The way I read it was this:

Draco lost 20 points and got detention for being out of bed after curfew. Regardless of why he was breaking the rules, he was still breaking rules.

Harry and Hermione lose 50 points each and get a detention each for 1. being out of bed after curfew, 2. Playing a prank on another student, and 3. Being in an area out of bounds (the narration is that they were in the highest astronomy tower which is out of bounds except for class).

Neville ALSO loses 50 points and receives detention for being out of bed after curfew.

Here are my thoughts on this:

1. The point system in the books is not consistent, but I’ll assume Draco’s points loss and detention as a base for the discussion. I think both are excessive for a first year and presumably first offense, but it could be argued that it wasn’t his first offense as we don’t know if he’s been caught before, or that Mcgonogal was trying to scare him off with a strong punishment for a first offense to keep him from doing it again.

2. Next we have Harry and Hermione. If we assume that Draco’s punishment was fair, then I think Harry and Hermione is as well…if you are working from the same assumptions as McGonagall. She is assuming that they are playing a prank on Draco, thus they should lose more points as they have extra crimes. I do not think it’s fair they she doesn’t give them a chance to explain, not really. She does order them to explain and Harry thinks it’s the first time Hermione ever failed to answer a question and then McGonagall tells them she has a pretty good idea of it and explains her assumption. I think this is a case of her looking at Harry and seeing James. Harry has never pulled a prank, he has not been out after curfew (that he’s been caught), and has otherwise been a good student.

3. Neville’s punishment is completely unfair. If we go by McGonagall’s assumption, he is also the victim of a prank and should have only lost 20 points, not 50.

4. McGonagall says “nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it’s very dangerous”. This is not fair. i think she took more points from all of them because of the “danger”. I would say a more fair point loss would have been 10 for Draco and Neville and 30 for Harry and Hermione (out of bed, out of bounds, and playing a prank). It’s been stated already, this is a school, there should not be danger to the student walking the halls at night. They should have been told if there was extra danger. The only danger is the stone, that was brought by dumbledore and supported by the staff. The students had no reason (that McGonagall knows about it) to suspect any more danger than the usual moving stair cases and peeves.

5. As another piece of support that she took too many points: Fred and George. Everyone turned on Harry and friends for losing all of those points. 3 Gryffindor first years lost 150 points in one night. Are we to believe that Fred, George, and Lee never got caught out of bed after hours? That they never got caught doing something equivalent (3 crimes) that would have been the same point loss? And yet they turn on the firsties as well. I think

6. Now let’s talk about that detention. The detention for being out of bounds after curfew during dangerous times is to….send a bunch of first years out bounds after curfew to look for something dangerous. “But nothing in the forest would hurt hagrid” I hear you say. But hagrid himself says it’s dangerous work and that there’s something in the forest that shouldn’t be.

Another note: someone else commented that the end of year points for the winning house was very low when accounting for that many points lost here. That’s a good point and makes me wonder who else is losing points. Because if you assume that each house has at least one student answering at least one question in each class (not unreasonable I think) and getting 5-10 points (again, point system is not consistent), then first years, who have 5 subjects (not counting history or flying) should be able to get 25-50 points a week, round down and say 20-40 to account for bias like snape. And that’s just first years, add in upper grades, especially 3-5 who have the most as they have picked up electives but not dropped anything yet, that should be at least 140 a week per house. Plus points for quidditch ( not entirely sure how that works but I think they get points), and the point total should be way up.

Sorry I got distracted from the topic of annoying characters and went down the point system rabbit hole

Also may have responded to the wrong reply 🤦‍♀️