What Safety Precautions?

[eggplant88 at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 4966

Dumbledore said precautions have been taken so that the very high 
death toll of past Tri Wizard tournaments are not repeated, but what 
exactly were they? I think there were two main ones, the first was 
that the champions would be a few years older than in the past, a 
safety measure that failed in Harry's case. I think the other was 
that the secrecy about the tasks was deliberately made lax. 
Theoretically none of them should have known in advance that they 
were going to be fighting dragons, but I think that if they really 
had no idea what they were up against until a 50 foot tall fire 
breathing monster, far larger than any Tyrannosaurus Rex, started 
coming straight for them none of the champions would have survived.
 
Yes, I know that as Professor McGonagall was leading Harry toward the 
first task said they have wizards standing by to control the 
situation if things get out of control, but she sure didn't act like 
she was very confident of that, I think she was trying to convince 
herself that it was true more than anything else. I got the 
impression she felt like she was leading a 14 year old boy to his 
execution and felt guilty as hell about it. When Harry survived the 
encounter with only a slight wound nobody seemed more surprised or 
relieved than McGonagall.