2d) Something Voldemort didn't expect. If Slytherin's Monster transferred it's secrets with a Dark Ritual, Salazar could have planned for Rule 12 and plotted to transfer secrets to future heirs. How would you identify a baby as a parselmouth?
Harry & Draco have learnt to send Patronus messages. With the goal of preserving Hermione unbroken while working towards her exoneration, Harry could
Last night Damian Conway talked about Lingua-Romana-Perligata as part of his "Fun with Dead Languages" talk. He makes the point that Latin's suffixes don't constrain the word order. Given Harry's dream of destroying Azkaban and Dumbledore in Ch 79 muttering strange incantations that sounded not quite like Latin and echoed in their ears in an unusually creepy fashion, maybe Latin provides a larger space to search for a mnemonic phrase that the Source of Magic will match and action, than languages with a more constrained grammar.
There's also
"Um..." Harry said. "If there are any spells you can cast to make sure no one's listening to us..."
Professor McGonagall stood up from her chair, firmly closed the outer door, and began taking out her wand and saying spells. [...]
Professor McGonagall finished a spell that sounded a lot older than Latin, and then she sat down again.
Not to mention the Sumerian Simple Strike Hex. Mahasu doesn't sound much like Latin.
Perhaps Imperius is one of the charms detected by Hogwart's wards.
If transfiguration can only result in non-magical substances, then science would help to transfigure to CBW agents - ending up too close for comfort. Wards cast in transfiguration classrooms and dormitories to detect intent to violate transfiguration rules would catch those, a wise expansive interpretation would catch the worst I can think of (critical mass of fissile material => will generate gas). The Hogwarts House system should force conformity and channel risk-taking into known paths. If failing to attempt homework would lose points, depression and...
Why not use the epub or mobipocket versions, depending what the Kobo supports? Calibre reads both, the mobipocket is fine on my iRex and I have an epub version on my phone.
http://ikeran.org/rationality.epub http://ikeran.org/rationality.mobi
(mentioned on http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2269863/Less_Wrong ) Android, iPhone/iPad app links there too.
Chapter 24: Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis: Act 2 ... The line of reasoning continued: Atlantis had been an isolated civilization that had somehow brought into being the Source of Magic, and told it to serve only people with the Atlantean genetic marker, the blood of Atlantis.
And by similar logic: The words a wizard spoke, the wand movements, those weren't complicated enough of themselves to build up the spell effects from scratch - not the way that the three billion base pairs of human DNA actually were complicated enough to build a human body from...
In part 7, Michaelos observed that Dumbledore blames himself for Harry being left with his evil stepparents, and wrote the comment on Lily's musing on modifying the (D&D-style) Eagle's Splendor potion in her text book while she slept.
Ch 1. "And Lily would tell me no, and make up the most ridiculous excuses, like the world would end if she were nice to her sister, or a centaur told her not to - the most ridiculous things, and I hated her for it. ... "Anyway," Petunia said, her voice small, "she gave in. She told me it was dangerous, ...
Hm. Quoted in the linked post is the fact that Dumbledore's suggested revision to the Potion of Eagle's Splendor (the one that would end up making the imbiber sick for weeks, as happened to Petunia) was, specifically, replacing blueberries with Thestral blood. Now where else has that come up recently?
...And Harry knew, now, that the concealment of the Cloak was more than the mere transparency of Disillusionment, that the Cloak kept you hidden and not just invisible, as unseeable as were Thestrals to the unknowing. And Harry also knew that it was Thestral bl
If Salazar Slytherin foresaw use of Rule 12, a hidden requirement to pass on the knowledge to the next heir in the transfer ritual could explain Harry's survival. The transfer ritual requiring a later deposit, a checkpoint of the recipient's state, could explain why Quirrell seems more than how Voldemort has been described - if he does contain multitudes. Or the different instantiation has avoided physical pathologies Voldemort lived with.
Is this partly a practical in updating estimates?
Since then
I'm probably missing an tag, but consider the evidence.
Quirrell's "they have tolerated worse in their hallways" and give a finger from my wand hand, suggest that bullying has been tolerated for a long time.
What are Snape...
Timing his disclosure spell so that Snape is stunned by the massed fire of his own proteges, would be a more satisfying move in his game against Snape. Plausible deniability again, once the disciplined educated adult observer is removed? What are the longer term goals here? Increase pressure within Hogwarts so Harry feels his confinement more?
Is the Half-Blood, Legilimens, Snape sending a message to Quirrell with the SPHEW setup? Harry's use of Slytherin messaging and Margaret Bulstrode's Time-turner declare a Slytherin confederate, if Snape has looked. [Snape requested the check of Harry's time turner after Azkaban (para 62.99)]
"a successful Legilimens was extremely rare, rarer than a perfect Occlumens, because almost no one had enough mental discipline." (Dumbledore, Snape, Mr Bester, presumably Quirrel)
"Harry noticed that he was confused. And his threat estimate of the Head o...
Perhaps SPHEW will help there. Harry has had knowledge of the nature of the "magical remnant of the Dark Ages" since meeting Draco at the station, reinforced by Azkaban,.
Hermione would know intellectually (quoting Harry) "So the world is broken and flawed and insane and cruel and bloody and dark. This is news? You always knew that, anyway...", but should lack direct experience, that her fellow students may have.
Will Draco conspire to protect Hermione against the Slytherin bullies?
If there is a training effect in increasing magical strength, and or improving concentration, keeping the rock transfigured works that way too, without being Transfiguration specific. Quirrel's armies help too - would normal classroom activity exhaust magic that much?
Harry could try a controlled experiment over the Easter holiday if he thinks about it. With McGonagall's permission, ask his classmates to keep a loop of cord transfigured into an unobtrusive platinum toe ring (or more than one) over the holiday when they're not otherwise allowed to use magic....
Harry could usefully collaborate with Hagrid, but Hermione or Draco may need to point that out. Hagrid has had limited access to practicing his magic, so provides something of a control to his classmates, to test whether magical strength is an increasing function of magical use, if magical strength is easily measured - Dumbledore seemed to be able to sense it. Hermione challenged by Fawkes, may see improving the performance of everyone in the class as the effective way of working harder. Asking Harry "Why are we different?" and based on "Great artists steal", what existing techniques should we look at could be both effective for both of them.
Is it an error? The reply in McGonagall's voice with Dumbledore's voiced reaction is good authentication, he is after all still supposed to be under Quirrell's guard, and trying to avoid causing suspicion.
Has Harry ever been offered any useful threat assessment on Voldemort by anyone but Quirrell? Depending on the requirements of the spell, Quirrell could easily have a sample of Harry's blood from their Saturday lunches. (Disillusioned confederate or magic item, magical anasthesia, healing, even transfusion, ...) If magical stasis and templated copying is possible, he can have any needed amount whenever needed. If the Philosopher's Stone remains in play, why rush if healing Bella improves that choice?
Because a Dark Ritual could force a sacrifice that adds redundancy. Leave the Basilisk alone, mostly satisfied. Kill it and you are bound to transfer the knowledge to the next heir. Attempt to kill the heir and end up as a horcrux.