This might be a bit off topic, but I'm thinking that there is a relevance here.
When I was a kid, there was a cartoon I loved called Star Blazers. This was an edited version for the North American audiences of a Japanese anime. It was based in the future and involved the reincarnation of the Imperial Japanese battleship Yamamoto into the Argo as a spaceship (it's a 70s cartoon folks, trust me, it was cool). Now here's the thing, the actual Yamamoto was sunk on April 7, 1945 200m north of Okinawa (and she's in many pieces), in the original cartoon, the death of the famed ship and her crew was shown in the prologue to the series; as the Yamamoto is sinking, US Dauntless dive bombers are flying overhead and one pilot is seen saluting the ship as she goes down. This was never aired in the US and I only recently saw in online. I thought to myself, why wasn't this shown, it really helped establish the history and honour that the crew of the rebuilt ship held in esteem, etc.
Into the second season (third never aired) there was a momentous battle at the end and the Argo was involved in a suicide mission (similar to the Yamamoto's last "Ten-Go" operation) and many characters were seen to be killed, but you'd hear in the background such things as, "Sgt. Nox got out just after you!" when it was clear that he sacrificed himself for the ship, etc. It was felt that death was too difficult a topic for children even though unlike G.I Joe, there were never any parachutes from the destroyed fighters, the operators of tanks didn't jump out as the rocket destroyed their vehicles, etc. Now, my favourite character was the squadron leader, Conroy, and in the final episode, it's quite clear that he's flying his fighter back to the argo with blood running down his face and that while determination was shown as well, he was in a good deal of pain. The fighter crashes into the hangar bay and having safely delivered his passengers, he's shown slumped in the cockpit with a lot of blood on the back of his uniform. As the passengers return to the bridge of the ship, the voiceover says, "Conroy just evacuated with the medical ship." Uh, yeah, I may have only been 8 years old, but come on, I wasn't that dumb.
The point I'm trying to make is that kids can handle topics like death. It's a shame that we don't allow it to integrate into the mainstream more often, for it is a part of life and developing a respect for it should help to also develop a respect for life and the enjoyment of such (something that could be argued is showing itself to be less important these days). If the creators of an entertainment medium (movie, book, video game, whatever) want to eliminate characters for the sake of the story, then it's their perogative and should be shown to audiences in order that they can make their own conclusions as to whether they want to continue being a fan, etc. Many fans were upset by the death of the character of Wash in Serenity, but as the creator/director, Joss Whedon said, someone had to go in order to bring home the impact for the story, that any of the others could also die at any time. The fans weren't all on board with this, but it did add to the tension of the movie. Besides, it's not like he couldn't be brought back in flashbacks, or maybe it was all a dream.
How many times are characters resurrected in fiction? This is Harry Potter after all, where ghosts roam freely and the afterlife has already been established. I'm certain it wouldn't be too difficult to come up with a resurrection poition. If J.K. wants to kill off the little blighter in order to close this chapter of her life, then let her, mourn the character, remember fondly the good times that you shared and move on to something else.
