HRH and their Prefect badges

[C M]

No: HPFGUIDX 75283

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Rebecca Stephens 
<rsteph1981 at y...> wrote:
>>>Gotta disagree here.  Even exluding his behavior with F&G he 
didn't do the job.  During OWLS he was going to buy one of those 
intelligence-boosting potions, instead of stopping the sale of them.  
And he didn't even bother to see if the potions were legitimate.<<<

Me: So we have him, 1) Calling the first years "midgets," 2) Failing 
to lay a smackdown on his older, unruly brothers who we all know damn 
well would've laughed in his face, 3) Considering buying Firewhisky 
at the Hog's Head and 4) Attempting, along with Harry, to buy brain-
boosting products to help with exams.

I'll agree that that's a strong case for him not being 'prefect of 
the year.' But again, we know very little about anything else he did 
as a prefect. Harry wasn't with him when he and Hermione led the 
first years to the tower (incidentally, I'd imagine that a truly 
crappy prefect would've left that job to Hermione and gone to hang 
out with his friends); for all we know he was exceedingly helpful and 
reassuring to the new students.

There's also the fact that aside from the F&G stuff, we didn't hear 
Hermione (or anyone else) complaining that Ron *wasn't* fulfilling 
his duties. We didn't see Harry observing that his friend was doing a 
crappy job and, considering his disappointment at not being made 
prefect, I'd imagine he'd have noticed something like that with no 
small amount of bitterness. At most, I think we can surmise that Ron 
was relatively inconsistent in his first year as a prefect.

I stated earlier that Ron and Hermione serve valuable, somewhat 
opposing purposes in Harry's life. I think that goes for the prefect-
ship as well. If every prefect at Hogwarts was a Percy/Hermione type, 
there'd be revolts happening constantly. There have to be laid back 
people in the mix in order to balance out the more rigid ones. Ron's 
judgment may be less than stellar sometimes, but when it comes down 
to the things that *really* matter, he knows right from wrong. 
Due in large part to the newfound confidence he has after helping to 
win the Quidditch Cup, I think he'll be decidedly more conscientious 
regarding his prefect position (among other things) in Book 6.

CM