Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96

Great idea, but what of the rest of the prophecy ?

And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal

That I can't think how to interpret it... how did Death mark Harry his equal ?

But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not...

That could be any of love, rationality, or hope, the most common hypothesis of what powers Harry have.

either must destroy all but a remnant of the other

The remnant would be memory then ? If death defeats Harry, Harry is dead, but people will still remember him, probably for a long while, and if Harry defeats death, the memory that death existed will stay forever in everyone. Or the remnant of death would be death of non-sentient beings ?

I can't believe no one has pointed this out yet. One line differs from the HPMoR prophecy and the canon one:

and either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world

and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives

This has obviously been rewritten to take out any reference to life or death, and instead talking about destruction and existence. Eliezer must have done this because "killing death" doesn't make sense. I would say 75% chance this theory is either true or discussed at some future point in the fanfiction.

Just remembered a serious objection, originally from Tarhish on reddit:

I had been thinking about this possibility for a while, but now it also requires Dumbledore to have lied about Lily and James hearing the prophecy in the Hall of Prophecy. Because if they did, then it means they were mentioned in the prophecy, and this theory does not, at first thought, seem to allow that.

(from here, it's only 4 months old, you still can upvote that)

This argument can be somewhat handwaved away by "James is ascendant of Ignotus Peverell, and prophecy talks about several possible futures", but still.

My largest problem with the Dark Lord == Death theory is that it doesn't really square with Quirrelmort being another super-rationalist and Eliezer's First Law of Fanfiction (You can't make Frodo a Jedi unless you give Sauron the Death Star). Either Quirrelmort is a henchman or personification of Death, which is unlikely considering he is afraid of dying and the dementor try to frighten him in the Humanism arch. Or Quirrelmort is not the Sauron of this story but will help Harry to defeat the main bad guy Death. This could be a really cool ending, but I doubt that it would fit in the remaining arch.

"Three shall be Peverell's sons and three their devices by which Death shall be defeated."

When I first saw this line, I didn't think it was very important, but could it mean that Harry is actually going to use the three Deathly Hallows to defeat death, i.e. make everyone immortal?

I confess, I hadn't paid that much attention to the possibility, because the canonical Deathly Hallows don't seem well-suited for the purpose. But I suppose there could be some effect where when the Elder Wand is used to cast the Patronus 2.0, you get an Uber Patronus, or maybe it lets you lets you kill a hundred Dementors without depleting your own life force, or something. And I suppose the Resurrection Stone could easily get an upgrade from canon. But how could the Invisibility Cloak be used as part of the process of granting immortality, beyond hiding from Dementors? Could hiding from Dementors become really important at the climax somehow? Doesn't seem like it, if the Elder Wand + Patronus 2.0 takes care of the Dementors, hmmm...

Thing of note:

Harry in chapter 86:

...Don't get me wrong - I do realize that my interpretation sounds stretched. Trelawney's phrasing doesn't seem natural for describing only the events that historically happened on October 31st, 1981 ... But if you think of the prophecy as being about several possible futures, only one of which was actually realized on Halloween, then the prophecy could already be complete.

The prophecy can be interpreted in two ways: "Harry fights Voldemort" and "Harry fights Death" (ignoring more exotic ones like "Harry is Dark Lord and Quirrel is the hero").

At this point, both positions are justified. Yes, some lines look strange if we assume "Harry fights Death" point of view, but some lines look strange if we assume "Harry fights Voldemort" point of view: just look at chapter 76. The passage above suggests this is normal.

I find myself in a doubt about which interpretation is correct, and it looks like this is exactly as Eliezer wanted it.

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal. But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world. - chapter 86

Oddly, I feel like each line in this prophecy could equally well point to Dark Lord as Voldemort OR Dark Lord as Death.

Although P(Dark Lord as Death) should get a complexity penalty since Voldemort should be the default candidate due to canon.

EDIT: The last sentence is wrong. What I should've said is that since Voldemort is the prophecy's referent in canon, and he is called the Dark Lord in both canon and hpmor, I'm still assigning >50% probability to Quirrellmort being the entity referred to in hpmor's prophecy.

Nice idea, but how does death mark someone as his (its) equal? Surely not just by killing his friends, else a substantial fraction would be "the equal of death", which doesn't seem right.

There has previously been some speculation that the dark lord in Harry's birth prophesy is death rather than Voldemort.

Voldemort's name means "full of death". (Maybe "thief of death".) Perhaps Voldemort made himself a personification of Death in order to personally avoid it, seeking for himself alone what the Peverells sought for all?

A piece of evidence in favour of this idea is that Harry, in spite of Dumbledore's warnings, has tried to interpret the prophecy and arrived at almost exactly the canon interpretation on his first try. With dramatic convention regarding the interpretation of prophecies demanding that Harry's interpretation is completely wrong, this lends credibility to the Dark Lord Death hypothesis.

I don't think there's really reason to think this new prophecy must be evidence of any hypothesis made for the Trelawney prophecy(s). It's tempting to look at all the threes and see that that makes nice things happen to the parts of your brain that are concerned with pattern recognition, but there's no reason they have to even be referring to the same things at all. And depending on how you look at it, the simpler explanation is that they are just two different prophecies about two different things.

The time pressure explanation for prophecies suggests that it's rare for prophecies to be about the same events. By all rights we should be focusing on the fact that there seem to have been a series of prophecies and quasi-prophetic stresses all focused on one person. This is particularly true if 'He is coming' and 'He is here' refers to Harry (or more specifically the development of his mind or spirit), but even if it isn't, it seems Harry is a lightning rod for prophecies. That in itself might be more significant than the prophecies themselves.

Would this imply that Harry is descended from all three Peverell brothers?

I strongly agree, but I'm still left wondering how to interpret the rest of the prophesy:

And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal. But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world.

Edit: The prophesy still seems to be a good fit for Quirrelmort for this second half, but Death for the first half. I'm left wondering if there is some important relationship between Death and Quirrelmort that may resolve this.

We know that Quirrelmort is afraid of death (as is Harry's dark side), and that Harry is entirely sympathetic to that view. Voldemort/Riddle/Monroe seem to have an aging effect on Quirrel's body. Could it be that Voldemort/Riddle/Monroe have engaged in some sort of arrangement with Death to secure their own immortality? This would make the Quirrelmort character both ally and enemy of Death, and complicate the interpretation of the prophesy as well as Harry's course of action.

Nice connection

If so, then:

• Presumably what's happening is some ritual involving the Deathly Hallows, carried out by Harry or Voldemort or both
• Most likely with the goal of defeating Death (somehow)
• So I guess the litres of blood are a requirement of the ritual (note: in view of earlier stuff about how modest the things sacrificed in rituals are, it had better be something as grand as defeating Death)
• Harry doesn't seem like the type to spill other people's blood even for such a goal (though, I dunno, he might) and Voldemort may quite possibly wish to spill Harry's
• So maybe it's Harry's blood, and he's (directly or, or letting Voldemort do it) sacrificing his own life to put a permanent end to death for everyone else
• Which would make a certain amount of dramatic sense
• In which case, probably the word being screamed is "No!" or "Harry!" or something of the kind
• Though maybe it ends up with him getting resurrected too; see, e.g., canon Harry Potter, Narnia, Jesus -- the first two being deliberately derived from the latter; not so congenial an idea to Eliezer as to Rowling (who is a Christian), but note Eliezer's "Ta-da" remark when Leah mentioned "Christus Victor" and divide-by-zero errors
• So maybe e.g. Harry needs to be killed while invisible to Death because of the Cloak of Invisibility; perhaps that sends his soul-or-similar-thing to wherever wizards' souls go, but without him actually being properly dead, and enables him to fix things up there (a very "Christus Victor" idea; maybe too much so)
• None of this seems to connect with the prophecy about "the one with power to vanquish the Dark Lord", but maybe as others have speculated the Dark Lord in question is Death or something

All, of course, pure wild ass-speculation.

Interesting. Some of the things that have been described as silver or silvery so far:

• The Patronus charm (particularly the True Patronus)
• The Deathly Hallows symbol in this chapter
• The stars in space
• The Invisibility Cloak (in canon, at least)

All of these seem to have in common that they represent some sort of resistance to death or indifference (usually represented by coldness, like the vacuum of space or Harry's dark side). This has probably already been pointed out a lot, but I predict that whatever is glinting silver in the prologue represents something similar, even if it's something else entirely (e.g. a dagger, the Sword of Gryffindor, etc.)

Edit: also, as someone pointed out earlier, the Philosopher's Stone now turns metals into silver as well as gold (see Hedonic Awareness).

I always figured that was a knife, flashing. Y'know, because of all the blood.

I think "likely" may be an overstatement at this juncture. The entire Deathly Hallows insignia hardly seems like "a tiny fragment… a fraction of a line". I suppose it's possible that some ritual results in the glowy part being erased until only a small portion of the wand is left. But the word "glint" sounds like it's a metallic object moving and flashing light briefly, not something glowing with its own light continually for a time. And while it's possible that Harry will be driven to spill liters of blood to resurrect Hermione, that sounds more like a ritual for Little Hangleton than for Godric's Hollow.

It's definitely a candidate, though. It's in a graveyard, which as we all know is a great destination for bloody moonlit rituals in Harry Potter books. There is a silver line involved. Too early for "likely", but worth keeping in mind.

The black robes might be a Dementors cloak. The falling might mean the Dementor moving faster than any broomstick, the robes being left behind.

Harry resurrecting his parents?

My model of the Peverells has them substantially earlier than Hogwarts (because the Elder Wand seems like a more powerful artifact than the Sword of Gryffindor).

It's interesting that Godric's Hollow was named after Godric, not Peverells. It seems that they weren't as famous as him, for some reason.

Relevant quote, conversation with a Sorting Hat:

"And you would find loyalty and friendship in Hufflepuff, a camaraderie that you have never had before. You would find that you could rely on others, and that would heal something inside you that is broken."

It seems that something broken was healed at last.

PS: Tangentially related to the Harry's inability to rely on others: chapter 31, chapter 70 (Maybe if there were more heroes, their lives wouldn't be so lonely, or so short.), chapter 93.

Death, with a capital D, the one represented by Dementors, the one defeated by True Patronus means "destruction of a consciousness" in my understanding. It's why animals are unaffected by Dementors, why the Patronus charms are animals, ... so ending Death with a capital D would make prevent the destruction of a consciousness, but wouldn't prevent death (with a small d) of bacteria, plants, and most animals.

It is unfortunately not true. Torture may very well exist after death is defeated.

Now I'm reminded of a quote from a similar work:

To conquer death, you only have to die.

Something similar happened to canon!Harry in book 7, after he had become the owner of all three Deathly Hallows...

My second guess is that Minerva got in touch with Draco. She knows Harry taught him the Patronus from a conference in the headmasters office and has seen Harry's reaction to losing Draco.

At first I dismissed it at a silly thing for her to try, but now that she will be really making an effort it seems much more likely.

It's just over 24 hours since Hermione died - he probably just found out. It's the sort of reason you'd get in touch with a friend you used to know pretty well until recently.

Draco will have heard about Hermione's death by now and probably wants to express his condolence and/or tell Harry that he has made a resolution to side with Harry as soon as he can.

Versions already mentioned somewhere: "It was sad she died", "Harry, now you don't owe anything to House Malfoy anymore", "Father wants to disband Hogwarts because it's not safe anymore, Wizengamot vote is tomorrow".

My guess: the rationality-theme of this arc is roles, and this is relevant in almost every chapter. Probably something about Lucius playing a role of loving father instead of going off-script? Or Lucius playing the role of important Wizengamot member?

My second guess: it is connected to the (former?) belief of Lucius that Harry is Voldemort. Role of Death Eater overriding Lucius's neocortex?

Third guess: "Harry, you remember the vow you gave to me about murderer of Narcissa Malfoy? Listen carefully. I swore to find the murderer of Hermione Jean Granger and..."

Is that even Draco? I think Gung Uneel nppvqragnyyl gnhtug Dhveeryzbeg gb Cngebahf.

Lucius is behind the murder of Hermione.

Quirrel did not know the lore of the Hallows, until Potter told him; at which point he discovered where the stone of resurrection was, and went to retrieve it. It seems to interfere a little too much that he then went on to study the whole lore to the fullest of his ability, seeing as he was not that interested in it from the beginning. (in canon, the gang learns of the symbol by talking to the father of Luna Lovegood, thats really not an obscure enough source for him to have missed)

I believe only Quirrel knows that Harry intents to ressurect Hermione as opposed to just researching immortality. As far as Dumbledore concerned, Harry is thinking about replicating Philosopher's Stone. I don't remember any hints about ressurection, only "rejecting Death as part of natural order".

(though disappearing of HG's body can give Albus some ideas, I guess)

I predicted this way back in December. It seemed the most obvious explanation for Dumbledore's refusal to take him there.

The interesting thing is the recognition as Heir of the Peverells might open up even more prophecies, about he family itself instead of just about Harry. I wonder, if a Prophecy fails, does it jump to another person or is it repeated?

Reasons that seem good to him, anyhow.

Me? I'd very much like to see the fallout. ^_^

Even "Resurrection" has been hijacked.

I've been in the habit of using "Mass True Resurrection," to make the D&D reference instead of the Christian one.

Sorry to burst your bubble but in canon it meant exactly as Lupin thought.

The same can definitely be said of the troll chapter.

What are the 4 again?

There was Trelawney's "all but a remnant" one, then her "he is coming!" one, and the one about the Peverells (which also applies to Harry). What is the fourth?

It could also be evidence that they don't like thinking about death. (Which inference you prefer depends on your own level of Quirrellness.)

... damn, nobody else got that? Eliezer might want to change the wording, then.

Ok, I'm now frustrated and bored by online translators. Can someone give me a hand and translate that? I get some of it, but never enough to actually check meaning properly.

Harry seems to have been aware of the Peverell brothers and the Deathly Hallows before all of this happened, and now it clicked for him that they made the Hallows in an attempt to defeat Death. But what I don't understand is, when exactly did Harry learn this story? If he ever heard the full story about the three Hallows, wouldn't that have been a big deal? He would have thought about it for a while and it would have been a major plot point right? EY has been really good about placing Chekhov's Guns long in advance of when they're fired, but I don't recall when Harry learned about the Peverell brothers for the first time.

Alas, Harry does not know Old English.

I wonder if he'll ask Quirrell?

Do we actually know that Harry has made the connection between "hides the wearer from death" and "may have life-prolonging effects"? For that matter, does evidence of same exist, beyond the fact that no known owner out of three or so died with it in their possession?

If the cloak protects all within it from death, I predict that Harry will simply /turn it inside out/.

He sat there for hours thinking about what he overlooked. We might simply not have seen all his thoughts.

It could happen, though I think it will take a few more chapters than that to wrap everything up.

If you're implying that Eliezer has purposely sought to achieve a certain number of chapters, though, I'm almost certain that's not correct. He's mentioned too often his uncertainty as to whether certain plot points would be resolved in a single chapter or split into two. He's expressed regret at writing ten full chapters of the Self Actualization arc instead of accomplishing its intended purpose in a few paragraphs. He's certainly had a plot outline from the beginning, but it almost certainly wasn't chapter-by-chapter granular.

I have believed, ever since Q detailed how rituals work and we saw that Voldie agreed that Harry would be spared if Lily died (because seriously, she thought that would work?), that Voldemort accidentally triggered a powerful Ritual, with Lily as the sacrifice.

Hmm ... is it possible that was deliberate? It doesn't quite seem to fit ... but then, they were pretty desperate.

Perhaps Harry was wrapped in the invisibility cloak when the AK hit him?

I thought about this for a while too, more than five whole minutes by the clock, and eventually I came up with a possible explanation.

It's not that Lily sacrificed herself for her child. As you and uncountable other people pointed out, that must have happened innumerable times throughout history, even just among the witches and wizards. It's that she sacrificed herself for her child when she could have lived.

Think of the oddness of the situation. The murderer arrives to kill the child, but not the mother. How often is that the case, historically? Then the murderer offers the mother a chance to live when she gets in his way, which is still stranger. When she rejects the offer to try to save her child, he does not bother to subdue her, but then chooses to kill her, which invalidates basically all of the explanations that I could think of that fit the above two criteria.

It's not that she sacrificed herself for her child--it's that the killer came with the express purpose of killing the child but sparing the mother, and she deliberately threw away that chance for her child. It never would have worked if he had come with the intent to kill her as well.

Which implies that Snape's request was what was needed to give Lily that opening. Which further implies that Snape really did save Wizarding Britain, if accidentally.

I don't believe I've shared the theory here before, I look forward to seeing if there are holes in the story that I have not yet discovered.

If Harry was saved by a Deathly Hallow and not by Lily's sacrifice, then it should have saved James instead, since he was killed first.

One may counter that perhaps the Hallow had range limitations or something, but in any event it would have made more sense for it to be carried by/attuned to James or Lily rather than Harry. Among other things, they can defend themselves, and kill the person who unsuccessfully tried to kill them. Whereas even if Avada Kedavra was blocked by the power of love, all it would have taken was for another of Voldemort's minions to be present and finish Harry off (possibly with a more standard hex).

That said, your criticism of the power of love is one I wholly agree with.

Well, really, what evidence is there that Avada Kedavra EVER works on infants? There's only one datapoint here as far as we know. It doesn't particularly stretch the imagination that even the inventor of a Killing Curse might have been repulsed at the idea of the spell being used against infants even if they didn't consciously consider the possibility.

For that matter, considering how important it is for a certain kind of thought to be used for both the AK and the Patronus (or status of the soul), perhaps an infant's innocent outlook on life offers it protection from the curse.

Unless someone were to step up and risk death or infanticide, there's no way to disprove it, but I doubt there would be many volunteers for an experiment like that.

The resurrection stone functions as an anti-killing-curse device in the books. I think the model is that avada kedavra cuts the soul from the body, and the resurrection stone can hang onto your soul for a bit and glue it back into your body.

Well. Quirrell has already covered for Harry's penetration of the Azkaban wall. He wasn't explicitly informed about how it was originally done but he's somewhat good at filling in the gaps. (Obviously there's room for more confirmatory evidence though, so not a complete lack of uh-oh either.)

Note that the Philosopher's Stone in MoR is actually supposed to transmute base metals into silver, not gold. I can't help but think that this difference is suggestive; if it was purely the result of a happy death spiral, gold would make more sense.

Dumbledore (who has used Transfiguration in combat and lived) gave Harry his father's rock the day after Quirrell publicly accused Harry of always thinking purely of killing and novel ways to do it. I don't know if D wanted to encourage H in this, or to provide an alternative to some more dangerous action. (Maybe D has considered the possibility that Q has some dark reason for wanting Harry to learn the Killing Curse?) But I feel very sure that he was thinking of the use H did in fact make of it, and we don't need to imagine another purpose.

If anything, Dumbledore would want to keep the Philosopher's Stone more directly under his control, eg hidden under the lampshade in his office.

There's another reasonable interpretation: that once you've solved death, that's the last real problem you have, and everything else can be fixed given enough time, and there is no need to destroy one's enemies ('do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?').

With enough time, even Satan can be redeemed (which is, of course, a serious heresy).

I understand it as, "when death is defeated, there won't be real enemies anymore, because there is nothing so terrible someone can do to you or your friends if they can't kill". Of course it's not fully true, Neville's parents who were driven insane by torture are in a state as bad as death if not worse. But then, it can be considered that destroying their personality is killing them. And most importantly, it's a motto, mottos are always a bit oversimplification and exaggerating.

I definitely see much more twisting in understanding this motto as "destroyed" is just "make peace with" than as "last enemy" meaning that once death if defeated, there aren't any true enemies left.

It's a semantics thing. Once death is destroyed, no (human) enemy can be; they can be disabled, rehabilitated, but no enemy can ever be killed again, because nobody can ever be killed again.

The absolute end of Death also requires the absolute end of Endings.

I think it's kind of the video game concept of "the final boss." Every other enemy is lesser, you have to build up your strength in order to defeat Death. "The last enemy to be defeated" doesn't mean "Death is the last thing you should ever fight" or "Death has the lowest priority of all our enemies", but rather "Death is the ultimate enemy, the worst of all, such that when we defeat it our task is done."

People don't know how to pretend to care, thus them being terrible at it - see, for example, not even spending five minutes to try to think of a way to bring their friends back to life.

At this point, it would be the greatest fake-out in literary history if Quirinus Quirrell was actually just Quirinus Quirrell.

Basically, yes.

Slightly pedantic answer: they're still different people, but Voldemort appears to be possessing Quirrell, through some means different than the means used in canon, so that it isn't too easy for Harry to figure out what's going on.

Fully nuanced answer: referring to the villain as "Voldemort" may be misleading, because in this version it appears the person who was born Tom Riddle has gone through all kinds of identities and personas and the "Voldemort" persona seems to be less important to him than in canon. Also, though I consider it unlikely, I'm not sure we can entirely ignore the possibility that Riddle magically forked himself, and there are multiple spirits descended from Riddle running around. Also, for all we know the original Quirrell could be flat-out dead, and Riddle (or this particular spirit descended from Riddle) grabbed the body of a random muggle to use while impersonating Quirrell (again, may not be terribly likely).

Short answer: Yes, but we still have no idea what that actually means.

What would it mean to "be" Voldemort? Quirrell seems to be entangled with past-Voldemort in some ways, but not in others.

I have to depart from the majority of responses to your question and offer, "There is yet insufficient data to answer the question."

The tendency is to answer a qualified "yes" because that would be the answer in regard to canon. However, this is not canon. It also isn't an alternate history of canon, since Eliezer has modified things where he felt it made more sense to have them changed. For example, there is in this post a comment by Eliezer stating that he places the Peverells before the founding of Hogwarts, whereas canon states that Hogwarts was founded first (the decision makes sense, considering that Hogwarts itself seems to offer enough continuity of knowledge to make strange the idea that the Peverell story could have been reduced to myth given that their artifacts actually exist).

In short, the only reason people are so sure that Quirrel is Voldemort is because he was Voldemort in canon.

I don't think there is very strong evidence for it, but there isn't really sufficient evidence against the hypothesis either. Canon!Quirrel and HPMOR!Quirrel don't even appear to represent the same character (they use the same name, but there the differences basically stop, and the HPMOR version appears to be a case of identity theft). So in that sense, not only is what we know from canon unreliable, but we're not even really talking about a character that is derivative of his counterpart in canon, so all bets are off.

What people might point to as evidence (the zombie state, the feeling of dread, and the danger of Harry and Quirrel casting spells on each other) are things that invoke enough similarity to canon to encourage people to think of them as evidence that the situations are identical, but those pieces of evidence are fundamentally different between canon and HPMOR.

In canon, Quirrel usually acts rather normal with no hint of a zombie state and actually isn't even possessed when Harry sees him in the Leaky Cauldron (he seems to give Harry the dread feeling in that scene in HPMOR)-- because we know in retrospect that he was possessed for most of the book, we have a tendency to incorrectly match that with the zombie state in HPMOR.

In canon, Harry's scar physically hurts when Quirrel turns away from him while he's possessed. In HPMOR there is the the 'feeling of dread,' which isn't reliant on Quirrel's orientation to Harry at all, but rather it is reliant on proximity and the state of Quirrel's mind (it is reduced in both Quirrel's zombie state and in his animagus form).

In canon, the resonance between Harry and Voldemort is between their wands, not between themselves (Voldemort is able to cast torture spells on Harry just fine). The encounter between Harry's Patronus and Quirrel's Avada Kedavra did not create a Priori Incantatum event in HPMOR. It also affected Quirrel rather more severely than it did Harry.

From this, one has to conclude that this evidence that Quirrel is Voldemort is inconclusive at best and is generally misleading. It doesn't discount the possibility that HPMOR!Quirrel is possessed by Voldemort in a way that results in somewhat different symptoms, and it doesn't discount the possibility that Quirrel is actually Tom Riddle in the physical and mental sense.

So, insufficient data to answer the question. But add in author agency and you have to really question the obvious solution that we're being led to by things that only seem similar to canon. And I should note that "author agency" may also freely apply to comments the author has made outside the story as himself.

Er, it's not like people can't be caught during the second round or after completion. This is also from McGonagall's point of view and could be unreliable. The time she caught them probably wasn't the ONLY time they had sex within the window of time that would have produced Tracey. It could just be a convenient conceit for McGonagall to be thinking it was during the time she caught them that the girl was conceived, since she only knows of one encounter during the appropriate timeframe.

The Potters did not know that Voldemort was after their son specifically, only that they were in general danger from the Death Eaters by being opposed to them and also active members in the Order of the Phoenix. At this time, they were hidden by the fidelius charm, which is some pretty serious magics: "As long as the Secret Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village where Lily and James were staying for years and never find them, not even if he had his nose pressed against their sitting room window!"

Voldemort only went for their son after Snape told him of Trelawney's prophecy, which was immediately after it was spoken, making very little time for McGonagall to inform Dumbledore and for the OotP to react. (Even supposing they could decipher the prophecy instantly.)

Also, the note from Dumbledore specifically says that James left the cloak in Dumbledore's possession before he died. (Maybe to prevent it from getting into Voldemort's hands.) This explains why the cloak was not available when then Potters needed it the most.

Given the timing, it seems more likely in-universe that the particular English translation of that bible passage was lifted from the wizard motto.

It doesn't seem that unlikely given two facts :

1. Wizards don't seem to know much, nor care much, about Muggle religions. Having a reference to the Bible and Jesus Christ in a tomb of wizards strikes me as very unlikely.

2. The Potter family is descendant of one of the Peverell brothers, inheriting the Cloak of Invisibility, a Deathly Hallow from him. That makes "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" a more likely motto for the Potter family.

Skeptical of most of these, but I like the last one.

Vg frrzf snveyl fgenvtugsbejneq gung znfgrel bire gur Qrnguyl Unyybjf (rfcrpvnyyl nf gurl ner va pnaba) zvtug nyfb rkgraq vagb gurve vagrenpgvba jvgu gur Irvy.

Vs gur Irvy vf bar-jnl sbe n abezny crefba, vg zvtug jryy or gjb-jnl sbe fbzrbar va pbageby bs gur Unyybjf. Senaxyl, gur bayl Unyybj lbh zvtug arrq vf gur Pybnx vgfrys, gubhtu V guvax vg jbhyq or zber cehqrag gb znxr gur nggrzcg jvgu gur jubyr frg. Nyy lbh unir gb qb vf qba gur pybnx, ragre gur ynaqf bs gur qrnq, svaq lbhe gnetrg, oevat gurz bhg haqre gur pybnx. Nyfb, zbabzlgu.

Gur vqrn gung lbh pna fnir fbzrbar sebz qlvat ol pbirevat gurz ol Pybnx jnf gbffrq nebhaq sbe n juvyr.

Abcr gb 1. Qhzoyrqber jnaq vf rkcyvpvgyl qrfpevorq nf fgenatryl terl, Dhveery ergevrirq gur fgbar cbfgr unfgr nsgre trggvat gbyq ol Uneel nobhg gur flzoby.

Zbbql fghaavat Uneel vfa'g xvyyvat uvz, gubhtu. V jbaqre jung unccraf vs lbh guebj Ninqn Xrqnien ng fbzrbar haqre gur Gehr Vaivfvovyvgl Pybnx?

Is it certain that the Cloak confers outright immortality? None of the other Hallows seem to quite match that scope of power either in scale or in utility (and number of applications). Maybe that property is more exaggeration than reality, and the Cloak only protects against unnatural death?

If the Cloak does offer full immortality, you'd certainly expect crafting your Cloak of Immortality to be a coming of age ritual. Maybe there can only be one Cloak for whatever reason, or the materials needed for it are virtually impossible to acquire?

Also, how is the immortality conferred to the owner of the cloak? Does having use of the Cloak confer protection or do you have to be master of the Cloak? Does the Cloak protect you only while you're wearing it? I imagine Ignotus didn't go around wearing the Cloak every second of every day-- it might be hard to convince someone to have children with you that way.

James Potter was surely still considered owner of the Cloak when he was killed, even if he didn't have it in his possession at the time. But maybe he wasn't "master" of the Cloak.

If you have to be master of the Cloak for it to make you immortal, Harry couldn't have saved Hermione with it even if he'd tried. But if, as master, you can extend that property to people you lend it to as you do its invisibility, he might have been able to save her with it assuming "hiding" someone from death works when they're bleeding out.

Knowing Harry, an ordinary vow will suffice. Or he gets Dumbledore to retrieve it.

It is possible, though unlikely given his increasing zombieness, that "Quirrell" has found a way around Voldemort's curse. The one that comes to mind is that Voldemort cursed the Defense against the Dark Arts position. Quirrell is teaching Battle Magic, not Defense against the Dark Arts, so he may be immune. Similarly, if Quirrell is Voldemort, he may be able to counter his own curse (or have put a check for himself or a loophole on the curse); if Canon!Voldemort had thought of that, he may have been able to successfully steal the Stone.

Voldemort using the "bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of the ennemy" ritual is a fear of Dumbledore and Moody, but I don't think it's what he really is about. There would have been plenty opportunities for him to collect blood from Harry before. We don't know exactly what, there are several theories (like, making Harry lord of magical Britain and then possessing or controlling him), but Voldemort in HPMOR seems to have a much more complicated and ambitious plan about Harry than killing him/using his blood for a resurrection ritual.

It's at the bottom of the chapter. "Three shall be the Peverelle's sons, and three their devices by which death shall be defeated."

[edit] Originally misremembered the last word as "destroyed".

Maybe certain other Deathly Hallows symbols will now light up in Harry's presence, especially if there is a lost storehouse of some sort with a similar mark.

If it doesn't end up being important, it could just be whatever enchantment is on the Peverell gravestone that makes it recognize someone's anti-Death resolve (possibly only if they're a Peverell descendant) and recite the prophecy, pointed out in the narration so the reader knows where the prophecy was coming from.

I interpreted this to mean that long ago, there were 3 Peverell brothers, each of which created one of the Hallows. Harry is descended from this family. Note that it doesn't say that "Pevererll's sons" will necessarily be the ones to use their devices to defeat Death, only that the devices are theirs.

On Reddit, there seems to be a substantial number of users hoping for Harry, Draco and Hermione. Draco makes some degree of sense (ur jnf gur znfgre bs gur Ryqre Jnaq sbe zbfg bs pnaba Qrnguyl Unyybjf), though the Hermione ideas are pretty handwavy (still, the idea of Hermione somehow resurrecting herself and mastering the Resurrection Stone is awesome, if hard to believe possible).

The main objection to Dumbledore as the master of the wand is his devout deathism; Quirrel participating as the master of the stone is much more believable.

I don't think they'll go this route, but the three heirs to Gryffindor and Slytherin (Fred, George, and Harry)?