The Beetle At Bay

[Bex]

No: HPFGUIDX 111945

Salit wrote:
> Well, if you don't trust the authorities to actually do the right
> thing and if you have a larger aim in mind that supercedes the
> supposed justice system, then a private system of justice may be 
the
> right thing to do.  At the point where Hermione decides to keep the
> issue secret she had witnessed the Minister of Magic himself break 
the
> law in the most horrendous fashion (administer the dementor kiss on
> Crouch Jr. without a trial) in an effort to hush up the evidence 
and
> have the WW continue to live in a lie. 

Yb thinks:
Salit has an EXCELLENT point. Hermione caught Rita after they saw 
Fudge blame everything that Harry and Barty Crouch had said about 
Voldemort's rebirth on scars and lunacy. Fudge is obviously someone 
who cannot be trusted, and Hermione recognized that immediately. 
When she caught Rita, why would she hand the woman (who wrote every 
kind of slander possible in the DP) to the Ministry, when they had 
completely ignored the return of the most evil creature of the past 
century? Rita would probably get a slap on the wrist, then be 
encouraged to write more stories discrediting Harry and Dumbledore, 
making matters worse.

I am not completely forgiving Hermione. She is rather manipulative 
in this situation, and she's being a bit Machiavellian (ends justify 
the means), and her behavior at the end of GoF (she keeps the poor 
woman in a far until London, and she's pleased with herself), but 
she has a good idea: stop Rita from writing lies, get the whole 
story out correctly. She just uses the wrong methodology in putting 
these ideas through.

~Yb