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Well I think my plan is superior. I mean sure it would have been difficult and risky but so was surviving azkbahn.
Well, looks like I was completely wrong. I think my solution is still superior to everyone still thinking Hermoine is a murderer, and Harry losing all of his money and going into debt.
"It's all right, Gregory," Draco said, as gently as he could. "All you've got to do is worry about protecting me. Nobody's going to blame you for following my orders, not my father, not yours."
Hmm I wonder how much trouble they are in, they were supposed to keep Draco from harm and he almost got killed.
Well if everyone is right, you and I will be learning the lesson together.
Not Elizer, just Harry.
I'm sure I got many things wrong, the only thing I'm feeling pretty confident about is that Harry is going to frame someone else, and Lord Jugson looks like he has been being fattened up to be framed. The rest is just the story I came up with as most likely when figuring out how Harry could do it. I could be completely wrong, I could be right about the what and wrong about the how.
Perhaps I should have said 90% that my plan is the plan or superior to whatever Harry comes up with.
Yup that's what I should have said alright.
Go ahead and read the rest of my plot, I would say Harry has the best possible win here beyond overthrowing the entire ministry and remaking the government in his image. At least from Harry's perspective since he doesn't know that the real best win would be exposing and vanquishing Quirrelmort.
Hopefully I'm not about to learn a big lesson in humility, I would be less confident but I haven't seen or thought of any other plans that satisfy my criteria.
Basically the short answer is Harry used the time turner, invisibility cloak, and Quirrel to fake all of the evidence.
The long answer is, Harry waits until the end of the trial, goes back in time to the start of the trial and steals Lord Jugson's wand out of his pocket. He then heads over to the magical law enforcement department in the Ministry which is of course around the wizengamot. Harry knows that Quirrel is probably being held there for questioning since he didn't return to Hogwarts. Harry then steals the wand of Hermoine and Draco out of custody (or possibly heads over to St. Mungos to get Draco's wand from him there if it is there instead) and then finds Quirrell.
Using the invisiblity cloak and the time turner Harry goes back in time further with the defense professor tampers with all the wands to fake the spells properly either by using some spell, or just brute force recasting all the spells in its history far enough back that the tampering can't be detected. Harry then gets Fred and George to volunteer to be false memory charmed with the memory of Lord Jugson entering the Trophy room, and obliviated of the memory of volunteering. He then puppet masters it so that whichever Professor brings them to the trial shows up at exactly the right time. The defense professor returns him to the ministry, he replaces the wands of everyone involved a split second after they are taken in the first place and replaces the first Harry seconds after he goes back the first time.
Okay now some criticisms I have of my plan is that its hard to imagine why Lord Jugson wouldn't remain disillusioned the entire time. However perhaps Fred and George could say they used their wardbreaker monocoles Dumbledore gave them which allowed them to see dislliusioned people.
Another thing is that Harry could theoretically go back in time and get Dumbledore or Snape to fake the evidence instead but I think it would be more likely for Quirrel to do it. Quirrel is probably ambivalent over whether Hermoine gets nailed or not but he would have a motivation. The first way Harry develops a deep hatred of the Ministry and wants to overthrow it as he intends. The second way Harry still develops the deep hatred of the Ministry but sees Quirrell as even more of a valuable ally/mentor. Quirrel did after all prevent Hermoine from getting killed by the wizarding world establishment which Quirrel wants to overthrow. Lord Jugson could have some alibi but thats unlikely. Stealing and replacing Lord Jugson's wand could be tricky but certainly within Harry's power. Same with finding and freeing Professor Quirrell.
Above all I like this plan because it ends up with the best possible ending for Harry out of any plan I've seen. He saves the girl, regains his friend, and vanquishes a powerful enemy. He also does in a way that doesn't break the rest of the plot because things can go back to normal afterwards. The attacking Azkhban plan would completely destroy the rest of the in Hogwarts plots that have been set up, and freeing Hermoine on a technicality such as marrying her or trading in all of his Blood debts would still leave the magical world thinking Hermoine is a murderer and that Harry doesn't give a shit that Hermoine is a murderer. It also has the irony of fighting fire with fire, using False memory charms to fake someone else using False memory charms.
Its the only solution I've seen that proves Hermoine innocence AND gains Harry an advantage. I think it was foreshadowed back in Self Actualization.
With a plan this complex there are many variables, so I just filled in my favorite guesses such as the person being framed, the order, etc.
Harry realizes the plan in that moment of desperation then gets the vote stopped to admit new evidence. He then presents to the court the testimony of George and Fred Weasley who say that during the night of the attempted murder they were out of their bed pulling a prank, when they saw Lord Jugson entering the Trophy room. They thought it was strange but since they were out of bed pulling a prank they didn’t want to tell anyone, until they realized that morning it could be connected. They then went straight to a Professor who brought them to the Wizengamot, and they repeat their testimony under veritaserum.
Lord Jugson claims they were false memory charmed, but Harry responds to this by saying that if you are so confident of it why not let us examine the last spells cast on your wand, and that of Hermoine’s and Draco’s? After all you have nothing to hide. Lord Jugson agrees and hands over his wand, and then priori incantum reveals to his shock that his wand has been used recently to do the imperius, obliviate and the false memory charm. Hermoine's wand has been faked to use the Blood Chilling charm but Draco's has no evidence of a duel past the army fight on it at all.
Harry explains that Lord Jugson in a fit of rage at Draco for losing to a mudblood and Hermoine for beating him made a plot to punish them both after the army fight. He disappeared after the fight, and remained in Hogwarts to imperius Draco to challenge Hermoine to a duel at midnight. Then he either simply stayed in Hogwarts until midnight, used a secret passage or apparated outside the wards and flew in a broomstick, or used the floo network to enter Hogwarts right before midnight. He made his way to the trophy room, stunned Draco and Hermoine as they entered, disillusioned them all, and took them outside of the wards of Hogwarts to do the obliviation and false memory charms returning them after the deed was done. Lord Jugson won’t have an alibi for the hours of 11:30 to 12:30 as everyone in his household would be asleep at the time.
He used Hermoine's wand to cast spells simulating a duel followed by the blood chilling charm figuring that when Draco died he could prompt an investigation into her which would reveal the evidence on her wand combined with veritaserum to convict her. He obliviated Draco and false memory charmed him as well just in case Draco was discovered, but he didn't bother to tamper with Draco's wand figuring no one would have a reason to investigate it, and the wands show this.
Harry further explains that Lord Jugson decided that Draco had become too friendly to mudbloods and was no longer fit to be a leader of the blood purists. By killing him after his public showdown with Hermoine he could get rid of Draco, Hermoine AND set his own son up to assume leadership of the blood purists now that the Malfoy’s had no heir. After the plot ended he obliviated himself (if he isn't an occlumens) to safely hide the plot forever. Lord Jugson is sentenced to Azkhaban, by Harry invoking Lord Malfoy's blood debt to Harry to decide the sentencing, Hermoine is freed and the blood purists lose face politically for wanting to kill an innocent girl.
In my next post I will explain how Harry did it.
Let me set the stage first. For a bare minimum solution Hermoine has to be proven innocent so she can return to school without someone trying to kill her to score points for Malfoy. For an optimal solution Harry teaches his enemies that poking him with a stick is very dangerous, and manages to turn this to his advantage by harming an enemy. But in no way is any solution good enough if it doesn’t end up with Hermoine proven innocent to the world.
He has a time-turner, an invisibility cloak, possibly the blood debts of everyone who claimed to be imperiused, possibly the wands as evidence, a very analytical mind that is currently very open to ‘dark’ ideas, and multiple people of different skills/motivations that he can coerce or get to help him.
Lord Jugson is someone that really doesn’t seem to have much a point in the story so far. It makes the most sense to me as someone who is being built up just to be the scapegoat. “"It would be justice for his past crimes, and I'd only do it if Jugson made the first move. The point isn't to make people scared of me as a wild card, after all. It's to teach them that neutrals are perfectly safe from me, and poking me with a stick is incredibly dangerous."” Also, The boy smiled, now with a touch of coldness again. "Okay, I'll figure out some way to set it up so that it looks like Lord Jugson betrayed his own side."
A big gaping hole like introducing the wands for evidence is far too obvious for Harry to pretend it doesn’t exist anymore, so that is avenue worth approaching. However Cloak and Hat is far too clever to have forgotten to doctor the wands, unless he deliberately wanted the wands to prove.
It would also be just like Harry to use the enemies tactics against them, and so the idea of thwarting an evil plot based on false memory charms by using false memory charms to thwart it would be appealing.
http://predictionbook.com/predictions/6215
Okay I've updated my pet theory a bit since discussing/reading other people's ideas. My problem with the vast majority of the theories out there is they do not end with Hermoine being cleared of Murder. I don't think Harry would be happy with a resolution where he convinces/trades something to Lucius to save Hermoine, but everyone still thinks Hermoine tried to kill Draco.
My idea is that Harry could use the time turner to go back in time, and get Quirrel/Snape/Dumbledore to false memory charm a student to frame someone else, Hermoine and proving a plot. If you manage to tamper with the wand of the guy you are framing while clearing any tampering put on Hermoine's and Draco's wands and you have a strong case.
Thats the TLDR above, but I'm going to go into a full on breakdown/explanation/exploration in a post appended to this one, some people don't like Walls o Text.
They could use some more sequences on how to motivate yourself, if I recall there was one written by lukefrog but it wasn't very good.
Hmm I don't think that's a very good description. Rationality means setting rational goals to accomplish what you actually want, and then understanding the world around you and yourself well enough to systematically and logically accomplish those goals. It would certainly include studying yourself to understand how to generate motivation.
I think Dracos been in St. Mungos actually.
This would be if they were stunned immediately on entering the trophy room, like Harry said we don't even know if a duel took place. Granted he could have just waited until after the duel and stunned Draco from behind, both would look the same to us.
Now that I think about it I actually like your way better, cloak and hat is there invisibly and makes sure Draco wins the duel, then stuns Draco while he is leaving. Less work to do with the False Memory charms, less work to do with tampering the wands, and less chance of messing up on evidence since an actual duel was fought.
Hopefully i'm not deluding myself by believing that my solution outlined here is equal or superior to Harry's solution whatever it is.
I outlined my solution here
http://lesswrong.com/lw/axe/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/64am
Hermoine is still on the hook in the eyes of Draco and everyone for murder. I believe the story demands a fully vindicated Hermoine to continue, which is why I think Harry will frame Lord Jugson for the false memory charms on Draco and Hermoine. I go into further detail on this elsewhere, just check my comment history.
I'm actually fairly confident in my guess to be honest. I guess we will see in a day.
Any option that doesn't allow Hermoine to be cleared of all charges to go back to school is not an option
The hidden 7th Option.
Use a false memory charm on a student to generate testimony framing someone else as false memory charming Draco and Hermoine. My favorite path right now it to set up Lord Jugson using the time turner, invisibility cloak, tampering with the wands, and a False memory charm on a student. I go into more detail here http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/axe/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/64am
Fully two dozen different Charms must have been spoken, then, but no more invisible people showed up. One of them in particular made Hermione's heart sink; she recognized it as the Charm which had been listed alongside the description of the True Cloak of Invisibility, which would not reveal the Cloak, but would tell you whether it or certain other artifacts were nearby.
To clarify when I said 'actually . . . .' i meant to disprove that assertion not support it.
Recap of Chapter 17 and how Dumbledore manages to act insane while still giving meaningful advice and not lying.
"Why?" Dumbledore repeated. "Ah, Harry, if I went around all day asking why I do things, I'd never have time to get a single thing done! I'm quite a busy person, you know."
Dumbledore means that he doesn't spend all day asking himself 'why am i protecting the magical world' he just goes out and does it. It doesn't mean he just wanders around doing random acts.
"I'm sorry," Harry said. He felt wretched at this point, he'd just told off Gandalf essentially, and Dumbledore's kindness was only making him feel worse. "I shouldn't have distrusted you."
"Alas, Harry, in this world..." The old wizard shook his head. "I cannot even say you were unwise." Since Dumbledore was the one that wrote the note in the first place Harry WAS wise to distrust him. Dumbledore manipulated Harry like a puppet.
"So... why do I have to carry this rock exactly?" "I can't think of a reason, actually," said Dumbledore.
A current theory is that it contains the Philosophers stone, its certainly more important than just a rock. Dumbledore can't think of a reason why he would need it but he is giving it to Harry Just In Case, hence why he can't of a reason why Harry might need it. Its the same reason why Harry carries around a full med-kit. edit: Okay as has been pointed out to me its a pretty poor theory that is almost certainly wrong.
"This," Dumbledore intoned, "was your mother's fifth-year Potions textbook."
"Which I am to carry with me at all times," said Harry.
"Which holds a terrible secret. A secret whose revelation could prove so disastrous that I must ask you to swear - and I do require you to swear it seriously, Harry, whatever you may think of all this - never to tell anyone or anything else.".
This book is proof that Dumbledore intervened to make Lily Evans distrust Snape, who was the friend she is referring to. Snape whose entire existence is based upon his love for Lily had it taken away from him by Dumbledore. Quite a terrible secret indeed, but until you know that you think that Dumbledore just snuck into the girl's dorms to mess with their mind.
Actually if I remember correctly during the bully final showdown Hermoine gets scared because she recognizes one of the charms as one that would detect Harry's cloak in the area if not find it directly.
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'
I wonder if there any charms to protect or clean up radiation damage . . . . .
Yeah but antimatter would probably kill the Aurors and the prisoners. Also Harry would probably realize that while subjecting people to dementors is evil, having a prison for people who commit crimes is not.
Fair points, it would be very impressive if he could pull it all off, but I think Dark Harry could manage to do it with some luck.
*For the wand I was thinking of something like pulling it out and then pushing someone into Lord Jugson and dropping it at his feet. He could properly time it so that 1st harry pulls it out and runs then 2cd harry immediately pushes either Jugson or someone into Jugson and drops the wand at his feet. Even if Jugson suspects something what can he prove?
*If Quirrel had returned to the School already Harry would know, if he is still in interrogation it says specifically that Quirrel is in the magical law department, which is in the ministry which is in the Wizengamot. It wouldn't be hard for Harry to know/learn thats where Quirrel was. He would just have to find his way there. Snape is presumably back in Hogwarts as a teacher. He would just have to take the Floo network back to Hogwarts. He doesn't have to take another student he is just has to make sure they show up on time.
*Dumbledore doesn't have to do it, Harry could get Snape or Quirrel to do it. Probably conspicuously absent Quirrel.
*Jugson could easily have an alibi but its hard to prove he didn't just false memory charm the people for the alibi too.
"The boy smiled, now with a touch of coldness again. "Okay, I'll figure out some way to set it up so that it looks like Lord Jugson betrayed his own side." "
I think that the optimal thing for Harry to do would be to plant fake evidence showing that Lord Jugson was the one whom plotted against Draco. The motivation would be a combination of Lucius 'betraying' the death eaters and a desire to see his house rise in power over House Malfoy. All he would have to do would be to go back in time an hour, steal the wands of Draco, Hermoine and Jugson, and go back in time farther with that done.
Then he just has to get Snape/Quirrel/Dumbledore to false memory charm a student into remembering seeing Lord Jugson leaving or entering the Trophy room at midnight. After that you just tamper with the wands, cast the right spells using Lord Jugson's wand, then sneak back into the Wizengamot and replace the wands a second after you first stole them.
To respond to Xachariah in my previous post summed up by "Enough people in the wizengamot would know about time travel that would be able to counter any time travel, or recognize it and have safeguards built in against tampering that way" This IS the universe where they don't use dying people to cast unbreakable oath spells, play Quidditch, and are sentencing a 12 year old girl to death in Azkhbahn after a 24 hour investigation (yes yes ten years but that would kill her all the time) If you look at all the possible worlds in regards to policies and safeguards regarding time turners worlds where Harry would be able to get away with this would have much higher probability density.
My idea that to the best of my knowledge is my own, is that Harry could use the time turner to go back in time, and get Quirrel/Snape/Dumbledore to false memory charm a student to provide crucial testimony clearing Hermoine and proving a plot. Another part that would help would be to present the wands as evidence (not original to me) but to also steal the wands of Draco and Hermoine out of custody using the cloak and tamper with them to remove any evidence if hat and cloak tampered with them.
I'll expand on this with a post attached to my main one since I've discovered that some people don't like long walls of texts, so if you come up with some reason why this wouldn't work check that post first please.
Fair enough.
Why do I have -2 points with no posts explaining it?
Whoo it looks like I came up with this idea first as far as I can tell, please inform me if i'm wrong. I do know other people came up with the wands as evidence around the same time though. I was hanging out in the tvtropes thread but then I realized if I wanted actual intellectual stimulation I should probably just hang out over here instead.
The Pringlescan Plan -
Harry gestures to the door, and a new witness shows up right on cue. Its Fred and George Weasley ready to testify at how around midnight they were out of bed pulling a prank when they saw Lord Jugson leaving the trophy room. Possibly muttering something like, "Malfoy finally will get what he deserves" They didn't report it because they had been breaking the rules at the time and didn't want to get in trouble. Harry or whoever Harry got to escort them in to testify then explains that Lord Jugson must have disappeared after the army battle to imperius draco into challenging Hermoine to a duel at midnight. Then Lord Jugson snuck into the school at midnight (being a school governor might have some perks helping him with this but the important thing is if he could have plausibly done it) then stunned both Hermoine and Draco floating them outside the wards (or to the room of requirement or to the chamber of secrets) did the memory charms THERE obliviating draco's imperius charm and putting in the false memory of the battle.
Harry then demands that the wands of all the people involved are presented as evidence. This then shows that Draco's and Hermoine's wands haven't been used since the army battle but Lord Jugson's wand has been used to perform the false memory and obliviate charm. Lord Jugson protests and points out that he is innocent but Harry says Jugson merely had someone obliviate him and his wand is the proof. Trial over, Lord Jugson goes to Azkhbahn for use of an unforgivable curse upon the heir of malfoy and Hermoine is freed and acquitted.
Now if you haven't figured it out yet Harry after the trial goes back in time an hour, using the cloak of invisibility steals the wand of Lord Jugson and the wands of Hermoine and Draco out of custody, goes back in time farther and gets Quirrel or Snape or Dumbledore to false memory charm George and Fred so they can testify, and then uses something like the counfounding charm or something similar to wipe the evidence of any fight off of Hermoine's and Draco's wands assuming they were properly prepped when they were originally framed. Then they cast the obliviate imperius, and false memory charm spells using Lord Jugsons wand and return it to Harry. Harry then sneaks back into the trial and replaces all 3 wands a second after they were originally stolen.
Okay so in this scenario Hermoine is cleared of all charges, she and Draco can go back to being friends and Lord Jugson is put into Azkhbahn. Its a tall order but I think the boy who lived can manage it with some authorial fiat and a time machine. I'm hard pressed to think of any way it could turn out better.
Cross posting what I wrote on TV Tropes
'm pretty sure i've figured out quirrelmorts plan for harry and magical britian. To TLDR it for you guys, hes going to train harry as a caesar, and use harry as a figurehead/puppet to force magical britian into a war of conquest with the rest of the magical world, probably selling it as a world wide war on dark wizards. Then once england owns the wizard world, they own the entire world since you can't fight invisible mind rapers.
Viewed in this context all of his actions start making sense. Harry is a very well known figurehead and a natural leader for magical Britannia to unite behind. Suddenly quirrelmorts speech of uniting magical Brittan under one person (harry) makes sense, once you've imbued all the power into a single leader its a lot easier to effectively run a war, as well as hurting harry's main competition for power. His first step is to go to Hogwarts, the most important place in england. He organizes it so that he can get away with blatantly improving the combat effectiveness of all the Hogwarts students there, developing and show casing the future generals and officers of the later wars. Also because those generals and officers will develop followers, all he has to do is gain influence over those people and he gains all of their followers as well. He also gets to develop his own Caesar, Harry. Hes already said that power in the magic world flows from strong wizards and their followers.
Then he convinces harry to undertake a war against the magical world. He points out that it will impossible to get rid of things such as the power of the noble houses and Azkabhan without taking power. He also points out to harry that if he wants to raise the living standards of the muggle world he will need a united magical world behind him, something that he will be unable to do by peaceful means since he will first need to exterminate all of the dark wizards. With both harry and quirrelmort on the same side with technology they would be able to both curb stomp other countries and administer them effectively.
Then with Harry's participation, he puppet masters a civil war in another country and gets magical England to step in to save the country, and get harry/draco appointed/showcased as wonderful warriors. They then use this power to keep taking over more and more of the real power in england. Then you start administrating the new country as a vassal state, raise more recruits, get a bigger army, rinse and repeat until they own the magical world. Then with the magical world united they own the muggle world since lets face it, you can't fight a foe that can turn invisible and mind rape your leaders.
And of course since england is ruling the world as an empire, and harry is ruling the world as caesar, and quirrelmort has his hooks into harry, quirrelmort now rules the world. Or at least thats what my plan wold be if I were quirrelmort.
Also on rita skeeter, they either memory charmed her into believing everything herself, or imperiused her into doing so, or simply used the polyjuice potion to turn it in themselves. My money would be memory charming her because it would be the most practical reliable way of getting her to believe everything, writing an authentic article and convincing her editor to run it the next day as the headliner.
Also I hate to be one of those people screaming, 'UPDATE UPDATE' but does anyone who has been following this longer then me have any clue when the next update is coming? There's nothing in the author's notes and there has been over a month long delay from the last posting.
I'm sorry in advance if someone already has mentioned these ideas but I'm not sorting through 1000+ comments to find out
Quirrel/Voldemorts ultimate goal with battlemagic is to teach the students of Hogwarts how to be more useful soldiers in an army to be lead by Harry. The purpose of the three armies is obviously a continuation of this plan, with the goal of teaching harry to be a good general, giving Harry a platform to develop a cult of personality around himself (an important thing to have for any aspiring Dark Lord), and finding and developing lieutenants for Harry. However I'm not sure yet as to Voldemort's plan for the army and Harry as its leader.
Harry could either be magically dominated and used as a figurehead OR Harry could be puppet-mastered into leading the army of his own volition. One likely scenario is to raise the Death Eaters again forcing Harry to raise his army in opposition. Then he has harry publicly defeat voldemort, followed by an immediate introduction of an outside existential threat, probably war with magical Russia or something, I will use Russia as a placeholder for this existential threat. This forces harry to pardon and enlist the death eaters and conquer magical Russia to end the war. During the war with Russia some sort of system of political thought is introduced which requires them to conquer even more countries, like how Communism advocated World Wide Revolution. Perhaps based upon science and rationality governing instead of tradition, with Harry as a de facto benevolent Dictator.
Upon victory against Russia they enlist their fallen foes and with the new Political system as an excuse continue to spark wars to conquest other nations until they rule the magical world and therefore the muggle world as well, after all no one will be able to stop them from imperiusing anyone they damn well want to.
tldr - Step 1 - Turn Hogwarts students into useful soldiers via teaching battle magic, Step 2 - Manipulate Harry into raising an army, Step 3 - Control Harry via magic/manipulation and use the army to conquer the world.