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“Mr. Filch has Asked”: Discipline at Hogwarts

The World of Severus Snape

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“Mr. Filch has Asked”: Discipline at Hogwarts

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“Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended…. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch’s office, if anybody would like to check it.”
The corners of Dumbledore’s mouth twitched.

GOF, Dumbledore’s speech at the Welcoming Feast.

Harry hears four Welcoming Feast speeches from Dumbledore. At each, the headmaster mentions, pointedly, that “Mr. Filch, the caretaker” has asked him to remind students of certain rules.
Only once does Dumbledore openly smirk as he does so. But the inference is the same in all cases. Mr. Filch, the Squib caretaker, is welcome to try to enforce those rules. But the headmaster won’t.

And he openly tells his students so.


He’s telling new students two things here, in his speech welcoming them to Hogwarts, have they the wit to realize it. One is that the official, written rules posted on Filch’s door are not the real ones. The real rules, the ones the headmaster will enforce, students have to figure out on their own. The second is that he doesn’t back up his staff. His underlings may try to enforce official rules, but Dumbledore encourages students to defy them.
No wonder poor Filch idolized Umbridge. Every time we saw the twinkly one welcome new students, he overtly undermined the caretaker’s authority, and implicitly encouraged his charges to defy and, indeed, attack the defenseless Squib.

No magic in the corridors (which would include no hexing Filch from behind) is Mr. Filch’s rule, not Dumbledore’s:

“Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four hundred and sixty-second time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted in corridors between classes, nor are a number of other things, all of which can be checked on the extensive list now fastened to Mr. Filch’s office door.”
(Welcoming Feast, OotP)


If the posted rules and restrictions are just for show and Mr. Filch’s frustration, what are the unwritten rules of Hogwarts that Dumbledore really enforces? Because though unspoken, they are ascertainable; just ask Gred and Forge, who’ve been abiding by the REAL rules for years.

“Anyway… we’ve decided we don’t care about getting into trouble anymore.”

“Have you ever?” asked Hermione.

“’Course we have,” said George. “Never been expelled, have we?”

“We’ve always known where to draw the line,” said Fred.

“We might have put a toe across it occasionally,” said George.

“But we’ve always stopped short of causing real mayhem,” said Fred.


OotP, SWM

So where does Dumbledore draw the line? What are the real rules?

*
Rule One: Rules are made to be broken.


“First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”

Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins….

PS, Welcoming Feast

If you can get away with it, you can get away with it. Do we ever see Dumbledore himself actually punish anyone for anything, including the things he has expressly forbidden? We do see him twice threaten (Harry and Ron in book 2, young Tommy in book 6), and then renege on the threat. (Harry and Ron break rules again and are rewarded; Tom flaunts his stolen ring under Dumbledore’s nose.)

In fact, not only does Dumbledore give Harry the cloak (encouraging him to break curfew, go where he’s not officially allowed, and generally get up to any mischief he can manage), whenever Dumbledore personally catches Harry breaking rules he doesn’t punish him. (Off the top of my head, Twinkles catches Harry out after curfew looking at the Mirror in book one and diving into a Pensieve without permission in book four.) Indeed, Dumbledore jokes about Harry’s penchant for rule-breaking –in book 2, “ ‘a certain disregard for rules,’ he added, his mustache quivering again;” in book 6, “This time you enter the Pensieve with me… and, even more unusually, with permission.”)

Moreover, the “rules” Dumbledore himself might have seemed to state really aren’t. They are mere safety suggestions. Any child in his care who feels confident in hir ability to take on the danger may do so with Dumbledore’s goodwill. Look at how he phrases them:
</i>
“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”


“[He] must be [serious],” said Percy, frowning at Dumbledore. “It’s odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we’re not allowed to go somewhere….” PS

“As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out of bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year.” GoF

“First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students—and a few of our older students ought to know by now too.” (Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged smirks.) OotP
</i>

If students want to check out the Forbidden Forest, or Fluffy, or get bit by an illegally-reared dragon, Dumbledore’s not going to either stop or punish them. Of course, they might not survive… but that’s their problem, not his.


“He’s a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know. I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help.”
Harry at the end of PS

I argued earlier (“Keeper of the Keys”) that Dumbledore deliberately encouraged Harry to develop risk-taking behavior in preparation for his role of suicide bomber, and in “His Strongest Shield” that Dumbles had subconsciously hoped that Harry would get himself killed before Riddle managed his resurrection. However, this goes further than that: the headmaster also apparently gives “chances” for dangerous (to self or to others) misbehavior to the Weasley twins and the Marauders and Draco….

Really, how is it that only one student actually dies in the first six books?


*

Rule Two: No Tale-bearing.

“James Potter and Sirius Black. Apprehended using an illegal hex upon Bertram Aubrey.”
HBP, detention card

“No squealing” is a normal schoolyard code, which if one looks closely enough, seems to be taken to an insane length by Dumbledore. By no tattling, I mean: by anyone. Ever. Under any circumstances. Including risk of death.

If you look closely enough, ALL eyewitness testimony to wrongdoing appears to be disallowed at Hogwarts under Dumbledore.

It seems that a misbehaving student has to confess or to be caught actually in the act by someone in authority (prefect, Head Girl/Boy, or staff) in order to be punished for anything. The victim’s accusation counts for nothing; independent eyewitnesses (students, ghosts, or portraits) count for nothing; circumstantial evidence, however damning, counts for nothing; and if the authority witnessing the transgression chooses to turn a blind eye, no one else can do anything.

It doesn’t matter if there is incontrovertible evidence of a misdemeanor; it doesn’t matter if there are three, or fourteen, or four-score independent witnesses. As long as none of the witnesses is a prefect, HG/B, or staff (or is, but chooses not to act), the transgressor gets off scot free. And no one else can do anything about it.

The type case of this seemed to Harry to be terribly unfair.

[Snape] was also turning a deaf ear to the many reports of Slytherin attempts to hex Gryffindor players in the corridors. When Alicia Spinnet turned up in the hospital with her eyebrows growing so thick and fast that they obscured her vision and obstructed her mouth, Snape insisted that the must have attempted a Hair-Thickening Charm on herself and refused to listen to the fourteen eyewitnesses who insisted that they had seen the Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley, hit her from behind with a jinx while she worked in the library. (OotP: The Lion and the Serpent)


Yet it goes unremarked that the victim’s head of house also apparently “refused to listen to” the witnesses—though we know from HBP that if the victim’s head of house catches an aggressor in the act, that professor can assign punishment (subject to the other house head’s ratification).

Does anyone really want to argue that Minerva wouldn’t care that a Slytherin tried to incapacitate one of her Quidditch players just before their match?

So if she did not intervene here, she could not.

Moreover, we see in canon that Snape was bound by the same rule in regards to Harry.

How unfair did Harry think it in PoA when Snape “refused to listen to” the three Slytherin eyewitnesses who insisted that they had seen Harry, out of bounds in Hogsmeade, hit them (from behind an invisibility cloak at first) with mud balls and sticks?

The situations are analogous: there was physical evidence of an attack, there were eyewitnesses as to who had committed said attack (mind, Draco, Vince, and Greg had been momentarily bamboozled about what exactly they had witnessed—given the atmospherics of the Shack—but a few minutes with Crabbe would have extracted the fact that Vince had felt himself trip over what felt like another student’s foot, that he felt his own foot catch on cloth and tug it, and that Potter’s face had then instantly appeared), and there was an obvious motive. Snape caught Harry in the corridor which Snape already had reason to suspect contained a heretofore unknown exit from Hogwarts. Harry was sweaty, muddy-handed, with a Zonko’s bag of obviously fresh goodies and a suspicious parchment in his pockets. (Not to mention what additional evidence about Harry’s guilt a Legilimens might adduce.)

And when Snape failed to induce him to confess, when Harry persisted in lying to him—Snape, knowing the truth, knowing he could prove it (by Muggle standards of reasonable doubt), let Harry go.

With no punishment at all. Ever. It’s canon that Draco was still bent out of shape about that months later—it’s part of what fueled Draco’s rancor as the Slytherin-Gryffindor match approached, and made that match such a sore point between the houses.

O lenient Snape, what a softie you are where Harry is concerned! How eager you are to cosset and indulge him, as (according to him) you do your own house-children!

Er, right.

If Snape didn’t punish Harry for risking his bloody-little-life in a pointless expedition to Hogsmeade, it was because he couldn’t. He hadn’t been fast enough. He’d caught Harry muddy-handed in the corridor, not red-handed climbing out of a secret tunnel to Hogsmeade. And then he failed to induce Harry to confess. By the rules Dumbledore REALLY enforced, he could not punish Harry for what he (and Dumbledore) damned well knew Harry had done.

Note that Snape’s public role as Harry’s worst persecutor and his private role as Harry’s most dedicated protector were in unusual accord here: in either role, Snape had every reason to be LIVID and to throw the book at Harry (or to get Minerva to do so).

And he didn’t.

Ergo, he couldn’t.

Any more than Minerva, two years later, could punish Miles Bletchley. Sure, everyone knew Miles was really guilty. Everyone knew what he’d done, and why. But he could not be punished, because Miles had met Dumbledore’s REAL requirement: Don’t get caught in the act.

Other examples of the REAL rule in action:

Snape’s Worst Memory (which shows the rule was being enforced twenty years ago): James openly checked out the surroundings before launching his attack on Severus; he knew that there were only other students as witnesses, and that the only prefects in the immediate vicinity would not punish the Marauders.

And what about the Prank? There would have been no staff or (sane) prefect witnesses to anything except, possibly, two to four students out after curfew. It is canon that Dumbledore knew about the incident (and forbade Severus to talk); the Marauders’ behavior in SWM strongly suggests that any punishment they had received was so lenient as to encourage rather than dissuade them from continuing to attack Snape. Did Dumbledore explain, regretfully, to Snape that by school tradition he could not punish the Marauders at all based solely on another student’s unsupported accusation?

In PS, when Minerva caught Harry (but not Draco, who’d already reached the ground) disobeying Madam Hooch’s order not to fly, she chose to reward the boy for his skill instead of punishing him for his direct disobedience and reckless self-endangerment. It, so to speak, flew right past us readers that Madam Hooch never punished either boy either.

In CoS, Harry threw fireworks in a Slytherin’s cauldron—exploding Swelling Solution over most of the Slytherins (which hurt and could possibly have killed them)—Snape instantly suspected the Trio was involved and had that suspicion confirmed irrevocably when Miss Granger ended up half-cat from the Polyjuice misbrewed from the stores stolen that day. He could have had no doubts; he never punished them.

PoA, the Densaugeo incident—Snape punished Harry and Ron for yelling at him; he punished no one for the exchange of hexes in the corridor, which he had not himself witnessed. (If he was punishing Harry and Ron, but not Draco, simply to be unfair to them, why not punish them additionally for hexing poor Vince with boils as well as for swearing at their teacher?)

And finally, Whitehound gives numerous examples that show that Slytherins have figured out the rules: they hide their worst misbehavior from both Snape and other authorities. (Which says that Slytherin children expect that their head of house WOULD punish them—though perhaps not by docking house points—if he did catch them egregiously violating his standards of behavior. As the Trio expect of Minerva—but utterly unlike what the Marauders expected of their house’s prefects.)

Here’s Whitehound’s list (from her essay “But Snape is Just Nasty, Right?”):

Most of the things Snape lets his Slytherins get away with consist in being mildly rude to other students - when they are very rude or aggressive they hide it from him. We are specifically told that when Pansy jeers at Hermione's teeth she does so silently and behind Snape's back, and that Draco turns his back to Snape before flashing the POTTER STINKS badge (Snape might still see the flash of light - but he thinks the badges say SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY). Later on Draco "takes the opportunity" to flash the badge again while Snape's attention is on the Trio - presumably, the opportunity he is taking is that of Snape not seeing what he is up to - and in PoA he likewise waits until Snape's attention is on Harry before doing his Dementor impression. When Draco is injured by Buckbeak, he openly says he needs help with preparing his Potions ingredients, then drops his voice right down to ask Harry about Hagrid, and all the way down to a whisper to admit that he is exaggerating his injuries to get Hagrid sacked. The implication is that he doesn't want Snape to hear him.


Harry has figured this rule out too, really, though he keeps letting his temper goad him into outbursts in front of Snape. But he knows in the PoA scene that as long as he persists in his denial Snape can’t really DO anything to him… as opposed to real life children who’d know by thirteen that lying about an offense when there are three (hostile) eyewitnesses and solid circumstantial evidence supporting the witnesses’ story would be likely to aggravate, not avert, their punishment. (Not that they might not still try….)Nor do the Weasley twins worry at all about bragging about attacking Montague in fifth year; as long as they don’t confess directly to someone with both the authority and the will to punish them, they’re off scot-free. Similarly, Harry shows no concern that he could get in trouble for hexing Filch or Slytherins in the corridors in sixth year.

Now, it is true that Dumbledore, at the HBP opening feast, said, as a normal headmaster might (especially one who knows he, his school, and one of his student are particular targets for a terrorist organization, and that others of the students are certainly sympathetic to or members of said organization), “I urge you, therefore, to abide by any security restrictions that your teachers might impose upon you…. I implore you, should you notice anything strange or suspicious within or outside the castle, to report it to a member of staff immediately.”

Yet we see that every time Harry brings his suspicions of Draco and Snape to Dumbledore, he gets snubbed. As Lily snubbed Severus when he hinted at his suspicions about Remus and the Marauders. Both Harry and Sev happened to be entirely correct, of course, but—shame on you, don’t tell tales!

Finally, this rule has a cute little extension with very interesting ramifications. Someone has to be caught by someone with MORE authority than the miscreant—prefects, for example, can’t punish each other or, presumably, the HG/B. When a prefect acts up (Ron misusing his authority to nick a younger student’s possessions) even fellow prefects witnessing can do nothing. Which is, of course, why dear Dolores instituted the Inquisitorial Squad, given authority over all other students and answerable directly to her. And why Fudge had to institute an Educational Decree to give the Inquisitor, namely, Dolores, authority over other teachers’ punishments.

Which explains why Minerva responded so “weakly” to the sight of a fellow professor torturing a child in front of her: what else could she do?

How often does Minerva respond “weakly” to anything? I count three times in canon: she objects “faintly” when Albus insists it’s best to foster Harry with the Dursleys; again, “faintly,” when Harry Potter insists her colleague Severus Snape had actually killed Dumbledore; and in GoF, “Moody, we never use transfiguration as a punishment,” said Professor McGonagall weakly. “Surely Dumbledore told you that?”

But there’s nothing she can do (after rescuing Draco) but remind “Moody” of the formal rules: only Dumbledore could actually do anything to stop or punish Moody, and the Twinkly One won’t unless he directly witnesses the misdeed. Teachers can’t squeal on each other, either.

So if, say, a dark-haired boy with instincts for cruelty and domination were to be made Head Boy, only the court of public opinion and the physical presence of staff would put any restraints at all on his behavior…. Fortunately James cared about Lily’s opinion, and he wouldn’t have wanted too many rumors getting back to her. So he could only hex people who weren’t friends with Lily. Luckily for James (as Margaret Atwood puts it), “There is a wide choice.” Or, at least, the available choices included James’s favored target.

What if we assume this unwritten rule to be a Hogwarts tradition and not Dumbledore’s innovation? But one which Dumbledore, at least, carried to a lunatic extreme? Then Dumbledore’s silence about his suspicions of Riddle at Hogwarts is partly accounted for—he never managed to catch him in any act.

Now consider Tommy as Head Boy. Tommy planned to apply for the DADA job, so he would care about Dippet’s good opinion. But not about anyone else’s. So maybe Dumbledore wasn’t lying after all when he said, “Few who knew him then are prepared to talk about him; they are too terrified,” even if those witnesses DIDN’T know Riddle later returned as the dread Lord Voldemort.

Though if Tommy had been using his position as Head Boy to torture other students, you’d expect most of them to guess his subsequent identity… but then logic is not the WW’s strong suit.

*

Rule Three: Wands and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.

“He insulted my parents,” snarled George. “And Harry’s mother.”

“But instead of leaving it to Madam Hooch to sort out, you two decided to give an exhibition of Muggle dueling, did you?” bellowed Professor McGonagall…. “I do not care what provocation Malfoy offered you, I do not care if he insulted every family member you possess….” OotP, “The Lion and the Serpent”



It was Whitehound who identified this one.

When Snape catches Ron physically attacking Draco in PS, and Hagrid explains that Draco had insulted Ron's family, Snape replies "Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules." Harry assumes Snape is being unfair: but after the fight at the Quidditch match Minerva disciplines Harry and George for fighting Draco, and she too does not regards Draco's extremely provoking rudeness to them as either a disciplinary issue or an excuse. Hogwarts students are all effectively going armed, which explains the stringent rules against physical or magical violence: whether it's fair or not it seems clear that it is indeed the case that at Hogwarts verbal provocation is not against the rules, and physical or magical retaliation is. So Snape is acting quite correctly by never punishing Draco for sniping at Harry, and it's to his [Snape’s] credit that Draco feels he has to conceal his more extreme rudeness at all
.

Indeed, Draco can yell out something like “You’ll be next, Mudbloods!” (CoS, “The Writing on the Wall”) in public with perfect confidence that it’s safe/acceptable for him to do so.

Moreover, it’s also perfectly all right at Hogwarts for teachers to use insults and humiliation against students in ways that wouldn’t always fit modern Muggle ideas of best pedagogical practices. That we, indeed, might count as verbal abuse, were we inclined to be picky. Snape’s sharp tongue is legendary (and usually directed against Harry and his friends, so Harry actually registers Snape’s insults), but even legendarily-oblivious Harry manages to notice Minerva publicly insulting and humiliating Neville (PoA, GoF), Flitwick doing so to Seamus (“a baboon waving a stick” in HBP), Hagrid to Draco, and Trelawney to Hermione.

(Trelawney is the only person in canon to question Hermione’s magical competence: “I am sorry to say that from the moment you have arrived in this class, my dear, it has been apparent that you do not have what the noble art of Divination requires. Indeed, I don’t remember ever meeting a student whose mind was so hopelessly mundane.” Considering that this scene shows a famous seeress’s descendent denigrating the school’s most noted Muggleborn, “mundane” carries uncomfortable echoes of those two other “mu” insults in the WW: “Muggle” and “Mudblood.”)


*

Rule Four: Playing favorites

“Snape’s head of Slytherin. They say he always favors them—”

“I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can’t bend the first-year rule.”
[Er, technically, that would be “break,” not bend, Minerva.]

“I don’t want everyone knowing you’ve got a broomstick or they’ll all want one.”

“I have a few last-minute points to dish out. Let me see.” PS


Dumbledore and his staff openly play favorites. Not only Minerva and Severus: Hagrid, Gilderoy, Remus, Sybil, Pomona, Dolores, and Horace all single Harry out for special treatment of one form or another. Minerva and Horace are also seen to single out Hermione (and Horace and Hagrid others); and if there had been only one Boggart in the castle, as canon seems to suggest, Remus gave Harry’s class only a special lesson on facing them—and sixty rubies in their hourglass for doing so.

Mind, this particular rule could be defended as simply Dumbledore’s attempt to prepare his students for adult life within the WW.

An egregious violation of the Statute of Secrecy and the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery might be punished, at Hogwarts, by expulsion… or by a single detention (and not even any points loss, which would have kept Ron & Harry’s fellows from making heroes of the boys for their Ford Anglia exploit). The Ministry, for the same offense, might order the miscreant expelled and break his wand—or pat him on the head.

And, of course, we see prefects following their elders’ examples. Percy (who’s socially-insensitive, isn’t he?—so among other things, more comfortable with formal rules than “understood” ones) appears to try to enforce the (official) rules against his own housemates (we see him take points from Harry for using magic against Draco in the corridors), but Remus, Draco, and Ron are all openly partisan, and Hermione is probably quietly so, at least where her personal friends are concerned (all of Harry’s hexing people in sixth year never once got him punished, even while she was scolding him about using the Prince’s spells?).

*

A short digression to examine a particular exemplar of favoritism: That Snape favors his own house (and picks on theirs) is the Gryffindors’ primary complaint against Snape.

When you total the listed punishments up, however, in the first six years in canon Severus gave six detentions to Gryffindors—exactly as many as Minerva gave to Slytherins, and two fewer than Minerva gave to Gryffindors.

As to house points, Snape was seen by Gryffindors to dock them unfairly and not to give them out—to Hermione—when warranted. But Snape didn’t single out Gryffindor for neglect in point-giving; he didn’t award a single point ever in canon—not even a single one to Draco for perfectly stewing his slugs in the first class. And in Harry’s first year Minerva took 20 points from Slytherin versus Severus’s 12 from Gryffindor.

Overall in canon Severus docked 267 points from Gryffindor versus Minerva’s 165 from her house. But 70 of Snape’s points were docked from Harry sixth year for “lateness” and “inappropriate attire”—actually for spying on and letting himself be ambushed by Draco, a folly that could have had lethal results had Draco been more vicious or had he signaled to the Dark Lord that he’d left Potter immobilized on the train. Considering the stupidity of what Potter did, and the gravity of the possible consequences, Snape’s punishment seems appropriate enough (it’s moderate compared to Minerva’s 150 points first year for the kids’ endangering themselves). So if we allow those 70 as a reasonable response to life-threatening bravado and thoughtlessness, in canon Snape only took 32 points more from Gryffindor than Minerva did—despite Gryffindors’ frequent open rudeness, inattentiveness, and misbehavior in his classes.

However, there’s one thing that we saw Minerva do, and that canon never showed Snape doing: taking points from one’s own house. Canon does show Snape punishing Slytherins with detentions and lines, but never by point deduction. Which might possibly (I imagine Fred and George were sure it did) have something to do with why his house won the house cup for six years running. (Note, however, that the Slytherin pupils had to do things to EARN points as well as not LOSE them. The Quidditch Cup, if I recall, is worth 150 points—but those other 322 points had to come from somewhere. My, my. Looks like ambition is good for something. If Severus isn’t awarding those points—and canon never shows him doing so—all the other professors are.)

The student body’s reaction to the house cup, however, is consistent with their initially feeling that the competition was mostly fair. Certainly if Slytherins and Snape had been cheating to get the house cup, Harry, Hermione & Neville’s loss of 150 house points should have been taken more in stride. If the other Gryffindors had assumed they had no real chance at the cup anyhow, they wouldn’t have ostracized the trio whom they held responsible for their probable loss.

Of course, rivals always like it when a too-long winning streak is broken, even if favoritism isn’t a factor. And so we see: when Dumbledore gave Gryffindor 170 house points at the leaving feast, breaking Slytherin’s about-to-be seven-year winning streak, there was a veritable “storm of applause, for even Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were celebrating the downfall of Slytherin.”

The reaction to Dumbledore’s doing the same thing the next year (awarding 400 points last minute to Harry and Ron) was not recorded. However, Harry’s third year, when his stupendous Firebolt won the Quidditch Cup and those points gave Gryffindor the house cup again, JKR specified that “the Gryffindor table was noisiest of the lot, as everyone celebrated.”

Stop a moment. Gryffindor table was noisiest, because they were celebrating the third consecutive Gryffindor house cup victory?

Which is to say, by that time Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were no longer equally noisy. Equally thrilled. From their point of view, they had exchanged a Slytherin winning streak for a Gryffindor one.

Which makes one wonder: had Slytherin not had a six-year winning streak, would anyone from the other houses have applauded that last-minute gift of the house cup to Harry and his friends, first year? Or, indeed, stood for it without raising an unholy stink (I’m thinking of Hufflepuff here)?

Are we quite, quite sure the headmaster had nothing to do with that previous six-year winning streak? We know of Albus (and of no one else) that he’s entirely willing to subvert the point system to award the House Cup as he chooses. And Albus knew all along what year Harry would enter.

(But don’t mention this possibility to Severus, who I imagine counts those six years of leading his children to the house cup as among his meager successes.)

And, by the way, taking the house cup away from Slytherin put Snape in an impossible situation for disciplining his charges. You don’t get a seven-year winning streak without working for it—and being highly motivated. Winning the house cup mattered to those kids. So, during the time that Slytherins thought they could win the Cup, house points mattered—earning them, and not losing them.

Well, house points are really a way of translating adult rules of behavior into peer pressure to enforce those rules—at an age where kids are starting to care more for their peer’s approval than for the grown-ups’. Book one, no one in Gryffindor knew or cared that Harry had endangered himself and the school transporting an illegally-reared dragon. But they all knew (and cared) that he’d lost them points in the process. And so they all put pressure on Harry to obey rules more, which was successful for a time. He was only willing to break rules again when he imagined it was the only way to foil Voldemort. For which Dumbledore emphatically rewarded him.

Once Dumbledore had jerked the House Cup away from those Slytherin kids several years running, why should they work for house points? More, why should they respect their housemaster and submit to his discipline, if he had encouraged them in that ambition and now couldn’t help them to achieve it? So if this were so, we should, over time, see Snape lose both status with and control over his students.

Of course, we see no such thing in canon. Just watch Draco in book six for confirmation.

*

Rule Five: Every man for himself

Snape looked as though Christmas had been canceled. CoS

“Please do not suggest that I do not take the safety of my students seriously, Harry.” Twinkles, HBP.


This rule has two sides: Dumbledore does not offer those exercising authority under him any real backup, and Dumbledore does not offer the children in his care true protection.

No backup: the staff, prefects, and HB/HG have no power save the taking of house points (which Dumbledore eventually turns into a joke) and whatever they can personally command. If a student shows disrespect to or even attacks a staff member/prefect/HB/HG, the only consequence is whatever the injured party can and will impose. Dumbledore will not support them; he’ll at most tut mildly at the student ( “Professor Snape, Harry”—not, “Twenty house points and a detention for persistent refusal to show respect for a professor, Harry”). Hermione sets Snape on fire; the trio give Snape a concussion—no investigation, no repercussions. The Weasley twins attack their prefect/head boy brother—again, no repercussions except Percy’s remonstrances.

The case that proves how deeply this particular rot spreads is trivial: Hermione dropping Divination. That a student who is wildly overextended should be allowed to drop one of her electives without penalty: no problem. But canon showed us a fourteen-year old openly ridiculing her instructor ( “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Hermione loudly. “Not that ridiculous Grim</b> again</b>!”) and just walking out of class when the teacher insulted her in return. Without ANY repercussions from the administration.

Translate this to a real school: a student taking extra classes (before or after regular hours, or instead of a study hall—it’s quite possible to overachieve without the help of a time-turner) decides a particular elective has not proved worth her investment of time and wants to drop it. Fine. But she would NOT get away with doing so by insulting the teacher in mid-class and strutting out. Any student who tried that particular method of dropping the class would have had her ass nailed to the wall, and after any due detention(s) would at the least have been forced to formally—most likely publicly, in front of her former class—apologize to the teacher.

But the worst of all is, Hermione by third year clearly understood to that it was safe to do this. (This is, after all, the girl who had whimpered first year, “We’ll be killed! Or worse, expelled!” ) Which means she knows that it’s entirely acceptable to the headmaster and her head of house to treat Trelawney with such utter disrespect.

The reaction any normal reader has here is, Trelawney INVITES utter disrespect. So why shouldn’t she receive it? But the answer to that is, if Dumbledore thinks Divination is bogus, he has no business offering the course as one of the fairly few electives at his school. If he thinks that Divination is not bogus, but Sybil is, he has no business offering his students Sybil as their teacher. If he thinks Prophecies are real, and Sybil a real Seer, he should damn well offer her the support and respect due such uncanny powers!

*

Then there’s Filch. Who has the authority to catch miscreants, and to oversee detentions , but not to assign punishments.

In CoS, Filch filled out a form on Harry: Crime… befouling the castle… suggested sentence…”

Filch’s problem (and torment) is, that the “suggested sentence” is just that: a suggestion.

I can suggest lots of things to lots of people. What counts is what they actually do. Which is, in many cases, to ignore my suggestion.

As, in canon, Filch’s seem to be ignored.

Similarly, a professor who catches students misbehaving outside of class can suggest punishments, but the punishment can be overridden by the guilty party’s Head of House or the headmaster. (See playing favorites, above.)

*

The flip side of “Every man for himself” is there’s no real protection offered the students.

Told that a troll had entered the dungeons, Dumbledore sent one-half his students into the troll’s presumed path with no protection but their prefects.

If Lupin told the truth to Harry, Dumbledore did not even think of sacking Lupin for almost killing three students due to his carelessness in not taking the Wolfsbane. Rather, Snape forced Lupin’s resignation by outing him to the Slytherins. Similarly, Hagrid never worried that DUMBLES would sack him for badly injuring a thirteen-year-old through his negligence—Hagrid was afraid that the boy’s parents could force the headmaster’s hand.

Then there’s Crouch/Moody, who publicly tortured Draco without apparent fear of reprisal.

Even if we attribute some of Dumbledore’s inaction as due to his lunatic adherence to Rule Two, the effect is that, under Dumbledore’s regime, staff and students repeatedly attack, injure, or endanger children with no apparent consequences from the headmaster entrusted with their welfare. Hagrid endangered the Trio in year one with his dragon (Ron ends up in the Hospital Wing), sent Harry and Ron to near-death at the fangs of Aragog in book 2, bred illegal animals with unknown properties and made children care for them, sustaining physical injury in the process, in book 4… all with no visible reaction from his boss. Except, oh yes, a promotion to full professor, so he can extend his list of possible victims!

Quirrell was allowed to make 3 attempts on Harry’s life before Harry killed him instead. We saw Lockhart and Crouch punished by God/JKR/fate, not by Dumbles, for attacking students.

In fact, in canon, in each of the seven books but one, the DADA/DA teacher tries to kill/torture/irremediably injure children in hir care, without any official punishment from the headmaster. God/JKR/the students may punish them; the headmaster, never.

(Guess which DADA prof is the sole exception?)

*

Then there are students causing harm to each other… the Marauders to Snape and random others, Draco to Katie and Ron, Harry to Draco and Crabbe, the Weasley twins to Malcolm Baddock, Hermione to Marietta… for that matter, the Weasley twins testing their products on eleven-year-olds.

Canon gives us numerous examples of staff harming or endangering students, of students harming or endangering their fellows, without Dumbledore lifting the least finger either to avert this or to punish the wrongdoers.

*

If those are the real rules, there are several questions that arise: to what extent did Dumbledore’s unwritten rules simply honor established Hogwarts traditions, and/or the corruption extant in the WW?

The second question can be addressed by the extent to which the Ministry seems to follow these “rules.” Clearly, favoritism is rampant—and certainly the Ministry doesn’t seem to recognize anything like “hate speech” as a crime. But (with obvious exceptions for the exercise of favoritism) the Ministry in general does try to enforce its laws; the Wizengamot considers both the testimony of eyewitnesses and circumstantial evidence; the Ministry seems to try to give reasonable support to its staff; and certainly the laws on the books suggest that the Ministry takes seriously (if not always competently) its duty to protect its citizens.

With regard to the question of whether Dumbledore was simply honoring old Hogwarts traditions, we have two types of evidence. Do other Hogwarts heads seem to follow the same implied rules, and do teachers (especially heads of houses) follow the same rules when Dumbledore is not compelling them to do so?

To what extent did Acting Headmistress McGonagall, Headmasters Dippet and Snape, and Headmistress Umbridge follow Dumbledore’s implicit rules? Snape, of course, was constrained to play Death Eater, and both he (in his role) and Umbridge had reason deliberately to violate traditions, so the evidence from their terms in office should not be given as much weight as the others.

Rule one: do we see any other heads openly turning a blind eye to rule-breaking, and/or do we see them personally punish any miscreants? The two times we see Minerva specifically acting as Head, we don’t see the situation arise. But Dippet expels Hagrid for rearing Aragog, and Snape gives Neville, Luna, and Ginny a detention (grin) for breaking into his office and trying to steal the sword. As for Umbridge, “rules are made to be broken” is absolute anathema to her.

And, in Hagrid’s case, it was Dumbledore who persuades Dippet to let the guilty (and dangerous-to-others) boy stay on at Hogwarts as the gamekeeper’s assistant.

Rule two: do we see any other heads taking the “no tale-bearing” ethos common to boarding schools to Dumbledore’s absurd lengths? Umbridge, of course, is inclined to the opposite extreme. The only other head we have any information on is Dippet: when Tom implied he might harbor suspicions about who was responsible for the monster, Dippet encouraged him to voice them. It’s Tom who insisted instead on catching Hagrid in the act. (Note that in the parallel conversation between Albus and Harry, Dumbles was not encouraging Harry to implicate someone else but to confess, if not precisely to confess to committing the crimes.)

Rule three and four I don’t think canon gives us firm evidence on for any of the other heads’ reigns except Umbridge’s. Umbridge seems to favor Draco and his crowd, and unequivocably targets Harry, and Umbridge at the least agrees with Minerva that Draco’s verbal rudeness wasn’t actionable, while Harry’s and the twins’ physical actions were.

For rule five, however, we do have evidence for all the heads at least with regard to protecting the students. Under both Snape and Umbridge, physical abuse of students was permitted—but they seemed to try to reserve that to authorized users and situations (torture by the Carrows in detentions, Blood Quills). The anarchy fomented by Twinkles, the war of all against all, was discouraged. (Note that Neville, recounting the exploits of the D.A., described only resistance to the Carrows, not attacks on Slytherin students. It seems Headmaster Snape permitted the former but not the latter.)

With Dippet and McGonagall, we don’t have that. However, we do have their reaction to another situation: when a student is murdered on the premises, both heads immediately respond by planning to close the school (and Minerva considers doing so again when Dumbledore is murdered). Both seem to take it as a given that if a school cannot protect its own from murder, that school should be shut down.

Dumbledore, in contrast, never for a moment considered doing the same at Cedric’s murder, even though his own staff member had Portkeyed Cedric to his death, and though Twinkles knew that Hogwarts would continue to be a target of interest to Tom.


The second type of evidence we have as to whether Dumbledore’s rules are actually time-hallowed Hogwarts traditions is what rules the heads of houses seem to follow internally and what teachers follow in their classrooms. And we see that neither Minerva nor Severus tolerate open rule-breaking under their noses, as Dumbledore does—except sometimes in cases where favoritism is involved. We see no teacher punish based on eyewitness testimony rather than hirself catching the miscreant—but that policy is capable of being enforced by Dumbledore (did you actually SEE him do it, Severus?), so that may not count. Favoritism is prevalent among teachers and not questioned. We see the heads of Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw (and other teachers) all use insults/humiliation against students. And we know that Snape, at least, takes protecting students physically so seriously that he punishes students for accidents that endanger themselves and others, as well as for actual rule-breaking.

So the “real rules” that we can infer are probably part of established Hogwarts tradition are the same two as those honored by the WW as a whole: name-calling isn’t a crime, and favoritism is to be expected. The others seem to be Dumbledore’s own.

*

So what is the effect of those three?

It was to make Hogwarts under Dumbledore a paradise for, in D&D terms, those aligned with chaos rather than law—and rather a hell for those who preferred order. Who fit in better and was happier: Percy or the twins? Which ended up disillusioned about Dumbledore and siding with the Ministry for a time?

One would naturally suppose that the headmaster of the school, the chief of the Wizengamot, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation, must be the embodiment of Lawful Good. Instead, eccentric, free-spirited Dumbledore himself is clearly Chaotic (Chaotic Good, he’d claim). He openly flouts Ministry regulations himself (making unauthorized Portkeys, resisting arrest). When he finally decided in the 70’s that he must fight against Voldemort, rather than taking a Ministry position to use official resources, he gathered a private gang personally loyal to him—some of them Ministry officials willing to commit treason at his behest. He rewarded rule-breaking in students and non-cooperation with the Ministry in his followers. We don’t ever see him exercise the authority vested in him to do anything but make speeches and make mammoth point dumps to rule-breakers who have pleased him.

Indeed, consider Albus’s original attraction to Gellert’s programme. Remember how Albus justified it to Aberforth? When their goals were achieved, when wizards ruled Muggles, the Statute of Secrecy would be no more, and Ariana could finally be free. And so could Albus. The Statute of Secrecy is an gross infringement upon wizards’ freedom to perform magic openly—of COURSE Albus wanted it abolished.

And then consider Albus not making Harry a Prefect. Sure, it’s officially considered an honor, but from the point of view of a Chaotic, being a Prefect would be a horror. Being expected to enforce rules? (Unless, like Ron, one mostly ignored the attendant duties and focused solely on the opportunity to pick on enemies.) So Dumbles spared Harry the terrible fate he never wanted for himself: responsibility. “I must confess.. that I rather thought… you had enough responsibility to be going on with.”

Of course, Albus’s attraction to chaos is perfectly understandable. Laws exist in part to protect the weak from the tyranny of the strong, and Albus has always known himself to be the strongest wizard in the world. Even if he has no compelling interest in being a tyrant himself, laws occur for him as shackles, not as protection. “Every man for himself” works fine when you’ve always been the fastest wand in the west.

For the weak, however, for the children of Hogwarts, it leaves them unprotected. Bullies can proceed unchecked, so long as they follow a few rules of concealment. Indeed, children are trained into lawlessness by Dumbles. Where people see others consistently get away with rule-breaking, they have little motivation to follow uncongenial rules themselves. And if the authorities show no interest in protecting one from violence, one’s primary options are to develop the ability to meet it in kind (Hermione) or to attach oneself to a bigger bully (Peter).

Indeed, Albus may think of himself as Chaotic Good and think he encourages that in others, but instead children under his tutelage become not just breakers of pettifogging regulations, but vicious. He started off with a predilection for Bad Boys (Gellert); he seems to have ended by learning to make them.

We saw Dumbles overtly instruct Harry that seeking revenge was the perfect demonstration of love. We saw Harry and Hermione graduate from breaking curfew and rules (to protect Hagrid, to protect the Stone) to attacking others (to protect others—Snape in PoA, Umbridge in OotP) to attacking others in vengeful anger (Hermione’s canaries, Harry’s Cruciatus). Never in canon do we see a bully give up his bullying behavior, though we do see one learn to hide it from his girlfriend. But we do see others besides Harry and Hermione start Hogwarts with no history of attacking others deliberately and graduate with a hex-first attitude: Ginny. And presumably Snape.

As I mentioned long ago, I think Dumbles hired Filch as part of his bullying-training program (perhaps subconsciously). Filch is the perfect person to teach children it’s acceptable to victimize others. Children meet him as first-years when they have little magical power or control. He is passionately jealous of their potential power and treats them as destructive beasts. He's backed up in his nastiness by Dumbles but not given any real authority or protection. And in a few years, the kids who hate him for his nastiness regard it as perfectly justifiable to hex him: after all, he's been talking for years about wanting to whip and torture them.

Naturally all the students applauded when Harry attacked a person with no power whatsoever to protect himself from Harry, and who’d never had any actual power to hurt them.

So Dumbledore’s children have been trained either to bully or to applaud it, and further trained to disdain Squibs.

Dumbles undoubtedly told himself that he hired Filch out of charity: to give the poor soul some job he could do in the WW.

Now circle back once last time to Minerva witnessing Dumbledore’s personal friend Moody (as she thought) repeatedly slamming a transfigured student against a stone floor. What did she say (weakly) in reproof?

"Moody, we never use transfiguration as a punishment."

Not, note, "We never slam students against the floor!"

Or, “We never physically injure students as a punishment!”

No, Dumbles was fundamentally okay with brutality as well as rule-breaking. Even if he, unlike the Carrows, consciously restrained himself from indulging in that taste.

Finally, here’s what tv-tropes has to say about Chaotic Good people placed in positions of authority:
An important aspect of Chaotic Good freedom fighters is that they excel in toppling corrupt regimes, but are often pretty terrible with power and responsibility themselves. (as some of the examples show). A Chaotic Good character faces a tightrope walk even more narrow than most Lawful Good characters face because of their competing interests in being a free spirit that wants to do good in the world, and their general disdain for the authority and control over people's lives that they would be wielding to try to do that good. Generally, one of several things happens because of this:
• Riding Into The Sunset--They just abandon authority altogether.
(“I was safer at Hogwarts…. But while I busied myself with the training of young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army.”)
• Delegate their power to a friend or chancellor of some kind. This isn't always the best idea.
(Gellert? And Fudge?)
• They decide that the best thing to do with power is just sit on it, and keep it out of more dangerous hands. Doing so winds up making for fairly poor terms in office.
(“I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.”)
• Shift in Alignment - They just fail to reconcile their philosophy and their practical reality, try to reach too far with one campaign or another, and slide in alignment, either admitting the use of law and order, and sliding to Neutral Good, or Jumping Off The Slippery Slope to Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Evil.
(Some might argue that manipulating a young boy’s entire life, including arranging for him to be raised by abusive guardians, so he’ll end up at seventeen being your willing suicide bomber is a little, um, well, not actually on the good side of the good and evil scale. As would, as Pratchett points out, playing with other people’s heads against their will.)
  • Extraordinary essay as always. *saves*

    Thank you!
  • Another virtuoso performance, terri, well done. :)

    I just compared Dumbles and Severus to Caligari and Cesare on DTCL, but now I don't even know who to compare Dumbles with any more. He's simply appalling.

    More comments later when I've finished packing.
  • Does anyone really want to argue that Minerva wouldn’t care that a Slytherin tried to incapacitate one of her Quidditch players just before their match?

    So if she did not intervene here, she could not.


    Or perhaps she never knew that it had taken place. We don't see the Gryffindors often running to Minerva for help, do we? Maybe Alicia was embarrassed to have been caught that way and didn't want her to know.

    in either role, Snape had every reason to be LIVID and to throw the book at Harry (or to get Minerva to do so).

    And he didn’t.

    Ergo, he couldn’t.


    So why then did he try in CoS (the scene after Harry and Ron have arrived in the car that you reference later)? I mean, he tries to invoke Minerva and Dumbledore's power because indeed he doesn't have the authority to punish them himself - but what I'm hearing you argue here is that we should not have even seen him try that, because he knew that he could not succeed, that by Dumbledore's rule it was not a truly punishable offence?

    Yet we see that every time Harry brings his suspicions of Draco and Snape to Dumbledore, he gets snubbed.

    Well, in Harry's case Dumbledore already perfectly well knows everything that is going on with Severus and Draco, of course--knows things about it Harry can't even conceive of at this point. It's hard to say what reception he would have gotten if he'd had information that was actually news to Dumbledore.

    When a prefect acts up (Ron misusing his authority to nick a younger student’s possessions) even fellow prefects witnessing can do nothing.

    Can not, or choose not to? Do you have a citation? There's a line in OotP about them not being allowed to dock points from each other, although that was apparently corrected from a version which simply said they could not dock points (which contradicted other evidence that they can), and Ernie goes on to comment "He can’t be allowed to dock points ... that would be ridiculous ... it would completely undermine the prefect system." But detentions? A lot of threats certainly fly around, from Hermione, Ron, Draco... they appear to choose not to do so, but it's not the same as "can't".

    (continued...)
    • Or perhaps she never knew that it had taken place. We don't see the Gryffindors often running to Minerva for help, do we?

      Is it because they think they don't need her support or because they don't expect to get it? If Alicia was embarrassed to be caught like that isn't an atmosphere of 'wizards will be wizards' and hands-off attitude by the staff part of the reason she felt that way?

      So why then did he try in CoS (the scene after Harry and Ron have arrived in the car that you reference later)? I mean, he tries to invoke Minerva and Dumbledore's power because indeed he doesn't have the authority to punish them himself - but what I'm hearing you argue here is that we should not have even seen him try that, because he knew that he could not succeed, that by Dumbledore's rule it was not a truly punishable offence?

      It wasn't a punishable offense unless the boys confessed. Which they did, once Severus showed them the paper, demonstrating that there was in fact evidence that a flying car was around in locations that match a London-Hogwarts route. Severus was being bad-cop to induce confession, upon which the offense becomes punishable. In later years we see Harry learned the lesson - admit nothing (eg POA, or even later in COS).

      It's hard to say what reception he would have gotten if he'd had information that was actually news to Dumbledore.

      I think we know - we see Dumbles reacting to completely new information a few times - when Harry returns from the graveyard in GOF or when he reveals that he just learned Severus was the one who had overheard the prophecy in HBP. Cold fish.

      But detentions? A lot of threats certainly fly around, from Hermione, Ron, Draco...

      I recall Ron imagining giving Goyle lines to write, but Goyle wasn't a prefect. Do we see Prefects threatening other Prefects with any kind of punishment (other than when the IS is formed and some of them indeed have higher status)?
      • I recall Ron imagining giving Goyle lines to write, but Goyle wasn't a prefect. Do we see Prefects threatening other Prefects with any kind of punishment (other than when the IS is formed and some of them indeed have higher status)?

        That they call out the fact that prefects cannot dock points from one another implies to me that detentions are fair game. That's what Draco is lording over them when he's in the IS - that now he can dock points. If it was suddenly that he can dock points AND give detentions when he couldn't do either before, he'd say so. However, I'll agree that the line is ambiguous, especially since the meaning is significantly changed between the two revisions:

        ‘It’s only teachers who can dock points from houses, Malfoy,’ said Ernie at once.
        ‘Yeah, we’re prefects, too, remember?’ snarled Ron.
        ‘I know prefects can't dock points, Weasel King,’ sneered Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle sniggered. ‘But members of the Inquisitorial Squad –’


        vs.

        ‘You can't take points from fellow prefects, Malfoy,’ said Ernie at once.
        ‘I know prefects can’t dock points from each other,’ sneered Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle sniggered. ‘But members of the Inquisitorial Squad –’


        And no I could not find a direct threat of detention from one prefect to another, even from Draco to Ron (the most likely one I'd think) - he threatens Harry, mostly. (I checked HBP too just in case, and disappointingly but perhaps not surprisingly, the whole thing seems to have fallen by the wayside - the only mentions of people doing prefect jobs are on the train, Hermione herding the first-years, and the bit about Hermione Confunding McLaggen at the tryouts, "that was dishonest, you're a prefect, aren't you?" and she just says "oh shut up".)
        • That they call out the fact that prefects cannot dock points from one another implies to me that detentions are fair game.

          Or that to Draco points mattered more than detentions. Maybe the fact that since his arrival at Hogwarts the 3 years the House Cup was awarded it went to Gryffindor, twice as a result of last moment point awards by the headmaster bothered him. Maybe the thought of Slytherin winning the House Cup felt better than the thought of his rivals doing detention.
      • the bit about Hermione Confunding McLaggen at the tryouts, "that was dishonest, you're a prefect, aren't you?" and she just says "oh shut up".)

        Now that I've written this I'm a bit annoyed at just how similar this kind of behavior from Hermione really does seem to Lupin's failing to rein in the misdeeds of Sirius and James, and her authority shields them rather than corrects them. Ugh. And we're supposed to despise Percy for being all officious and junk?
        • In this case she is shielding herself - she was the law-breaker and the authority figure.
          • Yes, but I mean as an example of overall theme. There are some other cases where really she (or Ron, but again, like Ron would ever entertain the merest thought!) ought to at least reprimand Harry, and she doesn't (at least not seriously).
    • Perhaps Minerva didn't know about Alicia

      So the Gryffindors (with their fourteen witnesses) are not embarassed to complain in the unsympathetic ears of the perp's head of house, but are too embarrassed or noble to sully the sympathetic ears of their own?

      No, it's canon that Alicia and her cronies tried to complain to authority about what happened.

      And Minerva had to have known something: one of her star players is IN THE HOSPITAL WING. How can that escape Minerva's notice, and even if Alicia/her teammates went running to Severus instead of Minerva for redress, how come not one of the fifteen sympathetic witnesses (the victim and the fourteen bystanders) were willing to tell the truth when pressed by Minerva "What happened?"

      Minerva had to have known something happened, and given the nature, victim, and timing of the injury could make a shrewd guess what. If she chose not to investigate it, that only reinforces my point that "no squealing" was a rule enforced upon/by her as well.
  • (all of Harry’s hexing people in sixth year never once got him punished, even while she was scolding him about using the Prince’s spells?).

    Oh but that would be betrayal, wouldn't it? Consciously or not, her (and Ron's - not that Ron would ever even entertain the idea of punishing Harry for anything!) authority is shielding Harry, really, as Lupin's inaction abetted James.

    a folly that could have had lethal results had Draco been more vicious or had he signaled to the Dark Lord that he’d left Potter immobilized on the train. Considering the stupidity of what Potter did, and the gravity of the possible consequences

    "Very brave and very stupid" is how it's described when he jumps onto the troll in the bathroom in PS. True, he's only 11 there, but Harry seems to have a wide streak of this kind of behavior (spying on Draco there was certainly an act of "daring" and "nerve", to use two of the Hat's words).

    if Dumbledore thinks Divination is bogus, he has no business offering the course as one of the fairly few electives at his school.

    Isn't that what he himself says? I tend to agree with you - he's merely using it as a device to keep an eye on Sybil and keep her out of Voldemort's clutches. But surely he could have orchestrated some other way of doing that?

    Hagrid never worried that DUMBLES would sack him for badly injuring a thirteen-year-old through his negligence—Hagrid was afraid that the boy’s parents could force the headmaster’s hand.

    Are we talking about Draco and the hippogriff? How was Hagrid particularly negligent here? I think the problem there is rather that Draco didn't bother to listen and take the instructions about how to deal with hippogriffs seriously.

    Minerva considers doing so again when Dumbledore is murdered). Both seem to take it as a given that if a school cannot protect its own from murder, that school should be shut down.

    Dumbledore, in contrast, never for a moment considered doing the same at Cedric’s murder


    Yet Minerva seems to think it likely Dumbledore will take this course of action in CoS: "I need hardly add that I have rarely been so distressed. It is likely that the school will be closed unless the culprit behind these attacks is caught. I would urge anyone who thinks they might know anything about them to come forward." (also, here they're being urged to "bear tales")

    But we do see others besides Harry and Hermione start Hogwarts with no history of attacking others deliberately and graduate with a hex-first attitude: Ginny. And presumably Snape.

    Although you could argue Severus learned this in self-defense; just what would Ginny be defending herself against, popular, funny girl like her?

    Jumping Off The Slippery Slope to Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Evil. (Some might argue that manipulating a young boy’s entire life, including arranging for him to be raised by abusive guardians, so he’ll end up at seventeen being your willing suicide bomber is a little, um, well, not actually on the good side of the good and evil scale.

    When you introduced the idea of alignment earlier in the essay and said Dumbledore would think of himself as CG, I thought "but well, really he's more like CN..."
    • re we talking about Draco and the hippogriff? How was Hagrid particularly negligent here? I think the problem there is rather that Draco didn't bother to listen and take the instructions about how to deal with hippogriffs seriously.

      No, Hagrid did not give enough information about hippogriffs. For instance, he didn't warn the students that the hippogriif can actually understand the words they say to him. If one assumes the hippogriff has the intelligence level of, say, a dog, Draco's behavior should have been safe and non-insulting.

      • He says:

        ‘Now, firs’ thing yeh gotta know abou’ Hippogriffs is they’re proud,’ said Hagrid. ‘Easily offended, Hippogriffs are. Don’t never insult one, ‘cause it might be the last thing yeh do.’

        If it can have "pride" and be "offended", to me that implies that the hippogriff must be intelligent enough to understand speech better than a dog does - thus is able to know when speech is insulting. But the text also says specifically that "Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle weren't listening", they were talking among themselves. Whether things would have turned out the same if he had taken the advice (i.e. if it was sufficiently good instruction) we can't say, but it's not someone else (who heard it) who has this mishap; it's Draco, who wasn't paying attention.
        • responsibility

          (Anonymous)
          In a Muggle school, Hagrid would have been blamed for the accident even though Draco brought it on himself by not listening, because it is the *teacher's* responsibility to make sure that the students hear and understand the warnings *before* he presents the dangerous situation.

          He should have been *watching* who was listening. He should have *explained* that Hippogriffs could be insulted by words, not just by improper bowing and eye contact. And he should have *reinforced* the warnings with notes, questions, a quizz or simple repetition/restatement.

          He didn't do any of the above. Therefore in Muggle terms he was negligent - not through malice or carelessness, but through incompetence and ignorance. But Hogwarts/the Wizarding World doesn't share our standards or our commitment to safety, security, fairness, etc in schools.

          duj
          • Re: responsibility

            (Anonymous)
            I agree with that, but there's yet another way in which Hagrid was negligent, IMO. After the initial demonstration with Harry, Hagrid has *all* of the students approach hippogriffs simultaneously. Based on the characters named in that scene, that's at least nine students with no experience interacting with hippogriffs. Hagrid couldn't monitor any individual student closely, and the hippogriffs are dangerous enough that the students need close supervision.

            Hagrid *was* able to get to Buckbeak quickly, I'll grant him that. If he'd been monitoring the students individually, though, he'd presumably have been able to restrain Buckbeak the instant Draco said the wrong thing, rather than just after Buckbeak attacked. Hagrid (and the class) were also lucky that there wasn't another mistake/attack right around the same time, because then Hagrid wouldn't have been able to manage at all.

            For that matter, what if one of the students had reflexively reacted to Buckbeak's attack by *swearing*? That's far from an unrealistic reaction, and could itself have provoked an attack from another hippogriff, I would think.

            Lynn
  • Interesting insights about the Chaotic Good and related ways to describe Dumbledore. Gee, to think I used to spend so much time daydreaming about how wonderful it would be to go to Hogwarts- your descriptions of Dumbledore's leadership made it seem like exactly the sort of place I would never want to be!

    And here's the interesting thing about character alignments in Harry Potter- you would think that Dumbledore is Chaotic Good and Voldemort is Chaotic Evil-or perhaps Lawful Evil. But it turns out to be more like Voldemort is Stupid Evil and Dumbledore is Lawful Evil- since he's so determined to rule over everyone and enforce his own rules by any means necessary.
  • (Anonymous)
    Re: rules are made to be broken: "no magic in the corridors" is a silly kind of rule. No magic at all? Not even a Lumos, or a Reparo, or something? It's phrased so generally that students are naturally going to break it when it makes sense to, which would encourage them to break it for magic they shouldn't be using, too.

    ...For that matter, what's special about the corridors? They're allowed to use magic in their dorms, presumably in the library, outside of the castle... this rule *sounds* like "no running in the hallways," and it's probably supposed to resonate with that, but it doesn't make nearly as much sense.


    Which explains why Minerva responded so “weakly” to the sight of a fellow professor torturing a child in front of her: what else could she do?

    Considering that she's the Deputy Headmistress, she *should* have authority over the other teachers. I'm not sure that we ever *see* her have authority over other teachers unless Dumbledore isn't there, though, so maybe she doesn't.

    Lynn
    • It's phrased so generally that students are naturally going to break it when it makes sense to, which would encourage them to break it for magic they shouldn't be using, too.

      First you break the rule for good reasons, then for bad reasons and eventually for no reason at all. That's Sam Vimes' explanation for keeping his self-imposed rule (reading to his son at 6 pm exactly, very night, no matter what.)
  • This essay is gold. Dumbledore=Chaotic explains so much. I always thought the way Dumbledore, the school's top authority figure, sets himself up as the cool, funloving teacher who sides with the kids against big meanies like Filch and Snape was one of his cleverest tricks. They demand harsh punishments, he reins them in and gets to look nice and reasonable by contrast. But it makes even better sense that he acts this way instinctively, because he's against any enforcing of discipline, reasonable or not; and that this is why Hogwarts has become a breeding ground for bullies.

    It's interesting to compare Dumbledore to the headmaster in Stalky & Co, which I believe must have served as inspiration for HP. He can always tell when his students have been up to no good and doesn't let them get away with it. "I know you're all little angels and there's no evidence against you, but I'm punishing you anyway because I'm unfair like that" (paraphrased). At the same time he discreetly rewards them for their smarts and initiative. He's portrayed as deservedly popular.

    whenever Dumbledore personally catches Harry breaking rules he doesn’t punish him. (Off the top of my head, Twinkles catches Harry out after curfew looking at the Mirror in book one and diving into a Pensieve without permission in book four.) Indeed, Dumbledore jokes about Harry’s penchant for rule-breaking

    The Pensieve bit I imagine is less a school rule than a social rule, on the lines of you shouldn't read someone else's diary without permission. Which makes DD's indulgent joking entirely obnoxious. Harry's looking in Snape's Pensieve is not a boys will be boys moment, like sneaking off to Hogsmeade without a permission slip. It's a gross violation of privacy.

    So if this were so, we should, over time, see Snape lose both status with and control over his students.
    Of course, we see no such thing in canon. Just watch Draco in book six for confirmation.


    I'm not sure it's possible to generalize about the other Slytherins from Draco. Besides that his judgment is pretty poor, Draco's attitude is shaped by the idea that Snape is his father's unofficial protegé/employee/what have you.

    Btw, your essay cleared up a point that always puzzled me: the reason Harry wouldn't tell McGonagall about his detentions with Umbridge.

    "Go to McGonagall, say something!'
    'No,' said Harry at once. 'I'm not giving her the satisfaction of knowing she's got to me.'
    'Got to you? You can't let her get away with this!'
    'I don't know how much power McGonagall's got over her,' said Harry.


    Well, isn't it worth trying to find out? Not by Dumbledore's unwritten rules it isn't. That would be tattling.

    Once again, congratulations!
    • Thanks!

      Glad you liked it; I've been more than a year trying to figure out what Dumbledore's real rules were and how they related to the general corruption of the WW.

      (No, I don't have a life, thank you for asking....)

      Nice catch on the Umbridge--hadn't even thought to bring that in.
    • "Go to McGonagall, say something!'
      'No,' said Harry at once. 'I'm not giving her the satisfaction of knowing she's got to me.'
      'Got to you? You can't let her get away with this!'
      'I don't know how much power McGonagall's got over her,' said Harry.

      Wow, Dumbledore's so insane about his rules that he won't even protect a student who's bein deliberately tortured on his watch?
      • Well, I don't suppose he ever found out about it -- but the reason nobody told him is the insane anti-talebearing climate he himself fostered. Umbridge is availing herself of the abuser's charter that he drew up.
    • re: Dumbledore and rule-breaking

      (Anonymous)
      Huh. Yeah, it'd be interesting to go back over each Harry-Dumbledore exchange and analyze the moral messages. Knowing what we now know about the character, it's hard not to look for his agenda.

      He really seems to want Harry to feel personally responsible for and worried over the lives of the people around him, I think. Look at how he manipulates him with the cloak and the tantalizing hints about the Stone. In Book 2 he relies on Harry to save Ginny, and allows the crisis to develop to such a point that the entire school is endangered. In 3 he scapegoats Snape for the need to rescue Sirius, so that Harry is forced to rescue Sirius alone, breaking the law in the course of it.

      And in 4 he gives him no help at all in preparing for the Tournament, and allows him to believe Ron is in real danger in the lake. Of course he implicitly makes Harry responsible for Sirius by delegating to Harry the task of feeding the fugitive. How does he not catch the impostor? Probably he's hoping Harry-Horcrux will be destroyed in a fiery conflagration, or possibly he's fearful Harry might steal his glory.

      I really thought that after 4, a law and order type character would emerge and have something smart to say. Apparently not!

  • 462?

    (Anonymous)
    Wow! Filch reminds Albus 462 times while Albus is Headmaster for approx. 37-38 years (at this point in the books). That is at the least more than 12 times a year - more than once a month. And yet Albus only reminds the kids once a year at best (not counting whether it is a true warning or not) -- Hwyla
  • “Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended…. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch’s office, if anybody would like to check it.”
    The corners of Dumbledore’s mouth twitched.


    ROFL! I <3 Dumbledore! :) In this case, he is showing us how tedious blindly following rules is.

    This is GoF, no twins' shop yet. =) Hence, anything that Filch forbids is from Zonko's - and Dumbledore had most likely seen this list of Filch's, just to be aware of the 'dangers.' ;P The smirk comes from the fact that all 437 items are gag items, and bear no real harm.

    Times like these, I miss having Dumbledore around. Snape's no fun. XP
    • re: Filch

      (Anonymous)
      Ha! That's true. But, to play devil's advocate, it's rather awful the way Dumbledore treats Filch - humiliating him in front of the students, and undermining him.

      I get we're supposed to hate Filch because the poor elderly janitor likes Umbridge, but it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the man. Responsible for the security of an entire castle, and gets nothing but laughter and scorn in thanks. (Hey, kind of sounds like someone we know.).
  • (Anonymous)
    Wonderful essay! I haven't time to finish reading it now, but a quick question:

    It is canon that Dumbledore knew about the incident (and forbade Severus to talk); the Marauders’ behavior in SWM strongly suggests that any punishment they had received was so lenient as to encourage rather than dissuade them from continuing to attack Snape.

    a) where does it say that he forbade Snape to talk?
    b) did the Marauders get punished?

    I personally think it's obvious he forbade Snape to reveal what happened- otherwise he would've told Lily about Lupin being a werewolf, but I'm curious if we get more than that by implication.

    And I'm also wondering if the boys got any punishment at all for nearly getting him killed- Harry had to cause physical life-threatening harm before getting detention, so I'm not convinced they got into trouble, considering Snape got through physically unscathed.

    borg_princess
    • a) where does it say that he forbade Snape to talk?

      Remus says so, POA ch 18 "He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was..."

      Sorry for the lateness of this reply.
  • Terri, if you notice this:

    As part of my homework in the context of my sporking of GOF on DTCL I am reading many of elkins' essays. You may be interested in RE: Wizarding Justice, Again.
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