In chapter 25 the Weasley twins discuss the map

" How's it doing?" said Fred in a low voice. "Still on the fritz," said George. "Both, or -" "Intermittent one fixed itself again. Other one's same as ever."

I now think this refers to warm!Harry showing up as HJPEV and his dark side as Tom M. Riddle. If so, it's less probable the map is being manipulated.

I am assuming the goblet is borrowing the natural language parsing of the people subject to it, sorting hat style. And no one not being argumentative on the internet would read it that way. Which means it really is a flawless blanket protection from intentional harm, and the blood part is utterly redundant.

As for why I'm so sure Voldemort is wrong:

Well, there is the outside view, in which I just have trouble with the idea that a 16 year old virgin is a sufficiently supreme plotter, manipulator and cold-blooded killer to pull this off on someone who has been a feared witch for centuries. Not impossible, but very low probability.

A witch who can look like whatever she feels like and who is a byword for "Scary badass" inspiring crushes and devotion in her pupils? Pupils that are utterly safe from her? Odds: Nigh-Unity.

Also, it just doesn't hang together logically. Baba breaks the contract and then Perenelle kills her? Double-dipping on the causes of death, there.

I could see it being an accident, in which case that counts as one of the most traumatic consensual sexual debut's I can recall reading about, ever. That is where I put most of the residual probability. 30 some percent.

But as an intentional plot ? It has way to high a chance of going wrong. Anyone able to think it up would know better than to try it.

I just had another thought in relation to Harry's second transfigured object. I had thought as Quirrel did that Harry's second transfigured object was Hermione's body. (Though Harry successfullly fooled Quirrel into thinking the second object was the steel ring. It wan't, but we know he has something because of the mention of 'the other one' in Chapter 104.)

But just after Hermione's body dissappeared, they throroughly searched Harry's person and stuff for transfigured objects and finite incantatem-ed the lot. Perhaps Harry's second transfigured object is not Hermione, but something aquired more recently? I'm thinking of Cedric. Can a living body be transformed into something solid like a rock without deleterious effects?

The gun jabbed slightly forward, causing prickles of sweat to appear on Harry's forehead. "Drop your wand. Now."

Harry dropped it.

That's a mistake. The response should be to transfigure air into a very thin net of carbon nanotube that's invisible and that can be between him an Quirrell's gun. Transfiguration doesn't seem to need speaking if I remember right.

That's a plausible answer as to why he couldn't make Sprout or Snape cast Imperius on Harry. But it doesn't explain why he seems to need Harry's active help.

He could just put Harry into a small, nonmagical cage or box, and float the box along, without his magic ever touching Harry directly. Or he could stuff Harry into the pouch, like Harry did to him in the Azkaban arc. (Granted, Harry can't turn into a snake.) If he needed Harry to be stunned for the duration, he could have told Harry to stun himself, threatening to torture the other students if he didn't.

[EDIT: the Dark Lord of the Matrix have fixed this.]

There's a glitch in the Matrix:

A blank-eyed Professor Sprout had now risen from the ground, had picked up Harry's wand and was wrapping it in a shimmering cloth.

Then Harry does some bargaining, and then...

After that, Professor Sprout picked up Harry's wand, and wrapped it in shimmering cloth; then she placed it on the floor, and pointed her own wand at Harry.

Why the assumption that the trials in HPMoR are going to be even remotely similar to canon? All we know at this point is that the Mirror of Erised plays a part, but we don't know what that part is, or what any of the other trials are, etc. Using canon information to make deductions about HPMoR has proven a less-than-reliable method in the past, and EY's essay on originality suggests to me that the obstacles will in fact be radically different from those in canon.

Not that it matters, but I don't really understand Quirrell's grading criteria. Is Neville's score 'outstanding' because he alone made the sensible move of escaping to safety of his home from life-threatening dangers of Hogwarts and Hermione's grade low because she failed the 'ultimate' test? If so, does Harry's surivival to-date 'exceed' Quirrell's expectations?

Alternatively, is Neville's score a reflection of his rate of improvement over the term, which admittedly was outstanding, relative to Harry's (or Hermione's)?

Perhaps, grades other than OWL's and NEWT's do not matter academically, so Quirrell's grading is purely subjective/random?

I think quirrel is Harry from the future. Harry decided not to mess with time until he's older, but maybe once he's older he realized that he can break the time travel restriction rules and travel years into the past. This could possibly explain why quirrel knows so much about Harry. It also explains their magic interaction possibly. This would also explain how quirrel is so rational, whereas it would be surprising that Harry would randomly run into someone as rational as himself in the small number of people he's met in the wizarding world. Quirrel could've even been the one who gave petunia the potion, thereby using that one difference (Harry traveling back in time) to explain multiple differences between hp and hpmor.

Any thoughts on my theory are welcome, I'm curious if this is a commonly held belief. Maybe the source of magic showed Harry a way to perform time travel that could exceed the (6 hour?) duration.

Except there's still no continuity of self.