"Hogwarts is full of people who'd find it awesome if Harry Potter gave them some of his personal attention."
Harry has given lots of people his personal attention, which he justified by the fact it would help them -- Neville, whom he pranked, Padma Patil, whom he pranked, Gregory Goyle, whom he pranked, Lesath Lestrange who he pranked others for... Even his own past self he pranked.
So why not Hagrid? I don't see this really being about Harry time-budgeting, it's more about the fact that he can't be simply nice to people -- McGonnaggal would likely have achieved better results if she had asked Harry to devise an elaborate prank that would have dubiously potentially helped Hagrid in some ambiguous way.
McGonnaggal would likely have achieved better results if she had asked Harry to devise an elaborate prank that would have dubiously potentially helped Hagrid in some ambiguous way.
Well, you've surely got that right.
Update: Discussion has moved on to a new thread.
After 61 chapters of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and 5 discussion threads with over 500 comments each, HPMOR discussion has graduated from the main page and moved into the Less Wrong discussion section (which seems like a more appropriate location). You can post all of your insights, speculation, and, well, discussion about Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fanfic here.
Previous threads are available under the harry_potter tag on the main page (or: one, two, three, four, five); this and future threads will be found under the discussion section tag (since there is a separate tag system for the discussion section). See also the author page for (almost) all things HPMOR, and AdeleneDawner's Author's Notes archive for one thing that the author page is missing.
As a reminder, it's useful to indicate at the start of your comment which chapter you are commenting on. Time passes but your comment stays the same.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: