All of Pringlescan's Comments + Replies

3SkyDK
No reason not to convince them now... With the newly won time and without the considerable risks in your good (but overly complicated) plan.
3aladner
If it had worked, the results would have been more favorable. However, it seems much less likely to have worked.

"It's all right, Gregory," Draco said, as gently as he could. "All you've got to do is worry about protecting me. Nobody's going to blame you for following my orders, not my father, not yours."

Hmm I wonder how much trouble they are in, they were supposed to keep Draco from harm and he almost got killed.

0wedrifid
Which isn't to say Draco wouldn't cheerfully discard him as a cat's paw for following orders. Working with ruthless people is dangerous.

Well if everyone is right, you and I will be learning the lesson together.

0Normal_Anomaly
Still wow.

I'm sure I got many things wrong, the only thing I'm feeling pretty confident about is that Harry is going to frame someone else, and Lord Jugson looks like he has been being fattened up to be framed. The rest is just the story I came up with as most likely when figuring out how Harry could do it. I could be completely wrong, I could be right about the what and wrong about the how.

Perhaps I should have said 90% that my plan is the plan or superior to whatever Harry comes up with.

Yup that's what I should have said alright.

3ArisKatsaris
I'm 95% sure you will find your plan superior to whatever Harry comes up with. I'm 99% sure I won't. And that neither will Eliezer.

Go ahead and read the rest of my plot, I would say Harry has the best possible win here beyond overthrowing the entire ministry and remaking the government in his image. At least from Harry's perspective since he doesn't know that the real best win would be exposing and vanquishing Quirrelmort.

0DanArmak
I'm not saying your plot is bad, it might be the best possible. (Well, I personally don't think so, but I'm not arguing for or against it in this comment.) I'm just pointing out why I think people try so hard to come up with plots that are wildly more improbable than even yours, but have better endings.

Hopefully I'm not about to learn a big lesson in humility, I would be less confident but I haven't seen or thought of any other plans that satisfy my criteria.

1pedanterrific
So you're 90% certain that if you are incapable of imagining something, Eliezer can't either? Wow.
5ArisKatsaris
You should probably not even have a 90% probability for satisfaction of your criteria (the full exoneration of Hermione in the eyes of the public). I'm probably assigning less than 50% probability on that being the actual end result given how well she was framed -- any specific path to that conclusion should therefore be even less likely.

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... (read more)

3lavalamp
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 anyone at all, and if he does frame someone, I have no reason to believe that it will be Jugson-- I'd say 50% of the time he'll frame Dumbledore (just because it's easy), with decreasing chances for Quirell, Snape, other professors, and finally Jugson occupies such a small bit of my probability mass here that it wouldn't even occur to me. Just these three items (time turner, frame, Jugson) reduce your scenario's probability to something very small; I put 2% on predictionbook, but my true probability is probably much lower. (ETA: I realized on a re-read that my usage of "frame" above is non-standard; I was thinking broadly of turning the blame onto someone, not just of retroactively planting evidence, to which I give a much lower probability.)

Its the only solution I've seen that proves Hermoine innocence AND gains Harry an advantage. I think it was foreshadowed back in Self Actualization.

0[anonymous]
That's a ridiculously high confidence based on the data available. My models don't even assign it higher than a low number. 0.2 sounds right; I would be a least four times more surprised if that happened than if it didn't. Unless your models of E.Y. are dramatically better than the rest of us, and are providing additional evidence, I don't think you can possibly justify that level of confidence rationally.
3pedanterrific
Has it occurred to you that if you're really that confident you could be making money on bets? Edit: No, I'm sorry, that was unethical of me. I think you're being ludicrously overconfident and would lose any money you put up. Please don't actually make bets.

With a plan this complex there are many variables, so I just filled in my favorite guesses such as the person being framed, the order, etc.

Harry realizes the plan in that moment of desperation then gets the vote stopped to admit new evidence. He then presents to the court the testimony of George and Fred Weasley who say that during the night of the attempted murder they were out of their bed pulling a prank, when they saw Lord Jugson entering the Trophy room. They thought it was strange but since they were out of bed pulling a prank they didn’t want to... (read more)

0Pringlescan
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

Let me set the stage first. For a bare minimum solution Hermoine has to be proven innocent so she can return to school without someone trying to kill her to score points for Malfoy. For an optimal solution Harry teaches his enemies that poking him with a stick is very dangerous, and manages to turn this to his advantage by harming an enemy. But in no way is any solution good enough if it doesn’t end up with Hermoine proven innocent to the world.

He has a time-turner, an invisibility cloak, possibly the blood debts of everyone who claimed to be imperiused... (read more)

0DanArmak
I'd just like to note that even then, Harry comes out the loser from this whole chain of events. Most importantly, he loses Draco as an ally, and suffers from knowing he hurt Draco's relationship with this father. Less importantly, Hermione has been psychologically hurt (I'd say traumatized), and won't get any personal redress. Finally, if Harry sets someone else up, he will lose the ability to expose the true culprit in the future, if he learns who that was, and so loses a powerful avenue of action against that culprit. The true culprit (or someone else) may even find proof of Harry framing Jugson, and then blackmail Harry with that proof. The only way Harry could come out genuinely ahead is if he found and exposed the culprit, rather than frame a random enemy. Including scenarios where he could delay Hermione's punishment, or cancel it using blood debts, so that he'd gain time to search out the real culprit. I believe a major psychological reason for people proposing so many theories for Harry's solution, some of them very impractical, is that they have an "intent to kill"; they don't want to propose a solution that settles for second best, like yours. They want Harry to win.
0malthrin
That sure is a lot of burdensome details.
-1Pringlescan
With a plan this complex there are many variables, so I just filled in my favorite guesses such as the person being framed, the order, etc. Harry realizes the plan in that moment of desperation then gets the vote stopped to admit new evidence. He then presents to the court the testimony of George and Fred Weasley who say that during the night of the attempted murder they were out of their bed pulling a prank, when they saw Lord Jugson entering the Trophy room. They thought it was strange but since they were out of bed pulling a prank they didn’t want to tell anyone, until they realized that morning it could be connected. They then went straight to a Professor who brought them to the Wizengamot, and they repeat their testimony under veritaserum. Lord Jugson claims they were false memory charmed, but Harry responds to this by saying that if you are so confident of it why not let us examine the last spells cast on your wand, and that of Hermoine’s and Draco’s? After all you have nothing to hide. Lord Jugson agrees and hands over his wand, and then priori incantum reveals to his shock that his wand has been used recently to do the imperius, obliviate and the false memory charm. Hermoine's wand has been faked to use the Blood Chilling charm but Draco's has no evidence of a duel past the army fight on it at all. Harry explains that Lord Jugson in a fit of rage at Draco for losing to a mudblood and Hermoine for beating him made a plot to punish them both after the army fight. He disappeared after the fight, and remained in Hogwarts to imperius Draco to challenge Hermoine to a duel at midnight. Then he either simply stayed in Hogwarts until midnight, used a secret passage or apparated outside the wards and flew in a broomstick, or used the floo network to enter Hogwarts right before midnight. He made his way to the trophy room, stunned Draco and Hermoine as they entered, disillusioned them all, and took them outside of the wards of Hogwarts to do the obliviation and fals

http://predictionbook.com/predictions/6215

Okay I've updated my pet theory a bit since discussing/reading other people's ideas. My problem with the vast majority of the theories out there is they do not end with Hermoine being cleared of Murder. I don't think Harry would be happy with a resolution where he convinces/trades something to Lucius to save Hermoine, but everyone still thinks Hermoine tried to kill Draco.

My idea is that Harry could use the time turner to go back in time, and get Quirrel/Snape/Dumbledore to false memory charm a student to frame s... (read more)

Ninety percent?! Holy moly!

2Pringlescan
Let me set the stage first. For a bare minimum solution Hermoine has to be proven innocent so she can return to school without someone trying to kill her to score points for Malfoy. For an optimal solution Harry teaches his enemies that poking him with a stick is very dangerous, and manages to turn this to his advantage by harming an enemy. But in no way is any solution good enough if it doesn’t end up with Hermoine proven innocent to the world. He has a time-turner, an invisibility cloak, possibly the blood debts of everyone who claimed to be imperiused, possibly the wands as evidence, a very analytical mind that is currently very open to ‘dark’ ideas, and multiple people of different skills/motivations that he can coerce or get to help him. Lord Jugson is someone that really doesn’t seem to have much a point in the story so far. It makes the most sense to me as someone who is being built up just to be the scapegoat. “"It would be justice for his past crimes, and I'd only do it if Jugson made the first move. The point isn't to make people scared of me as a wild card, after all. It's to teach them that neutrals are perfectly safe from me, and poking me with a stick is incredibly dangerous."” Also, The boy smiled, now with a touch of coldness again. "Okay, I'll figure out some way to set it up so that it looks like Lord Jugson betrayed his own side." A big gaping hole like introducing the wands for evidence is far too obvious for Harry to pretend it doesn’t exist anymore, so that is avenue worth approaching. However Cloak and Hat is far too clever to have forgotten to doctor the wands, unless he deliberately wanted the wands to prove. It would also be just like Harry to use the enemies tactics against them, and so the idea of thwarting an evil plot based on false memory charms by using false memory charms to thwart it would be appealing.

They could use some more sequences on how to motivate yourself, if I recall there was one written by lukefrog but it wasn't very good.

Hmm I don't think that's a very good description. Rationality means setting rational goals to accomplish what you actually want, and then understanding the world around you and yourself well enough to systematically and logically accomplish those goals. It would certainly include studying yourself to understand how to generate motivation.

1Vaniver
That sounds circular to me. That sounds like turning motivations (i.e. goals) into plans. Indeed, as an indirect step.
-1faul_sname
If you're defining rationality as the definition given on this site, you're right. If you're defining rationality as the thing that's actually discussed on here, you're not.

This would be if they were stunned immediately on entering the trophy room, like Harry said we don't even know if a duel took place. Granted he could have just waited until after the duel and stunned Draco from behind, both would look the same to us.

Now that I think about it I actually like your way better, cloak and hat is there invisibly and makes sure Draco wins the duel, then stuns Draco while he is leaving. Less work to do with the False Memory charms, less work to do with tampering the wands, and less chance of messing up on evidence since an actual duel was fought.

0pedanterrific
What makes you sure that Hermione didn't stun and Blood-Chill Draco herself?

Hopefully i'm not deluding myself by believing that my solution outlined here is equal or superior to Harry's solution whatever it is.

I outlined my solution here

http://lesswrong.com/lw/axe/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/64am

9ArisKatsaris
Check out Chapter 24, which mentions "The Rule of Three": Any plot which requires more than three different things to happen will never work in real life. I'm counting atleast 8 different things that have to go right for your plot to work (steal Draco's wand, steal Hermione's wand, steal Jugson's wand, convince Snape/Quirrel/Dumbledore to cooperate with your plan, convincingly tamper with the wands, sneak back and return Hermione's wand, return Draco's wand, return Jugson's wand)

Hermoine is still on the hook in the eyes of Draco and everyone for murder. I believe the story demands a fully vindicated Hermoine to continue, which is why I think Harry will frame Lord Jugson for the false memory charms on Draco and Hermoine. I go into further detail on this elsewhere, just check my comment history.

1Celer
I don't think that Hermione needs to be fully vindicated for the story to go on. Having her be ruled innocent by the Wizengamot, possibly with a later recantation by Lucius Malfoy once he calms down, would have her be distrusted by her classmates somewhat. This could fit in nicely with her character development and her fear of becoming dark.
2pedanterrific
What False Memory Charm on Draco? I thought the current leading theory was that Hermione was GHD Attacked, FMC'd, then later on (after the attack?) Obliviated of the FMC. I don't see how Draco needed to be messed with at all.

I'm actually fairly confident in my guess to be honest. I guess we will see in a day.

Any option that doesn't allow Hermoine to be cleared of all charges to go back to school is not an option

The hidden 7th Option.

Use a false memory charm on a student to generate testimony framing someone else as false memory charming Draco and Hermoine. My favorite path right now it to set up Lord Jugson using the time turner, invisibility cloak, tampering with the wands, and a False memory charm on a student. I go into more detail here http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/axe/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/64am

3anotherblackhat
That would fall under 5. "... find someone and give them up as Dracro's assailant/Narcissa's killer, without considering their actual guilt." And like any option that falls under that broad category, we don't know how long it would take to carry out, so it's more "Let Hermione go to Azkaban while framing Lord Jugson." (action 4 plus 5) If I were going for the safe, boring route, I'd pick 4 combined with trying to determine (and prove) the actually guilty party who false memory charmed Hermione. There aren't very many people who; * Are Hogwarts professors (i.e. someone who could cast the memory charm without triggering alarm). * Have a motive.

Fully two dozen different Charms must have been spoken, then, but no more invisible people showed up. One of them in particular made Hermione's heart sink; she recognized it as the Charm which had been listed alongside the description of the True Cloak of Invisibility, which would not reveal the Cloak, but would tell you whether it or certain other artifacts were nearby.

To clarify when I said 'actually . . . .' i meant to disprove that assertion not support it.

0pedanterrific
Edit in response to your edit: You lost me. The example you gave was not an instance of Harry's Cloak being detected or not-detected, so it doesn't prove anything one way or another.

Recap of Chapter 17 and how Dumbledore manages to act insane while still giving meaningful advice and not lying.
"Why?" Dumbledore repeated. "Ah, Harry, if I went around all day asking why I do things, I'd never have time to get a single thing done! I'm quite a busy person, you know."

Dumbledore means that he doesn't spend all day asking himself 'why am i protecting the magical world' he just goes out and does it. It doesn't mean he just wanders around doing random acts.

"I'm sorry," Harry said. He felt wretched at this point, h... (read more)

5glumph
It's certainly not the Philosopher's Stone. The only reason the stone isn't at the Ministry (or Gringotts) is that Hogwarts provides the absolutely best protection: I can't see Dumbledore going and giving it to Harry to wear on his finger.
6DanArmak
If it's the Philosopher's Stone, why would Dumbledore say it was James Potter's Rock, or that he found it in Godric's Hollow? Then again it might be a big rock from Godric's Hollow that contained the (small?) Philosopher's Stone embedded inside. But could Harry Transfigure it if he didn't correctly know its current Form, or whatever the term is? Is it even safe to routinely transfigure the Philosopher's Stone? It also holds the hint that Dumbledore gave Lily that enabled her to come up with the dangerous potion that made her sister Petunia pretty, enabling her to marry Harry's father Professor Michael E-V. Many people think this is the fabled "single point of departure from canon". Could be important, but it's hard to see how.
0[anonymous]
It might just be a rock. It'd violate the rules of storytelling, but Dumbledore reasoned incorrectly, and the laws of probability are LAWS. *ominous thunder* That consideration could take precedence in an author tract like this one, Chekhov's Gun be damned.
0Blueberry
Where are you getting this? What makes you think he intervened to make her distrust Snape, and why do you think that's the reason things didn't work out with Snape and Lily? I don't see this from the chapter. Also, what's the deal with Fawkes and the evil parents and him running away?
0pedanterrific
It's not like Dumbledore shies away from flat-out lying when it suits him. Unless you think lying in writing and lying in person are meaningfully different?

Actually if I remember correctly during the bully final showdown Hermoine gets scared because she recognizes one of the charms as one that would detect Harry's cloak in the area if not find it directly.

0pedanterrific
Yes, but Harry's Cloak wasn't anywhere near there, so...

I recently reread the chapter where Dumbledore gives Harry his rock. Its kind of shocking at how well it was written where the first time you are completely confused and the second time you are like, "Oh dumbledore you magnificent bastard'

5Blueberry
I'm still completely confused: what happened with the rock?

I wonder if there any charms to protect or clean up radiation damage . . . . .

1nohatmaker
I imagine healing charms would be at least somewhat effective. If shield charms don't work this would also be a great dueling technique.

Yeah but antimatter would probably kill the Aurors and the prisoners. Also Harry would probably realize that while subjecting people to dementors is evil, having a prison for people who commit crimes is not.

1nohatmaker
Yep, it's not a great solution when you have any vaguely adjacent friendlies. I was mainly referring to his dream of floating above azkaban and incinerating it to the bedrock. Also it seems pretty relevant considering all the talk about nuclear bombs. They aren't dangerous at all in comparison.

Fair points, it would be very impressive if he could pull it all off, but I think Dark Harry could manage to do it with some luck.

*For the wand I was thinking of something like pulling it out and then pushing someone into Lord Jugson and dropping it at his feet. He could properly time it so that 1st harry pulls it out and runs then 2cd harry immediately pushes either Jugson or someone into Jugson and drops the wand at his feet. Even if Jugson suspects something what can he prove?

*If Quirrel had returned to the School already Harry would know, if he is... (read more)

"The boy smiled, now with a touch of coldness again. "Okay, I'll figure out some way to set it up so that it looks like Lord Jugson betrayed his own side." "

I think that the optimal thing for Harry to do would be to plant fake evidence showing that Lord Jugson was the one whom plotted against Draco. The motivation would be a combination of Lucius 'betraying' the death eaters and a desire to see his house rise in power over House Malfoy. All he would have to do would be to go back in time an hour, steal the wands of Draco, Hermoine and... (read more)

0Celer
Hasn't Draco been with Lucius for the past hour? It would be one thing to steal the wand of a generic death eater, another entirely to steal a wand from under the nose of the head of the majority of the Wizengamot. Lucius seems to be well versed in the art of plotting and counter plotting, and getting Draco's wand from him and back to him without Lord Malfoy knowing with, at a maximum, five hours of planning, would be an extremely challenging feat even for Dark Harry. Still, I don't think that it is impossible.
5DanArmak
* Stealing a powerful wizard's wand, even if you yourself are invisible, isn't a small feat. * Harry has no way to reach Quirrel on his own. He doesn't even know where Draco or Snape are, and can't reach them either. He also can't bring in another student. * Dumbledore can't help him now (people would notice if he stepped out for a few seconds), so he'd have to rely on him going back in time later to help him - Harry can't manipulate the wands himself, let alone false memory charm someone. This has the usual problems of relying on something already being modified by future travel back in time, without actually observing it. * Harry can't know if Jugson has an alibi for that time.

To respond to Xachariah in my previous post summed up by "Enough people in the wizengamot would know about time travel that would be able to counter any time travel, or recognize it and have safeguards built in against tampering that way" This IS the universe where they don't use dying people to cast unbreakable oath spells, play Quidditch, and are sentencing a 12 year old girl to death in Azkhbahn after a 24 hour investigation (yes yes ten years but that would kill her all the time) If you look at all the possible worlds in regards to policies and safeguards regarding time turners worlds where Harry would be able to get away with this would have much higher probability density.

My idea that to the best of my knowledge is my own, is that Harry could use the time turner to go back in time, and get Quirrel/Snape/Dumbledore to false memory charm a student to provide crucial testimony clearing Hermoine and proving a plot. Another part that would help would be to present the wands as evidence (not original to me) but to also steal the wands of Draco and Hermoine out of custody using the cloak and tamper with them to remove any evidence if hat and cloak tampered with them.

I'll expand on this with a post attached to my main one since I've discovered that some people don't like long walls of texts, so if you come up with some reason why this wouldn't work check that post first please.

1Pringlescan
"The boy smiled, now with a touch of coldness again. "Okay, I'll figure out some way to set it up so that it looks like Lord Jugson betrayed his own side." " I think that the optimal thing for Harry to do would be to plant fake evidence showing that Lord Jugson was the one whom plotted against Draco. The motivation would be a combination of Lucius 'betraying' the death eaters and a desire to see his house rise in power over House Malfoy. All he would have to do would be to go back in time an hour, steal the wands of Draco, Hermoine and Jugson, and go back in time farther with that done. Then he just has to get Snape/Quirrel/Dumbledore to false memory charm a student into remembering seeing Lord Jugson leaving or entering the Trophy room at midnight. After that you just tamper with the wands, cast the right spells using Lord Jugson's wand, then sneak back into the Wizengamot and replace the wands a second after you first stole them.
0Pringlescan
To respond to Xachariah in my previous post summed up by "Enough people in the wizengamot would know about time travel that would be able to counter any time travel, or recognize it and have safeguards built in against tampering that way" This IS the universe where they don't use dying people to cast unbreakable oath spells, play Quidditch, and are sentencing a 12 year old girl to death in Azkhbahn after a 24 hour investigation (yes yes ten years but that would kill her all the time) If you look at all the possible worlds in regards to policies and safeguards regarding time turners worlds where Harry would be able to get away with this would have much higher probability density.

Why do I have -2 points with no posts explaining it?

3Xachariah
I had a long post enumerating things, but it can be replaced with this: A power only provides you with an advantage if the other side doesn't have it; a power only provides you with an unexpected advantage if the other side is unaware of it. This is the Wizengamot. Worst case, the majority of the people here probably have time turners, best case, enough people know about them that you couldn't keep time travel secret. The DMLE has protocols about how to use time travel, which means it's known to the ministry. Time travel would not be a sufficiently unexpected advantage.
5linkhyrule5
FIrst, your grammar is poor, and you abuse run-on sentences, making your idea a pain to read. Second, it is unnecessarily convoluted. All you really had to say was "Harry retroactively implicates Lord Jugson by using his wand, and clears Hermione's and Draco's." The problem, of course, is that presumably H&D's wands have already been checked.

Whoo it looks like I came up with this idea first as far as I can tell, please inform me if i'm wrong. I do know other people came up with the wands as evidence around the same time though. I was hanging out in the tvtropes thread but then I realized if I wanted actual intellectual stimulation I should probably just hang out over here instead.

The Pringlescan Plan -

Harry gestures to the door, and a new witness shows up right on cue. Its Fred and George Weasley ready to testify at how around midnight they were out of bed pulling a prank when they saw Lord... (read more)

0Pringlescan
Why do I have -2 points with no posts explaining it?

Cross posting what I wrote on TV Tropes

'm pretty sure i've figured out quirrelmorts plan for harry and magical britian. To TLDR it for you guys, hes going to train harry as a caesar, and use harry as a figurehead/puppet to force magical britian into a war of conquest with the rest of the magical world, probably selling it as a world wide war on dark wizards. Then once england owns the wizard world, they own the entire world since you can't fight invisible mind rapers.

Viewed in this context all of his actions start making sense. Harry is a very well known f... (read more)

0TuviaDulin
I think its worse than that for Harry. Remember that one possible means of Voldemort's resurrection is possessing someone, like he is now (presumably) possessing Quirrel. I think he ultimately plans to turn Harry into a perfect host for himself, and then jump into Harry's body once the latter has conquered the world for him.
3skepsci
My most plausible hypothesis is that their plan for fooling Rita Skeeter is some incredibly clever black box that Eliezer hasn't bothered to fill in, even for himself, because it's simply not that important to the plot to waste time coming up with something suitably clever they might have done. Any attempt to figure out what they did would then be wasted, since the author can't be dropping clues to an answer he doesn't even know.
0Jonathan_Elmer
One would think that magical journalists would have some countermeasures to that sort of thing worked out. All of the papers would read like the Quibbler if you could hang around outside the newspaper offices disillusioned and memory charming people.
3Joshua Hobbes
This seems far too long-term for the purposes of Eliezer's story. The only way a plan of this detail would make MOR better is if we actually got to see it acted out, and I cannot imagine Eliezer not wrapping up the plot before Harry is old enough to rule. He's certainly not going to fast-forward through the majority of Harry's Hogwarts time. No, I think Quirrelmort's plan is explicitly linked to the Sorcerer's Stone. If he can get Harry to obtain it for him, he's won.

Also I hate to be one of those people screaming, 'UPDATE UPDATE' but does anyone who has been following this longer then me have any clue when the next update is coming? There's nothing in the author's notes and there has been over a month long delay from the last posting.

1MatthewBaker
Eliezer works better when we leave him alone in a room and say that hes doing a good job. Which he is ^^

I'm sorry in advance if someone already has mentioned these ideas but I'm not sorting through 1000+ comments to find out

Quirrel/Voldemorts ultimate goal with battlemagic is to teach the students of Hogwarts how to be more useful soldiers in an army to be lead by Harry. The purpose of the three armies is obviously a continuation of this plan, with the goal of teaching harry to be a good general, giving Harry a platform to develop a cult of personality around himself (an important thing to have for any aspiring Dark Lord), and finding and developing lieuten... (read more)

0wedrifid
War with Russia? Because that usually turns out well!
1MatthewBaker
I dont think the story will be that long, but if you write that as an alternate ending ill read it.