No, I mean transfigure a steel spike that pierces through the ground, without actually being transfigured from the ground.

Best answers I've heard or devised so far:

1. Leonhart's suggestion below. Probably the best rhetorical move Harry could possibly make.

2. Harry's portkey is transfigured into a tiny chip implanted under his own skin. It would be totally in character for him to do that.

3. If he has the range, transfigure long, thin tendrils that overlap with Voldemort and the death eaters' spinal cords at the neck level. Thin so that he doesn't have to work with as much mass/volume.

4. Transfigure the air around him into a carbon nanotube shell, buying himself time for another spell.

I have just realised that the 'partial transfigureation to create a steel monofilament' idea probably doesn't work. The problem is that in general, it doesn't actually require partial transfigureation - one could simply transform an object into a steel spike which pushes (rather than transfigures) its way through the soil, going under the shields and then up into your enemies' brain. If this worked, someone would have figured it out by now, because this requires no special knowledge. Therefore, there is some defensive shield which would prevent this attack, and presumably the Death Eaters have shields raised, unless they want to run the risk of a sudden attack wiping them all out at once.

As far as I learned, it is community-wide and not humanity-wide. Judaism is rather a tribal religion in this matter.

Assuming Quirrell is Voldemort, this is badly at odds with what appear to be his constant attempts to encourage greater cynicism in Harry, to the point of taking away the people who serve as his anchors to the rest of humanity.

Even forgetting his attempts to shape Harry into a copy of his pessimistic self, his behaviour over the course of the story simply does not match that of a person who believes that paradise is possible.

not that that would be hard; the latter is a cardboard-cutout evil-for-its-own-sake villain

IIRC it's worse than that — Tom Riddle Jr. was born bad due to his mother's abuse of love potions.

Calling it. Voldemort is a well-intentioned extremist who did everything that he's done for the sake of bringing a being like Harry into the world so that he can remake it into a paradise.

What I'm surprised Harry didn't think of was bringing her to a muggle hospital. A combination of muggle and wizard medicine should be able to overcome some plain old shock and blood loss, no?

I just read this article instead of doing my homework.

And how would you suggest preventing intelligence explosions? It seems more effective to try and make sure it's a Friendly one. Then we at least have a shot at Eutopia, instead of hiding in a bunker until someone's paperclipper gets loose and turns us into grey goo.

Incidentally, If you plan on answering my (rhetorical) question, I should note that LW has a policy against advocating violence against identifiable individuals, specifically because people were claiming we were telling people they should become anti-AI terrorists. You're not the first to come to this conclusion.