Harry's importance and threats of expulsion

[Dicentra spectabilis]

No: HPFGUIDX 57234

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Troels Forchhammer
<t.forch at m...> wrote:
> 
> While the lack of punishment in the many other instances
> possibly means that Rowling find those justified. 

This brings up an interesting point: Does the pattern of act and
consequence indicate what JKR considers justified/unjustified, or is
she simply showing that sometimes you get caught and sometimes you don't?

The topic of rulebreaking in the Potter series is extremely complex
because there does not seem to be a one-to-one connection between
getting punished and doing the wrong thing.  Not all bad acts are
punished, and occasionally people get busted when they are in fact
innocent.  

Hermione has yet to be caught for stealing boomslang skin from Snape's
stores, but Harry gets points taken away all the time at Snape's whim.
 This is closer to how things are in real life, where you *do* get
away with wrongdoing sometimes, and sometimes you're penalized for
doing the right thing.  

Under these circumstances, you have to do the right thing for the sake
of doing the right thing, not to avoid punishment or anticipate
reward.  It's really the only setting in which you can develop moral
character; otherwise, you're Pavlov's dog, doing the "right" thing
only because you get a treat for it.

--Dicentra