Harry Draco and bathroom.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 162712

Magpie:
> > Bellatrix isn't battling with Neville

Eggplant:
>
> But she was certainly battling with Harry, I don't know what else
to
> call it when 2 people aim unforgivable curses at each other.
> Fortunately Bellatrix missed.

Magpie:

> > Voldemort is tormenting Harry.

Eggplant:
>
> Both had wands and they were dueling, sounds like a battle to me.

Magpie:
Bellatrix has a whole speech about "teaching" Harry to use Crucio
before she throws it. Voldemort's "duel" with Harry is a sham, like
a cat playing with a mouse before he kills it. Their state of mind
is imo easily differentiated from the boys throwing it. That's the 
distinction Carol was making as well.

Eggplant:
> > if anyone actually followed the rules
> > for living you consistently post they'd
> > have a hard time leaving the house
> > without ending up in jail.
>
> If I was about to torture you would your primary concern be my well
> being, or would your primary concern be stopping me?

Magpie:
Yes, stopping you. But if you and I were fighting, and you did
something that would have caused me great temporary pain, I would
not necessarily be justified in killing you. I wouldn't necessarily
think of killing you. Harry does not want to kill Draco. He's a boy
fighting with another boy in school. He's not trying to murder him.
He would have been just as happy stopping him with Levicorpus
(happier, probably).

Eggplant:
> > Compassion isn't a weakness.
>
> Compassion in a war for somebody who is a split second away from
> killing you or driving you insane is most certainly a very severe
> weakness, it's a fatal weakness. It is also a literary weakness; in
> war thousands of people every bit as nice as Harry end up doing
> dreadful things. I think that would make a far more interesting
story
> than the further adventures of Mr. Goody Twoshoes.

Magpie:
Harry was not a split second away from being killed or made insane.
Being hysterical in war can be a weakness too. (Not that Harry is
fighting a war in the bathroom.) Nobody's advocating that Harry not
have stopped Draco, as you know.

Nor has anybody said anything about Harry not doing anything hard or
being a goody-two-shoes. That's your false dilemma. Harry can do
difficult things, even violent things, without adopting the policy
you're suggesting. Sometimes leaders in war take risks that pan out
as well--I think Rowling's plot is going to turn on a lot of those
risks, and that they are ultimately the most interesting part of the
story-far more than somebody just killing somebody else. (Harry 
doesn't really show compassion for Wormtail when he tells the others 
not to kill him. He is planning on him being basically killed, just 
killed according to law instead of by vigilantes. I don't think 
sending someone to the Dementors can be considered a failure of 
having too much compassion. Though that, too, will no doubt wind up 
contributing to the actual defeat of Voldemort.) If reading about 
the adventures of Mr. Goody Twoshoes isn't interesting, neither is 
reading about a thug who may kill a lot of people, but is really 
just as one-dimensional, flat and perfect as Twoshoes.

-m