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(No spoilers. This is old enough I believe, but I still tried to avoid spoilers in the title.)

In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Hermione dies. Harry seeks to revive her and as the first step, he transfigures her into something and also produces a decoy body to leave behind. Final form of Hermione was a toe-ring looking exactly like the portkey one. All of this was told/confirmed in chapter 111:

Then Harry took off his left shoe, and his left sock, and took off the toe-ring that was Hermione Granger, the Transfigured shape identical to the toe-ring that had been given Harry as an emergency portkey.

And:

It was as Harry had seen before in the hospital's back room, the image burned into his brain during thirty long minutes of Transfiguration, the image he had reproduced during four even longer hours to Transfigure the decoy.

However, back in chapter 94, during the inspection at Dumbledore's office, Harry was wearing the true portkey ring:

It was verified that the magic radiating from the toe-ring was indeed the magic of a portkey, and not the magic of a Transfiguration. The rest of Harry was deemed clear.

So, where was Hermione's body at the time of inspection? I have three semi-plausible options:

  • Transfigured in that ring holding the rock. The rock being different color is masking the fact ring is transfigured. However, this is incredibly risky especially after the initial lies, so I don't think Harry would go for that. Besides, Harry fiddles in bed before going, presumably to reapply the transfiguration or to leave the "Hermione ring" behind.
  • Under his invisibility cloak somewhere. More likely and hard to impossible to detect. This also explains why Harry is in a hurry to get back to the dorm. However, Dumbledore knows that Harry has an invisibility cloak and would presumably notice it missing from his collection of magic things and wonder where it went.
  • Time-turner Harry. After inspection, Harry looped back to before Flitwick's arrival, took Hermione's body and kept it somewhere safe. Easy and quite safe, but why would Harry want to hurry back to his dorm? He will have enough time turns left no matter how long this all takes.

So, is there any hint where the body is during inspection or is this a mystery we can't solve?

(If this is a problem that is possible to solve, please just give me a hint about what did I miss. I tried going with "Harry never outright lies except for Azkaban" but I didn't see any scenario that would have Harry always speak the misleading truth during questioning.)

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  • Leaving the body alone under the invisibility cloak somewhere wouldn't work. Harry doesn't know when it would be discovered that the body is missing, and needs to keep the ring close to him to maintain the transfiguration. See chapter 102 about another large object transfigured to small and how much time Harry could buy for it to remain transfigured when it's away from him. I don't know the actual answer, but I can think of one more possibility. There's someone that Harry would have had time to meet once more in the evening, could be trusted with a secret, and could do transfiguration herself.
    – b_jonas
    Commented Dec 7, 2021 at 3:32
  • That’s a question I’ve vaguely asked myself without bothering to look for an answer (one wonders what was the point of reading the fanfiction at all in this state of mind). I doubt the time-turner hypothesis, because Harry is watched as soon as he’s waken up. So they need to go back before that – either waking Harry in the night, taking the thing and hiding somewhere – or taking the ring before he goes to bed (so after midnight – but that’s after the “four hours of Transfiguration after dinner-time”). Snape’s also rummaging through his things so it’s unlikely the body (even hidden) is there.
    – Aphelli
    Commented Dec 7, 2021 at 9:23
  • @b_jonas Well, one hour could be acceptable for Harry and also explain why he is in a hurry to leave back to his dorm.
    – Zizy Archer
    Commented Dec 7, 2021 at 9:23
  • @Mindlack Yeah, as one possibility time turned Harry came and took the ring in the night before Flitwick comes (Harry fiddling would be him wondering where is the body before figuring out he looped back). Also, a more complicated plan is possible along "Flitwick wakes Harry, Harry drops Hermione (that fiddling), they leave. Time turned Harry (possibly waiting hidden in his trunk during "Flitwick time") comes and takes Hermione out of the dorm before Snape arrives". Enough time, especially if he also used cloak to avoid Snape ("doubled" due to time turner, so it wouldn't be missing).
    – Zizy Archer
    Commented Dec 7, 2021 at 9:36
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    He still needs to not freak out after realizing the ring is gone and figure out that he did it (rather than the Enemy). I find it simpler to believe that he just left the ring under the blanket (“fiddling”) and decided to use the time-turner later to take the ring between Flitwick and Snape’s visits. Other interpretations for the “hurry back to my dorm” thing: mere annoyance at the disturbance and the suspicion, revulsion towards them (because guilt, trauma, anger, or something), or possibly part of the pretense of playing the game at the right level (ie where they think he is).
    – Aphelli
    Commented Dec 7, 2021 at 10:24

1 Answer 1

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All of your options are plausible, but only the first - that she's transfigured into the ring that bears the transfigured rock - appears to have any slight support within the text.

Firstly, Harry carefully places the ring separately from the jewel when he submits the gem for Dumbledore's testing:

"I must be sure. Take off that ring, Harry, and place it upon my desk."

Slowly, Harry did so, removing the gem and setting the ring off to the other side of the desk.

And he carefully recovers it again afterwards:

"Can I go now?" Harry said when it was all done, putting as much cold as he could into his voice. He took up his pouch, and began the process of feeding the grey rock into it. The empty ring went back on his finger.

No other object (except the rock itself) is tracked so explicitly in the narrative, which raises a "Chekhov's Gun"-like question about why the ring's detailed movements are being laid out for us. The fact that the gem is used as a diversion also suggests that the thing being diverted from is close by. It's possible that Harry's earlier "hands momentarily fiddling beneath the covers" when he's roused from bed is when he changed the color of the gem to set up the decoy.

But only Eliezer Yudkowsky can truly say for certain what he intended here, and although there's a lot of speculation by others out there, my searches suggest he has not revealed it.

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    Thanks. This seems fairly reasonable and gets you the check mark given no other answers. I still find it very risky given safer options of cloak and time turner. The dark lords words and actions might be relevant too. (ch105: "No, I expect you Transfigured Granger's remains into the ring itself, letting the aura of the Transfigured jewel mask the magic in the Transfigured ring.") and (ch111: "Voldemort laughed again in what sounded like surprised appreciation.") The first seems to support the theory, the latter seems to refute it.
    – Zizy Archer
    Commented Jun 21, 2022 at 6:12

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