harry potter - How could students be allowed to take such a dangerous detention as the Forbidden Forest?

In The Philosopher's Stone (aka The Sorcerer's Stone), Harry and Draco are sent to Forbidden Forest with Rubeus Hagrid, the games keeper.

We know that the Forest is a pretty dangerous place — why would Dumbledore allow that dangerous of a detention assignment?

I know why it was needed for the plot development, but it sounds unlike Dumbledore.

Answer

It sounds just like Albus.

He knows Harry must one day defeat the Dark Lord.

He knows that the Dark Lord is alive and someone or something is drinking unicorn blood.

He knows the trio (or more likely just Harry, the other two are a bonus) must get to the Mirror of Erised, past Fluffy.

He knows Harry is being bullied by Malfoy.

He knows that unless he toughens Harry up, he has no chance.

The whole experience, with the centaurs, the unicorn blood, hearing about Fluffy (which may have happened earlier, but lets assume Albus wants to be sure Hagrid blabbers), seeing Quirrel, seeing Malfoy run, was intentional.

It's almost as though Albus is the greatest (and craziest) wizarding genius the Wizarding World has ever seen.

Yes, it's for the sake of plot, but Albus knows what plot he wants, knows the prophecy and is helping things along.

Comments

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In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...

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