Dumbledore is a sonovabitch. Harry's wrong about how Snape heard the prophesy. Malfoy and Friends may be wrong about how Narcissa died. The whole matter of lighting a live chicken on fire may be a strange misunderstanding. But Dumbledore is still a right bastard for what he did to Snape, which we may put together from chapters 17, 18, 27, & the renumbered 76.

Chapters 17 & 76 tell us how Snape pursued Lily while he was her friend. (Or that's what Snape thinks of what he was doing. He was probably a 'Nice Guy' about it and it would probably have failed in the usual fashion. But that wasn't allowed to happen.)

To be clear: despite the (deservedly) doomed-to-the-friendzone fate of Snape's attempts to woo Lily, Dumbeldore nonetheless stepped in and instigated fights between Snape and Lily by writing things in Lily's potions book. While headmaster and responsible for the well being of children, Dumbledore sabotaged a relationship between children! He might even have done this because it did not fit the story he foresaw for a very Slytherin Snape to remain friends with a pretty and heroic Lily. He might have done it for even worse reasons.

Yes, worse. Dumbledore said, "Hogwarts needs an evil Potions Master to be a proper magical school, " in chapter 18. If he is willing to allow the abuse of children to keep an evil potions master, we might believe he would abuse a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old to make an evil potions master.

Chapters 27 & 76 tell us how it looked to Snape when it ended, and most importantly that he did not understand what happened and, until the events of this fic, knew he did not understand and was seeking understanding. How desperate for understanding must he have been, to ask an eleven-year-old? To Snape, the final rejection was not justified by what he knew of Lily, and so it seemed to come out of nowhere.

Snape wouldn't, couldn't know why the new fights with Lily were starting. For the fights to continue, Lily must have remained unaware that Snape was not writing in her potions book. And for Lily to remain unaware, Snape could not find out the reason for the fights. From Snape's perspective, his only real friendship suddenly encountered incomprehensible, insurmountable obstacles in his fifth year. And then it fell apart and it was all his fault.

The reason Snape does not understand why Lily didn't forgive him is that he is missing information. He does not know about the things Dumbledore wrote in her potions book while allowing Lily to believe it was Snape. When things regularly happen to a person without that person knowing why, especially when those things involve loss of something valued, it can make the person habitually insecure. Snape was probably already insecure on account of his home life and status as a target for bullies. Insecure people often become hostile and abusive to defend themselves. That is to say, Dumbledore made Snape a villain, possibly on purpose, possibly because he felt it made a more fitting story than would a life of Snape's own choosing.

It is my hope that Snape will read Lily's fifth year potions book, will understand that Dumbledore ruined his like, will dedicate himself to killing Dumbledore, and will be successful before the close of the fic.

Dumbledore correctly surmises part of Quirrellmort's motivation for this arc's events: he's neutralizing all of Light Harry's allies. What Dumbledore hasn't realized, what is completely outside his hypothesis space, is that he's not doing so to attack Harry, or at least not as part of a plan to defeat Harry. He's doing it to remove all of Harry's support except Quirrellmort himself, so as to hasten Harry's consumption by his Dark Side. With only Quirrell to rely upon in the magical world, his conversion into Dark Harry will be much swifter.

Therefore, when speculating abut the rest of this arc, we must speculate about how this plan will neutralize the rest of Light Harry's allies: Dumbledore and McGonagall. Harry has already hinted that he intends to investigate Dumbledore the next time he sees Quirrell. Assuming Quirrell gets out of the Ministry without causing a scene, he will almost certainly have manufactured evidence that implicates Dumbledore, which he will show Harry.

So perhaps one of the "taboo tradeoffs" of the arc will be Harry successfully politically attacking the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, the rediscoverer of the twelve uses of Dragons' blood, the defeater of Grindelwald, and the defender of magical Britain in order to get a first-year Hogwarts student off the hook.

That would leave only McGonagall, and Minerva would drop Harry in a heartbeat if he successfully neutralized Dumbledore. Thus his isolation from all except Quirrellmort would be complete.

Here's a secret in plain sight: if this story has a happy ending, then Harry has the power to destroy Quirrelmort's brain, anytime they're together.

First clue: the WRONG DON'T BAD IDEA messages when Harry tries to make contact with Quirrell. Assume that they mean just what they say -- that something terrible will happen if Harry makes contact.

Second clue: the prophecy appears to say that Harry and Voldemort's confrontation can only leave more or less one. Storytelling convention makes us think it's a metaphor or foreseeing complex future actions. But maybe there's just an already existing spell or condition, dating from the first encounter, that's primed to cause Harry+Voldemort = boom.

There's more. But just from these two clues alone, we can see that an available though seemingly extreme interpretation of data in the story is: "If Harry ever touches Quirrellmort, one or the other will be magically destroyed".

Now the subtler clues.

Third clue: in the original canon, Harry had a piece of Voldemort's soul in him, an accidentally created Horcrux, and the destruction of that piece of soul was a critical step in Voldemort's death.

Fourth clue: in our world's science, there's no such observable thing as splitting souls, but there is such a thing as copying data, or duplicating a software neural network.

Fifth clue: Lucius thinks Harry is Voldemort.

Sixth clue: Harry has patterns of behavior in him that don't at all resemble a loved little boy, but wholly fit Voldemort.

Seventh clue: the Sorting Hat said Harry didn't have a separate mind under the Hat with him. It never said his own mind was normal.

Hypothesis:

In this universe, a "Horcrux" is a compressed or partial copy of your brain software.

Harry was accidentally imprinted with some of Voldemort's brain software at their original encounter. Ever since, he's been a child who knows how to think like Voldemort. Literally. (Harry's dark side really is an alien thing, not as an actual person, but as a range of behaviors that didn't come from his own past experiences but another's.)

Further, in this universe, a Horcrux, or at least an unstable Horcrux like Harry, destructively decompresses/uploads itself back to its source mind when brought into contact with it.

In consequence, if ever Quirrellmort and Harry come sufficiently into physical/magical contact, Quirrellmort anticipates that Harry's brain will turn into a vegetable as Harry-Voldemort destructively uploads itself into the "real" Quirrell-Voldemort, leaving behind a stronger and more complete Q+H-Voldemort.

This may require preparation on Quirrell's part to go well. Or there may be other things involved that Quirrell hasn't accounted for, such as the extent to which Harry has a (literal) mind of his own. Either way, there's a fair likelihood, depending on author intent, that the contact will destroy Quirrellmort, not Harry.

So if the story has a happy ending, where even the protagonist gets to live, then we can express the hypothesis like this:

Harry can defeat Quirrellmort. He just has to give him a hug.

There's a Care Bears Omake spawning in my brain now.

Harry is not so clever: why did he think that telling Malfoy "this is a plot, you know it's a plot" would make it not a good idea for Malfoy to commit overkill in defending his son? The point of vengeance is deterrence, and the crack of "well, it might not have been Hermione" is not a good crack to have in your deterrence. Dumbledore even tells Harry as much. And then, to top it off, Harry threatens Malfoy.

What Harry should have done: talked to Malfoy beforehand (why didn't he?). Given that didn't happen, told Malfoy "I have information that is relevant to the attack, which I think you should know but should not be public yet, as it might diminish your capacity for vengeance for this to be known publicly."

Then, in private, Harry has a conversation with Lucius where Lucius doesn't need to play to the crowd, informing Lucius of his expectation of the plot, his respect for Draco, and his vow to punish the murderer of Narcissa, and then Lucius walks back out and asks that the trial be finished in a week.

PredictionBook registry - take one prediction a day to keep the hindsight bias away! - based on the speculation:

Harry's solution will be...

• nothing
• invoking Lucius's debt to whomever killed his supposed Imperiuser
• invoke the Imperius-debts of other Wizengamot members
• make Dumbledore turn himself in to Lucius in exchange for Hermione's freedom
• threaten to destroy Azkaban
• reveal the truth about Bellatrix's escape
• offer the Wizengamot Voldemort's true identity (Quirrel)
• accept Hermione's imprisonment but order the Dementors to leave her alone
• destroying one of the Dementors

• using the Time-turner

  • to alter Hermione's testimony to something easily falsifiable
  • to affect Lucius in some way
  • to smuggle Hermione out under the Cloak
• ask for a trial by combat
• have Quirrel make Bella confess to the crime
• confess to the attack
• demonstrate Hermione's wand did not cast the curse with Priori Incantatem

(These are not all mutually exclusive, and I didn't set down and make them all sum to 100%.)

Okay, I don't really think this is how it'll go down - slightly too Dark Lordish. But the image was amusing, so here goes:

"It just happens that if Hermione doesn't walk, everyone but me will lose the ability to cast Patronus. Don't buy it? Oh, well, I'll just explain it to Hermione and she'll be able to testify under Veritaserum that I can do it."

Or, you know, have Hermione figure it out herself from Harry's note and do the blackmail herself.

Anyway, the blackmail potential for this is rather great, and I'd not be surprised to see it used in a more dire situation with more than Hermione on the line.

Suggestion: Harry (/Dumbledore) run some more almost-successful assassination attempts against Draco, while Hermione is in custody. That should suggest to Lucius and the Wizengamot that Hermione was being controlled. Bonus points for appearing to rescue Draco from said attempts. Bonus points for plausible attempts against Lucius himself. Extra bonus points for suggesting to Lucius a better explanation for the continuing attempts than the true one.

The Joker: I took Gotham's white knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn't hard. You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push!

-- The Dark Knight

The narrative that we, the readers, are supposed to believe at this point goes like this: Hermione was given information during her little rendezvous with H+C, giving her some information that made her think that Snape and the Malfoys had it in for her, that the duel didn't happen, and H+C (presumably Quirrell) obliviated her memory of their first meeting afterwards.

Professor Quirrell has made numerous statements doubting Hermione's goodness. For example: "She is young, and to make a show of kindness costs her little." (60) Being Quirrell, he has most likely predicted Harry's sentiment on the matter: "But 3 out of 40 subjects had refused to participate all the way to the end. The Hermiones. They did exist, in the world, the people who wouldn't fire a Simple Strike Hex at a fellow student even if the Defense Professor ordered them to do it." (63)

I would like to advance the hypothesis that Hermione actually did attempt to kill Draco. Yes, she had been set up to stew in her paranoia and obsession over Snape and Malfoy by H+C. Yes, the memories of her meeting with H+C were obliviated. The idea of the blood cooling charm may have been fed to her. But in the end, she choose to cast it in anger on Draco (at least as much as you can choose something when an attacker controls the environment).

It appears to be in Quirrell's interest to dissuade Harry Potter from believing that there are good people in the world. Quirrell wishes Harry to learn that there are no good people in the world. What better way to accomplish this than giving Hermione, as the Joker would say, a little push!

I also find Severus' comments suspicious: "The appearance of insanity..." Severus murmured softly, as though he were speaking to himself. "Could it be natural? No, it is too disastrous to be pure accident; too convenient for someone, I have no doubt.[...]"

Harry testifies: "Voldemort did it all. He made me watch with the Imperius curse -- just like when he made me help rescue Bellatrix Black."

Harry provides details of the Bellatrix rescue that only a participant would know. His accuracy can be verified by Azkaban Security Director Amelia Bones, who just happens to be present in the Wizengamot.

Harry's knowledge of the Bellatrix rescue proves the villain who Imperiused him was really Voldemort. Who else would rescue Bellatrix?

If anyone expresses doubts about Harry's super-Patronus, Harry immediately takes the excuse to annihilate a Dementor, one of which also just happens to be present in the Wizengamot.

Harry's Occlumency lets him lie through the Veritaserum about being Imperiused and witnessing poor Hermione being framed by Voldemort. He likewise lies that "Voldemort" (not Quirrell) took him to rescue Bellatrix.

Harry explains that seeing Hermione about to be condemned to Azkaban gave him the strength to finally break free of Voldemort's Imperius curse and tell everyone the truth. (Alternately, Obliviation and a Pensieve Harry wasn't supposed to find.)

Hermione is deemed innocent. Voldemort is acknowledged back in the world and is blamed. Harry can no longer be blackmailed about Azkaban because he's admitted it.

Harry-irony points for saying right in front of Lucius: "I didn't want to help Voldemort, I was under the Imperius curse".

Author-irony points for having Harry lie to blame Voldemort for two crimes that Quirrellmort is in fact guilty of.

The author's clues are pushing in two different directions. "Taboo tradeoffs" in the title, and that Harry's Dark side is delivering the solution, implies an answer that is morally unnerving or at least cold-blooded.

The author's line about Harry shifting from seeing the Wizengamot voters as "wallpaper" to seeing individuals with agency, "PCs", and the line about remembering the laws of magical Britain, implies an answer that involves the incentives and 'rules of the game' of the other Wizengamot members besides Lucius and Dumbledore.

None of the solutions I've seen (let alone the few I've thought of) seem both Dark/taboo and social/voters-are-PCs.

Harry calling in the (nominally) Imperiused voters' debts: clever, invokes customs of magical Britain, makes the voters PCs rather than wallpaper, but not very Dark or taboo.

Harry threatens the crowd with the Dementor somehow, or browbeats Dumbledore into ruining his reputation: Dark/taboo, but doesn't invoke the customs of magical Britain or treat the other Wizengamot voters as PCs.

Is there a solution that both invokes magical Britain's laws / makes PCs of the voters and involves some alarmingly Dark/taboo move or trade by Harry?

Boy-Who-Lived marries Draco Malfoy?

Point in favor of this all being a plot by Quirrell to cause Harry to be more willing to overthrow the ministry:

But by then he'd already declared war on the country of magical Britain, and the idea of other people calling him a Dark Lord no longer seemed important one way or another.

ETA: Evidence this is the result of Quirrell's plotting at all:

Harry's mind flashed back to another day of horror, and even though Harry had been on the verge of writing off Lord Voldemort's continued existence as the senility of an old wizard, it suddenly seemed horribly and uniquely plausible that the entity who'd Memory-Charmed Hermione was the very same mind that had - made use of - Bellatrix Black. The two events had a certain signature in common. To choose that this should happen, plan for this to happen - it would take more than evil, it would take emptiness.

Dementor, do you know who I am? Just say yes or no.

Do you know what I'm capable of? Once again, yes or no.

Leave Hermione be. Do not approach her or tread upon her thoughts during her time in azkaban. Run along and tell your compatriots at azkaban. Now.

Hopefully albus's belief would be enough to bolster them even if they don't have a mind if their own. If they do have a mind of their own they can be threatened, and have been in the past.

How about, follow the money? Who gains?

Hermione, the girl who publicly humiliated Draco and the whole Pureblood cause, now owes a blood debt to Lucius Malfoy. Not only does he gain power over her, but by extension, over Harry, and further extension, to Dumbledore. All for the price of a very safe if monitored supposed attempt on Draco's life, which Draco likely would have volunteered for if given the opportunity.

Lucius has hit the jackpot, even if he didn't plan and orchestrate the whole thing. He can extract almost anything out of Harry in exchange for leniency for Hermione. It seems unlikely that the good Defense Professor would have orchestrated a plan which is entirely dependent for it's success on Lucius failing to take advantage of the situation - unless putting Harry in Lucius's debt was his goal.

Lucius personally has complete control of the outcome, and I'm surprised Harry hasn't considered contacting him yet.

I'd like to point out something awesome Eliezer did in the previous chapter, "Cheating". In canon, Potions as a discipline is hardly taught at all. The only thing you ever see Snape do in the books is give a list of ingredients and instructions, tell the class how long the class period is, and assign papers at the end of the class. This is one example of how J.K. Rowling wasn't really invested in developing the mythology of the universe, except as strictly necessary to make her plots happen. (There's nothing wrong with that; they're children's books, not "real" fantasy for adults.)

With the "Cheating" chapter, rather than trying to create a whole framework of Potions rules to understand as he's done elsewhere, he simply added a darn good explanation that legitimizes everything Rowling already showed us. When Hermione lectures Harry on "understanding the principles" in Half-Blood Prince, instead of scoffing about how there's never been evidence of any principles to learn, we can now imagine that there's a very good reason why Harry is never taught the principles of potion-making: if you're not smart, thoughtful, and careful enough to figure them out for yourself, you have absolutely no business knowing them at all.

When compared side-by-side as if they're in the same genre and directed toward the same audience, Methods of Rationality often makes the books look worse than they used to look. But in this case, future readings of the books will be made a little bit better. I wonder whether there are other ways that's true that I haven't noticed yet.

Why are we assuming that Quirrelmort is on the up and up about wanting Harry to be the next Dark Lord?

Isn't that exactly the story you'd give a young prodigy with delusions of godhood to manipulate him, particularly if you wanted to set him against the establishment? Put Hermione in harms way, arrange to have her sent to Azkaban, where you've already arranged to have Harry rescue Bellatrix, egg Harry on to rescue her, as if he needed any egging on, then try to steal the Sorcerer's Stone while everyone is away at Azkaban.

Regardless on the details of Hermione's trial plays out, it would be a really interesting mind fuck to Harry, to find out that Quirrell was completely manipulating Harry's Messiah Complex from day one so he could someday use him as a distraction, and that all of Harry's childish science fiction fantasizing are seen by Quirrellmort as just that - childish.

And Dumbledore seems worse than Harry about taking science fiction/fantasy novels as a way to model real life.

And guess what? To the extent that we are lapping up this story, we are too. A mind fuck for Harry, Dumbledore, and us. And I can't say that we wouldn't have it coming.

Years ago, I read Point Counterpoint by Aldous Huxley, where Huxley, IMO, was a sadistic bastard who drew you into multiple parallel plots, sucking you into sympathizing and identifying with the characters, only to twist each storyline and quash all your hopes and sympathies. I thought he was just being a prick.

But if EY did a genre stomp here, I think he'd have a point, and it might even work pretty well for Harry in the story.

Such a strategy would also have a nice parallel in Harry's strategy with the armies, encouraging as much plotting and confusion as possible, because he figured that he could handle the confusion and complexity better than anyone else. It's exactly what Quirrelmort would be doing with Harry, with the Armies, with Dumbledore, with Lucius, as Mr. Hat and Cloak, etc. Get everyone scheming and doubting, then attack amidst the confusion.

Lucius is a slytherin, and not stupid. What if he really does believe Hermione is a pawn? The question remains — whose pawn?

Lucius might believe Hermione is Dumbledore's pawn.

Lucius already believes D killed his wife, and so he would have no trouble believing Dumbledore is targeting his son. In fact, it would be to Dumbledore's advantage (so might think Lucius) to target Draco in such a way that D can avoid taking the blame. If D wanted to impose political costs on Lucius, one way he might do it is to have someone utterly beyond suspicion be found to have attacked Draco. Then Lucius would have to use up political capital to punish an innocent little girl.

If Lucius thinks this way, it would explain his willingness to punish Hermione to the extreme — she's Dumbledore's pawn, and so he's going to take her away in order to impose costs on Dumbledore. For Dumbledore to speak up for Hermione would reinforce the belief that she belongs to D.

What do we make of Harry Potter's comments, and Lucius's reaction to them, in this light (given that Lucius thinks Harry is the dark lord)? His "unheard sentences" would likely be along the lines of "No shit, sherlock!", followed by, "why is the dark lord pretending to be stupid."

The funny thing is, Quirrell's testimony of someone with a motive to harm Draco is spot on: Dumbledore attacks Draco in order to impose costs on Lucius.

... are we really so sure Dumbledore didn't set the whole thing up?

EDIT: I think Quirrell set it up— but I also think there's a good chance that Quirrell didn't just set it up to make it look like Hermione attacked Draco, but rather set it up to make it look like Dumbledore set it up to make it look like Hermione attacked Draco.