Revenge on Rita was First lesson

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 185793

 
> 
> Magpie:
> I see what you're saying, but it's not clear at all on my re-reading. 
> The whole thing completely depends on me seeing Rita as an honest 
> writer who would have reported the truth because it was the truth
and  that's not Rita.

Pippin:
She would have reported that Harry Potter was accusing prominent
wizards of Death Eating, not because it was true, but because it would
have been a colossal story, which the Ministry wasn't telling  even as
craziness.

 As it still was, months later:
"I wasn't the sole witness," snarled Harry. "There were a dozen-odd
Death Eaters there as well. Want their names?"
"I'd love them," breathed Rita, now fumbling in her bag once more and
gazing at him as if he were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Hermione had to coerce Rita, but only into writing the story for free,
not into writing it at all. Rita thought at first that the public
wouldn't want Harry's version. But Hermione convinced her that they would.

> Magpie:
> The fact that the same kind of opportunity and situation never came 
> up again does not prove that Hermione decided it wasn't worth it. The 
> book showed Hermione use blackmail without remorse and without bad 
> consequences. The fact that one can insert some lukewarm objections 
> to that doesn't make those objections the point in the story. I don't 
> know what JKR thinks about it, but given what I read in the story I 
> would predict her answer if challenged to be slyly gleeful about 
> Hermione's triumph and at most add a lukewarm warning not to try
this  at home kids because the author of your life doesn't have your back.

Pippin:
Exactly. It works as a revenge fantasy, if you can overlook all the
inconvenient "realities" that JKR put in the book. Easy to do, if
you're reading, but not so if you had to live day-to-day with
Hermione's anxiety, the dangers of blackmail (dealt with in the Malfoy
and Twins storylines) and Rita's determination to write some more
nasty stuff about Harry and Hermione one day, which doesn't fret
Hermione by the time of OOP, but was the initial point of the exercise.

Pippin