Neville's dumb mistake (was Why don't Ron and Ginny know?)

[annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 113180

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Janet Anderson"
<norek_archives2 at h...> wrote:

> As far as everyone knew, there's a deranged murderer somewhere in
the area, 
> targeting one of Neville's roommates. (Yes, we know differently now,
but 
> *they didn't.*) This deranged murderer is a former Hogwarts student and 
> therefore can be expected to know his way around, and in fact he has
already 
> gotten into Hogwarts once.  The password system is one of the chief 
> obstacles to unauthorized personnel even when there isn't a crisis.
 And 
> Neville a) writes the passwords down and b) loses them and they c)
fall into 
> the murderer's hands!  Note that even if he'd written them down, if
he'd 
> kept them on his person, Crookshanks wouldn't have been able to get
them.

Just a small quibble: Neville didn't actually *lose* the passwords. 
Crookshanks stole them from his bedside table.  So the passwords were
stolen from a place the murderer would supposedly have needed the
password to get into in the first place. Neville probably assumed they
were perfectly safe there.

Of course, I still agree with you and McGonagall about Neville being
punished, because once you write down the passwords, you never do know
what might happen to them -- after all, a part-kneazle belonging to a
housemate might steal them and give them to a lurking animagus!  And
that may look like sarcasm, but it's not; it's an acknowledgement that
the unforeseen may happen.

Annemehr