I think in this case it’s more an “I’m not as pathetic as you think I am” contest. Nobody’s going to mistake him for the best duelist in that group, but he’s not willing to concede complete inferiority. It’s certainly a status game, it just doesn’t rise to the level of “establish[ing] superiority”.
He gets the mechanism wrong though. In a real fight, Moody kills him or at the very least takes his toys away if he’s needed alive. There wouldn’t be any time-turned copies of him in the first place.
He admits freely that Moody would have kicked his ass in a real fight, so I’m not sure how much actual superiority was established there.
Just because Harry’s learned to keep his claws sheathed doesn’t mean he’s not still engaging in dominance contests.
I think in this case it’s more an “I’m not as pathetic as you think I am” contest. Nobody’s going to mistake him for the best duelist in that group, but he’s not willing to concede complete inferiority. It’s certainly a status game, it just doesn’t rise to the level of “establish[ing] superiority”.
Moody set it as a condition for being able to speak as an equal.
He gets the mechanism wrong though. In a real fight, Moody kills him or at the very least takes his toys away if he’s needed alive. There wouldn’t be any time-turned copies of him in the first place.
Stable time loops are sort of a problem for what-if scenarios—it’s sufficiently hard to make up one, coming up with alternates isn’t always possible.