All of vericrat's Comments + Replies

vericrat660

"I wonder how difficult it would be to just make a list of all the top blood purists and kill them.

They'd tried exactly that during the French Revolution, more or less - make a list of all the enemies of Progress and remove everything above the neck..." -Harry's internal monologue, HPMOR Chapter 7

"Amusing, but that was not your first fleeting thought before you substituted something safer, less damaging. No, what you remembered was how you considered lining up all the blood purists and guillotining them. And now you are telling yourself you ... (read more)

7Jost
This is bloody brilliant foreshadowing!

"That is your condition for helping me to obtain the Stone?" said Professor Quirrell. Harry nodded, unable to form words.

Does that mean that Voldemort is freed from his previous offer to resurrect Hermione? Voldemort specifically says "That is your condition" which Harry agreed to. If so, Harry is going to be kicking himself later.

9Vaniver
Afterwards, Voldemort explicitly includes this in his statement of the deal:

I think Solipsist was trying to say that if Voldemort using Sprout to cast a spell counts as originating from Voldemort, then if Sprout (or some other Imperiused individual) cast a spell on the troll's skin, then Harry shouldn't have been able to touch the troll. Before, it was assumed that Harry was able to touch the enchanted troll (its skin had been enchanted to resist sunlight) because Voldemort hadn't directly enchanted it (Harry can't touch things Voldemort enchants, see the broomstick escape from Azkaban) but used an Imperiused confederate. Now, however, it seems that using the Imperiused confederate does not negate the issues arising between Harry and Voldemort's magic.

sketerpot190

An alternate interpretation is that Voldemort was strengthening a few of the spells that Sprout cast, as well as the spell that Tonks used to win the battle, and this use of his own magic was what caused Harry's doom-sense to tingle. If that's the case, then there would be none of his magic on the troll.

2hairyfigment
This is a very good point. Possibly premature answer: the Dark Lord Tom hired someone else to enchant the troll before sneaking it into Hogwarts. Then he cast a spell on the hireling.
vericrat160

To reply to Shminux, I imagine it's because the sense of doom is some magical warning of the repercussions of Harry and Voldemort's magic colliding, which probably is not being set off by the probability of Harry's life being ended by a high-velocity piece of metal fired from a completely non-magical weapon.

To Alsadius, I think the gun is more deadly to Harry than an Avada Kedavra because of Harry's previous resistance to the spell. Remember when Quirrell previously suggested that they stage a "return of Voldemort scenario" where the pretend-Vold... (read more)

Why would Dumbledore enchant the troll against sunlight if it was going to be in the third-floor corridor all along?

gwern170

To defend it against anyone with a sunlight-generating spell or who has some acorn potion handy.

Good point, I missed the picking the troll up by the ear entirely.

vericrat390

When I first read the end of the chapter, my thought was that Quirrell hadn't arranged the incident; he had thought it was a "surprisingly good day" which suggested to me that he hadn't expected the troll.

After reading comments, I became less sure about that; someone suggested that Quirrell might have simply not intended for Harry to be at the scene and in danger. This seems plausible, but one thing still makes it difficult for me to believe it was Quirrell.

The troll had been enchanted against sunlight:

someone had enchanted the troll against su

... (read more)
2maia
Oh snap. I didn't even notice that problem. There is a third possibility: Dumbledore brought in the troll to guard the Stone (or other object), as in canon, and he was the one who cast the spells to protect it. I'm unsure about this, because it seems unusually violent for Dumbledore.

Harry transfigured the inside of the troll. Maybe Quirrell only needed to enchant the outside?