2I don't own Harry Potter, Rationalist Harry, or any other Harry.
This is a partial response to the Final Exam challenge in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong.
…
For most of a minute Harry thought, everything from partial transfiguration to the Patronus 2.0 crossed his mind, he knew things that Voldemort wished to know. He knew ways to kill or merely incapacitate most if not all of the death eaters, though most of the methods subtle enough to go unnoticed required more than a minute to enact. But he could not get rid of the threat to himself and the only way to get rid of the threat to his friends and family was by removing the dark lord's ability to use magic. He was almost fifty percent sure he could summon his patronus inside Azkaban or anywhere else he chose but he wasn't sure he could direct it usefully without seeing what it was doing. And with the evidence of the dark lord's ability to turn people into troll-unicorn hybrids, partial transfiguration seemed like it was too overpowered to give away. Even the path to reach it which the dark lord claimed to already be following was dangerous.
"I see that I lose, Tom Riddle," said Harry, "I see that you have won, and if you are telling the truth about the prophecy and preventing great disaster to the first and so far only known world of humans, then I am forced to acknowledge that I am thankful that you have won. I see that all of the knowledge I have accumulated in the hopes of fixing the world must either die with me or be passed on to you.
"Since we are speaking the truth, without the headmaster here listening, I can tell you more about the life-eaters and the silver charm. I did not speak of it in front of him because he does not see clearly, and does not hate death the way You and I and girl-child do. I feared that had I explained in his presence, his silver charm might have no longer have functioned. I did not yet understand how closely you had approached true life, I thought you might still fear death too much to cast it. Now I think you may be close.
"Speak faster, you waste time speaking about speaking," hissed Voldemort.
"The life-eaters are the little-deaths, that you once mentioned knowing correct dance to summon," continued Harry, half regretting giving the information away, yet patronus instruction might not work without it, "My silver charm works because one day all death will be banished from the world, perhaps by muggle science, perhaps by magic like red stone, perhaps by other means, other knowledge such as your own ritual, but changed to not require evil sacrifice. My silver charm works because I know that death will one day fail, and that humans will deserve to take up the true meaning of life, that we will one day walk between the stars as gods, fearing neither death nor injury.
"It will be a fitting legacy for both of us that Hermione, the most good of every being I know, is the firstborn of the immortals.
"It shall be said, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' The last enemy to be defeated is death."
And thinking about that good news and desiring that all the little deaths in Azkaban should hear of it and retire from the world, he cast. His wand stayed pointed at the ground, but the destination he desired was metal fortress on a small island in the north sea.
"Expect Patron!" it was odd casting in fake parceltongue rather than in fake Latin but he could feel the spell take, and begin to drain him how it had the day they'd given Bellatrix Black a portion of her freedom, and drain him more.
Voldemort made a slow clap, "It looks like your spell failed,"
Sweat poured from his whole body in the chill night air, "It did not fail, I called it where it is needed, little-death cage is now empty. Is not the legacy that I wished, but is sufficient," Harry collapsed to the earth.
"You stupid fool, I can replenish Azkaban with what you have taught me, What then is your sacrifice worth?"
The collapsed body rolled over only slightly leaving the wand behind on the ground, "Hope, when you give populace hope, few of them strive to do better. Headmaster thought real life would get tiresome for us, I say it only takes a few people striving to make world better would keep world interesting. Some might cease to strive if given real life, others like us would strive all the more when they know they will still be around to see the payoff of their work."
"You wasted your last minute to tell me that?"
"Not dead yet, just tired," Harry breathed, "Also you won't summon more little deaths, they are only predator left you fear. Only they can hold your dead life and keep it from searching out new host. Surprised you even threaten it. Was surprised you didn't take me to each life-eater cage and colony and wipe them all out before you threaten to kill me. But is too late, don't have magic left to cast silver charm again this week."
Harry watched in carefully hidden triumph as Voldimort's mask strengthened, a sure sign that something underneath was going badly.
"Girl-child will learn the real silver charm someday," hissed Harry, "perhaps she will aid you in removing last of your common enemies," and heaving a last breath, "I know many interesting things that I do not wish to die with me, yet to tell you would endanger the world more than letting them be forgotten." and then in English, "Good bye, father,"
And at that cue about twenty mouths hidden behind skull masks grunted, "Stupefy," and nearly as many called out, "Crucio," or the killing curse, and about sixty beams of red and green light lanced in and hit the prone figure.
"Noo!" screamed Voldemort before his control reformed and his mask dropped back into place.
…
Six hours later with death eaters already away and preparing for their subtle blitzkrieg of the ministry. And nothing was left anywhere in the world that could in any way be identified as the body of Harry James Potter, Tom M. Riddle's first and probably only for a while, failed experiment at making a friend worthy of that name.
The late defence professor was also properly disposed of.
…
Someone wearing the necessary glamours to mimic the appearance of the late defence professor, cast the correct series of charms to wake Hermione and put on his least creepy attitude in order not to give her too much of a shock first thing.
"The hell am I?" she squeaked and sat up to look around at the graveyard, and took special note of the sinking gibbous moon. And different inner voices rushed through the calculations required to estimate from it the time of night, as any competent student of astronomy ought to be able to do with an accuracy of about three hours. (it is far easier to tell where in the sky the moon is, than to tell exactly how gibbous it is)
And the internal Ravenclaw!Harry seemed to have a much more precise estimate of how gibbous the moon should be, and seemed to be working from a date at least a month off from the date that Dominant!Hermione was working from.
"Good evening," said the defence professor, "I brought you back to life as a favour to Harry Potter, shall we return to Hogwarts?"
He thinks he heard a prophecy about me sacrificing the world to bring you back, and made me promise never to do that, without consulting you regarding risk assessment and other similar things, explained internal exposition!Harry, But I figure he heard a prophecy about himself sacrificing his place in the world by scaring me into becoming a worthy opponent, which apparently I'm nowhere close to being yet.
Of course not, said Hermione, we're only twelve.
You're twelve, I'm eleven, said internal Harry. Which was odd since her internal representation of Harry never worried about that before. Ooh grab my stuff for me. Which was another odd thing for internal Harry to say. And made her realise that Harry's stuff was strewn all around as if he'd been here and left … after being incapacitated and stripped… or stripped and incapacitate. But why?
"Probably so," said Hermione, her voice much shakier than a Hero's should be, especially after surviving a troll and getting her legs back, wait was that all a bad dream?
No, it wasn't a dream, said internal exposition!Harry, and buzzed through a long story about his life being a dark useless place without her around, and the school year being over and so many details about it that when he was done she felt like she'd been there every step of the way. She hadn't remembered Harry's descriptions being so colourful before, it was as if she could remember the events he described but from his perspective rather than her own. Well according to him, her perspective was being dead and a transfigured ring on his toe. Ew.
Hermione climbed down off the alter without accepting the defence professor's offered hand, "are ... aren't these Harry's things?"
I notice no overriding feeling of doom from being around the defence professor, mentioned observer!Harry, I deduce it has something to do with the ending of the prohibition against interacting with the dark lord or with existing inside Hermione's body.
Oh, is that what's going on? Thought Hermione, What are you doing here precisely? I mean, you're a good friend, but a girl likes a certain amount of privacy, you know.
I infer by summing the system of equations 'the patronus 2.0 requires a bit of oneself to cast' and 'creating a horcrux (v1.0) requires fracturing one's soul via murder and placing that splinter in a different vessel' and 'we used the patronus 2.0 to add a missing piece to Hermione's existence in order to bring her back to life' and 'my internal chronology has only about four hours missing from being the target of several killing curses until waking up inside Hermione' that the we get the working hypothesis, 'Hermione is our horcrux v2.1' and 'Hermione was already our horcrux when Voldemort used the horcrux v1.1 ritual to make Bacon's diary into our horcrux.'
I wish you lot wouldn't talk like I wasn't here, thought Hermione.
We sincerely apologise, said slytherin!Harry, we aren't quite used to having you here, or rather we aren't quite used to being here with you, I hope you don't mind that I've taken the liberty to update your internal Harry to better reflect us, and our internal Hermione to better reflect you.
Uhh, thought Hermione, that might be the exact opposite of the privacy I was asking for a moment ago.
Oops, sorry.
"Yes," said the defence professor, "I'm afraid we had a bit of a falling out, and he departed, to sacrifice himself removing the threat of dementors from Azkaban,"
But Hermione didn't seem to be listening, in fact her face seemed to give evidence of some titanic struggle taking place behind her eyes.
Unreliable narrator, noted Useless-Literary-Critic!Ravenclaw!Harry, I did sacrifice a lot of magic doing that though, but I didn't need to go anywhere and I didn't die from that, I died of multiple killing curses from death eaters.
I think it's time for you to leave, thought Hermione, do you think you have enough magic for that?
She raised her hand in front of her face as if seeing it for the first time, and pressed her forefinger against her thumb in a characteristic gesture that was not her own.
And before the defence professor's watching eyes, in the time that the finger fell from tip of thumb to pad of thenar prominance, the hand became Harry's hand and he wrenched free of Hermione's side as if ducking out from under a curtain, and behind him Hermione reformed bringing away a massive chunk of the altar with her.
While the defence professor's mind was still catching up with that impossibility, Harry's muscles bulged as only those of a metamorphmagus (or a troll) can, and Harry sprang, bunching his hand into a fist. When it contacted, it did not just impart kinetic energy but also seemed to reach inside him turning flesh to steel until it met a rib which also turned heavy, though the difference in density wasn't as obvious, and the steel tendril travelled upward turning cartilage and vertebra and cartilage and disk and cartilage and vertebra to steel in a steady rhythm until it reached the C4 vertebra, and then it solidified inward, cutting off all control to, and all communication from his wand arm.
And the defence professor's body went flopping away to land in an untidy heap.
Harry found his wand and a chunk of red glass and came over and knelt where they could look each other in the eye, "I'm sorry professor, but I can't let you die before all those who you've sworn to torment or kill have either died a natural death or are protected beyond your ability to torment. You understand I'm sure." Harry laid the hunk of red glass on the bit of surgical stainless that showed on his chest the correct number of seconds.
"And that should remove the danger of you dying of transfiguration poisoning," he said, "Stupify,"
"Let me get this straight," said Hermione and summarised the whole of everything that Harry remembered since she died.
Meanwhile Harry dressed, and strapped on his pouch and organised his other things about his person.
"Yes," said Harry when Hermione had finished.
"And," she continued and summarised several things about partial transfiguration and about the underlying timeless field theory necessary to make it work. And fit action to words by repairing her robes with a difficult process that a few days later she would remember she could have done more easily with the mending charm.
Meanwhile Harry went through the fake's defence professor's pockets, he found what appeared to be most of a set of teeth. Probably the real defence professor's false teeth. Who knew what powers or dangers might lurk there. He transfigured a small strong box with a six digit combination which he set to the exact atomic weight of the most common isotope of calcium, as near as he could remember. He thought it was appropriate. He placed the teeth inside then fed the whole thing into his pouch.
"Yes," said Harry when Hermione had finished.
"And we are trolls and unicorns and are each other's horcruxes?" said Hermione, "So we can safely shapeshift through partial transfiguration, and heal ourselves naturally and can't die?"
"Basically," said Harry, "although the killing curse seems to throw us back into the same body until we can take the time to split again. I wouldn't want to do anything to risk both of us getting hit at the same time."
"And we can teach others to make horcruxes without murder if they can learn your new patronus?"
"Probably," said Harry.
"Is there anything we need to be doing right now?" said Hermione.
Harry looked at her for a second before taking a big step back, "I said, no kissing!"
Hermione shrugged, "That's why I asked, so what do we need to be doing?"
"Going and finding Professor MacGonagall and begging her to get Thief's Downfall installed in the ministry atrium before it opens tomorrow,"
Hermione's face twisted up in horror, "Yes, that sounds like good step."
"And send someone we can trust back here to pick up Voldemort and stash him somewhere safe."
"Are you a wizard or not?" sighed Hermione, "Just levitate him, Expecto Patronum," and from her wand burst huge cloud of silver sparks that quickly formed into an idealized female form. Harry had just enough of a glimpse to guess it might be based more on Hermione's mother than on his own before he looked away, his face heating.
"Wingardium Leviosa," he said and set his face toward the castle. Muttering defensivly about having just used up all his magic with a patronus 2.0 big enough to cleanse Azkaban, and not expecting to have it all back yet.
Behind him he heard Hermione instructing her patronus to go to Professor MacGonagall, waking her if necessary and request that she meet them at the entrance hall. Then the light faded with an almost audible snap. And shortly after she was trudging along beside Harry.
"Sorry I let you die," he said, if only to break the silence, and because he wanted to say it, and estimated that he would never get another chance that would be less awkward.
"I seem to remember you saying that a humongous number of times not that long ago."
"I'm glad I get to say it to you for real,"
"Me too," said Hermione.
"Oh dear," said Harry and put the defence professor down, "Stupify, stupify, stupify, stupify, stupify, stupify."
"What?" said Hermione.
"He's an animagus," said Harry, "Wingardium Leviosa. I'm pretty sure if he tried that after what I did to him, it would kill him, thus freeing him to reincarnate elsewhere within a month or two, not a risk I'm willing to take."
"I see," said Hermione, "What do we do?"
"Get someone we can trust ... Alistor Moody probably to help us get and administer the potion they use on criminals before putting them in Azkaban so that they lose their animagus form."
Hermione was silent for several minutes, probably processing horcrux memories that she hadn't looked into before. "I have the distinct feeling," said Hermione, "we should consult him as soon as possible regardless."
"Definitely," said Harry.
"Expecto Patronum," said Hermione and stopped walking long enough to instruct her patronus with it's new message.
…
As they came up the gates the door swung open to reveal the Headmaster, and the Deputy Headmistress, and Alistor Moody.
"Headmaster," said Harry, "I didn't quite expect to see you again,"
"Phoenix fire can travel many places," said Dumbledore, "And escape many traps,"
"Is this him?" said Alistor Moody levelling his wand.
"Yes," said Harry, "Don't kill him, but if he stays in coma for the next thousand years that's fine with me. He got the stone and his old body back but I think he's wearing a glamour or several."
"That's easily dealt with," said Moody, and cast several finishing charms of various types and degrees, revealing a black robed figure in a skull mask.
"Crap," said Harry, "Crap, crap, crap,"
"I warned you he's sneaky," said Moody, "now may I kill him?"
Harry shrugged, "I assume you want to interrogate him first, but yeah, do what you want."
"Wait a second," said Hermione, "didn't you fix the transfiguration you did to his chest with the philosopher's stone?"
"Yes," said Harry.
"So it should not have ended from a simple finishing spell?" said Hermione.
"Yes," said Harry.
"Then the dark lord substituted a junk rock in place of the philosopher's stone while we slept," concluded Hermione.
The headmaster chortled.
They looked up at him.
"I substituted the philosopher's stone before he even got a hold of it, everything he's made with it will fade after a few days."
"Including his body and our bodies," said Harry.
Dumbledore's face darkened, "Come with me,"
"Wait," said Hermione, "will it take long? because someone should be going to the ministry and getting them ready to hold off an onslaught of most of their employees being under Imperious or getting ready to put each other under Imperious, or getting stunned and replaced by death eaters taking polyjuice."
"On it," said Moody, and dashed several yards out of the gate and apparated away.
...
When Harry and Hermione were seated in Dumbledore's office and had refused lemon drops, and Hermione had mostly gotten over the pseudo-deja vu of comparing the reality of the headmaster's office to the memories that Harry had left behind, Dumbledore asked to see Harry's Father's rock.
Harry frowned and took off his ring, and pulled his magic from it, causing a drastic acceleration of it's untransfiguration. It returned to original size with a wumph.
It was the first time Hermione had seen it up close and personal. She reached out to finger it's rough texture, then frowned in surprise and laid her palm flat to it.
"Is it supposed to be so invigorating to touch?" she said.
"I'm afraid I told an untruth regarding the nature of this rock," said the Headmaster.
Harry copied her and felt drastic amounts of his magic being freed up, magic of a similar flavour to that magic he'd just retrieved to let the rock untransfigure. "I think," said Harry, "that this is the philosopher's stone, and by making our transfigurations permanent it returns to us what was spent by our troll aspects to put us into reasonably shaped bodies."
Hermione seemed to notice that the stone was finished with her and pulled her hand away, Harry did likewise.
"But that means," said Hermione, "the cost of our fast healing is coming back and touching the stone regularly."
The headmaster's eyes twinkled, "so it does, I guess it's good that Harry is so accomplished at keeping the stone hidden about his person."
Harry and Hermione looked at each other for several seconds, both conversing with their model of the other. It wasn't true telepathy, and yet it did greatly increase the accuracy with which they could read each other's expressions.
Hermione brought out the hunk of red glass, "And this is useful in the same way but only as a temporary measure?"
"Quite so," said the Headmaster.
"Will transfiguring it disrupt-but-not-destroy it in the same way?"
"Hmm," said the Headmaster, "I believe so,"
"Good," said Hermione and pulled a string from her cloak and transfigured it into a ring blank which she touched to the real philosopher's stone, then she transfigured the red glass into a sapphire which was soon set and the ring slipped onto her finger.
"Why sapphire?" said Harry.
"It's my birthstone," said Hermione, "and blue doesn't scream, 'this is a disguised version of a piece of red glass' quite the same way a ruby would."
Harry smiled. The headmaster twinkled.
"Given that, in untransfigured form, it is one of the dark lord's horcruxes. Will the transfiguration also block the people who touch it from being possessed?"
"I haven't the foggiest," said the headmaster, "if you prefer I could fake up another and we can destroy that one."
"No point," said Harry, "he claims to have made over a hundred of the things, before he stopped counting."
"Oh dear," said the headmaster.
.
"What's all this then?" said Alistor Moody launching from the floo and assessing the situation before landing catlike on his feet some distance away.
"Harry was just telling me that Voldemort claims to have made over a hundred horcruxes before he stopped counting."
"He's changed the process then, if he's still functioning."
"Yes," said Harry, "He claimed that too."
"You better start from the beginning," said Moody.
So for the third time that night the Voldemort's triumphal assault of the mirror room and resurrection was rehearsed. When at last he reached the point of waking up inside Hermione, Moody stopped him with a wand levelled at him. "You're telling me that both of you have horcruxes?"
"Yes," said Hermione, "and yet we have not yet killed anyone, proving that horcruxes are not evil, just the ceremony's original requirements."
"Hmmph," said Moody.
"Let them finish," said the headmaster, "and we'll come back to it."
So they finished. Though Harry left out the part about the red philosopher's stone being fake. And Hermione left out the part where it was now hidden in her sapphire ring.
"Alright," said the headmaster, "I think we have the gist of the plot, and I think I understand but please spell out for us, the exact nature of your horcrux and why you believe that it is justifiable to believe that it is not evil."
"It's rather simple," said Harry, "Voldemort uses a ritual is steeped in the fear of death and a belief that death itself is so much a part of the natural order of things that it must be bargained with, his ritual requires him to sacrifice another life in exchange for his own. By my accidental ritual, Hermione became my horcrux because I willingly sacrificed a bit of my self to bring her back to life."
"And," continued Hermione, "our patronus meditations are focused on the fact that death is not a natural part of the world it is merely a childish phase that humanity will grow out of in time,"
The headmaster's eyes twinkled and he turned to Moody, "now do you see?"
Moody was silent for several seconds, "Yes, yes, big of you not to be crowing, 'I told you so' at the top of your lungs."
"I was saving that for later," said Dumbledor, "since bringing them up to speed on our argument is evidently no longer important strategically."
Moody grunted and nodded, then turned to Harry "How sure are you that she is still your horcrux?"
"Hmm," said Harry turning to Hermione, "what non-destructive experiment could we conduct that would reassure us that—"
"Expecto Patronum," said Hermione and made a quick shewing gesture at Harry.
With a large bright light speeding toward him, Harry instinctively put a hand up to shield his eyes. But the patronus slipped around and through and passed into his skin wherever it touched.
"Any difference?" said Hermione.
"It feels like there was a slight increase in available magic," said Harry, "if that wasn't just adrenalin because you startled me."
Hermione nodded and made a 'come at me' gesture.
Harry repeated the whole procedure back to her.
She nodded, "I seem to be back to eighteen internal voices for you instead of one. But they're not talking out of turn as much as they were before."
"Now we know," said Harry, "and we should probably learn to do that one wandless if the next time we really need it is in a combat situation such that the one resurrecting left a wand behind on the battlefield, with the associated body."
"True," she said, "you have such a morbid sense of timing."
"Hah," said Moody, "Constant vigilance. Always."
"That's what 'constant' means," sighed Hermione, "Oh never mind."
…
"Speaking of," said Harry, "the dark lord's last threat to me was that he'd torture everyone in my army and my parents. And everyone else he thought might be my friend, then put them in Azkaban to relive that torture for as long as they lasted. Is there anything we can do about that?"
"There are many things we can do," said the headmaster, "an important step is for you to spend at least two weeks at your parents home, to renew your ties to it as your home."
"Understood," said Harry, "can Hermione's parents have similar protections?"
"By all means," said the headmaster.
…
Fin
…
Good night y'all.