Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

I'm inclined to agree with the "Harry calls Lucius' debt to him" interpretation. It fits nicely, it's not Deus Ex Machina, the Wizengmont will at least consider it, and might be a Taboo Tradeoff for Lucius (rationally, defusing a massive source of leverage just for Hermione's freedom is a steal). However, merely dropping the charges would be INCREDIBLY cruel to Hermione. She'd be treated as a dishonorable murderer who actually thinks she's a dishonorable murderer (or merely uncertain, if she believes Harry enough). So more speculatively than the previous points, Harry requests a fair trail by jury to determine Hermione's innocence, with Lucius and co. keeping in mind that any attempt at foul play would be breaking a life debt established by the Wizengmont. Actually they'd still probably try to interfere, with Lucius just confessing and sacrificing himself for Draco's honor if they get caught.

That or Harry put Quirrell up to it for some reason and obliviated himself, then finds evidence against himself. WHAT A TWZZZZZT.

edited 26th Mar '12 7:58:12 AM by AlexRose

You're one step ahead of all of us. One thing this fic actually pays attention to is aftermaths.

That would explain how this is supposed to last until chapter 84. Would she be judged by hogwarts students or adults?

edited 26th Mar '12 7:57:57 AM by DarthHobbes

Fair trial by jury. As in, people who have no information on Hermione or the supposed murder. Which actually wouldn't be that difficult with Obliviation. It'd make court procedures a lot easier too; no need for a new trial when you can just obliviate the jury of the miscarriage of justice.

edited 26th Mar '12 8:07:18 AM by AlexRose

And then Harry would get to play Ace Attorney Investigations. Ohboyohboyohboy...

Hmm. Random thought on the interesting-things-to-do-with-Transfiguration scale:

1. Transfigure something, probably ice, into gaseous oxygen.
2. Get ordinary gaseous hydrogen from somewhere, and carefully combine the two to get water.
3. Throw the water around—squirt guns, water balloons, whatever.
4. Opponent is likely to become suspicious and try a finite. What happens? Or you could do it yourself, at the right time.

Fair trial? In the Wizarding World of Magical Britain? Pardon me whilst I wet myself laughing. The whole point I got from this fic so far is that there is no such thing as a fair trial.

There are only politically expedient outcomes, such as the one which slammed Sirius Black into Azkaban without the benefit of even a Stalinist-type show-trial.

I may be completely wrong in this, but my gut instinct says "nope".

Althiophile: that's something I don't understand about Transfiguration: does an Un Transfigured object revert to its original form? For example, if you turn metal into wood and burn it, then cast finite, does it turn back to a bar of metal or metal filings? It's implied that it doesn't revert to its shape (otherwise transfiguration poisoning would rip you apart) but does it necessarily return to its state of matter? The fic doesn't make the results of the reversal of Transfiguration obvious. However, with your question (which I assume is about turning the water back into ice), wouldn't oxygen atom inside each H 2 O (water) molecule revert to more water, resulting in H2 (hydrogen gas)+H 2 O (water or ice, depending on above)?

edited 27th Mar '12 9:01:53 AM by LogicDragon

And then, just ignite a spark...

You know, I'm really jealous of EY. How he keeps consistently blowing our minds.

edited 27th Mar '12 9:04:55 AM by TheHandle

I think it's even worse than that: it wouldn't revert to H2, it'd revert to monatomic hydrogen. I'm really not sure what the enthalpy of formation of H2 is from monatomic hydrogen, since we never get any monatomic hydrogen, but I'm willing to bet it's high enough to ignite the H2 in the presence of oxygen. Cue boom.

All the benefits Wizards could have gained from using Muggle science... I only know of one fic where wizards and Muggles collaborate (it's a conspiracy). It's got wizards with magic shotguns. Literal boomsticks.

But if you're going to blow yourself up to take your opponent with you and you have that kind of preparation time, why not just Transfigure some antimatter enclosed in a boundary charm with a perfect vacuum - or for that matter just Transfigure some of the floor?

Honestly, if you just want moderate sized explosions, there are better ways to do that. Using transfiguration in the way you describe.. are you on Bahl's Stupefaction? >,) "Accio Handgrenade" or the use of moleskin pouches as a portable arsenal accomplishes the same end in a much safer manner, and there are likely dozens of faster, safer (for you) and more effective spells for the purpose as well.

edited 27th Mar '12 12:10:58 PM by Izeinsummer

The point is that if you know you are going to be defeated but you have preparation time, rather than preparing water-of-doom, you are better of causing a larger explosion more likely to pierce shields and which automatically goes off if you die (and I still have my doubts about any form of explosion other than ground-zero nuclear explosion breaking through a shield cast by a competent wizard, let alone Quirrel's shield from the sacrificing the Outer God incident. Not to mention the fact that you could just Apparate away) than a smaller one which requires you to do something to light it.

Sure. The virtue of water-of-doom is finite triggers it, rather than defusing it. It's not a desperation weapon; there are better ways of doing that.

So you're advocating the Homura-chan approach to magical war, huh?

How long till next chapter?

Should be coming out in...*checks watch*...about 3.5 hours.

And I really should get to PMMM sometime.

edited 27th Mar '12 3:28:37 PM by alethiophile

"Fair trial? In the Wizarding World of Magical Britain? Pardon me whilst I wet myself laughing. The whole point I got from this fic so far is that there is no such thing as a fair trial."

Left to its own devices, oh hell no. But Harry can request the specifications of a trial by jury through his life debt with the poor totally-imperiused-by-Voldemort section of the Wizengmont. He wouldn't just be "This trials not fair! Here's my rationale why. Let's do a new trial now." He would be "This trials not fair! You have a life debt to me Lucius, so either admit you're a Death Eater or we're doing a new trial".

edited 27th Mar '12 6:03:12 PM by AlexRose

I was intemperate in my reaction to the fair trial question. I got pm'd for being disgusting for saying what I did. That I still think what I did goes without saying. As does the fact that I still should not have said it.

Please do not quote it for fear of causing further offence.

Guys. Link.

http://perf.hpmor.com/chapter/81

Okay. I just have to say.

"I make you this one offer. I never learn that you've been interfering with me or any of mine. And you never find out why the unkillable soul-eating monster is scared of me. Now sit down and shut up."

Crowning. Moment. Of. Awesome.

It seems our think-tank came up with pretty much everything sans the monetary debt. I was thinking of Harry just commanding the dementor to go face-to-face with Malfoy, although scaring it was more amusing.

Well worth the wait. Plus we now have more data on how to tackle other mysteries in the story. I must admit that I had a voice in my head going "no, too obvious/simple" to a lot of my solutions to other problems.

edited 27th Mar '12 8:16:47 PM by thatguythere47

Thanks for the update. I like reading the thing on my PDA (s) so I will wait for the nice person who does the .mobi format to finish before I read it.

I'm wondering on the full implications of the Unbreakable Vow. While I'm not a Harry/Hermione shipper, also note how the "Master or Mistress" line allows for them to still get together in an equal relationship, since then she'd be the mistress of the house, and the vow would essentially be void.

Harry did just shoot himself in the foot with a bazooka, tough. Lucius almost certainly thinks that Pottermort just played him to enhance the legend of "the boy who lived" but on the other hand? Pile of gold, so probably only moderately enraged. No, the problem is that Lucius is no longer the only wizard of note who subscribes to the Pottermort weekly. He treated the wizengamot like wallpaper, and because they are not, someone might very well attack him with utterly overwhelming force as a public service.

edited 27th Mar '12 9:31:58 PM by Izeinsummer