Took the vast majority. The OCEAN test seemed mostly wrong, the IQ seemed low (big shock, right? Shouldn't have raced through, I guess), and my Myers-Briggs was ENFJ, which is just bizarre.

Also, I've commented a few times, never posted.

A certification system to replace high-school and college.

With the explosion in independent study on all education levels, certification is the main missing piece. One solution is tests. For example, Pearson's is offering this service to Udacity students. However, certification-by-testing has had a hard time getting prestige. In the high-status parts of the software industry, getting Java/Microsoft/etc. certification is a slight negative on your job value -- i.e., one is expected to countersignal.

So, we need a certification system that succeeds at serving as a signal.

What successful examples can we find? The actuarial industry has a system of advancement with ten exams. There is no requirement to get a certain degree to take them. The top level is considered an intellectual achievement roughly equivalent to a PhD.

Perhaps the certification we're offering should test useless skills which require a long time to acquire, proving that one is not just smart but hard-working. Compare Latin in earlier periods, and the software language Scheme (a language used mostly for theory, not for product development) in the software industry today.

The usual trappings of signaling, like association with prestigious people, would be an essential part of the marketing.

In fact, it just occurred to me that Q could very well have been using Legilimency on Draco as well. Would the Aurors have checked for that? Would Lucius?

Quirrell seems to think it's a real possibility:

"Legilimency, on Malfoy's heir? Did Lucius Malfoy learn of it, he would have me assassinated outright."

Canon seems to imply that living horcrux anchors can be killed normally to destroy the horcrux. (Magic apparently can’t actually fix death, and a horcrux is destroyed when the anchor is “damaged beyond magic repair”.)

I’m not sure MoR retains that, but it would be a huge game-breaker if it didn’t, and one that Voldie would have seen and taken advantage of: You could protect your army from all but a few arcane dark spells by having your minions horcrux each-other. Note that the rare Fiendfyre is mentioned as necessary to destroy a horcrux, but the much more common Avada Kedavra is not—which suggests that, if it were to work like that, horcruxing would make you invulnerable even to AK. (In other words, AK is not mentioned as one of the few horcrux-destroying spells because it only works on living people, and living horcruxes can be just killed normally instead of requiring advanced methods.)

Yes: why would Dumbledore allow McGonagall to think that Voldemort only had one Horcrux?

"Perhaps not, then," Dumbledore said after Minerva tried to explain. "I confess I had been hoping for something that would help in finding Voldemort's horcrux, wherever he may have hidden it. But..." The old wizard shrugged.

Interesting fact: just making her angry was not enough for setting up the murder attempt. She had to accuse Draco of plotting and overcome his magic, in public, to have him forced into a duel. Also, if the death-blow itself was faked, a public duel would not have been enough, Draco had to think of the first private duel.

Thus, if it is a plot to frame Hermione, whoever did it was really good (or ridiculously lucky) at predicting the consequences, not just Hermione’s reaction. So either its an extremely good Xanathos gambit, and everything was anticipated, or a completely unplanned series of consequences that just happened to have a lot of results all of which are in favor of a certain bad guy. On narrative grounds I lean towards the first version.

Hmm. On second thought, it could be just that someone set-up a very volatile situation and took advantage of each resulting opportunity instantly with extreme precision, but that seems about as hard as predicting all the consequences outright.

Chapter 6:

"I am unlikely ever to forget it. Thank you, Harry, that does make me feel better about entrusting you with certain things. Goodbye for now."

Harry turned to go, into the Leaky Cauldron and out toward the Muggle world.

As his hand touched the back door's handle, he heard a last whisper from behind him.

"Hermione Granger."

"What?" Harry said, his hand still on the door.

"Look for a first-year girl named Hermione Granger on the train to Hogwarts."

"Who is she?"

There was no answer, and when Harry turned around, McGonagall was gone.

Chapter 8:

"No," Hermione said. "Who told you about me?"

"Professor McGonagall and I believe I see why."

While reading, I never considered this to be a mystery, or even a question.

Edit: While some points may remain useful for the sake of reference, this theory is disproved in Chapter 82, and Aberforth's death no longer lacks narrative purpose.

Who killed Narcissa?

Suspects:

• Dumbledore

• Bones

• Lucius

• Voldemort

• Someone else

HJPEV tells us that this doesn't fit the headmaster's style. His style is curiously consistent.

There is one offhand remark, vengeance, and a practical cold-heartedness favoring Bones. "Why not Bones?" is only a little better than no argument at all.

Lucius is presented as a devoted family man. It would be inconsistent characterization for him to do this. That works for real life, but HP&tMoR is fiction, which must make sense.

Voldemort has reason not to do this, as it made a fool out of one of his tools and weakened his side by making them less willing to strike indiscriminately.

I have a 'someone else' theory: Aberforth killed Narcissa. Aberforth is dead, and meaningfully so due to Conservation of Detail. We know little else about him from HP&tMoR. Only that he didn't testify against his brother in the death of his sister, and his brother got quite stern when he died. Basically, this theory allows me to put a piece in a puzzle because it fits, not because the image on the piece makes me think it goes with the pieces next to the hole. Also, I get to write the following paragraph.

In a world where innocents are dying, where evil is winning and good people live in fear for their loved ones, one man had the courage to do what must be done. Aberforth Dumbledore is Narcissa's Immolator.

Aberfoth kills his enemy's wife, informs his brother of what he's done, and then dies either at his own hand or, less style-consistently, his brother's. He knows that his brother will take this atrocity/sacrifice and make the best of it, and in so doing he saved countless 'light side' family members.

He did it all to make up for killing his sister and allowing his brother to kind of take the blame. Maybe.

Harry can defeat Veritaserum (maybe), but definitely can't lie to a Legilemens - and the Wizengamot officially uses one to interrogate witnesses. Maybe they wouldn't do it on the spot, for whatever reason, but they would get to shortly, because this is very serious business. And if they saw in Harry's mind that he lied, they'd just interrogate him very thoroughly and then never listen to him speak freely.

I'll be there.