Reality does not have to obey dramatic pacing.

A central part of Eliezer's worldview is that it is possible to lose, and lose big. An Al-Ghazali can come along and destroy the bright future of your society. A UFAI can destroy the bright future of your society. A Quirrel can destroy the bright future of Harry Potter.

If the fic is coming to an end soon, which I think has been implied, Harry's implosion and Quirrel's victory are a good place to end things.

(I should clarify that, by "most likely outcome," I mean "more likely than any other specific outcome," not "more likely than its complement." I think there's more than half chance that Harry will think of something, and I think ArisKatsaris has proposed the most likely way Harry will get out of this, but still think it's somewhat more likely Harry will fail than win that way.

"Beyond all panic and despair his mind began to search through every fact in its possession, recall everything it knew about Lucius Malfoy, about the Wizengamot, about the laws of magical Britain; his eyes looked at the rows of chairs, at every person and every thing within range of his vision, searching for any opportunity it could grasp -"

-and then the pieces fit together, and in retrospect it was obvious. The Boy Who Lived announced his discovery.

"I can deliver you Voldemort."

Harry knows enough to reasonably come to the correct conclusion about Quirrell's true identity, yet hasn't figured it out yet. If he's as deep into his dark side as he seems to be, and remembering everything he possibly can, I think he could realize the truth. Probably not going to happen for story purposes, but still a possibility.

CHAPTER 80 SPOILERS BELOW

Well. We have five days to think of something. This seems to mean that Harry will think of something, and we have five days to guess what it may be. Presumably it will be something in one of the following categories:

• Something about Lucius Malfoy
• Something about the Wizengamot
• Something about the laws of magical Britain
• Anything about some person or thing within range of his vision

I propose we start by making a list of everything in the courtroom:

• Three Aurors
  • One of whom is named Gawain Robards
• A dementor
• Minerva McGonagall
• Harry Potter
  • And everything in his pouch
• A Prophet reporter
• Dolores Umbridge
• Lucius Malfoy
• Augusta Longbottom
• Dumbledore
• A man with a scarred face sitting next to Lucius; Fenrir Greyback?
• Amelia Bones

What do we know about any of these people that Harry might use to sway the crowd?

This thought just occurred to me: would Harry think to check the phoenix's price chamber for a picture of Narcissa Malfoy? If it is not there, how strong is it as evidence against Dumbledore immolating her?

I wasn't talking about the murder attempt story, and I don't believe Snape's behind it anyway (he's the most likely suspect after Quirrel, but he's not really very likely at all IMO). I meant Snape's scheme to stop bullying in Hogwarts - which is what Jello_Raptor posted about.

This is exactly how history is studied.

Historiography is how historical opinions have changed over time. It first begins with the Orthodox viewpoint, which is the first, generally accepted viewpoint of the events that arises. It is generally very biased because it comes about directly after the event has occurred, when feelings still run strong.

This Orthodox viewpoint is contrasted by several Revisionist viewpoints, which tend to make wildly different conclusions based upon new evidence in order to sell books (historical scandals are quite good for that). Sometimes a Revisionist viewpoint can become the new Orthodoxy if it has become entrenched in the public consciousness long enough.

Then there's Post-Revisionism, which, after the rancor has died down, aims to dispassionately weigh the evidence brought to the table by both the Revisionist viewpoints and the Orthodoxy (different Post-Revisionist conclusions arise from differing opinions on how reliable certain pieces of evidence are). While the Orthodoxy and especially the Revisionists tend to make strong statements about the controversy, Post-Revisionists rarely make statements that concede nothing to other viewpoints, and thus their arguments are "weaker", though Post-Revisionist opinions are seen generally as the least biased of the three.

The problem with the Post-Revisionist viewpoints is that, even though they don't arise from emotional attachment (or rejection of the same), they tend to have access to less evidence in total -- I mean, just look at all those Egyptologists. Or, really, anyone who wants to know about an ancient civilization.

Oliver Sacks wrote a book called "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", which is all about right-brained anosognosia. It was first published in 1970, so it may be outdated, but it is relevant.

It took them about 8 hours of dedicated practice.

Either this is missing a zero or everyone is wrong about "practice a lot".

Really, that's what people are objecting to? For goodness' sake, I'm not a deontologist or anything, I'm just referring to what was described as "condition three":

"Condition three is that Narcissa has to have been burned alive. If that part of the story turns out to be something exaggerated just to make it sound a little worse, then I get to decide for myself whether or not to still go through with the pledge. Good people sometimes have to kill. But they don't ever torture people to death. It's because Narcissa was burned alive that I know whoever did that was evil."

It wouldn't be a difficult moral situation on Harry's part because he specifically thought of this exact circumstance in advance.

Harry has said that Hermione is his moral center. Is she? Should she be?

I have mixed feelings. She's hardly a paragon, and if she's going to continue to develop into her own character instead of a satellite of Harry, Eliezer's going to outline her faults in more detail. We've seen this with Harry. Every time he undergoes a trial, readers learn more and more how fallible he is, and why.

Thoughts?