Who was responsible for Sirius' death? Who else--Dumbles, of course

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 167556

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, JLyon <jnoyl at ...> wrote:
>
> Voldie
> Bella
> Snape
> DoubleDumb
> and, finally, last but not least
> DoubleDumb
> 
> I still have heard of no justification for keeping the prophesy  
> secret that was worth anyone dying. If DD truly wanted Harry to 
know,  
> he would have found someone to teach Harry occlumency. At the very  
> least, he would have told Harry that Voldie wanted the prophesy 
and  
> that he might use Harry to get at it. This would have, for once, 
been  
> the truth and would have allowed Harry nearly nine months to think  
> about any visions in terms of being Voldie's actual actions or 
just  
> visions to lead Harry into trouble.
> 
> If I had to lay the blame, it would be with DD. He knew what could  
> happen and did nothing intelligent to prevent it.
> 
> It can not be Harry's fault, except based on hindsight (which is  
> ALWAYS so clear after an event has unfolded). Since Harry had only  
> had "true visions," there was no way for Harry to accept that it  
> could be a false vision. He was as convinced that it was true as  
> Arthur being bitten by a great big snake. It wasn't Sirius's fault  
> except to the degree that talking instead of fighting led to his  
> death. Again, as I remember, DD had the situation in hand and gave  
> Sirius no support. Nobody supported Sirius against the deadliest DE.
> I lay almost all of Harry's problems (including getting Harry's  
> parents into safety) at DD's high-heeled and silver-buckled boots.
> DD died being the worst headmaster and the worst mentor there has  
> probably ever been in fiction. Any headmaster would have been 
fired  
> after any one of Harry's years--and Minnie-the-robot would have 
been  
> canned also. Of course, that would also lead to firing the staff 
DE,  
> Sybil, and exorcising at least one ghost. Hogwarts must be a 
running  
> joke to the rest of the world.
> 
> JLyon
>

Hickengruendler:

I really do not want to make Harry look guiltier than he is, but 
partly he is responsible, because he forgot the mirror (and Snape). 
He admitted as much to himself, when he learned in HBP, that Tonks 
supposedly blamed herself. For that matter Ron, Hermione and Ginny 
could have thought about Snape as well. And with all respect, and 
even though I, too, am not always happy with how Dumbledore is 
written, there is no need to make him worse than he is. He was 
fighting about 10 or 11 Death Eaters almost at once, once he entered 
the ministry. This is already quite a lot. I know that with great 
power comes great responsibility and sadly he doesn't always live up 
to it, but I am sure he did the best he could in the climax of OotP 
(and it was quite a lot). If he is to blame, than rather for his 
decisions prior to the desaster (with which I partly agree), but he 
was very busy and helped a lot during the fight, and I find it very 
hrad on him, to blame him, that he didn't help Sirius in time against 
Bellatrix, because it's not that he was lazy, there. I am also a bit 
surprised that Kreacher didn't even feature on your list. Also, I 
find it somewhat besides the point to blame this and this person, 
because it is IMO pretty clear, that Sirius' death was the result of 
a chain by very bad decisions by several of the characters, including 
Sirius himself.