Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 21, chapters 91 & 92

Quirrel tells Harry that they share an ability to "become" whoever they pretend to be. We even see this when Quirrel pretends to be someone else to the Healer after the Azkaban breakout. It would be very odd if Quirrel were able to do this and not have any insight into how people's emotions feel like from the inside. I believe that Quirrel knows perfectly well how emotions work; the icy exterior is just a role he plays.

Quirrell == Voldemort. This does not imply that Voldemort == Riddle. Dumbledore at least thinks that Voldemort was Tom Riddle, but consider the possibility that Dumbledore is wrong about this. Remember Voldemort really doesn't look very human at all, and could be almost anyone. Maybe Riddle was misdirection.

I know someone with Asbergers who manages to be very charming because he learnt social rules.

You don't need empathy to charm people.

Quirrell is trying to alienate Harry from his lifelines by manipulating everyone into being unhelpfully helpful. It's one of the core emotional triggers for the Harry, and the Defense Professor knows this.

Did anyone else find it increasingly implausible that the teachers kept trying to speak to Harry while he was thinking? The first one or even two approaches made sense, but if a person who has just lost a close friend says that they want to be alone until dinner, the only sensible course of action seems to be to say "okay" and leave them alone.

Eh. In more typical situations it isn't that odd to force people who want to be alone in bleak times to not be alone. (I'm not sure if the primary impetus here is an anti-suicide measure, the thought that it improves mood, despite the annoyance, or the inability of people who want to help to convince themselves they are helping without visible action.) That Quirrel recommended it makes it more sensible (though, as the strong reader suspicion goes, Quirrel is trying to sabotage their relationship with Harry), even though Harry protests.

McGonagall may have been insane to unlock the Time-Turner, but she was simply incapable of withstanding the emotional pressure Harry suddenly put her under. Doubtless it is not something she had originally intended to do, and she may well regret it horribly once she regains the capacity for rational thought.

Harry is extremely creative, with an intent to kill, powers others know not, and a Time Turner. He killed a troll and escaped from Azkaban using his unique transfiguration skills.

Harry is dangerous and desperate. He's not just some depressed kid who wants to be left alone, he's an apocalypse waiting to happen.

McGonagall would have been insane to unlock his Time Turner!

Insane, or just playing by the rules, as usual? Very dumb, as I commented elsewhere, to give a desperate Harry unfettered control of his Time Turner, at his prompting.

Had the first two been Macgonnagle and the Defense Professor, then the rest make a bit more sense in that the Defense Professor urged Macgonnagle to do whatever it took to get Harry off his current path, and, well, Harry had just lectured her about how responsibility works, and so she was in a state of mind that demanded action.

That said, you're totally right: continuing to throw potential emotional bonds at him to try and cheer him up wasn't the best idea, at least not so soon. Surely Macgonnagle is smart enough to know that Harry knew exactly what was going on, and would therefore be less receptive? It's a general trend when working with stubborn and upset people, and I imagine this is no less true among Hogwarts students, and thinking about it for five seconds should have made it clear that it'd only be worse with Harry. I suppose she couldn't think of anything better to try.

It seemed to me it was the way Harry told them off. He didn't exactly act like the day was wrapped up and everything was already said.

The whole point of a death doll is to imitate a dead body perfectly and fool people into confusing the two (that was the implication with the death-doll of Bella). If so, we wouldn't expect Hermione's body to look unrealistic if it's in fact a death doll substitute.

Quirrell values Harry - at least instrumentally, for purposes as yet uncertain, and possibly emotionally (if he is capable of valuing a person in that way). He is too valuable to kill except as a last resort, and Quirrell's actions suggest that he thinks he can avert the prophecy and make the killing unnecessary (otherwise he would not be taking all the measures he is currently taking).

As for not informing others of the prophecy, doubtless he feels that whatever (frantic and desperate) actions they might take in response would interfere with his own much more intelligent attempt to resolve the situation.

Unfortunately, he has no way to prove the existence of a prophecy beyond taking asking Dumbledore to take Harry to the Hall of Prophecy. And a prophecy that Harry will end the world, coming from the obviously evil Defense Professor, is... well, obviously evil. Even if it isn't.

Or, perhaps, Madam Pomfrey is taking them to see the body, since it is in her medical ward.

That is extremely creepy.

On the other hand,

• Obliviation does not require a hospital in any way
• Harry would probably snap and take Hogwarts apart brick by brick if the staff permanently took away his parents like that, and I don't think anyone involved is stupid enough not to get that

My interpretation is that Madam Pomfrey is a trustworthy staff member, while at the same time being inconsequential enough that her time can be spent on escorting Muggles around. She is also used to dealing with horrified parents, and therefore a good first point of contact for the Grangers.

It sounds like they're either having medical issues due to stress, or they're going to where Hermione is being kept. If they were to be obliviated, I'm sure it would be in their own home.

What I'm wondering is more why Harry doesn't push for his parents to be temporarily obliviated of his own existence, as a mean to protect them.

Hermione did it in canon at the beginning of the Deathly Hallows, and that was a very sensible thing to do, and it told a lot about Hermione for her to cast that spell.

And yes, it's very creepy, this "Obliviate !" scene in Deathly Hallows almost made me cry (both in book and in movie), it was the saddest scene of the 7 books to me. (And yeah, I know, I should be more sad about the people who actually died...), but Harry definitely is rationalist enough to force himself to do something as painful as that if it's to save his parents.

Obliviating the whole of Hermione's existence seems counterproductively difficult: She lived in Muggle Britain for 11 years. Are they going to Obliviate all the neighbours and relatives who remember her and might ask casually how she is doing at school? As for Obliviating the memory that she's dead, then why tell them in the first place? It is not clear what sort of memory eradication could be usefully applied. Maybe a False Memory of her dying in some sort of sports accident, rather than being half-eaten? But again, in that case, why tell them the actual truth?

My estimate of Trelawney in Methods has, for quite some time, been that she may or may not be good at formal Divination, but that she is a terrible teacher and an excellent seer, and that Dumbledore keeps her around primarily for the latter reason.

If everyone in the class knows Hermione (which is likely for a loose definition of 'knows' since everyone has probably heard of her either through SPHEW or as General Sunshine, as her being called up at lunch to receive an award) then telling that to everyone in the class may not include even a single miss. Which makes Professor Trelawney very accurate indeed.

Not really. if she says the same thing each time it shouldn't be surprising that a rare hit occurs. It seems heavily implied that Dumbledore keeps her around (both in canon and in HPMOR) because she occasionally emits a genuine prophecy.

"Is there another Patronus still present?" the old wizard said clearly to the bright creature.

The bright creature dipped its head in a nod.

"Can you find it?"

The silver head nodded again.

"Will you remember it, should it depart and come again?"

A final nod from the blazing phoenix.

-

They hadn't even gotten to the end of that corridor before Harry's Patronus raised its hand, politely, as though in a classroom.

Harry thought quickly. The question was how to - no, that was also obvious.

"It seems," Harry said in a coldly amused voice, "that someone has instructed this Patronus to speak its message only to me." He chuckled. "Well then. Pardon me, dear Bella. Quietus."

At once the silver humanoid said in Harry's own voice, "There is another Patronus which seeks this Patronus."

"What? " said Harry. And then, without pausing to think about what was happening, "Can you block it? Stop it from finding you?"

The silver humanoid shook its head.

Note that Harry's Patronus appears to inform him of its own initiative regarding a fact which is important for him to know. Also that it delays until he is prepared to hear the message.

Technically, a Dementor is not a humanoid - it only appears as one to those unable to face the cognitive gap that represents death.

Sixty-five years old is also consistent with being Tom Riddle, who was born December 1926. (Remember, that quote is from September, a few months before Tom RIddle's 66th birthday.)

(birth year and month from harry potter wiki)

What "trolling" are you referring to?

I am inclined to believe that he wasn't defeated - the body everyone believes to be his had been "burnt to a crisp", which is inconsistent with everything we know about the Killing Curse.

Assuming, however, that the official account is accurate, the logical next step would be to learn the True Patronus Charm, the only thing he knows which can block a Killing Curse. He might also want to study Harry for lingering magical effects (if any such effect can endure over twelve years), though this is made more difficult by the resonance effect.

Assuming the official account is accurate, we have no better explanation for what happened than Rowling's love shield(though I've heard the closely related theory that it was Voldemort breaking his promise to Lily that did it, because the laws of magic somehow enforce contracts). MoR!Voldemort is not the sort to leave it as an enigma, so he's likely gone looking through obscure magical texts of the sort that he didn't check pre-death to figure out what had the power to do it. As such, he would presumably have learned the importance of true love and/or honesty, and altered his tactics accordingly, which may be why Quirrelmort is noticeably less evil-acting than Voldemort.

Unlikely to ever make an appearance, due to meta-knowledge:

Jura Ryvrmre fgnegrq guvf fgbel, ur unqa'g ernq gur obbxf, naq gubfr fprarf qba'g nccrne va gur zbivrf. Jr nyfb xabj gung ur xarj rknpgyl jung unccraf sebz gur fgneg, fb ur unq guvf cynaarq orsber ernqvat nobhg gur QbZ oenvaf.

He needs 6 hours of uninterrupted time with Hermione's body. His present self guards the door while his future self does whatever he plans on doing to prepare her body for long term preservation.

See this quote from chapter 91 set right after Harry exits the room where her body is stored:

When the door opened again, Harry seemed to have changed, as though that minute and a half had passed over the course of lifetimes.

That "lifetime" is more specifically 6 hours.

The answer s much simpler I think. He has precommitted to stay there until dinner, but the process of thining over his failures is deeply emotionally unpleasant so he really wants it to be over.

Nice idea.

If Harry wanted to do something rash to get Hermione back, messing with the Time Turner would be considered "rash". Also, Harry did conveniently manage to get his time turner unsheathed.

Harry tries something with his time turner. Harry gets a note - "Don't." Harry writes on the note, "Give Hermione back, or kiss my ass - take your pick."

On a side note, this probably should've really, really worried Michael.

... For that matter, it probably did.

V jbaqre vs Ryvrmre vapyhqrq guvf (naq cbffvoyl bguref) nf n jnl bs znxvat gur ernqre hapregnva bs nal fcbvyre-evqqra ersreraprf ur cynprf guebhtubhg gur grkg. Abj V pna fgvyy uneobe hapregnvagl vs RL unf Uneel gnyx nobhg Nanxva orpbzr Qnegu Inqre.

Unlike Potter and Evans, Verres is a name with no connection to the wizarding world.

Has anyone else noticed that Quirrell knew James Potter?

"James Potter," said Professor Quirrell, his eyes narrowing. "The boy is not much like James Potter.

There is no reason to believe the burst of magical energy happens in every magical death. It could be something that only happens under particular circumstances, or for particular types of wizards/witches. For example, the killing curse might kill people too quickly for them to understand that they are dying.

Another possibility is that it can only be perceived under certain circumstances.

You'll notice that he made sure no-one went in the room for several hours, during which he had his Time-Turner unlocked. He then went in there himself.

On the one hand, some things make it look like he did something of great significance there. (Which is why this subthread is happening at all.)

On the other hand, ch.92 seems to show Harry, from his own point of view, at least convinced that Hermione is lost-and-gone-for-ever and that there's nothing he can do about it. Which means that either Eliezer is deceiving his readers in ways I think he wouldn't, or Harry has managed to memory-charm himself, or he hasn't done anything that (from his own perspective) gives a substantial chance of saving or recovering her. The first two of those three options seem pretty unlikely to me.

Would it make more sense to just save her brain instead of saving her whole body?

He also doesn't particularly trust Snape; Snape is still on his list of potential suspects.

Of course, Quirrell is also high on his list, but having already become part of (in a sense, the entirety of) his inner circle, it's hard to kick him out again.

Snape is a professor. Why wouldn't he ask Snape?

He obviously can't ask everyone, but I'd expect he'd at least ask the professors, some of the more promising students, and any student who seems to create a spell. And maybe all of Hogwarts.

I like this theory. But it's worth noting that Moody claimed that Voldemort could legilimens without making eye contact. EY seems pretty big on Conservation of Detail, so there's a good chance that this will turn out to be important. Of course, Conservation of Detail also weighs in favor of this eye-locking episode being important, so I suppose it could go either way.

Or both: perhaps sightless legilimency is handicap-inducing like wandless magic, so eye contact might be required to read a witch as powerful as Minerva.

He already had a clue in the form of the hole Harry had transfigured in the wall of the Azkaban.

I usually imagine rational!harry as 20-year-old Daniel Radcliffe. Try as I might, I just can't imagine him as an 11-year-old. The few occasions when the story thrusts his age to my attention are always jarring.

Not yet, but the gap is small.

Truly awesome though that wouuld be, as others pointed out in the thread you link, there's no reason to believe that said ritual works on the properly dead.

Furthermore, think about the implications if it did work - everyone who knows about it, including all Death Eaters, would have those three items readied in case of their unexpected demise, and would thus be functionally invincible.

I don't see why bone would be difficult, given that it doesn't have to be taken from a living ancestor. Not unless Dumbledore prepared for this and warded their graves.

Perhaps a tooth will do? They are dentists...

Maybe, though I don't think teeth have any actual bone in them. But I'm sure a pinky toe wouldn't be missed. Not so much as one's child, anyway.

Is there anyone who qualifies as a servent for Hermoine?

As far as foes go, the troll might be viable.

It means that it's confirmed that Quirrell wants people to think he's secretly David Monroe. I'd be wary of drawing any other conclusions, though it does seem more likely that Quirrell pretended to be Monroe during the war.

Do you mean in general, or in Chapter 92?

Probably because Quirrell is insanely good at being a Defense Professor. After a long string of incompetents, I might be willing to overlook a little "obviously evil" if it meant getting the best Defense Professor in a century.

It is impossible to hire good Defense Professors. Full Stop. The position is heavily cursed, and anyone who takes it leaves within the year. Practically no one will take the post in the position. Under these circumstances, if someone is willing to be the defense professor, well, that means Hogwarts has a defense professor this year. Again, this is a job no one wants after all these years of mishaps befalling the defense professors, like clockwork, every year.

Being sinister and secretive is also a common Slytherin behavior, and they're not ALL evil. It's also possible he thinks he hired an incognito David Munroe.

Dumbledore seems quiet desperate to find a Defense professor, so much he'll accept about anyone (except Snape, but I guess that's because he wants to keep Snape in Hogwarts for more than one year), both in canon and in MoR. He keeps a close eye on the defense professor then (or at least, he does in MoR, he didn't seem to do it much in canon).

I'm expecting a positive ending for a few reasons, one of which is that since this is rationality propaganda I doubt Eliezer wants to portray Harry's super-rationality as having ultimately bad results.

what is the point of a belief that does not allow you to make predictions that you are willing to stand by

The route from mental phenomena to actions does not have to pass through explicitly modeling and making predictions about the world. You can just have beliefs that function as simple heuristics for making actions without any modeling or prediction at all.

and planned this all

I find this highly unlikely. Hermione should have some concept by now of how destabilizing an effect her apparent death would have on Harry. I don't think she'd have the heart to knowingly deceive him like this.

Upvoted for putting your prediction out there like this, even though I very much disagree (for the reason that Qiaochu said, for example).

Combined with previous chapters

With the end of c89, I flashed back to the curious bit during the Wizengamot trial about some powerful old members now paying attention to Harry - did they interpret correctly his Dementor-frightening as indicating a newly created spell (Patronus 2.0) and that Harry might be joining their fraternity? Specifically, ch81:

It does not occur to them to second-guess the application of such reasoning to the events they have seen with their own eyes in the Most Ancient Hall. Indeed, they are not consciously aware that they are using story-reasoning on real life. As for scrutinizing the Boy-Who-Lived with the same careful logic they would use on an political alliance or a business arrangement - what brain would associate to that, when a part of the legendary magisterium is at hand? But there are a very few, seated on those wooden benches, who do not think like this. There are a certain few of the Wizengamot who have read through half-disintegrated scrolls and listened to tales of things that happened to someone's brother's cousin, not for entertainment, but as part of a quest for power and truth. They have already marked the Night of Godric's Hollow, as reported by Albus Dumbledore, as an anomalous and potentially important event. They have wondered why it happened, if it did happen; or if not, why Dumbledore is lying. And when an eleven-year-old boy rises up and says "Lucius Malfoy" in that cold adult voice, and goes on to speak words one simply would not expect to hear from a first-year in Hogwarts, they do not allow the fact to slip into the lawless blurs of legends and the premises of plays. They mark it as a clue. They add it to the list. This list is beginning to look somewhat alarming. It doesn't particularly help when the boy yells "BOO!" at a Dementor and the decaying corpse presses itself flat against the opposite wall and its horrible ear-hurting voice rasps, "Make him go away."

Any thoughts which theories Harry tested with

"Is that a usual tactic, by the way?" Harry said, voice still odd. "Carrying something large Transfigured into something small to use as a weapon? Or is that a usual exercise for Transfiguration practice?"

He tested whether Dumbledore anticipated his use of the rock when he told him to carry it around. He's looking for explanations of all the early behavior where Dumbledore pretended to be mad, since he now believes that while Dumbledore may have wrong and even "mad" beliefs, he only does things like burning chickens to mess with people.

Alternately, he might want people to believe he has transfigured his father's rock again, but not be actually planning to keep it transfigured, because he wants to carry the Hermione diamond and let people think it is the rock.

Only he also plans to retransfigurate his fathers rock, and we know that one sustained transfiguration is a serious drain on his magic.

I rather suspect he would be willing to sacrifice that goal (whim) if it seemed like it would help Hermione.

Quirrel in Methods has pretty much stated that he's trying to mold Harry into a dark lord. That requires Harry to be alive and is significantly more likely if he doesn't have Hermione's moral influence.

And then there's Snape... who knows what evil lurks into the hearts of men?

The story had me at

He couldn't resist letting his mind wander onto the benefits and drawbacks of a turkey animagus form.

I'm a bit divided on how I'd feel about that. On the other hand, finding a way to resurrect her would be thematically appropriate. On the other hand, it would also be thematically appropriate if there wasn't any way, and you just had to accept that the universe doesn't always play fair, with you sometimes not getting everything you want despite your best efforts.

I'll go a step farther, and say that regardless of the existence of souls, Hermione will be resurrected before the conclusion of this story.

I sorta feel that I know what you're getting at, but "Hermione lives" seems like a precondition for "Harry wins", no?

I continue to have at least 30% confidence that Hermione was never dead. There are too many would-be-conclusive bits of evidence just barely out of reach.

Not safer per se, but less likely to come to Voldemort's attention.

Edit: Chapter 37 also has Quirrell tell Harry that Dumbledore has thorougly warded his parents' home (though the fact that he is telling Harry this after having crossed said wards does nothing to reassure us, the readers).

"No one's supposed to know where I am!" said Harry, still keeping the shriek quiet. "Even owls are supposed to deliver my mail to Hogwarts, not here!" Harry had agreed to that willingly; it would be silly if a Death Eater could win the whole war at any time just by owling him a magically triggered hand grenade.

Professor Quirrell was grinning, from where he stood in the backyard beyond the window. "Oh, I shouldn't worry, Mr. Potter. You are well protected against locating Charms, and no blood purist is likely to think of consulting a phone book." His grin grew wider. "And it did take considerable effort to cross the wards that the Headmaster put around this house - though of course anyone who knew your address could simply wait outside and attack you the next time you left."

The House Points are more of a way to formalize Minerva eating crow for all the students that broke the rules and acted when the situation required it. And, of course, most of the points talk was really about extending them to more students, which was extremely necessary for Harry. The Neville talk was probably the least justified, but there is a shard of importance in that Harry had to forgive and defend Neville during it.

The house points are symbolic. There are two worlds, the world of ordinary Hogwarts activity and the world where crazy shit happens, usually because of Harry somehow, and some kind of relationship between these worlds needs to be established. Especially because actually there's only one world and bad things happen when students, especially Gryffindors, are too afraid of repercussions from the first world to behave sensibly in the second.

You should write Chapter 93 at the beginning of your comment, as a spoiler warning of those who didn't read it yet.

Are the rules to create a new thread for each new update, to avoid this problem?

You may want to correct the typo on "though" - on a first reading it seems like you're criticising Eliezer's grammar and then going on to make a separate comment.

Where could the story possibly go in your worst case?

Now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind seeing a story about a middle-aged person who was kicked out of their Chosen One situation twenty years ago, but now the politics have shifted and they have to deal with magic and intrigue again. However, this would not remotely be HPMOR.

So, if the prophecy about the end of the world is a riddle, what could be its answer?

The only outcome I've found any hints for so far is the intelligence amplification hypothesis. The last time Harry brainstormed ways to achieve ultimate power, mind magic was first on the list. And he was recently heard to say 'I will change and be less stupid'. IA breaks the plot, though, and leaves the author with a character he can't write, so I'm not hugely confident of it.

Abominable Conclusion 1: the AIs that first negotiated with humanity, thousands of years ago, to levitate objects on command, had insisted that humans speak the protocol words... Wingardium Leviosa.

1. Both canon and HPMoR have arithmancy. In HPMoR, "Harry and Professor McGonagall had bought his textbooks from Flourish and Blotts just under the deadline. With only a slight explosion when Harry had made a beeline for the keyword 'Arithmancy' and discovered that the seventh-year textbooks invoked nothing more mathematically advanced than trigonometry." And Harry really shouldn't have exploded. Many real world Muggle schools don't get as far as trigonometry by the end of high school, and they don't have to spend any time on charms or transfiguration.

2. Ryvmvre unf fgngrq gung guvf vf abg na NV fgbel.