The new thread, discussion 13, is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. With three chapters recently the previous thread has very quickly reached 1000 comments. The latest chapter as of 25th March 2012 is Ch 80.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:
You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).
If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it's fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that "Eliezer said X is true" unless you use rot13.
Basically the short answer is Harry used the time turner, invisibility cloak, and Quirrel to fake all of the evidence.
The long answer is, Harry waits until the end of the trial, goes back in time to the start of the trial and steals Lord Jugson's wand out of his pocket. He then heads over to the magical law enforcement department in the Ministry which is of course around the wizengamot. Harry knows that Quirrel is probably being held there for questioning since he didn't return to Hogwarts. Harry then steals the wand of Hermoine and Draco out of custody (or possibly heads over to St. Mungos to get Draco's wand from him there if it is there instead) and then finds Quirrell.
Using the invisiblity cloak and the time turner Harry goes back in time further with the defense professor tampers with all the wands to fake the spells properly either by using some spell, or just brute force recasting all the spells in its history far enough back that the tampering can't be detected. Harry then gets Fred and George to volunteer to be false memory charmed with the memory of Lord Jugson entering the Trophy room, and obliviated of the memory of volunteering. He then puppet masters it so that whichever Professor brings them to the trial shows up at exactly the right time. The defense professor returns him to the ministry, he replaces the wands of everyone involved a split second after they are taken in the first place and replaces the first Harry seconds after he goes back the first time.
Okay now some criticisms I have of my plan is that its hard to imagine why Lord Jugson wouldn't remain disillusioned the entire time. However perhaps Fred and George could say they used their wardbreaker monocoles Dumbledore gave them which allowed them to see dislliusioned people.
Another thing is that Harry could theoretically go back in time and get Dumbledore or Snape to fake the evidence instead but I think it would be more likely for Quirrel to do it. Quirrel is probably ambivalent over whether Hermoine gets nailed or not but he would have a motivation. The first way Harry develops a deep hatred of the Ministry and wants to overthrow it as he intends. The second way Harry still develops the deep hatred of the Ministry but sees Quirrell as even more of a valuable ally/mentor. Quirrel did after all prevent Hermoine from getting killed by the wizarding world establishment which Quirrel wants to overthrow. Lord Jugson could have some alibi but thats unlikely. Stealing and replacing Lord Jugson's wand could be tricky but certainly within Harry's power. Same with finding and freeing Professor Quirrell.
Above all I like this plan because it ends up with the best possible ending for Harry out of any plan I've seen. He saves the girl, regains his friend, and vanquishes a powerful enemy. He also does in a way that doesn't break the rest of the plot because things can go back to normal afterwards. The attacking Azkhban plan would completely destroy the rest of the in Hogwarts plots that have been set up, and freeing Hermoine on a technicality such as marrying her or trading in all of his Blood debts would still leave the magical world thinking Hermoine is a murderer and that Harry doesn't give a shit that Hermoine is a murderer. It also has the irony of fighting fire with fire, using False memory charms to fake someone else using False memory charms.
Adding details to a story makes it seem more probable to humans (it fits together making a better story), when in fact every additional detail reduces the probability. malthrin linked this earlier, you should read: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jk/burdensome_details/
I think your scenario is a conjunction of unlikely events. I think the chance Harry will use a time turner in the solution is quite low, less than 10%, because the set up is such that he won't have access to it until more than 6 hours have passed. I'll give only a 50% chance that Harry will frame any... (read more)