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Not just notes. - All written instructions on how to do spells above a certain level just flat out fail unless someone explains the spell to you in person at least once. Which has to be a mind hack, and if you are willing to alter peoples minds to remove the risk of idiots or madmen blowing up the planet/opening the gates of hell/ect, then picking this specific modification is very.. odd.
Hold up.. checking assumptions. Can anyone think of a way for the edict of merlin to do what it does without tampering with peoples minds?
This is daft. Horcruxes are not the only available means of life extention, which voids the entire rest of the debate. There is the stone, whatever he can think up independently and worst come to worst, from harrys point of view, the odds of him, personally, dying of old age before the muggles come up with a hack to fix ageing is very low. 170 years, starting the clock in 1980 gets him to 2150!
also, unlike the case of an AI where you have to avoid crippling it, lest it becomes pointless to build it in the first place, using unbreakable wows as a punishment for grand crimes against humanity means that the restraints can be nearly abritarily harsh. The people writing the wows have no need to preserve the decision space they leave their victim or respect their autonomy. TLDR: Voldemort would not be able to spend decades thinking of ways around the wow, because doing so would violate any sensibly formulated wow. (stray toughts, sure, you have to permit that, or the wow kills in a day. Sitting down and working at it? No.)
I mentioned this in the TVtropes thread, but Merlin did not think through his interdict all that well - If you are going to compromise everyones mental integrity to end a cycle of magical destruction, then limiting information spread is an asinie way to do it - it would make infinitely more sense to subject all wizards to a magical prohibition against large scale destruction and killing. Phrasing it so that it wards agaist Dunning-Kruger fueled magical accidents without shutting down experimentation entirely is an interesting exercise, but should be possible.
Quidditch really nags me, because the team you are playing with has nearly zero relevance. And it is so unnessesary, even if Rowling desired a position on the team of key importance, the way the snitch works is still wrong - If it was worth zero points, but catching it ended the game, then seekers are still key, they just cannot win entirely on their own anymore, and the job would require more than just "flies fast",
Dumbledore explicitly warded her against mental interference as soon as he got her back - Which is presumably why Quirrell didnt use the groundhog day attack again. He only got one try to sway her this time, and while his mental model was more accurate based on the data from the last go.. nope, fail.
.. Not nessesarily. I just had an amusing thought. The number one use of polyjuice is quite obviously as a sex toy, right? Depending on how deep the transformation goes, it is entirely possible that the genetic lines of wizardry if anyone ever tested them would be enormously confusing, and a lot of squibs are technically the decendants of Jane Russell and Rudolph Valentino.
"Uncertain, ask again later". Oh, all right. : I am fairly confident that whatever models the various masterminds in play have of him are inaccurate and have been getting rapidly more so ever since he had his little chat with Harry about Lily. I suspect that he is done with being anyones pawn. Moving into blind guessing territory, I wouldnt be surprised if his actual plot is to walk off with the philosophers stone in order to duplicate it, or something else completely unrelated to the political maneuverings.
Re: the debt. I think Lucius may have been playing very high speed chess when he picked the amount. The point isnt to have Harry in debt to him, the point is to afford ex-deatheaters loyal to Lucius the oppertunity to trade in a blood debt to Harry for a monetary one to him. If this is so, the debts are likely to be paid off long before Harry can set any money making schemes in motion. - This would count as a downside to being in debt to Lucius - He cannot refuse cash in lieu as long as he is a debtor.
The ending note of that trial couldnt have been more precisely picked to convince people that he is a bodysnatch victim. Riddle me this? Gah. Incoming kidnapping and exorcism attempts. Not that Harry wouldnt benefit from a good exorsism.
Hermonie is going to read the note she gave him on dementors as soon as she is out of palfreys office, right? Seems nigh-inevitable. And I dont think she is nearly as commited to secrecy as Harry is, so word might well get out on how he pulled that stunt very shortly. On balance, this would tend to reduce the odds of him being murdered by a good citizen, so not all bad?
Harry probably wont call in any blood debts himself, but any former deatheathers with substantial spare coin will jump at the possibility to get out from under a debt to Harry by giving Lucius money, so that 60.000 might well be paid in full before he makes it back to hogwarts, let alone sets any money making schemes in progress.
It makes a great deal of sense as a purely political ploy. Harry just greatly strengthened the legend of the boy who lived, and since that is the result, Lucius is likely to suspect that it was also the intent.
The problem is that he did not - he treated them as a passive audience without any consideration of how they view him. So now some of them have reached the same conclusion as Lucius, and think he is a case of bodysnatching. Possession is a real possibility in the universe he inhabits, and he is showing all the signs. That is quite likely to get him killed by people with the best of intentions. At best, I am expecting kidnapping attempts aimed at extracting voldemort from his host. Also, Harry really should listen to Malfoy. Scaring Lucius is not a good idea.
Right, Lucius is no longer the only powerful and intelligent wizard who thinks that Harry is Voldemort. If any of the others are inclined towards the public good they are probably now plotting his demise. This does not count as a win.
Lucius.. Probably thinks that the entire point of this ploy was to increase the legend of "the boy who lived" and is kicking himself for playing into it. On the other hand, he did get compensated very well.
Other likely consequences: Hermonie is going to read his note as soon as she gets back on something resembling an even footing, simply to find out how he did that.
Lucius might share his reasoning with his son. This seems likely, in fact.
The money are minor As long as the option of trading with muggles occurs to you, any wizard could raise that sort of cash.
The simplest reason is that Quirrelmort is simply not in a position to indulge any sadistic impulses the way Voldemort was. He spends hours each day conked out completely, and he has no powerbase to retreat to. Overt malice of the kind Voldemort practiced would very rapidly earn him an adavra. There are quite a few other possible reasons - for one thing, Tom Riddle is not running on the same wetware anymore, and his original brain might have been miswired in a way that did not carry over, or heck, the original Quirrel could have been very calm and unflappable, so now Quirrelmort just cannot get a good temper tantrum going no matter how hard he tries.
They dont need to be public - a roomful of aristocrats are exceedingly unlikely to submit to collective obliviation, and there are enough people and enough factions present that anything they all hear is not going to stay secret.
There are tradeoffs here - he can spill the beans on the dementors and the true patronus and probably come out with his reputation strengthened if he plays it right, - Patronus the dementor in the room out of existance, and then letting the wizengamot "compel" an explanation out of him would be wieved as the wizengamot shooting itself in the foot, so that leaves hims smelling like roses. Escalating the strategy of "Tell the wizengamot things they dont want to know" beyond that is going to make him very unpopular very quickly, as the wizarding world is very heavily committed to information control, but it is an option.
That would antagonize the wizengamot very, very badly. Not a good long term strategy, even if you intend to dissolve it. Destroying it, explaining, and letting them work through the logical implications on their own suffices. If most people lose the ability to halt dementors at all, and a few people gain the ability to destroy them outright, they are no longer usable tools of enforcement, and disposing of them all together becomes quite urgent.
He can open by patronusing the dementor present into oblivion, after that, everything he says will be at least thought about, and once considered, you cannot unknow any of this stuff except by obliterating yourself.
I just realized something. The wizarding world has a strong Taboo against the free sharing of information. Harry has an entire hieracy of explosive insights he can read into the wizengamots records untill they let Hermonie go to get him to shut up Okay, this actually needs him to bluff about having a fallback that publishes if he perishes, but consider:
If he tells them about the true patronus and the true nature of dementors, the regular patronus stops working. This destroys askaban.Not enough?
If he explains the silver / gold arbritage scheme the economy of the wizardry world goes vonky for a while. Not enough?
He can explain the fundemental principle behind alchemy with great clarity.
And so on.
Bluffing would be dangerous - if he doesnt actually publish the information, killing him makes the problem go away. And if he commits to "Tell the world, make dementors useless" Then the wizengamot entire are simply more information pathways, and are in fact far better ones than just about anyone else he could tell because it is much harder to obliviate them than Jane Q Wizard,.
The blunt force way to play it is to just expecto patronum the dementor into oblivion and go "Would you like me to explain how I did that"? They would almost certainly make him do so, veritas serum, legimens and the whole nine yards. And once they know, they are fucked. I dont think the wizengamot would go for collective obliviation of the events of the trial, so once the cat is out of the bag, its not going back in.
Eh, she is a first year at hogwarts - from their perspective, what is she going to do with it? Apparate out?
The wizengamot isnt remotely like any extant political institution at all. The line of Merlin is reminicient of the 5 good emperors of imperial rome more than anything else, and the wizengamot itself is both largely hereditary and scarily unlimited by either law or custom. Politicians going into a frenzy of popular rage? That is a paralel. Other than that, not seeing it so much.
Most of the proposed plans have the same flaw: They require Harry to act not merely as a precocious child, but as a full on dark lord. This is /not clever/ because the obvious conclusion to draw is that he is either someones puppet or an outright case of bodysnatching. Either invites people who are otherwise potential allies to Adavra him on sight and provides political cover for those who would be his enemy regardless if they choose to kill him. Harrys dark side reasoning might not care about this, of course, but still let us consider options that dont leave Harry as public Enemy Number One, shall we?
Comedic conspiracy: Timeturner back six hours, contact malfoy and have him exfiltrate the manor, visit Hermonie (like the guards are going to say no to this?) Marry Hermonie to Draco. Now the blooddebt is an internal house of Malfoy matter, which takes it out of the wizengamots hands. Dont think this is it, simply because I dont think Harrys dark side has a perverse enough sense of humor to come up with this.
Snape: Downed a philthre of felix last night and rescued Hermonie preemptively - they are about to send a simulacra to azkaban. Too Deux-ex-Machina at this point.
Spill the beans on dementors and the true patronus, all the while acting like a kid who has had a bright insight. Have Hermonie demonstrate the true patronus. This makes Azkaban untenable in the medium term because eventually everyone will learn the truth, and the sets of "people people capable of the true patronus" and "Willing to be an azkaban guard" are.. Unlikely to overlap. This also forces the wizengamot to preserve Hermonies health and sanity as a weapon against the dementors. I like this one because it forces the next several moves of the wizengamot, and probably wont alienate everybody.
Break the line of Merlin, using partial transfiguration. This would almost certainly be seen as Merlin himself expressing extreme displeasure from beyond the grave.
Calling in the debts from the death of Voldemort night also work. Dont like this one too much, but not really sure why. Lacks.. elegance? It would be Harry trading on being the boy who lived, rather than on being clever.
Hmm. Any other options?
... That isnt actually a weakness in the plan, you know. He could stand up, explain the entire theory, slowly walk over to Hermonie, hand her his wand, and ask her to destroy the dementor as proof of her righteousness and disbelief would probably keep everyone (except Dumbledore. Note: Ask him to not intervene) from interfering right up until the point where she vaporizes the dementor. After which they would be unable to deny the truth of the theorem, and be fucked.
Point. Correction: It would eventually convince Lucius that Harry isnt pottermort once the implications have been worked out and someone else indepenantly verifies what the nessesary mindset is - likely by legimens on Hermonie. It still makes Harry and Herm indespensible right away.
Because there is no way Voldemort would be able to cast the true patronus. The nessesary mindset is much to altrusitic. Hmm. Since Hermonie could likely also master the true patronus, wrecking the animal form of the spell for everyone probably shields her from excessive punishment in general as well, at least until such time as a significant number of people other than her and Harry master it. The optimal version of this play is to have Hermonie destroy the dementor present´, but that requires enough time to prep H. Timeturner?
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. Now the wizengamot has to shut down azkaban (Because the secret would get out). This would not exactly endear him to anyone at all, but they cannot seriously retaliate, because they need him to kill off the dementors before they run out of aurors who havent heard the truth yet. This doesnt actually free Hermonie, just stops them from sending her (or anyone) to azkaban.
Side bonus Harry cannot predict: This would probably also convince Lucius that he isnt Pottermort.
Petunia (but she was explicitly altered somehow by her sister) and Hermonies parents. Hermonies parents are.. pretty much exactly what I would expect them to be, in either canon or MoR. I dont recall ever seeing them in canon however, so no baseline.
Eh, everyone we have seen be smarter is a wizard, and if the /entire world/ got smarter, that would have derailed history so hard even hogwarts ought to have noticed, so presumably the departure point is something that affected wizardry. The true words of madness being lost? Alternatively, someone coming up with a intelligence boosting potion or spell. Hmm. Lily was working on a way to permanently alter her sister, and she succeeded. If what she came up with was a way to.. I dunno, boost willpower, so that what actually happened is that she stuck with an exercise and diet regime in a way very few people actually do, then I could see the wizarding world dosing everybody and everything with it.. This is moving into wild ass guessing territory.
Hmm.. Actually, thinking about it, I think that the most likely outcome is that Hermonie will be rescued by someone other than HP. Rereading the last chapter, Harry made absolutely no headway on the case himself, but he does succeed in something else: Persuading a great number of other people that this senario screams "setup" to high heaven - the very first thing he does : Explain Hermonines predicament to Hermonine. - this presumably sets her quite considerable intellect in motion on the case. Second thing he does: Alert the most formidable teachers, including Snape and Dumbledore. Note that my current theory is that Snape considers himself her mysterious old wizard, and if he intends to put in motion a gambit to get her off, this explains why he burned the notes. He is cleaning up any evidence that documents that he is her ally so that whatever he pulls, people will not look in his direction.
Then Harry successfully poked bits of the student body out of herd thinking by the offensive use of sarcasm. And those students have parents and relatives, some of which are on the wizengamot.
Honestly, after that days work, the wizengamot meet is nigh-certain to turn into a gambit pileup.
That is the logical conclusion your sympathies incline you to. I suspect that what Snape sees in HP is at best a future Dumbledore, and quite possibly simply voldy V 2.0 Why the heck sign up for being manipulated and a pawn a third time? Uh-uh. But this may entirely explain what the heck he was/is doing with SPHEW. He picked Hermonie as the potential future ally least likely to stab him in the back when convenient, and SPHEW as the bet least dependant on a single individual. (Because it is an idea. The idea that everyone can stand up and do the right thing.)
Without telling anyone. Which is hilarious.