HRH and their Prefect badges

[greatelderone]

No: HPFGUIDX 72064

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "serenadust" <jmmears at c...> 
wrote:
> I don't think you can compare the DA, in which F&G are highly 
> motivated to learn from Harry, to his being able to inhibit their 
> testing and development activities.  Harry is very concerned about 
> what the twins think of him (see GoF where he's worried that they 
> would think that he was "losing his nerve" if he asks their dad 
> about his scar hurting).  Harry is not any more motivated to rein 
> them in than Ron is, and I don't think he'd have tried too hard, 
> either.

You are still forgetting about the part where he gave them the money 
for the joke shop which has changed his relationship with the twins.

Still the DA was also a voluntary thing by both parties(the student 
body and Harry) and the fact that Harry doesn't have any authority 
from the school to have the DA or to keep the students under control 
and still manage to get a handle on George and Fred says a lot for 
his power over the twins.

> But I don't believe it was a mistake. Harry would have been an 
> absolute disaster as a prefect during his 5th year.  He did not 
have 
> the respect of a large portion of the student body already, 

And Malfoy and Ron did? Furthermore the fact that a large cross 
section of the school actually came and attended the DA proves that 
he certainly did have their respect.

>and his 
> selection would have undermined his position even further by 
playing 
> into the perception that Dumbledore tends to unfairly favor him in 
> all cases. 

What about Malfoy? He was the worst possible choice for prefect and 
abused the position and only received the badge because he was Lucius 
Malfoy's kid.

> His selection would also have further undermined 
> Dumbledore's position at a time when his headmastership was already 
> hanging by a thread.  How on earth would that have been in Hogwarts 
> best interests, when it would have contributed to his losing 
control 
> of the school even sooner by playing into Fudges' hands? 

By your reasoning he should have just taken politics into the school 
and appeased the ministry which imo isn't like him since he was the 
fellow that went and announced to the whole school and public that 
Cedric Diggory was dead even though Fudge and the ministry didn't 
believe him and it would have been easier for both him and Harry to 
cover up the truth and to rebuilt the order behind the ministry's 
back and without their suspicions. 
 
> And yet, he still has enough ego to (briefly) indulge in some mean 
> thoughts about how he deserved the honor more than Ron did, before 
> admitting that, apart from Quidditch, he's not really better than 
> Ron is at anything.  

And that is bad how? The kid isn't spoiled, but neither is he a 
saint. But still the fact remains that he got over it in a remarkably 
short amount of time.

> It was a mistake for Dumbledore not to have told him about the 
> prophecy sooner than he did, but I don't believe that denying him 
> the prefectship was a mistake (see above).

Why not? After all both decision were based upon Dumbledore's 
mistaken belief that he couldn't handle the additional burdens.

 
> I don't follow your point here. I see that Dumbledore felt he was 
> protecting Harry from additional burdens by not making him a 
> prefect.  Is that what you mean by "major favouritism"? 

Yes.

> Are you 
> actually suggesting that Dumbledore should now take the badge away 
> from Ron and give it to Harry in the next year?  Really?

Again we don't exactly know how the prefect system works. Perhaps the 
prefects have to be re-selected each year and the ones that have 
proven themselves capable are held on and others that have proven to 
be not so capable are shuffled out of the position while new ones are 
selected for the job.

> Yes he has, but I ask again: are you *really* suggesting that he 
> should now make Harry a prefect instead of Ron?

Again yes.
 
> Hermione, Ron, Fred and George are hardly *everyone*. 

But they are certainly a major cross section of the Gryffindor house 
whose views usually mirror or represent the views of that house.

> Do you really 
> think that Harry should be first choice for EVERYTHING at Hogwarts 
> just because he's Harry Potter?  

No, but he should certainly be first in line for the prefectship of 
the 5th year Gryffindors. 

> You mean like he handled the responsibility for learning 
Occlumancy, 
> which everyone from Hermione, to Sirius, to Dumbledore himself 
> stressed that he needed to master? He certainly didn't handle that 
> responsibility too well, did he?

True it was his fault, but at the same time Dumbledore also admitted 
that it was also partially his mistake for not realizing that Snape 
would never get over the memories of the abuse that he received at 
the hands of Sirius and James.

> Sorry, but Ron is at least as well qualified to be Prefect as Harry 
> is, unless prowess as a seeker is one of the qualifications.  Ron 
> has certainly been as useful in helping Harry fight against 
> Voldemort as Hermione has.

Ron however hasn't managed to fight off the dementors like what Harry 
did in POA nor has he survived encounters with Voldemort or the 
Basilisk which Dumbledore even said "grown wizards have never faced".

> Those experiences don't mean that Harry is more mature than any of 
> the other boys in his year. If that were true, then all children 
> who've been bullied and abused,
> would be ahead of their peers in the 
> maturity stakes, and that just isn't the case.

We are talking about from the context of the book here. 

The fact that Harry reminds people of the 7th yr James also 
reinforces the idea of his maturity.

>OoP makes it very clear through the entire story 
> arc of the book, that Harry needs to be more mature than he is 
shown 
> to be so far, if he is going to prevail over Voldemort.

Just your interpretation. A good one, but not necessarily the correct 
one.

> ::amused::  Boy, the Ron-bashers are just *never* going to get over 
> that one, are they?  

Just because I say that the fellow is immature and isn't deserving of 
the badge does not mean I'm a "Ron-basher".

>The GoF rift is *one* spat over the space of 
> four years, and long overdue, at that.  

And the fact that the issues that caused the spat are still there 
says that this argument is going to come up again.

>Now it is apparently a 
> reason for Ron to be disqualified as a prefect.  Harry is certainly 
> over this incident, and seems to value Ron's friendship all the 
more 
> as a result of it.

But has Ron gotten over those same issues? He still wants the fame, 
money and authority that Harry and his brothers have. The fact that 
he doesn't have authority which should have come along with the badge 
while Harry who doesn't have the badge and is ridiculed by the 
prophet has them and the fact that Harry is probably going to get 
unbanned by Dumbledore next year just might cause a re-emergence of 
the jealousy.