LEGAL TRICKS FREE
"MAD MUGGLEBORN"
AS POTTER THREATENS MINISTRY
WITH ATTACK ON AZKABAN

This is entirely too accurate a summary to be the real headline of a rag like the Daily Prophet, or indeed any real newspaper

I don't think I had read Homestuck by the time I read this chapter the first time.

And having read it before this time, I see that the witch who has is accurate enough.

In case the author reads this, I wanted to mention something about "In a moral dilemma where you lost something either way, making the choice would feel bad either way, so you could temporarily save yourself a little mental pain by refusing to decide." My solution is to make that dilemma more precise so that I will know which way I'd go. It nearly always requires more details than the creator of the hypothetical is willing to provide. It ends up being a fun exercise for me most of the time, and good preparation the rest of the time. I totally understand that Minerva McGonagall would have preferred not to think about it. I hope Elieser (sp?) is still around and mihgt get back to me with his thoughts on the subject. It is gratifying to find someone championing our ability to think so well.

The Defense Professor didn't seem to notice, but only spoke on. "Has the Headmaster has told you anything - even a hint - about Professor Trelawney's prophecy?"

The second "has" in "Has the Headmaster has" should be omitted. I hope this typo can be fixed all these years after this chapter was published.

The event with the phoenix was eating me from the inside. I couldn't bear the fact that Harry possible wasted a lifetime opportunity. And I even had time to think, and now I'm croos with the Headmaster. He could have told Harry that a phoenix only comes once. Not necessarily pushing him to go to Azkaban, but at least giving him all the facts. Still, I couldn't think of anything else, and couldn't focus on my reading. So I did something I never do, I spoiled myself. I checked the wiki to see if Harry's potential phoenix would come back a second time even if it never happened before. For those who have yet to notice, what's after is a spoil. And my heart crumbled, the pheonix never came back.

Even if somehow Harry gets Fawkes, which I'm not even sure since it was noted to be temporary, it's not the same. Before the last chapter, I actually hoped Fawkes would go to Harry. Now, now even if he does, I'll feel like it's not quite right, like he's not the one that was destined to Harry. And there's this pit in my stomack that won't leave me. What you did was cruel. Both for Harry and for us readers.

I had to stop reading the whole thing for long hours before even being able to write this comment. I'll forever know that even if Harry does reach immortality and omnipotence, he won't have this phoenix has a partner. And even if he doesn't reach this level of power, he still won't have this partner. It makes me feel sick and makes me want to cry. The worst is that it was the first chapter where I see you say you revised it. It possibly means this scene wasn't even there at first.

I just wanted you to know that it dropped my enjoyment of the story a great deal. I hope one day you'll do another revision somewhere in the story so that Harry get this phoenix.

didnt his patronum bounce a A/K

"You know, I don't think we've ever read a story about two equally destined heroes competing to see who's cliched enough to take down the villain"
- that would be a hilarious parody

This is very complicated and yet I understand around 85% of it with no prior context. Also, the homestuck reference would have been very cool if we weren't around 18 years early. Still, the Fic lives up to expectations!

I DID NOT EXPECT A NARTUO REFERENCE

I DID NOT EXPECT A NARTUO REFERENCE

You bring up souls again. The idea that if one has brain damage, and cannot speak properly, how come the soul doesn't speak through them? If was an interesting argument I'd never heard before. Here is an argument against it. If the soul is (arguably) confined in our body till death does it part, then the soul would still be forced to speak in the confines of the damaged body. The soul may still speak true, but because of the brain damage we cannot translate it. We just hear the garbled mess coming from said body. You damage the instrument, the music comes out badly.

On another note. I love this story so far. Thank you for going places no one else dared to go. And thank you for not making Harry an a!l powerful berk, who things come easily to. That tends to make the story dull when the hero has no flaws and is invincible. Too many authors make that mistake and I rarely finish the story if the hero's journey is too easy.

this is so damnably intense... exceptionally well written and presented, yet emotionally draining.

Behold! Continuity breaking! Plot hole! (Homestuck's Hivebent didn't come until 2011.)

Love the shout out to A Black Comedy by nonjon. Suprised I hadn't read this story before now. Great work.

Why is Harry at this point, when they are considering Quirrell as a possible Voldemort, not even mention in his own mind, the sense of Doom and unusual magical interference as one of the most damning evidences he is volde? It's kind of obvious that specially the magical interference is the reason he is alive to this day and also their duality or whatever you want to call it. Also Quirrell behaviour is beyond agressive at some points. Anyways loving this ff m8

This story is brilliant, even though I admit I am not able to follow everything that's been said, nor am I able to see where it's taking us. But there is one thing I am sure of. After reading this chapter, I have never been so glad, and relieved, to be a Hufflepuff. If I had to think the way these characters are thinking, my brain would hurt all the time.

*sees hs reference* can this fanfic get any better

Shouldn't Harry be updating his priors on Quirrell at this point ? He's just been told that Avada Kedavra just keeps going forever, through walls, etc, until it kills someone. Quirrell used Avada Kedavra in Azkaban just to make the guard dodge. At least that is what he said. That sounded at least conceivable when he said it to Harry in Azkaban, but we now find out that his doing that means a very high probability of someone somewhere dying, when the curse finally runs into someone : maybe a 100% probability of someone somewhere dying. Quirrell must have known that in Azkaban, so Quirrell is a bad guy, evil, who's willing to kill random strangers for a small personal advantage.

Harry not updating about this is pretty strange. Harry's ALREADY SUSPICIOUS of Quirrell, and should be. Harry's LOOKING FOR an evil guy who would kill innocent bystanders (say, like, Hermoine and Malfoy) to accomplish his goals.

'I knew he would dodge' was pretty weak to begin with. Now it's 'I knew he would dodge and the spell would kill someone else'...

Wow people know that New Zealand exists?

On a happy note, what really makes this story so hilarious is how everything ridiculous is both reasonable and said sincerely in context. Like "Snape and Dumbledore".

Let me just say this story is such an incredible mind-bender. Most of my earlier guesses seem wrong. The thing hats amazing is I know you have been and are laying down the clues to solve the mystery, but I'm just lucky if I can keep ahead of the chapter I'm on.

Whee, hypotheses.

So, there's a part of me wondering - the molecular biologist part of me, who worked in a lab that did this kind of work in 1992 - why Harry would not propose the rather obvious method of genetic testing to determine if Quirell and David Monroe are one and the same, or related. While the Human Genome Project had not been completed in 1992 ( and was rather being talked of than being done at that time ) and genetic testing was not in the widespread mainstream use it is today in solving cases where identity is of issue, the technology that made it possible was certainly around and in widespread use in biology labs. Even if genetic samples from David Monroe were not available, the genealogical record-keeping engaged in by the Magical Noble Houses to establish and maintain their claim of Nobility would surely give us a cousin or two to measure against. Even if genetic testing were not mentioned, blood and tissue typing existed and also would have been efficacious in disproving the identity. At least Harry ought to mention the possibility, even if it is only for Moody to shoot it down by saying that every last branch of that family tree has been wiped out, and no samples of any kind were preserved. Meanwhile, I wish to say thank you very, very, much for writing and posting this story. Rational Harry Potter makes extremely enjoyable and thought-provoking reading. I haven't had this much fun reading a work of fanfiction in years.

I still love this story but... I don't know... I feel like it's been straying from the main plot for a while now. In the beginning it was all about his quest for world domin- I mean world optimization, but for the past few arcs (don't know if I'm using the word arc correctly but still makes my point) it's been lacking in that. I most enjoy reading of Harry's new discoveries with magic and his informing Draco and Hermoine of science things to help him rise to power with suspenseful events thrown in between to keep interest. But now the plot has shifted to all about the prophecy and it's as if Harry has forgotten his original goal. He knows Voldemort wasn't the one who broke into Azkaban so why is he so worried about the prophecy? He could just disregard it and instead further his discoveries and etc. My favorite 'arcs' were the introductory one, him teaching Draco how to be a scientist (because they followed the plot), and the Azkaban Arc (plus the patronus discovery beforehand) mostly for the suspense because I love suspense but also because I loved the idea of the new and improved patronus. Not to say I didn't enjoy the others (the heroine arc was very slow though for me), but I feel like they didn't represent what the whole story is about. Either way this story is admittedly still better than anything I've written so props for that. I really hope things progress quicker and Harry gets back on his initial goal, plus the return of Draco and possibly some developments between Harry and Hermoine. As of right now it just seems like a bunch of side plots and filler arcs, and hopefully it gets more intriguing soon! I shall read on, and sorry for the epically long review. Usually I keep my reviews shorter...

goddamn! i recognize that name and premise from another fanfiction. i hope that whoever copied from whom i didnt just spoiler myself

It's interesting that everything is happening in his first year. Also, I like that Naruto reference :P

Harry and Moody interacting is amazing. I love Moody all but offering him a job when he graduates. There's a strange, wonderful friendship blooming between them and I hope they get to talk more.
That said, I love Snape and Harry's scene. Could Snape really be a rogue agent now, no longer loyal to Albus or the Death Eaters?

Severus and Harry talking about Lily ... that part is so heartbreaking. I love it.

Hermione was talking with a Lady before the attempt on Draco's life so it might be Sinistra...but Hermione doesn't remember that part..couldn't the Aurors see that she was obliviated?!

Severus being his own man and not a servant seems wonderful but only if he stays good...I really hope he won't turn dark again!

Harry managed to hit Mad-Eye :)))

Yay Discworld reference!

Harry's fight against Moody is great. Moody is a fun character, well matched with Harry in some ways. Wonderful characterization for Snape and McGonagall too

I love you so much for putting in a reference to Soul Music by Terry Pratchett: "A foreign-looking boy wizard who always introduced himself as ‘Adrian Turnipseed’, though his parents had actually named him Mad Drongo", that was beautiful, an inverse of the book he came from. I almost missed it, but when I scrambled through my book of Soul Music and found it, well, thank soooooo much, also i really enjoy your writing.

YOU. REFERENCED. HOMESTUCK. IN A RANDOM LITTLE REMARK SAID BY SOME RANDOM GIRL IN A HP FANFIC. I LOVE IT. XD I LOVE THIS. YOU ARE OFFICIALLY MY FAVORITE AUTHOR AND I WISH YOU HAD MORE STORIES.

Your references are too good. A young Japanese with a shadow replication technique? Bravo/Brava. Death Note, South Park AND Naruto? I'm ever impressed with this story.

Awww! WYOMING! Its always so fun to see somebody reference Wyoming. Its nice to know people know we exist.

Thank you for the story. It is truly spectacular. It has taught me more than most textbooks have. Is there something significant about April 10, 1992?

Hm...

Such a good chapter. So many interesting moments. I loved Harry's "But what I'm qualitatively getting at".

Moody calling Voldermort "Voldie" was perfect.

But my favourite but was probably: "Ha!" said Moody. "If I ever say yes to that question, check me for Polyjuice, because it's not me."

The more I come back to this story, the more I like your Dumbledore. He's several kinds of awesome, and he's Good, if flawed, and he's tragic, and if you had told me a few years ago that I - a fan of W40k whose perhaps favourite character is Gregor Eisenhorn - would sympathise with a ridiculously powerful character agonizing over having to make hard decisions and wishing for someone stronger to step up, I'd be skeptical. But I do sympathise with Dumbledore.

I haven't gotten misty-eyed at anything I'd read or watched in quite a while. But right now I am looking at chapter 85:

But I -" Dumbledore's voice broke, then. "I am nothing but a foolish young boy who has become a foolish old man, and I have no wisdom."

And I am moved.

If Harry gets Dumbledore back, I have this tiny hope that a heartfelt apology for how much of a dick he's been to him is going to happen.

I've been wondering why the foe detector was going off during the meeting with Harry, Moody, McGonagall and Snape. Maybe when Moody was telling the story about David Monroe, he wasn't really Moody or he was false memory charmed or something.

Regulus Black - he was Monroe's private source in the Death Eaters, we're pretty sure

Is Regulus not Sirius' younger brother in this story? If so, he would have been roughly 12-13 years old at the time Monroe disappeared...

I know I'm a bit far behind on this but...How the neck did it go from April 8th to April 10th? Please help me out :(

In case I never said it - the news headlines were amazing.

Snape's probably isnt as much a wild card as mgonnagal/harry thinks. his posthumous devotion to lilly was his big loyalty chain but while that wound is healing, its being replaced by some manner of loyalty/respect for harry

Alia chapter 86 . May 3
Btw, why does the existence of brain damage imply there's no such thing as souls? What could the one possibly have to do with the other?

-

It doesn't. The author of another mindblowing book series ("The Ware" series), Rudy Rucker, postulated that the "Soul" was an encrypted Cosmic Ray burst pattern sent out into the void by intelligent beings for travel reasons (who also sent out many multiples of personality copies of themselves for redundancy sake).

Let's describe it in a way that makes things a bit easier for the general populace though. The television is your body, it receives your specific "Soul Broadcast" if your television body is tuned to the right "Channel". If the television receives damage (scuffs to the casing or the circuitry is going bad), the "Soul Channel" that you are broadcasting from remains completely undamaged. Your body, the television, can be damaged to unworkability and your specific "Soul Channel Broadcast" will remain intact until another "TV Body" picks it up again. If you want to complicate things, you could even fraction up the "Soul Broadcast" into smaller channels and have people able to tune into a variety of "Soul Fragment Channels" all at once. In that way, there need not be an infinite variety of "Soul Channels", merely a few thousand "Soul Fragment Channels" where people are DNA-tuned into specific aspects of those broadcasts, yet not others. That alone would allow many trillions of permutations of personality & empathy in humans without any vastly unique "Soul Fragment Channels" being required to exist.

A human in a Coma State is not absolute proof of absence of soul.
A human whom has severe brain damage is no more proof of an absence of soul than a broken TV or broken radio being unable to receive & decode broadcasts are absolute proof that the transmission networks are destroyed forever.
Now, for a fact, certain brain damaged areas can directly change a human's personality structure and their levels of empathy, but can it be proven that they weren't forcibly-physically-retuned to another variety of "Soul Fragment Broadcast Channel" networks?

*grin* Homestuck romance terminology FTW. And the words may have been invented by a particular writer to fulfil a particular purpose in his fiction, but the shipping community has taken them up since with the greatest enthusiasm. It's a pity this story is set too long ago for the shipper-witches to have actually read Homestuck, and to have derived the terms from there. I'd find that rather amusing. :)

"Er..." Harry said. "I think I can say that my own evidence points in the same direction as yours. I mean, it increases the probability that Professor Snape isn't in love with my mother anymore."

Yep, might as well stop trying to hide anything from Harry...

First I read HPMoR. Then I read Homestuck. Then I reread HPMoR, and read "I, for one, think it perfectly clear that Granger is Potter's moirail, and that Potter was auspisticing between Malfoy and Granger." Then I had a small mental breakdown, consisting mostly of the words "Oh my god" and "I can't" repeated many, many times. And the funniest part is just how true that quote is.

Plot error: AK does not go through walls. It is blocked by solid objects.

Seems like a minor error.

Btw, why does the existence of brain damage imply there's no such thing as souls? What could the one possibly have to do withh the other?

Isn't there a plot hole here? I mean, if they discussed Quirrell being an impostor after the duel with Mad-Eye on Harry's personal timeline, then how could he know to ask earlier, that is while preparing for the last attack? He said he spent all six hours on that.

Why would the existence of brain damage imply that there are no souls? I'm not saying there are souls, but that's a lousy evidence procedure.

To the author who wrote this story - It is an amazing piece of work! I am learning so much just by reading every chapter. Thank you for writing this story. Thank you for making a difference in my life. I believe that this story alone has the potential to inspire all individuals who read it. The most important lesson I am taking away from this story is that learning is very important. As a student, I have been studying to pass tests, but not to actually learn the material, to find applications to real life. I hope you will continue to write this story. You are making a difference in this world, one chapter at a time. I eagerly look forwards to the next chapter :)

"Harry where are you coming up with those numbers?" That is what Bayesian feels like sometimes.

I am curious what happens when a person casts the killing curse below ground, or if it misses. Will it continue on it's path through the entire Earth or even through the entire galaxy until it hits some life form? I suppose the curse may only kill the target and just the target, but then there'd be people who have "blocked" the curse if they weren't the intended target. What about smaller living things such as plants, insects, or even bacteria? Could those effectively block the curse? Would the knowledge that a human is coated in bacteria effectively nullify the curse much like the truth about Dementors nullifying most Patronus charms? Assuming that the curse doesn't penetrate through life forms that is. It'll be interesting to see if Harry does any research on the curse at some point, and how it'll be set up.

Something I really, really hoped for in a fic about rationality; the prophecy says that the Dark Lord would mark Harry as his equal, not that they were equals. Think of the places you could run with that! But I really like the style of that chapter. I bet looking into Lockhart's brain would make anyone about a billion times more paranoid, what it would do to Moody I have no idea. Honestly, other than the obvious scare factor of having a giant snake in the school that kills with a glance, that was the reason I had nightmares after the first book. I like where you've gone with the idea of Obliviation, because in retrospect that is the scariest thing about the wizarding world, except perhaps the Imperius curse. Together...

(This is why I try not to stay in my own thoughts or that of another philosopher long...)

You'd think Avada Kedavra were the most humane way possible to die.

"Those who have been spoken of in a prophecy may listen to it there"

That really has implications that are being ignored. If Dumbledore is truly worried that he's the dark lord in the prophecy why doesn't he just go there? Don't tell me he can't, hes fucking dumbledore.

Ball floats to him that's evidence that he's the dark lord, it doesn't and he can stop worrying.

This would be seriously useful in checking a whole bunch of other people as well.

Just a tiny typo: "an glowing orb" should be "a glowing orb"

Thanks, I'm loving the book!

LOVENG ET!

These last few chapters have won me back. For a while I was quite annoyed at you for having all your characters be so similar but they felt like distinct people in these last couple.

It bothers me a little that Harry presumes to know what Voldemort's end goals were. He only assumes that Voldie is stupid because he assumes Voldie meant to subdue magical Britain. But really, he has no idea what the plan was. It seems like the sort of mistake that Harry would catch.

The students are lampshading epileptic trees! Or, I suppose that would be 'terrified trees' in this case, wouldn't it? I am smiling so wide right now, I can't even deal...

Harry thinks is: if the good side was constrained by ethics, and voldie still didn't win, does that mean Voldie is dumb?
Harry is only right when we assume Voldie wants to WIN. But, like any true Satan , Voldie just wants everyone to be as miserable and ascynical as he himself is. That is why Voldie laughed when he was told Dumbledore had burned Narcissa alive. It was the most rational and also the most bleak , misery-for-all inducing thing to do.

Great chapter, especially the ending, but there is one thing missing from this chapter and the previous chapter. We understand why Harry can't tell the others that he was the one who freed Bellatrux from Azkaban. BUT it should be SHOWN that he is aware not only of how much of a difference that knowledge makes to the probability of the proposition "Voldemort is Back", but of how much more difficult it is for him to justify to the others that a lower probability assignment is appropriate. Why aren't they talking more about the Azkaban escape and the formidability of the foe it evinces and asking why it isn't obvious that there is very powerful Dark Wizard threatening them? Up until now Harry has no reason to think there is a very powerful Dark Wizard threatening them, merely someone powerful enough to fake the Hermione-Draco attempted murder, which is a MUCH less existentially threatening level of enemy.

Awesome chapter. Long, but awesome. I'm a bit worried by the end with Harry and Snape.

Hey! Dude! Continue writing, please! :'(

Knowledge puffs up. (c)

Hmm I saw this story in someone's favorite list and couldn't remember if I'd read it or not (I did remember that I'd definitely read the title and maybe even a chapter or two - but I couldn't remember more than that.
So I glanced through the last chapter and due to its familiarity decided that, yes, I must have read this - however, it took me reading through the first few paragraphs of several other chapters to remind myself what had happened in this story. So it has occurred to me that your summary, (in my eyes) isn't very good. Who cares that harry's dad is a biochemist - instead say petunia married an intellectual and that spread to harry and then go on to actually tell us a little about the massive changes from cannon, not only to interest readers - but to remind people like me just what it is they've read!
Anyway I did read the story - stuck with it through all 500,000 words - so you know I must have liked it and I hope you can take this review in the light it is meant and not as anything negative.

"You know, I don't think we've ever read a story about two equally destined heroes competing to see who's cliched enough to take down the villain"
A great line that. I personally would read that story. Could be good.
So, yet another brilliantly entertaining chapter. There's a hilariously awkward conversation between Harry and McGonagle regarding Shape, and Moody gets some good lines. Also, Quirrels character gets more backstory, which doesn't actually tell the reader anything for certain.
And so I have no other option but to read on happily.

And now I am reading the reviews.
Cubic John: Thank you for some interesting thoughts.
The obvious follow up to someone breaking the dark mark's code of secrecy is to alert the creator (V) and anyone else he wants, e.g. everyone else who has also had the code of secrecy broken. The alert would be something along the lines of "Snape is now capable of talking about the dark mark." If the spell is good enough, it also picks the identity of the person who broke it from the mark-wearers brain and transmits that too, or a picture of the surroundings, or the last five minutes of sound around the mark wearer, or ... you get the idea. Imagine a few death eaters getting a notification that "Snape is now capable of talking about the dark mark due to Harry Potter." Even worse, "Snape is now capable of talking about the dark mark due to Harry Potter and Dumbledore and McGonnagall know." That is provocation likely to lead to escalation.
You make an excellent point about Harry forgetting that Quirrell (Monroe) also fought V and did not quickly succeed. Even if you assume they are indeed different people, the Monroe who fought V was clearly dangerously competent.
I have to disagree with your estimation of ease of assassination in the Muggle world versus the wizard world due to one factor in particular: transfiguration. In the Muggle world, a person would have to grow botulism (difficult to identify and grow unless you have microbiology training), safely concentrate the toxin (incredibly dangerous), safely handle it (ditto), and get close enough to put it in the cup without someone suspecting. That could take days to weeks and might never happen due to the difficulties. In the wizard world, an 11-year-old who knows the name "botulinum toxin" can transfigure a dust mote to botulinum toxin in seconds and levitate it into a cup from across the room in a few more seconds. Ideally, you would not want to get seen levitating an invisible object (really just too small to get noticed), but it is possible. Same answer with a hand grenade - based on what he said about his transfiguration abilities, Harry can now create a hand grenade in under a minute. I am not sure I could obtain one if I tried (and would not try - too dangerous). If you can control the duration of a transfiguration and transfigurations "stack" you can even time it: 1) transfigure a hand grenade, 2) pull the pin, 3) before it explodes, transfigure it to a harmless object that the victim will pick up (a ring, maybe), 4) make sure the second transfiguration is set to wear off before the first one does, 5) get it to the victim, 6) the later tranfiguration wears off, leaving a hand grenage with less than 10 seconds before explosion. The victim has seconds to figure out what is going on and come up with a defense before they are dead. The number of ways transfiguration alone can be used to kill is ridiculous.
On that tangent, there are a number of questions here that Harry did not explore: Can transfigurations stack? If so, can you dispell (finite) them individually? If so, can you control which "layer" gets dispelled? Can you control the duration without using finite? What happens if you transfigure an object into itself (like trolls - maybe you _can_ technically transfigure living things safely)? Is that a shortcut to healing, even temporary healing (fix a broken bone long enough to get more permanent healing)? Can you create compressed matter, an explosion, or even degenerate matter (transfigure a large object to a dust mote, surround it with something malleable like clay or wax and then transfigure the clay or wax to diamond ... the inner transfiguration naturally wears off first, but then what ... we can create metallic hydrogen using diamond anvils, can Harry create degenerate matter that way or just a really nasty explosion)? Could you transfigure a pencil to ice (inherent temperature change)? If so, how about transfiguring something room temperature to something hot but solid like almost-molten iron? Can you transfigure a liquid or gas by surrounding it with a solid shell and transfiguring both? How much energy can you get out of size change during transfiguration (while transfiguring it or when the size change wears off)? Do transfigured magic items retain their magic functions? Can you transfigure something into a magic item, even temporarily? Do changes in object energy, e.g. temperature, make the transfiguration more difficult? I just reeled those off - the possibilities are mind-warping.

Note: This was written without reading the comments. I do that to give myself time to think without being influenced too much by other reviewers. Then I will go back and read.
Harry is making a fundamental mistake that he should know better than to make:
The people of magical Britain fully believe that Voldemort's main goal was to take over the government or simply overthrow it. Presumably the belief came about because this was Voldemort's stated goal, both to the Death Eaters and to others. Harry then bases his estimate of Voldemort's intelligence on this belief: in short, if Voldemort had all the resources he had and still failed to take over in ten years, he must not be that smart. However, Harry should know better than to base his presumptions on the presumptions of others around him, even if some of those people are smart and at least one (the defense professor) is also rational. Voldemort has no contraints as to honesty, so any stated purpose should be considered an attempt to manipulate those around him rather than his actual goal. The beliefs of others about his aspirations would be heavily influenced by Voldemort's own statements, so the credibility of any statement by other people of Voldemort's purpose that was influenced by Voldemort is also suspect. The degree that other's statements about Voldemort's purpose should be discounted is difficult to quantify but in general should be well-correlated with the degree of influence Voldemort had over their beliefs. But Voldemort had incredible control over other's beliefs both directly (he was a Legilimens with no compunctions about using the power) and indirectly through his statements and actions. Therefore, it should be clear that little if any information on Voldemort's main goals can be gained from his statements or the statements of basically anyone in magical Britain!
So, based on the available information, what is V's goal or goals? (Note that I do not have high confidence in this - they are based on generalities and limited evidence.) V's goal in general seems to be to force a reaction by increasing pressure / damage. For every worthy opponent he has (Dumbledore and David Monroe so far), he antagonizes them without killing them and without direct confrontation to see what they can do. Unless his aim is pure destruction, which seems unlikely based on the little we know, his aim is to get them to show hidden powers that he can then figure out and copy. Remember Snape on V. in Chapter 61: "... he would certainly learn his enemy’s strengths and try to redouble them himself. That is just how he thinks; any power he sees he will try to take for his own.". If V keeps doing that, he will eventually either a) be killed, hence the Horcrux backups, or b) be the most powerful wizard on the planet. And that sounds just like him.

"I don't know... I think maybe there's more to this than just a romance novel gone wrong. I think maybe most people haven't got any idea at all what's going on."

"Yes! Thank you!" burst out Dean Thomas. "Look - don't you realize - like Harry Potter told us all - if you didn't predict that something would happen, if it took you completely by surprise, then what you believed about the world when you didn't see it coming, isn't enough to explain..." Dean's voice trailed off, as he saw that nobody was listening. "It's completely hopeless, isn't it?"
[...]
"I mean it!" Chloe said. "What if what's really going on is different from all the, you know, normal things that all the ordinary people are talking about? What if somebody - made Granger do what she did, just like Potter was trying to tell everyone?"

"I think Chloe's right," said a foreign-looking boy wizard who always introduced himself as 'Adrian Turnipseed', though his parents had actually named him Mad Drongo. "I think this whole time there's been..." Adrian lowered his voice ominously, "...a hidden hand..." Adrian raised his voice again, "shaping all that's happened. One person who's been behind everything, from the beginning. And I don't mean Professor Snape, either."

"You don't mean -" gasped Sarah.

"Yes," Adrian said. "The real one behind it all is - Tracey Davis!"

"That's what I think too," Chloe said. "After all -" She glanced around rapidly. "Ever since that thing with the bullies and the ceiling - even the trees in the forests around Hogwarts look like they're shaking, like they're afraid -"

Seamus Finnigan was frowning thoughtfully. "I think I see where Harry gets his... you know... from," Seamus said, lowering his voice so that only Lavender and Dean could hear.

"Oh, I totally know what you mean," Lavender said. She didn't bother to lower her own voice. "It's a wonder he didn't crack and just start killing everyone ages ago."

"Personally," Dean said, also in a quieter voice, "I'd say the really scary part is - that could've been us."

"Yeah," said Lavender. "It's a good thing we're all perfectly sane now."

Dean and Seamus nodded solemnly.
/HarryPotter didit!

You're latest author's note says no one has gotten the "vrooping thingy".

I'd like to guess is it a sneakoscope?

One of the little doodads in Dumbledore's office is a Dark Detector and it's going off either from Harry's underhanded tactics to one-up Moody, someone else in the room isn't to be trusted, isn't it?

Marvelous as always - I'll try to leave a more comprehensive review later. But - I was reading your latest author's note and couldn't believe that nobody got the vroop-ing noise. It's the TARDIS, isn't it? Or not the actual TARDIS - because that would be a crossover too massive and amazing to contemplate - but it's a shout out to the TARDIS from Doctor Who. I understand that you can't reply to every review (19k! I was thrilled when I got 19k /views/), but if you could tell us whether I'm right or not, that would be amazing! Keep up the good work!

The strange thing to me about this is that Hermione still remembers doing this herself, and doesn't seem to find Harry's claims that she was False-Memory-Charmed so believable. It seems Harry should ask her for more details on that hypothesis. There are questions I'd love to ask her: "Why did you do it in the moment?" "How did you justify this to yourself later in the day?" "Where did you learn such a brutal killing curse?" Maybe these are coming in some later chapter?

Are you seriously done screwing with us, Sir? This was a serious WTF realisation.

First -
"Harry Potter nodded gravely. "Right, some spells are impossible to block. I'll remember that, in case anyone casts the Killing Curse at me. Again."
"That kind of cleverness gets people killed, boy, and don't you forget it."
A sad-sounding sigh from the Boy-Who-Lived. "I know. Sorry."

Now this one was real simple. Its James who Harry is talking about. That was quite a brutal reference though.

Second and the big one-
"But even if Granger was in love, it's still funny that she'd just snap like that," said Chloe...
"I don't know... I think maybe there's more to this than just a romance novel gone wrong. I think maybe most people haven't got any idea at all what's going on."
"What if what's really going on is different from all the, you know, normal things that all the ordinary people are talking about? What if somebody - made Granger do what she did, just like Potter was trying to tell everyone?"

Now that you said it in your latest author's notes, I had to look back at it, and reread. And now I know which is the one thing that went wrong. Snape and Lily's break up. Something about maybe Pettigrew/Sirius/James who charmed Lily/Severus?

I started reading HPMOR when Chapter 77 was the latest, and I've been absolutely addicted since I found it, just devouring it at first until I caught up to the in-progress mark, then anxiously awaiting each new chapter since. Your writing style is excellent and your plots extremely engaging, and when few things draw me out of a story like characters acting inconsistently (especially being overly stupid or illogical), HPMOR definitely avoids that pitfall. I've felt obligated to check out the Center for Applied Rationality and your other endorsed Rationalist resources, and I think I'll become a supporter of such endeavors all because this fanfiction put me onto them.

With that baseline praise out of the way, I'd just like to comment my thoughts on Harry's conclusions about the likelihood of Voldemort's intelligence, mainly criticisms of his reasoning (being well aware that Harry's reasoning on this matter isn't necessarily INTENDED to be perfectly accurate or in accordance of your own). It seems to me that Harry is making dangerous and untested assumptions about the vulnerability of the magical world to ingenuity. Certainly his experiences have given him evidence that there are many ways his brand of thinking can catch magical Britain off guard, but he is assuming that there are no defenses against imperius or the other magical threats he considers that he simply didn't see or isn't aware of. In order to be confident of these conclusions, he would have to propose a few of these potential tactics to someone (Probably Professor McGonagall, but possibly Moody or Dumbledore if she doesn't know) and ask whether they would really be as effective as he is assuming they would be, or if there are non-obvious precautions in existence which would prevent or diminish the effectiveness of many of the tactics he thinks Voldemort would've used if he was smart. It certainly seems that Moody doesn't tend to easily overlook potential threats. Come to think of it, I'd love to see a conversation between Harry and Moody on the topic; Harry's ingenuity versus Moody's paranoia, which runs deeper? I'm looking forward to seeing more of Moody in general actually, he's cunning and clever in an interestingly distinct way from that of Harry and Quirrell.

Anyway, back to the topic, although Harry puts down his probability estimations before learning of Professor Quirrell's potential true identity, the fact that Quirrell may have fought Voldemort, and if so, Quirrell had difficulty fighting Voldemort, also implies that Voldemort is intelligent; because since Quirrell has comparable intelligence to Harry, he would have used tactics along the lines of what Harry is thinking about in fighting Voldemort, IF he indeed fought him; and if Voldemort was able to withstand Quirrell under those circumstances, he was most likely intelligent himself.

Finally, it seems that some parts of Harry's reasoning could be applied to the Muggle world as well, and he's being a little inconsistent in only considering them in terms of the magical world. Sneaking toxin into your enemy's tea is just as possible and effective in the nonmagical world as in the magical; similarly, if Harry casually thinks that you could assassinate any official by mailing them a hand grenade, he could equally well think that any muggle could assassinate another muggle by rigging their car to explode or just waiting for the right opportunity to snipe them. In the Muggle world, and I would assume in the wizarding world as well without evidence to the contrary, a lot of the reason such things don't actually happen often (at least in politically stable countries) is a combination of the audacity the the evilness required to make such an attempt; and the rest is various forensic and precautionary measures (especially for political figures) that make such acts harder to commit than they might seem to be at first consideration, or at least harder to get away with. Thus, it would make sense to assume, unless given evidence to the contrary, that the wizarding world has comparable defenses against audacious and "cunning" crimes as does the muggle world.

Also, this is speculation, but Snape's "He was very cunning indeed..." drift off there has me thinking that there's still more to the Dark Mark puzzle than even has been revealed, or else at least some other secret of Voldemorts, that Snape is still unable to reveal. I guess time will tell if I'm right or wrong on that one.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the topic; and know that you've really got me wondering about what Voldemort will be like in your story. How smart will he be, where has he been hiding, what, if anything has he had a hand in among the events that have happened thus far... is he even alive at all? I've got to say, I certainly hope he is alive and a credible threat after all, because seeing what you've done with all the other characters, I can't wait to see what you could do with Voldemort. However, given how things have been written, I can definitely see that it might be in your plans that Voldemort really did die for good at Godric's hollow, or that he's alive but incompetent as a threat (I've even wondered if Voldemort might've been the nervous professor Quirrell spotted a couple times near the very beginning of the story, like in chapter 12 right before and after he addresses Hogwarts; like Voldemort is possessing Quirrell just like in The Sorcerer's Stone, only in this continuity Quirrell's calling the shots); but I've got to say, I'd be disappointed if that turned out to be the case.

I don't know if this is common knowledge to Potterverse scholars but I think that Voldemort was sincere with his offers to Lily.
If Lily would have stepped away then he could have just killed baby Harry and the prophecy would have been moot, Harry just dying to the curse.
If Lily would have willingly accepted to die in Harry's place then there would have been no reason for him to kill Harry.
Instead Lily chose to DEFY the Dark Lord for a THIRD time, thus making sure that Harry fits the prophecy and sealing Both Voldemorts and her sons fate.
Now in this universe Dumbledore said that he SHOWED the prophecy to the Potters. Judge them as you wish.
I may be mistaken as the prophecy could imply that the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord was born to those who ALREADY had defied him three times PREVIOUSLY. Does anyone know the three times the Potters defied Voldemort?

It's all so serious now. Dear humor, where have you gone?.. Too much darkness. I hope the light is coming)

I'm curious as to why the author has not yet visibly taken over the world.

said Moody. "I once arrested a young Japanese who tried a similar trick. He found out the hard way that his shadow replica technique was no match for this eye of mine."

OMG is that a Naruto reference? XD

I just wanted to point out that Harry learned about Snape being in love with his mother in Chapter 27. Why is this a surprise to him now?

"Ha!" said Moody. "If I ever say yes to that question, check me for Polyjuice, because it's not me."

Beautiful.

And one more thing, I am DIEING to know Draco's reaction to the murder, and more importantly, his reaction to the fact that Harry was so reluctant to follow his oath to make Dumbledore his enemy when all the evidences showed that Dumbledore did (pretended to?) murder Narcissa brutally.
As far as I am concerned, Harry's thoughts about letting Draco release him from his oath of making Dumbledore an enemy if Dumbledore really burnt Narcissa alive, should definitely be considered as a betrayal of their friendship.
Say, if Draco hated Harry for this, and then Harry would have an enemy who knowed the methods of rationality and muggle science, and had very impressive family background and money, and was quite clever and cunning. In this way, Harry would have made his own destinied enemy, - just like Dumbledore gave Grindelwald the idea "for the greater good", Harry gave Draco the methods of rationality.
My thoughts have gone to Harry's notion that if a war of race elimination began between muggles and wizards, Harry would be on the muggle side, instead of the wizarding side. While under such conditions, Draco (plus Quirrel and even Dumbledore) would definitely be on the wizarding side. (And the majority of "good" people would regret them ever being nice to muggleborns and muggles.) With Quirrel's idea of a light mark, this time the wizarding world would be united. With Harry's preference for democracy, the muggle world would be just as it is now, aka, divided.
That would be (another?) very interesting story.

NEW CHAPTER! MORE AWESOMNESS!

Epileptic trees, I see what you did there.

As always, an intriguing and multilayered chapter. Once my headache clears up (and how often have you heard *that* one before?) I'll try to work things out, from the viewpoint of someone in the situation. I have little hope, though.

yrs Larry Huss

For the first time I had a lightbulb moment!
Ha! Now I know why Harry lived!
After all, there are no more Cthulus.

"The Dark Lord... did not do anything to her, before she died?"

"He - the Dark Lord didn't torture her -" Harry said. "If that's what you're asking."

Oh dear, oh dear, Harry. The catch in the voice, the failure to deny things that are WORSE than torture to many minds, not directly answering the question, the surface naivete the Potions Master is pretty sure you don't actually have...

It's like God decided Snape hasn't suffered ENOUGH for betraying Lily.

This chapter was high drama, the other high comedy. Well done! Nice to see Harry back in style. I hope people aren't too angry with Hermione: she's a twelve-year old girl who likes romance and I think she's entitled to having comedic moments from her personal, insane Hogwarts rom-com.

Powerful chapter.

Uh, oh. Dumbledore totally told Snape that Voldemort had tortured Lily. Snape's gonna be real mad, now.

Thanks for writing this.

...So what? Voldemort planned to lose or something? Or he desired this situation, at least?

Well, Thank you. Still being entertaining despite dealing with serious matters (Severus' mind, Mc Gonagall's dilemmas or Moody's experiences belonging to this field) in the story seems quite an ordeal to me. You don't even fall into parody, the analysis about a dumb-Voldie being just perfectly accurate to harry's way of thinking are fun but coherent, for instance..and thus the reader approves of it ! You're story is SO rich generically it fascinates me quite a lot. It must be horribly complicated to write, though, in order to have us (readers) compelled into Harry's tortuous way of conceiving things. Keep cheering me up anyway ! (and sorry for the inevitable orthographical/syntaxical mistakes of a poor French girl who learned English by reading Harry Potter)

I'm with McGonagall on this one: "Don't mind me. I'll just sit here quietly going mad." I'm not sure what the hell is happening, all I know is that it's epic.

*Waves hand* Carry on. I need a drink. I'll be here when the crazy ride continues.

So I do love this story but I think I might be lost with all the different plots. I do believe that the black clock or the white lady is behind the her minor thing but I don't know who it is. As it could be a yet unknown player. I do know that I'm really glade to one be in collage two be a biology major and three really good at physics and psyc and have to have minor in chemistry otherwise this fic would be over my head. As it is i fell like I'm missing something huge maybe it's because I read this fic in a short amount of time but still.
Anyway I do like this story because it makes you think. Well I'm going to bed till 7.
One last note my birthday is Saturday
That is all
Till next time
WHB

Okay. Okay.

So.

I have a few problems with this.

First of all, the use of terms and situations that the readers don't understand. In earlier chapters, you would do this, and then you would EXPLAIN the reference. That was something I liked. It was educational. Now, however, you're simply calling on references and expecting the audience to understand. I get that it would be irritating to have to explain everything, but it gets to a point where your fanfiction gets mixed up with your essays. And that's not good, because the result of this mixture fails to do the job of either a fanfiction OR an essay. Remember, the people who read this are unlikely to be previously familiarized with such sources.

Now, I don't think you're doing this on purpose, but to a reader who doesn't BREATHE the terms you use because they aren't in your field, it seems as though the only reason you include these are to make Harry seem smart. To you, it may seem natural for Harry to use such sources. To your readers, it seems pretentious, as though they are meant to consider Harry's educated-sounding thoughts as far beyond them. That brings me to another problem.

Harry is becoming a bit of a Gary Stu. He is portrayed as being far more intelligent than others, to the point that he becomes the center of all intelligent thought. Mcgonagall and Dumbledore are reduced to gasping over Harry's complex reasoning. I find it worrying that Harry doesn't bother to try to explain things to them because "they wouldn't understand." Also, Minerva is shown as being bewildered by Harry's discussion with Moody. The only characters NOT bewildered are Alastor, who is being spun as hypercompetent right now, and Quirrel, who is an established mentor figure.

Particularly disturbing was the scene with Dean. The way non-rationalists are portrayed is ridiculous. The whole scene gives me the feeling that the main characters have just converted to a religion and are mocking the practitioners of the old, who are characterized as shallow and wildly fanciful. It's really like you're saying that characters are !stupid until they are "saved" by Harry, who shows them the way of rationality. Mcgonagall herself is "he couldn't expect a witch to understand that." It reeks of superiority.

Furthermore, Harry has never been beaten. He has made mistakes with consequences, and learned lessons, but he has not been defeated in what he considers his own field. No one has out-reasoned him. Hermione has beaten him academically, but she is characterized as accomplishing this due to hard work and memorization, rather than being smarter than Harry. If Harry were to be defeated when he thought he had outsmarted the opponent BECAUSE the opponent outsmarted him, it would help to dispel this.

This is what I have to say. I hope that you won't simply think of this as a flame, because science forbids dismissing any argument on the ground that it is unreasonable without actually making it clear what said fallacy is.

Waiting for a reply,

A concerned constructive critic.

Wow. Just wow.

I loved how this chapter was divided into multiple hypothesis. And all of the chapter, really.

Dear Lord. I wonder what's about to happen?

His hand rose up, absently rubbed at his forehead.

For reasons beyond the obvious.

lich's phylactery

Harry's general arrogance in dismissing Voldemort's intelligence. As a good Bayesian facing a human opponent, he should NOT stop after imagining a scenario where an intelligent Voldemort leads to a result not observed, until he's at least TRIED to imagine a scenario where an intelligent Voldemort leads to the observed results. Such as the (for us) obvious one: Voldemort was a cutaway identity intended to serve as a foil for a "good" hero who'd beat Voldie and be acclaimed as a leader.

Comedy scene... merely passable. The mundane's stupidity is believable, and the chaotic's contempt for them is justified. However, what's not believable is that the mundanes collectively don't come up with anything interesting, as opposed to just humorous. They're not stupider than the chaotics, just less rational; and that's really hard to do right, so it's not surprising that the author doesn't quite pull it off.

No sneaky trick to dominating the dementor... not strictly true, it requires prior showmanship to set up the audience's expectations.

just as she cried "Stop!"... yes, Minerva is the POV character here, but that's still jarring because it's been 3 paragraphs since she's been mentioned or had a comment.

The Eye can beat the Cloak... interesting take. The Hallows are not really supreme artifacts, there are plenty unique artifacts in this 'verse, and any of them may be supreme in its way. Still, it would be cooler if the Eye only saw some secondary effect of Harry's presence, such as the lack of air in that part of the room.

since it only works as a finishing move on an unshielded opponent... so Moody's giving Harry extra chances. Also, Harry has to use this spell again later, but it would be cheesy if this were the true finale.

Legilimens instead of imperio? WTF? How does mind-reading sub for control at that fine a resolution? And if it does, why would the wards treat it as less of a threat than imperius?

Quirrel's hesitations and non-reactions... hard time saying these are clues.

Hagrid question... clearly he's checking to see if Quirrel obviously fails to know something Monroe would, though it's weak evidence.

McGonagall is too clueless in this chapter.

but when you think about, she had to try ... missing an "it"

Overall: hmmm... I don't actually see too much that's very significant in this chapter's dialogue. Harry learns about Monroe, Snape learns how Lily died. The rest of it is a lot of words; certainly, nothing Quirrel says or hears tells us anything but what he wants us to think he wants us to think, basically useless; and the dark mark stuff, aside from making everybody completely stupid for not considering the possibility that Quirrel is Voldemort, doesn't actually have a lot of useful clues. So, OK, there have been better chapters, and I see why this one wasn't too fun. Next.

Friday, April 10th? Quite possibly the most Ominous typo ever.

I thought this chapter was just amazing. I also appreciate SO MUCH the use of "hypothesis" and not "theory." Totally great writing. Thank you!

Great chapter! Some potential clues that I noticed that I might consider attempting to piece together given more time/energy:
- That Quirrel refers to the professor who perhaps got Legilawhatever'd in Hogsmeade as female despite the default gender being male (though this could be because his foremost suspect was supposedly Sinistra)
- The slight pause when Quirrel hears Harry call Sprout the last person anyone would suspect
- Quirrel's pause when Harry talks about love
- The power the Dark Lord knows not (see above)
- The rules Harry postulates (?) regarding the state of mind necessary to use the Killing Curse, vs. what happened in Azkaban when Quirrel fired it at the guard (or can this be handwaved away by the "little bit of cracking" thing?)
- Harry never considered the obvious possibility that the Dark Lord was indeed smart, and simply didn't have killing the opposition as his primary goal, or had a more overarching goal that would require more subtlety
- The second prophecy that we, the readers, likely forgot about just like Harry, that Eliezer wanted to remind us of (but how did Harry forget? we have an excuse because this fic is just one of many things we concern ourselves with)
- The subject of the second prophecy (someone not already here - Mad-Eye? Lucius? the shade of Voldy?)
- The "device of power" that lets Voldy bargain with/possess people (? or is this a red herring?)
- That Voldy can Legilawhatever people without them even noticing, maybe (also a red herring, I hope? seems kind of broken OP)
- Snape's reason for asking about the story, and whether Lily suffered

Of course, I have no idea how many of these are insignificant, how many are significant but an intentional move on Quirrel's part, and how many are real insights as to the inner workings of the mystery. I am assuming that nothing listed is something that Harry deliberately made a show of not noticing/thinking about, as we mostly get his perspective on the mystery. Perhaps it is unwise, but I consider him the "detective", by Umineko standards :)

Though, there IS the matter of the question of Hagrid's framing. I'm not clear what Harry intended to accomplish with that question, but it seems... out of place enough to be a possible plot on his part. To establish that Quirrel readily knew that information, which does seem admittedly odd? But then, he readily knows lots of unexpected things...

Alway nice to read a new chapter!

I always love reading how you make Harry think. No one else writes characters quite like you can.

I absolutely love your story.
Even if I always have a mild headache after reading a new chapter.

But the strange thing is that I actually understand at least half the stuff Harry is talking about. I'm not sure, but I may have made a similar statement someWHEN previously.

It's not so much strange "because I lack mental capacity and ability to suspend my disbelief" strange, but rather "this is not my primary language, I did not know my brain is so creative at interpreting foreign language, enough so that it makes correct assumptions while obviously lacking necessary scope of information for references (which is a nice sort of discovery that serves as further evidence of my mind being linguistically wired)" strange.

Yes, I realise it might take you several re-reads to make sense of that sentence.
I'm afraid I'm incapable of making it less twisted at this point in time.
THAT is what your story does to my brain.

And no, I don't hate it.
Though everybody else might.
Because I'm usually inclined to express myself in the range of big and scary words and complicated structures, without actually meaning to sound so... Well, SO.
My mind is wired that way. It's rather inclined towards creating things like "Scientifically impossible improbability that happens anyway" and leans towards all sorts of complicated.
Very frustrating for ordinary people.
And no, I'm not implying that I'm extraordinary enough to warrant a special category just for myself.

Please excuse my ramblings

In a few days, it will occur to Severus: "wait, it sounds like she cut him a deal."

I am so glad he's finally moving on. Twenty-three years of being in unreciprocated love, the last ten years of which the object of his love was dead - I think it would be enough to break anyone.

Thank you for updating. :)

At the 22 point in the chapter, I had this thought that could be disseminated into the area of the chapter somehow, or used by you later if you would wish it.

"It was like adding one and one and getting two. While this is not necessarily the wrong answer, the answer might have been one-zero instead. At the same time, the adage for hearing zebras also came to mind, meaning the answer still might have been two."

Seventeen unincanted Sagitta Magica? That'd probably hurt a great deal if you're unprepared. Wonder if Moody has an elemental affinity on his arrows?

Very good, like all your chapters. Very much enjoyed Harry once again abusing time travel for fun and profit in order to beat Moody.

Moody's nice.

"The story will next update on December 21st at 7PM Pacific Time." As long as the Mayans did not accurately predict singularity... Sorry had to be said. Love the story.

...harry's getting kind of arrogant and cynical. I feel like youre making him a little too smart

Great, long, chapter. Reading such explicit Bayesian reasoning was fun.

:0 amazing

you know its funny. When I read this fic, I notice a lot of simularities to the Lovecraft crossovers I've read.
I guess its because rational thought doesn't come as easily to me.
I can breeze through my political thought classes with ease but I had a lot of trouble with that empirical research class.

I spend my days reading books like, 'Butterfly Kisses' and 'But Not the Hippopotamus'. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I needed this.

On the Phoenix choice: There is no shame in being a child of Nayru rather than Farore.

Can’t quite decide what amused me more. The chaos crew imagining that they are sane or Harry’s efforts to take down Mad Eye.

So McGonagall was all like "You can't beat him that's impossible!" and then she was all like "Maybe you can beat him no wait that's impossible!" and then she was all like "How did you beat him that's impossible!" and because she kept saying Moody was a badass we believed it even though the only thing we've seen him do is lose to a little kid. Hahaha just kidding Moody sucks.

all hail the magnificent lessrong

thank you for making the killing curse worthy of its name so many stories have belittled the spell

Only one other has truly done what you have done
Harry-Potter-and-the-Temporal-Beacon

the killing curse can only be blocked with a soul and last somebody else has picked up on this fact

Personally I would have a suit made out of animals problem taking care let's see a permanent transfiguration

I must agree with harry the dark Lord was not fighting cleverly his role Was more of somebody who truly want to drive out the conflict and profit from it in some other manner

did he plan for his character to fail and take over as the hero? the headmaster was a brilliant example to copy

I must wonder will the Phoenix comeback he did say something about how be ready at a later date not now and if such a good can somehow psychically pick out those Pacific humans with such a mental state then it shouldn't be that hard to artificially make and then magically bind the bird to your service

it's militarily advantage is quite strong

I love love LOVE the hypothesis-defense-etc. scenes here. Everything about them. The way Harry thinks, the way McGonagall reacts, the way you explain it, the whole thing.

I also greatly enjoyed the fight with Moody - ESPECIALLY the explanation of how Moody was giving him a chance rather than stunning all of his invisible selves the moment the fight began.

Really this is truly excellent work. This is now one of my favorite chapters of this book.

Also, the updated ending of the previous chapter was heart-rending. Great job.

'Albus paused. "There are terrible rituals by which wizards have returned from death," Albus said slowly. "That much, anyone can discern within history and legend. And yet those books are missing, I could not find them; it was Voldemort who removed them, I am sure -"...Harry sighed. "Proof, Headmaster? There are only ever probabilities. If there are known, particular books on immortality rituals which are missing, that increases the probability that someone attempted one. Which, in turn, raises the prior probability of the Dark Lord surviving his death. This I concede, and thank you for contributing the fact. The question is whether the prior probability goes up enough."'

or

'"See, that's what I mean by formally insufficient Bayesian evidence. Sure, it sounds all grim and foreboding and stuff, but is it that unlikely for a magical mark to stay around after the maker dies? Suppose the mark is certain to continue while the Dark Lord's sentience lives on, but a priori we'd only have guessed a twenty percent chance of the Dark Mark continuing to exist after the Dark Lord dies. Then the observation, 'The Dark Mark has not faded' is five times as likely to occur in worlds where the Dark Lord is alive as in worlds where the Dark Lord is dead. Is that really commensurate with the prior improbability of immortality? Let's say the prior odds were a hundred-to-one against the Dark Lord surviving. If a hypothesis is a hundred times as likely to be false versus true, and then you see evidence five times more likely if the hypothesis is true versus false, you should update to believing the hypothesis is twenty times as likely to be false as true. Odds of a hundred to one, times a likelihood ratio of one to five, equals odds of twenty to one that the Dark Lord is dead -"'

This is all so painful to read. Why does it have to be expressed in this ridiculously verbose way? You know that working in frequencies is so much easier for humans to think about and removes many flaws in thinking, so why not just say something like 'of all the thousands of dark wizards who have sought to return from death, you say only a few ever succeeded; if half of all magical marks faded with the death of their master and the Dark Mark didn't, is that really enough to show he returned from death?' etc. I hope you realize how offputing it is and this is deliberate as part of making a flawed Harry, but I think it's a bad idea since it's just going to mess up many readers who will skim over it all without trying to understand or many will react with Snape that it's just so much intellectual flim-flam.

(Also, Harry's lack of interest in the second prophecy after such detailed scrutiny of the first prophecy, and indeed, completely ignoring that 'he is coming' and will 'tear apart' things certainly could refer to a revived Voldemort, is a rather off-note assuming it wasn't deliberate, and shouldn't have needed Quirrel to point it out.)

Well done!

Temporal Fugue! Awesome.

I especially like how you use the different houses to depict different aspects of Harry's mind. It is almost like Harry has multiple personalities.

After reading the last chapter, i was very disappointed that there would be no expansion on phoenixes and that scene to me felt like it was written on a whim without much thought except for the fact that harry was worthy of a phoenix and et cetera. This story had my attension at the start because it was funny and interesting but it faded somewhere at chapter 60, it is now way to dark and it is a surprise that harry did not commit suicide because he had to deal with this much shit on his first year.
You ought to progress into year 2 as quickly as possible.

Holy. Crap. I was alternately giggling, cheering, and grinning like a mad thing through the entire chapter. Highlights included Lockhart (I *wondered* if you were going to bring him in) and the Harry/Moody fight (awesome awesome *awesome* - I believe it's the first example of MOR!verse-style duelling between advanced quasi-equals, and may there be many more!)

And Snaaaape. He seems as vulnerable and sympathetic as if he'd walked out of a typical Snapefic (well, you do seem to be homaging other fic every which way, it's only logical), and it's made all the better by the fact that the narrative doesn't (can't?) linger on him much.

And an extra "what the hell is going *on* here?" for The Great Identity Hash surrounding the Defense Professor/Quirrell/Riddle/Voldemort/Monroe/etc., etc. He's still as awesome and enthralling as ever, and ridiulously difficult to properly hate. Which is probably your point.

In short, when is the 21st going to get here already?

Did you just make a reference to 'A Black comedy'? Huh...

Interesting chapter. While I wish the pace was faster, I enjoy the detail. It's one of the things that I always looks forward to in stories. The redo of chapter 85 was very nice. Looking forward to more.

In Harry's place, I'd look up the most awful curse that Professor Quirrell had mentioned.

Great chapter. Now I actually do suspect Snape.

Every time I read this story I love it a bit more. I admit it goes over my head a little, but I love it all the more for that.

You made a Naruto reference interesting.

Ah Harry always reasoning always thinking his internal debates give a good internal critic and think tank.

I do wonder why he lied to Snape about what really happened did he do it to spare his feelings or set him down very gently as he removed his morality chain.

Thanks for recognizing my existence and the Dude's more rationality will come.

Ahh can't wait for the next one! Thanks for telling us exactly when it will be released! :)

The way you just seem to randomly decide to switch up the chapter layout - and this one with it's multiple little stories - is brilliant. Plus the Discworld reference . . . one of the best HP stories here, if not the best.

I don't think Harry's right about Voldemort being stupid - for one thing, he did have the constraint of not wanting to kill many wizards (after all, his ultimate goal was magical superiority over muggles), and he was fighting people with equal abilities and similar cunning, so it's not surprising he didn't wipe them out (after all, even regular wars seem to have unlimited possibilities, but once you actually get there it's a lot harder to win then it seems). By the books at any rate Voldemort did try imperiusing and the like, but there are ways to fight that. Of course, I wouldn't expect an eleven-year old to know this difference - you need some experience with good ideas that just don't work before you understand that coming up with all-winning plans is harder than it seems.
About the Snape/Lily thing, it would probably have been weird and so on if it was in real life, but it made for a great story, so you have to be careful when changing it to be more realistic - you run a risk of breaking the fourth wall, by confusing your stories with reality. That story could be put into the books only because they were stories, and not real life. If you try to make your story less storylike, you can't just take Snape's eternal love unchanged (like the rule about giving Sauron a deathstar if you give Frodo a lightsaber).
Also, nice Hogfather reference.

There are no words for the sheer spectacularness.

Your Snape is amazing. Your Moody equally so.

I'm still waiting to hear about the ramifications of Hermione's oath. I'm trusting there will be some. That seems too important to not have ramifications.

Once again, Harry's internal debates were hilarious.

I see what you meant about that chapter having lots of fiddly stuff, but it stayed interesting, and the parts with Snape were simply heartbreaking. I can't wait for the next chapter.

You, my 'friend' have a sense of humor.

Awesome story.

You've forgotten how to tell your story concisely. At some point you abandoned your commitment to leaving out the boring bits. Was it when you decided to write a Hugo-winning novel instead of a fanfic?

And you've lost McGonagall's voice. :(

Thank you for writing. I love this fic.

As always your book is amazing. I call it a book not a story due to the fact that is is seven times the length of the first Harry Potter book. I can only imagine how long the entire series of yours will be if they need to go that long.

How probable is it that the world will end before you post the next chapter?

Yet again, an awesome new chapter of HPMOR. I think I liked the bits about Mad Eye Moody and Snape best. Brilliant stuff, and so very, very true to the characters...

This was a very well-written chapter. I like how Harry is learning that even though he is very intelligent and rational he is not the only person in Magical Britain that has these traits. I liked that Voldemort's Dark Marks are not as stupid as they appear to be. It's great that you don't have Harry make the classic 'fictional smart person' mistake of discounting the existence and effects of love. But my favorite part of the chapter was the fight between Harry and Moody.

Goddammit Harry, notice that your initial reason for distrusting Dumbledore - believing that he sent your parents to their death basically on purpose - has been falsified: Dumbledore didn't leak the prophecy as you suspected, Snape and McGonagall both just happened to be there!

Granted the Narcissa issue remains, but jeez, add that to your Bayesian model, please.

Harry learns (maybe) that his information on how the wizarding world works is limited and thus it is may not be as foolish as it originally appears. He's not going to really get this until he seriously entertains the notion of an intelligence stronger than himself, though.

In this fic, Voldemort/Quirrell is at least as strong a rationalist as Harry; therefore, rationalism is not the "power the dark lord knows not". So what is? Is it going to be selfless love, again? If so, how the hell can this fic pull that off without being as cloying as the original?

I kind of hope it's something more creative, but I have no notion as to what it could possibly be.

The sections with just Quirrell and Harry have been tiresome basically ever since Azkaban, and here especially. Little new information or growth here. I'm quite happy with the rest, though!

Welcome back. :)

Breaking Bellatrix out of Azkaban should have been the End of year ONE, not 2, I mean :P

Azkaban should have ended Year One, I mean :P

So I think that a number of people infrequently keep mentioning the pacing is an issue: namely, the chapters are paced well to read, but the timeline in the story is...stretching Time just too much. It's exactly like how comic books have been around for about 60-70 years, but the characters would have to be hundreds of years old for all of the stories that have been told about them to have happened to the same person.

Harry isn't a First Year anymore. That's just implausible, and the implausible doesn't make as much sense as the impossible.

I think I understand that you are not going to have the same 'End Of Year Adventures' in the same order at the same rate as the original books did. I fully DON'T expect to see the Diary Horcrux to feature in Year Two, for example, or the Locket in Year Six, or the Tri-Wizard Tournament to happen at all.

And I have a feeling that the Philosopher's Stone is going to feature as importantly to your Story as the Deathly Hallows did to Rowling's, because that's just the way Ravenclaw!Harry is going to see the Stone. It's going to knock his brain so completely flat on its ass, and either the Stone doesn't work at all in your version, or if it DOES work, it's one of those "Instant Global Win Condition"/"Instant Extinction Event" things. So I'm fine with you hiding it in the background and bringing it out at the very end. :)

But the Azkaban Arc SHOULD have ended Year 2, the Heroines Arc should have been the beginning of Year 2, and the Wizengamot should have almost sent Hermione Granger to Azkaban at the end of Year 2. I get that you are 'packing time denser' here, and I like that actually, because it reinforces "Harry is BAMF Prodigy", buti t seems you've done it too much and I might write Fanfiction of this Fanfiction. Well- that is something that can't really be helped at this point, isn't it?

I'm with McGonagall. At this point, I am just along for your characters' ride, and I just hope they don't blow up Hogwarts before Hermione Granger is safely graduated, because the Class of 1991 needs an education! :P I have absolutely stopped trying to solve this before I read it. Your work is a Rubik's Cube, given Book Form.

You BEAT Agatha Christie.

Well the update for chapter 85 was awesome. Chapter 86 was like a Clue who did it mystery. And we have updates in time for the podcast to go on a little longer. We learned a little about Guirells supposed identity and that was great fight between Harry and Mad Eye. This chapter finally received a little humility. But only a little.

Why would a clever dark lord stop there where the mark is concerned? If you can stop people from talking based on fullfilled conditions I don't see what's to stop from making people say something when other conditions are met. In that case, Snape's explanation could be a pre-made line of bullshit that Voldemort came up with. The lifting part that occurs when the correct test is administered seems to have the goal of preventing identification from taking place but obviously doesn't account for a Death Eater willing to talk either because of his freewill or because he is under threat of torture. I find it hard to believe that someone who designed something this complex did not take steps to prevent just that...

Anyway, great chapter!

Wow. Quite the chapter there. There's all sorts of evidence floating around for the whodunit, isn't there... I could go into why I think Quirrell was pretending to be Voldemort in order to make himself into a hero as Monroe before he got disillusioned with that. But, I'm going to throw that out the window and say it was Luna, in the study with the candlestick. I look forward to more. Thanks for writing!

I've been loving this story (though it's a bit odd at times) but one thing keeps bugging me. You're calling them Lawyers (and using a lot of other Americanisms) when in GB they're usually known as Solicitors (and, of course, the rest of the Americanisms- not many I could see here, but some). Just a little odd, to me.

Awesome!

Another powerful, excellent chapter. Thank you very much for updating.

I'm really interested by your Harry's dealings with both Alastor and Dumbledore. Quirrel continues to be a fabulous character-also Minerva-but those first two are so intriguing. I also loved the debate with the three Ravenclaw voices.

Very, very interesting about Severus, and I wonder how much this new information will change him. The idea that he's spent ten years imagining that one night is both horrible and fascinating, and Harry's subtle editing of the dialogue was interesting as well. Great work.

›› EXPERTS LIST TOP 28 REASONS
TO BELIEVE IT'S (the insanity of their lawmakers) ALREADY HAPPENED
Major laugh-out-loudage with the headlines; thanks! :D

Nice nod to Nonjon.

Thanks for the update.

And the cornucopia of HPMOR is back! Thank you.

Praise:
I know that presenting clearly rationality concepts such as bayesian probabilities is the whole point of your story, but I can't resist lauding how clearly you've conveyed the bayesian method in this chapter. And you made it FUN! You deserve a cookie.

More Praise:
There is not a single line in this chapter that isn't fun, or witty, or plot-furthering, or thought-provoking, or ingenious. You're crafting a work of art! You deserve a state-of-the art hagiography.

Favorite Parts:
I had missed Harry's inner voices. I hope they'll feature prominently in the chapters still to come.

Plots within Plots:
At this point I can't figure out whether I should give good odds to this being the case: Quirrell/Voldemort framed Hermione knowing that Harry would save her through a binding which Quirrell could potentially threaten to undo, if he threatened Harry to reveal himself as a Munroe. He would then use this leverage for something.

But perhaps Quirrell simply wanted to remove Hermione from the equation, and have her taken out of so, what would be his motive for doing so? Hermione was not a threat to him nor would she detract Harry from fighting him, should this be Quirrell's ultimate wish. I believe there is a low probability to there being no elaborate plots arching overhead Draco's staged assassination attempt. The plots, furthermore, most probably target Harry, because they are most probably plotted by Quirrell.

If Quirrell-Voldemort wants to fight Harry in the future (whether for fun or for keeps), then presumably he wishes to gain information on Harry's modus operandi during real battles. He has already observed how Harry battles in training. But would he have set up Hermione just to see how Harry would react? Perhaps. But I think odds are that he grafted additional goals upon this plot. Perhaps he felt there was a chance Harry would break into Azkaban to rescue Hermione, and he planned to use this second break-in somehow, for his entertainment or advantage.

Perhaps he thought Harry might end up losing his money-perhaps he even magically induced Lucius Malfoy to ask for a large sum and planned the whole thing as a possible outcome-and he wanted to keep the game interesting by taking away Harry's fortune just to see how Harry would manage after this.

And there are many more possible plots that loom behind the framing of Hermione. I'm eager to find out what they will be, for its quite probably going to be even more awesome than anything I could dream up.

One thing is certain : Voldemort is incredibly smart. As a reader of this story, I have an advantage over Harry, though I may not be a bright as he is : I know that he has a writer aiming for coherence and I know what rules his writer is following. You are very likely following the fiction-writing guidelines you posted on your user profile. And the first rule states that if you give a superpower to your fiction hero, you have to give similar or compensating power to his nemesis. Therefore I think that since Harry is a genius, your story cannot have any other Voldemort than a fantastically smart one.

I like the A Black Comedy reference with David Monroe. There's a ton of parallels there, aren't there?

Harry, stop trying to out-paranoid Moody. You will never succeed.

I'm a long time reader and this is my first reveiw.
What has spured me to reveiw is what I honestly consider to be THE BEST portrayal of Moody in fanfiction.
Regards,
FriedIce

I've noticed that some readers don't like the fact that Harry's still in his first year. So I just wanted to say that I think it makes things more funny and awesome to have such a young Harry, at least for me. It's not perfectly realistic, granted, but perfectly realistic isn't something I want in my fiction. That would be ridiculous.

groovy chapter. Big changes on the way. looking forward to it.

Another great chapter.

Thanks for the update.

Ok, that was awesome even by the standarts of this fic. Plot, jokes, characterization, foreshadowing and worldbuilding all neatly packaged together. The writing may be slow, but it's worth it given that this is now my favorite piece of fiction ever, surpassing all other fanfics and published stories I've read with coniderable margin.

7pm? i read this in the UK at 3am! reading and rereading the update and some of the previous (which are all awesome) was exhausting. i have christmas shopping to do and i keep falling asleep and having crazy hpmor dreams! no complaints about the chapter itself though. it was exactly what i've been waiting for, and moody was super excellent! CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Aaaand it BACK! And on track too, with the major plot progressing and everything :D
I didn't mind the heroines side-plot as much as some other reviewers, but this return to the high-stakes tension with HJP at his finest is rather aaawwesome!

Oh. Yeah. This not-strictly-necessary-but-totally-awesome fight scene is totally awesome. Good polyjuice reference too.

I hope to see a lot more Moody, though I expect that simulating him is more computationally expensive than normal, since he's dangerously sane. It feels like Professor Quirrell realizes things in a more plot-based way, while Alastor Moody realizes things in a more awesome-based way.

A long-awaited chapter that doesn't disappoint! The rationality and layers of deception were deliciously Slytherin in this installment of hp:mor - and Mad Eye Moody was a surprising but fantastic cameo. As usual however, the segments with the Defense Professor were the most interesting. Bravo, and thanks for the hard work you put into writing the fic! (even if it's likely just another step in your plot for world domination :P)

It was good to see Moody finally brought into the story, reified as the badass that Rowling could never truly pull him off as.

Criticism time.

This chapter was too long. It's reflective of one of your weaknesses as a writer - your need to move things along. We're five hundred thousand words in, and yet it's still April of Harry's first year in Hogwarts. This doesn't just test credulity, it annihilates it and pulverizes its bleeding corpse into the ground. I don't care how much of a genius Harry is, or that he has a time turner that gives him a 26 hour daily cycle. There is no freaking way he could be possibly expected to balance his academic workload with all of the shenanigans that have gone on this year. If you had a mention of Harry beginning to fail his classes, sure, I'd buy it, but as the situation stands...not a chance.

You would have been much, much better off ending year 1 with the Escape from Azkaban arc. Or having a new arc taking place just after Azakaban that FINALLY resolves the Philosopher's stone. The aftermath of that would have been a fantastic time for Harry to have a summer vacation, anyway. The Wizengamot confrontation could have happened at the end of year two. You could have used the 'hero' arc as a lighthearted arc taking place in the early parts of year two, finally resolving the mysteries of Riddle's diary with the ending of the second year.

In my opinion, it was an unadulterated mistake to have the Hermione/Draco incident happen in Harry's first year. It should have been saved for his second or third year, if not his fourth or fifth. You took both characters out of Harry's life too soon in the game. Without them to challenge and ground him, he's going to be leaving Hogwarts by the end of his third or fourth year at the latest - his current progression is too fantastic as it is, having magical abilities and erudition greater than that of most upper-year students. Without them, am I honestly supposed to believe that Harry is going to be staying in Hogwarts for long? Without them, how in the world do you intend to make me, the reader, interested in Harry's life as a student? None of his peers are even remotely on his level, and he can't have adult conversations and out-of-Hogwarts adventures 24/7.

End this, Yudowski. Whatever your plot bunnies are, put them on hold and immediately start the arc dealing with the Philosopher's Stone and the unravelling of Quirrel. Let Voldemort finally show himself, and let this first year end. You've tested the perceptive reader's believability-capacity for the content of a single year for long enough. Harry can't take much more of this. He needs a summer vacation to figure out how he's going to deal with the rest of his life. Let's not have anything too serious happening during his summer...his life is too dark as it is for an eleven year old. I'd be satisfied with Harry coming up with some ingenious method of earning at least a hundred thousand galleons for the one summer - hopefully involving a method that includes travel instead of the financial shenanigans you initially hypothesized would work. He could also visit other magical schools and do some research on the side - possibly involving methods of storing magical energy into crystal-batteries, an ability that would be right up Harry's alley. Regarding the raising of funds and the clearing of his debt to Malfoy, there's no way that the goblins haven't seen clever attempts at intra-economy arbitrage before. There is no realm in which financiers show more ingenuity than arbitrage. Hell, the goblins themselves probably play that trade along with eating their daily breakfast crumpets. If Harry is to raise a lot of funds, let it be something more ingenious than petty financial wheedling. For example, judicious applications of Point Me spells to find natural resources.

I look forward to your next chapter. Just keep what I've said in consideration, and good luck on achieving the Center's objectives.

This fanfiction is fantastic!
But there are one or two stuff that I would like to see Harry Potter do that are unlikely to happen.
1)a. Become a raven animagus (but not have his patronus become a raven) and make his maurader nickname Nevermore (he doesn't have to complete the transformation; just learn that his animagus is a raven).
1)b. Next time he destroys a dementor, he should say 'Now I am becom Nevermore, the destroyer of death'
1)c. Buy Hermione a bust of Pallas and an obscure book that can only be read within the hours of 11p.m. and 1a.m. (probably just an O-make)

2) This has already been foreshadowed, but Harry should use a Dementor cloak to make his own Deathly Hallows.

3) Maybe you should write

I apologise if this seems anything like flaming. This is probably one of the best fanfictions I have ever read and I hope you write more in the future. Thank you for taking the time out of your job and life to write this. Thank you again.
(sorry about the typing. my keyboard has issues)

Heavy stuff. Well written as always.

... Oh, Mad-Eye. Best Mad-Eye. You and Harry will get along like a house on fire.

And Gilderoy Lockhart? Really now? :P

And gee, that's not ominous. Not closing the Snape snippet, releasing the next chapter on the day of the end of the world...

Thank you for acknowledging a magical world outside of great Britain.
Thank you for creating a plausible scenario as to why Dumbledoor would have ever considered hiring Lockheart.
Thank you for your beautiful, accurate rendition of Moody.

Perhaps I am seeing clues where there are none but don't think I didn't notice that unQuirrell like pause after 'the last person anyone would suspect'. Am I detecting playing levels? Is this some bizarre plot where Harry himself was the attempted murderer? Was it a red herring? Was it really professor Sprout?

I never use to think that everyday life was so full of convoluted plots until I read this fan fiction. But as the proverb goes it's not paranoia if you're right...

Completely and utterly worth the wait. I was reading this while standing and several times almost toppled over from the sheer force of the awesome. I haven't had to stop reading so often to say OMG DID THST JUST HAPPEN so often since the penultimate Tom Wolfe novel in read. HPMOR DELIVERS.

"A magically embodied preference for death over life, striking within the plane of pure life force... that does sound like a difficult spell to block."

To which I would ask four questions:

Does the Killing Curse affect animals or just intelligent life forms?

Can you throw a squirrel into the path in some way, perhaps with a charm to auto-trigger the shield?

Does it have to be a whole soul or does just a piece of one stop the Curse?

Can you fracture someone or something else's soul and throw horcruxes at the Curse?

If the answer to all four is yes, then I would suggest devising a charm to make little gemstones orbit you and seek (perhaps a modified bludger charm?) Killing Curses aimed at you. Each gemstone is infused with a chunk of a dead mouse or squirrel's life force. Suddenly the Killing Curse is not unblockable any more.

Another possibility, is if a shield exists that is impermeable to souls, would it block a Killing Curse too?

Interesting update. So posting the next chap on the day the world ends (yes I know it's bunk)

At last! I was already afraid that your convoluted surreal labyrinth of probabilities had led readers into thin air.
And Severus Snape himself might or might not be even remotely trustworthy.
Severus Snape has honour, but his morals and goals are deeply hidden even from his allies.
Albus Dumbledore seemed to have started out with ideals at least as strong as Harry's own, if not stronger; and Dumbledore hadn't gotten through his war without killing enemies and sacrificing friends.
The war would not have started in the first place had you been better at making friends. Instead, Albus made enemies.
Batman is a murderer no less than the Joker, for all the lives the Joker took that Batman could've saved by killing him.
Then Dumbledore should have attacked Lucius, or Voldemort, not Narcissa.
Are you really going to try to follow the path of the superhero, and never sacrifice a single piece or kill a single enemy?
Yes.
... even as a necessity, the deaths of sentient beings would still be a tragedy. One more element of the sorrows of Earth
Agree.
He is not like Grindelwald. There is nothing human left in him. Him you must destroy. Save your fury for that, and that alone -
And how would you know there is nothing human left in him?
Killing him, even if you had to do it to save the lives of others, would be just one more death for future sentient beings to be sad about. How could you look up at the stars, and believe anything else?
Agree.
And the woman who was behind that door - wasn't there someone, somewhere, to whom she too was precious? Wasn't it only Harry's distance from her life that was preventing his brain from being driven to Azkaban to save her no matter what?
Please, save her. Maybe, when the story of her innocence is known, many others will get a trial, a chance.
Please... Come back! Come back!
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...
"And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal, But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not..."
"And either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world."
Thank you, Severus Snape. The last line is notably logical; confrontation of dark and light, of good and evil, of free and happy, of fight and peace. Never-ending fight...
Potions Master spoke, his voice taking on some of his customary contemptuous drawl. "You imagine yourself more intelligent than the Dark Lord, Potter?"
Amusing, yes.
"and whatever he can't say out loud is true. His silence would be something that behaves differently in the presence of true statements about the Mark, versus false statements, you see."
Oh, brilliant indeed.
"Thank you, Mr. Potter." Everyone looked at Severus. The Potions Master was straightening, his teeth bared in a grimace of angry triumph. "Headmaster, I can now speak freely of the Mark."
Good! Excellent!
"The Dark Lord was no fool. The moment such a test is suspected, the Mark ceases to bind our tongues. Yet I could not hint at the possibility, but only wait for another to deduce it." Another thin smile. "I would award you a good many House points, Mr. Potter, if it would not compromise my cover. But as you can see, the Dark Lord was quite cunning." His gaze grew more distant. "Oh," Severus breathed, "he was very cunning indeed..."
Interesting. What else is there that Severus Snape cannot say, but only remember, of his cunning?
"Is it that inconceivable to you, Potter, that anyone could be so intelligent as yourself?" Potions Master's voice held more curiosity than scorn.
I am grateful that the alliance is forming, visibly. I know that Severus Snape would have protected Harry either way; but now, there will be mutual respect.
"I remember your first day of Potions class," Potions Master said dryly. "I think you have a ways still to go."
Agree.
The question was whether a significant probability of facing so terrible as a Dark Rationalist even existed in the first place.
Amusing. I enjoy this conversation within the mind.
"Constant vigilance?" said the man. "It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you," Harry recited the proverb.
Amusing.
There was a gasp from Professor McGonagall's direction, and Severus's face had tightened.
Severus Snape is my favourite character in HP universe.
I figured that if you had an eye that saw things other people couldn't see, then as Isaac Asimov pointed out in Second Foundation, the weapon to use is a brilliant light.
Painful.
It will be amusing if Harry distances himself from Quirrell because of their mutual secrets and rational need to think the actions through.
"The obvious next thought is that this 'David Monroe' person died in the war after all, and this is just someone else pretending to be David Monroe pretending to be Quirinus Quirrell." "That's obvious?"
Yes, it is obvious. Underneath the underneath, and all that.
"Really, boy?" said Mad-Eye Moody, his blue eye spinning rapidly. "I'd say that's a little... paranoid." You don't know Professor Quirrell,
Yes, he is not a superficial person, at all. Bellatrix Black and travel into space and many other layers you may find, within him, connected to each other.
So this impostor somehow prods Voldie into wiping them all out - maybe leaked a password they'd given him for their wards - and then he was a Lord of the Wizengamot!"
Why would they give the impostor the password for their wards?
I mean, do you believe that under natural circumstances, anyone would end up as the last heir to a Most Ancient House AND Voldemort killed his family AND he has to avenge his martial arts sensei?
What if he was actually the last heir to a Most Ancient House and that was the reason for Lord Voldemort to go to his martial arts sensei, and the student, feeling guilt for sensei's death, sworn to avenge Lord Voldemort, and Lord Voldemort somehow used his weakness against him, destroying his family, and the avenger hid, to learn everything there is to learn, to defeat Lord Voldemort, and returned to help those who are prophesied to defeat him?
"A magically embodied preference for death over life, striking within the plane of pure life force... that does sound like a difficult spell to block." "Not difficult," Moody snapped. "Impossible."
Not impossible. First, put a sheet of metal, a stone, or a living rabbit into its way; would a microbe, a plant, a mushroom, an insect, a bird be enough to dissipate the Killing Curse? Second, dodge. Third, consider the result of necromancy interacting with the curse: there are legends that necromancer can walk in the plane of dead, and return from it to land of living.
If killing damages the soul, then does killing a dementor count? Killing a rabbit? A transfigured rabbit? A charmed spider? Tearing apart a toy? Where is the line defined between killing and not-killing? Does a nightmare of killing a human crack your soul, if you had not killed anybody in real world?
He was still in love with my mother? ...the third shoe dropped. Of course, that was before I gave him my helpful relationship advice.
How many shoes can be dropped? And to where?
"My mother begged the Dark Lord to take her life instead of mine - the Dark Lord said to her" Very well, I accept the bargain."- he said that he accepted her offer,"
Why? Why did the Dark Lord accept the magically binding bargain? He should have understood the implications. It would be stupid to not understand them.
For some reason, the Dark Lord waited for Lily's soul to crack, before killing her. Did he hope that the bargain was annulled by the crack of Lily's soul, and he could kill both of them? Did Lily out-Slytherin him, by beginning the incantation without putting her magic behind it, and thus not cracking her soul? I don't know theory of magic well enough...
Good day, good night, and good luck, Harry, Quirinus, Severus.

Thankyouthankyouthankyouthan kyouthankyou

My thoughts: Organized Chaos.

awesome

WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS!

Watching Harry fail at understanding Voldemort's motivation was ...painful. It makes me sad that Harry comes so close, yet fails to recognize the flaws in his basic assumptions. If only Harry had heard of the term lols or Lulz or evulz he might guess at Voldemort's true motivation was simply his own amusement and not the conquest of muggle Britain. I am also saddened by the inability to figure out the Voldemort was Monroe and Quirrel pretending to be Monroe in hiding means that he is actually Voldemort. So I think I have figured out Quirrel but Snape is still a total wildcard to me.

Early christmas present! Thank you. Wonderful chapter, and I really appreciate the lessons on how to approach Bayesian estimations.

so what happens when Voldemort was actually smart but surprise surprise the other side was smart as well? so what if he diddnt get stupidly inventive! an avanda kadavra kills anyone you want, a imperious allows you to controll anyone you want and a crucio allows you to hurt but not kill anyone you want.
their is also this fact .
Harry lived with people willing to give him that imformation so what took millions of years of updating itself Hary could just read a book and get the concept he diddnt have to CREATE those concepts and have them fail in some ways but also advance in others.
So information truely is the key, What if Voldemort is actually as "smart" as Harry but he just did not have the information that your Harry does? witch quite frankly when one considers his age and sleep issue he shouldent have been ABLE to do.
also in a war intellagence is a grand thing but the execution of all the plans can always be bothced. a smart man might be ungodly dangerous but in the end, they bleed red and die just like the brute on a batlefield

seriously Voldemort wasent the ONLY factior on his side and neither was Dumbledore on his, it takes alot for people to commit all the way, all their resouurces in whatever battlefield
Harry is not the only smart person.
and being smart isnt MATH Hary isnt a 10 and everyone else is a decimal or something, it doesnt Work like that
well anyway glad to see you out again a nice chapter this was, even if it was just further begining studies of who exactlly is the culprit
and I must say, that youve really dumb down alot of the charecters if they would tell a first year the word Horocrux.

honestly,
well besides stuff like that this is still a good read and it is enjoyable! So thank you.
well till next time.

22 ...
oops, wrong conclusion.

Anyway, now that you mention it, how many characters died with that of what it looks like a signs of cliche heroes(especially in this book) Even Snape fits into that category.(gifted in certain magical arts, long lasted blood line, family issue, great heroine) and if everyone can be really creative, in that broken world, i'm quite sure that everyone in there are actually bluffing whole time(like of the Bleach).

I have no idea how you do this. I have no idea how everyone is so very in character, and yet the story is so very, very different, or how it just seems as if you've... leveled everyone up, and yet no one's really super powered because the whole universe was leveled up as well.

You know in Star Trek, where Spock turns his head and says, "Fascinating...?" That's what I feel right now.

Your writing style is fascinating, and mystifying, and heartwrenching and hilarious all at the same time.

And OMG, that "There's a 10% chance I'll be attracted to Professor Snape, so no judgement, and McGonagall's befuddlement. I swear i haven't laughed so much in I don't know when.

And your Snape! He's so in character! No one ever writes him right, but you managed. I think that might be because he's such an ambiguous person by nature, and part of the whole point of fanfiction is explaining characters and you don't do what most of them do- you didn't just-

I'm rambling. I love your story. I'm fascinated by your ideas and your mind. Take as much time to work as you need to make your writing all that you want it to be.

Of course! Tracey Davis is behind everything! That must be it!
*snickers*
I love this fic, I really do. It manages to twine a unique blend of plot, intelligence and humor into one stunner of a story. I like your interpretation of Moody and highly enjoyed Harry over thinking everything (when you get so many layers to a simple, two answer question than you kind of have to either prepare for both possibilities or come up with a third answer. To build up that many variables gets impractical after a while if they have no real values. At least that's how I see it. I'm kind of a take the third option by nature though. I don't see many things in black and white. Harry's layered rationalizing was vastly entertain though, quite thought provoking. Exspecially when you factor in that this is a fic and so the author knows the solutions and is presenting the material. Therefore, any drift to one opinion could be a hint or a red herring. Background knowladge is useful, but only if the author didn't (or did) take it into account. Suddenly there's more layers and more complications than the situation warrants) as well as other moments like Lockheart and the duel.
I look forward to the next chapter. Hopefully, the world doesn't end first :)

Superb chapter, though I noticed what seemed like an oversight in Harry's line of reasoning, in the portion reading "Which no intelligent wizard would bother doing in the first place, if they knew their souls were immortal."

The Horcrux might actually be a good idea even in the immortal-souls scenario, /if/ the belief in souls comes coupled with a belief in punishment after death, in Hell or Purgatory or what-have-you. If a magic-user had commited acts, whether through accident or by intention, that they thought would land them somewhere unpleasant for eternity, then immortality in a purely tangible form would seem pretty decent by comparison.

This is the first review I've left here, and I'm sorry it's an utter nitpick (more so if this oversight by Harry was intended). Rest assured that the praise I could heap on every part of it would threaten to overspill the review box.

Holy shit! An update! I feel that I need to reread the whole story, starting now . . .

this was a really good chapter. i want to say it was worth the wait, and it was, but please dont take that long again.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahah

And, in conclusion,

ahahahahahah.

Great chapter. I'm really enjoying reading this story. It's really good and I can't wait to read what happens next.

Happy Holidays!

Amazing, as always. I loved the meetings in Dumbledore's office, your take on Moody is perfect (LOL to him saying he should be tested for Polyjuice if he ever accepts teaching), the whole plotting/strategizing session was very interesting, although I totally felt like poor dear McGonagall- all those possibilities and paranoia were so frustrating. The Snape-no-longer-loving-Lily-as-much thing was also genius and so well-planned (and here I thought Harry's "relationship advice" part wasn'tan important part of the plot). Anyways, this fic is still the best thing I've ever read, hilarious, awesome, intensely addicting (hopefully I won't spend TOO much time rereading this chapter and the revised one and all my favourite parts of this fic now, because my science mid-term is at nine tomorrow and I should probably get SOME sleep at the very least), please update soon!

Awesome chapter as always, especially what Harry did to beat Moody.

I love the paranoia cascades and stuff here :D

Holy (?) mother of rationality, an update!