Hm. Can a poisonous snake Patronus poison someone?

As if that'd do any good, it having been established that they can communicate through Patroni. It would, of course, require Harry to reveal his Patronus 2.0 to Draco, though.

Not quite, you can answer to a patronus and it carries the message back. This happens in all caseswe’ve seen in MoR. (McGonnagal checking on Harry in Mary’s room, and even when Harry and Draco tested the communication method, when Harry answered in Parseltongue.)

So Harry just can’t initiate a conversation, but if Draco does they can communicate freely.

It seems from TSPE part 6 that the Patronus just appears into existence if the caster is far away from the target

Minor magical nitpick: the Patronus is described to move away, not just dissappear, except it doesn’t actually cross through the intervening space. Or in other words, it dissappears but doesn’t appear to. Nice UI.

So it (not very surprisingly) came to pass that Draco was not sent back to Hogwarts, at least not yet.

Might be some pressure off of Harry to actively harass Dumbledore what with the enemy pledge. Especially as Draco might be unable to continue with his part of the deal. Though Harry is probably curious at this point himself what the real deal is.

I'd still call it possible that someone else did the deed and Heh just took credit for the good of all, but the probability of him being directly responsible got boosted as he was depicted to consider it important that he doom his brother in person also. Then again, though I'd rate it unlikely, perhaps mommy dearest can be found in a private dungeon or a memory charmed witness protection program.

Anyway, Draco. He's probably restricted from communicating with Harry. As if that'd do any good, it having been established that they can communicate through Patroni. It would, of course, require Harry to reveal his Patronus 2.0 to Draco, though. Draco will certainly be the one to initiate contact, mentioning that he's in a secure location. It seems from TSPE part 6 that the Patronus just appears into existence if the caster is far away from the target, so if Draco actually is in a secure location, others wouldn't probably see it. Harry might just risk it.

So I'll bet there will be a visit from a silver serpent soon, though perhaps only after things have settled down for a couple of chapters.

Harry doesn't need his wand. I think that's only because he mastered his Hallow.

I notice that I am confused.

I've been doubting Quirrel being Mr. Hat on a story-obviousness-basis, being partial to twists. But rationally, it makes no sense to very much doubt the obvious solution with no comparably well-supported alternatives (despite having reached for ones). I wouldn't wonder if that was even the moral there.

It's an interest-free loan. Unless the "certain rights" Lucius has over HJPEV until graduation are troublesome, it is in probably HJPEV's best interest to delay paying the loan back as long as possible.

Or unless, I suppose, he expects significant deflation before graduation. I don't think any of the HJPEV's plans that we know of are likely to result in deflation, quite the opposite in fact.

Why does Dumbledore not give a quick Summary of the worst consequences of being in debt to Lucius Malfoy? It's hard to see how that could necessitate telling secrets that cannot be revealed in public, the laws involved should already be known. Naming a few of the "certain rights" Lucius would have shouldn't take more time than Dumbledore actually spends trying to convince Harry.

Re: the debt. I think Lucius may have been playing very high speed chess when he picked the amount. The point isnt to have Harry in debt to him, the point is to afford ex-deatheaters loyal to Lucius the oppertunity to trade in a blood debt to Harry for a monetary one to him. If this is so, the debts are likely to be paid off long before Harry can set any money making schemes in motion. - This would count as a downside to being in debt to Lucius - He cannot refuse cash in lieu as long as he is a debtor.

The ending note of that trial couldnt have been more precisely picked to convince people that he is a bodysnatch victim. Riddle me this? Gah. Incoming kidnapping and exorcism attempts. Not that Harry wouldnt benefit from a good exorsism.

Hermonie is going to read the note she gave him on dementors as soon as she is out of palfreys office, right? Seems nigh-inevitable. And I dont think she is nearly as commited to secrecy as Harry is, so word might well get out on how he pulled that stunt very shortly. On balance, this would tend to reduce the odds of him being murdered by a good citizen, so not all bad?

Incidentally, if one believes a certain piece of what seems like well-founded speculation about the Dread Totoro, the Merlin-Totoro legend mirrors Harry's escapades quite nicely.

Good bit, though a bit of a hodgepodge. I presume the real culprit will be found, but that doesn't necessarily counter the debt - the Wizengamot would have to agree, and the truth could be found out in a way that leaves little actual proof, even aside issues of Wizengamot's fairness. I'll be disappointed if paying the debt turns out to be too arduous though, but of course depending on the methods chosen there may be side effects. (One way would be for Draco to accept a counterdebt, having been convinced of the truth of the matter and seeing that being on good terms with Harry is still of value. Assuming Draco will return, which is sadly not a given.)

Merely spooking the Dementor was a good twist on the common (mine included) anticipation of it ending up destroyed. The telling of the incident was cleverly arranged not to give out too much new information on how they actually work. Harry's theory of them operating on the expectations of others works as an explanation; as the animal Patronuses imperfectly shield the Wizengamot from the Dementor, thus they shield the Dementor from their expectations, leaving Harry's dominant. (Also, one might argue that the Dementor shirking from Harry was wholly unexpected to almost everyone present, thus they didn't really have sufficiently direct active expectations on that particular thing either way. But this is an unnecessary side hypothesis.) The Dementor may as well still have also some internal intelligence and self preservation instincts though, as has been hypothesised especially on the grounds of them all refusing co-operation with the Azkaban guards earlier.

In any case, now the expectations of many will actually support Dementors fleeing from Harry, which might come in handy if they at least partially work off of those ;)