Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

I suspect the Bubble-Head Charm or some other, similar charm would be able to provide air, and an enchanted cloak (or just the spell Thermos) would be able to prevent freezing.

This is not the entirety of the thing I'm working on, but if any of you happen to notice an error in this Azkaban partial floorplan◊ I would appreciate it if you'd point it out.

^What are you going to do about your lungs rupturing and blood literally boiling in your blood vessels?

Some enchanted variant of an elastic-type spacesuit should be easy enough to make. I wonder if phoenixes can even travel that far, or to a thing that they don't have a precise Earth-bound coordinate for, though?

This is not actually accurate. [1] Vacuum will cause trouble, but not quite that much trouble.

That said, I imagine there might be some issues regarding the Bubble-Head Charm air exiting from elsewhere in the body. I assume there would be a magical way to fix that, however... Or just a rubber suit would work, yes.

edited 5th Oct '12 11:46:14 AM by Exetera

X5

That's quite wrong. You can't experience a change in heat energy without a medium. You will suffocate, your blood will boil eventually, you'd get one hell of a sunburn (being unprotected from solar radiation), and it would be an all-around unpleasant experience; rest assured, however, that the average fellow tossed in to space will be long dead before his body goes to ice.

"Space is cold" is pretty much bullshit.

You'll radiate heat off, but I don't think that goes all that fast. According to thirty seconds of random Googling, radiative heat loss only slightly exceeds the ideal cooling rate that counteracts heat generated by metabolism. You're certainly going to be dying of asphyxiation and/or decompression trauma before you freeze, if you're dumped out without a suit. With a suit...your biggest worry is still going to be running out of consumables.

I'm guessing you could just, um, "borrow" a suit from NASA. I wonder if magic would work in space. It could only effect earth. Like wifi only effecting a certain range.

I actually like that idea. With the pioneer plaque outside of magic's influence.

A random thought for Eliezer: if more omakes are forthcoming, it would be highly amusing to see how Harry broke Felis Felicis or the Fidelius charm, had those not been removed from this verse.

Credit for breaking Fidelius goes to Nonjon, "A Black Comedy". I had an early draft of Ch. 63 where Moody says that Voldemort's father's real grave is probably under a Fidelius charm with Bellatrix as the Secret-Keeper. But then I realized how many other things go kerplooey if you have the Fidelius (Dumbledore finds someone on the verge of death to be the Secret-Keeper, tosses the Elder Wand into the forbidden zone, and it's never seen again) and so I decided that it didn't exist in the HPMOR-verse.

If Felix does exist in HPMOR-verse, it doesn't always share the user's explicitly stated believed-in utility function and causes 40% of married individuals who use it to end up divorced by the end of the day, and drives you permanently mad or dead if used more than once every ten years meaning that everyone is almost always waiting for an even greater possible emergency... but mostly I decided that Felix probably didn't exist, rather than trying that hard to nerf it.

In the event that Felix does exist, HPMOR!Draco's origin story is that Narcissa and Lucius went begging before Lord Voldemort, asking how the perfect heir to House Malfoy might be produced, expecting to be told of some horrible Dark Ritual; and Voldemort thought about the problem for thirty seconds and then told them to take two small doses of Felix timed at the appropriate moments to produce her optimal egg and his optimal sperm.

Space's average temperature is around -272 degrees Kelvin.

Pretty damned cold if you ask me. So space is cold is bullshit, well, that's pretty much bullshit.

There is no such thing as negative degrees in Kelvin, 0 Kelvin is ansolute zero, the lowest temperature.

Don't we have a page for this? SpaceIsCold. Read the analysis page for this.

edited 6th Oct '12 9:49:26 AM by Quantumawsome

Tam: Yes, the average temperature is low, but the point is that you won't lose heat very fast in space, due it being made of vacuum, which is (as far as we can tell) the most perfect insulator to exist. Thus, yes, after a while something that's left out in space away from any major radiant energy sources such as stars will get pretty cold, but it's not really on the list of immediate hazards you have to worry about. Hell, far worse for most spaceships is the buildup of waste heat from the people and machinery on board; quite a bit of engineering time goes into setting up heat radiators such that ships won't end up overheating.

Oh crap. Yep. You are right. Silly me.

*appears to be mildly smug*

I wonder how cold the pioneer probe itself would be? It's had plenty of time to radiate, but it's also mechanical, and would likely be generating waste heat as well.

edited 6th Oct '12 1:10:02 PM by Savoie

This article I found has a graph at the end suggesting it was around -45°C in 2000. I'm sure there's a better source, but that was the second hit on Google and it's adequate, so I'm not going to bother looking for it.

*Appears to be mildly murderous*

Fine, you wouldn't freeze quickly enough for it to be an issue, but regards vacuum and its effects:

Even assuming you breathed out to stop your lungs rupturing, divers and others who experience pressure changes can have horrible things happen just from the effects of relatively minor decompression (the bends). Your blood really would boil, perhaps not enough of it to rupture vessels or cause instant death, but even with magic healing you're pretty much stuffed.

Regards whether magic works in space: Even if Harry is correct about there being a Source of Magic (TM) that works like a computer server, it would seem probable that whatever technology was used to let people with a particular gene edit reality would not be affected by difference. Besides, Horcruxes aren't really used in the resurrection; they'd probably simply be methods of telling the So M that that magic user had access to resurrection. Why anybody would program in such a crazy resurrection method is another bit of counter evidence to the So M hypothesis (Harry, IIRC, already mentioned AK

edited 8th Oct '12 8:52:47 AM by LogicDragon

Oh yeah, I never said it would be pleasant.

Yeah, the existence of certain (apparently) predecided spells that are keyed to actual spoken syllables is behavior characteristic of a computer system, but various other things, like how Horcruxes apparently trade on the nature of the soul and the way Transfiguration works, look more characteristic of a system of laws similar or analogous to those of mundane physics. Maybe it's one on top of the other, and the Atlantis computer is a method of manipulating energy that exists already in a predictable way?

Which would imply that energy already manipulated into a Horcrux would remain despite distance from Earth.

Perhaps Horcruxes, AK etc. are the result of a malicious attack on the SoM by an early Atlantean Dark Wizard who might have wished to make Dark Magic easier or to sabotage previously innocent forms of magic (e.g. making resurrection only available to Dark Wizards).

This is getting boring. Let's change the topic.

A while back, when we were discussing Hat and Cloak, we treated as strong evidence for his being Quirrell the fact that Quirrell has a very near miss on a phrase H&C says: "keyed his monster into the ancient wards at a higher level than the Headmaster himself," said by H&C to Blaise Zabini in Chapter 35, versus "some entity which Salazar Slytherin keyed into his wards at a higher level than the Headmaster himself," said by Quirrell to Harry Potter in Chapter 49. However, there is also another near miss on that phrase in Methods: "the ghost [of Salazar Slytherin] is still keyed into the Hogwarts wards," said by Padma Patil to Hermione Granger and the rest of SPHEW in Chapter 71. It seems likely that this is simply how Eliezer speaks, unless for some reason Padma Patil is also secretly Professor Quirrell.

So, with that evidence out of the way (or at least disputable) let's talk about the identity of H&C. I suppose it might be worth mentioning that we don't necessarily know that the H&C that appears to Hermione in Chapter 77 is the same H&C that appears to Blaise Zabini in Chapter 35. We know that the Chapter 77 H&C adopted multiple different identities within the space of a few minutes, and "face-concealing hat and dark cloak" is not especially distinctive as secret identities go. This could just be a coincidence, used by Eliezer to provide us with a red herring. (A similar red herring appears in-character: Harry Potter expresses disbelief that two separate people could be leaving notes under students' pillows, when in fact this is the case – Harry's notes came from Dumbledore while Hermione's came from Snape.)

As to who it actually is... it seems plain that neither H&C could be anyone other than Snape or Quirrell. (Dumbledore is a theoretical possibility but seems extremely improbable.) First H&C is most likely Quirrell, since Snape really had nothing to gain by screwing around with Quirrell and Harry. Second H&C, though... Remember, Snape orchestrated the entirety of the rest of the Self-Actualization arc. We don't know why, but we know his reason is important enough for him to conceal it from Dumbledore through ridiculous application of Memory Charms. Could the H&C have been the payoff for him at the end of Self-Actualization? Quirrell, meanwhile, really doesn't seem to have much motive; he could have been setting up dominoes to fall and shatter some of Harry's youthful illusions, but surely Quirrell could have found a simpler way to get to the same result.

Conclusion: First H&C is probably Quirrell, second H&C is probably Snape.

edited 9th Oct '12 11:25:11 AM by Exetera

Second H&C's speech toward Hermione, and his interaction with her in general, seem to me to be more Quirrell-ish than Snape-y, but this is just a subjective impression. That is a useful insight, though, that the two are not necessarily the same person.

I agree that second H&C's plot seems overly complicated for Quirrell; however, it does benefit him in several ways, and we should remember that rule which (I think) Draco mentioned in-fic, that you should look for suspects among those who came out looking the best.

I would actually dispute that Quirrell came out looking the best, compared to Snape.

I suppose Quirrell came out ahead in one thing: he was seen to have saved Draco Malfoy's life, if under suspicious circumstances. In everything else, though, Quirrell seems to have lost ground. He was detained for several days. That detention seems to have started a considerable number of rumors, and higher up the food chain there will certainly be people who hear the DMLE report and are concerned by it. His teaching methods have come under fire as being potentially culpable for the fiasco, and the mock wars (his signature achievement, in my opinion) are quite likely to be banned in the near future. He will likely not be allowed to teach Avada Kedavra as he had hoped. The name of Quirinus Quirrell has been dragged through the mud, and also the papers. If there's any way to look worse after saving the young heir to a wealthy and powerful family, I don't know what it is.

Severus Snape, on the other hand, has stayed quiet and out of sight. A madwoman accused him of bizarre plots, but that says nothing about him; even Harry isn't taking Hermione's accusations as anything but obviously false. Throughout the crisis, he has been meeting with Dumbledore, Minerva, and Harry Potter. Though I doubt that Dumbledore or Minerva has changed their impression of Snape because of this, certainly he has established more of a rapport with Harry. That could be quite useful to him. I suspect he is regretting his decision in Chapter 27 to push Harry away, especially given what he learned of Harry in the discussions following the Azkaban breakout in Chapter 61. (And, of course, even ignoring the special circumstances, Harry's Potions stunt in the battle in Chapter 78 should stir the heart of any Potions teacher.)

I'd also note that the outcome otherwise (Quirrell loses face, Harry Potter gets in trouble, and Draco Malfoy is sent away) is actually quite favorable to him; he does not get along with Quirrell or Harry at all, and while he's a close ally of the Malfoy family it seems as though Draco and his father were likely putting pressure upon him which he may not have wanted.

edited 9th Oct '12 12:47:50 PM by Exetera

Snape's not that cunning. My memory's foggy but Quirrel claims to have found Malfoy because he had an enchantment on him. There's no reason for Quirrel to have done this. He doesn't care about Malfoy and in fact benefits from him being taken out of the picture. If it wasn't for Harry's quick thinking He would have lost Draco, Hermonie and whatever semblance of morality left in him. Quirrel would have the rest of the year alone with a very angry, very isolated genius. It only took him half a year to convince Potter that breaking a complete nut out of azkiban was a smart move. Give him the rest of the year and Harry would have been his.

Of course Quirrel could be telling the truth and it just so happens the scenario would have benefited him greatly but I doubt that.

Methods Snape appears to be plenty cunning.

Actually, Quirrell did have a perfectly good reason to want to ward Draco. As Quirrell learned in Chapter 40, Dumbledore knew that Lucius Malfoy would go after Harry, potentially wrecking his other plans in the process, if anything were to happen to Draco at Hogwarts. Quirrell, being a cynical man, realized that Dumbledore could easily choose to go after Draco himself, in order to get the upper hand over Lucius. Placing wards independent of the Headmaster's on Draco would seem to be a natural response. Indeed, Quirrell hints while in custody that this is in fact the case, mentioning that he had learned shortly after everyone returned to Hogwarts (when Ch. 40 takes place) that there was someone with a motive to harm Draco.

Thinking Methods!Snape is not an extremely cunning and intelligent man is not something I would do, if I were you. He is head of House Slytherin. That means a damned sight more in the Methods!universe than it ever did in Rowling's original works, where his main role was to be Harry's main non-Riddle antagonist, bully and general not-very-nice person. (and secret protector)

I actually like the guy. A lot. Not as much as Professor Quirinus Quirrell, but still a damned sight more than I did when Rowling was writing him. And it annoys me beyond belief that Alan Rickman is NEVER going to get to play the man in this universe.