"It's all right, Gregory," Draco said, as gently as he could. "All you've got to do is worry about protecting me. Nobody's going to blame you for following my orders, not my father, not yours."

Hmm I wonder how much trouble they are in, they were supposed to keep Draco from harm and he almost got killed.

I am now convinced (>51%) that Harry is going to sell out Quirrell to buy Hermione's freedom. I originally came to this hypothesis because it is a solid plan; Harry frames Professor Quirrell using his knowledge of Azkaban to free Hermione. He can do this by framing Quirrell as Voldemort, but each conjunction makes a probability less likely so I'll stick with just the above (even though I personally believe this will be the case). With the Watsonian parts hammered down, I'm awestruck by the elegance of the Doylist reasons.

Instead of looking at fiction as a series of words, we can instead look at it as a way to maximize tension, humor, and dramatic irony while keeping believability as strong as possible. Believability is important. Many other stories have their characters act stupid or out of character to create dramatic moments. At the eleventh hour a (badfanfic!)Harry decides to run off instead of get his friends, or randomly (badfanfic!)Hermione decides to side with Lucius for no goddamn reason. In HPMoR's case, we will have everyone working in their own rational self interest, intelligently, and coming out with a result that flows seamlessly to create maximal drama.

Harry falsely (accidentally truthfully) rats out Quirrell to save Hermione. From Harry's point of view he'll be forced to attack a (guilty but he thinks) innocent man who's done nothing but help him. Harry knows that Quirrell offered to fake a Voldemort fight for him (partially easing Harry's guilt), but now he's doing it without his consent. +1 irony for using Quirrell's own plan against him.

From Lucius' point of view he'll have (Harry!)Voldemort lying about the existence of Voldemort to his face. Lucius will inadvertently help Harry by preventing legillimency being done on Harry because Lucius thinks Harry is Voldemort and Voldemort is an occlumens. Even while we and Harry know he's not Voldemort, Lucius will not. And Harry will think that Lucius will be helping Harry because he wants to back out of taking revenge while saving face in front of the Wizengamot. Meanwhile Lucius will merely want to prevent the higher standard of evidence from being admitted and realize he's been outmaneuvered by (who he thinks is) the Dark Lord.

From Quirrell's point of view he'll have enacted a perfect plan to break Harry's 'side of goodness' while having Lucius destroy Dumbledore for him... only to be foiled by that fool boy messing up the plan again. Just like in Azkaban he'll underestimate Harry's need to save others, but in this case it'll take the form of betraying Quirrell. Since Harry is the only person Quirrell has ever liked (or possibly even loved), he can take this opportunity to turn even more evil and declare Harry his mortal enemy etc. It's possible he's even already laid the groundwork to break Hermione out (ex imperius the auror transferring her), but did not think for Harry to fail two of his lessons at once (be willing to lose / avada kedavra lesson in azkaban).

The story will get to use the investments from TSPE, Occlumency training, and Lucius' belief in Harrymort. I'm actually kind of in awe of this. Each one of those flowed naturally to create a believable world and fascinating reading in themselves. But that they can be recycled with such efficiency is amazing. Hopefully it's not just hindsight bias, but I'm seeing threads all the way back 50 chapters woven together. It makes me view Eliezer with a kind of formidableness in storytelling, like the ET Jaynes of fanfiction.

From a narrative point of view, the Voldemort reveal to the world has to occur soon. Voldemort needs to become an adversary to Harry before the final act, and it would require an entire build-up cycle again to make that happen. The Voldemort reveal (to harry) has to occur eventually as well and this preserves it until the very end for maximal drama.

So, in universe it makes sense. Out of universe it creates a beautiful story. I suspect it's too clever a resolution for Eliezer not to write. If I am correct in my guess, remember that Eliezer is a writer maximizing good storytelling and drama, not a writing trying to trick his audience. Plus, no one reading the chapters as a completed book would have ever figured it out, even as the parts flowed seamlessly together.

And if I'm incorrect in my guess.... well I guess I get a great lesson in humility and calibrating confidence.

If you're defining rationality as the definition given on this site, you're right. If you're defining rationality as the thing that's actually discussed on here, you're not.

Through the Author’s Notes we’ve seen his struggle in motivating himself to write new chapters in a timely manner. This happens to everyone when a fun project becomes an obligation to people, and even at his Rationality Level he is not immune.

Rationality is the technique that turns motivations into plans. It is not a technique to generate motivation, except very indirectly.

Hasn't Draco been with Lucius for the past hour? It would be one thing to steal the wand of a generic death eater, another entirely to steal a wand from under the nose of the head of the majority of the Wizengamot. Lucius seems to be well versed in the art of plotting and counter plotting, and getting Draco's wand from him and back to him without Lord Malfoy knowing with, at a maximum, five hours of planning, would be an extremely challenging feat even for Dark Harry. Still, I don't think that it is impossible.

What False Memory Charm on Draco? I thought the current leading theory was that Hermione was GHD Attacked, FMC'd, then later on (after the attack?) Obliviated of the FMC. I don't see how Draco needed to be messed with at all.

I've said it many times, and I'll say it again... this is a better solution than most of what's been proposed in the discussion thread so far.

Chapter 38: Lucius Malfoy claims that he was under an Imperius curse cast by Lord Voldemort. In canon, that claim was made by many powerful pureblood lords.

Chapter 26: Freeing someone from an Imperius curse by killing the caster of that curse creates a debt

Chapter 4: Bounties payable to the killer of Lord Voldemort could be delivered to Harry Potter.

Conclusion: Harry Potter is owed a blood debt by a number of the lords of the Wizengamot, which might be large enough that he could call it in and save Hermione. Even if it is just Lucius who owes him this debt, it could be enough.

Comments: Law of Conservation of Detail leans towards these facts being used, feels very desperate and Harry like, allows Hermione to come back to Hogwarts as a student.

http://predictionbook.com/predictions/6170

(Also, are you really willing to trudge through all the reviews to test your prediction?)

Between chapter 80 and 81, here's my analysis. I can think of seven broad possibilities;

1.) Do nothing
2.) Attack publicly
2b.) Attack publicly in disguise
3.) Stealth attack
4.) Retreat and regroup
5.) Change the board
6.) Deus Ex Machina

1.) Do nothing; I list this simply because people often forget that inaction may be the best possible action. Here, that doesn't seem to be the case. On the other hand, once you realize that sacrifice is necessary, why not give in to the dark side? What's one muggleborn more or less? With proper obliviation Harry can literally forget about Hermione. Plus, the dark side has tasty Hufflepuffs. And cookies.

2.) Attack publicly.
While romantic, this puts Harry into a massive, wasteful, battle with basically all of wizarding Britton.
He's good, but realistically, he'd lose.
Blackmailing the council publicly seems equally pointless. Even if they gave in, it would be disastrous in the long run. On the plus side, this is by far the most dramatic possibility. It's not hard to imagine Harry laying waste to the Dementors essentially freeing all the prisoners, and throwing the wizarding world into complete and utter chaos.

2b.) Attack publicly in disguise. Basically, put on a mask and break Hermione out of custody. Again, several possible ways to do it, but all with the significant drawback of making Hermione a wanted fugitive.

3.) Stealth attack. Harry and Quirrell almost succeeded in getting Bellatrix out without any help and without anyone knowing. With the order and the aurors attempting it, it wouldn't be unimaginable that they could remove Hermione without anyone finding out. On the minus side, Hermione would have to become a non-entity for 10 years, and they'd have to sneak her back in. On the plus side, the comedic potential is enormous. Almost every major character could reasonably have a motive to sneak Hermione out, even the evil ones. Massive Gambit Pileup ensues.

4.) Retreat and regroup The bad part of this is Hemione will be in Azkaban for some amount of time. The good part is that it doesn't result in Harry being at war with magical Britton before he's ready. This probably isn't as bad as it first seems. Many will be outraged by the decision to send a 12 year old girl to Azkaban, including, I bet, Draco Malfoy. Now that the court room acting is over, "Draco" can argue for leniency, and Lucious can soften his heart over the plight of so young a girl who was clearly unaware of the severity of her crime, and blah blah blah. Lucious wants Hermione away from his son, discredited, and wants to stir up the blood purists. All that is accomplished if Hermione is locked up in, say, Nurmengard, and his son vows to stay away from her. Add in a bad publicity campaign smearing the wizingamot "Malfoy says 12 year old girls should be tortured in Azkaban". Harry might even be allowed to visit and banish a few dementors, rather than having to do it clandestinely

5.) Change the board. Determine who really cast the blood chilling charm. Find out who killed Narcissa Malfoy, and give them up. Or the dark path - find someone and give them up as Dracro's assailant/Narcissa's killer, without considering their actual guilt. (Harry could put his minion Lesath Lestrange to good use.) Find something else that Malfoy wants, like say, the philosopher's stone, and give it to him. Become god. All good things to work on, but their timing is not under control, which means this really is a variation of one of the other options with extra work added.

6.) Deus Ex Machina. The author could make anything happen. While it might be that only the author can save them now, it's not something I'd expect the characters to plan for. And I for one would feel cheated if that was the final solution.