Another way to look at this (link me if someone’s said this already) is as repeated matches of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The winning strategy tends to be “Start nice then match what the other guy does.” So if Harry’s considering this Hermione/Draco thing as the beginning of Harry vs. Voldemort (prophecy baby wouldn’t count to him), no one died, it’s fairly obvious that no one was meant to die (well, after ten years Hermione might have been dead, but that wasn’t a given, Bellatrix and others from the last war have survived a decade), so Harry can hang on to his “no killing yet” stance for now.
Azkaban is pretty serious, you too easily dismiss it. Trying to send an innocent friend to prison is not the act of someone who you necessarily want to cooperate with. The superhero thing doesn’t really have very much to do with the PD.
Whatever theories we may have, most of them contingent on the defense professor being Voldemort and the one behind this plot (a conclusion Harry hasn’t yet reached and which, frankly, there isn’t enough in-universe or possibly even total evidence to make conclusive), it is NOT “obvious” that noone was meant to die. Draco almost died and if it was anyone except the defense professor behind this he was almost certainly supposed to die. Hermione was, as far as I can tell, being sentenced to life in Azkaban, which I’d rank about the same as killing her. If anything, it’s obvious that this was meant to be a lethal plot and sets him pretty firmly on the “defect” side.
Another way to look at this (link me if someone’s said this already) is as repeated matches of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The winning strategy tends to be “Start nice then match what the other guy does.” So if Harry’s considering this Hermione/Draco thing as the beginning of Harry vs. Voldemort (prophecy baby wouldn’t count to him), no one died, it’s fairly obvious that no one was meant to die (well, after ten years Hermione might have been dead, but that wasn’t a given, Bellatrix and others from the last war have survived a decade), so Harry can hang on to his “no killing yet” stance for now.
Azkaban is pretty serious, you too easily dismiss it. Trying to send an innocent friend to prison is not the act of someone who you necessarily want to cooperate with. The superhero thing doesn’t really have very much to do with the PD.
Whatever theories we may have, most of them contingent on the defense professor being Voldemort and the one behind this plot (a conclusion Harry hasn’t yet reached and which, frankly, there isn’t enough in-universe or possibly even total evidence to make conclusive), it is NOT “obvious” that noone was meant to die. Draco almost died and if it was anyone except the defense professor behind this he was almost certainly supposed to die. Hermione was, as far as I can tell, being sentenced to life in Azkaban, which I’d rank about the same as killing her. If anything, it’s obvious that this was meant to be a lethal plot and sets him pretty firmly on the “defect” side.
She was being sentenced to ten years in Azkaban, which is the same thing as “death by slow torture”.
10 years in azkaban for attempted murder.