Previously on "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" ....


Before Significant Digits...

If you have read the Harry Potter books but not "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"...

The Boy-Who-Lived was raised by Petunia Evans and her husband, Oxford professor of physics Michael Verres.  He grew up in a loving home and was raised to revere the scientific method and its results.  When he discovered he was a wizard, Harry Potter-Evans-Verres was shocked at the backwards world he found -- a society that was almost feudal, a school hardly worthy of the name, and a distinct lack of optimization.  Harry's quest to rectify these flaws was quickly derailed by the plotting of his mentor Professor Quirrell, a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who was actually the Dark Lord Voldemort, and who seeks the Philosopher's Stone.

Working with Hermione Granger and (separately and secretly) with Draco Malfoy, Harry did his best to navigate the challenges of his first year: fighting in mock battles in Defense class, inventing partial Transfiguration, denouncing the abusive Professor Snape, devising a new Patronus that can destroy Dementors, breaking an innocent out of Azkaban, and angrily pointing out the flaws of Quidditch.  But his worst fears are realized when Hermione is murdered.  Harry vows that he will keep to the old words of the Potter family... "the last enemy that shall be defeated is death."

At the climax of the story, Voldemort's plot to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone succeeded.  In the process, Dumbledore was defeated and banished beyond time, while Hermione was resurrected and imbued with the regenerative powers of a troll and a unicorn to keep her alive.  Voldemort revealed that the Philosopher's Stone's power was actually to make any Transfiguration permanent, even a human one, and that his overriding concern was to prevent a prophecy that predicts Harry will destroy the very stars in heaven in his vain questing to optimize the world.  He further revealed that the curse he cast on Harry as a child left an imprint of Voldemort's own thinking on the child, explaining some of Harry's mysterious "dark side."  Harry was surrounded by Death Eaters, and Voldemort demanded any secrets he might possess,

Calling upon all his ingenuity, Harry used partial Transfiguration to kill all of his enemies at a blow, except Voldemort, whom he captured.  He took up the Stone of Permanency, and returned to school to take control: to discover the source of magic, to end the injustices in the world, and to destroy death.

3 comments:

  1. Corrections...

    "Michael Verres-Evans, and his wife, Mrs. Petunia Evans-Verres"

    "A Doctor teaching biochemistry at Oxford could hardly be expected to listen to the advice of a little boy."

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  2. Yo, put a spoiler alert on this page for heaven's sake lmao. You gonna completely ruin HPMOR for those who might wanna read it.

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