Hermione and Rita Skeeter

[ericoppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 112026

My own take on Hermione's treatment of Rita Skeeter is that, if 
anything, Hermione was quite merciful.  Someone who was less 
nice...say, someone like me...might have taken more permanent 
measures.  Like _Obliviating_ Rita in bug form, to prevent her from 
knowing how to change back to human.  Or throwing the jar, with Rita 
in it, into an incinerator.  Or *glyph of utterly evil smile as I 
contemplate the great ease of eliminating an unpleasant person who's 
stupid enough to let me catch them in Animagus form*

Instead, Hermione makes the punishment fit the crime.  Rita Skeeter 
abused her position as a reporter to write untrue and harmful things 
about Harry and Hermione, trusting in her status to keep her safe 
from reprisals?  Very well.  Let her keep her quill quiet, or write 
as Hermione dictates, for a year.  She abused her Animagus powers to 
get "dirt" on people after having been banned from Hogwarts grounds?  
Very well.  Let her live _as_ a beetle, since she seems to like it, 
until Hermione chooses to let her loose---and let her live in fear 
ever afterward that Hermione might decide to turn her in. 

Hermione and her friends have no reason to trust the adult 
authorities in their lives.  When the authorities are untrustworthy 
or ineffectual, "self-help" justice becomes the order of the 
day...like it was back-in-the-day along the Anglo-Scottish border, 
where we get neat words like "blackmail," "feud," and "reiver," and a 
lot of gory stories.