Chapter 41 (So spoiler alert and chapter notification.)

(Fun chapter and all... go Neville! But...)

Harry is a total wuss. What on earth is he doing going about with grotesque supplication and begging for forgiveness?

• Hermione explicitly ordered Draco to let her go.
• Hermione was juiced on feather-fall and would fall gracefully down. The main reason wizards wouldn't jump down from heights with feather-fall is because it would be too boring. It gets interesting when you don't have feather fall and risk crashing to the ground because a beater knocked you unconscious.
• When telling Draco to drop her she was actually exploiting Harry's emotional weakness. That weakness being Harry's overprotective romantic feelings for Hermione.
• Rather than than accept the successful implementation of a rather complicated strategy and having a one on one face off with Draco Harry goes about shrieking like a girl, letting Draco pick him off. Nice work Hermione. Harry, learn from your mistake, don't apologise to Hermione for her outplaying you.
• Harry had been throwing about ball bearings and bungee cords. Both of those sound more dangerous than floating down off buildings. Seriously. Running around shooting each other inside a multi-story building on ball bearings? Those windows are not particularly well protected.
• Hermione was at that time joining forces with another army to annihilate Harry to force her will upon him. Some people are best treated like fragile princesses or have their hands held like children, but ruthless domineering enemy generals don't fit in that category. Allowing people to experience some minor discomfort while they are in the process of crossing you isn't usually a bad thing.
• What was Harry doing giving two doses of feather fall? Give Hermione one dose which (probably) gives Draco the chance to come out and take up Harry's challenge. I can only hope that Harry was deliberately losing as part of some arbitrary social agenda. (I can think of reasons for Harry to orchestrate the scenario that eventuated. I can think of just as many reasons for him to just win.)

There obviously isn't any need for Harry to be obnoxious about it. I would expect Hermione to consider that Harry owes him for that one. I would acknowledge a certain symbolic debt and fulfil demands for recompense (within reason) with grace and good cheer. But remorse of the kind Harry was throwing around is something that matters. Sometimes you really do screw up, and that's when you need forgiveness. Throwing out your biggest apologies when you did basically the right thing and would (if you were sane) do roughly the same thing again next time just cheapens the whole thing. Just how much does an apology mean if you go around apologising to people for, roughly speaking, wussing out and letting them beat you?

(Mind you, I'm evaluating Harry by the standards of the someone somewhat closer to the age that he acts than to the 11 years old that he technically is. With a few years of marinating in testosterone ahead there is hope for him yet.)