History WhatAnIdiot / HarryPotter

'''The Result''': While this makes the Trio all friends, [=McGonagall=]] is full of AngerBornOfWorry. She gives the trio five points total for bravery -- five removed from Hermione and ten added for Harry and Ron-- while telling them in the film they survived due to "sheer dumb luck".

* The Polyjuice Potion can give you the appearance of anyone you can get a sample of hair from — not just a clever disguise, but it alters your body so you have the same fingerprints, hair, and body shape. Thus, ''anyone'' important can be replaced[[note]]but it does admittedly require that the original be kidnapped, imprisoned, and used as a living source of ingredients for any long-term deception to occur[[/note]].\\

'''As A Result:''' ...which means his murder attempt is done in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of spectators, and in such a manner that Harry is literally not yet back on the ground before every observer with the IQ of a houseplant ([[SurroundedByIdiots all two of them]]) has figured out that someone is attempting to kill Harry Potter.

See [[WhatAnIdiot/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince its own page]].

* In the prologue, Voldemort and Wormtail are hiding on the former's family manor in Little Hangleton.\\
'''You'd Think:''' They to set up protective spells around the place in order to detect any possible intruders, including the one that Hogwarts has that makes the place look still abandoned.\\
'''Instead:''' They don't, and simply lounge in one of its chambers, lighting a fire that can be seen from outside.\\
'''As a Result:''' Frank Bryce, an old muggle, is able to sneak up on them and hear part of their talk. This proves to be unconsequential because Nagini casually finds him and warns Voldemort and Wormtail, but this only shows could easily it would have been for a spy or a tracker under an Invisiblity Cloak to catch the dark wizards.
* After the madness of the Quidditch World Cup, riots and all, Ron and Harry come back to the Burrow to find that Mrs. Weasley has purchased dress robes in addition to their usual books and quills. Ron is furious that she's gotten him outdated maroon robes with lacy sleeves, while Harry feels guilty that he has gotten nice ones since Mrs. Weasley used money from his vault.\\
'''You'd Think:''' Even though Ron has his pride, Harry at some point would buy him new dress robes that are in style, ''not'' maroon, and much nicer, and give them anonymously. Alternatively, Ron could swallow his pride and ask Harry for some money/new dress robes, or Mrs. Weasley could just borrow some money from Harry and offer to pay him back later. That way, when the special events come up, Ron won't look like a fool in his clothes.\\
'''Instead:''' No-one does any of the above, although Harry does buy lots of socks for Dobby as a present and at the end of the book asks Fred and George to buy Ron new dress robes on his behalf.\\
'''As A Result:''' Ron goes to the Yule Ball in those robes, and that's only the first of many catastrophes that ensue that evening.
* Rita Skeeter is a troublemaking journalist. Her goal is to smear as many people as possible and create drama, so as to pay for her UnlimitedWardrobe and manicures. While half of her stories have a grain of necessary truth, like the fact that Bertha Jorkins went missing for six months, it's obvious that she doesn't care about telling readers any news.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Someone would have filed a lawsuit or sent a cease and desist letter for libel, especially parents of children who get harassed. Or they would duel her in public and humiliate her. Really, considering that Rita basically makes entire interviews up and openly insults people in her articles, it's a miracle that nobody has tried to take revenge on her; with a career like hers, you would think she needs to be surrounded by bodyguards 24/7.\\
'''Instead:''' Dumbledore is the only sensible person who bans Rita from Hogwarts after her libelous interview of Harry Potter.\\
'''The Result:''' Rita goes unchecked, even harassing Hermione, a ''minor'', for insulting her.\\
'''However:''' Hermione is the OnlySaneMan who decides that Rita has to be investigated and stopped, and manages to do so for the next year at least.\\
'''Or at least:''' People would eventually learn to take her articles with a grain of salt.\\
'''Instead:''' She is still blindly believed, over and over.
** The impostor Moody has been playing the part perfectly. He also has a case of EvenEvilHasStandards in that he agrees that Rita Skeeter is the worst and that she must be stopped or at least adhere to her ban. It turns out he used his Magical Eye during the Second Task to look out for the lady, and didn't see her even though she wrote a gossipy story about Hermione, Harry, and Viktor Krum.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Hermione would then ask him to check the Marauder's Map, either after class or during an office visit. Fake-Moody uses it later to "look for" Crouch Sr, so we know that he's figured out how to use it. It can reveal Animagi or other people under enchantment, which was how Lupin found Peter Pettigrew in the previous book.\\
'''Instead''': It never occurs to Hermione, and that's before someone sends her an envelope of undiluted Bubotuber pus which lands her in the hospital wing for a few hours.\\
'''The Result''': Hermione only figures out that Rita can change into a beetle, and she has literally been "bugging" the Trio, Hagrid, and anyone who catches her ire while allying with the Slytherins. on the day of the Third Task. By then, Fudge has already read Rita's garbage stories and believes that Harry is deluded due to the "pains from his scars". The Slytherins are also a KarmaHoudini for feeding libel to a journalist ForTheEvulz. If Fake-Moody had thought to use the map and casually mention to Dumbledore that he has proof that Rita is breaking her ban, or even better, summon her with an Accio charm to deliver to the Headmaster, someone would be in a lot of trouble and Harry wouldn't be smeared. 
* Voldemort and Barty Crouch Jr. intend to restore the former to a physical body via a ritual that requires Harry's blood to work. To acquire this ingredient, the villains hatch a plan to have Crouch Jr. use Polyjuice Potion to disguise himself as Mad-Eye Moody, Hogwarts's Defense against the Dark Arts teacher for this year, before using a Portkey to spirit Harry away from the school and Dumbledore's protection, and send him to Little Hangleton, the location for the ritual.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Crouch Jr. to invite Harry into his office and Portkey him to Little Hangleton from there, or in case this is not possible due to Hogwarts' barriers, simply stun Harry and throw him on Moody's magic chest to take him to the town. This could be done at any point in the school year and it would be hours before anyone realized Harry was missing.\\
'''Alternatively:''' Killing Harry is not even necessary, given that Crouch might simply take a sample of his blood. Given Moody's paranoia, he might even ask Harry directly for the sample, pretending to want to be sure nobody has infected Harry with a magical disease or something similar. They can kill Harry later once Voldemort is resurrected.\\
'''Instead:''' Crouch Jr. hatches [[ComplexityAddiction an incredibly convoluted plan]] to enter Harry into the Triwizard Tournament as a surprise fourth contestant, even though only three students are supposed to compete in the tournament, then make Harry win the entire tournament against the best contestants of Europe, then turn the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey and arrange for Harry to grab it in the last moments of the tournament. This requires Crouch to basically hand-hold Harry through the entire tournament while also maintaining his cover for an extended period, exponentially increasing the number of things that may go wrong.
* Despite Harry not applying for participation in the Triwizard Tournament, his name still comes up. The only explanation they have is that someone tampered with the Goblet of Fire, and it definitely wasn't Harry because that would be far beyond his skill. Someone is setting him up. However, when it is quite reasonably suggested that Harry should be excluded, the answer is that it's impossible because -- as was mentioned before the start of the application period — those who are selected by the Goblet are entered into a magical contract and have to participate in the Tournament.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That the precise details of this contract would be immediately made clear and any possible loopholes would be exploited, or at the very least explored. For example, Harry could do nothing and disqualify himself, or given that contestants are not allowed to ask teachers for help, he could try exactly that. There are ''a lot'' of people who are unhappy with this development, starting from Harry himself, and then to his friends and the supporters of the legitimate Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory, and the delegations of the competing schools, all of whom would no doubt be satisfied if the teachers and Harry just came out and said he would deliberately fail every task in the interest of fairness.\\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' That the adults would try to find out the culprit, since they're positive that Harry could not have done this on his own. After all, if they let Harry participate, they are essentially being played by whoever set Harry up in the first place.\\
'''Instead:''' Nobody does anything, and the fact that Harry's participation was orchestrated is completely ignored. Everyone takes Crouch's word that Harry has no choice but to enter at face value, unaware that the former is under the Imperius curse the whole time and may have been forced to spew out lies. There's no investigation, and even when the final task comes — so whatever the culprit's intention was, this is their last chance to act upon it — no one is keeping an eye on the participants.\\
'''As A Result:''' The villain has free rein to rather blatantly interfere with the task and ensure the completion of his evil plan, culminating in the death of a student and the permanent tarnishing of the Triwizard Tournament's reputation.\\
'''Moreover:''' The second and third tasks are a rather baffling moment for the entire school, because even setting aside the suspicious circumstances surrounding Harry's participation, somehow none of the hundreds of people present saw it as odd that during the grand events of the Tournament, ''nobody gets to see the contestants''.
* Hermione first learns of the Hogwarts house elves during this book. She isn't happy when she finds out that the elves work without pay, sick leave, or pensions, and decides to set up the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare ([[FunWithAcronyms S.P.E.W.]]) to try and improve things for them.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That if Hermione was serious about fighting for house elves' rights, she'd look for cases of elves who had genuinely suffered abuse and mistreatment from their masters and/or the ministry (e.g. Dobby, Hokey, Kreacher and the elves of the Black family, etc.) and base her arguments around them. She did just that in the previous book when she was helping Hagrid to research for his defense of Buckbeak the Hippogriff.\\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' She would talk to the house elves and ask what they would want as a better lot in life. House elves run under BlueAndOrangeMorality where they genuinely prefer to work for witches and wizards and only hate abusive masters or ones that dismiss them. It becomes a WhiteMansBurden if you want to speak for an oppressed group, and you don't bother to find out what the oppressed group wants.\\
'''And:''' That she would chose a name for her crusade [[UnfortunateNames that doesn't sound so stupid and utterly impossible to take seriously]].\\
'''Instead:''' She only uses the Hogwarts house elves as an example of why elves need rights for SPEW. Elves who, despite not being paid for their work, [[HappinessInSlavery are quite content with their lot in life]]. As a result, no-one takes her case seriously.\\
'''In Addition:''' Thanks to Hermione's crusade, the Hogwarts house elves become disgusted with the Gryffindors. It starts when Hermione asks why they cover a drunk Winky with a blanket, instead of cheering her up for getting fired and then learning her former master is ill. Then Hermione starts knitting hats, in the hopes of freeing the Hogwarts House elves, and Dobby reveals he pockets her hats because the other elves view it as a distasteful gesture. It means he has to clean Gryffindor tower on his own, which is unfair even if he doesn't mind.
* Barty Crouch Jr. is using Polyjuice Potion to take the shape of Mad-Eye Moody, this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. In order to maintain his disguise, he needs to drink a fresh dose every hour.\\
'''You'd Think:''' Since he already knows how long he has to stay at Hogwarts and can do basic arithmetic, he'd come prepared with all the doses he needs for the year squirreled away in his bottomless trunk or somewhere else (and possibly a little surplus, just in case).\\
'''Or At Least:''' If he runs short and needs a mid-year resupply, he'd simply contact one of his co-conspirators (such as Wormtail) outside the school and have them nip down to Knockturn Alley and buy him some, or just pop out himself on a weekend on some pretense.\\
'''Instead:''' He steals the ingredients necessary to brew a fresh batch from Snape's inventory of ingredient storage, despite the fact that this would be very likely to advertise to anyone who finds out that somebody is brewing Polyjuice Potion. Snape busts him, and he pulls a BavarianFireDrill that Dumbledore ordered him to search Snape's office. The only thing that saves Crouch from having to duck a school-wide manhunt is Snape blaming Harry Potter for the theft because of both his hatred for the kid, and the fact that some of Harry's possessions coincidentally ended up near the scene of the crime.
* Harry figures out that for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, he and the other three champions must find a way of breathing underwater for at least an hour, swim to the bottom of the Hogwarts lake, and retrieve something precious to them within an hour-long time limit. They are warned that should they fail to retrieve their object, it will be lost forever. Upon reaching the lake's bottom, Harry learns that the "precious things" are people the champions are close to.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry figure out that the warning's just for show; none of the officials in charge of the Tournament would let any of the hostages die, given the safety measures that have been put in place for the Tournament, and the fact that all the hostages are actual people.\\
'''Instead:''' Harry takes the warning seriously, and after freeing his hostage, wastes time waiting for the other champions to show up and rescue their hostages.\\
'''As A Result:''' Harry nearly drowns and ultimately finishes second-to-last after one of the other champions was eliminated early. Fortunately, Harry's determination to make sure all the hostages are saved is seen as him showing moral fibre, and he subsequently gets boosted to second place in the tournament ranking.
* With that said, there is the dubious means of using actual underage students as part of the Second Task. The tournament regulations set it so that only seventeen-year old witches and wizards could compete. In turn, all of the people chosen as hostages are underage; Cho at the oldest is fifteen or sixteen.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Considering the first task had the champions retrieving ''golden'' dragon eggs instead of real ones, that the hostages would only be effigies or sculptures, with the real ones safe and above the water, and in view of their champions and family. Madame Maxime has already questioned that Dumbledore might have messed up the aging line; the spell works in that the hostages will stay asleep and breathing, not waking up, until they surface.\\
'''Instead:''' They use actual hostages. One of whom actually happens to be a twelve-year old girl, Fleur's sister Gabrielle. In a lake which is miles deep; if the hostages happened to surface in a deep part of the lake and don't know how to swim, they could drown. The merpeople also have been given instructions that if a champion tries to rescue multiple hostages, that they will restrain them, unless one has the presence of mind to threaten them with a wand and scare them, as Harry does.\\
'''The Result:''' While no one gets hurt, apart from Fleur getting attacked by grindylows, the family members of the hostages understandably panic with the children being asleep underwater. A terrified Percy sprints [[BigBrotherInstinct to Ron and]] [[AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther drags him out of the water]], and a hysterical Fleur refuses to get medical attention until she finds out that her sister is safe. And no one points out that if a champion fails to reach their hostage, the merpeople would have to wait for an unknown signal to cut their hostage loose and take them to the surface, long after an hour.
* As Sirius tells it, Barty Crouch Jr. was caught with a group of Death Eaters, composed of Sirius's cousin Bellatrix Lestrange, her husband, and his brother, after the Lestranges captured and tortured the Longbottoms with the Cruciatus Curse, leaving them legally insane. The crime caused massive public outrage because the Longbottoms were popular, and Neville was the other potential Chosen One. The Longbottoms had no reliable testimony, and their son Neville was only a baby; on the other hand, the Wizarding World wanted blood and to see the criminals punished. Mrs. Crouch, who was dying from a terminal illness, in particular was in hysterics about her son getting arrested, because he was their only child. We also know Barty Crouch Sr., as Sirius describes him, cared very deeply about his reputation above all else.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Crouch Sr. would do all that he could to verify his son's innocence or guilt. The Ministry has Veritaserum, Time Turners locked in the Department of Mysteries, and the means of extracting Crouch Jr.'s memories via Pensieve or Legilimency.\\
'''And:''' Crouch to do what most modern courts require when there's an obvious conflict of interest, and recuse himself.\\
'''Instead:''' Crouch doesn't want to give the impression that he plays favorites. As Sirius tells it, Crouch Sr. grants his son a trial with a KangarooCourt instead. Crouch Jr. spends the trial begging for his life and fighting the Dementors; his mother faints while watching the courtroom antics.\\
'''As A Result:''' While the Lestranges were definitely guilty, and the entire Wizengamot votes to send the Lestranges and Crouch Jr. to Azkaban for life, Crouch Sr. ends up destroying his reputation and chances of becoming Minister of Magic. People question about how the greatest fighter of Death Eaters could not realize his own child was going astray, and assume he either practiced ParentalNeglect or was an abusive father. It doesn't help that as a last wish to his dying wife, he smuggles her into Azkaban so that she switches places with her son; otherwise, they both would have died, Crouch Jr. to the Dementors and Mrs. Crouch to her terminal illness. While it is unclear whether Crouch Jr. was a sincere Death Eater before Azkaban, when he comes out, he definitely is. Crouch Jr. seizes the chance of freedom and helps bring Voldemort back to power. NiceJobBreakingItHero doesn't begin to cover it.
* For the third task, Fake-Moody is one of the teachers that is patrolling the maze. His goal is to get Harry to the cup, ''alone''. He manages to incapacitate Fleur by stunning her, using Moody's magical eye to see through the hedges.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He would do the same to Cedric and Krum, or put another jinx on them that quickly incapacitates them.\\
'''Instead''': He uses the Imperius Curse to force Krum to use the Cruciatus Curse on Cedric. Note that while the Cruciatus Curse can break a person's mind, it does not work quickly. Its entire ''point'' is to make a victim suffer ToThePain. Harry overhears Krum cursing Cedric and his ChronicHeroSyndrome takes over, where he tears through the hedge and stuns Krum, saving Cedric's life.\\
'''The Result:''' Cedric makes it to the center of the maze at the same time Harry does, and they team up against an Acromantula that would have tackled Cedric if Harry hadn't shouted in warning. Neither Harry nor Cedric want to take the cup and claim the champion title after realizing that they've helped each other through the tournament, so they agree to take it together. This leads to Cedric dying by Voldemort and Pettigrew's hand, and possibly to Amos Diggory being one of the few Ministry officials who believes Harry about what happened.
* The cup has turned out to be a portkey that has transported Harry and Cedric to a graveyard. There is no one immediately present and the cup is in close range.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry and Cedric to try grabbing the cup again. If it takes them back to Hogwarts (which is what happens), then the trip to the graveyard wasn't likely a part of the challenge. After this, they could tell everyone what happened and the authorities would be able to investigate. In any case, especially in case it might be after all some kind of twisted new challenge, they should be completely on guard.\\
'''Instead:''' They waste time taking in their surroundings and waiting for something to happen.\\
'''As a Result:''' Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort turn up, which incapacitates Harry due to his scar, and then kill Cedric, who was standing around doing nothing. Pettigrew then carries out the ritual to restore Voldemort to power.
* Related to the above...\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Crouch Jr would remove the original Portus spell on the Cup, meaning that it will only take the user to the graveyard. This would leave Harry with no way out and allow Voldemort to take his time to announce his return and Harry's downfall.\\
'''Instead:''' He leaves the original Portus spell on the cup, apparently so Voldemort could use it to travel to Hogwarts and dance on Harry's corpse in front of Dumbledore or something.\\
'''As a Result:''' Through admittedly unexpected circumstances, Harry escapes. While the Minister doesn't believe that Voldemort's back (in a series of What an Idiot moments listed below), Voldemort misses the perfect chance to kill his nemesis.
* The Portkey plan works halfway; it transports Harry to the graveyard where Voldemort and Pettigrew are waiting, but Cedric is also along for the ride. The reason is that Harry insisted that they take it together to tie for Hogwarts. Cedric is a pretty talented wizard, but also a boy, and a pureblood at that. When Harry collapses due to his scar acting up and instinctively tells Cedric to run for it, Cedric refuses to leave him and points his wand at the mysterious hooded figure, which is Pettigrew.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Voldemort would order Pettigrew to stun Cedric and leave him there for the resurrection. They can kill him later if need be, and if not, modify his memory and send him back as the winner. So Harry Potter is missing from the tournament, and the champion has no idea what happened? So what? Even if Memory Charms can be broken, as Voldemort laughingly pointed out in the first chapter, it would cover their tracks if he's sent back Stunned and has no recollection of what happened to Harry. After all, Crouch Jr. did ''the same thing'' to Viktor Krum to ambush his father. Later in the books, Voldemort mentions that he hates to spill pure blood.\\
'''Instead:''' Voldemort orders Wormtail to "kill the spare". In the film, he sarcastically says it was a pity that a "pretty boy" had to die. This isn't just {{Jerkass}} behavior; Voldemort rationalized killing Bertha Jorkins because he damaged her brain permanently while torturing her, and Crouch Sr. because HeKnowsTooMuch. There is ''no'' reason to kill Cedric at this juncture and Voldemort spilled pure blood, which proves he's either a {{Hypocrite}} or an idiot.\\
'''The Result:''' Cedric's body and Harry's traumatized expression convinces the teachers that Voldemort is back, and they fight back accordingly when the Ministry tries to deny it in the next book. Amos Diggory is one of the Ministry officials who believe Harry when he says Voldemort has returned; he and his wife thank Harry for bringing Cedric's corpse back for him to bury while refusing the reward money. They maintain a better relationship over the years as a result, which comes in handy for Harry when ''The Cursed Child'' nonsense starts.
* After Voldemort is resurrected, he, Harry, and the Death Eaters are all in a distant place, the only possible witness has been killed, and Harry is tied to a gravestone, completely at Voldemort's mercy.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Once Voldemort was done gloating and summoning his Death Eaters, he'd then kill the tied Harry as quickly as possible. He has a lot of spells he could try if the Killing Curse doesn't work the second time, as well as a sacrificial knife in the improbable case no spell manages to kill Harry. He can also simply offer Harry to his Death Eaters and get them to kill him as a proof of loyalty.\\
'''Instead:''' To prove to his followers that his failure to kill Harry 13 years ago was a fluke, Voldemort frees Harry and challenges him to a wizard duel. And instead of finishing him off right away, Voldemort uses the Imperius and Cruciatus Curse on Harry to taunt him, and finds out that [[NiceJobFixingItVillain thanks to his spy, Harry was taught to resist the former]]. Granted, he couldn't have known that Priori Incantatem would occur, but Harry still ended up with plenty of leeway to escape without it.\\
'''The Result:''' Harry is able to escape, embarrassing Voldemort in front of the cronies he was trying to impress, and he warns Dumbledore and the world about Voldemort's return.
* Harry is back at Hogwarts, clinging to Cedric's body and repeating to Dumbledore that Voldemort is back. The impostor Moody is baffled that Harry is alive, since he assumed that Voldemort would kill Harry immediately as soon as he was resurrected. Dumbledore has ordered Harry to stay in his sight while he has to talk to the Diggorys about their son's mysterious death. Fake-Moody has overheard this while offering to take Harry away from the traumatic site.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Fake-Moody aka Crouch Jr. would wait for Voldemort to send him a message about what Plan B is. His cover is so deep that Dumbledore hasn't suspected him for an entire year.\\
'''Instead:''' He forcibly leads an injured Harry away to his office to interrogate him about what happened in the graveyard, and what happened to the cowardly Death Eaters that returned to the Dark Lord. Then he wastes time EvilGloating and ends with how he plans to kill Harry, so that the Dark Lord will reward him. Crouch Jr. missed the memo that Voldemort wants to kill Harry ''personally''.\\
'''The Result:''' His strange actions alert Dumbledore that this is an impostor, and the monologuing gives them time to arrive. He, [=McGonagall=], and Snape rescue Harry in time, Stun the impostor, and expose him. Dumbledore then ties up Crouch Jr. while the latter is hopped up on Veritaserum, gets Madam Pomfrey to help the real Moody, who was locked up in his own trunk, Stunned and starving.
* Not long later, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge is informed of this turn of events. The evidence to support this includes the news coming from [[BigGood Albus Dumbledore]], who isn't known for making stuff this serious up, and two testimonies. One of these is from a Death Eater who has admitted under truth serum that he has been in contact with Voldemort and working to ensure his return, and the other is from Harry, who claims to have seen first-hand the ceremony that restored Voldemort to full power, and has the injuries to show it. Dumbledore has ordered Minerva to stand watch over a bound Crouch Jr., who is pliable for interrogation, and to notify the Minister in case he wants to question Crouch Jr.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Fudge would realize that a bound and disarmed Death Eater would be unable to hurt him personally.\\
'''Instead:''' Without Dumbledore's permission, he brings a Dementor along with him to the interrogation. Dementors are known to hate the victims who escape them, and Crouch Jr. escaped them from Azkaban. They also tried to give Harry the Dementor's Kiss merely for defending Sirius the previous year.\\
'''The Result:''' Before Fudge can so much as ask a question, the Dementor swoops on Crouch Jr. and gives him the Kiss, destroying his soul ''and'' his ability to testify. To make matters worse, Fudge goes NeverMyFault by claiming that Crouch Jr. was an unreliable witness due to being a "lunatic". Minerva is obviously furious, and Dumbledore has to emphasize that Fudge ''tampered with a witness'' because of his own ego.
* As well as the above evidence, Snape shows Fudge a very clear Dark Mark on his arm. The last time it was easily visible was during Voldemort's reign of terror. And, of course, Cedric Diggory's dead body.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Fudge to figure out that with all this evidence supporting it, it's quite likely that Voldemort's really back, and then take the actions suggested by Dumbledore to prevent him getting power and resources. Even if Fudge personally doesn't believe it, he could still try and have the matter investigated to confirm it for himself, and he can always order it to be done discreetly in order not to cause a social panic. He's certainly an egotistical man, but by that reason he should know he has a lot to gain, politically speaking, by putting all his effort on managing the situation of Voldemort's return (and a lot to lose if Voldemort's return happens to be true and Fudge doesn't act on it).\\
'''Instead:''' Not only does Fudge take no appropriate measures, [[IRejectYourReality he somehow gets it into his head that Dumbledore's making all this up]] to try and take Fudge's place as Minister — nevermind that Dumbledore has never wanted the Minister's post as far as Fudge has known him — all because he doesn't want to deal with Voldemort's return.\\
'''As A Result:''' Voldemort's side is able to operate quite freely, recruit the giants to their cause, and break out a load of their supporters from [[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]], while Fudge [[HeadInTheSandManagement does absolutely nothing useful]]. Thankfully, Voldemort doesn't choose to focus all his efforts on taking over, but if he had, the situation could have become a lot worse. And when the truth does get out, the unanimous outcry from the wizarding community forces Fudge to resign and destroys his career.\\
'''Even Worse:''' The majority of the Ministry of Magic follows blindly Fudge's politics, being either that submissive to his authority or just apathetic to the topic, or maybe buying into his mindset of simply not wanting to accept it. Even the Auror Office, whose members should be naturally wary to dismiss like that the possibility of Voldemort having recovered his power, don't seem to make any objection. The only people in the Ministry who believe Dumbledore are those who are already his allies, who are few and not excessively powerful.
* Related to the above, Fudge is refusing to believe that Voldemort's returned.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore would immediately use a Pensieve to review Harry's memories of the event and show them directly to Fudge, or view them himself in order to ascertain exactly what happened and gain information. Granted, memories can be altered (and Harry tells him), but Harry doesn't know how to do that, there hasn't been sufficient time for him or anybody else to do so, and it's not just Voldemort's return, but he's an eyewitness account into investigating the death (murder) of another student (Cedric) during the Triwizard tournament. Not to mention that, when an explicitly doctored memory is shown two books later, the signs of tampering are rather obvious even to the untrained eye despite having been done by an expert. Even someone as dense as Fudge would have a hard time claiming Harry imagined the whole event right down the very minute details like the real-life cemetery he'd never been to (something easily verifiable since Dumbledore knows all about Riddle's origins).\\
'''In addition:''' Taking Pensieves would also mean Dumbledore has a preserved record of Crouch Jr.'s entire confession, which he could then use to confront Fudge with ironclad proof that is impossible for him to dismiss without looking like a coward. \\
'''Alternately:''' Dumbledore could just use a Time Turner to take Fudge back in time to the cemetery under an Invisibility Cloak to show him the evidence of the ritual to his own face.\\
'''Or:''' Since Dumbledore wields a significant amount of political influence himself, even on an international level, he would find some way to have Harry testify to Voldemort's return, whether that be to have him testify in front of the Wizengamot or the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, or really anything that might circumvent Fudge. \\
'''Instead:''' Nobody thinks to use this evidence, and it doesn't help against the stigma that occurs against Harry and Dumbledore in the next book.

* During the climax of the previous book, Harry witnessed Cedric get murdered and was then attacked and almost killed by Voldemort — and immediately after he escaped, Crouch Jr. made ''another'' attempt on his life. Such things would be extremely traumatizing for anyone.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Dumbledore would provide some form of counseling for Harry over the summer holidays to help him work through his trauma — assuming, of course, that the Wizarding community has any form of emotional therapy, which would be another level of collective idiocy if it doesn't have.\\
'''Instead:''' Harry is left by himself at Privet Drive, with no contact with other wizards, stewing in his own PTSD. By the time he's brought back to the Wizarding World (prompted by a Dementor attack, ''another'' distressing event), he's an emotional time bomb on the edge of exploding, and only gets worse when he finds out everyone's been calling him a big liar and doesn't believe that Voldemort is back.
* The Ministry believes that Dumbledore and Harry are involved in a common conspiracy to overthrow the government, faking Voldemort's return as part of their scheme.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Ministry would try to drive a wedge between Harry and Dumbledore, attempting to make a deal with Harry or otherwise counter Dumbledore's manipulations. After all, in RealLife, when an adult and a child are engaged in a common act of misbehavior, particularly when the adult is an authority figure, it is generally accepted that the adult bears the brunt of the blame. They would find it surprisingly easy to do given that Dumbledore has voluntarily distanced himself from Harry and the latter is resentful of him.\\
'''Instead:''' The Ministry blames Harry and Dumbledore equally. Umbridge in particular goes out of her way to antagonize Harry with sadistic detentions and an obviously personal vendetta, ensuring Harry's continued support of Dumbledore.
* Voldemort is trying to lure Harry to the Ministry of Magic in order to retrieve a Prophecy about the two of them. His strategy is to use Legilimency to make Harry dream about the place, and want to explore it in person. Dumbledore realises this, and also figures out that Harry and Voldemort have a mental connection that Voldemort could use to spy on Dumbledore through Harry. In response to all of this, Dumbledore arranges to have Harry learn Occlumency, so that he can stop having these dreams.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Given that Dumbledore had decided at the end of [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire book four]] that the time was right to tell Harry about the Prophecy, Dumbledore to just tell Harry about the mental connection, the prophecy and Voldemort's plans for retrieving it, and explain that this is why he has to learn Occlumency. That way, Harry might be more motivated to do so. Even if he's really unwilling the tell Harry about the prophecy, he only needs to tell him a Cliff Notes version of the story: "Harry, the Department of Mysteries houses a weapon Voldemort is seeking but cannot have by himself, so he might try to get you to travel there and get it for him." After all, Harry has already worked to impede Voldemort from stealing the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone, and it would be easy for him to understand.\\
'''Instead:''' No-one tells Harry anything other than "you MUST learn Occlumency because we say it", "Voldemort and you might be able to read each other's mind, but you must NOT do it even although it has proved useful" and "There is NOTHING in the Department of Mysteries that concerns you".\\
'''As A Result:''' Harry doesn't take the lessons as seriously as the Order would like him to, remains curious about the Department of Mysteries related dreams he keeps having, and is surprised when the Order consider it a big deal that Snape's no longer teaching him.
* Dumbledore's choice of Occlumency teacher also counts, as he admits at the end of the book.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore to either teach Harry himself, or at least, in case he is that determined to put distance among Harry and him, try and find someone else to do the job.\\
'''For instance:''' Moody would have been a possible option to give Harry a crash course during holidays, as with his level of paranoia about everything and even with him still recovering from being imprisoned in his own trunk by Crouch Jr. for the past year, it's hard to imagine him not learning Occlumency to protect his secrets; and even in Hogwarts, whose staff includes very knowledgeable wizards like Flitwick or [=McGonagall=], it would be surprising that no other teacher had at least some notion of Occlumency. For that matter, since Draco Malfoy proves it's possible for a talented student to learn Occlumency over the course of one summer if he has a competent teacher and the decision that Harry needs to learn Occlumency isn't made until mid-term, Dumbledore has enough time to train literally ''anyone'' to be an Occlumens from scratch, and still have them finish teaching Harry before end-of-term.\\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' Dumbledore to have instructed the entire Order of the Phoenix in Occlumency from the beginning, as it is an incredibly useful ability they certainly need in those times.\\
'''Instead:''' He gets Snape to try and teach Harry Occlumency, a magical art that is based on ''controlling your emotions'', when the two of them have a longstanding mutual hatred and are visibly incapable of so much as being in the same room without enraging each other by their very presence.\\
'''Unsurprisingly:''' The arrangement becomes [[EpicFail a fantastic train wreck]] in record time, with Harry peeking at some of Snape's private memories while he's out of the room and Snape refusing to continue in response.
* Ron becomes the keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, of which his brothers Fred and George are also members. It soon becomes apparent that Ron has huge confidence issues on the pitch, which greatly affect his ability to play.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Fred and George would try and give Ron some form of emotional support, if only because their chances of winning the Quidditch Cup are somewhat dependent on their brother's performance as a keeper. They're certainly capable of doing this, judging from their attempts to cheer up Harry the first time he failed to win a Quidditch game.\\
'''Instead:''' They initially choose to make fun of Ron for being a prefect, and do absolutely nothing to help him get over his Quidditch insecurities. It gets to the point that after Fred and George leave Hogwarts, Ron's performance drastically improves in their absence.
* Since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Magic has been steadily antagonising Harry and Dumbledore, painting the kid as a liar and a madman in media and staunchly refusing to accept Voldemort's return. Then a Ministry official, Dolores Umbridge, is appointed the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, and at her first lesson, she makes it perfectly clear that she's upholding this policy and assures children that "there's nothing dangerous out there" and they don't need to practice defense magic.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' After this first lesson at the least, Harry would try to keep his mouth shut, since, frankly speaking, he has no proof of Voldemort's return and won't achieve anything by proclaiming it again, aside from making Umbridge predictably want to punish him.\\
'''Or:''' He could've countered Umbridge's assurances by mentioning ''Sirius''. After all, the Ministry can't deny his existence, and since they've failed to capture him, they also can't deny he was a threat either.\\
'''Instead:''' He tries to claim that Voldemort has returned, with no proof other than his word.\\
'''As A Result:''' He convinces no one and ends up with a week of detentions.
* During said detentions, Umbridge forces Harry to magically carve the words "I must not tell lies" into the back of his hand.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to inform Professor [=McGonagall=] and/or Dumbledore and show them the scar. If there are still suspicions, use the Pensieve or take one of them (or anybody else) with him under the Invisibility Cloak for his next detention, and then have them to write to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. While the Ministry is unlikely to be fair to Harry, even in its newfound {{Jerkass}} mode they would have a hard time ignoring accusations that a Ministry employee is mutilating children, especially without the students' parents knowing.\\
'''Instead:''' He suffers silently, not wanting to give Umbridge the satisfaction of seeing him complain and not wanting to talk to Dumbledore due to being angry at him for keeping Harry in the dark, and lets her continue her reign unchallenged. Hermione actually begs him to tell [=McGonagall=], but he refuses.
* Cho Chang decides to join the illegal defense group Harry had set up under Umbridge's nose. She also has a friend, Marietta Edgecombe, whose mother works at the Ministry of Magic, and would therefore be likely to lose her job if her daughter got on the wrong side of Umbridge.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Cho not put Marietta under any pressure to join, or even safer, to keep Marietta in the dark about the group.\\
'''Instead:''' She makes Marietta come to the meeting with her (her words), effectively lumping her with the group whether she likes it or not.\\
'''As A Result:''' Things are all well and dandy for about six months, but then Marietta reports the group to Umbridge, and Dumbledore is forced to take the blame for it to protect all the students involved. Marietta, meanwhile, is left disfigured and viewed as a traitor as a result of her "betrayal", whereas Cho — who was technically responsible for all of this — [[KarmaHoudini faces absolutely no consequences as a result of her actions]].
* There's also the matter of Hermione's security measures. She's capable of enchanting the sign-up sheet so that if anyone breaks their oath of silence, a spell is cast.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The spell in question would have a practical effect. For example, if any one person breaks their vow, all the others would be immediately warned by some kind of alarm. Alternatively, have it inflict a Tongue-Tying Curse or Silencio or something similar to shut people up before they can say too much.\\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' Hermione would warn the members that the sign-up sheets is enchanted. Not only does it deter betrayal by making the consequences clear, on pure ethical grounds the applicants should know the details of the contract they're signing.\\
'''Instead:''' She curses any betrayer with facial disfigurement spelling out the word "Sneak", which only takes effect ''after'' they've told someone about the group. It thus serves no purpose other than petty revenge.\\
'''As A Result:''' Marietta is able to tell Umbridge everything and only afterwards does she realise she's been cursed in this particularly vindictive fashion (it's still there the next year!).
* Adding onto this is the betrayal. Marietta knows that Umbridge threatens to expel anyone who breaks her Educational Decrees, and it's weighted against the houses so that Ravenclaw would get no second chances.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Marietta to realize that this means ''Cho'' would get expelled for participating in the DA and keep her mouth shut. Cho has already suffered a massive trauma from losing her boyfriend to Voldemort, and being expelled would isolate her further.\\
'''Instead:''' Marietta rats out everyone in the DA, including her best friend.\\
'''As a Result:''' While Cho forgives Marietta, in part because it's implied Marietta was the only friend who stayed with her after Cedric died, it makes Marietta a pariah and known as the student that sold out Dumbledore to Umbridge. It also means that Harry and Cho break up before they can even start a relationship, because Harry points out this particular fact to Cho.
* After Marietta's betrayal, Dobby appears in DA headquarters to warn them that the group's secrecy has been compromised and Umbridge is coming.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' First of all, Harry to grab the Marauder's Map and find out the positions of Umbridge, Filch and any name suspicious of being an ally of hers (especially Slytherins). Once he's sure the enemy is not literally behind the door, he should order the group to keep calm, exit the room and scatter divided in small groups to avoid ambushes and not to raise suspicions, all while keeping the wands grasped inside the pockets and being ready for anything. Umbridge might be a professor, but she's only one person and doesn't have the support of the rest of the staff, so her personal involvement in the raid will be very limited; and as for any crooked student she might recruit, the DA has enough numbers and battle training to secure their way out. This goes also for Harry himself, who should be a priority to protect given that he is the leader of the whole class. With this simple course, Draco's face would have been priceless had he tried to attack Harry and found himself receiving four or five curses in the attempt.\\
'''Instead:''' Harry basically screams "every man for himself" and runs away completely alone and without any care.\\
'''As a Result:''' Harry falls in a rather flimsy one-man ambush by Draco, who leaves him to be arrested by Umbridge. Other students are implied to be captured the same ways by the Slytherin students who would become the Inquisitorial Squad.\\
'''Even Worse:''' They leave in the room the sign-up sheet with the names of the entire group, which compromises them all. The sheet is later found by Pansy Parkinson and used by Umbridge as a proof.
* Harry receives a package from his godfather, who implies that Harry can use it to keep in contact with him while he's at Hogwarts.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Harry would open and have a look at the package, to see what it is, even if he doesn't plan on using it.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't, apparently afraid that if he so much as ''opens'' it, his godfather will get in trouble. It turns out to just be a magical equivalent of a walkie-talkie, whose usefulness would have been absolutely invaluable for them. It also turns out that he later wants to talk with Sirius after all, but he still doesn't remember the package.\\
'''The Result:''' Whenever he wants to talk to his godfather, he has to break into Umbridge's office.\\
'''Now You'd Expect:''' That the first time Harry did this, Sirius would tell him to use the mirror, so that they can talk safely in the future. It's already weird that he didn't even ask Harry why was he using the dangerous Floo Network when he should have the mirror with him.\\
'''Instead:''' Sirius never gets around to it. Granted, he's not alone with Harry during the conversation, and he may have had his reasons for not wanting his oldest friend Lupin in on the secret of the mirror. However, you'd think he could at least have said, "Remus, I'd like a private word with my godson, if you don't mind," a request which Lupin would no doubt have honoured.\\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' That the Order in general would take care of providing Harry with means of emergency communication, not to mention extraction. They ''know'' that the boy is a trouble magnet, that the Ministry is being openly hostile to him, and that Voldemort is downright after his head. Especially since Harry knows how to cast a Patronus and that's a foolproof message system; all they had to do was teach him that and the entire climax of [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix Book 5]] could have been avoided.\\
'''Instead:''' Nobody gives a damn, except Sirius, and he's so conflicted and guilt-tripped by everyone for being possessive of Harry that he ends up being MasterOfTheMixedMessage, and of course it leads to a disaster.
* To counter the Ministry of Magic's slander campaign against Harry, Hermione arranges to have Harry interviewed for an article in the Quibbler, so that he can tell his side of the story.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Hermione would tell Harry of her plans well in advance of the actual interview.\\
'''Instead:''' She just vaguely tells Harry to meet her in the Three Broomsticks shortly before a visit to Hogsmeade, despite knowing that he's going on a date with Cho during that time.\\
'''Result:''' When Harry tells Cho that he has to meet Hermione later that day, Cho doesn't take kindly to the implications of Harry seeing another girl, with the result that their blossoming romance is almost completely torpedoed. And Hermione later [[NeverMyFault has the gall to blame Harry for being "tactless"]].
* Harry sees a vision of Sirius being tortured at the Department of Mysteries. Instead of wondering how either Voldemort or Sirius, the two biggest fugitives in the ''country,'' got into the middle of the government, and ''knowing'' that Voldemort can implant thoughts in his head, he doesn't even consider that it might be a trap, and plans to rush off to fight Voldemort one-on-one, even though the blood protection doesn't even work anymore!\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to play it cool, consider that it might be a trap, and send owls to the Order or go to Grimmauld Place on a broomstick (even though he doesn't know exactly where Dumbledore is, an owl might be able to find him).\\
'''Instead:''' Although he does check Grimmauld Place at Hermione's urging, and finds out that Sirius has (supposedly) gone to the Department, he ''still'' doesn't consider that it might be a trap, and flies straight into the Ministry believing that surely, there's [[SarcasmMode no way Voldemort himself could possibly be a threat]].
* Harry yells to Snape, "He's got Padfoot! He's got Padfoot at the place where it's hidden." Snape acts like he has no idea what Harry is talking about.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to realize the incredibly obvious fact that Snape can't speak clearly in front of Umbridge (something Dumbledore points out later), and to check in with him once he's gotten rid of Umbridge.\\
'''Instead:''' Harry assumes that Snape doesn't know what he's talking about or simply doesn't care, and resolves to go up against Voldemort with a few teenagers.
* Professor Umbridge gets Snape to give her some truth potion, which she plans to use to interrogate Harry on the location of two of his most important people, both of whom are fugitives. Snape, who is a renowned expert in the field of potions, tells Umbridge that she only needs to use three drops of the stuff for it to work.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Umbridge to remember this when the time comes to do the deed, especially since Snape is a potions expert and she is not.\\
'''Instead:''' She uses up the whole bottle.\\
'''Even Worse:''' That bottle is Snape's last sample of that potion (so he says, anyway, and she has no way to prove him wrong), and it takes a month to make. Of course, Dumbledore later tells Harry that Snape gave her fake potion that would have been a NoSell; in the film it was real, but she used it on Cho Chang instead.\\
'''As a Result:''' There's not a drop of the potion in the castle the next time she needs it.\\
'''And on Top of That:''' She not only pours the whole bottle into Harry's drink, but then fails to even see to it that Harry actually drinks it. Harry defeats her by the simple ruse of raising his cup to his lips but not actually opening his mouth, and Umbridge — despite looking directly at him the entire time — unaccountably fails to notice that Harry is not swallowing anything, and that Harry's robes are stained from where he spilled some of the tea on himself to lower the liquid level in his cup.\\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' Umbridge, who's a government veteran, to be able to dissemble convincingly in front of a teenage boy, even one who's already suspicious of her.\\
'''Instead:''' She acts in a manner that practically screams "I have given you that drink for nefarious purposes."
* Hermione and Harry manage to lure Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest by claiming that Dumbledore is keeping a weapon hidden there. The trio are then confronted by the resident herd of centaurs, who generally don't take kindly to wizards intruding in their territory.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Umbridge to decide that staying alive is far more important than fulfilling her FantasticRacism quota for the week, and not do anything to provoke the centaurs.\\
'''Instead:''' In a supreme display of being TooDumbToLive, she repeatedly insults and tries to boss around the huge herd of centaurs surrounding her.\\
'''As a Result:''' The herd promptly drags her off into the forest, and while we don't see what happened to her after that, it was rough enough to give her PTSD.\\
'''Even Worse:''' There's a point in which Umbridge trips on a root and falls to the ground behind them, and all their reaction is merely not to help her up. The thought of pouncing on her at once and capitalize on the moment to wrestle her wand away, especially given that there are two-on-one and much younger, doesn't even cross their heads.
* Right after the above scene, the centaurs are deciding what to do with Harry and Hermione. One of them points out that they bought Umbridge here, and that Harry is nearly an adult, implying that they won't have to worry about breaking their rule of [[WouldntHurtAChild not hurting children.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Hermione, who is typically very knowledgeable about the wizarding world in general, to remember that a major BerserkButton for centaurs is the idea of serving wizards, and therefore say something along the lines of "We were trying to find the giant, so he could get rid of Umbridge. We never meant to run into you guys!". After all, she has just put a very convincing act towards Umbridge.\\
'''Instead:''' She straight-up tells them that she was hoping they would deal with Umbridge for her.\\
'''As a Result:''' The centaurs, furious at being used, decide that Harry and Hermione can share Umbridge's fate, and the pair are only saved thanks to Grawp randomly showing up.
* Voldemort lures Harry to the Ministry of Magic and sends his goons there to retrieve the important Prophecy that only Harry can touch.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Lucius Malfoy, who's in charge of the operation, would only take those Death Eaters who, like him, had weaseled their way out of Azkaban and into the Ministry ranks, and thus would have a legitimate excuse to be there (or, alternatively, send only the escapees, whose identities wouldn't be any more compromised if they got identified). When the kids arrive, ambush them right in the atrium, disarm and/or stun, and take hostage. Walk the now cooperative Harry straight to the storage and make him take the Prophecy orb.\\
'''Instead:''' He takes the recent escapees from Azkaban with him, so when the Cavalry arrives, his true allegiances are exposed. They then waste time in the storage, waiting for Harry to come to them and stumble upon the prophecy, and only reveal themselves after Harry takes the orb, and they can no longer shoot him with spells for the fear of breaking it.
* During the events at the Ministry, we see that the Time Turners are kept on an open shelf, without ''any'' locks, guards, or alarms and in a room accessible to a bunch of kids. The power to rewrite the timeline is there for the taking.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That of the numerous people who infiltrated the Ministery that night, ''someone'', be it heroes or villains, would realise the tremendous potential and help themselves to a Turner or two.\\
'''Instead:''' They are completely ignored. In fact, all of the Time Turners are destroyed by a missed Stunning Spell from Neville and fall into a consistent loop of falling, shattering, and repairing themselves.
* The prophecy ball Voldemort wants is kept in the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic. It can only be obtained by himself, or Harry Potter.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Voldemort would simply sneak in and steal it, seeing as Harry and five other kids practically waltzed in there undetected, despite the fact that Harry is high on the list of people the Ministry is against at the time. It's not like he cannot disguise himself, up to turning invisible, or murder any possible witnesses.\\
'''Instead:''' Voldemort decides that it is too dangerous to attempt this as he will probably be discovered and the world will know he is alive again. Naturally, Voldemort tricks Harry into stealing the prophecy. Then the Death Eaters try to steal it from ''him'' before he escapes.\\
'''Inevitably:''' The plan falls apart as the Death Eaters have to take precautions not to shatter the prophecy, leading to Harry and the gang getting an advantage.\\
'''Even Worse:''' Voldemort, who claimed it was too dangerous for him to enter the Ministry, ''enters the Ministry'', just after the prophecy gets destroyed, without a disguise, revealing himself and making his plan less than useless.
* Sirius is under an imposed house arrest for most of the duration of this book.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That since Sirius has proven capable and competent — escaping Azkaban entirely on his own and being on the lam for most of [[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Book 3]] and [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire Book 4]] — Dumbledore and the Order would stop being irritating and condescending to him, and also trust him with some small missions with low risk since it doesn't do to keep a strong wizard like him entirely out of the field. Even if Voldemort and co. know about his dog disguise, there are other methods to conceal his identity or presence (Polyjuice potions, human transfiguration, an invisibility cloak).\\
'''Instead:''' They more or less aggravate Sirius for being useless (which is greatly their fault anyway), giving him a huge chip on his shoulder, so when the moment comes for them to fight and Harry is in danger, he rushes in.\\
'''As A Result:''' Out of lack of preparation in the field, he oversteps himself and falls in battle, with the Order losing one of their best wizards.
* After Sirius dies, Dumbledore admits it was very stupid of him to have Snape teach Harry Occlumency. He reveals he could have taught him easily, with far better results.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He would restart the lessons, this time being the teacher, and reprimand Snape off-screen for royally screwing up. While Harry was at fault for looking into the Pensieve, Snape's reaction — kicking Harry out and prematurely ending the lessons — did not help. Harry in fact points this out.\\
'''Instead:''' Dumbledore doesn't do either of these things in the next book; his main priority with Harry is to educate him about Voldemort. Snape is a KarmaHoudini for his failure to teach Harry, and keeps angrily insisting that he demands more answers as to Dumbledore's plan.\\
'''As A Result:''' Harry never learns to block his mind, and Snape's {{Jerkass}} attitude leads everyone to believe Dumbledore fooled him when the former kills the latter.
* Regarding the above, at the start of each Occlumency lesson, Snape places certain memories in a Pensieve, so that if Harry attempts to defend himself against Snape's Legilimency (or if Voldemort picks that moment to enter Harry's mind and use Legilimency on Snape), those memories won't be available. Harry knows Snape is spying on Voldemort for Dumbledore, and at this point in the series seems to agree with Dumbledore's trust of Snape.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to not look in the Pensieve. It's an easily-avoidable breach of privacy in itself, but the idiocy comes in when you realise a) Harry knows Snape is spying on Voldemort; b) Voldemort is a powerful Legilimens; c) the whole point of these lessons is that he needs to stop Voldemort entering his mind; and d) he hasn't been practicing like Snape told him, because he really wants to know the secret Voldemort is telepathically dangling in front of him. All this means that anything Harry sees, Voldemort might see, and Harry even considers that Snape might be hiding important secrets of the Order of the Phoenix in the Pensieve. Even without entering strategic ground, Harry should also consider that Snape might realize (either by catching Harry using the Pensieve or by reading those memories on Harry's head) and could become ''seriously angry'' at him for peeking at memories Snape specifically wanted Harry not to see. Again, ethics and practicality are at one in this: ''Harry should not look in the Pensieve.''\\
'''Instead:''' [[ForegoneConclusion Harry looks in the Pensieve.]] Specifically hoping he'll find information on the thing the Order is trying to keep safe from Voldemort. Fortunately, Voldemort isn't looking through Harry's eyes at the time, and Harry randomly gets a memory of one of the things Snape regrets the most.\\
'''As A Result:''' When Snape comes back from dealing with a student-related emergency and finds Harry with his face in such a personal memory, he's understandably furious, throws Harry out, and ends the lessons.\\
'''You Also Expect:''' Snape, knowing that Harry's not engaging in Occlumency lessons, and that he has a history for being nosy and being overly curious, would not ostentatiously pour his memories in the Pensieve in front of Harry (showing him that he's hiding something), or alternatively put the memories in a phial like how Dumbledore collects memories and keep it under his bed or in a pocket inside his cloak. This is in keeping with both his opinion of Harry's character and likewise representative of his own position as a spy and Potions expert, and his secretive nature.\\
'''Instead:''' He pours memories in the Pensieve in front of Harry, leaves the room with the Pensieve container open with all his memories still floating inside. This after taunting Harry by lording over his knowledge and position in the Order, interspersed with insults to him and his family, which naturally is only going to make Harry respect him and his privacy and position even less than before.

* So Rufus Scrimgeour has taken over the Ministry in the wake of Cornelius Fudge's disgraceful resignation. Lord Voldemort is back and causing havoc to Muggles, and Harry, previously vilified, is now known as "The Chosen One."\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Scrimgeour would do damage control in regards to Fudge's bizarre and terrible last year in office, first by doing research as to how terrible the year went and then getting rid of people like Umbridge, who had a pretty [[TyrantTakesTheHelm upsetting]] regime at Hogwarts and was openly trying to get Harry expelled. In addition, Scrimgeour would actually listen to Harry when trying to recruit him as the Ministry's poster boy to boost morale since the kid has survived Voldemort at least four times and is WiseBeyondTheirYears.\\
'''Instead:''' Scrimgeour does none of this. Not only is Umbridge, as he foolishly mentions to Harry, STILL in the Ministry, but she also passed along the information that Harry wants to be an Auror after insisting that he would never become one. He also [[FailedASpotCheck doesn't bat an eye]] when Harry shows him the quill scars Umbridge gave him, even though that's physical evidence of abuse. Harry points out that arresting someone like Stan Shunpike invokes HeWhoFightsMonsters the way Mr. Crouch did, and Scrimgeour dismisses him. All in all, the real question is just how he expected Harry to forgive the Ministry after the events of Year Five and not even making a token apology.\\
'''In Addition:''' Umbridge is a KarmaHoudini in regards to her mutilating underage teenagers at Hogwarts, if one discounts [[NothingIsScarier whatever the centaurs did to her]]. She has no loyalty to anyone in the Ministry (only to the Ministry itself) and is sadistic for the fun of it.
* Oh, and speaking of Fudge, Dumbledore tells Harry exactly what became of him after the climax of the last book.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That once it became public knowledge that Voldemort had returned and Fudge had lied about it for a full year, Fudge would've immediately made a public admission of guilt and resigned his post, allowing a more honest and competent official to take over.\\
'''Instead:''' Fudge acts to save his own butt and tries to gain Harry's support, despite having spent a full year smearing him and his allies. Dumbledore, of course, keeps Harry safe at Hogwarts and tells Fudge to bugger off, but Harry's reaction when he finds out about this makes it clear that he also would've told Fudge to bugger off.\\
'''As A Result:''' Fudge resigns in complete disgrace and becomes the Muggle liaison to the Prime Minister. Then he loses ''that'' job in Book Seven when the Death Eaters take over.
* Percy Weasley in the previous book had estranged himself from his family, choosing a Ministry job over his father's concerns. He then wrote a letter asking his little brother to sever ties with Harry Potter, served as a happy witness to Harry potentially being expelled, and returned his mother's Christmas gift. If that's not enough, his father was attacked by Nagini and would have died if Harry hadn't seen the attack, yet he never visited him at the hospital if only to make sure he was okay. All of his siblings and Harry as a result are very furious with him, and Harry feels betrayed since Percy once knew him. Then he finds out that his father was right about Voldemort returning and the Ministry hiring him to use against his family and Harry Potter. This means his career was all a lie. ''Oops''.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Percy would swallow his pride and apologize to his family immediately, as well as to Harry. He can still keep his job, and the fact that Voldemort is back means that a new war is starting, and "blood-traitors" like the Weasleys are in danger. If they have to perform the Fidelius Charm to keep the Burrow safe, he'll be locked out and may never see his family or his old home again.\\
'''Instead:''' Percy refuses to do any of this and and continues to work at the Ministry with every regime change, without even sending an owl to his parents. He only goes to see his family when Scrimgeour pressures him to attend for a political Christmas visit. Even when presented with this opportunity to mend ties, he just refuses to apologize and acts like everyone can be civil despite his ListOfTransgressions.\\
'''The Result:''' While Molly is happy to see her son, the twins and Ginny make it clear that they haven't forgiven Percy and toss mashed parsnips at him. Harry, meanwhile, is furious that Percy only came to help Scrimgeour with politics and refuses to be nice. The following year, a coup happens at the Ministry, and Percy is forced to work for the new regime or end up being branded an enemy and killed, if not sent to the Dementors for a Kiss. Anyone who dissents but is seen as a minor threat has their children or parents threatened, so Percy can only keep quiet and keep his head down. He has little to no opportunity for an escape, and all the Weasley-owned homes have Fidelius Charms and Secret Keepers, meaning he can't even flee to them; with Ron traveling with Harry and Hermione on the lam, Percy may very well think his youngest brother is dead if he hadn't heard the spattergroit excuse. Then his baby sister has to leave Hogwarts after Ron is caught with Harry and Hermione by the Death Eater bounty hunters, so Percy can't even contact her through Headmaster Snape. It's not until the Battle of Hogwarts that he gets the opportunity to switch sides, apologize to his family, and fight alongside them, ''two whole years after the estrangement''. During the battle, Fred gets killed, and Bellatrix nearly murders Ginny. Harry also dies temporarily, and Percy didn't even bother trying to apologize to him. Harry finally forgives him, since dying and coming back to life puts a perspective on understandable grudges, but it means that Percy only spent a few minutes with one of his siblings before the latter got killed.
* The Gaunts were an ImpoverishedPatrician family who could claim ancestry from Slytherin. As it stands, however, they've lost their fortune, status, and common sense, it seems. Unlike the Malfoys, they lack any sway within the Ministry.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' They would keep a low profile.\\
'''Instead:''' The Elder Gaunt attacks a Ministry wizard who came to inquire about the Gaunts hexing Muggles, and threatening to do the same to Merope Gaunt's crush Tom Riddle.\\
'''The Result:''' The Ministry easily arrests the elder Gaunt and sends him to Azkaban for a few months. By the time he returns, Merope has taken the opportunity to run for it and escape her awful family, which leads to Voldemort's conception.
* Dumbledore reveals to Harry that Tom Riddle as a teenager sought out his father and Muggle relatives, murdering them out of spite and for abandoning him. Then he framed his uncle on his mother's side, by brainwashing him into thinking that he had murdered the Riddles.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Ministry would have told the Muggle authorities, who are bewildered and terrified that a notorious and wealthy family just died over dinner with no symptoms for the cause, even with a full autopsy report. Even more: had they checked Morfin's wand for fingerprints (unless Riddle had gloves on when he used it, which he most likely didn't), they would have learned that someone who wasn't Morfin had grabbed the wand and could have used it to kill them.\\
'''Instead:''' The Ministry takes Gaunt to Azkaban, where he dies shortly after Dumbledore finds out he was innocent, and doesn't tell the Muggle police.\\
'''The Result:''' The police take in Frank Bryce, the Riddles' loyal groundskeeper, for questioning. Even though they let him go on realizing there's no proof that he murdered the Riddles, he becomes a misanthrope who distrusts everyone from the experience.\\
'''Even Worse:''' Frank saw the ''real'' culprit, the younger Tom Riddle, and survived an early encounter with him. If the wizards had actually stopped to talk to people, Gaunt could have avoided Azkaban. It also means that Frank doesn't call the police when he sees intruders in the Riddle house, which happens to be Voldemort. ''Again.'' Frank doesn't survive his second encounter with the Dark Lord.
* Harry suspects Draco is a Death Eater and tries to warn others.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they would take the idea seriously. After all, Harry himself is proof that you do not have to be an adult to make significant accomplishments. Additionally, in [[RealLife the Muggle world]], terrorists, criminals, and other irresponsible people [[ChildSoldiers use minors to do their dirty work all the time]]; just give them goodies, fill their heads with nonsense about adventure and glory, and give them a mission that does not require too much intelligence and where [[SuicideMission it doesn't matter whether they come back alive]]. And on top of all that, Draco hasn't been that subtle about the fact that he's a true believer in the pureblood supremacy ideology espoused by Voldemort and his followers (from hurling blood slurs in a crowded hallway, openly hoping that he could help the Heir of Slytherin murder people as a 12 year old, being gleeful about the idea of Hermione dying and being sexually assaulted at the Quidditch World Cup, etc.).\\
'''Instead:''' Harry's concerns are dismissed out of hand, based on the idea that Draco's just a kid. [[spoiler:Dumbledore is one thing, since he's trying to help Draco from getting his soul split, but the others have no excuse.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry would at least try to check if Malfoy has the Dark Mark. Which should be as easy as ambushing him somewhere, while under the Invisibility Cloak, stunning him, and rolling up his sleeve.\\
'''Instead:''' He never even entertains this idea, continuing to press his point without any proof and getting dismissed again.
* Later, Harry deduces that Malfoy is busy with something in the Room of Requirements and wants to find out what. The Room appears and opens when you tell it what you need it to become. Harry tries to ask it to "Become what you became for Draco Malfoy", but it doesn't work.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That he would try a different approach, such as ''replicating'' Malfoy's request, at least in general terms. As later inadvertently revealed by Professor Trelawny, it was as simple as "I need a place to hide something".\\
'''Instead:''' He, metaphorically, keeps banging his head on the wall, trying every possible variation of his initial meta-request, even though ''it clearly doesn't work'', and the reader can only follow suit.
* In ''Order of the Phoenix'', Harry failed to listen to the advice of someone who was not only a good friend, but the most intelligent of his friends (and one of the most competent of all the series's characters, by the way). When Hermione repeatedly told him that there must have been a good reason for Dumbledore to want him to learn Occlumency, and later, that his vision of Sirius being tortured was probably a trap, he angrily brushed her off, and his refusal to listen to reason ultimately culminated in his godfather getting killed and most of his friends ending up hospitalized.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That in the future Harry would at least give some serious consideration to the advice of a friend who could have saved him a whole lot of grief if only he'd listened to her from the beginning.\\
'''Instead:''' He continued to brush her off when she repeatedly warned him about the fishiness of the so-called Half-Blood Prince's book, deciding that an easy Potions grade was worth more to him than the concerns of one of his closest friends.
* Said book contains a number of obscure hand-written spells lacking any kind of explanatory notes as to their purpose or effect.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That a person who'd been studying magic for six years and had more then once witnessed first-hand how dangerous and unpredictable it can be, would know better than to wantonly use unknown spells.\\
'''Instead:''' Harry tries one of them ''in their own dormitory''. Luckily, it turns out to be a type of levitation spell that yanks a person by an ankle and hangs them in the air, but otherwise does no serious harm.\\
'''Even Worse:''' He just flicks his wand randomly, not even looking at what he was aiming at. [[FridgeHorror If that had been Sectumsempra, Ron or any other boy could've died right there and then.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to take the hint and start treating the book with the caution it clearly deserves.\\
'''Instead:''' He casts another spell, labeled only as "for enemies", during a fight with Malfoy. It turns out to be a ''vivisection'' spell, and he very nearly kills Draco.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to '''really''' take the hint and either destroy the book or surrender it to the teachers. It's not like he could've gotten into any more trouble than he already was in, and giving up the book could even be counted in his favor and alleviate his sentence.\\
'''Instead:''' He hides the book, apparently intending to retrieve it once things calm down. Thankfully, he never gets the chance, and later one of the villains inadvertently burns the damn thing before any more damage could be done.
* In this book, we find out about Voldemort's set of six {{Soul Jar}}s keeping him immortal.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He'd make them impossible to discover either by using nondescript objects that wouldn't stand out to someone or by hiding them in places only ''he'' knows about, that are unconnected to him in his history. (This is even Harry's first thought when he first learns what Horcruxes are, figuring that Voldemort might use ordinary objects and bury them in the middle of nowhere.)\\
'''In Addition:''' Since you don't actually have to have a Horcrux available to hand in order to use it to resurrect yourself, you don't have to worry about keeping it somewhere you can fetch it back from. So absolutely nothing prevents Voldemort from doing something like sealing at least one backup Horcrux into a 55-gallon drum of cement and then dumping it overboard at a random spot in the ocean. Or [[Fanfic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsofRationality launch it into space]].\\
'''Instead:''' He uses rare and impressive artifacts and hides them in places connected personally to him, most notably, [[spoiler:at Hogwarts, where most of his enemies have been for the past 6 books]].\\
'''Even Worse:''' Because {{Pride}} is a FatalFlaw of his, he hides them all in places that are entirely possible to walk to, with at most a few traps or guards between the Horcrux and the exit, [[TemptingFate assuming that no-one could possibly discover a secret of Lord Voldemort]].\\
'''As A Result:''' While Voldemort does do his best to hide the connections between the artifacts and himself, he ultimately fails, with the heroes practically knowing his whole backstory by the end of the book.
* During Harry's lessons with Dumbledore, Dumbledore shows Harry a memory of Slughorn talking with the young Voldemort about "Horcruxes" and tells Harry that he believes the memory to have been tampered with and that it's important to get the real memory.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore would tell Harry what a Horcrux is and why he thinks it's so important to get the contents of this conversation, particularly since he had previously promised to tell Harry everything he knew or even suspected about Voldemort's actions and plans.\\
'''Instead:''' He tells Harry nothing other than to get the memory. As a consequence, Harry doesn't place a very high priority on it, and several months are wasted.
* Harry and Dumbledore infiltrate the vault where Voldemort's Horcrux is kept. The thing is lying at the bottom of a basin full of potion that cannot be removed by any means, other than drinking it. When Harry quite reasonably notices that drinking the potion's a stupid idea, because ''it's a potion made by Voldemort'', Dumbledore reassures him that V would want to interrogate the intruder, so while the potion would most likely cause pain, weakness, and other debuffs, it would not be lethal. He also insists that he (Dumbledore) has to be the one to drink it, because "he's much less important than Harry".\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry would then just as reasonably notice that it's a ''tremendously'' stupid idea, because if Dumbledore is right, then there must also be an alarm to inform Voldemort about the intrusion, and he's either on his way to the cave or already there, waiting outside for Dumbledore to drink and keel over. Or at least there might be other wards installed to finish off the weakened thief. Obviously, in such situation, it's a suicide to let Dumbledore drink the potion.\\
'''Instead:''' He just goes along with it and only survives because of the point below.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The cave defense to actually work this way. There either should have been an alarm, or the potion should have been lethal. Or perhaps both.\\
'''Instead:''' The potion causes a terrible thirst in the victim, wards prevent water from being conjured, forcing the victim to drink from the surrounding lake, which causes a horde of [[EverythingsDeaderWithZombies Inferi]] to rise up and drown the thief. Except that it doesn't work if the thief uses someone else to drink the potion and then simply prevents them from going for the water. You cannot even argue that Voldemort overlooked this possibility, because that was exactly how he tested the potion — by having someone else drink it. And since there's no alarms, nothing prevents the thief from leaving and returning with the spare. And the Inferi prove to be rather crappy guards, as Dumbledore, even in his weakened state, manages to fend them off. It also ignores the possibility of a thief coming, noticing the no-water-conjuration ward, leaving, and coming back with a water supply, bypassing the ward. While they may not realize there are Inferi, the fact that there is a ward to stop water conjuration indicates that they will want water. And given that there are curse-breakers who regularly break into warded and cursed tombs, the possibility of someone having the relevant skills is there. In canon, Dumbledore winds up with two known Curse-Breakers; Bill and Fleur. How many others did he have, and how many did he have in the first War that Voldemort should have considered?\\
'''Even Worse:''' Someone before Harry and his mentor ''did'' figure out the loopholes and stole the Horcrux long ago, leaving an identical-but-inoffensive replica in its place. This person was [[spoiler:Regulus Arcturus Black, abbreviated R.A.B., who left a letter inside the fake object so Voldemort could read it and know that his secret was discovered]]. Indeed, Voldemort's stupidity rendered not only his own efforts to protect the Horcrux in vain, but also Harry's and Dumbledore's to retrieve it in the first place, thus requiring the difficult events of the first half of ''Deathly Hallows'' to locate and destroy the real thing.
* Voldemort has recruited Draco Malfoy as a Death Eater and gave him an ImpossibleTask as a XanatosGambit: kill Dumbledore before the end of the school year. Dumbledore intuits the situation and tells Snape to kill him first so as to save Draco and give Dumbledore a painless death. Draco then does a half-assed job, using an Imperius Curse to make Katie Bell deliver a cursed necklace to Dumbledore. The necklace gets her instead, knocking Katie unconscious and nearly killing her. The teachers go MassOhCrap as Madam Pomfrey fusses over her, and Harry relays his suspicions that Draco was the instigator.\\
'''You'd Expect''': After Draco nearly kills Katie, that Dumbledore would drop the act of ObfuscatingStupidity. He could go IKnowYouKnowIKnow after inviting Draco to his office and point out that murder literally tears your soul apart if you're a wizard. Maybe also a fair warning that if that happens again, Draco will have to face punishment, while if he defects now, the Hogwarts staff can protect him and get him into hiding if, in the worst-case scenario, Hogwarts faces a coup. Yes, Draco is a kid, but even minors in the Muggle world face consequences for AccidentalMurder or an attempted one.\\
'''Instead''': The most he does is chide Snape for not doing his job of keeping Malfoy in his confidence. Dumbledore thinks that since Voldemort is going to enable a coup, that letting Malfoy nearly kill others is the LesserOfTwoEvils compared to the Dark Lord assassinating a defector. Snape, in JerkassHasAPoint, says that Draco is confiding in him less since his father got imprisoned, needing a scapegoat. Thus, he can't reasonably prevent every would-be assassination attempt.\\
'''The Result''': Draco's second half-assed attempt nearly kills Ron; he anonymously delivers poisoned mead to Slughorn which is meant as a gift to Dumbledore, but Slughorn keeps it and offers it to Ron as a birthday present. In the film, it's more blatant that it was an attempt on Dumbledore's life, making his ObfuscatingStupidity and letting Snape cover for Draco more ridiculous. Then Draco uses a Vanishing Cabinet to allow Death Eaters, including Fenrir and Bellatrix to enter the school, with the former mauling Bill and the latter going trigger-happy at students. In short, this was a ''walking'' moral hazard. While Harry comes to forgive Draco as an adult for his transgressions, because Draco hesitated to actually kill someone and refused to cross the line, Ron understandably doesn't. He advises his daughter Rose to beat Draco's son Scorpio in all their classes and not befriend him. [[GoneHorriblyRight This advice succeeds]].
* Harry is confronting Snape and the other Death Eaters following Dumbledore's death. Snape orders the others to leave before the Ministry arrive.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Someone to point out that this is the best opportunity to remove Harry from the castle and bring him to Voldemort, since all the Death Eaters combined should be able to beat a 16 year old. Voldemort just wants to kill Harry personally, he doesn't care how the the boy is brought to him (and in the next installment, puts out a bounty on Harry's head when he takes over).\\
'''Instead:''' Snape insists that Harry "belongs to the Dark Lord" and everyone simply leaves him.\\
'''Now You'd Expect:''' Someone to be suspicious of this behaviour, especially since Snape has only just appeared to prove his loyalty.\\
'''Instead:''' No one seems to bring it up again and Snape is trusted with Hogwarts.\\
'''As A Result:''' Snape turns out to be have gone deep undercover and manages to lead Harry to Gryffindor's sword, which proves vital in defeating Voldemort.

* After his encounter with the Dementors in ''Order of the Phoenix'', Dudley has a HeelRealization that he's a horrible SpoiledBrat who has treated his cousin like trash, and Harry saved his soul from a Kiss despite their baggage. He wants to make things right with Harry, but doesn't know how. For one, he's still scared of magic and had some nasty encounters when Harry's friends used magic on him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He would approach Harry with a peace offering and talk things out; Harry still can't use magic outside of Hogwarts, so he can't retaliate. As Dumbledore revealed in book six, Harry will be a wizard adult at seventeen and will leave the house, while the Order will take in the Dursleys and protect them.\\
'''Instead:''' In book six, he lets Harry mourn for Sirius privately until Dumbledore makes that announcement and whisks Harry away. At the beginning of ''Deathly Hallows'', he leaves a cup of tea on the floor outside Harry's bedroom, but still won't talk to him.\\
'''The Result:''' The tea gets cold, and Harry assumes it's a booby trap when he accidentally steps on it. When the Diggles come to take the Dursleys into hiding, Dudley realizes only then that Harry's not coming with them, gets an EveryoneHasStandards moment, and tells him, "I don't think you're a waste of space." That's the best he can manage while acknowledging Harry saved his soul. It takes years after the war for Harry and Dudley to reconcile, and for all Dudley knew, Harry died fighting the Dark Lord.
* We learn that in the distant past, Albus Dumbledore's sister Ariana had been attacked by three Muggle boys who'd seen her doing magic, with the resulting trauma leaving her unable to control her magical abilities. Her father Percival responded by going PapaWolf and attacking the muggle boys in question, and was subsequently arrested by the Ministry.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Percival would explain to the authorities that the Muggle boys he attacked had assaulted his daughter. Not only would this help prevent any questions about his motivations, it might attract sympathy from the Ministry and earn him an early release. If he doesn't want anyone learning about Ariana's condition, he doesn't have to go into too much detail about the effects the attack had on her.\\
'''Instead:''' He says nothing, even when it gets him a life sentence in Azkaban.\\
'''As A Result:''' With Percival's motives unexplained, people assume he attacked the Muggle boys out of anti-muggle prejudice, which comes back to bite the family reputation during Albus's schooldays and after his death.
* Following on from the above example, the rest of the family — Albus, his brother Aberforth, and his mother Kendra — assume that the Ministry of Magic will send Ariana to St. Mungo's for the rest of her life, should they ever find out about her, out of fear that she would break the International Statue of Secrecy with her inability to control her magic. To get around this, they decide to keep Ariana's existence a secret from the entire world, to the point that they barely let her out of the house.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That after a few months of this treatment, the Dumbledores would realize that what they're doing to Ariana [[NotSoDifferent isn't much different]] from what they fear the Ministry will do, and commit her to St. Mungo's. It's not as though this would [[IncrediblyLamePun spell]] doom for Ariana: St. Mungo's is shown to have the means to take care of people like her, and the place also allows family members to visit patients, so it's not as though the rest of the family will never see Ariana again. In any case, it would probably prevent a lot of the stuff below from happening.\\
'''Instead:''' The Dumbledores continue to hide Ariana from everyone, and it causes the family nothing but trouble. First, Kendra gets killed in one of Ariana's outbursts, leaving Albus to look after her, a situation that he very much resents. Then Grindlewald shows up, and his friendship with Albus and their plans for the future threaten to leave Ariana on the proverbial kerb. Aberforth's attempts to stop this from happening lead to a fight between the three wizards in which Ariana inadvertedly gets killed long before her time.\\
'''There's more:''' Ariana's death creates a rift between the remaining Dumbledores, with Aberforth blaming Albus for killing their sister. The event also leaves Albus reluctant to confront Grindlewald when his former friend turns bad, out of fear that he'll be revealed as the one who killed Ariana, leading to the deaths of many people before he gets his act together. Finally, the whole thing becomes a stain on the Dumbledore family's history in the present day, with people assuming, based on what little they can find out about Ariana, that she was abused, imprisoned, and murdered [[FantasticRacism for not having magical abilities]].
* We find out that R.A.B. is ex-Death Eater Regulus Arcturus Black, who was the man who unearthed the secret of Voldemort's immortality and replaced the Horcrux Locket via HeelFaceTurn.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For him to try and contact people in the Order, such as Dumbledore, Sirius, or someone who might use this valuable intelligence, protect him, and also be able to destroy that magical device. Dumbledore is the world's greatest wizard, so making sure sending him the Horcrux should be a safe bet to destroy it, as well as seeking and destroying all the other Horcruxes\\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' He would have his house-elf Kreacher teleport him out of the cave once he's swapped the lockets around.\\
'''Instead:''' He tells Kreacher to destroy it, despite the fact that the latter has no idea how and is magically bound by oaths not to relate that information to anyone else, and performs a StupidSacrifice by staying in the cave to die.\\
'''Result:''' The actions of Regulus more or less lead to deaths over twenty plus years later that could have been avoided or reduced had he not been, as his brother Sirius called him, "a little idiot". Harry at least points out that Kreacher's actions in book 5 dishonored Regulus's memory by betraying Sirius.
* Harry, Ron, and Hermione learn that one of Voldemort's Horcruxes (the one that should have been in the cave explored near the end of ''Half-Blood Prince'') is in the possession of Dolores Umbridge, and make plans to infiltrate the Ministry of Magic, now controlled by Voldemort, in order to steal it.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The trio, in addition to figuring out how to enter the Ministry in the first place, would come up with ideas on how to go about finding the Horcrux, how to move around the Ministry without arousing suspicion or being sidetracked, and perhaps most importantly, how they can escape, not to mention that the Department of Mysteries, by nature, probably has information on how to destroy Horcruxes.\\
'''Alternatively:''' One of the trio could go in under the invisibility cloak and find out where Umbridge's office is, and then he or she could just wait there until Umbridge returns, take her out, and steal the locket.\\
'''Or even:''' They could find out where she lives, which couldn't possibly be as secure as the Ministry of Freakin' Magic, and either waylay her outside her house or wait for her to go to sleep, break in, and take the dratted thing.\\
'''Instead:''' Harry and co. plan their method of entering the Ministry… and that's the extent of their preparation. They don't think about anything else, and it bites them in the ass twice; Hermione and Ron are sidelined for the duration of the mission when their disguises lead the two of them to be mistaken for Ministry employees and given jobs to do, and the trio's hiding place is compromised during their escape attempt.\\
'''As A Result:''' This forces the trio to hide out in the wild, which, coupled with both the Horcrux's corrupting effects and frustration on the lack of information Dumbledore gave Harry regarding the Horcruxes, leads Ron to ditch the other two.
* Following the above, the heroes are living out of a tent, with no food, very limited access to research materials, and have to move frequently to avoid being found by Death Eater search parties.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' They would remember that Voldemort's people only have freedom of movement within the United Kingdom, as that is the only government Voldemort controls at this moment, and that there is no reason they have to ''stay'' in the country, just merely to visit it whenever they think they've found a Horcrux location. In fact, leaving the country is exactly what they later advise the Cattermoles to do, and what those presumably do. And simply relocating to France would allow them a safer territory to stay in, access to sources of supply, possible allies (such as Fleur's parents or Madame Maxine), and much greater access to research materials (such as the library of Beauxbatons). As to how they could get there? Wizards are demonstrably capable of Apparating from northern Scotland to London in a single jump, which is enough distance that you could hit ''Germany'' in a single jump from London, let alone France. Alternately, people who can turn invisible, shapeshift, teleport around security barriers, and rewrite memories don't have much trouble getting through Customs, especially since two of the three are familiar with Muggle security and technology.\\
'''What's Worse:''' Hermione's family takes vacations in France, the most recently being three years ago right before the Tri-Wizard Tournament. And it's specifically lampshaded in the text that one of the reasons the Trio was able to use the Forest of Dean was because since Hermione had vacationed there when she was a small child, she remembered the place well enough to use it as an Apparition destination! And yet she can't remember a place she's been to ''far'' more recently, because it would be inconvenient for the script if she did. Bleah.\\
'''Or At Least:''' The trio would realize that the Muggle world is full of places where you can buy food. These are shops and supermarkets, not fortresses, and there's no way Voldemort is going to have his goons watching every grocery store in every tiny village in Britain. Even if they were worried about encountering Death Eaters while shopping, the trio can easily and effectively magically alter their faces to disguise themselves, which is exactly what Ron does later on to successfully infiltrate Gringotts, which actually ''is'' a fortress likely to be guarded by Death Eaters. And it's not like the trio must expose themselves every day — one shopping trip with a little bit of preparation and each person carrying a few bags of canned or preserved food would be enough to last at least a week. Since Hermione emptied her Muggle bank account beforehand and made sure to take her Muggle money with her, they should be able to afford food. Even if she saved very little, rice and beans is a lot better than nothing and three people can be fed for weeks with ₤100. And even without money, it's not like people who can turn invisible, teleport, and trivially open any non-magical lock would have any trouble stealing, and the trio should really be sensible enough to realize their mission is far more important than costing a supermarket chain a miniscule amount of revenue. And finally, Hermione explicitly ''admits'' in a bitter discussion on the very topic that it's possible to magically multiply food if you already have some, yet there's no indication that this is ever attempted.\\
'''Instead:''' The trio consistently act like the United Kingdom is the only nation on the entire planet and never even idly ponder the idea of operating from a base area beyond Voldemort's span of control, despite easily being able to reach one. Likewise, the trio decide to spend ''half a year'' (from the beginning of September until March) surviving on whatever scraps of food they can find or forage from the area surrounding their camp. It isn't until the Christmas season that Hermione thinks to buy food at a grocery store, and even then only once instead of as a regular occurrence.\\
'''As A Result:''' The trio suffers from very low morale and increasing resentment and bitterness, culminating in Ron exploding in frustration and leaving. Although it's never mentioned, surviving for months on such a diet would seriously compromise their physical health as well.
* After stealing the Locket Horcrux, Harry wears it for safekeeping. As a result, he becomes terse and cold with Ron and Hermione and can't produce a Patronus when he encounters Dementors. After taking it off, he is much better.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to keep the Locket in his mokeskin pouch, where no one but the pouch's owner can get it out, or even better, Hermione to keep it in her beaded bag. The Locket doesn't have arms or legs to escape, and by keeping it secured they're not interacting with it in a way that would activate the horcrux (Ginny writing in the diary and Dumbledore putting on the Ring Horcrux; Ginny was possessed by the fragment of soul in the diary and Dumbledore was given mortal wounds by putting on the Ring).\\
'''Instead:''' Harry ''insists'' they wear it.\\
'''As A Result:''' Tensions grow between the trio until Ron leaves for several months. On top of that, the Locket tries to kill Harry twice while he's wearing it.
* Voldemort finds out that his wand and Harry's have identical cores, causing them to malfunction when used against each other.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Voldemort to let someone else kill Harry. It's too dangerous to risk going wand-to-wand against Harry personally when all it does is reflect your spells and [[spoiler:cause Harry's own wand to become more powerful]].\\
'''Or:''' Voldemort to be a little more creative in his spell usage. The man is one of the most talented wizards alive, and has demonstrated several spells that would not require him to use a direct magical attack. In his fight with Dumbledore alone in the film, he conjures a giant flaming snake and turns a room full of glass into a deadly FlechetteStorm.\\
'''Instead:''' Voldemort insists [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou HE must kill Harry]] and keeps trying the Killing Curse to no effect. He wastes time on futile schemes to find a loophole, such as using another servant's wand or searching for [[ArtifactOfDoom the Elder Wand]]. So Harry survives. Again. And again. And again.
* Harry accidentally summons a load of bad guys by [[ItMakesSenseInContext saying Voldemort's name]], [[IdiotBall despite having been previously warned that it had been jinxed and shouldn't be spoken out loud]] [[TooDumbToLive and having even been reminded of it right before he said it]]. The bad guys appear, and aim their wands at the heroes' tent.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Their first reaction to be grabbing the bag and side-along apparating away from the tent and the bad guys, as they've got the hang of it by now and they've used it to get out of a number of similar situations. Once done, they could then either sneak up on the bad guys and stun them, or just abandoning the thing altogether, continue their travel and get another tent (if necessary, a simple Expansion Charm could be used on a Muggle tent to make it comfortable).\\
'''Instead:''' Ron is the only to react, urging them to re-establishing the protective spells around the tent, but upon realizing it's too late and they are surrounded by bad guys, he opts to turn the tent's lights off with the Deluminator, which predictably fails to achieve anything. Then, finally reacting herself, Hermione uses a spell to disfigure Harry's face to prevent the bad guys from identifying him as such, in the hope to talk themselves out of the situation.\\
'''As A Result:''' They fail and get captured by the Snatchers, with one of them identifying Harry anyway by the scar on his forehead.
* Following from the above, the Snatchers take the trio to Malfoy Manor to be rewarded by Voldemort in person. Before the Malfoys can summon Voldemort, Bellatrix notices they have the Sword of Gryffindor, which is supposed to be in her vault, and freaks out. Since the vault also stores one of the Horcruxes, she is afraid they might have sneaked in and stolen it and intends to find out.\\
'''You'd Think:''' That even the freaked out Bella would see the very simple solutions of either making a quick trip to Gringotts and checking on the Horcrux, or using Legilimency to check the trio's memories to find out where they got the sword. Since ''Pottermore'' reveals she's an accomplished Occlumens who trained Draco Malfoy in Occlumency for his mission to assassinate Dumbledore, Bella most likely knew Legilimency.\\
'''Instead:''' She decides to brutally interrogate Hermione with the Cruciatus Curse (and in the movie adaptation, carve "Mudblood" on her arm), even though in a world where memory charms exist, its inefficiency for interrogation should be obvious to anyone.\\
'''Additionally, You'd Also Think:''' Knowing full well that in the wizard world, even the most innocuous tackle can be a magical artifact of unknown power, the villains would strip their prisoners of ''all'' possessions, down to the clothes.\\
'''Instead:''' They content themselves with taking away the boys' wands.\\
'''Naturally:''' The boys have some spare artifacts that help them escape, including the mirror shard.
* Griphook demands the sword of Godric Gryffindor as payment for helping them break into Gringotts. Harry is willing to give it to him, but only after destroying the Horcruxes with it. Harry also knows that, thanks to whatever powerful enchantments that were placed on the blade by Godric Gryffindor, it can present itself to a true Gryffindor through the Sorting Hat at a time of need, so Hogwarts won't actually lose the sword.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Harry would simply be honest with the goblin, and tell him, ''without'' going into details, that they need the sword to defeat Voldemort and that he would hand it over once the Dark Lord had been vanquished. Griphook had already admitted that he was very unhappy with Voldemort's regime, and that he believed Harry did not seek personal material gains or riches. If appealing to the goblin's better nature doesn't work, Harry can simply point out that Griphook is a fugitive from justice, Gringotts is being interfered with by wizards, and his people are on the brink of enduring another age of oppression at Voldemort's hands. ("So if you take the sword from us before we can kill You-Know-Who, you'll still be on the run with nowhere to go, Gringotts will still be under his control, your people will still be suffering at the hands of "Wand-Carriers", Death Eaters will still be in charge of the Goblin Liaison Office of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and considering the Ministry's charming new policies that deal with non-humans and muggles… um, what was the rest of your plan again, Griphook?")\\
'''Instead:''' Harry chooses to lie, on one occasion actually grabbing the sword to keep it near him ''while Griphook is in the room.''\\
'''As a Result:''' The goblin becomes suspicious, betrays them during the heist to steal the sword, and is eventually killed by Voldemort, after which the blade returns to the Sorting Hat, making the entire affair pointless. In the film, this gets rectified where the trio doesn't scheme to cheat the goblin, and Harry does hand over the sword as promised, but [[AdaptationalVillainy Griphook still betrays them]].
* Voldemort gets his hands on the Elder Wand previously owned by Dumbledore, but after testing it, he senses that the wand isn't working to its full potential and reasons that that is because he is not its true owner. He assumes this is because he did not kill Dumbledore, which would indicate Snape currently owns the wand.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Voldemort to realise that something's not right. His two assumptions about ownership of the wand are mutually exclusive. Dumbledore took possession of the wand ''without'' killing its previous owner, Gellert Grindelwald, who previously stole the wand from Mykew Gregorovitch without killing him either, and Voldemort should know this, as he has personally killed both of them. Therefore, if Dumbledore is the owner, then killing the previous owner shouldn't be a necessity, or if the kill ''is'' required, then Dumbledore shouldn't have owned the wand in the first place, and Voldemort should own it now on the assumption Gregorovitch was its last true owner.\\
'''Instead:''' He follows both assumptions, not noticing that they cannot possibly be both right, and assumes Snape owns the wand right now and proceeds to kill who he assumes to be one of his most skilled and useful minions, thinking this would give him ownership of the wand. He also has Nagini do it, which, if anything might actually put the snake in charge were his base assumption not flawed.\\
'''Additionally:''' Voldemort concludes that he's not the owner yet, because the wand doesn't perform any differently from an ordinary one, so apparently the difference is palpable, or at least he believes it should be.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That after running into all those complications, the first thing he'd do after killing Snape would be to test the wand if it performs properly now.\\
'''Instead:''' Despite there being no rush at all, he just assumes that it has to work now, and it takes Harry spelling out the fact that the wand isn't working right when, if anything, it should be behaving even worse now that it's being trained on its true owner.
* Harry finds out from Snape's memories that Snape always had a crush on his mother from the time they were children. Both coming from Muggle families (half-blood in Snape's case), they enter the wizarding world with glee and remain friends after being sorted into different houses. Lily becomes concerned, however, when Snape starts hanging out with a Dark Magic crowd that espouses hate against Muggleborn witches and wizards, [[YouKnowImBlackRight like her]]. He's also obsessed with what James and his friends do, despite Lily assuring Snape that she finds James as an "arrogant toe-rag" and that it's not healthy for him to fixate on them.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Snape would realize the problem in joining a group that wants people like Lily dead. Knowing Lily's sense of justice, she wouldn't go into hiding unless necessary. Also, he's in great danger of adopting that same mentality that wants her dead, and that it could ruin their friendship. You'd expect that he would go cold turkey from the makeshift Death Eaters and find a new group and purpose, or just go into the Muggle world and keep his head down after school.\\
'''Instead:''' Snape stays with the Slytherin Death Eaters through all his years in school, and doesn't deny that he wants to join with Voldemort. TheLastStraw for Lily is when [[UnwantedRescue he calls her]] [[UngratefulBastard a Mudblood after she defends him from James and his gang]] in their fifth year. Lily's so angry that she calls him "Snivellus", and later on, when he comes to apologize, makes it clear that he's crossed a line.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' For Snape to agree to abandon the Death Eaters right then and there in the hopes of saving their friendship.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't, and he can't answer Lily's ArmorPiercingQuestion. Instead, he dismisses what he said as a FreudianSlip, which is NotHelpingYourCase.\\
'''As A Result:''' Lily ends their friendship. Also, thanks to his allegiances, he ends up overhearing the prophecy that leads to Voldemort targeting Lily and her family, cuing a MyGodWhatHaveIDone from Snape.
* Following this, Snape is heartbroken and disappointed that Voldemort did kill Lily [[YouSaidYouWouldLetThemGo instead of sparing her]] despite Dumbledore trying to protect the Potters, and that only her son with James survived. Dumbledore later tells Snape that Harry has his mother in him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Snape would realize that Harry is not James, despite Harry acting arrogant at times and believing he's above the rules. Harry is a child who, like him, grew up with abusive relatives and seeks refuge in the magical world. You'd also think he would seek some form of self-care to handle his guilt so that it doesn't spiral and hurt others.\\
'''Instead:''' Snape decides to let his FreudianExcuse turn him into a SadistTeacher. He terrorizes Harry to the best of his ability, promising to get him expelled despite the fact that an untrained Harry would die when facing Voldemort. He also terrorizes Neville, who is an innocent party in this, due to Neville being the other potential Chosen One. Harry and Neville come to loathe Snape and thus don't trust him; this leads to Sirius's death later on, and to no one trusting Snape after he murders Dumbledore. Snape digs himself deeper after cutting off George's ear by accident, which means that he has to wait months for an opportunity to deliver the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry and Hermione, and has no means of relaying Dumbledore's final task until the Battle of Hogwarts. Neville leads a student mutiny when Snape is made headmaster of Hogwarts, and refuses to cooperate.
* Through a PensieveFlashback and a conversation with Dumbledore's spirit in FluffyCloudHeaven, Harry learns what happened between books [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix five]] and [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince six]] that nearly crippled Dumbledore's wand hand. To sum up: while poking around the childhood home of Voldemort's mum, Dumbledore comes across a ring that belonged to Voldy's grandpa, which he knows to be a Horcrux. However, it turns out that the ring also has the Resurrection Stone, one of the Deathly Hallows, which can supposedly bring the dead back to life.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore would do what he came to do and destroy the damn Horcrux, while keeping in mind that Voldy will have likely put some kind of protective curse on it. As for the stone, he would remember one of the most fundamental laws of magic: "No spell can reawaken the dead."\\
'''Instead:''' He puts the ring on, hoping to see his dead mother and sister again.\\
'''As a Result:''' Turns out that the ring ''does'' have a curse on it, and it almost kills him. While he still succeeds in destroying the Horcrux, Snape is only able to buy him one more year of life. (To his credit, Dumbledore does admit to Harry how stupid he was in putting the ring on, as it proved once and for all that he wasn't worthy of uniting the Hallows.)\\
'''What's Worse:''' Since the power to summon the dead was contained in the stone alone, there was absolutely no reason to put on the most likely cursed ring even to try and use the stone!\\
'''On the Other Hand:''' You do have to question Voldemort's logic at choosing the protection measures for the ring. We've seen that artifacts (like the necklace in ''Half-Blood Prince'') can be made lethal to a mere touch. Putting the ring on is quite a specific action that he couldn't reliably expect the thief to do, especially since, to his knowledge, the ring was just a bauble, and of course, it in no way actually prevented the thief from stealing and destroying it.
* After Voldemort finds out that Harry is hunting his [[SoulJar Horcruxes]], he checks several vaults, finding them all ransacked.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Voldemort would keep his snake Nagini, who's also a Horcrux, by his side at all times, and preferably under magical protection.\\
'''Instead:''' While he does both these things, he [[TemptingFate removes the protection on Nagini when he thinks he's won with Harry's death]], even though the battle at Hogwarts hadn't even ended.\\
'''As a Result:''' Nagini dies by Neville's hand, and Voldemort loses his immortality and is then killed. It's even worse in the film, where he makes Nagini fight the good guys without even replacing the protective magical cage on her.
* Voldemort has hit Harry with the killing curse, but isn't sure if it worked, as Harry surrendered willingly and without a fight, so he wants to be absolutely certain before announcing Harry's death, especially since the curse appeared to hurt Voldemort as well.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Voldemort to be ''very'' cautious. The last time he tried to kill Harry with a killing curse, some magic he doesn't understand activated suddenly and turned the curse on himself, and there's no real reason some other magical phenomenon could have not happened now; in fact, the sole notion that the curse seems to have affected Voldemort himself leaves very clear that '''something''' has definitely happened again. Therefore, he should [[DoubleTap hit Harry again with a couple killing curses more]] or, in case he suspects those might absolutely not work on him, [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill get creative with his magic and mangle the corpse]], as its severed head should be enough to parade around Hogwarts. In any case, checking that Harry is dead should be basic; Voldemort could use Legilimency to see if there are any thoughts on Harry's brain or just order the corpse to be brought to him to check its pulse himself. Even if Voldemort is a bit shaken by the event, he can take any time he needs to recover, as Harry isn't going anywhere even if he is alive.\\
'''Or At The Very Least:''' If he is going to send someone to check its pulse, send a couple of his mooks to have a second opinion. Or again, just go with them to ensure that they aren't doing anything else while there.\\
'''Instead:''' He does nothing and instead sends Narcissa, whose family has failed him on multiple occasions, and gives her enough time and space to discreetly talk with Harry about her son's safety. When Narcissa claims Harry is dead, Voldemort subjects his foe's "corpse" to the Cruciatus curse which, while excruciatingly painful, can be withstood without a wand.\\
'''As A Result:''' It turns out that Harry is still alive and only pretending to be dead so he can be returned to the castle. Harry reveals himself to be alive after Voldemort's last Horcrux is destroyed and the Death Eaters are all either incapacitated or not actually fighting and goes on to defeat Voldemort for good.

'''Instead:''' He tells Kreacher to destroy it, despite the fact that the latter has no idea how and is magically bound by oaths not to relate that information to anyone else, and performs a StupidSacrifice by staying on the cave to die.\\
'''Result:''' The actions of Regulus more or less lead to deaths over twenty plus years later that could have been avoided or reduced had he not been, as his brother Sirius called him, "a little idiot".

'''You'd Also Expect:''' That she would chose a name for her crusade [[UnfortunateNames that doesn't sound so stupid and utterly impossible to respect]].\\

'''In Addition:''' Thanks to Hermione's crusade, the Hogwarts house elves become disgusted with the Gryffindors. It starts when Hermione asks why they cover a drunk Winky with a blanket, instead of cheering her up for getting fired and then learning her master is ill. Then Hermione starts knitting hats, in the hopes of freeing the Hogwarts House elves, and Dobby reveals he pockets her hats because the other elves are insulted. It means he has to clean Gryffindor tower on his own, which is unfair even if he doesn't mind.

'''Instead:''' They use actual hostages. One of whom actually happens to be a twelve-year old girl, Fleur's sister Gabrielle. In a lake which is miles deep; if the hostages happened to surface in a deep part of the lake and don't know how to swim, they could start drowning. The merpeople also have instructions that if a champion tries to rescue multiple hostages, that they will restrain them, unless one has the presence of mind to threaten them with a wand and scare them, as Harry does.\\

* As Sirius tells it, and Harry witnesses in the Pensieve, Barty Crouch's son was caught with a group of Death Eaters, the Lestranges, that captured and tortured the Longbottoms, leaving them legally insane. The crime causes a scandal because the Longbottoms were popular, and Neville was the other potential Chosen One. The Longbottoms have no reliable testimony, and their son Neville is only a baby; on the other hand, the Wizarding World wants a criminal to punish. Mrs. Crouch, who has a terminal illness, in particular is in hysterics about her son getting arrested, because he's their only child. Mr. Crouch fears the blow to his reputation.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Crouch to do all that he could to verify his son's innocence or guilt. The Ministry has truth serum, Time Turners locked in the Department of Mysteries, and the means of extracting Crouch Jr.'s memories via Pensieve or Legilimency.\\

'''Or:''' Since Dumbledore wields a significant amount of political influence himself, even on an international level, he would find some way to have Harry testify to Voldemort's return, whether that be to have him testify in front of the Wizengamot or the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, or really anything that might circumvent Fudge.

'''Alternately:''' Dumbledore could just use a Time Turner to take Fudge back in time to the cemetery under an Invisibility Cloak to show him the evidence of the ritual to his own face.

* During the climax of the previous book, Harry witnessed Cedric get murdered and was then attacked and almost killed by Voldemort — and immediately after he escaped, a Death Eater made ''another'' attempt on his life. Such things would be extremely traumatizing for anyone.\\

'''You'd Think:''' They to set up protective spells around the place in order to detect any possible intruders, including one that makes the place look still abandoned.\\
'''Instead:''' They don't, and simply lounge on one of its chambers, lighting a fire that can be seen from outside.\\
'''As a Result:''' Frank Bryce, an old muggle, is able to sneak on them and hear part of their talk. This proves to be unconsequential because Nagini casually finds him and warns Voldemort and Wormtail, but this only shows could easily it would have been for a spy or a tracker to catch the dark wizards.

'''You'd Think:''' Even though Ron has his pride, Harry at some point would buy him new dress robes that are in style, ''not'' maroon, and much nicer, and give them anonymously. Alternatively, Ron could get over his pride and ask Harry for some money/new dress robes, or Mrs. Weasley could just borrow some money from Harry and offer to pay him back later. That way, when the special events come up, Ron won't look like a fool in his clothes.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore would immediately use a Pensieve to review Harry's memories of the event and show them directly to Fudge, or view them himself in order to ascertain exactly what happened and gain information. Granted, memories can be altered (and Harry tells him), but Harry doesn't know how to do that, there hasn't been sufficient time for him or anybody else to do so, and it's not just Voldemort's return, but he's an eyewitness account into investigating the death (murder) of another student (Cedric) during the Triwizard tournament. Not to mention that, when an explicitly doctored memory is shown two books later, the signs of tampering are rather obvious even to the untrained eye despite having been done by an expert.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore to either teach Harry himself, or at least, in case he is that determined to put distance among Harry and him, try and find someone else to do the job. Moody would have been a possible option to give Harry a crash course during holidays, as with his level of paranoia about everything and him still recovering from being imprisoned in his own trunk by Crouch Jr. for the past year, it's hard to imagine him not learning Occlumency to protect his secrets; and even in Hogwarts, whose staff includes very knowledgeable wizards like Flitwick or [=McGonagall=], it would be surprising that no other teacher had at least some notion of Occlumency. For that matter, since Draco Malfoy proves it's possible for a talented student to learn Occlumency over the course of one summer if he has a competent teacher and the decision that Harry needs to learn Occlumency isn't made until mid-term, Dumbledore has enough time to train literally ''anyone'' to be an Occlumens from scratch, and still have them finish teaching Harry before end-of-term.\\

'''Instead:''' He gets Professor Snape to try and teach Harry Occlumency, a magical art that is based on ''controlling your emotions'', when the two of them have a longstanding mutual hatred and are visibly incapable of so much as being in the same room without enraging each other by their very presence.\\

'''Or:''' He could've countered Umbridge's assurances by mentioning ''Sirius''. After all, the Ministry couldn't deny his existence, and they did fail to capture him, so they couldn't deny he was a threat either.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to inform Professor [=McGonagall=] and/or Dumbledore and show them the scar. If there are still suspicions, use the Pensieve or take one of them (or anybody else) with him under the Invisibility Cloak for his next detention, and then have them to write to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. While it's likely the Ministry won't be be fair to Harry, even in its newfound {{Jerkass}} mode they would not be able to ignore accusations of a Ministry employee mutilating children, especially without the students' parents knowing.\\

* Cho Chang decides to join the illegal defense group Harry had set up under Professor Umbridge's nose. She also has a friend called Marietta Edgecombe, whose mother works at the Ministry of Magic, and would therefore be likely to lose her job if her daughter got on the wrong side of Umbridge.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' For him to try and contact people in the Order, such as Dumbledore, Sirius, or someone who might use this valuable intelligence, protect him, and also be able to destroy that magical device.\\

'''Instead:''' He tells Kreacher to destroy it, despite the fact that the latter has no idea how and is magically bound by oaths not to relate that information to anyone else, and performs a StupidSacrifice.\\

'''Instead:''' Harry ''insists'' they wear it, on their necks.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' He'd just [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill hit Harry again with as many killing curses as necessary to be fully satisfied]] or, if he really wanted to check for a pulse, take some time to recover and check himself, Harry isn't going anywhere even if he is alive. He \\
'''Or At The Very Least:''' If he had to send someone as a second opinion, he'd go with them to ensure that they aren't doing anything else while there.\\
'''Instead:''' He sends Narcissa, whose family has failed him on multiple occasions, and gives her enough time to ask Harry about her son's safety. When Narcissa claims Harry is dead, Voldemort subjects his foe's "corpse" to the Cruciatus curse which, while excruciatingly painful, can be withstood without a wand.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' First of all, Harry to grab the Marauder's Map and find out the positions of Umbridge and any name suspicious of being an ally of hers (especially Slytherins). Once he's sure the enemy is not literally behind the doors, he should order the group to keep calm, exit the room and scatter divided in small groups to avoid ambushes and not to raise suspicions, all while keeping the wands grasped inside the pockets and being ready for anything. Umbridge might be a professor, but she's only one person and doesn't have the support of the rest of the staff, so her personal involvement in the raid will be very limited; and as for any crooked student she might recruit (and Filch), the DA has enough numbers and battle training to secure their way out. This goes also for Harry himself, who should be a priority to protect given that he is the leader of the whole class; Draco's face would have been priceless had he tried to attack Harry and found himself receiving four or five curses in the attempt.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to keep the Locket in his mokeskin pouch, where no one but the pouch's owner can get it out, or Hermione to keep it in her beaded bag. It may be hard to find in the beaded bag, but at least they're not interacting with it in a way that would activate the horcrux (Ginny writing in the diary and Dumbledore putting on the Ring Horcrux; Ginny was possessed by the fragment of soul in the diary and Dumbledore was given mortal wounds by putting on the Ring).\\
'''Instead:''' Harry ''insists'' they wear it.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Voldemort to realise that something's not right. His two assumptions about ownership of the wand are mutually exclusive. Dumbledore took possession of the wand ''without'' killing its previous owner, Gellert Grindelwald. Furthermore, Grindelwald stole the wand from Gregorovitch. Voldemort should know this — he killed Grindelwald ''and'' Gregorovitch. Therefore, if Dumbledore is the owner, then killing the previous owner shouldn't be a necessity, or if the kill ''is'' required, then Dumbledore shouldn't have owned the wand in the first place, and Voldemort should own it now.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' He'd just [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill hit Harry again with as many killing curses as necessary to be fully satisfied]] or, if he really wanted to check for a pulse, take some time to recover and check himself, Harry isn't going anywhere even if he is alive.\\

'''Instead:''' No one performs ''any'' investigation nor preventative measures, and the House is free to release evil wizards to the world. If anything, to the contrary, most of the prominent Slytherins seem to be assuming major roles in the government. There's minor attempts at justification, like "being stuck there doesn't mean you're a bad person," but this argument, while theoretically correct, clashes against the statistically demonstrable truth that Slytherin ''is'' a factory of douchebags. It also does nothing to address the underlying stigma, which effectively plays both against the house and the rest of the community.

'''You'd Expect:''' There would be more commonplace methods of rooting out such impersonations at any location of importance, such as the Ministry and Gringotts. For example, as the supplanter's mind remains the same after the changes, all they need is a quick Legilimency check to see if his/her thoughts and recent memories match what is expected of the person. This admittedly would not stop a skilled Occlumens, but very few wizards are after all. Also, given that the Marauder's Map cannot be fooled by the potion, there must have some other ways to detect it. The Order of the Phoenix uses personalized {{Trust Password}}s that are fairly effective.\\

'''Or:''' Crouch to do what most modern courts require when there's an obvious conflict of interest, and recuse himself.\\

'''As A Result:''' While the Lestranges are definitely guilty, and the entire Wizengamot votes to send the Lestranges and Crouch Jr. to Azkaban for life, Crouch Sr. ends up destroying his reputation and chances of becoming Minister of Magic. People question about how the greatest fighter of Death Eaters could not realize his own child was going astray, and assume he either practiced ParentalNeglect or was an abusive father. It doesn't help that as a last wish to his dying wife, he smuggles her into Azkaban so that she switches places with her son; otherwise, they both would have died, Crouch Jr. to the Dementors and Mrs. Crouch to her terminal illness. While it is unclear whether Crouch Jr. was a sincere Death Eater before Azkaban, when he comes out, he definitely is. Crouch Jr. seizes the chance of freedom and helps bring Voldemort back to power. NiceJobBreakingItHero doesn't begin to cover it.

* As well as the above evidence, Professor Snape shows him a very clear Dark Mark on his arm. The last time it was easily visible was during Voldemort's reign of terror. And, of course, Cedric Diggory's dead body.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Fudge to figure out that with all this evidence supporting it, it's quite likely that Voldemort's really back, and then take the actions suggested by Dumbledore to prevent him getting power and resources. Even if he doesn't believe it, he could still try and have the matter investigated to confirm it for himself, and he can always order it to be done discreetly in order not to cause a social panic. He's certainly an egotistical man, but by that reason he should know he has a lot to gain, politically speaking, by putting all his effort on managing the situation of Voldemort's return (and a lot to lose if Voldemort's return happens to be true and Fudge doesn't act on it).\\

'''Even Worse:''' The entire Ministry of Magic follows blindly Fudge's politics, being either that submissive to his authority or just apathetic to the topic, or maybe buying into his mindset of simply not wanting to accept it. Even the Auror Office, whose members should be naturally wary to dismiss like that the possibility of Voldemort having recovered his power, don't seem to make any objection. The only people in the Ministry who believe Dumbledore are those who are already his allies, who are few and not excessively powerful.

'''You'd Expect:''' Given that Dumbledore had decided at the end of [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire book four]] that the time was right to tell Harry about the Prophecy, Dumbledore to just tell Harry about the mental connection, the prophecy and Voldemort's plans for retrieving it, and explain that this is why he has to learn Occlumency. That way, Harry might be more motivated to do so. Even if he's really unwilling the tell Harry about the prophecy, he only needs to tell him a shortened version of the story: "Harry, the Department of Mysteries houses a weapon Voldemort is seeking but cannot have by himself, so he might try to get you to travel there and get it for him." After all, Harry has already worked to impede Voldemort from stealing a valuable item - in the very first book of the series, in fact - and it would be easy for him to understand.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore to either teach Harry himself, or at least, in case he is that determined to put distance among Harry and him, try and find someone else to do the job. Moody would have been a possible option to give Harry a crash course during holidays, as with his level of paranoia about everything it's hard to imagine him not knowing Occlumency to protect his secrets; and even in Hogwarts, whose staff includes very knowledgeable wizards like Flitwick or [=McGonagall=], it would be surprising that no other teacher had at least some notion of Occlumency. For that matter, since Draco Malfoy proves it's possible for a talented student to learn Occlumency over the course of one summer if he has a competent teacher and the decision that Harry needs to learn Occlumency isn't made until mid-term, Dumbledore has enough time to train literally ''anyone'' to be an Occlumens from scratch, and still have them finish teaching Harry before end-of-term.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to inform Professor [=McGonagall=] and/or Dumbledore and show them the scar. If there are still suspicions, use the Pensieve or take one of them (or anybody else) with him under the Invisibility Cloak for his next detention. You'd think the Ministry, even in its newfound {{Jerkass}} mode, would hardly be able to get away with mutilating children, especially without their parents knowing.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' First of all, Harry to grab the Marauder's Map and find out the positions of Umbridge and any name suspicious of being an ally of hers (especially Slytherins). Once he's sure the enemy is not literally behind the doors, he should order the group to keep calm, exit the room and scatter divided in small groups to avoid ambushes and not to raise suspicions, all while keeping the wands grasped inside the pockets and being ready for anything. Umbridge might be a professor, but she's only one person and doesn't have the support of the rest of the staff, so her personal involvement in the raid will be very limited; and as for any crooked student she might recruit (and Filch), the DA has enough numbers and battle training to secure their way out. This goes also for Harry himself, who should be a priority to protect given that he is the leader of the whole class; Draco's face would have been prizeless had he tried to attack Harry and found himself receiving four or five curses in the attempt.\\
'''Instead:''' Harry basically screams every man for himself and runs away completely alone and without any care.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' That Harry would at least have a look at the package, to see what it is, even if he doesn't plan on using it.\\

'''You'd Also Expect:''' That the first time Harry did this, Sirius would tell him to use the mirror, so that they can talk safely in the future. It's already weird that he didn't even ask Harry why was he using the dangerous Floo Network when he should have the mirror with him.\\
'''Instead:''' Sirius never gets around to it. Granted, he wasn't alone with Harry during the conversation, and he may have had his reasons for not wanting his oldest friend Lupin in on the secret of the mirror. However, you'd think he could at least have said, "Remus, I'd like a private word with my godson, if you don't mind," a request which Lupin would no doubt have honoured.\\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' That the Order in general would take care of providing Harry with means of emergency communication, not to mention extraction. They ''know'' that the boy is a trouble magnet, that the Ministry is openly hostile to him, and that the enemy is downright after his head. Especially since Harry knows how to cast a Patronus and that's a foolproof message system; all they had to do was teach him that and the entire climax of [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix Book 5]] could have been avoided.\\

'''Instead:''' Harry is left by himself at Privet Drive, with no contact with other wizards, stewing in his own PTSD. By the time he's brought back to the Wizarding World (prompted by a Dementor attack, ''another'' distressing event), he's an emotional time bomb on the edge of exploding.

'''You'd Expect:''' That they would take the idea seriously. After all, Harry himself is proof that you do not have to be an adult to make significant accomplishments. Additionally, in [[RealLife the Muggle world]], terrorists, criminals, and other irresponsible people [[ChildSoldiers use minors to do their dirty work all the time]]; just give them goodies, fill their heads with nonsense about adventure and glory, and give them a mission that does not require too much intelligence and where [[SuicideMission it doesn't matter whether they come back alive]].\\

'''Instead:''' Percy refuses to do any of this and and continues to work at the Ministry with every regime change, without even sending an owl to his parents. He only goes to see his family when the new Minister pressures him to attend for a political Christmas visit. Even when presented with this opportunity to mend ties, he just refuses to apologize and acts like everyone can be civil despite his ListOfTransgressions.\\

'''You'd Also Expect:''' Dumbledore to have instructed the entire Order of the Phoenix in Occlumency from the beginning, as it is an incredibly useful ability they certainly need in those times.

'''You'd Expect:''' They would remember that Voldemort's people only have freedom of movement within the United Kingdom, as that is the only government Voldemort controls at this moment, and that there is no reason they have to ''stay'' in the country, just merely to visit it whenever they think they've found a Horcrux location. And simply relocating to France would allow them a safer territory to stay in, access to sources of supply, possible allies (such as Fleur's parents or Madame Maxine), and much greater access to research materials (such as the library of Beauxbatons). As to how they could get there? Wizards are demonstrably capable of Apparating from northern Scotland to London in a single jump, which is enough distance that you could hit ''Germany'' in a single jump from London, let alone France. Alternately, people who can turn invisible, shapeshift, teleport around security barriers, and rewrite memories don't have much trouble getting through Customs, especially since two of the three are familiar with Muggle security and technology.\\

'''Or:''' Voldemort to be a little more creative in his spell usage. The man is one of the most talented wizards alive, and has demonstrated several spells that would not require him to use a direct magical attack. In his fight with Dumbledore alone, he conjures a giant flaming snake and turns a room full of glass into a deadly FlechetteStorm.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' They would first try side-along apparating to a short distance away from the tent and the bad guys. They've got the hang of it by now, and they've used it to get out of a number of similar situations. For bonus points, they could then sneak up on the bad guys, stun them, and leave. Lacking that, Ron and Hermione could've gone out and distracted the baddies, while Harry sneaks out under the invisibility cloak and then snipe them all. Or, heck, just grab the bag, teleport away, and find another tent. If necessary, a simple Expansion Charm could be used on a Muggle tent to make it comfortable.\\
'''Instead:''' Hermione uses a spell to disfigure Harry's face, to prevent the bad guys from identifying him as such, and they try to talk themselves out of the situation.\\
'''As A Result:''' They fail, thanks to the fact that one of the Snatchers sees Harry's scar on his forehead.

'''The Result:''' Harry and Ron stop speaking to Hermione for several months. While she ended up being right that Sirius sent the broom — it wasn't jinxed and Sirius sent it to make up for missing several years' worth as birthdays — Ron labels Her as a tattletale.

'''As A Result:''' While Cho forgives Marietta, in part because it's implied Marietta was the only friend who stayed with her after Cedric died, it makes Marietta a pariah and known as the student that sold out Dumbledore to Umbridge. It also means that Harry and Cho break up before they can even start a relationship, because Harry points out this particular fact to Cho.

'''You'd Expect:''' First of all, Harry to grab the Marauder's Map and find out where are exactly Umbridge and any name suspicious of being an ally of hers (especially Slytherins). Once he's sure the enemy is not literally behind the doors, he should order the group to keep calm, exit the room and scatter divided in small groups to avoid ambushes and not to raise suspicions, all while keeping the wands grasped inside the pockets and being ready for anything. Umbridge might be a professor, but she's only one and doesn't have the support of the rest, and as for any crooked student she might recruit, the DA has enough numbers and battle training to easily overpower them in their way out.\\
'''Instead:''' Harry basically screams every man for himself and runs away alone without any care.\\
'''The Result:''' Harry is ambushed by Draco and other Slytherin, who also capture several other DA members that were similarly astray.

'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore to either teach Harry himself, or at least, in case he is that determined to put distance among Harry and him, try and find someone else to do the job. Moody would have been a possible option to give Harry a crash test course during holidays, as with his level of paranoia about everything it's hard to imagine him not knowing Occlumency to protect his secrets; and even in Hogwarts, whose staff includes very knowledgeable wizards like Flitwick or [=McGonagall=], it would be surprising that no other teacher had at least some notion of Occlumency. For that matter, since Draco Malfoy proves it's possible for a talented student to learn Occlumency over the course of one summer if he has a competent teacher and the decision that Harry needs to learn Occlumency isn't made until mid-term, Dumbledore has enough time to train literally ''anyone'' to be an Occlumens from scratch, and still have them finish teaching Harry before end-of-term.\\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' Dumbledore to have instructed the entire Order of the Phoenix in Occlumency from the beginning, as it is an incredibly useful ability they certainly need.

'''You'd Expect:''' After this first lesson at the least, Harry would try to keep his mouth shut, since, frankly speaking, he has no proof of Voldemort's return, and won't achieve anything by proclaiming it again.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Harry to inform Professor [=McGonagall=] and/or Dumbledore and show them the scar. If there are still suspicions, take one of them (or anybody else) with him under the Invisibility Cloak for his next detention. You'd think the Ministry, even in its newfound {{Jerkass}} mode, would hardly be able to get away with mutilating children, especially without their parents knowing.\\

'''As A Result:''' While Cho forgives Marietta, in part because Marietta was the only friend who stayed with her after Cedric died, it makes Marietta a pariah and known as the student that sold out Dumbledore to Umbridge. It also means that Harry and Cho break up before they can even start a relationship, because Harry points out this particular fact to Cho.

'''Instead:''' He doesn't, apparently afraid that if he so much as ''opens'' it, his godfather will get in trouble. It turns out to just be a magical equivalent of a walkie-talkie, whose usefulness would have been absolutely invaluable for them.\\

'''You'd Also Expect:''' That the first time Harry did this, Sirius would tell him to use the mirror, so that they can talk safely in the future.\\

'''Instead:''' Nobody gives a damn, except Sirius, and he's so conflicted and guilt-tripped by everyone for being possessive of Harry, that he ends up being MasterOfTheMixedMessage, and of course it leads to a disaster.

'''Instead:''' Although he does check Grimmauld Place at Hermione's urging, and finds out that Sirius has (supposedly) gone to the Department, he ''still'' doesn't consider that it might be a trap, and flies straight into the Ministry believing that surely, there's [[SarcasmMode no way Voldemort could possibly be expecting him]].

'''As a Result:''' The herd promptly drags her off into the forest, and while we don't see what happened to her after that, it was rough enough to give her PTSD.

'''The Result:''' The monologuing and his strange actions alert Dumbledore that this is an impostor. He, [=McGonagall=], and Snape rescue Harry in time, Stun the impostor, and expose him. Dumbledore then ties up Crouch Jr. while the latter is hopped up on Veritaserum, gets Madam Pomfrey to help the real Moody, who was locked up in his own trunk, Stunned and starving.

'''You'd Expect:''' Fudge to figure out that with all this evidence supporting it, it's quite likely that Voldemort's back, and then take the actions suggested by Dumbledore to prevent him getting power and resources. Even if he doesn't believe it, he could still try and have the matter investigated, to confirm it for himself. He's certainly an egotistical man, but by that reason he should know he has a lot to gain, politically speaking, by putting all his effort on managing the situation of Voldemort's return.\\

'''As A Result:''' Voldemort's side is able to operate quite freely, recruit the giants to their cause, and break out a load of their supporters from [[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]], while Fudge [[HeadInTheSandManagement does absolutely nothing useful]]. Thankfully, Voldemort doesn't choose to focus all his efforts on taking over, but if he had, the situation could have become a lot worse. And when the truth does get out, the unanimous outcry from the wizarding community forces Fudge to resign and destroys his career.

'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore would immediately use a Pensive to review Harry's memories of the event and show them directly to Fudge, or view them himself in order to ascertain exactly what happened and gain information. Granted, memories can be altered (and Harry tells him), but Harry doesn't know how to do that, there hasn't been sufficient time for him or anybody else to do so, and it's not just Voldemort's return, but he's an eyewitness account into investigating the death (murder) of another student (Cedric) during the Triwizard tournament. Not to mention that, when an explicitly doctored memory is shown two books later, the signs of tampering are rather obvious even to the untrained eye despite having been done by an expert.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' That Dumbledore would provide some form of counseling for Harry over the summer holidays to help him work through his trauma — assuming, of course, that the Wizarding community has any form of emotional therapy.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' The Ministry would try to drive a wedge between Harry and Dumbledore, attempting to make a deal with Harry or otherwise counter Dumbledore's manipulations. After all, in RealLife, when an adult and a child are engaged in a common act of misbehavior, particularly when the adult is an authority figure, it is generally accepted that the adult bears the brunt of the blame.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore to just tell Harry about the mental connection, the Prophecy and Voldemort's plans for retrieving it, and explain that this is why he has to learn Occlumency. That way, Harry might be more motivated to do so. Hell, Dumbledore had decided at the end of [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire book four]] that the time was right to tell Harry about the prophecy.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Dumbledore to either teach Harry himself, or at least, in case he is that determined to put distance among Harry and him, try and find someone else to do the job. Moody would have been a possible option to give Harry a crash test course during vacation, as with his level of paranoia about everything it's hard to imagine him not knowing Occlumency to protect his secrets; and even in Hogwarts, whose staff includes very knowledgeable wizards like Flitwick or [=McGonagall=], it would be surprising that no other teacher had at least some notion of Occlumency. For that matter, since Draco Malfoy proves it's possible for a talented student to learn Occlumency over the course of one summer if he has a competent teacher and the decision that Harry needs to learn Occlumency isn't made until mid-term, Dumbledore has enough time to train literally ''anyone'' to be an Occlumens from scratch, and still have them finish teaching Harry before end-of-term.\\

* After the madness of the Quidditch World Cup, riots and all, Ron and Harry come back to the Burrow to find that Mrs. Weasley has purchased dress robes in addition to their usual books and quills. Ron is furious that she's gotten him outdated maroon robes with lacy sleeves, while Harry feels guilty that he has gotten nice ones since Mrs. Weasley used money from his vault. \\

'''You'd Expect:''' Crouch to do all that he could to verify his son's innocence or guilt. The Ministry has truth serum, Time Turners locked in the Department of Mysteries, and the means of extracting Crouch Jr.'s memories via Pensieve.\\

'''As A Result:''' While the Lestranges are definitely guilty, and the entire Wizengamot votes to send the Lestranges and Crouch Jr. to Azkaban for life, Crouch Sr. ends up destroying his reputation and chances of becoming Minister of Magic. People question about how the greatest fighter of Death Eaters could not realize his own child was going astray, and assume he practiced ParentalNeglect. It doesn't help that as a last wish to his dying wife, he smuggles her into Azkaban so that she switches places with her son; otherwise, they both would have died, Crouch Jr. to the Dementors and Mrs. Crouch to her terminal illness. While it is unclear whether Crouch Jr. was a Death Eater before Azkaban, when he comes out, he definitely is. Crouch Jr. seizes the chance of freedom and helps bring Voldemort back to power. NiceJobBreakingItHero doesn't begin to cover it.

'''You'd Expect:''' Harry and Cedric to try grabbing the cup again. If it takes them back to Hogwarts (which is what happens), then the trip to the graveyard wasn't a part of the challenge. After this, they could tell everyone what happened and the authorities would be able to investigate.\\

'''As a Result:''' Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort turn up, kill Cedric, and incapacitate Harry. Pettigrew then carries out the ritual to restore Voldemort to power.
* Related to the above.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Crouch Jr would remove the original Portus spell on the Cup, meaning that it will only take the user to the graveyard. This would leave Harry with no way out, and Voldemort could always find another way to announce his return and Harry's downfall.\\
'''Instead:''' He leaves the original Portus spell on the cup, presumably so Voldemort could use it to travel to Hogwarts to gloat after killing Harry.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Voldemort would order Pettigrew to stun Cedric and leave him there for the resurrection. They can kill him later if need be, and if not, modify his memory and send him back as the winner. So Harry Potter is missing from the tournament, and the champion has no idea what happened? So what? Even if Memory Charms can be broken, as Voldemort laughingly pointed out in the first chapter, it would cover their tracks if he's sent back Stunned and has no recollection of what happened to Harry. After all, Crouch Jr. did ''the same thing'' to Viktor Krum to ambush his father. Later in the books, Voldemort mentions that he "hates" to spill pure blood.\\
'''Instead:''' Voldemort orders Wormtail to "kill the spare". In the film, he sarcastically says it was a pity that a "pretty boy" had to die. This isn't just {{Jerkass}} behavior; Voldemort rationalized killing Bertha Jorkins because he damaged her brain permanently while torturing her, and Crouch Sr. because HeKnowsTooMuch. There is ''no'' reason to kill Cedric at this juncture and Voldemort "spilled pure blood", which proves he's either a {{Hypocrite}} or an idiot.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Once Voldemort was done gloating and summoning his Death Eaters, he'd then kill Harry as quickly as possible. Likely with the knife used to resurrect him, if the Killing Curse doesn't work the second time.\\

'''The Result:''' Harry is able to escape, and he warns Dumbledore and the world about Voldemort's return.

'''Instead:''' Sirius charges headfirst to find Wormtail on his own without any backup, and gets surprised and framed.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' That they'd provide for Lupin to have some reminders and a contingency protocol, like a lockdown on his office when the "zero hour" approaches. It's not some flu medicine he's taking — it's supposed to keep him from going rabidly insane ''in a castle full of children''.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Sirius would try and get in contact with Dumbledore and other members of the Order shortly after he escaped from Azkaban, whether by Portkey, Floo Network, or something, and explain the truth to him. That way, Pettigrew can be taken into custody, keeping Harry safe, and Sirius would be cleared of all wrongdoing.\\

'''In Addition:''' The school should realise that, no matter how exceptional Hermione is, letting her attend multiple classes is going to be detrimental to her. She's the sort of person who worries a lot about exams and failure, so it's going to cause her a lot of unnecessary stress. It could also encourage her to neglect her friendships so she can complete her work, which won't be good for her social development. Nothing really comes of it, but still…

'''You'd Expect:''' Someone would have filed a lawsuit or sent a cease and desist letter for libel. Especially parents of children who get harassed. Or they would duel her in public and humiliate her.\\

'''However:''' Hermione is the OnlySaneMan who decides that Rita has to be investigated and stopped, and manages to do so for the next year at least.
** '''Or at least:''' People would eventually learn to take her articles with a grain of salt.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Crouch Jr. to invite Harry into his office and Portkey him to Little Hangleton from there, or take a sample of his blood. This could be done at any point in the school year and it would be hours before anyone realized Harry was missing.\\
'''Instead:''' Crouch Jr. hatches [[ComplexityAddiction an incredibly convoluted plan]] to enter Harry into the Triwizard Tournament as a surprise fourth contestant, even though only three students are supposed to compete in the tournament, then turn the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey and arrange for Harry to grab it in the last moments of the tournament. This requires Crouch to basically hand-hold Harry through the entire tournament while also maintaining his cover for an extended period, exponentially increasing the number of things that may go wrong.

'''You'd Expect:''' That the precise details of this contract would be immediately made clear and any possible loopholes would be exploited, or at the very least explored. For example, Harry could do nothing and disqualify himself. There are ''a lot'' of people who are unhappy with this development, starting from Harry himself, and then to his friends and the supporters of the legitimate Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory, and the delegations of the competing schools, all of whom would no doubt be satisfied if the teachers and Harry just came out and said he would deliberately fail every task in the interest of fairness.\\

'''In Addition:''' Thanks to Hermione's crusade, the Hogwarts house elves become disgusted with the Gryffindors. It starts when Hermione asks why they cover a drunk Winky with a blanket, instead of cheering her up for getting fired and then learning her master is ill. Then Hermione starts knitting hats, in the hopes of freeing the Hogwarts House elves, and Dobby reveals he pockets her hats because the other elves are insulted. It means he has to clean Gryffindor tower on his own, though he doesn't mind.