Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 11

It is my hope that Snape will read Lily's fifth year potions book, will understand that Dumbledore ruined his like, will dedicate himself to killing Dumbledore, and will be successful before the close of the fic.

Snape killing Dumbledore? I don't know, it sounds a little far-fetched.

Something similar to the technique you describe is known as gaslighting.

Snape actually murdering Dumbledore at some point is too MoR-ish of an event for Eliezer not to include.

For the fights to continue, Lily must have remained unaware that Snape was not writing in her potions book. And for Lily to remain unaware, Snape could not find out the reason for the fights

...which implies that, in the course of all these fights, Lilly never mentioned it to him. It's not enough for her to disbelieve his denials, she must never have given him an opportunity to make them. That being so, what were they arguing about? What sort of dialogue would you write for those scenes? What states of mind do you imagine for her?

In other words: I notice that I am confused.

Yes, worse. Dumbledore said, "Hogwarts needs an evil Potions Master to be a proper magical school, " in chapter 18. If he is willing to allow the abuse of children to keep an evil potions master, we might believe he would abuse a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old to make an evil potions master.

This is a case of You Just Told Me - Harry offers that excuse to Dumbledore, who then goes on to repeat it back to him.

Dumbledore didn't say that he caused the fights between Lily and Snape. He said this:

Lily thought one of her friends was writing them and they had the most amazing fights.

"And", not "therefore" or "so". Bear in mind that this is the same scene earlier in which this takes place:

"And of course, most people who come to my office want to see Fawkes."

Dumbledore was standing next to the bird on the golden platform.

Harry came over, rather puzzled. "This is Fawkes?"

"Fawkes is a phoenix," said Dumbledore. "Very rare, very powerful magical creatures."

We're told in big bright flashing letters not to take Dumbledore's implications in this scene at face value. And we already know why Lily and Snape actually fought: because Snape was turning evil! His best friends were wannabe Death Eaters! That's why Lily actually cut off their friendship, not because of jokes written in a Potions book.

If anything, it seems like Dumbledore was trying to get Lily to think of Snape as someone who could be lighthearted and joke around, as someone who could put a smile on her face, to try to get her to have feelings for him so she could pull him away from the Death Eaters! Some parts of MoR!Dumbledore may be a mystery to us, but his desire for people to choose the light over the dark is patently obvious. Dumbledore would never, ever ruin someone's only chance to save themselves from serving Voldemort. He wouldn't.

I have to agree with fezziwig that I notice that I'm confused about this idea that D writing in Lily's book somehow destroyed any hope of friendship between them. I don't understand your scenario: you think Lily was upset about the writing, blamed Snape, but never mentioned it, and that was enough to destroy a friendship? And Dumbledore somehow knew that writing in a book would cause this effect? "I want to destroy Snape's friendship... I know, I'll write in his friend's book!"

Given all the weird things that happen at Hogwarts, souls trapped in books and strange notes found under pillows and time travel, I kinda doubt Lily would stick to the hypothesis that it must be Snape, and never mention it.

Interesting. That's a kind of reverse taboo tradeoff.

In a normal taboo tradeoff, you sacrifice a sacred value (lives, torture, ideals) to gain a mundane value (money, jobs, political influence). Here Harry would be doing the reverse: sacrifice a huge amount of mundane value (Dumbledore's political standing and his being an ally to Harry) to gain a sacred value (Hermione's life and freedom).

For an ordinary thinker (i.e. not Harry or Quirrel), this might even feel like a morally imperative tradeoff, one you have no right not to make no matter what the amount of mundane value you lose.

From a strategic point of view having Light-Harry as a gullible ally is worth way more than having Dark-Harry be so knowingly. If the plot is to gain control of Magical Britain under one single leader who you puppeteer (him being embedded with your brain patterns and all) there'd be no sense in turning him dark now. The political strategist would rather:

1. Put Dumbledore in a bad position by allowing Harry to be the one to stand up for the students. Possibly in a way that humbles Dumbledore by the great "wisdom" of Harry, but meanwhile in a way that doesn't alienate Harry from Dumbledore's political allies before he's been groomed and positioned to lead them. A way to do this would be to present evidence that Harry would be able to deduct and present on basis of being the Boy-Who-Lived AND someone who actually thinks. It might very well involve Harry find out, and proof, that Snape burned the letters. Snape being a double turncoat means that he'd be an easy suspect. Quirrelmort already has good reason to see him gone (that's how he deals with traitors if you recall) plus it'd severely weaken Dumbledore's hold on the Slytherin part of Britain. Here the taboo trade-off is Snape's future who Dumbledore trades to keep the school.

2. Quirrelmort might already have been there for the duel between Hermione and Draco. Hence he'd have a memory of it and be able to pull that memory to a pensive. That memory would be enough to proof Hermione innocent. If this is the case Quirrelmort ends up distancing Harry from Lucius; which might be a good idea considering that Quirrelmort probably prefers to be the one in charge of the dark side and have Harry as a champion of the light. The taboo trade-off would then be Draco's father.

I see no reason to make Harry appear dark. Actually I'd consider that extremely stupid since Quirrelmort has obtained all the political power he could hope to and now knows that that is not enough. He needs both the wolves and the sheep.

I like the guess about Quirrellmort trying to remove Harry's allies, but there's a further detail I'm considering. Quirrellmort knows that Harry knows how to break people out of Azkaban. If Hermione is sent there, I would estimate a pretty high probability Harry would make a move to get her out. He would have to do something clever to divert suspicion away from himself, but that doesn't seem to be an insoluble problem. If Quirrell wanted to prevent this, the simplest way would be to blackmail Harry, but doing so would require him to overtly take a position as Harry's enemy, which he may not wish to do. Alternatively, he could sabotage Harry's plans, but Harry would almost certainly try again.

Any situation in which Harry knows that Hermione is in trouble is an unstable equilibrium, and Quirrell presumably knows that.

Additionally, you take it for granted that Quirrellmort is trying to turn Harry dark. What's the basis for that conclusion? I've got one guess, but it seems far-fetched.

I'm now considering your hypothesis about Quirrellmort instigating this to be the most plausible. I still do not believe it to have been his best move unless there's a good reason for him to turn Harry Dark. Besides I consider the option posted as a reply to Daniel_Starr to be more likely. Regardless, you get the up-vote for the better deduction.

What Dumbledore hasn't realized, what is completely outside his hypothesis space, is that he's not doing so to attack Harry, or at least not as part of a plan to defeat Harry. He's doing it to remove all of Harry's support except Quirrellmort himself, so as to hasten Harry's consumption by his Dark Side. With only Quirrell to rely upon in the magical world, his conversion into Dark Harry will be much swifter.

I made a similar, though less elaborated, observation in the previous MoR discussion thread.

In consequence, if ever Quirrellmort and Harry come sufficiently into physical/magical contact, Quirrellmort anticipates that Harry's brain will turn into a vegetable as Harry-Voldemort destructively uploads itself into the "real" Quirrell-Voldemort, leaving behind a stronger and more complete Q+H-Voldemort.

How about the other way - Quirrellmort uploads into Harry? Make Harry the Dark Lord, and then upload into him.
Note that Voldemort has seemingly already uploaded into Quirrell.

"My... Lord... I went where you said to await you, but you did not come...

"Sshow her your face," hissed the snake at Harry's feet.

Harry cast back the hood of the Cloak of Invisibility.

"The scar..." muttered Bellatrix. "That child..."

"So they all still think," said Harry's voice, and gave a thin little chuckle. "You looked for me in the wrong place, Bella dear."

Bella is not particularly surprised to find Voldemort in a new body. And while there are other explanations, having Harry masquerade as Voldemort does set the stage for him to do it for real. It also gets Bella on Harry's side for later in the story, so that Harry has support from both sides, as seems to be the plan.

But think of the denouement of such a scheme. Voldemort takes over the body of Harry, who appears to have saved the world from Voldemort a second time as Voldemort uploads into Harry! He rules a grateful and loyal world, which he has saved from himself. Could anything be more delightful to a Dark Lord?

Harry's objection to Quirrell's "We Need a Dark Lord Speech" even foreshadows the plot, as he identified the Dark Lord Dictator as a single point of failure in Quirrell's argument - the single point that in fact Quirrell planned on exploiting all along.

The first supposed loss to Harry was only part of the plan of creating a new and better host. The story line that Harry originally survived and Voldemort died because "mommy loved Harry, etc..." could not be more insipid. Much more believable that it was just a gambit of Voldemort, he laid low for a decade and came back as Harry became old enough to fulfill his role.

Also, the advanced power and intelligence of Harry makes sense as something bequeathed by Voldemort. But, much in keeping with EY's concerns about AI, the created tool will instead rise up and squash it's maker in the end.

Third clue: in the original canon, Harry had a piece of Voldemort's soul in him, an accidentally created Horcrux, and the reunion of that piece with Voldemort was a critical step in Voldemort's death.

The destruction of that piece was crucial. I don't believe that it ever reunited with the rest of Voldemort's soul.

This doesn't account for "the power the dark lord knows not" does it, though?

Even if Harry couldn't get access to Lucius in private, he could have made a much better public proposal.

"Hermione was not your family's true enemy, as you and I both know. To you, she is nothing but a pawn symbolizing the foe you can't yet strike. But she has value to me. If you want the right to deliver her to Azkaban, so be it, but hold off on claiming that right, Lucius, and I will give you your real enemy. You can spend your anger on this one little child now. But then I will owe you nothing, and your enemy will laugh at you. Or take today's judgment but wait on executing it, call her a hostage for my promise between us, and I will redeem Hermione with one far more valuable to you - both for your revenge, and for the life and safety of your son."

Or something like that. It still probably wouldn't have worked, of course - Lucius does not trust Harrymort's intentions or power.

Presumably, he couldn't've talked to Lucius. And he's clearly too angry to meet in private right now.

It occurs to me that this would actually be a potentially successful (if politically costly) way to force the Ministry to replace Azkaban with a more humane Nurmengard-style prison. The mere fact that it's demonstrably possible for anyone to do this makes keeping Dementors around far less attractive.

What's the in-story justification for the dementor's presence anyway? I thought it seemed awfully convenient in case Harry decided to demonstrate his Patronus 2.0 but I couldn't figure out how it'd help enough.

I'd forgotten about the potential for ruining others' patronuses, though. That makes a lot more sense, especially considering he'd just reached into his dark side - possibly deeper than he'd ever willingly done before.

My guess: it wouldn't be enough at this point to just demonstrate a superior patronus or tell people about the possibility of ruining it for others. He tells the secret to EVERYONE present, leaving them at his mercy for protection. That gives him plenty of bargaining power and is dramatically Dark to boot. The political implications would be rather interesting, whether the Patroni could be returned by Obliviation or not.

Combining with this idea: Harry openly speaks about Patronus 2.0, everyone's Patronuses fail (especially the sparrow and squirrel currently guarding the Dementor, everyone would see them fail), Harry casts his Patronus to protect Hermione (or she figures it out and casts her own, not that she would get the chance to but she might figure it out at least), and the Dementor starts sucking souls until Lucius retracts his sentence.

Heck, maybe even threaten to spread Patronus 2.0 to the media, make wizarding Britain's animal Patronus population fail, then Aurors won't be able to keep their Patronuses up to guard Azkaban. So even if Hermione gets in, she wouldn't get her happiness sucked...

This might work, in combination with something that I see others have suggested. You need some way to get them to listen. This would take a lot, given that they're already recording the verdict. So: would the threat of destruction goad a dementor into breaking through two animal Patroni? Can Harry believe this would happen? (If so, coldly claiming that he can destroy Patronus ability might create enough doubt in the others' minds that it wouldn't matter if dementors follow expectations or not.)

This plan does have shortcomings, like the threat of killing someone's mind (perhaps even Hermione's) and the risk of revealing what he did in Azkaban (at least to MoR!Dumbledore).

I don't get it.

"It just happens that if Hermione doesn't walk, everyone but me will lose the ability to cast Patronus. Don't buy it? Oh, well, I'll just explain it to Hermione and she'll be able to testify under Veritaserum that I can do it."

How exactly harry's ability (technique) to cast a strong patronus will interfere with the ability of the others?

Something about the last paragraph

his eyes looked at the rows of chairs, at every person and every thing within range of his vision, searching for any opportunity it could grasp

Makes me afraid he'll end up stabbing Lucius with the bones of a Hufflepuff.

My reasons for assigning ~0% to some of these:

threaten to destroy Azkaban destroying one of the Dementors

They would lock him away to protect the Dementors who are Britain's most powerful magical weapon in reserve in case of war with another magical nation. (Quoth Dumbledore.)

offer the Wizengamot Voldemort's true identity (Quirrel)

Harry doesn't know that fact, so he can't offer it. Anyway, how would it help to reverse the judgement against Hermione?

using the Time-turner to alter Hermione's testimony to something easily falsifiable

Can't use it to change what's already happened. Hermione has already given her testimony, and Harry didn't even listen so he wouldn't be in a good position to subtly modify it. And the Veritaserum on her is already wearing off, precluding further testimony.

using the Time-turner to smuggle Hermione out under the Cloak

Harry and Hermione can't be both under the Cloak at once. People under the Cloak can still be caught by physically feeling around. The Aurors would stop them (certainly the one who wasn't under the Cloak at the time), and if they didn't, Hermione would be running around the building Cloaked but with no real way out.

ask for a trial by combat

Wizengamot would have to vote to make the trial-by-combat's results binding (otherwise why should it reverse the standing Wizengamot vote to punish Hermione?) Lucius will ask them not to vote so, because Dumbledore would be Harry's champion, and so they won't.

More generally, if Dumbledore could challenge Lucius to a duel every time a vote went against him, he'd have total control of the vote outcomes by virtue of being undefeatable in combat. And we know that's not the case.

have Quirrel make Bella confess to the crime

What would be the explanation presented for why Bella comes forward to confess, without implicating Quirrel? Just "Voldemort ordered me to do this and then Obliviated me"? Everyone would suspect Voldemort also false-memory-charmed Bella into believing she did it. And why would Voldemort sacrifice his most trusted and powerful lieutenant, whom he recently rescued at great risk, and not some smaller pawn? And why would Voldemort execute a plan to murder Draco or to frame Hermione in the first place? And how would Bella have gotten into Hogwarts without the wards detecting it, or Dumbledore's Map? And how could she be recovered enough already (if she appears to testify everyone will see she's not very recovered yet)?

And to begin with you'd have to explain to members of the Wizengamot that Voldemort is still alive and that he broke out Bella from Azkaban. Imagine the panic - no reasoned debate would be possible after that. But without telling them this, how to explain that Bella is turning herself in, and that she has been Obliviated of everything during and after her escape?

Oh, and by inspecting Bella they will notice she does not in fact have her Animagus form again, which will cause Dumbledore to rethink some conclusions... (Edit: she has probably regained her Animagus form on Quirrel's instructions, it would be stupid not to. See below.)

Indeed, I was thinking destroy the Dementor as a show of force and threaten with challenging Draco to a duel to the death (I'm presuming he can do that as a Noble House). For, I don't know, willingly participating in a travesty of justice against a friend of Harry's or whatever. Close enough to a trial by combat, which also is presumably possible in this "justice" system, so yeah, maybe that after the show of force.

I'm still slightly rooting for Draco to intervene, though. Slightly.

Edit: Oh yeah, that torture thing. Even if Draco has been wiped of it and it's thus unprovable (aside from being not sufficient debt to cancel Hermione's supposed debt), the claim would probably be sufficient grounds for such duel.

Here's another idea: Draco uses his Patronus to tell the assembly he forgives the blood debt. Harry can use his own Patronus to beg Draco to do this.

I'd say Harry would trade with Lucius - Harry would testify under Veritaserum that Dumbledore confesed to Him, that he burned Narcissa. In exchange Lucius would let Hermione free.

Harry don't know if Dumbledore burned Narcissa, but probably can beat Veritaserum (according to Quirell), and with his evil side enabled he can risk trying it.

Similiar to "make Dumbledore turn himself in", but Dumbledore had chance to do that, and declined, and I don't know if Harry can blackmail Dumbledore serioulsy enough for this. But Harry don't need to blackmail Dumbledore.

using the Time-turner to alter Hermione's testimony to something easily falsifiable

I thought you couldn’t change the past with a Time-turner.

I think the probabilities work out roughly as follows:

• 50% Malfoy's Imperius debt.
• 20% nothing anyone here has thought of
• 10% Something involving the true Patronus(Hermione casting it, etc.)
• 10% all the other wacky theories proposed combined
• 10% Harry fails and Hermione goes to Azkaban.

I realize that this looks like a list designed to make me not look like too much of an idiot no matter what the result is, but I am not particularly confident, so I'll leave my error bars wide.

Missing from your list:

• Make Draco testify to his crime; use the newly won blood debt to save Hermione (or stall - see my reply to Daniel_Starr: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/axe/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/63rw)

I'm thinking that Harry is about to try to either command or destroy the dementor. To do either, he'd have to leave his dark side, so I'm not sure how successful he'll be. I'm close to certain that the Eliezer put the dementor there for a reason, and that the reason probably wasn't so that Harry could say, "dementors are bad" again.

Among other things, this runs into the same issue as pretending to defeat Voldemort - there's an actual criminal out there who actually tried to kill Draco, or frame Hermione, or something more obscure than either, and any playacting would be extremely premature until they know what's actually going on.

That... sounds like Harry's style. So he'd need to be in the trial when it happens. Then someone storms into the chambers and tells Lucius there's been another attack, and Harry smirks inwardly.

But where will Draco be on the day of the trial? If he won't still be in St. Mungo's then he might be at Malfoy Manor, which, I assume, is rather secure. (It would be a problem for Harry if not for Dumbledore.)

Harry could destroy his own reputation in order to save Hermione, by (for example) threatening to forever abandon Wizarding Britain. He is a beloved celebrity, after all, and it would be bad press for the Wizengamot if the Boy-Who-Lived defected to France.

Not sure how likely his dark side is to go for a self-sacrificing ploy, though.

The taboo tradeoff is presumably Lucius being asked to trade off his chance at revenge.

Much worse, Harry sacrifices Hermione to achieve a higher level of utility (probably something involving 3^^^3). Horrible thought, but his dark side could do it, and he's just gone to the dark side for a solution.

Harry promises Lucius to speak under Veritaserum, that Dumbledore confesed to Harry, that he burned Narcisa. Harry is occlumens or almost occlumens, so he can beat Veritaserum, but everybody don't know it.

Lucius Malfoy has his revenge, and his son, so he let Hermione free. Dumbledore loses, and maybe everything is lost, but Hermione is free. That's taboo tradeoff.

First of all: Dumbledore has visibly just traded Hermione for his own position (so that's one trade-off).

But besides that I find one hypothesis that answer your questions within the given parameters (more might dot my mind later, hence I'll number it from the get go):

1. Harry asks Draco if Draco had submitted him to torture with no intention of helping him. Draco is already under the effects of Veritaserum, so he'll testify.

The dark part: betraying a promise.

Now the social part: Now he has let everyone in the Wizengamot see that Draco is willing to torture another kid until this kid dies/goes crazy. And this is not ANY other kid; it is The-Boy-Who-Lived.

Next Harry could ask them if they then thought it beyond Draco to have Hermione and himself false-memory charmed/obliviated so as to both get revenge over Hermione who publicly humiliated him (which Harry hadn't) AND regain his lost honour by appearing victorious in the false memory.

For kicks he could throw in the mudblood/true born-equality discovery (and that would also qualify for the taboo-part).

... Lucius would severely regret having earned that enmity. Dark side should like this.

Oh, and about the laws: this should have Draco, and thereby the House of Malfoy, owe a blood debt. This blood debt could be used to either: a. let Draco suffer the same punishment as Hermione (a good way to make sure none of them get hurt too badly) b. let him take her place (a way darker way of dealing with Lucius) (unlikely due to the sheer amount of harm done; too dark) c. have Lucius revoke his vote (uncertain about the legality)

Another option when it comes to Magical Britain's laws might be invoking some duel right. I do not know if this is possible, but it would be in line with the medieval feel of Magical Britain.

We would object that laws cannot be changed retroactively. Magical Britain doesn't follow a constitution so I cannot see why not.

Besides that I suppose a duel might actually invoked to defend Hermione's honour. I'm really uncertain about that though.

You know, that would almost work, except that that would basically mean the extinction of the Malfoy line.

Boy-Who-Lived marries Draco Malfoy?

How on earth does that make PCs of the voters/get Hermione off the hook?

(My apologies if it was a joke.)

Well you've at least managed a "confess" possibility that isn't completely insane, which is rather a feat. Of course, Dumbledore and some others know about the Occlumency thing, which means that there's a rather gaping hole in the explanation. Also, he took months to come forward, which is sketchy, and he said not five minutes earlier that he didn't know whose plot it was. Also, everyone thinks Voldemort is dead, and I didn't think an Imperius could be broken in the HP universe. Still, it's an improvement on that line of thought.

Harry-irony points for saying right in front of Lucius: "I didn't want to help Voldemort, I was under the Imperius curse".

I don't agree with your general thesis, but this line from Harry would be double plus ironic with Lucius believing that Harry is Voldemort.

Minor variant: "I did it all. Voldemort made me, with the Imperius curse -- just like when he made me help rescue Bellatrix Black."

Advantages:

• requires Harry to make up fewer details about Voldemort's behavior (Harry just claims Voldemort Imperiused Harry with his orders regarding Hermione and then disappeared).
• incredibly dramatic first line for chapter. "I did it! I'm guilty!" Readers spend several paragraphs wondering if Harry is actually setting himself up to go to Azkaban in Hermione's place.

Disadvantage:

• requires Harry to claim that the Imperius curse gave him spell expertise he otherwise doesn't have (Obliviate and the False Memory Charm).

I personally dislike the Imperius "powerup", but it's in canon so Harry could certainly know about it in the fic. Aside from that objection this is an even more dramatic variant.

Harry can defeat Veritaserum (maybe), but definitely can't lie to a Legilemens - and the Wizengamot officially uses one to interrogate witnesses. Maybe they wouldn't do it on the spot, for whatever reason, but they would get to shortly, because this is very serious business. And if they saw in Harry's mind that he lied, they'd just interrogate him very thoroughly and then never listen to him speak freely.

Harry is naive. Why not assume that many people can be this non-empathetic? It's a useful quality to have, after all.

To choose that this should happen, plan for this to happen - it would take more than evil, it would take emptiness.

I'm trying to figure out what the heck that even means.

I sure hope Harry doesn't make a habit of deducing plot points - such as "Voldemort did it" here - from such vague moralipsychologising.

Presumably if Quirrell thought he could take over the world on his own he'd have done so, and not wasted time playing a petty game to amuse himself with one boy wizard.

But you're right that "I notice I am confused" about the relationship between Voldemort, Quirrell's current mind, and Harry's mind.

If Quirrell's mind is a copy of Voldemort, and if he believes Harry's mind is also a copy of Voldemort, what is Quirrell's ultimate intent for Harry?

To overwrite him? To merge with him? Or merely to train him back into himself?

And if Dumbledore knows as much or almost as much about Horcruxes as Quirrell, does Dumbledore also know or suspect that Harry contains a piece of Voldemort's mind?

I don't believe Snape values his love for Lily, past or present. I believe Snape is scheming to his own ends and by his own mercilessly practical means. He's not the best at it, but he's left the chump train.

Snape forced the escalation in order to get justification to do exactly what he did at the end of the first scene of chapter 75, where the following describes him admonishing the top Slytherin bullies:

"You will do nothing," hissed their Head of House. Severus Snape's face was enraged, when he spoke small spots of spittle flew from his mouth, further dotting his already-dirtied robes. "You fools have done enough! You have embarrassed my House - lost to first-years - now you speak of embroiling noble Lords of the Wizengamot in your pathetic childish squabbles? I shall deal with this matter. You will not embarrass this House again, you will not risk embarrassing this House again! You are done with fighting witches, and if I hear otherwise -"

Snape has cut the head off the Slytherin Bullying Machine, intending to see the machine fall apart without it. The non-Slytherin bullies were probably never that organized (fucking Gryffindors), and I suppose are meant to sympathize with the little girls and de-value bullying behaviors over time. It may be intended that they will stop 'naturally,' once there are fewer Slytherin bullies to respond to.

In fact, Snape isn't just behind the escalation, he started it all. Chapter 68 ends with Hermione thinking about who she could get as a mysterious wizard, though not in those terms, when she sees a flash of light. She thinks that light, and a little later a sound, is from Fawks follows it to her first bullies to beat at the beginning of chapter 69.

Just before Hermione hear Just Mike cry for help, we are given the following hint, alone as its own paragraph:

She never saw the phoenix.

She never saw the phoenix because there was no phoenix, only Snape.

Further, Snape was personally managing the escalation. In chapter 74, Dumbledore says the following about the battle of The Bully Jaime Astorga vs. Sugar And Spice And Everything Badass:

There is not enough magic in eight first-year witches all together to defeat such a foe. But you could not accept that, Harry, could not let Miss Granger learn her own lessons; and so you sent the Defense Professor to watch over them invisibly, and pierce Astorga's shields when Daphne Greengrass struck at him -"

The text never counters this claim. We are never presented with evidence that eight determined first-years could defeat a single Jaime Astorga other than the narrative of the events themselves. And in the same chapter as that narrative, 72, we learn that the Mr. Astorga is "a promising upstart on the youth dueling circuit" and that he does not understand how his shield was pierced. Again, we are given no reason to doubt his claim that his shield should not have been pierced, except that it happens it was.

Is it more likely that Dumbledore and Mr. Astorga are wrong about the unlikeliness of that event, or that the event did not occur as it was described from Hannah Abbot's perspective. Dumbledore has a long history of making heroes out of children, and Mr. Astorga was a competitive duelist. I suggest it is more likely that they were right, and Snape assisted S.P.H.E.W. in a wonderfully Slytherin fashion.

I don't see any obvious points where Snape helped out in the battle where Hufflepuff loyalty resulted in Tonks Time and the Snowballing Lie in chapter 73. Maybe he didn't always have to step in. And maybe he made the last bully standing (or falling down) drop his wand back in chapter 69. But even when he doesn't ditry his hands he is playing both sides, guiding the bullies and S.P.H.E.W. toward each other and ensuring that S.P.H.E.W. wins.

I'd like to know what Snape had planned for the last battle, before he was interrupted. I would guess that was the last battle he intended to happen. I don't know what he could have wanted to see next.

Anyway, after that Snape had the ammo he needed to pull the rug out from under the Syltherin bullies. And if he hurt Hermione at the end, and if he risked the emotional or even physical health of eight little girls, and if he humiliated his allies on the darker side of wizardry by shaming their children, why should he care? Snape is so Syltherin the hat spoke the instant it was on his head. His plans are cunning. His devotion to his ambition is complete.

Snape is Hermione's mysterious old wizard. (He makes up for only being thirty-whatever by being extra mysterious.) He does not need to act with her interests in order to play this role. Dumbledore attempted to send HJPEV to live with abusive step-parents and even says the following back in chapter 68:

I am not Harry's friend, alas, but only his mysterious old wizard."

I believe Snape's motivations are more personal than trying to help Slytherin House. He's remembering how he was bullied by James, and his conversation about the topic with Harry prompted him to devise this scheme to fight bullying today. He's basically looking for redemption, having perhaps abandoned his love for Lily after talking with Harry and also after the Interlude with the Confessor.

This explains why he's starting this scheme now, rather than as soon as he became Head of Slytherin.

He's hiding this from Dumbledore because Dumbledore explicitly acted against his plot: he tried to stop the SPHEW-bully fights, in the end by the drastic method of ordering Snape to disband them and publicly humiliate and punish Hermione. Dumbledore explained his actions and motivations several times to Harry.

Snape is over Lily. He's been coming to grips with losing his love for Lily ever since Harry gave Snape his (incorrect) explanation for Lily's treatment of him. The moment he kissed Rianne is the moment he finally decided to stop living and grieving for Lily and start living for himself.

The question is what it means for him to live for himself. Dumbledore's trust in Snape is based on his knowledge of Snape's undying love for Lily. If Dumbledore were to find out that that love no longer exists, he would (gently, perhaps) kick Snape out of the Fellowship. He would know that there was no longer any reason to trust him. And if Snape has gotten over Lily, he'll probably feel no real compulsion to help Harry in any particular way.

Quirrell, being a smarter Voldemort, knows what was driving Snape when he was working for Dumbledore, and he now knows that it's driving Snape no longer. That's why he had that little conversation with him in the woods; he knows that Snape is now a free agent who might once again be a blood purist loyal to Voldemort.

Voldemort would not likely welcome Snape back into his fold once Voldie reveals himself, but now that he knows Snape's loyalties are up for grabs, he won't hesitate to manipulate him and use him however he can until then.

Snape is not nearly so biased against muggleborns as he pretends to be. (Remember Lily was a muggleborn)

And Snape is the Half-Blood Prince.

I can't see clearly why Snape is being presented as a likely hidden ally of SPHEW.

Without doubt, he involved himself in the group by providing information on where and when to find bullying, but this led to an escalation of hostilities rather than reducing bullying. This culminated in a massive confrontation during which he acted mysteriously, and by no means clearly in SPHEW's interests (I suspect the myriad memory charms were to hide/obfuscate his prior manipulation of almost all of those present!).

The only way in which he openly acted on the matter was to punish and publicly humiliate Hermione.

Snape is not just a tragic lover of a murdered muggleborn - he is a very bitter and emotionally stunted person, and a major bully in his own right up until his actions were curbed through Harry's influence. The idea that he would be on a personal crusade against bullying seems (to my reading) to go against almost every aspect of his character as presented so far in the fic.

If asked to speculate, I would suggest that:

• Snape intentionally escalated the SPHEW/bully situation, and used the final brouhaha as an opportunity to trample Hermione when the bullies failed to do it for him.
• He has observed the warming in relations between Hermione and Draco, and decided it had to be stopped - preferably by making each of them betray (or seem to) the trust of the other.
• He decided that his own handling of the SPHEW situation had been too clumsy and ineffective - he needed to make Hermione herself a villain if he wanted her more permanently dealt with.

My main uncertainty is why Snape would pick Hermione in particular to target (I haven't done a complete re-read for a few months, so I may be remembering events a bit 'selectively' - if I am being to mistrustful of Snape, I would love to see some references to points in the text where any of my interpretation is plausibly contradicted.

Edited: for grammar and clarity

My mental model of Lucius is here.

The summary of it is that Lucius thinks that Harrymort has turned sides and is now psuedo-allied with Dumbledore. Lucius thinks he's just aligned himself on the weak side of a 2-on-1 secret war against the two strongest wizards alive, but he has no choice because they both want to destroy him.

If D wanted to impose political costs on Lucius, one way he might do it is to have someone utterly beyond suspicion be found to have attacked Draco. Then Lucius would have to use up political capital to punish an innocent little girl.

I see him gaining political capital by destroying the mudblood girl who publicly challenged and defeated his pureblood son. The purebloods in the WIzengamot were aching to abuse her.

I don't think Harry would buy that. If Dumbledore wanted Draco dead, he'd be dead. He's headmaster of the school for frack's sake. And he certainly has no reason to frame Granger. His only motive for harming Malfoy would be to make Lucius throw everything away on getting Harry, after all. So unless our hero is about to confess that he is guilty, I think Dumbledore is probably innocent.

Harry suggested himself that dementors don't really think. It might not be able to give a meaningful response, and even if it can, there's nothing to suggest that they can learn from the experience of other dementors or instinctively recognize Harry as anathema.

Right. And Lucius calls Snape his "valuable ally", so it's likely that Snape has done the dirty work for Lucius inside Hogwarts.

Indeed. Though I went a bit further (more likely than not too far ;) in the reviews:

"Speculation time: Lucius did it. But plot thickens: Draco will intervene on Hermione's behalf, mostly on the basis of their remembered scenario being very implausible, as explained in the chapter. The Harry-Draco bond will strengthen. Just as Lucius intended, not being quite as inflexible as pictured in the discussion, and seeing that Draco will do quite well for himself as Harry's second.

As a side benefit, he'll get the record to show that (according to the false memory) Draco won a straight duel against Hermione. (Almost nobody will think to doubt that part of the memory - Draco might, but will keep it to himself.)"

Mr. Hat presumably can't be Lucius, though (that "only teachers can cast this sort of stuff here without being noticed" thing), so ve'd have to be just under his control, but that should be simple enough.

It seems unlikely that the good Defense Professor would have orchestrated a plan which is entirely dependent for it's success on Lucius failing to take advantage of the situation - unless putting Harry in Lucius's debt was his goal.

Assuming Quirrell is Voldemort, he presumably had years of access to Lucius' mind (if he regularly required Lucius to drop Occlumency barriers). At the very least, we can assume he has an excellent mental model of how Lucius behaves. The plot therefore doesn't seem like too great of risk for Quirrell, particularly when we consider that Lucius is about to discover Harry's progress in turning Draco. Quirrell can safely assume that Lucius will react in a way that will pull Draco and Harry apart when he discovers this, and will therefore be less inclined to trade Hermione for something of Harry's.

Hermione, the girl who publicly humiliated Draco and the whole Pureblood cause, now owes a blood debt to Lucius Malfoy.

The dictionary attack by H&C on Hermione happened before Hermione defeated Draco. (edit: sorry, not months before, but still before.) Back then there was no reason for Lucius to target her or even publicly notice her existence.

Edited to add: in fact, the attack was immediately after Hermione had been made to stop her anti-bullying campaign and publicly punished and humiliated - partially making up for any offense she caused Slytherin up to that point.

I was never comfortable with dementors being that impressionable. Harry was able to threaten a dozen of them in Azkaban, and sure, he expected it to succeed; but afterward, that dozen returned back to the main body of hundreds of dementors, all of which then refused to assist dozens of aurors, who would have expected them to. I would argue for at least rudimentary intelligence on the part of the creatures.

Seconded. In retrospect, the Canon teaching of potions now seems incredibly practical. The vast majority of students not only don't need to learn the theory, but it's a negative for them to do so. They only need to learn two things: 1) how to make the potions they'll use every day and 2) whether or not they even can make those potions or if they should just buy them from someone else. Constant repetition with minimal instruction is exactly what you need for a class that's more akin to cooking instead of calculus.

Potions is not the only thing that's neglected in canon; Transfiguration is also "just" taught but never used (except by the teachers). I love it that Harry!MoR puts Transfiguration to good use; after all it seems to be the most general magic manipulation.

It feels a bit as if canon and MoR aren't the same fiction subgenre. Canon is about a boy growing up, about action and an isolated society that still parallels the muggle society in many ways. MoR is more about discovering the magical world and about complicated plotting.

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'

EY and Quirrell couldn't have spelled it out more clearly.

Shouldn't this have occurred to Harry as well? When does he make the connection to that discussion?

Harry has repeatedly shown that he's blind to Quirrell's darker motives. It seems to be a necessary contrivance: if he turned against Quirrell before he came fully into his power, he'd lose. I can think of a fictional justification for it, though. He applies the same rationalization to Quirrell's actions that we use when explaining our own, and he does it because he's a copy of the person he's making excuses for. It's probably not psychologically realistic, but it's neat enough that I could suspend my disbelief if it turned out to be the case.

Step one: Stand up and loudly explain how a patronus works, and what a dementor actually is, under the guise of arguing for a diffrent punisment - This will make the entire wizengamot, including the aurors controling the dementor present incapable of casting expecto patronum. Destroy the dementor before it eats anyone.

I don't think that simply telling someone is enough to take away their ability to summon a patronus, they'd have to believe you. The members of the Wizengamot don't know Harry has any noteworthy insight or intellect, and so it's likely they would not believe him unless he destroyed the dementor, thereby providing evidence that he does indeed have exceptional insight regarding the nature of dementors.

This is the answer that I thought of when I read the chapter (specifically with the ‘blunt force’ amendment below). Unfortunately, it doesn't fit in with the narrative clues that we've been given: there's no taboo trade-off, and it doesn't treat the Wizengamot as individuals. Nevertheless, it would be awesome.

Why would Lucius be convinced by that?

We've jumped forward months in the story,

I checked again, and chapter 73 says "The March days marched by". Chapter 78 starts at 4th of April, and the day of Hermione's arrest was the morning of Sunday the 5th of April.

So I think your impression is wrong: we're still moving at the pace of about one month per major arc. "Humanism" was January, and "Stanford Prison Experiment" was February, and "Self-actualization" was March. This is now April.

I think HPMOR has a good chance of being the most important thing anyone on this list ever does.

Rational DanArmak knows about UFAI and how he can't weigh miniscule probabilities correctly and so on.

Emotional DanArmak is praying oh dear god when HPMOR ends please please let Eliezer go on writing fiction.

There have been a couple Aftermath chapters already, that's what the author titles chapters within an arc that come after the climax of the arc and wrap things up usually on a character-by-character basis. Chapters 63 and 77 were both Aftermath, but they certainly didn't end the story.

A transvaluation of values is made through stories, not Sequences.

Correct. Stories are how humans learn most things.

There were two rushed-feeling reveals in the same chapter. That may be why you feel like things are wrapping up.

Things EY said don't figure in to the early end theory, though. He's just talking about release-pacing and word count.

The inefficiency of H&C's attack against Hermione's mind is not evidence of a "simple mistake" on his/her part, but rather exceptional cleverness. Note that this attack has replaced something that would be detected (Legilimency) with something that cannot be (Obliviation). I myself take this as further evidence that H&C is Quirrell.

Were there other mistakes you had in mind?

I don't believe that one of the professors who have never appeared onstage in HPMOR could be revealed to play such a central role. Also not those who have appeared very marginally and have not been actually characterized (Flitwick, Trelawney). We also have no reason to attribute motive to one of them.

Minerva is, as you say, definitely innocent - because we have a scene from her POV.

This leaves, for practical purposes, only Snape and Dumbledore. It's not impossible for there to be a reveal of either one, but the obvious answer is indeed obvious. Nevertheless:

Snape is suitably evil, smart, and with reason to hurt Quirrel (he's afraid of him), possibly Harry (after their talk about James Potter), possibly Draco (private war against remaining Death Eater factions or bad blood against Malfoys), and no reason for Hermione that I can think of.

Dumbledore... It doesn't seem his style, does it? :-) Certainly if he take him at his word, he believes this to be a heavy blow against himself and Harry. He could have a motive yet to be revealed, but I don't believe this is possible in a story-management sense.

Flitwick is probably also out as an Imperius candidate, being a former international dueling champion and all.

(Never mentioned in books, probably unkown to Eliezer)

I would not take that as a reason to think that person is unknown to Eliezer - he's well-versed in both HP fanfiction and wiki.

Technically it was McGonagall who said "only a Professor could have cast that spell upon a student without alarm from the Hogwarts wards." but I think it equally unlikely that she misspoke. Dumbledore certainly didn't correct her.

When Hermione saw H&C without the obscuring black mist the "recognition sent a jolt of terrified adrenaline bursting through her" The only person on your list that fits that description is Snape.

Is there some particular reason you left Quirrell off the list?

I don't think you can have more than 6 versions of yourself present at any given time, since any more than that and information is traveling more than 6 hours back. (at least from the perspectives of the earliest and latest self-clone)

But still, 6 x Dumbledore+Fawkes is quite the army.

Edit: Also,

Many resstrictionss. Locked to your usse only, cannot be sstolen. Cannot transsport other humanss.

You don't actually need to go through animagus+pouch to transport more than one person on an unrestricted Time-Turner. (Canon also agrees on this if I recall correctly)

Why did Voldemort ever need the Death Eaters? He should have just stolen a few Time-Turners from the ministry. No-one could have resisted an attack by an army of Voldemort clones, super-coordinated by virtue of half the clones remembering being the other half a few hours ago.

The Ministry has access to Time-Turners too. Really, once both sides are using them they'd just have the effect of making battles much, much more awesome.

The problem with this is that they're not clones, they're future versions. So a potion can only be used once, a Time Turner duplicated still only has six "charges," and so on.

Some of them will magically disappear every hour until only one remains, but imagine the firepower!

They wouldn't disappear. They would, after a period, go back in time in order to become one of the other people in the battle.

Using a time turner to make clones in battle is a very, very dangerous idea. Harry has been warned, strenuously, by Professor McGonnagal that he should not directly interact with himself, and we have an anecdote about an auror/criminal pair that went insane because they abused time turners. I imagine that one of the more stable time loops would involve the original Dumbledore/Harry getting disabled before going back in time for the first time.

But yeah, the cloning objects thing is a reasonable use of a Time Turner.

Edit to add: If by collaborating on tricky problems, you are referring to e.g. academic problems, rather than problems of strength, this amounts to a rather absurd charade. If you use a Time Turner to put 6 copies of yourself in a room, and in an hour they succeed in answering the problem, that means that at the beginning of the hour, 5 of them already knew the answer.

This comment gave me the obvious-in-retrospect idea of cloning things with a Time-Turner.

Just Say No to time travel in stories. There's no end to this kind of stuff. Use it to throw pies. Fine. But please don't make it a magic bullet to resolve some plot line.

How are new Time-Turners made?

Weeeeeellll, since this particular fanfiction has already been mentioned and is known to be known to Eliezer... Hear Harry,partially kissed hero, on this issue! "Do you know what makes up the dust they use in Time Turners? Powdered fairy wings."

1. If Hermione's testimony had changed from last time, I'd have guessed that McGonagall was mouthing a spell or trying to Confound Hermione so she gave a different testimony under Veritaserum.

1. Since that isn't the case, she was either trying to: a) provide moral support for Hermione ("Keep strong" and such)

b) communicating something. If it's this, then I strongly suspect that McGonagall is cooperating with future Harry in some rescue plan. She might be communicating a simple message like "Don't worry" or "We'll get you out" which would imply that she has some extra knowledge about how things are going to play out.

But what she told Hermione shouldn't be very important as there was no way to know that Hermione, in her tired state, would understand the significance of whatever McGonagall mouthed.

Maybe H&C's final form was McGonagall? That'd be a fun twist.

She's the only sane one of Hermione's friends who was present?

(There may be more to it, but it's hard to say)

Hah. Fun, but completely unreasonable. The Wizengemot is ultimately responsible for the safety of wizard-kind, and though they're pretty selfish when it comes to minor issues, as soon as a Harry makes the threat to disable wizard-kind's defenses against Dementors, everyone, Dumbledore and Malfoy and Bones and so on, will be his enemy, and they will disable him.

Your plan basically relies on stripping your country of one of its most powerful weapons and then having the leaders of your country thank you for it. Good freaking luck.

Upvoted for the sheer epicness, even though I doubt it's going to happen.

I don't get it straight: will Harry declare war to whom? To the dementors?

But, your line of thought is interesting.

(The taboo tradeoff would be along the lines of sending hundreds of dementors out into the world at large to terrorize and kill, or starting a war, all for the sake of one personal friend.)

My reading:

In 25 Harry asked the Weasley twins for help, and told them not to involve Quirrell in their plot, because he didn't like publicity. The Weasley twins agree, but are amused that Harry doesn't know them that well or he wouldn't have brought up Quirrell at all, and say they'll do Quirrell on their own time.

This part is never explicitly stated, but I assume they alert Rita to Quirrell and manufacture some silly rumors about him being a former Death Eater and training Harry to be the Next Dark Lord.

Rita then publishes an article making those exact accusations.

Quirrell confronts Rita about this. He pulls up his arm to show no Dark Mark. But she clearly shows she considers herself above all the rabble, doesn't give two damns about journalistic integrity, and simply doesn't care who she hurts. It is at that point that she thinks about Mary's Room, and turning into a beetle.

It is implied that Quirrell was reading her mind as she thought that, so now he has knowledge of her snooping habits and morphing abilities. He deliberately puns on this, saying that he now can't resist the urge to simply "crush" her instead. I don't think this first meeting was orchestrated by Quirrell, it was unrelated and simply gave him the knowledge he needed to set up her murder.

I deduce that Quirrell later leaks to her anonymously that he'll be meeting with Harry in Mary's room and something juicy will happen. I find it pretty damn delicious the way he toys with her without Harry's knowledge, she must've had a hell of a sphincter-tightening moment when he audibly considers casting a spell to reveal any animagi in the room. And it's awesome the way you (as a reader) don't notice that until your second read-through.

A last chance? If she had done the right thing and apologized or retracted it, she would have shown up at Mary's Room and observed absolutely nothing of interest or been ejected or confounded or something. The trope might be Last-Second Chance, although this seems to be more of a martial-arts sort of trope where you are ultra-polite and correct as you give the other person a clear statement of their mistake and a chance to rectify it before you open the can of whoop-ass on them (Martial Pacifist).

Good catch, that is definitely making my trope sense tingle.

Dumbledore has no difficulty with action when needed(TSPE, most notably), but he's been burned too many times by the cost of his efforts to be eager about it. He'd much prefer to stop the war by passive deeds(sequestering Harry, poisoning Voldemort's father's grave, etc.), and not risk the bloodshed that open war would cause, or even the loss of political capital caused by a showdown with Lucius Malfoy. There's bound to be a big difference between an 11 year old sci-fi fan and a hundredish year old veteran when it comes to eagerness to do harm, and frankly I think that Dumbledore's caution is at least as justified as Harry's sneakiness when it comes to planning a war. After all, Harry's never seen one of his incredibly clever plots fail, and he's eleven, so he is naturally going to be far too eager. Inaction isn't always wrong.

I think you need to consider the idea that this is the way he's always acted.

His handling of the Grindelwald business can be summed up as several years of inaction followed by the most spectacular duel in recent history. Presumably he didn't explain the blood sacrifices + Deathstick = invincibility thing to everyone who asked, so he must have skated by on inscrutability.

He states with a certain bitter pride that he taught Voldemort he doesn't give in to blackmail or threats to hostages- which he (hopefully, considering the alternative) accomplished through more inaction.

When you think about it, a wizard with tremendous magical and political power who doesn't seem to actually want to do anything with that power is pretty much the best case scenario for a lot of people. Imagine that Dumbledore suddenly decided to act on Fawkes' advice: how much of Wizarding Britain is left standing?

It was unlikely that his enemies would see what was being done, so unlikely that they did not think to prepare. So unlikely that, appropriately enough, it was mentioned in chapter 78:

The Dragons had started the combat with a feint to provide a distraction for Mr. Goyle's approach through the forest; Neville hadn't realized there were two brooms attacking until almost too late. But the Chaos Legion had gotten the other pilot. That was why broomsticks usually didn't attack before armies met, it meant a whole army would concentrate fire on the broomstick.

The Dragons sacrificed a broom to see what was up. This is a significant sacrifice as they have only two and their enemies have a total of four between them.

It would not be surprising for the next battle, if there is one, to include some protection against aerial espionage. Better spy-planes would be another reasonable result of this battle. The first thing you do is fly higher.

To be a good con man, you have to think like other people. Harry's not good at that.

A con man has to be good at playing to other people's superficiality.

Harry can't stand not asking questions. So he finds it hard to model others' willingness to not ask questions. Also, he's in love with getting the right answer, which makes it hard for his brain to think over wrong answers to offer people, even enemies. This is why Harry has no instinct for ambushes and active (lie-based, rather than silence-based) deceptions.

Someone like Harry can train to actively lie, deceive, ambush, etc. He'd do fine. But active deception is one of those social skills, like flirting, that mucks with the user's own cognition and so takes more practice than smart people initially think.

As for formation tactics, drilling people to act together is another less-questions-more-cooperation trait that Harry's never been good at. Chaos is definitely his right army name.

My mental model of Lucius says he believes...

• Harry is Voldemort (Who is still strong in some ways but weak in others)

• Harrymort has been trying to split Draco from his father.

• Harrymort has been using a new ideology to recruit Draco.

• This new ideology is incompatible with the previous ideology.

• Harrymort has no use of his old allies as he hasn't let them in on anything and he's using an incompatible ideology.

• Harrymort's gathering of power and allies/minions (eg Hogwarts students) will take at least a decade to come to fruition.

• Harrymort is in a weak position right now and in danger of losing a key piece. (Hermoine would be his Bellatrix.)

• Harrymort seems to be on Dumbledore's side in the court room and ideologically.

So, assuming Lucius isn't just acting on rage, he's decided to align himself against Harrymort and with whoever it is that's attacking him. Perhaps he's hoping that he can destroy Harrymort soon enough before he becomes invincible withe the passage of years. Perhaps he hopes by aligning the House of Malfoy against Harrymort publicly, whoever attacked his son won't target him again and risk losing the Malfoy's support. Perhaps he thinks Harry is strongly allied enough to Dumbledore to lie to Lucius. Although I'm more of the mind that he's acting on blind revenge, or at least it's clouding his vision enough to make poor choices at the moment.

He might think that Harrymort is toying with his son for pure amusement, Bellatrix-style; or that Dumbledore set Hermione on Draco.

But he can punish Hermione as a demonstration of his ferocity now, while he waits and hopes to find the real villain later.

Lucius probably knows that he doesn't know enough; on that he agrees with Harry. The difference is that he doesn't see that as a reason to let Hermione off; he sees Hermione as at least an opportunity to send a message to his real enemy, whoemever he is, not to take the House of Malfoy lightly.

A plot by Harrymort to inoculate future Death Eater and trusted lieutenant Draco against pro-muggleborn ideas by having him severely disappointed in Hermione?

Who benefits from Draco being anti-muggleborn? It's not Harry, it's Lucius.

I have a persistent memory that you did at one point state that it was, but I can't find that statement so I'm wondering I just crossed a couple of brain-wires.

I remember that too. I can't find that statement either.

This occurred to me, but Hermione really shot herself in the foot by publicly demonstrating the ability to successfully cast a charm above her year level on the first try, from nothing more than having glanced at the instructions once.

Plus, just from naming conventions I would expect that spell to have non-lethal uses- it's not called the Blood-Cooling Curse, or even Hex, but Charm. Maybe it's a treatment for heatstroke, or the counter to the Blood-Boiling Curse. In any situation other than under Hogwarts' wards, a Charm that takes six hours to kill an unconscious first-year isn't that big a deal, compared to, say, Levitating them off a cliff and dropping them.

Spells that extract the history of spells casted using a wand are canon, afaik (or was that just the most recent spell?)

I would expect they were casted on hermiones wand and the usage was confirmed.

It's good to add links to the wiki page too (ETA: which I've now done), especially since HPMOR.com links there. (Although obviously it's better to create a new section and not add links than not to create a new section at all, so I voted you up.)