces of destruction and bring true immortality to all of humanity.
Unicorn Girl, filled with the life-giving, regenerative powers of two noble magical creatures. Her mind captures everything that she sees, with amazing fidelity, while the purity of her heart pulls her to do what's right with similar fidelity. Some call her "mudblood", in honor of the ancient myths about the creation of man from earth, because the power to re-create herself flows continuously through her veins.
Mr. Physics, the culmination of the great Peverall line which has sought immortality for generations, is the heir to many great and powerful magical artifacts. But it is his deep and detailed knowledge of the laws of the universe which grants him his greatest power - the power to make anything out of anything, even reshaping his own body. He has made a solemn vow to protect humanity, with Unicorn Girl as his moral compass.
The mysterious Cloud has dark secrets which are hidden even from himself, but his mind still holds a wealth of ancient lore to share and an intellect so sharp it can cut through any facade or riddle... except perhaps his own past. This great mind is backed up, a hundred times over, in a vast network which allows him to be reborn in full force should his body ever fail him. The first to reach immortality, Cloud helped bring both his companions into their powers.
What so-called forces of destruction would dare stand in their way?
Well, for a start there is the Phoenix Sage, that fallen champion of Light sworn to protect mankind from the "curse" of immortality at any cost. Once sealed away beyond time and space, he now returns to seek his vengeance, wielding both ancient lore and the misguided adoration of the masses as tools in his quest to end our heroes' ambition. With his revival, ally after ally is falling back under his spell, lured in by honeyed words of false wisdom and by memories of the days when he shone so bright. How will the Three Immortals expose his hypocrisy and defeat him, when he has managed to corrupt even the very symbol of Light and immortality, the Phoenix itself?
Hermione the Hi-Fi Heiress of Hufflepuff and Harry the Humanist
I would watch this.
Questions I still have:
Because it wasn't a throwaway anymore. His plan was to take over magical Britain as Voldemort, and have both the 'true' respect that comes from fear of what he can do to people and the pleasure of killing idiots whenever he wants. (And possibly to exterminate the Muggle world, but first things first.)
Yes. When he went into the room with Hermione's body, he turned the time turner and transfigured her body into a ring while also transfiguring something else (presumably something very small) into a copy of Hermione's body. He then hid from his past self and left the room just after his past self entered. After the transfiguration wore off, the 'body' dissapeared.
Yes, but he could do all of that with a single twist.
Nothing. They are no longer counting on him to protect Harry from a returned Voldemort. Unless you mean whether he is going to evolve as a person and maybe develop a love life.
I suspect it was only an example of how yes, Potterverse magic can be that destructive (something we would not guess based on canon).
Unlikely. Knowing the Killing Curse is perfectly legal, and a lot of people have managed to learn it even though it is not taught in school. Come to that, the information we have suggests that it is also perfectly legal to use, just not against humans (unless they are Death Eaters, assuming the Monroe Act hasn't been repealed).
Because Harry has a lifetime's worth of lost/repressed Tom Riddle memories. We know that they're still in there somewhere, because he recovers the memory of his imprinting and of the locations of Voldemort's five "elemental" horcruxes.
Hey what ever happened with Snape's complicated potion in the Chamber of Secrets? Was that just a red herring?
Edit: I mean the other chamber.
Nitpick: That's not the Chamber of Secrets.
Oh yeah, forgot the first book of canon ends in this Chamber of Secrets Jr.
It was an excuse to have two characters talk about the plot - doesn't seem like there was anything more to it.
Above is the Doyalist reason, and almost certainly the root reason.
The Watsonian reason was that it would force Voldemort to waste an hour in the preparation, making any attempt to steal the Stone take an hour longer. As traps go, it's reasonably clever.
The potion did serve its in-story purpose of banishing the flames blocking the doorway, after all, so it's not like Voldemort spent that time on the potion and then used his wand to take care of the flames.
Come to think of it, what Harry said was mostly true. It's just that he omitted the part that the Tom Riddle who killed Death Eaters was known to magical world as Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, that Hermione followed him by means of being attached to his toe and that only the weapon which "destroyed" LV was first transfigured by Hermione.
I'm curious a bit about how he achieved the trick with the scar. Was it just by prodding? By taking/applying anticoagulant? DId he ask Moody to help him with it (apart from other things to cover the real story)?
I assumed with a blade, his fingernails, or minor magic... Everyone's eyes were on the game.
I thought it was bleeding because of the magical resonance that was actually happening at that time when other Harry hit LV with the stuporfy.
That magical resonance didn't make the scar bleed the first time the scar encountered it, did it? If so, what happened to the blood?
My first thought was about the centuries-old theatre trick: Harry hides a few drops of red paint in one hand, presses that hand on his forehead because “the scar hurts” … and voila, a bleeding scar.
Your thought seems simpler, though, as well as plausible:
(chapter 114; although I’m not quite sure whether that really refers to blood from his scar, or just garbled sensory input caused by the resonance)
I'd say your first thought was right.
I read this as metaphorical, with Harry the Slytherin-just-kidding-Ravenclaw going Slytherin, but I don't see exactly how that fits.
The interpretation where the Slytherins are playing to honor their fallen professor is much more straightforward.
Okay, Harry is really overdoing it here. It would have been much safer to pretend utter ignorance of everything, or at least to limit his reaction to falling over. The scene as set will cause sufficient theorizing without trying to force a particular narrative.
On a meta level: Getting this scene from a bystander means they are not in the mirror. So that's that.
I.. also just realized that "Flamel" can't possibly be dead. The rite Voldemort used on Hermione was not one of his own devising, but a piece of lore well known enough to have a usual result. "Flamel" had the stone of permanency for either 600 years, or much longer than that. And has more lore than Voldemort.
The best creature to assume the essence of from a defensive standpoint isn't a troll or a unicorn. Tough, heck, if there is no downside to just stacking things, maybe she did. The creature in the potterverse with the most absolute defense is the phoenix. Fiendfire? Firetravel away. AK? Respawn and laugh. So Dumbledore may have seen Flamel die, but that means absolutely nothing.
.. depending how the sacrifice works, this might not even hurt the phoenix you are using! Well, permanently anyway.
Had more lore than Voldemort. Legilimency is fun.
Yhea, that's not a workable approach. Seriously, Flamel is centuries old and has had the key to eternal life for all of that. and the largest hoard of lore on the planet for most of it. Trying to legilimency that mind has the most likely result of you becoming a drooling vegetable. Certainly, its not going to actually work. If it did, it would be point 1 on every single aspiring dark lords to-do list. That's actually my main reason for thinking "Not dead". A lot. Really, just a an absurd number, of people must have already tried this. It doesn't even matter what "It" is. Someone tried that one already. And failed. If Voldemort had attempted it in person? Maaaaybee. A hired hit? Nope.
I agree with your assessment of how powerful Perenelle/Flamel (side note: need a good portmanteau a la Quirrellmort) should be, having been able to outwit Baba Yaga in her sixth year and then having six hundred years of excellent leverage to accumulate lore and also maybe play with what the stone can do.
That objection notwithstanding, the most plausible non-Voldemort killer would be Bellatrix, using her superpower of very strict obedience to orders like "Just use AK and do not hesitate for any reason".
It's not Perenelle, it's still Baba Yaga, who killed a sixth-year dark witch, stole her identity, and faked her own death.
The odds of that being true are steadily falling, if only because there aren't many chapters left in which to have that revelation, and it's hard to see how it would improve the plot at this point.
On the contrary, tthe odds are increasing, since we're running out of opportunity for this deduction from the text to be contradicted. (^_^)
Perenelle's surname is also Flamel. (You could use a portmanteau for Perenelle/Nicolas.)
Nicolelle?
Flamelle.
I'm going with this.
The relevant section (Ch 108):
Perenelle's safety relied on the Stone's uniqueness and hiddenness, which is no longer a factor as far as Quirrell is concerned.
The obvious plan is to steal Flamel's lore and then induce Flamel to commit suicide. Legilimency serves for both purposes. This may be blocked by Occlumency or Dumbledore's intervention, but using a controlled minion to simply kill Flamel seems to go against point 1.
So what mechanism do you suggest Voldemort used, in light of the above quote?
I read "another" as someone besides Quirrell. I don't see how that disagrees with, say, V reading Flamel's mind and then Bellatrix AKing F, or V reading F's mind and then commanding F to kill themself, or so on.
The most obvious interpretation is that V just sent B to kill F, or Owled F a hand grenade, or so on. But I don't see why V would prefer that option, especially given that even in the world where V has F's lore, V would want Dumbledore (at least) to believe that F's lore is gone.
Shorter point: Your argument supposes that Harry - at age 11 - has mental defenses better than Flamel at age >600. Seriously, no. Yes, the resonance, but if Legitimancy was that powerful, he would just have someone else dig through Harry's skull.
It's almost as if Harry is a mental clone of the most powerful Legilimens in recorded history.
ಠ_ಠ
That would require getting a hold of and killing a Phoenix, which would be difficult even for Quirrel.
Not Quirrell, but Flamel, over 600 years.
Prediction 1: Hermione will soon harrow Azkaban. Why wouldn't she? She's all but immortal, now.
Prediction 2: Time-travel and memory-charm shenanigans incoming. Evidence:
Harry weirdly ignored the missing recognition code on LV's forged message.
Cedric considered in Harry's plans, and his Time-Turner mentioned, then seemingly forgotten.
Death-Eaters all dead, but no faces observed.
Flamel asserted dead, but we didn't see it, and LV explicitly didn't kill him personally.
Dumbledore thinks in stories, yet we're supposed to believe he's surprised when the villain reveals he's captured the hero and his equipment (Harry and the Cloak), just like villains always catch heroes and take their stuff near the end (see: Frodo Baggins, Luke Skywalker).
Hermione has been asleep the whole time, neither giving nor receiving information.
Questions:
did Harry tell Cedric to do certain things before Harry left? Did Harry tell Cedric to Obliviate Harry afterward so Harry could play his part convincingly? What did Harry most likely tell Cedric to do?
who will do the Time-Turning, Hermione, Cedric, or Harry?
who will be saved? Obvious candidates include Flamel, Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy, maybe all the anonymous Death-Eaters.
if you were Hermione and had a Time-Turner and the Stone and the Cloak and six hours to save everybody but Voldemort, Quirrell and Macnair, how would you do it? (Do you need the help of someone who can Obliviate well? Do you need partial Transfiguration?)
This is not how (Harry's) recognition code works. It is used to identify exact(ish) copies of himself because he is the only one - barring magical mental shenanigans - that can immediately recognize it. Writing it down on a piece of paper and then giving that piece of paper to someone else would defeat the purpose entirely.
The "potato" code, yes.
But knowing that Harry is "be prepared" so much that he prepared a recognition code when he didn't think he would ever use it, and then had been nearly a year with a time-turner, and knowning about Oblivatiate, it's quite surprising that he didn't device a recognition code to recognize a message sent either by a future self to his past self (time-turner) or from his past self to his future self (Obliviate).
The cryptographic solution to this problem is to publicize related codes derived in such a way that the possessor of the secret code can recognize the derivation, but bystanders can't use them to rederive the secret code.
It's probably a bit much to expect Harry to use that in its strong form -- most of the relevant math was known in 1991, but it only rose to prominence with the Internet, and it's quite laborious by hand -- but there's probably a similar ad-hoc scheme he can use that'd provide reasonably strong authentication against a bunch of cryptographically naive wizards.
The fact that he uses prime factorization as his test for "can use you time turner to solve computationally hard problems" is evidence that he did know about prime number based cryptography, not strong evidence, but evidence still, since the prime-based crypto is the most common reason people are interested in having fast ways to factor primes.
How much security could one expect from a mental PRNG? Simple, RNGs go back many decades so Harry could use it easily if he knew of them and thought of the application, mathematically breakable but only with knowledge of the algorithms & more samples than Harry realistically ever needs...
Does it need to be pure mental ? In some cases yes, but if he has time to carefully write himself a note, he probably has time to roll dices or write number on pieces of paper, fold them, mix them, and draw one at random. Or take a random book and look at a random letter of a random page (using some correction algorithm to deal with the difference of letter frequency).
For all practical uses x'=(x*8+1) mod 49 is a simple PRNG that can be executed mentally easily. If you seed it with the next best number you see it gives suitably random numbers for every-day purposes (and when no dice are available). Note that this is taken from TAoCP by Knuth. I use it for fair choices and mental story telling.
It's not hard to generate random numbers in your head in real life. Generate 5 or 6 "random" numbers from 0 to X-1, add them, and take the result mod X.
I don't like things which use apparatuses because they introduce a dependency (and since this scheme is for use in extreme/unusual circumstances, it's especially likely that Harry would not have leisure time or access to his pouch) and they make part of the process observable, hence, easier to realize the existence of & reverse-engineer.
A fully mental PRNG is doable under all circumstances in under a second and is unobservable except via Legilimency (which if it isn't blocked, means one is screwed anyway since one can just be False-memory-charmed into remembering having done the verification*).
* Kripkenstein would approve!
The Cedric situation hints strongly at information control, maybe to deal with the six-hour limit on Time-Turners.
Being Hermione makes this harder. There's a way to do it: find a morgue, transfigure the bodies into simulacra of the Death Eaters, give permanency with the Stone, raise them as Inferi, then use Horcrux 1.0 castings with a respawning Hermione as fuel to copy the original Death Eaters' mind-states. But Hermione doesn't have the power, doesn't know that kind of Dark magic, and has way too many ethical scruples; and we don't know the Horcrux enchantment in enough detail to know that it's exploitable in that way. (You don't need the Horcruces to fool physical examination, but I assume Voldemort has some way of sensing people's minds or magic.)
It also might not account for everything it needs to, given that Harry feels what I assume to be their deaths on-page. That could be the Horcrux enchantment dissipating, though.
Or, a simpler solution: travel back six hours, Obliviate Voldemort while he's on the toilet (he could probably resist Imperius at full power), Imperius him to do everything Harry remembers that involves personal agency except summon his mooks, then false-memory-charm Harry into thinking thirty-six Death Eaters were present when they weren't. Take office as Hogwarts' first Professor of Retconjuration.
Prediction 1:
Huh? Hermione is a rule follower. She wouldn't destroy Azkaban if she had a button she could press that would do so. Also she can't kill even one Dementor, or even cast a patronus to prevent one from killing her.
Prediction 2:
Don't think so, remaining story too short for such shenanigans.
She started as a rules follower. Then Self-Actualisation happened.
She also knows exactly what it's like to be an innocent sentenced to Azkaban for a crime they didn't commit, and how easy it is for such a thing to happen. You can't go through an experience like that without re-evaluating some things about how you see the world.
The point of the above post, I believe, is that there is nothing stopping her from learning to cast Patronus 2.0, at which point it's plausible that the infinite unicorn blood would replenish her life-force so killing Dementors wouldn't end up draining it all.
It's not entirely clear how Hermione's troll/unicorn stuff interacts with the depletion of life-force necessary to fuel the Patronus. That said, she has a Horcrux, so at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. And if Harry can eventually destroy Azkaban, Hermione certainly can.
I'm skeptical. If dementors really do destroy your soul then having a horcrux may not be helpful against them. I'm a fan of taking V's wand down to the pit, in fact.
If Dementors really do destroy your soul, how would anyone know?
No magic burst at death would be one prediction to check, though not conclusive. You could test it with Horcrux 2.0, though no one has had the opportunity to do that before now. The fact that Voldemort has expressed uncertainty about whether he is capable of surviving dementors, and that he is relying upon escaping from Quirrel's body in time to survive dementors points in the direction of him believing that a dementor might be capable of taking out him and his whole horcrux network in one shot.
None of that is conclusive, but it's all suggestive and supports the popular version of what dementors do.
The thing about magic burst is that Dementors drain the target's magic anyway. It's entirely plausible that if a Dementor kills you, it sucks away your magic in the process, or at least enough of it to prevent a magic burst.
This story will collapse after a very few prior incantums on Quirrelmort's wand by the investigators.
Iff there is an investigation.
Given what we know about the wizarding world, I’m not so sure that there will be one.
And let's not forget the kind of people who seem to be doing the investigating around here: "Burnt corpse? Roof of the house blown off? Baby with scar on forehead? Must have been the first ever Killing Curse backfire."
Dumbledore was the one who investigated that...
But the facts I listed were publically available, and apparently that's the best conclusion anyone else could draw. (and we know Dumbledore didn't tell anyone his conclusion, because even Moody didn't know)
Since Dumbledore didn't give anyone else access to an undisturbed scene, it's merely the best conclusion that anyone could draw who wasn't an actual professional investigator / smart person.
Actual professional investigators would know not to come to any conclusion without actually investigating the scene. (Whether or not they trusted Dumbledore to investigate is a different matter.)
Smart people would think:
And he had very good reason to not release his true hypothesis to the public.
Last spell cast with Quirrell's wand was the acid for the plant.
Was just about to ask where the switchover occurred.
There was an AK before then, as well as infuriating (?) fluffy.
That won't look good.
The can only check the very last spell.
They will have to find the wand first:
QuirrelMort's wand is in Quirrel's hand.
Voldemorts wand is the one that Harry took.
Yeah, and not just that. The magical equivalents to forensic science would have to be terrible indeed if this works, with a lot of fail from intelligent people like Bones, Moody, or for that matter Snape.
I'm kinda hoping that what we're actually heading for in the next chapters will be some kind of payoff to this:
PS. I wonder what an analytic charm cast on Harry's "bleeding" scar would show.
Yup. Part of my justifications to Harry setting the stage in 115 were (from right before this):
After rereading, I beleive that Mr White is Lucius Malfoy. Not only is the name an allusion to his hair, he is said to be less useful than he was in the past due to the fact that V will soon rule openly. In the past Lucius was V's puppet in the Wizengamot.
Mr Write then proceeds to sacrifice most of his magic to bind Harry Potter. I suppose with him dead, this doesn't matter.
Voldemort's greatest fear is death. Death's greatest fear is Harry Potter.
You know, we still don't know if Death thinks, and whether there are souls. You might be actually correct.
If Harry's right about the effect that transfiguring the stunned Voldemort will have, won't the wards identify "the Defense Professor" as still alive?
Given that Voldemort is the first known wizard to successfully move between bodies, it's unlikely that the wards would have been calibrated to track that sort of thing.
Interesting hypothesis... but if the wards didn't identify Harry as the "Defense Professor", and identified the troll as "Defense Professor". So I guess the wards identify the bodies more than the "spirit" inhabiting them, which means they won't recognize Voldemort now that he left Quirrel's body to his original snake-like body.
I guess the only other evidence we have is that the Map, using the wards, would (implicitly) alternate between showing him as QQ and TR depending on whether QQ was being actively possessed, but as far as we know reported relatively consistently on the presence of the Defense Professor, such that it was a surprise to Dumbledore that the wards reported him being the troll. We do know that the wards are able to remain aware of identity even through transfiguration, as shown with both the troll and the unicorn.
It seems like that's about as consistent with the hypothesis "the wards counted QQ's body, QQ's suppressed consciousness, TR's consciousness, and the troll as the Defense Professor" as it is with "the wards just counted QQ's body and the troll as the Defense Professor". It comes down to whether it's more likely that the wards use the simpler strategy of tracking bodies (as Velorien said) since there would be little reason to track spirits/consciousnesses, or that they target your magical "self" as well as the Map seems to do, possibly based on some fundamental aspect of magical self-ness.
Of course, all this is even assuming the wards track the deaths of professors. It seems like the sort of thing you'd want wards to do, but I can't think of anywhere that that's been confirmed. We do know that the wards didn't report that the Defense Professor died after the troll died, so if it does keep track of the deaths of professors, it doesn't count as death when some living portion of "the Defense Professor" is still alive.
I just noticed something:
Chapter 79:
Chapter 108:
It seems like Dumbledore knows quite a bit more than Voldemort thought. Did he know Q=V and HJPEV=TMR?
And finally, Chapter 110:
Always? That's an odd turn of phrase. Who was elsewhere?
I've been wondering about this for a while, but never had a chance to do the required detective work. Were Harry and the Defense Professor in the castle at the time? If so, when Dumbles said "Find Tom Riddle..." he most definitely learned that HP and QQ were both Tom Riddles.
So... were they in the castle at the time? Or was QQ at St. Mungo's or the DMLE?
At the time when Dumbledore uses the map, Harry is in Hogwarts, investigating, while QQ is at the DMLE, being investigated.
Thought so. Seems like a pretty close call to me. Thanks.
Although, really, it seems a bit contrived. If QQ was identified to the wards as the defense professor, wouldn't that be what the Hogwarts security system sees?
I'd read it as "Defense Professor" being a role with a package of permissions being assigned to a user. The map shows usernames, so to speak, not what roles or permissions they've been assigned in some other portion of the security system.
I don't think it goes : username (Tom Riddle) => permissions (Defense Professor) or Harry (recognized as Tom Riddle too) would have the Defense Professor permissions.
I mostly assumed that the map and the wards are two different systems, maybe not crafted by the same person (not the same founder if they were made by the 4 founders, or by different headmasters if they were added afterwards).
In canon, the map was made by Harry's dad and his three friends.
HPMOR seems to have changed this.
That is not literally a contradiction.
Not literally. It's possinle that the Marauders stole some other thing, and repurposed it into the Map.
But honestly, James Potter, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew were none of them great wizards, especially in their teens, so the less their involvement in the Map's creation, the more plausible I find the theory.
Yeah, I'm thinking separate systems but there's a lot we don't know about how this works and why the discrepancies are there.
Actually, we aren't sure that Harry doesn't have Defense Professor permissions, are we?
Hum, good question.
I assumed that with all his experimenting he did in a year, he must have triggered a ward at a point. He doesn't all the wards, and since we expect them to be quite extensive, it's very unlikely he never triggered one.
So what are our hypothesis ?
Harry is not recognized as Defense Professor by the wards.
Harry is recognized as DP by the wards, never triggered a ward, but that didn't seem suspicious to Dumbledore because there are fewer wards I imagined there to be, so even with lots of experimenting, it's quite normal he didn't trigger one.
Harry is recognized as DP by the wards, never triggered a ward, and Dumbledore failed to realize it, due to a variation of the "availability bias", we don't tend to notice events that fail to occur (while they should) as much as events that occur (while they shouldn't).
Harry is recognized as DP by the wards, and Dumbledore did suspect it. Then, Dumbledore knowing that Harry is likely a Tom Riddle, must have suspected Quirrel to be a Tom Riddle. He knew much more that he claimed, and he lied when he said to Quirrelmort that he didn't suspect anything.
I would put most probability on 1, but none of 2, 3, 4 can be excluded at this point, yes.
We have some evidence Harry has defense professor permissions and didn't trip any wards because of that. He practiced memory charms. In Hogwarts. If the castle thought of him as a student, that would have set alarms ringing, with professor permissions, no alarms. Not strong evidence, because Harry was Dumbledores pet disaster, and it is entirely possible he'd hear an alarm like that, check up on what Harry was doing, and ignore it as long as he wasn't casting it on students. But it's an implication.
Would you quote me where Harry used obliviate in Hogwarts on someone that would have tripped wards? I don't recall that.
I do not expect this. Time-tuners are fine. Invisibility cloaks are fine. Draco's torture hex was fine. The only thing I can think of that Harry did that might have triggered a ward without permissions was bring in the transfigured unicorn. And that isn't conclusive at all. It was transfigured, and as far as I know the Defense Professor can't just bring magical creatures in to Hogwarts either.
I don't think it's been tested.
Indeed. I don't think Harry's ever tried to do something that only a professor can do, or that would have markedly different results if a professor tried to do it.
Edit: "markedly visible" was meant to be "markedly different". I need more sleep.
Like, say, brainwash or torture a student.
At least of the latter, see the "I laughed and I laughed when I realized you [Voldemort] had made a Good Voldemort to oppose the Evil."
Of the former, yes, I think he knew. See his over the top protestations of how he was oh so ever so completely fooled by Quirrell, had absolutely no idea whatesoever that he was Voldemort, and felt like a fool and a moron for missing it.
It does cast a different light on that time he asks Harry why Voldemort does the things he does.
Dumbledore's an over-the-top kind of guy. I got the impression that he was being genuine in his comments re: Quirrell; see for example his initial confusion when he sees him in the mirror.
On the other hand, I'm now pretty sure that he knew Harry was a Riddle instance, or at least something similar, all along.
A couple guesses about scenes that might be coming:
Harry has a (mostly) honest conversation with Moody about what happened to Voldemort, with an eye to adding more safeguards. They consult with the world's foremost expert on memory-charming powerful wizards into insignificance, Gilderoy Lockhart.
Hermione is determined to rescue Dumbledore from the Mirror, and a phoenix comes to her because of it.
I cannot for a second imagine Moody allowing Harry to hold on to Tom Riddle. There are too many ways in which keeping a superpowered, immortal amnesiac former villain on your person could go wrong. Harry must anticipate this, so can't consult Moody.
Perhaps. But Moody did defer to Dumbledore, keeping Moody totally in the dark doesn't seem like a plausible option, and Harry explained to McGonagall in chapter 14 that he had enough common sense to seek out the appropriate experts in situations like this (or discovering Salazar's Chamber).
Would be amusing if Voldy has been playing as the Cthaeh for the last few chapters, in strategy if not in power.
I can't believe Hermione Granger has been framed for murder by Tom Riddle....again.
"Let's see how you like everyone thinking you defeated the Dark Lord and you not remembering it." -Harry
We know that many other Hogwarts students will invent and/or believe the weirdest theories. I’m definitely looking forward to the theories about why Hermione’s body was there for Voldemort’s rebirth, and about how she defeated him …
Any suggestions? (Aside from the obvious one: “Harry must have taught her some of his tricks!”)
"Well, obviously, if I'd been at the scene and defeated You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters and brought Hermione back from the dead by channelling General Chaos's unspeakable dark powers, I wouldn't just tell you that," Tracey Davis told the reporters.
Edit: "And that's Darke, with an e."
"What explosion? You mean you didn't realise that was Harry Potter snapping his fingers extra hard?"
"Of course she came back. Having two lives is why they call someone a double witch!"
"And then You-Know-Who cast the Killing Curse on her, but it rebounded because she was protected by the power of Harry Potter's love. Huh? Of course she's his true love. How else would he have been able to pull her out of the Mirror in the first place?"
"So Harry Potter spent all his Quirrell points to get Professor Quirrell to let Hermione take a make-up exam. And everyone knows those are meant to be harder than the original..."
I think it's pretty obvious.
Voldemort has always been attracted to power, and it's well known that Hermione is the most powerful witch of her generation.
He made several overtures to her, but was unable to turn her from her path, and so he killed her.
Upon her death he felt great remorse (such was his passion) and decided to bring her back from the dead (such was his power).
Dumbledore tried to stop him, and so was eliminated.
In fact, Voldemort was so enamored of Hermione, that after she was brought back, he use dark magics to give her even greater power.
Quirrell (who has been hiding his identity of David Monroe) was secretly on hand for the ceremony, but by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late to stop it.
Cutting charms were used on Voldemort's hands, and other terrible damage, but despite all this, Quirrell was defeated.
Ironically, having given her the power of friendship, it was the power of friendship which ultimately was his downfall.
Just wait for the next issue of the Quibbler.
The couple who lived.
The Boy Who Lived impregnates the Deathly Hallow Girl with Tom Riddle's child!
The Boy who Lived kills 30 high ranking witches and wizards, resurrects his first kiss, fakes the death of Voldemort and wears him as a ring!
Any volunteers to tell invincible resurrected Dark-Lord-slayer Hermione what grade she got in Defense Against the Dark Arts?
She initially got a fail grade for dying, but then Professor Quirrell let her retake the test.
She got a Dreadful for dying . . . then Professor Quirrell revived her and re-graded her Troll.
Headmistress McGonagall has good grounds to overrule this now.
Well, she’ll get an Outstanding for “defeating the Dark Lord”. So that pretty much cancels her Fail grade, right?
Except there's no Defense Professor available to award her a new grade, and by the time a new one is recruited, it'll be next year and her achievements from the previous academic year will no longer be relevant.
Yup. The fact that she defeated the Dark Lord right after the Professor who flunked her failed to do so will only serve to underscore the injustice.
On /r/HPMOR, some have been speculating that Dumbledore coated the Philosopher's Stone with Bahl's Stupefaction, which you might remember from chapter 63:
This would explain why Voldemort let Harry keep his wand after swearing the Unbreakable Vow, and now also might explain Harry's recent actions.
Voldemort, having spent more than five minutes looking into weaknesses, has figured out how to be immune to things that are common knowledge.
I kind of wish Harry just figured out how to escape earlier. It would have been awesome for him to end the Unbreakable Vow by transfiguring the other wand into a flashbang.
I hope Eliezer pulls something like this to justify the Villain Ball.
That's a literal Idiot Ball reference, not to mention canon. I don't think we'll see it.
But it's not an idiot ball if there's an actual legitimate reason for being stupid.
Like, in The Naked Time and The Naked Now, the initial infections were pure idiot ball.
The subsequent infections, and the crew doing spectacularly stupid and even suicidal things, were not.
I'm a fan of this.
The actual order of the stories is probably better, but it would have been interesting to read 116 first and then find out what really happened.
I agree, but that would have precluded the potential sad ending after a failed Final Exam.
He could always have said, ‘Great, you passed! You'll find out how in a few days. In the meantime ….’.
But then there wouldn't be continued speculation that this is still the bad end.
Ah, is that what shminux meant!
And thus, Eliezer's mild obsession with conspiracy-for-the-greater-good-in-fiction-and-science rears its head again...
I don't see how this is a problem. Do you think it is a problem ? If so, then why specifically and do you have any ideas for a solution?
I've been re-reading the fic, and the science conspiracy idea shows up early on.
Quirrel in chapter 20:
Harry gets on board with the idea in chapter 23:
In 23 I took it to mean he was using conspiracy-ish-ness to get Draco on board.
In-universe play-acting or not, it's still strengthening the motif by having it keep turning up.
Right. I was just pointing out that it's not being presented as something EY is actually suggesting. Here we have it as advice from Voldemort and a lure to someone who's actively attracted by conspiracy.
Am I missing something? Why is Harry inventing this silly story?
I bet Hermione is just going to love being the center of all the attention and scrutiny this will bring on her.
If Hermione manages to fall for Harry's story, then she's going to love it much much better than she ever would have loved the truth about her resurrection. It's worth it.
Eh, she's going to be living a lie. If she finds out one day - I can easily see the Vow causing that, if nothing else - that'll be horrible.
And if she doesn't, that'll be another kind of horrible. Especially when Harry started as a "truth is sacred" guy, and I don't think that, for all his experience since then, he's done a complete reversal on that.
I imagine that Harry can tell her the truth in a few years, after they've saved the world, and she's learnt more, and there's just more distance from the event. But I don't know if she'll be fooled that long, or conversely if Harry will ever be willing to tell her. I'm more inclined to think that the Vow might prevent him from telling her, if he's worried that she won't be able to offer him good advice afterwards.
Hm... I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb here and predict that Harry will tell her quickly OR will want her to learn Occumency and expect to tell her quickly after she has. Confidence 70%.
edit: yay
Why I think he's doing this :
so Draco doesn't know that Harry probably killed his father ; Harry values his friendship with Draco and doesn't want to lose it ;
so Harry doesn't have to tell everyone about his secrets (like partial transfiguration) ;
so they don't search for Harry for the transfigured Voldemort ;
so Harry doesn't have too many legal/political problems for actually killing dozens of people, including some very powerful ones ;
to give some credit and status to Hermione, which at this point Harry trusts more than himself to take the ethical decision (and not destroy the world) ;
to save the image of Quirrel, I think Harry still has emotional commitment to the character of Quirrel, even if it was just a mask, and doesn't want that image to be destroyed.
Preserving the image of Quirrell also helps in continuing to restore Slytherin, whereas outing him could damn the house to be forever ignoble or be removed completely
Howso? It is no revelation to anyone that Voldemort was a Slytherin.
And Quirrel was Ravenclaw.
Not in HPMOR.
Chapter 16:
Voldemort was in Slytherin and claimed to be Slytherin while impersonating QQ. The actual QQ was known to be Ravenclaw:
And Monroe was in Slytherin. That was a piece of intentionally leaked information so that the "smart" people could deduce that he was Monroe.
Yes in HPMOR
Chapter 79:
The disparity is one of the reasons that the Aurors are sure he's not actually Quirinus Quirrell.
But why is any of original!Quirrell's biographical information relevant to this discussion? Everyone who knew Quirrell the Defense Professor will remember him as a Slytherin.
Well, people are less likely to believe in an idea if an argument used in favor of it later turns out to be entirely false. For example, if I say "green jelly beans are slightly carcinogenic" and someone says "yes, also each one you eat has a 1/100 chance of killing you immediately", makes a lot of publicity about this, and months later it turns out that that statement was completely unfounded, then people will be less likely to believe me now. Even though they have very little new information compared to just me saying "green jelly beans are slightly carcinogenic".
So in this case we have people saying "Look, some Slytherins are good, see QQ!", and gaining some amount of support with that. QQ turning out to be Voldemort would not only defeat everything the argument did (which is not bad in and of itself, the argument was after all flawed), but also cause a backlash which would make Slytherin appear worse in comparison to before QQ was the Defense Professor.
Hm. While QQ was widely praised as being a great teacher, I don't think anyone missed the fact that he was radiating a constant aura of evil (before the fact that as the Defense Professor he was guaranteed to be evil by definition). I think his contribution to public perception would have been "some Slytherins are incredibly badass" rather than "some Slytherins are good".
I'm not sure if there was a general "antihero or villain?" buzz about QQ or if Harry was the only person who thought the former. Luckily, affirmatively making him a hero works either way.
Though, what was David Monroe's House?
Ch. 84:
Also:
Though we don't know for sure what McGonagal and the rest of the "confederacy" really believes.
One of this comment's third cousins says that Monroe was a Slytherin.
108:
It's a good question. As a perfect or near-perfect Occlumens, Harry could have come up with any story he wanted, if all he was trying to do was conceal certain facts (like partial transfiguration, what he really did to Voldemort, and the fact that he probably killed Lucius).
She came back from the dead. Gonna be a lot of attention and scrutiny regardless.
So, the revival of Hermione would be explained by Voldemort trying to resurrect himself, making a mistake, and resurrecting Hermione with superpowers instead (or alongside) him, as a side-effect of his own resurrection process? (St. Mungo will surely detect at least some of the "upgrades" Hermione got)
By the way, I think Harry is likely to make those upgrades to himself, and maybe even use the idea of these upgrades to elevate some (or, as a long term goal, ALL) of mankind to posthuman level, using the Stone.
Elevating all of mankind to a posthuman level will be difficult. He'll have to use the Stone around twice per second.
Perhaps he could use some kind of portkey system, where portkeys are set to take people to the Stone and then immediately away, and you need to use transfiguration right before that.
Also, Nicholas Flamel would like to have a word with Harry, as he (she?) kept the Stone for herself specifically to stop a cheap proliferation of its powers.
Nicholas Flamel is dead, at least according to Dumbledore. (Or tucked away for later secret extraction?)
Yhea, two problems with that: 1: I really don't put it past Dumbledore to just lie about everything to Voldemort, and 2:. Flamel had access to the stunt Voldemort pulled on Hermione for a minimum of 500 years, and potentially more like a thousand. I figure good odds killing Flamel just gets you a rebirth in fire phoenix-style and an annoyed arch-wizard.
Doesn't this also apply to Baba Yaga?
It does. I mean, it's possible "Goblet curse" trumphs Rebirth Magic,
But my preferred theory is that Flamel is Baba Yaga, and Voldemort read that story all wrong because he managed to err on the side of excessive cynicism, which is a lot simpler. No murdering took place at all, just an elopement.
This also explains why Flamel only interferes in politics by teaching chosen champions - She is still bound by the goblet rite on the Battle Magic position, so that is the only way she can oppose dark lords that don't show up at her door and try to kill her. Well, unless they graduated elsewhere, but selectively showing up and vanquishing only those fell practitioners that studied in other schools would make things just a tad obvious.
Sure. But we have Word of God that suggested that Baba Yaga would not appear in the story again before the bit where Dumbledore said Flamel was dead. Was that "Baba Yaga won't show up again because 'Flamel', who is actually BY, is about to die offscreen" or "Baba Yaga died six hundred years ago, get over it?" Unclear. But I would suggest that, narratively, the defeat of Baba Yaga by sixth-year Perenelle exists as a clue for the plausibility of the defeat of Voldemort by first-year Harry Potter.
BABA YAGA FAKED HER DEATH AND POSSESSED PERENELLE, TRUE STORY
Sorry, I think I've read too much Reddit today.
Does Dumbledore know about Perenelle? Maybe I just don't remember.
Indeed, one of the stories at qntm features discovering something like the Fountain of Youth, and describes the organizational nightmare of letting a large enough proportion of mankind use it.
Harry Potter, however, if he makes himself immortal, will have a lot of time. Even if a lot of people die of old age or illness before he can reach them, he can still reach a lot of people given enough time. He would also need to figure out some efficient way of space travel and terraforming, otherwise he could cause overpopulation.
Oh. I was expecting something like...
-
Chapter 116, alternative version
Harry spun his Time-Turner and returned six hours into the past. Then he took his broomstick and hurried towards Hogwarts.
This time he decided not to repeat his usual mistake. If Lord Voldemort could learn, so could Harry. He didn't have to solve all the problems of the world alone. And Professor Quirrell, his alter ego, was not the only available option.
He hesitated a bit before knocking on Headmaster Dumbledore's door. This is going to be so awkward, he thought. He tried to imagine what to say. Hello, Headmaster. Professor Quirrell is Lord Voldemort, and I have killed him in the future. By the way, it was me in Azkaban, sorry about it, I didn't know back then. Anyway, you are going to die in the mirror soon. To avoid a time paradox, could you just send a copy of yourself or something? Please hurry, we don't have time, you have to trust me! Ironically, that would sound really insane, but Harry now trusted Headmaster Dumbledore to be able to deal with the news. Dumbledore was willing to sacrifice his own life, if it meant destroying the Dark Lord, but Harry hoped there would be a way to avoid it. The timeline had to proceed as Harry had experienced it, but if it turned out that what Harry believed to be real people were instead merely convincing illusions, then no one had to die. Maybe he could also save Lucius Malfoy, or even all the Death Eaters.
Then Harry noticed the door was open. He slowly walked inside the dark and seemingly empty room. Maybe he should write a message and leave it on the desk...
The door suddenly shut. A person standing in the dark was pointing a magical wand at Harry.
"Drop your wand immediately. Then don't move. We have to talk."
Harry's brain was so shocked that only afterwards he realized his fingers have already obeyed the command automatically.
"Yes, Harry, always playing one level higher than you," Professor Quirrell said, smiling. "I see you have returned from the future, which obviously means that my plans didn't work as expected. That is an admirable achievement. Now you are going to explain me all that happened in future, in Parseltongue. And then I will see what I can change to preserve your experiences while giving myself a more favourable outcome."
-
This is the second part of your exam. You have 60 hours. Your solution must allow Lord Voldemort to survive the following six hours without creating a paradox in timeline, without losing his consciousness or magical abilities. Otherwise you will get a shorter "Voldemort was defeated and they all lived happily ever after" ending.
The following chapters 117, 118, 119, and 120 will contain the remaining four parts of the exam, where you will solve even more complicated problems from the viewpoint of Headmaster Dumbledore, Hermione, Severus Snape, and Minerva McGonagall. The last chapter 121 will contain a surprising revelation that all of them are actually horcruxes of Baba Yaga. Oops, sorry for spoilers.
HPMoR!Harry would never ever do that.
Hardest part to fake is Harry's sense of doom/scar pain/resonance: there probably has to actually be a Riddle in the Voldemort-body as it gets stunned, obliviated and transfigured. Better make sure it's a Horcrux V1 copy. So bring a V1 Horcrux, use it to overwrite the Voldemort body you create with the Stone, then possess that body on top of the Riddle already in there, then abandon ship right before the stunning hex.
Harry only has one hour left on his Time-Turner for the day; he used five hours to do everything he did with Voldemort after Voldemort sent him the forged note at the Quidditch game earlier.
I'm not sure how Quirrell's last plot could still come to fruition. Slytherin have won the house cup and one of the professors awarding house points to Ravenclaw at this stage would feel like Quirrell's plotting had failed.
"For defeating the Dark Lord, we award Hermione...wait, what was the difference in score again?...four hundred and twenty points."
It's a fitting honour for the brave Professor Quirrell; no fair Slytherin would deny him this.
Especially since they'd still have the cup.
The Quidditch Cup, but not the House Cup.
Slytherin pulled ahead in both by scoring in Quidditch.
These bonus points would equalize them in the House cup. Both houses would have it.
I see what you mean. They get the Quidditch Cup outright (which is what I meant), but they share the House Cup, which is still having it (and that's what you meant).
Hm, my take-away from the end of the chapter was a sad feeling that Quirrel simply failed at or lied about getting both houses to win.
Quirrell was adverse to outright lies, so at this point I think he failed.