Explain, accurately and briefly but with enough detail that someone could give the method a go if they wanted, just what the hell Direct Instruction actually is.

I haven't done so not because it hasn't occurred to me to try, but because if it's even possible (which I doubt), it's hard enough to do that I still haven't figured out how.

Did you read my short analogy explaining how this difficulty feels to me from my perspective? It feels like trying to explain what physics is and why it's so powerful as well as interesting in itself, to someone who has never seen physics, hasn't grown up in a world filled with obvious examples of the amazing engineering it makes possible, etc.

Really really really try yourself to: "Explain, accurately and briefly but with enough detail that someone could give the method a go if they wanted, just what the hell physics actually is", keeping in mind that your audience is someone who has never heard of it or seen anything other than pre-physics level technology.

I wish I could find the exact source for this, but I remember once reading a quote of some famous Roman general saying that military technology was at the highest limit it could reach, with the ballista or something representing the absolute apex of possible achievement.

Imagine you're addressing this to contemporaries of that guy.

Ok. Wow. New chapter up.

The ritual references Doctor Seuss (explicitly), Lovecraft, Slayers, Hellraiser, and Warhammer. Edit: And Zelazny. Did I miss anything else?

And the example ritual which Quirrel references is if I'm not mistaken the failed attempt to summon Death in The Sandman. (Is that correct? I don't have a copy on me, but the ingredients certainly sound similar to that. If not, what is this referencing?)

That was an amazing mix of seriousness, darkness, humor (especially the way end), and with a bit of rationality and psychology thrown in also. That chapter was amazing.

Edit: I'm a little worried. We know that a lot of fictional stuff in non-HP fiction turns out to be real in this universe. I hope Harry hasn't accidentally triggered something.

Edit: Also, this does raise a serious question: Since Harry has read Lord of the Rings and Lovecraft and a fair bit of other stuff, how much of what he is making up is made by him from fiction he knows and how much is stuff that he happens to write that sounds good that happens to (at a meta level) reference fiction in our universe? For example, it is extremely unlikely although just potentially possible for Harry to have seen some version of Slayers. But this seems unlikely.

This is a monolingual dictionary of medieval Latin, and the uses of "nihilitas" it quotes have a distinct moral connotation of humility/self-abjection (kind of like the English "I am nothing before you"); I can't find other uses of the term either. So I would probably steer away from 'nihilitas'.

Depending on how 'physical' that "nothingness" is supposed to be, I would go for either just "nihilum" (more abstract) or "inanitas"/"vacuitas" (more concrete), as in the translation of Genesis "et terra erat vacuitas et inanitas" ("and the Earth was waste and void").

Also, "neque nec" seem to usually be placed next to each other.

Finally, I think "supernus" has more of an absolute than relative meaning, i.e. something that is up high in the heavens, rather than specifically above the subject of the paragraph. Wouldn't you just use "insuper" in the latter case?

• Neque: you're right about this one. I was sure I had seen 'neque nec' used contiguously, but I must have misremembered as I can't find an example of that. Fixed.

• I know "insuper" is an adverb; it works here just like "above" (which is also an adverb) does in English, i.e. they predicate an implicit verb "est / to be". EDIT: Just to be safe, I quickly checked the medieval dictionary I linked before, and it has plenty of instances of 'insuper' with ellipses of the verb.

I'm going to offer my own translation, taking a few more liberties:

Nullus salvator salvatori,

nullus Dominus defensori,

neque pater nec mater,

solum insuper nihilum.

(Backslation: "No saviour for the saviour / no Lord for the champion / nor father or mother / only nothingness above". Switched "father" with "mother" because the 'kp' in "nec pater" sounds cacophonic to me. Note that "insuper" would NOT rhyme with "mater", since the "u" is short and thus the stress falls on the "i", which is why I put it in the middle of the line.)

What a great idea! I've sent you my strategy.

Maybe I'm pushing my luck, but "Nihil supernum"?

"Nihilitas superna"?

Modifying the English isn't unthinkable. What sounds right in Latin?

Thanks! Here for comparison is Google's translation:

Non habet soter salvator.
Vindex est dominus no,
nec mater nec pater,
modo nihil est.

If "Soter" or "Sotehr" means "savior", as I seem to recall from Aristoi, that might suit the meaning well; and if the first line makes sense grammatically, of which no clue hath I, it has a good ring. "Defensori" does sound closer to the intended meaning than "victori" or "vindex". And whether "modo nihil est" means at all the same thing as "modo nihilitas supera", I've likewise no clue but it sounds like the "above" part was left out. If it actually does convey the same meaning, it is more compact.

If this version works, it would have a powerful ring to it:

Non habet soter salvator.
Neque defensori dominus,
nec pater, nec mater,
modo nihil est.

But one suspects that what's actually needed is:

Non est salvatori salvator.
Neque defensori dominus,
nec pater, nec mater,
modo nihilitas supera.