The Death Eaters Are Off Their Game?

[Claire]

No: HPFGUIDX 71835

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Danger Mouse" 
<dangermousehq at h...> wrote:
> I found the Department of Mysteries fight scenes rather strange 
and... dare I say, Unbelievable? Here we have a handful of students 
who for the longest time beat the living Spam out of a bunch of 
qualified evil wizards and witches (trained under the Most Evil Lord 
Thingy). Does it make sense that these wizards, clearly Oh-So-Evil 
enough to pull off Unforgivables, choose not to use them? Not one 
fatality for the Students. Little Harry manages to do a good enough 
Protego charm to protect himself from various curses, so why not the 
DEs? Sure, they were trying to get the prophecy back to Lord Thingy, 
but there were plenty of times they could've killed/seriously 
injured one of the kids. Why not do a quick switching spell on one 
of the brains and one of Ron's vital organs? It doesn't need to be 
accurate--even done wrong, it'd still probably kill him... were they 
just forgetting that they're the bad guys who are supposed to be 
more skilled and underhanded than a couple teenagers?
> 
> Disbelievingly,
> Dan

Now me:
Lucius Malfoy stops Bellatrix from going after Harry because they 
didn't yet have the prophecy, and that was their main goal.  Had LV 
told them to "kill the spares" then get the prophecy, it would have 
been far different.  Blind loyalty means blinders--you do only what 
you are told to do, literally.  I don't think any of the DEs 
remotely expected the kids to have the kind of skills that would 
stack up against their own powers.  They were held off long enough 
for the Order to show up and take over.

Claire