This might be a dumb question, but is the specific lesson of the Something To Protect article reflected in these last chapters? If so, in what way?
My take: Harry has QQ('s legacy) and Hermione to protect, and kills dozens of death eaters etc. etc. to make it happen
McGonagall has her students to protect, and commits publicly to doing so, no matter who their parents are, and takes up the role of headmistress (which we know she thought herself unsuited to) to do it
The students have themselves and future cohorts to protect, and commit to passing on QQ's teachings themselves to do it
And we'll make sure that Professor Quirrell's teachings never die out of Hogwarts.
Thus, Harry’s original christmas wish is at least partially fulfilled, despite PQ’s objections:
"And Mr. Potter wishes for -"
There was a pause as Professor Quirrell looked at the parchment.
Then, without any change of expression on Professor Quirrell's face, the sheet of parchment burst into flames, and burned with a brief, intense fire that left only drifting black dust sprinkling down from his hand.
"Please confine yourself to the possible, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell, sounding very dry indeed.
(chapter 34)
"So what did you wish the first time?" said Draco.
[…]
"It wasn't really all that interesting," Harry said with obviously artificial lightness. "Just, I wish Professor Quirrell would teach Battle Magic again next year."
(chapter 35)
So I've been thinking about the feasibility of cutting stuff with a thin wire. As the thickness of the wire goes to zero, and the tensile strength goes correspondingly up, does the effort required for cutting actually go to zero?
It seems to me that it can't go to exactly zero, because you still need to counteract whatever forces were holding the material together. But does it go to a small value or a large value, in the case of cutting a strong material like bone? Say, if we tried using a thin wire to decapitate a person standing up, would they actually get decapitated, or would they just fall over?
Guess no more plot. Nothing is happening.
My hope is slowly dying, that we'll get Dumbledore back and we'll get to see him finally, finally relieved that the threat that gave him so much grief is ended, and that the hero he believed in really did live up to his hopes.
I'm still holding out at least for Hermione to return as a Speaking Character.
McGonagall's wording ("trapped outside Time") suggested to me that she knows at least the basics of where Dumbledore went.
She's just repeating what Harry said in Chapter 116:
"Dumbledore's gone!" cried Harry Potter. "The Headmaster is gone, Professor McGonagall! The Dark Lord trapped him, he reversed some kind of trap the Headmaster planned and Dumbledore was caught outside Time, he's gone!"
My guess would be no. Generally speaking it's a good idea to let someone else in on a scheme like that, so that you have someone to scrape you out when things go horribly wrong; but wizarding culture seems a lot more secretive and heavy on information control than ours, which indeed may not be such a bad idea in context. You can't Legilemens something that someone doesn't know.
QQ can't be polyjuced, which seemed to be the Auror's earlier assumption, because it would have worn off now he's dead. So given that David Munroe looks different from Quirell, the obvious next hypothosis is that he is a Metamorphmagus. But still, that is extremely rare, which is suspicious. But next, surely some people who knew the real Quirrel are going to turn up to his funeral, and start asking questions like "what do you mean he's a Slitherine?"
The fact that he's wearing it at all stuns me. It needs to be maintained by a coven of the greatest wizards around.
Imagine:
Harry dies (heart attack, stroke, stabbed by Goyle, whatever)
Handless amnesiac Voldemort appears, dies of human transfiguration sickness after a few deeply confused minutes
Horcrux network activates.
Best case, this amnesiac being can't figure out how to possess anyone.
Medium case, somebody gets possessed by the clueless shade.
Worst case: network was built to supplement current memories with dump of previous ones (we can see by the part where Voldemort Confounds himself before the Mirror that he had thought about the concept of changing his mental state), and the Dark Lord is back in business
The fact that he's wearing it at all stuns me. It needs to be maintained by a coven of the greatest wizards around.
An excellent point. Harry could catch some disease that leaves him bedridden and incoherent for a few days. Or one of his experiments with magic could end with him waking up in the hospital the next day. He's taking an extreme risk here.
Still, this isn't out of character for HPMOR Harry. His inexperience and reluctance to confer with older wizards went a long way to helping Voldemort return.
I hope Voldemort's "fallback weapon" also had sunlight-resistant skin. Otherwise Hermione might have issues with going outside...
I also take it that Harry's refusal to give Quirrell's eulogy even before he knew Q = V is because of his views on death in general.
Speaking of the eulogy, is Harry cheering at the end? And does he have any way of protecting his Transfigurations against Finite Incantatem?
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 118.
Plans for next chapter release:
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.)