And the answer was: “All right. There is a curse on the Defence Professor position. There has always been a curse on the Defence Professor position. The school has adapted to it. Harry has gotten into just the right kind of shenanigan to cause McGonagall to panic about this, and give Harry the instructions he needs to hear to prevent him from just taking certain matters to McGonagall.”
The question I always had here was “But what was Voldemort’s original plan for dealing with this issue when he decided to teach at Hogwarts?”
Because I don’t think he would have wanted to stake all his plans for the stone and Harry on McGonagall coincidentally saying this just in time, and Harry coincidentally being in a state where he obeys her instruction and never rethinks that decision. And Voldemort would have definitely known about the resonance problem before coming to Hogwarts. Even if he thought it would be somehow gone after ten years, he would have realised after the encounter with Harry in Diagon Alley at the very latest that that wasn’t true. So what was his original plan for making sure Harry wouldn’t talk about the resonance to anyone important? Between the vow and the resonance itself, his means of reliably controlling Harry’s actions are really very sharply limited.
Every plan I’ve managed to come up with either doesn’t fit with Voldemort’s actual actions in the story, or doesn’t seem nearly reliable enough for my mental model of Voldemort to be satisfied with the whole crazy “Let’s just walk into Hogwarts, become a teacher, and hang out there for maybe a year” idea.
Eliezer: Right. But there’s more! This model also explains why, when Harry faces the Dementor and is lost in his dark side, and Hermione brings him out of it with a kiss,[18] Harry’s dark side has nothing to say about that kiss, it’s at a loss. Meanwhile, the main part of Harry has a thought process activated.
I picked up on this, though my main guess was that Tom Riddle had just always been aromantic and asexual. I didn’t think any dark rituals were involved.
Voldemort was flatly not expecting Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. He was expecting Tom Riddle Jr. Jr. Voldemort knew how to handle Himself v2, and it at no point occurred to Voldemort that, for example, Harry would run off and tell McGonagall about the Parseltongue whisper telling him to seek out the Chamber of Secrets. It’s not like Voldemort had ever previously been a dad, and he was not calibrated on kids being surprising.
The question I always had here was “But what was Voldemort’s original plan for dealing with this issue when he decided to teach at Hogwarts?”
My guess was that he never considered the possibility that Harry would do something like report it to an authority figure. For example, consider this from chapter 49:
Professor Quirrell was smiling thinly now. “Well now, let us suppose that there was a Parselmouth in this year’s crop of students, a potential Heir of Slytherin. You must admit, Mr. Potter, that you stand out as a possibility whenever extraordinary people are considered. And if I then further ask myself which new Slytherin would be most likely to have his mental privacy invaded by the Headmaster, specifically hunting the memories of his Sorting, why, you stand out even more.” The smile vanished. “So you see, Mr. Potter, it was not I who invaded your mind, though I will not ask you to apologize. It is not your fault that you believed Dumbledore’s protestations of respecting your mental privacy.”
“My sincere apologies,” Harry said, keeping his face expressionless. The rigid control was a confession in its own right, as was the sweat beading his forehead; but he didn’t think the Defense Professor would take any evidence from that. Professor Quirrell would just think Harry was nervous at having been discovered as the Heir of Slytherin. Rather than being nervous that Professor Quirrell might realize that Harry had deliberately betrayed Slytherin’s secret… which itself was no longer seeming like such a smart move.
Quirrell never even pauses to consider that Dumbledore may know about it because Harry told him; it doesn’t show up in his action space at all in modelling a younger version of himself.
That would depend on whether he actively considers it as something to rely on, as opposed to an assumption so baked in he forgets to question it, right? If questioned I think Quirrell would rightfully consider the Chamber to be something critical enough to be worth having other contingencies for, but he just never considered it necessary.
I figured Harry himself was just aro/ace and it was showing through even at a young age. I admit this was a bit of typical mind fallacious reasoning; people could tell I was unusual like that when I was 10.
Frankly the plot to stay undiscovered within Hogwarts stretches credulity regardless of whether Harry gets clues about Quirrel’s real identity. As readers we forgive it because 1. it’s part of the setup, where luck and coincidence are more forgivable and 2. it’s also in the canon books.
But I suppose to steelman it one might suppose that Voldemort simply accepts a high risk of being discovered, has a plan to escape if that occurs, and is fortunate to not need it. Both Harry and The Stone are in Hogwarts, there’s no risk-free method of accessing them.
Voldemort believes himself to be basically immortal at this point, so he can get away with taking some riskier decisions than he might otherwise. Worst case scenario he has to go embed himself in somebody else’s head and start over. Presumably he can blow up his body or something if necessary.
Harry doing the memory erasure only happens because of the specific combination of information and abilities Harry had.
If you want a retroactive justification, it would be that even if Harry did talk about the resonance, nobody other than Quirrell would know what it actually meant. And they also wanted to have a Defense Professor last to the end of the year for once...
Dumbledore likely would have known what it meant, and I think Alastor at the very least would have put together the most crucial parts as well.
The part that was numb with grief and guilt took this opportunity to observe, speaking of obliviousness, that after events at Hogwarts had turned serious, they really really really REALLY should have reconsidered the decision made on First Thursday, at the behest of Professor McGonagall, not to tell Dumbledore about the sense of doom that Harry got around Professor Quirrell. It was true that Harry hadn’t been sure who to trust, there was a long stretch where it had seemed plausible that Dumbledore was the bad guy and Professor Quirrell the heroic opposition, but...
But did Quirrell know that Dumbledore would have realized? (I mean, there’s also a reasonable chance that Dumbledore was already well aware that Quirrel was Voldemort when he hired him but did it anyway, not least because if Voldemort was teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts he wasn’t going around leading Death Eaters and killing people.)
I wondered about that as well. I think the answer has to be something along the lines of “He could do nothing to conceal it, he new it was a longshot, he lost nothing on the attempt, he had a backup plan he never told Harry about.”
Imagine: Harry tells Dumbledore, Dumbledore confronts Quirrell, he dramatically reveals his identity as David Monroe, as well as a lightning-shaped scar on his chest and a fantastical story about dual fates or prophecy twins or something.
Actually, do we know that McGonagall threatened to painfully kill Harry if he reveals Voldemort’s secrets? It could be a fake memory.
The question I always had here was “But what was Voldemort’s original plan for dealing with this issue when he decided to teach at Hogwarts?”
Because I don’t think he would have wanted to stake all his plans for the stone and Harry on McGonagall coincidentally saying this just in time, and Harry coincidentally being in a state where he obeys her instruction and never rethinks that decision. And Voldemort would have definitely known about the resonance problem before coming to Hogwarts. Even if he thought it would be somehow gone after ten years, he would have realised after the encounter with Harry in Diagon Alley at the very latest that that wasn’t true. So what was his original plan for making sure Harry wouldn’t talk about the resonance to anyone important? Between the vow and the resonance itself, his means of reliably controlling Harry’s actions are really very sharply limited.
Every plan I’ve managed to come up with either doesn’t fit with Voldemort’s actual actions in the story, or doesn’t seem nearly reliable enough for my mental model of Voldemort to be satisfied with the whole crazy “Let’s just walk into Hogwarts, become a teacher, and hang out there for maybe a year” idea.
I picked up on this, though my main guess was that Tom Riddle had just always been aromantic and asexual. I didn’t think any dark rituals were involved.
Eliezer’s reply, sent to me and copy-pasted in:
Voldemort was flatly not expecting Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. He was expecting Tom Riddle Jr. Jr. Voldemort knew how to handle Himself v2, and it at no point occurred to Voldemort that, for example, Harry would run off and tell McGonagall about the Parseltongue whisper telling him to seek out the Chamber of Secrets. It’s not like Voldemort had ever previously been a dad, and he was not calibrated on kids being surprising.
My guess was that he never considered the possibility that Harry would do something like report it to an authority figure. For example, consider this from chapter 49:
Quirrell never even pauses to consider that Dumbledore may know about it because Harry told him; it doesn’t show up in his action space at all in modelling a younger version of himself.
For me that fell under ‘My simulation of Voldemort isn’t buying that he can rely on this, not for something so crucial.’
That would depend on whether he actively considers it as something to rely on, as opposed to an assumption so baked in he forgets to question it, right? If questioned I think Quirrell would rightfully consider the Chamber to be something critical enough to be worth having other contingencies for, but he just never considered it necessary.
And the basilisk is already dead, so there’s nothing useful to find there anyway.
I figured Harry himself was just aro/ace and it was showing through even at a young age. I admit this was a bit of typical mind fallacious reasoning; people could tell I was unusual like that when I was 10.
Frankly the plot to stay undiscovered within Hogwarts stretches credulity regardless of whether Harry gets clues about Quirrel’s real identity. As readers we forgive it because 1. it’s part of the setup, where luck and coincidence are more forgivable and 2. it’s also in the canon books.
But I suppose to steelman it one might suppose that Voldemort simply accepts a high risk of being discovered, has a plan to escape if that occurs, and is fortunate to not need it. Both Harry and The Stone are in Hogwarts, there’s no risk-free method of accessing them.
Voldemort believes himself to be basically immortal at this point, so he can get away with taking some riskier decisions than he might otherwise. Worst case scenario he has to go embed himself in somebody else’s head and start over. Presumably he can blow up his body or something if necessary.
Harry doing the memory erasure only happens because of the specific combination of information and abilities Harry had.
If you want a retroactive justification, it would be that even if Harry did talk about the resonance, nobody other than Quirrell would know what it actually meant. And they also wanted to have a Defense Professor last to the end of the year for once...
Dumbledore likely would have known what it meant, and I think Alastor at the very least would have put together the most crucial parts as well.
But did Quirrell know that Dumbledore would have realized? (I mean, there’s also a reasonable chance that Dumbledore was already well aware that Quirrel was Voldemort when he hired him but did it anyway, not least because if Voldemort was teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts he wasn’t going around leading Death Eaters and killing people.)
I wondered about that as well. I think the answer has to be something along the lines of “He could do nothing to conceal it, he new it was a longshot, he lost nothing on the attempt, he had a backup plan he never told Harry about.”
Imagine: Harry tells Dumbledore, Dumbledore confronts Quirrell, he dramatically reveals his identity as David Monroe, as well as a lightning-shaped scar on his chest and a fantastical story about dual fates or prophecy twins or something.
Actually, do we know that McGonagall threatened to painfully kill Harry if he reveals Voldemort’s secrets? It could be a fake memory.