I'd think she was magically capable of protecting herself, back then during the war. If she took such a step as torturing an enemy-affiliated civilian to death, I doubt Dumbledore would lie and say he did it merely to give her political protection in a very improbable future where Voldemort was defeated but Lucius Malfoy retained great political power.
I liked the theory proposed here a long time ago: Bones went to Malfoy Manor to destroy Tom Riddle's diary-horcrux, which we know from canon was kept there then, it required Fiendfyre to destroy a Horcrux, Narcissa happened to show up, Bones accidentally burned her as well (Fiendfyre is known to be difficult to control). Dumbledore had given her the mission and accepted responsibility for the outcome.
Only problem is that we know Voldemort, if he were as intelligent as Quirrelmort, would not have hidden his Horcrux there...
If she took such a step as torturing an enemy-affiliated civilian to death, I doubt Dumbledore would lie and say he did it merely to give her political protection in a very improbable future where Voldemort was defeated but Lucius Malfoy retained great political power.
He's giving her political protection because he needed her during the war, and needs her now. He doesn't want to weaken his army. Now, the same applies, with the incentive to cover his complicity.
As for what Dumbledore said, he said it to Malfoy, who was not going to be believed by others. Even if it wasn't true, it served his war aims to have Malfoy believe he was ruthless enough to do it.
EDIT: New discussion thread here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. With two chapters recently the previous thread has very quickly reached 500 comments. The latest chapter as of 17th March 2012 is Ch. 79.
There is now 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.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
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: