If a new thread was necessary, it should have been created before the new chapter was posted. As it is there are already dozens of posts about Chapter 80 here; a new thread would split the discussion.
glumph
This was addressed in the previous thread:
The movie ‘Groundhog Day’ is about a man who relives the same day over and over again repeatedly. Because the day is reset, he is able to re-play each interaction with any person repeatedly until he can convince them of whatever he wants or work around them …
In chapter 77, H&C performs a similar hack. He tries to convince her, then obliviates her memory and uses his gained information to convince her even more, etc. Instead of resetting the day, he is resetting her mind back again and again.
c) The Ministry generally seems to be portrayed as fairly competent...
But I’m reminded of this exchange in Chapter 61:
Madam Bones’s voice continued. “We brought in Arthur Weasley from Misuse of Muggle Artifacts—he knows more about Muggle artifacts than any wizard alive—and gave him the descriptions from the Aurors on the scene, and he cracked it. It was a Muggle artifact called a rocker, and they call it that because you’d have to be off your rocker to ride one. Just six years ago one of their rockers blew up, killed hundreds of Muggles in a flash and almost set fire to the Moon. Weasley says that rockers use a special kind of science called opposite reaction, so the plan is to develop a jinx which will prevent that science from working around Azkaban.”
And there’s the fact that interrogation under Veritaserum seems to constitute the entirety of serious criminal investigations.
This came up in one of the previous threads:
“Indeed,” said Professor Quirrell. “So while there’s no point in asking any of you, it would not surprise me in the slightest if there were a student or two in my classes who harbored ambitions of being the next Dark Lord. After all, I wanted to be the next Dark Lord when I was a young Slytherin” (ch 19).
But during the interrogation we get this:
After some further leafing through parchments, carried out in silence, the Auror spoke again. “Born the 26th of September, 1955, to Quondia Quirrell, of an acknowledged tryst with Lirinus Lumblung...” intoned the Auror. “Sorted into Ravenclaw… (ch 79)
I also find it impossible to believe that Hermione lost to Malfoy, she just beat him fair & square in battle. That certainly sounds like a false memory.
They were pretty evenly matched during the Chapter 78 battle, and Draco was a bit drained from charming all the gloves, so it’s by no means impossible that Draco beat Hermoine. I expect if they had 10 duels, each would win at least a few.
But it is true that our only sources regarding the outcome of the duel are Draco and Hermoine’s memories along with Quirrell’s testimony. If those memories were placed by Hat and Cloak, and if Hat and Cloak is Quirrel, then all of our information about what happened between midnight and 6.33am is based on what Quirrell wants us to know. The only bit that is confirmed by another party is that Draco was indeed at some point unconscious in the trophy room.
The most promising option that remains, by my reading, is that there’s nothing separate about the Horcrux contents for the Hat to key off of—they effectively are Harry, or part of him.
That seems to be supported by this passage from Chapter 85:
Maybe because his dark side wasn’t an imaginary voice like Hufflepuff; Harry might imagine his Hufflepuff part as wanting different things from himself, but his dark side wasn’t like that. His “dark side”, so far as Harry could tell, was a different way that Harry sometimes was. Right now, Harry wasn’t angry; and trying to ask what “dark Harry” wanted was a phone ringing unanswered.
The idea is, crudely, that if Harry is a Horcrux, it is not because he has some distinct thing inside him, but because some part of Voldemort (part of his soul?) has “merged” with Harry.
At the beginning of Chapter 62, though, we learn that McGonagall has faced Voldemort four times:
“She had encountered the Dark Lord four times and survived each one, three times with Albus to shield her and once with Moody at her side.”
This makes it likely that Dumbledore has faced Voldemort on other occasions without her.
Edit: I am wrong.
What will Quirrell display as on the Map? One would think that, if the Map read “VOLDEMORT”, the Weasley twins would have figured it out. (There’s an analogous, hilarious, inconsistency in canon; how did the twins never see Peter Pettigrew sleeping in Ron’s bed?)
If Voldemort did steal Quirrell’s body rather than use Polyjuice, he might just appear on the map as “Quirrell”.
Well, considering Quirrell is in custody, it can’t hurt to look elsewhere. If Dumbledore doesn’t bring Quirrell under heavy interrogation of his own after he is released, then I will be confused.
Emotional DanArmak is praying oh dear god when HPMOR ends please please let Eliezer go on writing fiction.
He’s been writing fiction for a long time. I wouldn’t worry.
Va gur Nhgube’f Abgrf sbe Puncgref 39--40 (Cergraqvat gb Or Jvfr), Ryvrmre nccrnef gb or qryvorengryl inthr nf gb jurgure gur UCZBE havirefr unf na nsgreyvsr. Ng yrnfg, gung’f ubj V ernq guvf:
Vg’f na vagrerfgvat dhrfgvba nf gb jurgure Uneel vf orunivat nf n Syng Rnegu Ngurvfg jvgu erfcrpg gb uvf fxrcgvpvfz nobhg na nsgreyvsr. Gb or engvbany, lbh jnag gb unir gur fbeg bs zvaq gung, vs vg svaqf vgfrys va n jbeyq jvgu ab nsgreyvsr, qbrfa’g oryvrir va na nsgreyvsr, naq vs vg svaqf vgfrys va n jbeyq jvgu na nsgreyvsr, qbrf oryvrir va na nsgreyvsr. W. X. Ebjyvat pyrneyl oryvrirq gung gur Cbggreirefr unq na nsgreyvsr, naq jebgr vg nppbeqvatyl; vs Uneel svaqf uvzfrys va gung havirefr, naq ur fgvyy qbrfa’g oryvrir va na nsgreyvsr, gung’f abg arprffnevyl n tbbq fvta sbe uvf engvbanyvgl.
Is it possible to obliviate yourself selectively so that you lose all knowledge of your own name?
In Quirrell’s case, he may be a powerful enough Occulumens to prevent the Map from reading his mind and so learning his name (if your theory is correct).
But since the audience’s (extended) reaction includes voting to send Hermoine to Azkaban, how will changing her testimony help?
Third clue: in the original canon, Harry had a piece of Voldemort’s soul in him, an accidentally created Horcrux, and the reunion of that piece with Voldemort was a critical step in Voldemort’s death.
The destruction of that piece was crucial. I don’t believe that it ever reunited with the rest of Voldemort’s soul.
Snape didn’t make an Unbreakable Vow to protect Harry. He makes one with Narcissa in the sixth book, promising to help Draco in his plot to kill Dumbledore. But Snape’s protection of Harry in canon is always grounded in his love for Lily.
I noticed that the MediaFire link for the PDF version is dead—is that still being actively maintained?
Do Hermoine’s parents even have the right to withdraw her? Harry’s parents apparently do not have such a right:
Muggles had around the same legal standing as children or kittens: they were cute, so if you tortured them in public you could get arrested, but they weren’t people. Some reluctant provision had been made for recognizing the parents of Muggleborns as human in a limited sense, but Harry’s adoptive parents did not fall into that legal category (Chapter 26).
I think you’re right that Hypothesis 2 is more likely than H1. However, both assume that some tale (true or false) about Voldemort visiting the school has been circulated in wizard Britain. But as far as we know, that tale is told for the first time in Quirrell’s class. As always, Quirrell is our only source:
“The Dark Lord was foolish to wish that story retold. It did not show his strength, but rather an exploitable weakness” (ch 19).
Of course, if this is the first time the story is told, people may wonder how Quirrell knows. But this is the same chapter in which Quirrell rather blatantly lies and claims to have been a Slytherin, when he (Quirrell, not Voldemort) in fact wasn’t.
I think that’s fully compatible with either possibility. If Voldemort studied there, then he would have reason to destroy it; to not “leave the source of his power lying around”. But if, on the other hand, he didn’t study there (because he was refused), then he would again have a reason to not leave a source of power lying around. (If I can’t have it, no one can.)
Minor typo at the end of 78, repeated at the beginning of 79:
Actual speculation: what did Dumbledore know or suspect when he hired Quirrell?
What exactly was Dumbledore aware of? Merely that ‘Quirrell’ may have travelled without a visa (I guess this is illegal), or that he was an impostor? If the latter, why would Dumbledore hire him?
But if Dumbledore wasn’t aware that Quirrell is an impostor, then Quirrell has made at least one foolish slip. During the interrogation, Scrimgeour says
But way back in Chapter 16, Quirrell says