If you think about it, Hogwarts is easily the worst school you could attend. There’s death lurking in every corner of the castle, and it’s not like the teachers do anything much to make things safe at all. Worst of all, it’s the total disregard for safety and rules by the headmaster that makes Hogwarts the dangerous place it is.
Dumbledore was touted as the best headmaster of the school, but from what we’ve seen of the man, he was easily the worst guy for the job. Not convinced? Well, you’ll be inclined to agree with us once you check out these 10 points that prove how awful Dumblefore was at being headmaster of Hogwarts.
Sending Children Into The Forbidden Forest
We’re still scratching our heads over the logic Dumbledore applied in punishing students for being out of bed. If being out at night is forbidden, then why the heck did Dumbledore send them in the Forbidden Forest... at night?!
The excuse that Hagrid was with them is lame, because we saw Hagrid sent Malfoy and Harry off on their own in the forest, and they surely would have perished had Firenze not rescued them. Seriously, what kind of detention is it that involves sending 11-year-old kids into a forest where werewolves and giant spiders live? Nobody even held it against Dumbledore for making this decision, nor did he bother to see the children in person.
Letting Bullying Be Commonplace
There comes a point when people in positions of authority have to put their foot down. This should’ve been done when Myrtle was killed, mainly because she’d been bullied so much she had to hide in the girls’ toilet where the basilisk found her.
By the time Dumbledore became headmaster, bullying was far worse. iSnape’s life was made hellish in school, as James Potter and his gang used to strip him down to his underwear in broad daylight with no repercussions. This continued into Harry’s time, when Malfoy would call Muggle-Borns “Mudblood” as if it were a nickname. Not once did Dumbledore ever attempt to punish any of these awful bullies, the consequences of whose actions were ultimately tragically felt.
Keeping The School Open With A Monstrous Snake On The Loose
Just imagine you have a kid in boarding school and you find out a monster is slithering around with the power to kill anyone upon sight - will you ever want to keep your child in a school like this? Not that the parents knew it was a basilisk, but still. Just as important, why would the headmaster allow the school to stay open when he didn’t even know what the monster was and where it was coming from?
Dumbledore acted as if he was doing a noble thing by stepping down when Lucius Malfoy and the board of directors suspended him, but they were technically right to do so (even if Malfoy had threatened the others into it), as Dumbledore had done nothing to ensure children were safe. All he’d done was smile and pretend he knew something others didn’t, which wasn’t exactly the case.
Letting Malfoy Make Attempts At Assassination
Again, Dumbledore acted as if he was so selfless that he allowed Malfoy to carry on his futile attempts at assassinating him, but the truth was there were several casualties that happened squarely because of Dumbledore’s inaction.
Slughorn and Ron were almost poisoned, Katie Bell was cursed, Hogwarts security was assaulted by the Death Eaters, and Bill was savaged by Fenrir Greyback. Had Dumbledore caught Malfoy and expelled him for carrying out his assassination schemes, none of those harrowing events would’ve happened.
Allowing Dementors Into The School
Yes, we’re aware that it was the Ministry of Magic who had commissioned the Dementors to be at Hogwarts, but Dumbledore showed on more than one occasion how lax he was in security measures. He had no clue the Dementors were going to attack Harry in a Quidditch game, where Dumbledore should’ve made borders that wouldn’t allow those creatures to enter the grounds.
He also didn’t know about the Dementor Cornelius Fudge brought into Hogwarts, which meant that Barty Crouch’s soul was sucked out as it administered the dreaded Dementor's Kiss.
Keeping Snape In The Faculty
You can chatter on and on about how “noble and wonderful” Snape was, when in reality he turned into a bully when granted a position of power. As it was, there was enough reason to sack Snape, who constantly docked points from Houses other than Slytherin for arbitrary reasons like Hermione being “an insufferable know-it-all.”
He was also famous for bullying Neville to a degree where Snape himself became Neville’s boggart, since the boy was scared out of his wits of the teacher. Snape even tried to poison and kill Neville’s innocent pet just for fun, and would routinely take personal shots at Harry’s father’s expense.
Keeping Filch In The Faculty
Okay, maybe you could excuse the Snape point since he did save everyone in the end, but Filch was a vile person who wanted to beat students into submission! That’s right, when in power, Umbridge had finally allowed an ecstatic Filch to whip children who were out of order.
This was the kind of sadistic man Filch was, who solely hated the students because he himself was a Squib. On top of it all, Filch tried to throttle Harry right in the presence of Dumbledore when Filch thought Harry had petrified his cat. Dumbledore thought he was being a stand up guy for giving Filch a job, but he was really just causing this already horrible man to become even more bitter.
The School's Dangerous Secrets
Dumbledore said what happened under the trapdoor in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was a secret, so, naturally, the whole school knew about it. Heck, if they hadn't known, it would've been a miracle. Hogwarts sure does a bad job of keeping its most dangerous secrets safe.
Fluffy was locked behind a door that opened with a simple casting of Alohomora? The trials to reach the Sorcerer's Stone are right there? Come on, Dumbledore. He even handed out points to the children who defied these safety protocols (and to Neville for 'fighting'), basically praising them for breaking rules.
Keeping His Pensieve Unguarded And Open For Use
Oh yeah, sure, kids, just walk into your headmaster’s office and plunge your face into his deepest and darkest memories as if it were a school trip. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?
We saw that the pensieve held enormous secrets such as the trial of Barty Crouch Jr, which showed how his father had been a rather radical politician and how Karkaroff was a former criminal. Along with that, it was clear Dumbledore must have kept deeper secrets into the pensieve like the possible identities of the Horcruxes. All this in plain view for anyone to walk right in and access.
Publicly Embarrassing The Slytherins
In the ending of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore would pull his grand trick by pretending as if Slytherin had won, only to make a mockery of proceedings by calculating the exact amount Gryffindor needed to win the House Cup.
Not only did Slytherin get a hard deal, it also meant that Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were pushed to third and fourth place. This was humiliation of the highest quality, and all Dumbledore did was clap his hands and make Slytherin look like a bunch of saps. Harry Potter may be the Chosen One, but favoritism on the headmaster's part is entirely unfair.