Question for anyone who knows a bit about copyright law.

Imagine, for the sake of argument, that I wanted to write a philosophy paper as a ‘Platonic’ dialogue, but rather than have the characters be Socrates etc I wanted the characters to be the characters from the Harry Potter books. Do you think that using these characters would be a violation of copyright?

I’m guessing it would be, but that the violation is so inconsequential that no one should be bothered. I think it might be amusing to write to the publishers of the Potter books and ask for permission, maybe even including the relatively abtruse argument I want to put in the mouths of the heroes and villains. If I do write such a letter I’ll be sure to post it here.