Ranking The 20 Best Harry Potter Quotes of the Novels

We take a look at twenty of the best Harry Potter quotes, and their impact on the characters, the series, and the fans.

In such a long and illustrious series as Harry Potter, it’s no small wonder that fans have collected their favorites. We all have that one character we see ourselves in more than anyone, the book we never tire of reading, and even the movie whose inaccuracy is the least painful to endure. And so it goes with Harry Potter quotes: They’re on our T-shirts, our Twitters, and our tattoos, and they accompany fanart and gifsets to really complete the art, to elicit that old emotional response that Harry and the crew bring to the surface.

The following quotes pulled from the Harry Potter series (the books, not the movies) may not be a collection of the most popular or even the most quotable moments. But often their meaning goes deeper than the words on the page, as stories are wont to do. Rolwing taught us all that words have power, and even her lesser known quotes are full of words that were carefully chosen.

So while we might not stencil these onto our coffee mugs, the quotes we’ve included here are some of Rowling’s most impactful words, and ones worth thinking twice about.

Next: Harry Potter Is Sugar And Spice And Everything Nice

20. “Harry Potter is brave and noble and Harry Potter is not nosy!”
—Dobby, Goblet of Fire

Oh, Dobby—sweet, naive Dobby, forever insistent on seeing only the best in our boy-wizard hero. Like much of the Wizarding world, Dobby has lived in awe of Harry since his infantile defeat of Voldemort, whose temporary demise led to a still imperfect but at least friendlier world. Truly, Harry is a sort of messiah, and as such his followers tend to believe in his moral purity—when you obliterate an extreme force of evil, it’s hard to believe you’re anything but an extreme force of good.

I’m not calling Harry’s moral code into question here. He’s proven himself a fine, upstanding protagonist who is heroic in every sense of the word; he was saddled with the title when he was far too young to know what it meant, but in the end he earned it as well. Harry Potter is every bit as brave and noble as Dobby insists he is, but he’s just about as nosy, too.

Harry can never leave well enough alone. In another universe, he’s the kid on the block who opens up a dime-a-day detective agency and gets all his spy tips from Scooby-Doo and the gang. And we love him for it—we love the kid who pokes his nose into business that shouldn’t be poked in, because how else is he going to save the day? In fact, much of Harry’s bravery is tested in the face of his curiosity. After all, who else is going to go back for seconds after narrowly escaping the snapping jaws of a three-headed dog?

Dobby certainly has his heart in the right place when it comes to defending Harry, but as we saw many a time in Chamber of Secrets, his methods tend to be off the mark. He’s bound to get a few things wrong along the way, well-meaning little sweetie that he is, and I think we can all agree that Harry should have taken more heed of the old “curiosity killed the cat” adage. It all worked out in the end but, man, were there some close calls.

Next: Tough Love Ginny

19. “I didn’t want anyone to talk to me,” said Harry, who was feeling more and more nettled.
“Well, that was a bit stupid of you,” said Ginny angrily, “seeing as you don’t know anyone but me who’s been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels.”
—Order of the Phoenix

This may be the least quotable (in the traditional sense of the word) on our list, but that doesn’t strip the statement of its power. Not only is it the tough love that Harry needs during one of his minor breakdowns during OOTP, it’s tough love that packs a real punch. While Harry’s self-isolation during this time is an understandable response to what he’s going through, on the flip-side of the coin, he has to know that he can confide in the people who care about him. He can’t survive this ordeal alone, and Ginny draws upon her personal experience to prove that to him.

Ginny survived Tom Riddle’s possession almost entirely on her own, saved only at the end of it by Harry in Chamber of Secrets’ climactic scene. But she lived every day beforehand by herself, perhaps even more confused and scared than Harry is now, because she was younger and had no inkling whatsoever as to what was happening to her. No one reached out to her in the way she needed them to at the time, and watching Harry refuse help now is at the very least too irksome for her to bear. If only someone had known what she was going through then as they all know what Harry is going through now, it would have saved her a lot of pain, and standing by while Harry shuts them out likely exacerbates whatever trauma lingers from her experience with Voldemort.

Ginny’s possession is arguably one of the most disturbing events in the series, and worth examining beyond the few details we’re offered after the fact. For instance, it says a lot about Ginny that she would speak so openly about this horrifying experience that we never see her speak about otherwise, all to help Harry escape it, or to just ease his worries. This is a turning point for Ginny, and a huge step in her recovery and character development.

Next: It's All Gray

18. “The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters.”
—Sirius Black, Order of the Phoenix

While the series operates on a rather strict dichotomy of good vs. evil, this world is inhabited by more gray characters than black-and-white. Most everyone has a perk for every fault, everyone operates on their own notion of “the greater good,” and they’re all motivated by different ideologies, circumstances, and people. Severus Snape might boast the “most debated character” title, but we could deep-dive and dissect any number of others, from Dumbledore to Filch to Fudge and everyone in between (excluding perhaps Umbridge and Voldemort, because some people just want to watch the world burn).

The Death Eaters may seem easier to pinpoint as simply blood supremacist—I certainly wouldn’t argue with that conclusion—but the point Sirius makes here is that you can’t divvy up people into two finite groups and call it a day. People are complex, multi-faceted, and even the worst of us have a ray or two of sunshine to lighten whatever darkness may overwhelm us. Even the Malfoys have a redemption arc: although Lucius and Narcissa alike kept their blood purist ideals afterwards, their ultimate goal during the Second Wizarding War was to keep their family alive and safe. So while we may be able to identify them as “bad” in one way, they all proved themselves good in others.

To believe that people can be separated into piles is a dangerous game, because you assume you understand who they are and what motivates them based on a label that can’t actually contain them. There is more to the world than “good” and “bad.”

Next: Harry Potter's Encouragements

17. “You’re worth twelve of Malfoy.”
—Harry, to Neville, Sorcerer’s Stone

We come to know Harry as a generally closed-off person emotionally; he tends to be more cautious and less affectionate in both his actions as well as his words. But at the tender age of eleven, he tells unpopular, often mocked Neville Longbottom precisely what he needs to hear—that he’s worth more than his bully, that he matters, despite what his tormentor tells him.

Harry sees the crying, broken boy in front of him, and he tells him nothing more or less than the truth. Neville never tries anything less than his best, and he deserves respect, patience, and understanding, but Malfoy goes out of his way to antagonize Neville’s low self-esteem. Malfoy demonstrates his own ugliness, but Neville is the one left to feel unsightly.

Although it’s not so plainly said within the text, we can surmise that Harry knows how Neville feels in this moment, and so he offers Neville the exact comfort that he himself needed in his years with his own abusers. The Dursleys shut him away in a closet and called it a bedroom, called him “boy” and “you” rather than his name, they never had a hug or so much as a kind word for him, starved him and locked him up as punishment even if he didn’t know what he’d done wrong, they wouldn’t tell him about himself or his parents, wouldn’t give him the family he craved or the love he needed.

For ten years, Harry had no one to turn to, no one to give him what the Dursleys, his own family, wouldn’t. For ten years, Harry didn’t have a friend in the world, and he won’t let Neville go ten minutes thinking that he doesn’t have one, either.

Next: The Only One He Ever Feared

16. “You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?” called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. “Above such brutality, are you?”
“We both know there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom,” Dumbledore said calmly. “Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit.”
—Order of the Phoenix

Say what you will about Dumbledore—I have a few unkind words for the man myself but, as Kingsley Shacklebolt once said, “You may not like him, Minister, but you can’t deny: Dumbledore’s got style.” (While this one doesn’t make the list, Kingsley’s observation absolutely deserves an honorary mention, so here it is.)

The man has style and wisdom in spades, but here we’re offered a look at the pure fierceness that renders Voldemort the nervous teenager he probably never was in the first place. Dumbledore acknowledges that he could kill Voldemort, but where’s the fun in that when he could make him suffer instead? At this point, Dumbledore knows he can’t truly kill Voldemort until the Horcruxes are found and eliminated, anyway, but I personally wouldn’t hesitate to assume that Dumbledore would much rather see Voldemort beg for mercy before he dealt the final blow.

By series’ end, we know that Dumbledore has survived tragedies that he would forever grieve, that he lived the remainder of his years without ever forgiving himself for his sister’s death and everything that led him to that point. When he tells Voldemort that “there are other ways of destroying a man,” he is that destroyed man. He once shared some semblance of Voldemort’s bigotry and now that he knows the personal cost of such hatred, he’s devoted himself to the opposing side.

Incapable of love as he is, Voldemort will never experience the emotional toll of the tragedies he inflicts upon others, but that doesn’t stop Dumbledore from threatening him within an inch of his many lives. Voldemort may not be affected by such threats, but it’s enough to remind Dumbledore that what he’s fighting for is worth it.

And you have to admit, his cool nonchalance in the face of the Darkest wizard of all time is pretty rad. Slay, Dumbledore, slay.

Next: The So-Called Purity of Blood

15. “You are blinded… by the love of the office you hold, Cornelius! You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow up to be!”
—Albus Dumbledore, Goblet of Fire

There is so much here that draws upon so many different themes of the series: ambition and political corruption, bigotry and how the majority uses it to their advantage, and that a person’s origins don’t determine their journey or destination. Here begins the rift between Dumbledore and the government that once valued him, and here is where we see without a doubt that it isn’t only Voldemort and his Death Eaters who glory in prejudice.

The Wizarding world doesn’t need a driving force of evil, but manages its own brand of bigotry just fine on its own. It’s not as extreme as Voldemort’s methods and it doesn’t end in mass genocide, but it is fueled by the notion of blood purity, and as such it revels in separation and superiority. Fudge’s fear of Voldemort’s return indeed blinds him to why it’s so fearful in the first place—he is too intent on maintaining his own position of power that he refuses to believe anything could challenge it. He won’t rise to the occasion because he immediately deludes himself into believing that it’s some trick of Dumbledore’s to undermine and usurp him. He is more concerned for his own personal gain than he is for the well-being of the world he governs. In fearing what Voldemort’s return would mean, Fudge refuses to acknowledge its truth, and he consequently hands over the power he’s so desperately trying to cling to: He does Voldemort a favor, however unintentionally, and the world spirals out of his control.

Dumbledore’s accusation of Fudge’s own blood purist ideals is also of note, as it suggests that Fudge is less concerned than he ought to be because he isn’t concerned at all about the safety and well-being of the Muggles who would suffer most at Voldemort’s hands. This is hardly a stretch, as Wizarding prejudices range far and wide, helped along by government mandates and laws that refuse equal rights to magical creatures and bar Squibs from educational opportunities. While Voldemort’s reign of terror and Wizarding culture may seem like two different animals, actually, as Dumbledore points out here, they feed off each other to create an environment of exclusion and fear.

Next: See Them Off!

14. “Braggarts and rogues, dogs and scoundrels, drive them out, Harry Potter, see them off!”
—Sir Cadogan, Deathly Hallows

We meet Sir Cadogan in Prisoner of Azkaban, when he leads the trio to their first Divination class and later stands in temporarily for the damaged Fat Lady as the guard to Gryffindor tower. He’s a rather inept but nevertheless enthusiastic knight with a penchant for hyperbole and adventure, and he’s always ready to talk the talk (less prepared to walk the walk but then again, he’s a painting, so what’re you gonna do?).

There’s true epicness in Sir Cadogan’s encouragement during the Battle of Hogwarts—it’s loud and bold and poetic; there’s a certain sort of melody to it that catches my eye every time. It’s a rallying cry that Harry has been responding to long before the painted knight voices it. From the beginning, Harry has been speaking out against braggarts and rogues, he’s been working to rid the world of such dogs and scoundrels, and by the time Sir Cadogan says it aloud, he’s reached the final stand-off and is ready to drive out evil for good. This is the time, the moment, and Sir Cadogan’s words hit it home.

The painted knight and his listless pony might not play a major role in the series, but I always enjoy seeing them, and Sir Cadogan’s few appearances pay off tenfold in this one quote. At the risk of sounding shallow, it’s just a very cool phrase, and one that would convince me to buy whatever merch it adorned.

Next: The House-Elf Rebellion

13. The house-elves of Hogwarts swarmed into the entrance hall, screaming and waving carving knives and cleavers, and at their head, the locket of Regulus Black bouncing on his chest, was Kreacher, his bullfrog’s voice audible even above this din: “Fight! Fight! Fight for my Master, defender of the house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord, in the name of brave Regulus! Fight!”
—Deathly Hallows

Don’t ask me why, but since the first time I read this book, the chorus to Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” always starts up in my head as soon as the house-elves come to tear it up. Inexplicable as it may be, it feels so right.

Even before the house-elves come charging onto the scene, I’m overcome with chills every time—from the moment that Harry’s presumably dead body disappears and Hagrid shouts for him, up until Harry saves Molly Weasley from Voldemort’s vengeance and reveals himself from beneath his Invisibility Cloak. Rowling sets off the action with a simple “Chaos reigned,” and all hell indeed breaks loose. It’s non-stop action, and it owns the page as surely as Dobby owns all his socks.

This chaos is especially evident in this moment, when the house-elves appear and have at it. These usually peaceful, subservient creatures rage into battle against the sort of people who have always looked down on them, who have kept them at the bottom of the barrel so they can treat them as lesser. The Death Eaters represent everything that is blood supremacy, the worst of all pureblood bigotry, and while the entire Wizarding world is at fault for this, it’s these types of people in particular who have for so long refused equality and freedom to magical creatures.

Here we see the house-elves in their element, breaking free of their brainwashed shackles and following Kreacher—who, thanks to the Black family’s proclivity for pureblood mania, once supported the Death Eaters’ cause—into the thick of the fight. Kreacher calls Harry “defender of the house-elves,” and finally they realize that they are a people worth defending. Viva la revolución, my friends.

Next: A Mother's Love

12. “He is dead!” Narcissa Malfoy called to the watchers.
—Deathly Hallows

In a series where all the major players are battling for some “greater good,” in the end, Narcissa Malfoy refused to play by those rules. Despite what she had always believed, what she had
always supported in her family and her husband, and the ideologies she had instilled in her son, Narcissa weighed the cost and realized it wasn’t worth it. There was no “greater good” without the safety of her family. Ultimately, she exemplifies a key theme to the series overall: No matter what you’ve been fighting for, your family comes first.

While there are many a character who defied Voldemort, Narcissa turns her back on him at the pivotal moment, when his own life depends on Harry’s lack thereof. She simply doesn’t care anymore—Voldemort’s cause is suddenly a joke to her, a juvenile power grab that she will no longer tolerate if it means losing her son.

We can’t know for sure, but I for one believe that no matter what Harry told her regarding Draco’s survival, she would have lied to her cohorts and claimed Harry dead. She knows that the only way to get to her son and bring him to safety is to return to the castle where he is, but her loyalty to Voldemort would have been dashed completely if Draco had died fighting for his cause. We see in Half-Blood Prince that Narcissa never wanted Draco to get caught up in the thick of it to begin with, and now that the consequences are more dire than ever before, her sole concern is to make sure he’s alive. Voldemort doesn’t mean anything to her anymore and the war no longer matters; although in this moment, Voldemort still has a chance to win, Narcissa sabotages his efforts in order to save her family.

Next: Potterwatch

11. “Keep each other safe. Keep faith.”
—Potterwatch, Deathly Hallows

Much like Sir Cadogan’s war cry, this quote from DH has a kind of melody to it, although this one is more heartfelt and a tad bit melancholy. It’s a beautiful encouragement from the Weasley twins, who spend much of their secret radio show cracking jokes to lighten the mood, but their send-off proves just how seriously they take the war raging around them.

Fred and George summarize the resistance in a mere six words, motivating the soldiers, strengthening the weak, heartening the disheartened—it’s a very “All You Need Is Love”/“Don’t Stop Believin’”/“Fight Song”/insert-inspirational-musical-number-here sort of mentality. It’s an encouragement to keep moving when all you want to do is give up. The series is riddled with such instances, and here we are finally offered perhaps the best advice you can give in dark times because, really, there’s nothing else for it but to stick together and keep your chin up.

Potterwatch offers both bad news and relief to those panicking, keeping the masses informed and attempting to soothe their worries. At the end of it, if they can do nothing else, the Weasley twins remind their fellow wizards that the best, the least, and really the only thing they can do is to stay strong for themselves, their loved ones, and the world they share.

Next: Ten Points to Gryffindor!

10. “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
—Dumbledore, Sorcerer’s Stone

The importance of courage is a running theme in Harry Potter—someone is always overcoming something, there’s always a cause to be fought for and one against, and sometimes you just gotta put up your dukes and threaten to punch your friends in the face because they need a little sense knocked into them.

That’s what Neville Longbottom is prepared to do to stop Harry, Ron, and Hermione from further reckless behavior, and even though it doesn’t quite pan out for him, it’s a pivotal moment for Neville. He knows his limitations and probably figures he won’t win when it’s three-on-one, but he stands up for what he thinks is right, regardless of who he has to stand up to. At the time, the trio are some of the only friendly faces that Neville sees, but he’s willing to give that up if it means doing the right thing.

As is implied by Dumbledore, we have nothing to lose standing up to our enemies, except perhaps a shred of dignity, as Neville often does at the hands of Malfoy, Snape, and even at times his own family (who aren’t quite considered his enemies, anyway). But standing up to our friends is a whole different ballgame—we run the risk of losing them, and we’re often hard-pressed to know whether or not what we have to say is worth severing ties with someone we care about.

Next: I Can't Pretend Anymore

9. “You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.”
—Lily Evans, Deathly Hallows

To piggyback off Quote #10, Lily Evans puts her foot down, pulls the scissors out, and severs ties with a friend who proved that he wasn’t worth the effort. Lily had long ago become familiar with Snape’s fascination with and love for the Dark Arts, but she was willing to overlook it to maintain their friendship. For years she sacrificed her own self-worth so as not to rock the boat; she always knew Snape’s prejudices against Muggle-borns, but let it go because of the person she saw him to be beyond that. But when his prejudices overtook him and made him snap at her, when she realized that being an exception to his rule didn’t change the fact that that rule was ugly and hateful and could someday get her killed, Lily decided she was worth more than that.

At a mere fifteen years old, Lily knew her path. She knew that she and Snape were fighting on opposite sides, and that perhaps they had been since the start, but now, with war closing in on all sides, it was time to make a choice: Choosing Snape would have meant giving up her own ideologies, it would have meant acknowledging that no matter how good she was, she would always be a second-class citizen. Snape didn’t put her first, so in the end she couldn’t keep offering him that position in her own life, either.

It’s vital that we know who we are, that we’re worth something, and we should surround ourselves with people who support us and whatever journey we embark on. Harry Potter is all about choosing which way you’re going to go, aligning yourself with a cause and sticking to it, and Lily joined the fight straightaway.

Next: A Little Mayhem

8. “It unscrews the other way.”
—McGonagall, to Peeves, Order of the Phoenix

It’s no surprise that Peeves the poltergeist would unscrew a chandelier for the fun of it, but Professor McGonagall’s helpful tip is less expected. After this display of lowkey mischief-making, it seems that strict, stern, no-nonsense Minerva McGonagall might have more style than her BFF Dumbledore.

During Umbridge’s reign as Hogwarts headmistress, students and teachers alike band together to make her job every bit the living hell she’d made their lives up to this point. In one book, she and McGonagall butt heads almost as often as Harry and Malfoy do in the whole series, and McGonagall’s defiance is always a treat. It’s one thing to see her lay a verbal smackdown on the woman, but to aid in the destruction of Hogwarts property just to watch Umbridge scramble as much as possible is something like a moral triumph.

McGonagall has fought in and lived through one war already, she has dealt with an increasingly incompetent government, she’s put her life on the line while those in power deny that there’s anything to risk their lives for at all, and her usually well-rounded patience snaps a time or two. Ever the elegant, self-possessed woman, McGonagall’s foray into a little irresponsibility gives us all cause to cheer, because Momma McG is at it again and we adore her for it. There’s nothing quite like finding out that your assumed humorless teacher is actually the Cool Mom.

Next: Make Way for the Heir of Slytherin!

7. Fred and George, however, found all this very funny. They went out of their way to march ahead of Harry down the corridors, shouting, “Make way for the heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through…”
Percy was deeply disapproving of this behaviour.
“It is not a laughing matter,” he said coldly.
“Oh, get out of the way, Percy,” said Fred, “Harry’s in a hurry.”
“Yeah, he’s nipping off to the Chamber of Secrets for a cup of tea with his fanged servant,” said George, chortling.
—Chamber of Secrets

In their naturally charming and funny way, the twins expound upon the pure absurdity that is the widely accepted suspicion that Harry Potter is the heir of Slytherin. Hermione may have pointed out that Slytherin lived so many thousands of years ago that who knows, it could be Harry, but don’t tell me that wizards don’t keep family histories because we already know they do. The Potters can trace their ancestry all the way back to the Peverells, so it would be easy enough to deduce whether or not Salazar Slytherin made it onto their family tree, too.

This isn’t the first or last time that the Weasley twins add a touch of their effortless humor to lighten a dark situation, but it’s an essential ingredient to the series. As the Half-Blood Prince’s dust jacket says, “As in all wars, life goes on,” and so it goes with not just war specifically, but the dark times that bookend it. Fred and George recognize the importance of keeping people’s spirits up, to keep them smiling when it seems there’s nothing to smile about; they wax satirical to ease worry and stop widespread panic in its tracks.

Harry, who can usually do with a pick-me-up, is always receptive to the twins’ efforts. He knows how overwhelming darkness can be, and so he knows how important it is to lighten the mood every once in awhile. You can’t live your life without a few laughs; and no matter how serious a situation may look, sometimes you just have to find the ridiculous in it.

Next: We Will We Will Rock You

6. “I’ll join you when hell freezes over,” said Neville. “Dumbledore’s Army!” he shouted, and there was an answering cheer from the crowd, whom Voldemort’s Silencing Charms seemed unable to hold.
—Deathly Hallows

Let’s unpack this: Neville Longbottom rallied the crowd so fiercely that they threw off the effects of Voldemort’s spell. They overcame the control of the most powerful Dark wizard in history, all because Neville shouted the name a ragtag group of teenage rebels had given themselves while hidden away in a secret room in a magical castle that was under siege by an incompetent government. That’s the sort of detail you drop when convincing someone to read this series.

Harry’s (seemingly) dead body lay before them—their symbol of hope, their hero, has died at the hands of the enemy, and still the rebellion fights on. For years Harry was viewed as the best hope the Wizarding world had, perhaps he was the only thing keeping that world from being torn asunder, but when it seems that he’s gone, nothing changes: the battle continues, because Harry may be gone but Voldemort remains, so there’s still something to fight, something to win. Neville refuses to let Harry’s death be in vain; if they fail Harry’s memory, they’ve failed everything they’ve fought so long for.

Neville lost his parents to Voldemort’s cause, he survived years of Malfoy and Snape, he escaped Bellatrix Lestrange in OOTP, he defied the Carrows at Hogwarts—he persevered, and he’s determined to lead the rebellion until the end. Dumbledore’s Army was perhaps the first time Neville felt like he was doing something his parents would be proud of, the first time he fought the way they fought, and he honors everything he’s learned in-between when he shouts the words and the crowd follows suit.

Next: There's No Need to Call Me 'Sir,' Professor

5. “Do you remember me telling you we are practicing non-verbal spells, Potter?”
“Yes,” said Harry stiffly.
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s no need to call me ‘sir,’ Professor.”
The words had escaped him before he knew what he was saying.
—Half-Blood Prince

Sassmaster Harry James Potter reaches his full potential, and we all collectively cheered in triumph, groaned in trepidation of the consequences, or a little bit of both. This line makes it onto our list for its comedic gold alone, but even so, there’s still something to examine deeper.

Harry has been under the thumb of the Dursleys his entire life, and even when he goes home to Hogwarts, he is forced to deal with more abuse at Snape’s hands. He cannot escape this cycle of emotional torment, so it truly is a sign of fortitude whenever he snaps back with a sarcastic remark. It may not be in his best interests, but to constantly bottle up his anger and frustration would only worsen his already sullied emotional state. When your words are your only weapon, you have to choose them carefully, but you can only be pushed so far before you start firing on all cylinders.

Personally, I find Harry’s smart remarks refreshing. He’s suffered so much and forced to be silent about it: There is no indication that, during his pre-Hogwarts years, Harry reported the Dursleys treatment of him to another authority figure, and neighbors and teachers alike ignored the clear signs of abuse he bore; and later, during his Hogwarts years, his complaints about Snape are dismissed by trusted adults, notably Hagrid and Dumbledore alike. Harry’s suspicions about Snape often turn out to be unfounded, but no grievances about the man as a teacher are ever addressed by Dumbledore, who knows full well that the students are being treated unfairly and often cruelly.

So while I would have appreciated a look at one of Snape’s poor performance reviews, “There’s no need to call me ‘sir,’ Professor” really does invigorate me on my bad days.

Next: The Trouble With Tea Leaves

4. “And from now on, I don’t care if my tea leaves spell out die, Ron, die—I’m just chucking them in the bin where they belong.”
—Ron, Order of the Phoenix

Divination is often treated with disdain by the denizens of Hogwarts, and Sybil Trelawney is little more than a walking joke. However, as the series goes on, we find that prophecy and destiny can and do in fact play a game-changing role. For instance, Voldemort takes Trelawney’s prediction too seriously, so he creates his own worst enemy and ultimately causes his own downfall. Had he done a little Pah! and a dismissive wave of his hand, he may have ensured his immortality and a few happy centuries commanding his legions and oppressing anyone he felt like. As it is, he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Ron and Harry, meanwhile, rarely give Divination the credit that Voldemort did. They take the class as a fluke to fill up their schedules, and after Harry’s scare with the Grim in Prisoner of Azkaban, the pair give up the lessons as a lost cause. Ron was perhaps the most concerned of the trio when Harry “got the Grim” in POA, but later finds it’s a load of nothing, despite what he’d known of the Grim beforehand, and he and Harry go on to create absurd dream journals and leave it at that.

Regardless of their cavalier attitudes on the subject, it’s clear that the notion of prophecy is weaved throughout the series, and how destiny is more dependent on your interpretation of it and what you decide to do with it. There is no predestined path, only the one you create as you walk upon it. No matter what omens may come your way, it’s up to you to take charge of your life—even Harry, who has the choice to run or fulfill his destiny as the “Chosen One” by the final book, makes that decision not because of the prophecy, but because he wants Voldemort gone, once and for all.

As usual, I’m with Ron—toss your preconceived notions and live your life the way you feel it, regardless of whatever tells you how you should feel it.

Next: Demented

3. “It has nothing to do with weakness…. The dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that the others don’t have.”
—Remus Lupin, Prisoner of Azkaban

It’s a heartbreaking realization, but the first memory of his parents’ voices comes to Harry at the age of thirteen, and what he recalls is their last words. He feels defeated by the dementors, finally broken by everything that’s weighed him done thus far, weakened when he’d survived this long, only to crumble at a memory.

Stigma surrounds mental illness more than any other disease, and Rowling extrapolates upon that fact once again in Lupin’s words to Harry. No matter how misunderstood depression is, no matter how others may try to belittle it or explain it away as something else, there is nothing weak or shameful in your sadness, your feeling of helplessness, or anything else your depression might elicit. It’s important to acknowledge the reality of it, because only then can you adapt and work to live with it. As we all experience and deal with tragedy in our own ways, depression affects its victims differently as well, but one form is never any less valid than another.

(It’s important to note that when we take the dementors as an allegory for depression [as they are meant to be], this quote is inaccurate in that one doesn’t have to have “horrors in your past” to be affected. You don’t need a reason to be depressed; the illness is something that happens to you, and you can only do so much to combat it. Nevertheless, in this case, the dementors affect everyone, but Harry is affected more profoundly due to his tragedies. We can perhaps identify those tragedies as Harry’s depression, as others who haven’t experienced it don’t quite understand it, but that’s up for debate.)

Next: Straight-Backed And Proud

2. But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew—and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents—that there was all the difference in the world.
—Half-Blood Prince

Once again Harry Potter brings up the importance of choice, and that it’s not necessarily what you do that defines you, but the way you do it. By this point in the series, Harry knows what he has to do—he may not know how he’s going to do it or even completely why he has to, but he’s going to do it, anyway, and he’s going to do it on his own terms.

Harry tells Dumbledore that prophecy or not, he would want Voldemort finished, and he would want to do it himself. He knows that he could turn his back on the prophecy, but Voldemort won’t, and as such he won’t let Harry run away in peace; no matter what Harry chooses, he’ll have to face his enemy sooner or later. He can either wait for Voldemort to catch up to him or he can face him, but the end point can’t be avoided or altered, only postponed. When your fate is wrapped up in someone else’s, it’s no longer up to only you how it will turn out. Every step you take will affect the other’s, and vice versa.

In Goblet of Fire, Voldemort invites Harry to face him, to die “straight-backed and proud, like your father,” and Harry refuses to hide behind gravestones. The same principle applies here, on a larger scale, and still Harry’s convictions remain: He won’t cower like a frightened child until Voldemort inevitably finds him, but rather he’ll go out and find all Voldemort’s pieces and destroy them one by one, until nothing is left but the man himself, rendered just as human as he always feared he would be.

Destiny and prophecies notwithstanding, we all have challenges that we can’t overcome without facing them first. You can jump over them all you like, but they’ll keep coming back around to bite you. There comes a point where you have to make a decision and stick to it; your maybes and should-I-or-shouldn’t-I?s can’t float in limbo forever. You can either own your challenges, or let them own you.

Next: Never Gonna Give You Up

1. “You said to us once before,” said Hermione quietly, “that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We’ve had time, haven’t we?”
—Half-Blood Prince

Well, they don’t call her the cleverest witch of her age for nothing.

Harry pulls his oft-played selfless hero card, but his friends know him too well by now to let him get away with it (not that they ever did in the first place). They’re in this together, from the beginning until the very end, no matter the hiccups in between. It’s almost foolish for Harry to offer Ron and Hermione a free pass here; they’ve been through so much already, what’s the point of packing it in now? This isn’t about the thrill or the glory, it’s about loving each other enough to take on the nitty-gritty of the world together.

This quote, I think, really encompasses what this series is all about: Friendship, loyalty, sticking together against impossible odds, knowing that there’s something bigger out there but refusing to let it tear you apart. It’s about knowing who your friends are and how you strengthen each other, how you bring out the best in one another even when you can’t see the best in yourself. It’s about knowing that you have the freedom to turn around and leave if you want to, but not wanting to. It’s all for one and one for all, and it’s been that way since they knocked out a twelve-foot mountain troll and lived to tell the tale.

Next: Ranking Every Death In the Harry Potter Series

What are some of your favorite words of wisdom from our favorite boy wizard and the gang? Sound off in the comments!