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MarkusRamikin comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 27, chapter 98 - Less Wrong
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Because these are children who have been force-matured by both becoming (kind of fake) child soldiers and death, because the agreement specifically was created by two of said children, because all of the parents have other things to do, because the children are already there, because part of the theme of the first half of this story if you remember was "Children are people too, and not subhuman simply because of their age".
Susan Bones is giving the Aurors orders because it is her Aunt that runs the Auror office. She's basically the stand-in. The kids are the few actually sane people in Hogwarts.
Oh, sure, I'm not saying the kids aren't capable of performing the actions they did. What I'm wondering about is why the rest of the world is playing along. Even if these children - 11 year olds if I have that right - are the sanest people in Hogwarts, does the Hogwarts faculty recognize this, and the Auror office, and the Board of Governors, and their own parents? Or are all these people magically aware of the story theme that you mentioned, and the title of the last few chapters.
I don't think that's how police forces generally work...
It isn't, but keep in mind that this is still a pseudo feudal system, which still has existent Noble families with laws favoring them on the books. In a feudal system, that is absolutely how a 'police' (private army) force actually works. If you're the Prince, you can command them. In such a system, it wouldn't seem as strange that the daughter of the house is giving the commands. You'll notice they also all announce themselves by House first.
As an aside, if you are Amelia Bones, and you have to give one person preferential treatment, control, and ease of communication with your Aurors (and by extension, yourself), who do you pick from the group of kids who are making the announcement? Which one do you trust most?
You have a point.
Possibly it's to suggest that if a group proclaims its own authority to act, and acts with certainty, most people will go along with it.
I notice you are confused. I think you've made two questionable assumptions;
Assumption 1. Wizard Children are not generally treated as competent at age 11.
Assumption 2. The children making the announcement at Hogwarts are responsible for brokering the deal. I.e. they aren't just mouthpieces for their respective families.
Assumption 2b. The Hogwarts staff is aware of 2.
Assumption 1 might be true - but I note that the age of majority has been increasing over time, and wizarding society is in many ways old timey. It seems reasonable to me that allowing a child of 12 to command a wizarding army is no stranger in wizard society than allowing David Farragut to command a ship at age 12 was during the war of 1812. Also, we haven't seen the reactions of the wizarding world in general - maybe everyone who isn't on the Hogwarts staff is scandalized. For that matter, maybe the staff is too, they're just not openly scandalized.
But assumption 2 seems completely wrong to me, and likely the main source of the confusion.
^ Don't do that.
No, I'm not assuming that children brokered the deal, but I can see that it may have looked that way, especially if you miss the context (that I was responding to the specific things EternalStargazer said).
To some extent, yeah, wizard children are, and are treated as being, more competent than muggle children. But there's still a very real difference between an adult and a child. For example, Harry Potter still needs a legal guardian. And I assume that McGonaggal's "She is a twelve-year-old girl, Albus!" isn't strongly atypical.
Anyway, no matter how mature they are (read the various dorm and SPHEW scenes for some sanity checks on that idea), they still don't have any authority; there are people whose responsibility is to make announcements such as these, and to have the kids do all this posing instead makes it a bit farcical to me.
I think if they really wanted to, the parties involved could make this happen, but why would they want to? I don't expect the world to be scandalized, I just expect some eye-rolling and mild incredulity. Not something you want if you're making a political move and want to be taken seriously.
But hey, I'm one of the probably small minority of readers who've never quite accepted things like, say, how easily Harry Potter gets away with being rude to Dumbledore.
By this point in the year most if not all of them are probably 12.
The difference between 11 and 12 might only matter to an 11- or 12-year-old, but you probably didn't have that right, for whatever that's worth.