Percy's magical ability

[Mike Schubert]

No: HPFGUIDX 28064

Haven't posted in a while, and I rarely have time to keep myself 
current with the messages, so bear with me. I did a quick search, but 
didn't see anything recent about this...

I'm in the middle of PoA (Grim Defeat), and just got to the part, 
immediately after the Fat Lady's been slashed, where Percy is 
following Harry around, "(acting, Harry suspected, on his mother's 
orders)... like an extremely pompous guard dog." Even on my first 
read, this part struck me, and it sticks out every time I go back 
through, for two reasons:
A) It paints a picture of Percy that we don't see as often, the 
benevolent protector. Pompous ass though he may be, he generally 
means well, and this is one of the places where we see him acting as 
a "big brother" figure (in the non-Orwellian sense). The only others 
I can think of off the top of my head (though I'm quite certain there 
are more) are both CoS, with his "protection" of Ginny (insisting 
that she take the Pepperup Potion, and telling off F&G for their ill-
advised attempts to cheer her up by scaring the living hell out of 
her). While the impetus for his actions in this particular case may 
well have been his mother's request, I'd bet that once she suggested 
it, he took the idea as his own, and threw himself into it a lot more 
heavily than he would have had he thought it was anything less than 
the right thing to do.
B) It also really makes me wonder about Percy's magical ability. We 
know he's Head Boy, so he must have some relatively impressive 
magical ability (book-learnin' will only get you so far, I would 
assume). But the fact that he's trailing Harry around like a guard 
dog makes me wonder about just what he would expect to do in the 
event Sirius did show up. Granted, his arrogance, combined with his 
belief in the infallibility of the power of his Head Boy badge, would 
probably make him consider himself almost invincible, but I wonder 
what sort of a magical fight he could put up... Any thoughts? (Or 
other instances of Percy acting big brotherish?)(Or other places 
where we hear about Percy's magical ability?)

-m