Perhaps she is only ridiculously exhausted, low on brain juices.

She is not used to being low on brain juices because she has never been either undernourished or pushed so hard. It is a novel experience, which can be frightening.

Anyone remember this ....

"And the reason it is easy for you to forgive such fools and think well of them, Mr. Potter, is that you yourself have not been sorely hurt. You will think less fondly of commonplace idiots after the first time their folly costs you something dear. Such as a hundred Galleons from your own pocket, perhaps, rather than the agonizing deaths of a hundred strangers."

Now he's gone and spent a hundred THOUSAND Galleons on a friend's folly, and I don't think Quirrelmort would've expected that.

Can we get a sub-reddit? I'm tired of finding out which is the right thread for the present, and all the posts are scrambled over multiple threads, etc.

A sub-reddit might also get new people to hpmor, as opposed to being on lesswrong.com

I don't have a reddit account, but I'd create one if hpmor was there.

Can't see the significance of 'The Horn Effect' in the title....

Is it that the Daily Prophet, et al, are creating a Horn effect against Hermione?

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_halo_and_horn_effect

Chap 79 - EY's added #40 on list to read.

Chap 40

• HP discloses to Q, Lucius's conversation, and also speculates that Dumbledore will kill Draco, making it seem as if Harry did it, to get Lucius to stop his game against Dumbledore and go after Harry.
• Q suggests only way to remove cognitive dissonance in others is to kill them
• Q talks about ways to stay alive and does not mention Horcruxes, instead leading on to the resurrection stone.
• HP shows the Deathly Hallows symbol to Q who seems to have been oblivious of the Hallows till now, same as canon, & unsurprising given his Muggle upbringing. So he knows about the cloak, and now the stone, very likely that he knows about the wand as well

I also find it impossible to believe that Hermione lost to Malfoy, she just beat him fair & square in battle. That certainly sounds like a false memory.

Chapter 25, Fred and George talking about the Marauder's Map, which is supposed to show all people in Hogwarts by name:

“Still on the fritz,” said George.
“Both, or—”
“Intermittent one fixed itself again. Other one’s same as ever.”

The intermittent one is probably Quirrell, going in and out of zombie mode. But what could be visibly wrong with the other one? My theory is that, unlike all the other dots on the Marauder's Map, one of them doesn't have a name. Who could that be?

I hypothesize that this is Mr. Hat and Cloak. That would mean it's not Quirrell and not anyone the Weasleys would pay much attention to, either. The map must get the names it displays from somewhere, and its reliability in doing so suggests that it gets them from people's minds. My hypothesis is that to appear on the map without a name, you'd have to (a) not be known by name and present appearance to anyone whose mind the map can read, and (b) be an occlumens.

In 14 - Harry's Invisibility Cloak is not given by Santa Claus - the letter is unsigned unlike future letters -

The reason the later letters are signed "Santa Claus" is to signify that they are from the same anonymous person who was wishing Harry a merry Christmas and giving him an early Christmas present with the first note. Otherwise there would have been no reason to use the alias Santa Claus. It's possible that they are from another person merely pretending to be that anonymous gift giver, but then it's also possible for any appearance of a non-POV character to be someone else under the influence of polyjuice.

if you were going to make an objection of that kind it would have made a lot more sense to object to calling Hermione's assailant H&C.

I was annoyed that I wasn't catching the clues about H&C other people pointed out, even after rereading some chapters.

But it did make me wonder if there are definite clues at all, and if Eliezer had written so far with a specific person in mind. When he chooses to reveal who it is, he could have a list of plausible H&Cs and randomnumber it. The clues are vague enough that massive hindsight bias seems possible.

Now, he probably wouldn't do this, considering that writing five plots is much harder than one, but if I were a talented enough writer I would try. Then laugh at everyone attempting to guess ahead of time.

The first thing I noticed is that the list contains the Santa Claus messages and H&C appearances (14, 21, 35, 63, 77). Presumably all chapters that contain strong and deliberate hints at H&C's identity are on the list. I notice that neither the chapter where Remus talks about Sirius and Peter, nor the chapter where a prisoner is mumbling "I'm not serious [Sirius]" are on the list, so H&C is unlikely to be Sirius. On the other hand 65 which has Quirrel explain that the port key Santa Claus sent had a misleading description attached is not on the list either, so that may not be definite.

It would simply be bad writing to set up a mysterious and malevolent figure like Hat and Cloak and then reveal him as one of the story's established villains. It's redundant, a wasted move, to reveal that the villain was secretly a villain. It drains tension from the story to reveal that the heroes were only facing one opponent, not two. I would rule out the possibility just by assuming a competent author.

A point in favor of Hat and Cloak being Grindelwald: the playing card he chose to represent Dumbledore was the King of Hearts. ♥