Harry disregarded this; he felt a savage pleasure in blaming Snape, it seemed to be easing his own sense of dreadful guilt, and he wanted to hear Dumbledore agree with him.
“Snape—Snape g-goaded Sirius about staying in the house—he made out Sirius was a coward—”
“Sirius was much too old and clever to have allowed such feeble taunts to hurt him,” said Dumbledore.
“Snape stopped giving me Occlumency lessons!” Harry snarled. “He threw me out of his office!”
“I am aware of it,” said Dumbledore heavily “I have already said that it was a mistake for me not to teach you myself, though I was sure, at the time, that nothing could have been more dangerous than to open your mind even further to Voldemort while in my presence—”
“Snape made it worse, my scar always hurt worse after lessons with him—” Harry remembered Ron’s thoughts on the subject and plunged on “—how do you know he wasn’t trying to soften me up for Voldemort, make it easier for him to get inside my—”
“I trust Severus Snape,” said Dumbledore simply. “But I forgot—another old man’s mistake—that some wounds run too deep for the healing. I thought Professor Snape could overcome his feelings about your father—I was wrong.”
“But that’s OK, is it?” yelled Harry, ignoring the scandalised faces and disapproving mutterings of the portraits on the walls. “It’s OK for Snape to hate my dad, but it’s not OK for Sirius to hate Kreacher?”
“Sirius did not hate Kreacher,” said Dumbledore. “He regarded him as a servant unworthy of much interest or notice. Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike… the fountain we destroyed tonight told a lie. We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward.”
“SO SIRIUS DESERVED WHAT HE GOT, DID HE?” Harry yelled.
“I did not say that, nor will you ever hear me say it,” Dumbledore replied quietly. “Sirius was not a cruel man, he was kind to houseelves in general. He had no love for Kreacher, because Kreacher was a living reminder of the home Sirius had hated.”
“Yeah, he did hate it!” said Harry, his voice cracking, turning his back on Dumbledore and walking away. The sun was bright inside the room now and the eyes of all the portraits followed him as he walked, without realising what he was doing, without seeing the office at all. “You made him stay shut up in that house and he hated it, that’s why he wanted to get out last night—”
“I was trying to keep Sirius alive,” said Dumbledore quietly.
“People don’t like being locked up!” Harry said furiously, rounding on him. “You did it to me all last summer—”
Dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his longfingered hands. Harry watched him, but this uncharacteristic sign of exhaustion, or sadness, or whatever it was from Dumbledore, did not soften him. On the contrary, he felt even angrier that Dumbledore was showing signs of weakness. He had no business being weak when Harry wanted to rage and storm at him.