There's callous, and then there's that. There's really no good way to say "sorry I killed your dad", but Harry's approach goes past "understandably lame" and into "monumentally clueless".
Here's how this sort of thing works, Harry: you are allowed any number of apologies and expressions of regret, but no more than one short excuse, which had better be a good one. You are not allowed to witter on about necessity and morality and political convenience. If Draco had called you out in the middle of that speech -- and I mean not just "said you're a jerk" called out, but "formal duel" called out -- I would have thought it understandable.
Harry has, throughout the story, demonstrated a tendency to lecture people when simpler words were far more likely to get results. He is... not a good communicator.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 120.
Plans for next chapter release:
There is a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)