Ranking the 50 Greatest Potterverse Characters

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels gave us, among other things, an embarrassment of memorable characters. We bring you 50 of the finest.

Everyone knows Harry Potter. He’s the kid with the glasses and lightening bolt scar, the boy wizard who charmed readers over the course of seven books with his bravery, decency, and refreshing good sense. He helped J.K. Rowling’s series become the massive hit it was, but no series as lengthy as this one can survive on the strength of its lead character alone. Rowling had a terrific gift for filling the margins of her story with memorable supporting characters—they were young and old, tragic and comic, human and otherwise.

We’ve gathered 50 of our favorite Harry Potter characters together and arranged them from best to…well, 50th best. Ordering characters based on subjective criteria like this is an inexact science, but we tried to keep it fair. How layered was the character? How much fun? Did they break any molds? Did they have a big effect on the story? These were the kinds of questions we asked ourselves when making this list. Let’s dive in.

Next: The ex

50. Cho Chang

Cho Chang’s a tricky one. She’s a bit too prominent to leave off the list entirely—she’s the main character’s first girlfriend, after all—but she’s not especially well-loved among fans. It’s not all her fault, poor girl. She was dating Cedric Diggory, and then he died, and then she was confused and chronically weepy and probably running on not much sleep. Also, she was 16—that may be the key point here.

Anyway, all that combined to make Cho a histrionic, difficult presence in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Harry was dating her. At the same time, Cho had a lot of redeeming qualities. She was in Ravenclaw, so we know she’s smart. And she played Seeker on her House team, so we know she’s driven. And after all the dating drama blew over, she showed up in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to join the fight against Voldemort. Cho may have worked through a rough patch in her teenage years, but a lot of people look back on those times and barely recognize themselves. She came through when it mattered.

Next: Boo

49. Nearly Headless Nick

With the exception of a couple other characters who show up later on this list, I always thought the Hogwarts ghosts worked better in theory than in practice. The idea of spirits floating around a magical boarding school is charming, but after the early books, Rowling rarely gave Nearly Headless Nick and his ilk anything interesting to do, maybe because ghosts, being incorporeal, can only affect the natural world in very limited ways.

Even Nick, the most well-developed of the official House ghosts, seemed to have something of a personality deficit. Rowling’s go-to gag with him was describing how his head wobbled on his partially severed neck when he talked. It was funny, but not funny enough to last seven books.

But then again, his Deathday Party in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was wonderfully imagined. His best scene probably came in Order of the Phoenix, when Harry sought him out to ask him about what may have happened to Sirius’ after his trip through the veil in the Department of Mysteries. Nick’s explanation is sad and haunting, and suggests that there’s more to Nick than we got to see.

Next: O Quidditch Captain! My Quidditch Captain!

48. Oliver Wood

Oliver Wood is a great example of Rowling’s ability with minor characters. He’s not in the books much (and in the movies far less), but he emerges as a fully-developed personality.

Wood is a few years older than Harry, and is in charge of the Gryffindor Quidditch team when Harry joins in his first year at Hogwarts. Wood serves a functional purpose in the narrative—he explains the mechanics of Quidditch to the readers—but he’s also hilarious.

Wood is a demanding captain who forces Harry and his teammates to endure grueling practices in terrible weather, all for a chance of winning the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup. He’s exultant in victory, devastated in defeat, and very, very competitive. Rowling never plays him as unsympathetic, though—it’s just that his passion for Quidditch leads him through life, and can result in extreme behavior. His passion for the game is played for laughs. For example, Rowling gets chuckles out of her description of Wood and the Slytherin captain meeting on the pitch before a game, each trying to crush the bones in the other’s hand as they shake.

After Wood leaves Hogwarts, Rowling tried to transfer some of his mania to Angelina Johnson, the new Quidditch team captain, but somehow it never felt authentic. She had something special with Wood, which makes it more of a shame that his personality doesn’t come across on film.

Next: The littlest professor

47. Professor Flitwick

The first Hogwarts professor to appear on our list, Flitwick is most notable for his appearance. We never learn much about him outside of whispered asides (one character says he was a champion dueler back in his day, another that he’s half-goblin), but his main job, at least in the early going, is to underline the uniqueness of Hogwarts. Clearly, this isn’t your ordinary boarding school—nowhere else would employ a man who resembles a child’s drawing of a magic elf.

What we know of Flitwick, we like. Harry, Ron, and Hermione often use his Charms class to talk over their many schemes. It’s reliably chaotic and loud, so they’re unlikely to be overheard. You gotta respect a guy who isn’t afraid of a little mayhem.

Flitwick, along with most of the rest of the Hogwarts faculty, join in with the students in hating Dolores Umbridge during her tenure at the school—he even refuses to remove the swamp created by Fred and George Weasley after their departure from Hogwarts, his own little act of rebellion. He’s a steady presence, and Hogwarts wouldn’t be the same without him.

Next: The other ex

46. Lavender Brown

Lavender Brown is another character whose main job is to be someone’s girlfriend, in this case Ron’s, and like Cho, she causes a fair amount of distress for the people involved. But Lavender’s a lot funnier, so she’s higher on the list.

Also like Cho, Lavender is a victim of being 16 years old. She dates Ron, but she’s not really in a relationship with him. Like a lot of school-age kids, she’s swimming in the shallow end of the dating pool, more swept up by the idea of romantic love than by her partner.

And that’s fine—it provides Rowling with plenty of opportunities to describe their ostentatious displays of public affection and to invent sickeningly sweet nicknames for Ron. A lot of us have probably known, or been part of, couples like this, and Rowling has gentle fun playing with the type.

Again like Cho, Lavender came through when it counted. She showed up for the Battle of Hogwarts and even gave her life to defeat Volemort. She deserves to be on the list.

Next: Mother Malfoy

45. Narcissa Malfoy

As the books went on and the principals got older, Rowling felt more free to give characters contradictions. Major figures like Snape and Dumbledore are obvious examples, but minor characters get this treatment, too.

Take, for instance, Narcissa Malfoy. We didn’t see much of her in the early novels, and what we did see didn’t make her seem very textured. Narcissa appeared haughty, vain, and cruel. She was exactly the kind of person you’d expect to raise a kid like Draco.

Later, that impression was questioned. Haughty, vain, and cruel she may be, but Narcissa obviously loved her child. She loved him enough to beg for Snape’s help after Draco was asked to kill Dumbledore, even though she had to know Voldemort wouldn’t approve.

Her finest moment came in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Voldemort orders her to see if Harry is really dead. She sees that he isn’t, but tells Voldemort otherwise after Harry tells her about Draco. Whatever her motives, Narcissa probably saved Harry’s life here—surely Voldemort would have ordered him killed if he’d been discovered.

Narcissa Malfoy isn’t a hugely important character, but moments like this give her depth. The Harry Potter series is filled with characters like her, and they add up.

Next: The dangerous foreigner

44. Victor Krum

Rowling is very proficient at mixing drama with comedy, and she manages to wring plenty of both out of Victim Krum.

Krum is introduced as an antagonist. He comes from a school known for producing dark wizards, and it’s heavily hinted that his teacher, Igor Karkaroff, has a shady past. Plus, he’s competing against Harry in the Twiwizard Tournament and overcomes his first challenge by blasting a dragon in the eye. We’re given plenty of reasons to be wary of him.

And yet it quickly becomes clear that there’s more to this guy. An expert Quidditch player, Rowling describes Krum as clumsy when not on a broom, and isn’t above mining his thick accent for laughs. (Unfortunately, almost none of Krum’s more comic elements make it into the movies.) He seems sincere when pursuing Hermione, and bonds enough with Harry to get us on his side.

But back on the other hand, we have enough doubt to wonder whether Krum is acting of his own volition when he attacks Harry in the maze near the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. With Krum, Rowling effectively walks a tightrope.

Next: Father and son

43. Barty Crouch Sr.

Like Narcissa Malfoy, Barty Crouch Sr. is a minor character with a surprising amount of depth. His layers aren’t revealed as gradually as Narcissa’s—we have to swallow Barty’s story in one big gulp towards the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but it’s a gripping tale full of ambition, lies, and festering family resentments.

Part of the reason Barty Crouch Sr. is a little higher on the list than Narcissa Malfoy is because he brings a couple of other interesting characters along with him. Barty Crouch Jr., his rebellious son, and Winky, his loyal house-elf, are fascinating figures in their own right, but their sad story is what binds them all together. Even Crouch’s wife, who smuggled herself into Azkaban prison so Barty Crouch Jr. could go free, is interesting. What kind of will must she have had, knowing she would die so her criminal son could have some measure of freedom?

Again, a character like Barty Crouch Sr. shows Rowling’s commitment to fleshing out everyone in her universe, whether he’s a government employee who was once on track to be Minister of Magic or a guy who lives in a picture frame. Speaking of…

Next: The most hated headmaster Hogwarts ever had

42. Phineas Nigellus Black

Phineas Nigellus Black

The notion that all the portraits in the magical world can talk was one of Rowling’s better ideas. Readers got a pretty good idea of the sort of whimsical place Hogwarts was early on, when a photo of a fat woman asked Harry Potter for a password before swinging open and admitting him into a hidden room.

Usually, Rowling used the portrait gimmick for comedy, but there were a couple of times she spun it a different way. Phineas Nigellus Black, a former Hogwarts headmaster who lived in a portrait in Dumbledore’s office, represented one of those times.

At first glance, Black seemed like a lot of Slytherins: arrogant, prejudiced, and dismissive of other people’s feelings. Actually, he bore a lot of that out. But he also had a sense of duty, as he proved when he helped Snape assist Harry during Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and however much he might deny it, he was shocked when he heard that Sirius Black, the last surviving member of his family, had died. Those Slytherins: they have emotions, but you gotta dig to find them.

Also, who doesn’t love a sarcastic wit who takes the air out of heavy moments, as when Phineas chimed in with his opinions on teenagers during Harry and Dumbledore’s serious discussion at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? Phineas Nigellus Black may have been least popular headmaster Hogwarts ever had, but I’ll bet he was also one of most memorable.

Next: The wandmaker

41. Garrick Ollivander

Garrick Ollivander was fascinating on a couple of levels. When Harry first met him in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, he was a strange, eerie figure, a mysterious man who possessed power and knowledge beyond Harry’s ability to comprehend. Rowling needed a guy like that to deliver the big news about Harry’s wand sharing the same core as Voldemort’s—it made it seem more mythic.

The next time we got some serious face time with Ollivander, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry had grown up enough to see Ollivander for something closer to what he actually is: a highly skilled craftsman with a creepy tendency to value wands over people. We get a complete arc with Ollivander, from mystical gatekeeper to eccentric human being.

Also, he gives some of the most interesting descriptions in the books. Somehow, Ollivander manages to get to the heart of various characters characters by describing their wands with words like “springy,” “brittle,” and “unyielding.” You wouldn’t think such a limited array of adjectives could be that evocative, but there you go.

Next: The second war begins with him

40. Cedric Diggory

So far as the narrative of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire goes, Cedric has sort of a thankless role: his job is to die. And there’s something of the sacrificial lamb about him. He’s kind, steadfast, handsome, and friendly. In other words, he’s a bit bland, but that doesn’t stop him from casting a long shadow over the story. He may have been sacrificed on the alter of the plot, but Cedric’s death messes Harry up for a good long while, as well it might. It can’t be easy for a 14-year-old boy to see someone murdered before his eyes.

And bland or not, what’s wrong with being kind, steadfast, handsome, and friendly? Cedric is a decent guy and a fine role model. Rowling even wrings some irony out of his decency: if he had been a little more selfish and taken the Triwizard Cup when he had the chance, Voldemort might have never returned. He’s one of the few notable Hufflepuff characters to emerge from the series, and his senseless death is a perfect example of what the forces allied against Voldemort are fighting to prevent.

Cedric may have been saddled with a thankless role, but he played it well, poor little lamb.

Next: Comic relief

39. Professor Lockhart

Professor Gilderoy Lockhart is the most throw-away of the many witches and wizards who serve as Harry Potter’s Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher during his time at Hogwarts. He didn’t have Voldemort living on the back of his head, like Professor Quirrell, or fill Harry in on his father’s past, like Professor Lupin. He was a placeholder who kept the spot warm until someone more important came along.

And man, did Rowling enjoy that. Because Lockhart didn’t need to fulfill a specific plot function, the author was free to do whatever she wanted with him, and she chose to make him a comedy machine. The question of why in the hell Dumbledore would hire anyone as obviously unqualified as Lockhart for an important teaching position is a bit of a mystery, but that doesn’t much matter when he’s letting pixies run amok in his classroom, getting blasted on his ass by Snape in a duel, and accidentally liquefying all the bones in Harry’s arm.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was among the darkest of the Harry Potter books, if not the most textured. Lockhart provided a tonic to the creepiness at the book’s core, and remains one of Rowling’s best comic creations.

Next: Fine art

38. The Fat Lady

The Fat Lady is one of those characters who was frequently in the background of scenes (often literally, given that she lives in a painting that doubles as the entrance to the Gryffindor common room), but who most readers probably never spared much thought. But looking back over the entire series, you realize how consistent her personality was.

Never mind that she’s a living painting: the Fat Lady is vain, stuffy, and not above barring Gryffindor students from the common room if she feels affronted. Rowling often used to button scenes or provide transitions, usually with a one-liner or quip. It’s a shame she didn’t appear in the movies after Dawn French played her in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. With French’s comic chops, there were a lot more laughs to be mined.

But that’s one of the pleasures of reading the books. Even characters so minor they don’t even exist in three dimensions become fully realized.

Next: The second son

37. Aberforth Dumbledore

The early Harry Potter books presented Harry and his friends with a number of larger-than-life adult characters: Snape, McGonagall, Hagrid, etc. Slowly but surely, the novels deconstructed them. As Harry grew up, he came to understand that these adults were complex human beings with faults, not mythic creatures who were forever beyond his understanding.

However, Albus Dumbledore was a holdout. His true nature seemed inscrutable right up until his death, and for a while after. Geniuses, after all, are complicated. The character of Aberforth Dumbledore, Albus’ brother, was important to tearing down this final father figure of Harry’s, not so that he could crumble into dust, but that so he could be rebuilt with a renewed understanding.

Since the readers, like Harry, saw Dumbledore as more of a paragon than a person, it seemed bewildering that he could even have a brother, much less an uncouth one like Aberforth. Where Albus was mannered and optimistic, Aberforth was rough and cynical. Seeing Dumbledore’s family helps humanize him.

Not that Aberforth doesn’t have his own identity. Rowling reveals quite a few layers to him in a short amount of time, mainly when he’s telling Harry, Ron, and Hermione about his sister’s death. He’s an interesting character in his own right, but also serves the vital role of counterpoint to the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had.

Next: The spookiest professor

36. Professor Binns

I’ll admit it: Professor Binns is more of a great idea than a great character. But what a great idea! Rowling establishes in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone that ghosts haunt the halls of Hogwarts, and doesn’t waste any time before she starts playing with the idea by introducing Professor Binns, the school’s only dead teacher.

Naturally, Binns teaches History of Magic, the idea being that he may have lived through some of the events on his syllabus. He’s a boring teacher, the kind who talks at students rather than interacts with them. But as a ghost, his days of interacting with things are long over, so his teaching style isn’t surprising.

Binns isn’t a very important character. The movies cut him entirely and don’t really suffer for it. Like I said, he’s more of a great idea than a great character. Still, what better metaphor is there for a boring teacher than a ghost who couldn’t connect with students if he wanted to?

Next: The servant

35. Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail)

Peter Pettigrew’s defining characteristic is his cowardice. Rather than fight his own battles, he prefers to latch on to whomever he thinks stands the best chance of protecting him from danger. He followed this instinct and latched on to Voldemort, the biggest, meanest guy around, and ended up selling out his former friends. With those qualifications, you wonder how he ever got into Gryffindor. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have any of the qualities valued by the four Hogwarts houses, but I suppose the Sorting Hat couldn’t just ask him to leave. Maybe it put him in Gryffindor ironically.

The saying goes that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Well, Pettigrew’s certainly not a good man (his noblest act is hesitating slightly as he prepares to choke Harry in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), but he’s not exactly evil, either. He doesn’t have the ambition for it. He’s more like the crappy man who does what evil tells him to do, which is just as bad and a good deal less industrious.

In short, he’s despicable, but there’s something fascinating about seeing this kind of character, who generally wouldn’t turn up in an epic story, push the plot forward. After all, without Pettigrew’s help, Voldemort would never have returned to power, and we’d be missing a back half of the series. Reading through the whole thing, you get the idea that Rowling originally planned to do a little more with Pettigrew—his death in the final book has a “that’s it?” quality to it—but he made an impression while he was around.

Next: A taste of France

34. Fleur Delacour

If we were making a list of Harry Potter characters most disserved by the movie adaptations, Fleur would probably be at or near the top. The films get the broad outline right: she competed against Harry in the Triwizard Tournament and later marries Ron’s older brother Bill, but they miss just about everything else, namely her distinctive personality.

In the books, Fleur is something close to a force of nature. People have strong reactions to her wherever she goes, whether because of her frankness (she has no problem putting down Mrs. Weasley’s favorite singer in front of her, for example), her tendency toward condescension, or her beauty. On the page, she has a lot of presence. On the screen, she’s just kind of…there.

Maybe the movie producers didn’t think they had time to do Fleur justice, or maybe they just didn’t have time in general. In any case, it’s a shame so little of her fire comes across. We still have the book version. Truthfully, Fleur’s larger-than-life demeanor can be a bit much, but better for a character to overstate herself than sink into the background.

Next: Hogwarts' workhorse

33. Madam Pomfrey

Madam Pomfrey is the unsung hero of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Really, this woman deserves a medal or a big plaque or even a statue. Professors like McGonagall, Snape, and Dumblefore stand out more, but Madam Pomfrey is always toiling away in the background, patching up students and faculty alike after they inevitably run into disaster. As becomes very clear throughout the course of the series, Hogwarts is a terrifying deathtrap, so everyone’s very lucky that someone as competent as Madam Pomfrey is on call.

I mean, just look at some of the stuff Pomfrey has done for the three principals alone:

• Treated Ron’s dragon bite
• Regrew Harry’s bones
• Took care of Hermione after she drank some contaminated polyjuice potion (and didn’t ask too many questions, cause Poppy’s no nark), and again after she was petrified by the Basilisk
• Treated Harry and Hermione after they passed out following an encounter with dementors, and mended Ron’s broken leg
• Patched up any injuries Harry sustained during the Triwizard Tournament challenges

And I could go on. She may not be flashy, but Madam Pomfrey is the tireless workhorse of Hogwarts, and probably the reason many of its students didn’t die long ago.

Next: Animal friends

32. Hedwig

Seeing that Rowling was able to make compelling characters out of talking paintings, it’s no surprise that she managed to create a number of interesting animal characters. And we’re not counting animals who were actually people the whole time, like Peter Pettigrew. Only actual animals on this slide.

Harry’s owl Hedwig has to be front and center here. Harry picked Hedwig up in the first book, and Rowling built her personality (proud, competent, and a little fussy) quietly over the rest of the series. Millions of people ascribe personalities to their pets, so it was easy for readers to treat Hedwig like any other character. When she was killed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it hit a lot harder than expected.

With the addition of other animal characters, like the sly cat Crookshanks and the hyper-active owl Pigwidgeon, Rowling practically had her own imaginary menagerie going. My personal favorite is Pigwidgeon, if only because Rowling so enjoyed herself describing the frantic way he flitters around a room. These characters didn’t move mountains, but any story about magic can stand to have a few anthropomorphic animals lying around. They added texture to Rowling’s universe, and provided some ready-made names for real-life pets.

Next: The help

31. Kreacher

I always liked Rowling’s willingness to create characters who were completely unpleasant. Another author might think twice about subjecting readers to someone like Kreacher, a miserable old house-elf who spends most of his time muttering mutinously about how much he hates our main characters, but Rowling seems to delight in it. She has a dark sense of humor and knows how to make Kreacher’s deep-seated bitterness hilarious rather than off-putting and weird.

And it gets better. Rowling manages to repurpose Kreacher toward the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when he pushes the plot forward by lying to Harry about what’s happening at the Department of Mysteries. By the end of the books, his story has become a cautionary tale about what happens when people don’t treat their inferiors with respect. Hermione would probably take offense to me calling Kreacher an inferior, but he was certainly subservient to Sirius Black, and because Sirius treated him dismissively, even cruelly, Sirius got sucked into a ploy of Voldemort’s design, and died.

And then, Rowling repurposed Kreacher again for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Harry learned from Sirius’ mistake and inspired Kreacher to turn over a new leaf. For a character introduced later in the series, she got a lot of use out of the guy.

30. Mad-Eye Moody

Mad-Eye Moody is a tough character to write about, because eventually we have to deal with the fact that his most memorable scenes—telling Harry’s class about the Unforgivable Curses, turning Malfoy into a ferret—happened when he wasn’t really him. We get to know Moody best during Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but discover at the end that we were really getting to know Barty Couch Jr., who was doing a very effective Moody impression the whole time.

But if Dumbledore couldn’t tell this Mad-Eye from the real thing, Crouch must have doing a damn good job, so I’m going to count everything he did as something the real Moody would have done. Ergo, the real Mad-Eye Moody would have demonstrated the Unforgivable Curses and turned Draco Malfoy into a ferret, and that’s terrific.

Moody is the intense, battle-hardened uncle who has all the good stories but whom you probably wouldn’t want to live with. It was important to bring someone like Moody into the forefront around the middle of the series, as the story inched closer to a second Wizarding War. Moody’s never really gotten over the first one—it left souvenirs all over his body—and he helped sell the urgency.

Next: The Minister of Magic

29. Cornelius Fudge

By the time Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire rolls around, Mad-Eye Moody is living as if the First Wizarding War is still going on. Cornelius Fudge is living like it never happened. Like many entrenched politicians, he fears change, and he knows that accepting the possibility of Voldemort’s return will mean big changes for everybody.

And yet, in his own way, Fudge may be just as traumatized by the first Wizarding War as Moody. A large part of the reason he fails to act after Voldemort comes back is because he remembers the first time He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was in power, and has no desire to return to those dark days. Rowling’s story may revolve around the younger characters, but the past looms incredibly large, and to a large extent Harry, Ron, and Hermione spend their time cleaning up the messes left by the previous generation. It’s one of the series most important themes (and one it looks like will return in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), and Fudge could be the frontman for it.

For as Minister of Magic, Fudge has the power to make quite a mess. The measures he takes against Dumbledore and Hogwarts form the backbone of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Those measures mean trouble for our favorite characters, but they create terrific drama, and are a big part of why Order of the Phoenix is the best book in the series. So thanks, Fudge. You were cowardly and dumb, but something good came out of it.

Next: Weasley the Younger

28. Ginny Weasley

Ron’s little sister had an interesting journey through the Harry Potter saga. In the first couple of books, she’s a shy wallflower—that lack of confidence is what makes her prey to Tom Riddle’s magical diary, which almost costs her her life. Then she becomes a background character for a couple of books, and when she returns to the forefront in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, she’s almost unrecognizable. Brave, opinionated, and powerful, the new Ginny Weasley is a far cry from the meek little girl who hid whenever Harry looked at her.

I suspect there are some fans who wonder why Ginny isn’t higher on this list, and that two-year gap is part of the reason. What transformed Ginny into the confident girl who threw herself into Dumbledore’s Army and was willing to jet off to London with Harry on the back of an invisible horse? She clearly grew up, but it feels like there’s some connective tissue missing. A cynical reader might say that Rowling decided that Ginny was going to be Harry’s girlfriend, and brought her back into the fold a changed woman without first laying the proper groundwork.*

But then again, that changed woman is pretty awesome, and a fine role model for young readers, so it all worked out.

*I have one more complaint. This isn’t Ginny’s fault, but I have to point out that she played a part in the clunkiest extended metaphor Rowling ever came up with, from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: the description of the beast that stirred in Harry’s chest whenever Ginny was mentioned. That was some fourth grade fiction contest stuff, right there.

Next: Poison pen

27. Rita Skeeter

Throughout the course of the series, J.K. Rowling excelled at creating villains who weren’t really villains. Cornelius Fudge is a cowardly politician, but in the end he’s just scared of change. Argus Filch is a bit of a sadist, but he’s also insecure, and too incompetent to do any real damage. And Rita Skeeter is a nosy gossip-monger, but she’s also funny, and in the end just doing her job.

Skeeter also gave Rowling a chance to skewer the newspaper industry. British tabloids are known for their sensationalism, but Rita takes it to a new level, outright inventing things about Harry we know she couldn’t possibly believe, since we sat in on her interviews with him. Still, there’s something almost admirable about her determination: Rita will stop at nothing get a story, even if she has to make one up.

And there’s something even more admirable about the way Hermione catches her in the act and gives her what’s coming to her. Rita’s comeuppance, which unfortunately didn’t make it into the movies, is incredibly satisfying, and lays the groundwork for more comedy in the next book. Rita may not be a very likable character, but she more than justifies her presence.

Next: The last person you want to see in a toilet

26. Moaning Myrtle

Here’s another instance where Rowling wasn’t afraid to let her characters be unpleasant. Myrtle’s not a villain, but she sure could be exasperating. Then again, she had some tough breaks. When she died around 50 years before the events of the story proper, she was a moody teenager who was obsessed morbidity. Given her interest in death, I suppose that if any character could be content as a ghost, it would be her. But really, this just means that Myrtle has an eternity to whine about her unfair lot in

life

death to anyone unfortunate enough to wander into the bathroom she haunts.

And it’s great, because Myrtle’s self-pitying streak provides for a lot of good jokes (I love that Mrytle, with the whole spirit world before her, chose to haunt Olive Hornby “until her dying day” just because Hornby had been mean to her in life). And that scene when Mrytle cozies up to a naked Harry in the prefect’s bathroom in Goblet of Fire…it just raises so many metaphysical questions. Does Mrytle, as a ghost, even have a sex drive? And if she’s attracted to Harry, or anybody, how would it even work? I suppose that, in the context of Harry Potter, weirder things than ghost-human relationships have happened.

I’m getting off track. Such is the power of Moaning Mrytle. And like Kreacher, Rowling repurposes her later in the story. At first, we think Myrtle’s there purely for comedy, and to give Harry, Ron, and Hermione somewhere safe to mix polyjuice potion, but it ends up she’s the key to blowing the mystery of who’s petrifying Hogwarts students wide open! There’s usually more to J.K. Rowling’s characters than meets the eye, and Moaning Mrytle is no exception.

Next: The best sneer in the Wizarding world

25. Lucius Malfoy

Sometimes, a story just calls for a gigantic jackass. Lucius Malfoy, with his sneers and speeches about the superiority of purebloods, is that jackass. There’s not a lot to him, but what’s there is a lot of fun.

Reading the Harry Potter series again, it’s striking how open Lucius is about what a dick he is. This is a guy who, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, mocks Arthur Weasley’s poverty right in front of his kids, who are there buying school supplies. With a father like this, what chance did Draco have?

And yet, Lucius’ jackassery is important to setting up the inter-wizard conflict to come. However repellent, Lucius’ attitude is shared by a good number of other wizards, all of whom step up to help their master when Voldemort returns halfway through the series.

And to be fair, Rowling allows Lucius some depth in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when he becomes clear he’s no longer popular with the Dark Lord and his attention shifts toward protecting his son. It’s that kernel of decency, buried waaaaaay deep down, that keeps Lucius Malfoy from becoming a complete caricature.

Next: The janitor from hell

24. Argus Filch

One of the many, many colorful figures that populate Hogwars School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Argus Filch is kind of like the anti-Hagrid. Their jobs at the school both involve manual labor—Hagrid is the groundskeeper and Filch the caretaker—but while Hagrid embraces the students as friends, little siblings, and even surrogate children, Filch hates them and wishes he could torture them for their many insubordinations.

He’s not a very nice man, but no matter how vindictive he got, he never crosses the line into true villainhood. He may have helped Umbridge during her reign of terror at Hogwarts, but it was as her clumsy assistant, not someone to be truly feared. The little flashes we get into his vulnerable side—his attempts to learn rudimentary magic via correspondence course, his genuine love for his cat, Mrs. Norris—paint a picture of someone who’s embittered, but who nurses some hidden virtues.

Perhaps that’s why Dumbledore allowed him to remain so long on staff at Hogwarts. Hogwarts is, above all else, a good place, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have a dark corner or two. In fact, such corners are necessary to give the school the texture to be really memorable. Filch provides one.

Next: The best Slytherin has to offer

23. Professor Slughorn

Slytherins are scum. By the sixth book in the series, that’s the message we’d gotten. Snape was a terror. Malfoy was a turd. Voldemort was murdering people left and right. All of them came from House Slytherin, and some readers had to wonder why the top brass at Hogwarts didn’t just sever what was clearly the most diseased branch of the school from the rest of it.

At this point, Rowling needed to establish that Slytherins were capable of being decent human beings, which is why Horace Slughorn was such an important character. No, he’s not perfect. He’s an elitist, and he was quick to take advantage of Hagrid’s grief for a chance to snag some Acromantula venom. But he also valued talent regardless of birth, and he and Hagrid forged an honest connection as that night went on. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being ambitious and cunning, and therefore nothing inherently wrong with being a Slytherin. Slughorn proved that.

Plus, Slughorn’s life story is just a good one. He undoubtedly came from a pureborn family and was probably exposed to Muggle-born prejudice throughout his life, but he came to respect Harry’s mother for her talent, and in the end, that respect forced him to do the right thing. His is one of those quietly compelling dramas Rowling seems able to pull out of nowhere.

Next: A free elf

22. Dobby

In terms of tone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the most mis-matched of the seven novels. On the one hand, you have the antics of Gilderoy Lockhart, a character invented purely for comedy, set against a story about a giant snake that slithers through Hogwarts trying to kill students. And on the other hand, you have Dobby, an elven creature plucked right out of a fairy tale, with enormous eyes and a floppy ears, who physically abuses himself whenever he thinks he’s misbehaved.

Rowling’s willingness to embrace that dichotomy made Chamber of Secrets the most underrated book in the saga, and it made Dobby funny rather than uncomfortable. Reading back, the brutality of those scenes is almost shocking—Dobby really lets himself have it—but Rowling wasn’t afraid to go there, and ended up creating someone very memorable.

And underneath that, there was an essential innocence to Dobby that grew and matured as the series went on. Rowling used him to introduce us to the previously unseen corners of the Wizarding World, like the vast network of house-elves that made it go round. Hermione’s attempts to free the house-elves from bondage may not have been adapted for the screen, but it made for good reading, and developed Dobby into a character we were sad to see go in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Hat’s off to you, Dobby, a free elf indeed.

Next: The most noble and ancient houseguest of Black

21. Sirius Black

Harry Potter collected a lot of father figures over the course of the series, and with the possible exception of Dumbledore, Sirius Black was the one he felt closest to. Their backgrounds were similar: their families didn’t understand them, and they didn’t feel they belonged anywhere until they got to Hogwarts. And during Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, they were both working through some serious disgruntlement, Sirius because he was forced to hide out at 12 Grimmauld Place, and Harry because he was a teenager and teenagers are the worst.

Also, Sirius’ death left a lasting mark on our hero. So why isn’t Sirius higher on this list? Because extenuating circumstances notwithstanding, he’s kind of a jerk. Sirius is supposed to be Harry’s parental guardian, but it’s 15-year-old Harry who has to talk Sirius out of visiting Hogsmeade as Padfoot the Giant Dog when both parties know such an action could get them in major trouble? And then Sirius is sour about it? You’re supposed to be the adult here, Black. Step it up.

And then there’s his ongoing bickering with Molly Weasley and his mistreatment of Kreacher, which leads in a roundabout way to his death. Sirius may have had reasons for his behavior, but they don’t excuse it. He was a talented, complicated man, and a major figure in Harry’s life. He deserves a spot on the list, but it seems like he didn’t come across as likable as Rowling intended.

Next: Problem prophet

20. Professor Trelawney

Here’s another example of a time Rowling started with a great idea and built a character outward from there. In this case, the great idea is especially clever: Sybil Trelawney is a seer, someone who can peer into the future. However, anyone who’s ever met her is sure she’s a fraud. Her fortune-telling reads like dime-store trickery, and nothing she predicts ever comes true, unless interpreted very liberally.

That idea, by itself, would be enough reason for the character to exist, and Rowling gets plenty of comedy out of Trelawney’s incompetence. But the genius twist is that she’s actually NOT a fraud. Sybil Trelawney can indeed see into the future, but she herself has no idea of her true abilities. So we have a character who’s convinced herself that she’s the real deal even though she has no reason to, and who in fact is the real deal for reasons of which she knows nothing.

The rest of the character—her outlandish look, her drinking—is colorful window dressing. That central irony is what animates Sybil Trelawney, and what makes her so memorable. And like many other characters, Rowling is able to fold her into the main plot in surprising ways that only come to bear long after we first meet her.

Next: There wolf

19. Remus Lupin

I’ll be up front: I’m not a fan of what Rowling did with Remus Lupin in the final couple of novels. I didn’t buy his sudden romance with Tonks and I wasn’t invested with his fussing over his soon-to-be-born son. Rowling was usually pretty good at quietly developing storylines out of sight, but in this case, it seemed like she wanted to give Lupin something to do but took his subplot out of the oven before it was fully baked.

That said, Lupin’s role in the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was inspired. Rowling isn’t the first person to think of making a werewolf out of the calmest, most even-handed guy in the room (see Oz on Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but the dichotomy is still effective. Werewolves represent the bestial instincts that lurk inside all people. If the ones inside a guy like Lupin are that extreme, no one is safe.

Also, barring the need to duck and cover come the full moon, Lupin always seemed like the best-suited of Harry’s many father figures to actually be Harry’s guardian. He has his life a little more together than Hagrid and Sirius, he’s less secretive than Dumbledore, and he doesn’t already have a huge family like Arthur Weasley. Obviously, it wouldn’t have done to pair Harry up with Lupin that early in the story—we gotta have drama, after all—but for Harry’s sake, I wish it would have happened.

Next: Muggles: How do they work?

18. Mr. Weasley

Here’s yet another great idea from Rowling. If wizards existed, a great many people would be fascinated by them. Hell, wizards don’t exist, but a good many Harry Potter fans are still fascinated by them. Through Arthur Weasley, a magical person fascinated by non-magical people, Rowling shows how silly it can look when the obsession goes the other way, and has a lot of fun describing how he’s flummoxed by everyday objects.

But that’s only part of Mr. Weasley’s appeal. The other is that he’s an excellent father, the kind and patient parent Harry never had. When Harry first arrives at the Burrow, he thinks it’s the most wonderful place he’s ever been, and that’s mainly because Mr. and Mrs. Weasley have created an environment where people are welcomed and accepted.

Arthur and Molly Weasley also deserve credit for being one of the few long-lasting couples in the Harry Potter series. These two have their differences, but they love each other and they make a good team. After living with the Dursleys, who were held together mainly by their shared distaste for other people, it was important for Harry to see what a healthy relationship looked like.

Next: The caregiver

17. Mrs. Weasley

As the mild Mr. Weasley is a tonic to the brash Vernon Dursley, so is Mrs. Weasley an antidote to Harry’s cold and judgmental Aunt Petunia. Mrs. Weasley is something of a prototypical mother figure: she’s warm, nurturing, and fiercely protective of her children. Harry picked up a lot of parental surrogates during his time at Hogwarts, but Molly Weasley was the one most ready to take on the role. Whether she was helping him shop for school supplies, knitting him a Christmas sweater, or even forbidding him from listening in on important meetings for fear that he was too young, she treated him as her own son.

Mrs. Weasley gave Harry a sense of family normalcy he never got from the Dursleys—when it came time for Harry to start a family of his own, it’s not a stretch to believe that he used Mr. and Mrs. Weasley as a model. And of course, Mrs. Weasley’s final offensive on Bellatrix Lestrange during the Battle of Hogwarts, while a bit cheesy, remains a terrific moment.

Next: Femme Fatale

16. Bellatrix Lestrange

Speaking of Bellatrix, she’s a wonderful creation. She has even fewer redeeming qualities than Lucius Malfoy, if she any at all, but when someone’s got this much style, they don’t need them.

Bellatrix is more of a triumph of design and mood than of character. Her most distinctive features are her attitude (darkly fanatical) and the look that goes along with it—heavily lidded eyes, messy hair, and a lot of black clothing. She’s a distillation of all the worst things about Voldemort’s philosophy: she’s bigoted, cruel, maniacal, and borderline insane.

All of this means that she’s a ton of fun to read about. (And to watch. Helena Bonham Carter did a great job with Bellatrix onscreen. The fact that so much of the character depends on attitude probably helped). Generally speaking, depth makes characters more interesting, but sometimes a stylish, superficial threat can provide a thrill. Bellatrix is terrifying and implacable, just like Voldemort’s new world order. Whenever she shows up, it means danger.

Next: Double the fun

15. Fred and George Weasley

We’re treating Fred and George as a unit, because that’s how Rowling treats them for the great majority of the books. With very few exceptions, these twins act with one mind in all things. In some ways, it would have been kinder to kill them both off in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows rather than just Fred, since it must have been very painful for George to live on without his brother. In more ways, it was kinder to leave one alive, because being alive is nice.

Fred and George are the class clowns of Hogwarts, the guys who are always stirring the pot just because they can. Importantly, they have the intelligence to be very good at it, and to get away with just about everything they try. This mischievous spirit comes in especially handy during Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Umbridge is keeping an iron grip on the school and a little anarchy is exactly what’s called for.

Fred and George’s antics can get on the nerves of rule-followers like Hermione, but they know where to draw the line, and their fierce individualism is needed to remind people what they’re fighting for after Voldemort gets stronger and tries to homogenize the wizarding world. There’s a time to be serious and a time to let your hair down. Fred and George knew when it was time for both, even if they greatly prefer the second one.

Next: The rival

14. Draco Malfoy

Any story set at a secondary school needs to provide a rival for its main character. Draco Malfoy was a great rival for Harry Potter.

On the surface, Draco is his father all over again: prejudiced, stuck up, entitled, and mean. Harry disliked him from the first, and so did the readers. Toward the end of the series, Rowling provided a different angle on Draco, but for most of it, he was someone Harry could focus on whenever he was feeling frustrated or angry.

And it must be said: after Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Draco sat on the sidelines of the plot for a while. Sure, he pranked Harry on the Quidditch field in Prisoner of Azkaban and joined the Inquisitorial Squad in Order of the Phoenix, but he wasn’t at the forefront again until Half-Blood Prince, when he revealed a few new layers to his personality. Voldemort’s mission forced him to ask which side of the conflict he was really on, and it ends up he had some misgivings about a leader who would ask him to kill his own headmaster.

And yet Rowling never turned Draco into a full-fledged “good guy.” I think a lesser writer would have dragged Draco further into the light, but Rowling knew that people very rarely change who they are at bottom. Draco thought twice, though, and that was enough to save him from becoming his father all over again.

Next: Loony

13. Luna Lovegood

Luna Lovegood is one of several excellent new characters introduced during Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (along with Phineas Nigellus Black, Kreacher, Bellatrix Lestrange, and one more who will appear shortly), and is the most fun of the lot. I don’t know how long Rowling had been keeping Luna in her back pocket, but she emerged so fully formed in book five it felt like she’d been there since the beginning.

The Harry Potter series had always celebrated outsiders, and Luna is a doozy: a dreamy-eyed, spacey oddball with a sturdy backbone and supple mind that belied her ridiculous opinions about the nature of the world. She’s one of those character who improves every scene she’s in—readers could never be sure what she might do or say, but could be pretty certain it would be delightful or insightful.

Luna paid dividends, too—Rowling kept mining her and her family for material right to the very end, sending her to Professor Slughorn’s party as Harry’s date in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and using her father Xenophilius to deliver exposition about the Deathly Hallows. One wonders how much more Rowling could have written about Luna if the series had gone on. I don’t think she’d reached near the bottom of that well when the story ended.

Finally, by the time Order of the Pheonix was released, it was high time that the members of House Ravenclaw got some representation. They couldn’t have asked for a better representative than Luna. Well, they probably could’ve, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable.

Next: Tough but fair and always there

12. Professor McGonagall

In the final books of the series, Dumbledore took Harry Potter under his wing and made him into a protégé, but I think Professor Minerva McGonagall was the headmaster’s true successor. They may not have shared the same playful sense of humor, but their hearts were in the same place: the well-being of Hogwarts and its students. McGonagall was a strict disciplinarian, but everything she did she did for the students’ own good, and when there was a crisis, she was always there, making damn sure nobody messed with her charges.

And really, didn’t she have a secret sense of humor, too? Note how she joined in with the rest of the school in trying to quietly (and sometimes not-so-quietly) topple Dolores Umbridge’s reign of terror during Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. McGonagall took her work and her life seriously, but she knew when enough was enough, and when to ignore the school hierarchy and just tell Peeves how to unscrew the crystal chandelier.

And in the back half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, McGonagall had hit after hit, from the way she immediately believed Harry’s story when he suddenly reappeared at Hogwarts, to her chasing Severus Snape out of office, to her marshaling the defense of the school (a shame the bit where she leads a fleet of desks into battle didn’t make it into the movies). She’s pretty much a certifiable badass, and Hogwarts was lucky to have her.

Next: Family

11. The Dursleys

The Dursleys are iconic. When someone is reaching for an example of a terrible fictional family, their name inevitably comes up. So they’re not the good kind of iconic, but their notoriety is worth something. (They’d doubtlessly hate it.)

I’d forgotten just how bad the Dursleys were until I reread the series to prepare for this list. I mean, they forced an 11-year-old boy to sleep in a cupboard. They belittled and insulted him every chance they got, and once Harry got a room, they locked him inside it and slid meager meals through a slat in the door. This is child abuse, people. Vernon and Petunia Dursley should have gone to jail.

But as written by Rowling, their abuses read as the opening chapters of a comic fairy tale—Rapunzel before she’s rescued from her tower. Again, this is an example of Rowling’s sharp, morbid sense of humor. She takes these despicable people and turns them into comic figures, and they’ve since entered the popular consciousness.

Like many other of Rowling’s characters, the Durseys gained depth as the series went on. (Well, two of them did—we never saw a new side of Vernon.) As Dudley got older and learned to think for himself, he came to the conclusion that his parents may have been wrong about Harry Potter, and that his cousin wasn’t entirely worthless after all. Their parting in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a sweet moment. As for Petunia, it ends up that her dislike of Harry, and of wizards in general, had its roots in envy. Dudley and his parents probably have some tense conversations in their future, but it’s doubtful we’ll ever get to hear them.

Next: He Who Must Not Be Named

10. Voldemort

The Dark Lord. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Voldemort. Tom Riddle. The big bad of the Harry Potter series went by many names throughout the novels, something that added to his grandeur. For the villain of the piece, Rowling needed someone with a lot of presence, someone whose very name would inspire terror. Voldemort fit the bill beautifully.

It helped that Rowling let Voldemort’s menace simmer for four straight books before he finally exploded onto the scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. And even after that, she kept him mainly out of sight until the final novel, when Harry makes regular visits to his mind. It’s a classic horror movie strategy: the less we see of the monster, the more afraid of it we are. Rowling knew how to handle her monster.

Harry’s scenes with Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were another clever move by the author, since it allowed her to add shading to Voldemort’s character while keeping the man himself out of the spotlight. By the time Voldemort finally comes into the foreground in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we know him pretty well, and he’s able to be both a layered personality and a mythic nightmare creature all at once.

Like the Dursleys, Voldemort has become iconic (note the way he’s turned up during the current presidential campaigns), but in the books, his story is in large part a personal tragedy—Tom Riddle dedicated his life to defeating death, and ends up doomed to suffer a far worse fate for all eternity.

Next: Good ol' Hagrid

9. Hagrid

Hagrid was there for a lot of firsts in Harry Potter’s life. He was the one who revealed to Harry that he was a wizard (“You’re a wizard, Harry” is arguably the most famous line from the series), which was the first time Harry ever felt he might have a place in the world. He was also the first of many father figures Harry would collect over the course of the series, and one of the few to make it all the way to the end of the story.* Harry made a lot of friends during his time at Hogwarts, but Hagrid was the first, and their bond was always special.

Apart from that, Hagrid was a larger-than-life presence who provided the books with a shot in the arm whenever they started to lag, and his dangerous fondness for magical creatures provided Rowling with a way out of many a narrative corner. Need a red herring while the characters work through the mystery of who’s petrifying students in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? Send Harry and Ron to the Forbidden Forest to meet up with Hagrid’s giant spider friend. Need a way for Harry and Hermione to shake off Umbridge after she catches them snooping in her office? Lead her to meet Hagrid’s giant brother Gwarp.

Hagrid was a true friend, an unabashed romantic, and a somewhat horrifying teacher. Let’s raise a barrel full of butterbeer to him.

*Rowling had an idea of the part Hagrid would play in the endgame from a very early point, and admitted that this was what kept him alive. If it had been otherwise, I can only imagine how emotionally devastating his loss would have been.

Next: Hideous in pink

8. Dolores Umbridge

I know what some of you are thinking: when it comes to the villains of Harry Potter, how could a wretched scrub like Dolores Umbridge be rated higher than Voldemort?

Well, hear me out. Like any self-respecting Harry Potter fan, I wanted Voldemort defeated. He was a megalomaniacal supervillain who wanted take over the world. Obviously, he had to be stopped, and I feared for the characters whenever he turned up on the page.

I had a slightly different reaction when Umbridge turned up: I wanted to walk into the book and slap her back and forth across the face until my hand fell off. It takes a very special character to inspire that kind of hatred, and Rowling had something very special with Dolores Umbridge.

Recall what Dumbledore says about Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: that he had gone beyond “usual evil.” As effective an antagonist as Volemort was, going beyond usual evil is kind of, well, usual in epic fantasy stories. Umbridge was a little different. She brought usual evil, and she brought a whole freaking lot of it: her weapons were bureaucracy, proscription, and an iron belief that what she was doing was right, coupled with a certainty that no one else was qualified to tell her otherwise.

And the details of her character were brilliant. She wasn’t just a tyrannical harpy—she was a tyrannical harpy in the most annoying way possible, with her titters and her pink suits and the way she said horrible things in a soft-spoken simper. My slapping hand is getting itchy just thinking about it.

Above all, she did what villains are supposed to do: create conflict that pushes the characters into new places. Without Umbridge imposing her will on Hogwarts, Harry wouldn’t have gotten to hone his leadership abilities as the head of the D.A., rule-following Hermione wouldn’t have embraced life as a rebel, Neville wouldn’t have been forced out of his shell, McGonagall wouldn’t have brought out her claws, and Dumbledore wouldn’t have gotten to shed his job as an educational administrator for a career as an Auror-zapping, Voldemort-battling badass.

So thanks, Dolores Umbridge! Never come back.

Next: The Other Boy Who Lived

7. Neville Longbottom

Neville Longbottom may have the most satisfying growth arc in the series. When we first meet him, he’s a tongue-tied klutz with almost no confidence in his magical abilities. By the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, he’s a hero who pulls Gryffindor’s sword from the Sorting Hat and slices the head off Voldemort’s demon snake. Because we’re with him every step of the way, this moment is triumphant. We share in Neville’s success.

The salient point of comparison here is Ginny Weasley. In Ginny’s case, she gets shuffled to the sidelines for a couple of books and then comes back far more assertive than before. But because we don’t see the transformation happen, it’s hard to get invested in the new Ginny.

With Neville, we see him slowly turn into a guy capable of facing down Voldemort eye to eye. There are little moments, like how he finds himself enjoying the Yule Ball in Goblet of Fire (with Ginny as his date, coincidentally), and bigger ones, like how he discovers his ability with defensive magic during D.A. sessions in Order of the Phoenix. That’s when the new, confident Neville really begins to emerge, although the idea that he’s braver than he looks is planted as early as Sorcerer’s Stone, when he tries to stop Harry, Ron, and Hermione from leaving the Gryffindor common room.

From there, the trip to the Department of Mysteries, the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, and the Battle of Hogwarts are all follow-through. Neville emerges from the series a changed man, and one of its most compelling secondary characters.

Next: The Metamorphmagus

7-2. Tonks

The Metamorphmagus daughter of Muggle Ted Tonks and pure-blooded wizard Andromeda Black (yes, that makes her Sirius Black’s niece), Tonks was the toughest Hufflepuff you’ll ever meet. She worked as an Auror under Mad-Eye Moody, and was one of the Order’s fiercest fighters.

Tonks is a bit like Hermione, if Hermione waas more inclined to feeling instead of thinking. That’s also the closest thing to an action hero int he entire series, which is only made more awesome by her tendency to turn her nose into a pig snout while at dinner. That irreverence, mixed with the ability to kick major Dark Wizard butt and be all business when called for makes her one of the best female characters in all of fantasy, as well as the Potterverse.

But Tonks is also a Hufflepuff–and don’t mistake that for her being mis-sorted. She is loyal as they come to her friends–not just Harry, but the Weasleys and even Sirius, despite their family issues. But most importantly, she’s loyal to Remus, the man who became the love of her life. Remus tried to fight his feeling for Tonks for years, partly out of fear that his werewolf nature would put her in danger (not to mention the potential werewolf babies they might have,) but also because of his fear that that werewolf nature made him not worthy of her. Tonks, for her part, was not having any of that self-loathing nonsense.And good on her too. All women should be so forward when necessary.

Author’s note: I am including Tonks on this list under protest. I write this from Harry Potter jail.

Next: The Half-Blood Prince

6. Professor Snape

Unlike Neville, Severus Snape doesn’t really have a growth arc—he stays pretty much the same person for the length of the series—but our understanding of him changes dramatically.

Until nearly the very end, Snape is an antagonist, if not an outright villain. He’s almost as cruel and unfair to Harry as the Dursleys are, if much more dryly amusing about it. He uses his authority as a teacher to torment this young, impressionable student, going so far as to give Harry poor grades he knows are unjustified. Thank god Snape wasn’t in charge of Harry’s sleeping arrangements, or we’re pretty sure he would have found another cupboard for the kid.

There are hints along the way that there’s more to Snape than he lets on—he saves Harry’s life on a couple of occasions, and Dumbledore seems to trust him. It’s not until the final section of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that we learn the truth: Snape had been in love with Harry’s mother from an early age and was helping Harry from behind the scenes in her memory.

This recontextualizes everything we thought we knew about Snape, but as with Draco Malfoy, Rowling resists the temptation to drag him completely into the good guy camp. Whatever help he was giving Harry in secret, he was still a total dick to him, and as an adult, Snape had less of an excuse for his bad behavior than Draco.

But on the other hand, Rowling’s willingness to commit to Snape’s contradictions was what made him into such a compelling character, and the story was richer for it.

Next: Friends from school

5. The Hogwarts student body

Okay, so I’m kind of cheating by including multiple characters in one place. Sue me.

As I said several slides ago, Harry Potter is a story about a secondary school, and school isn’t just about the friends you spend a lot of time with. It’s about the acquaintances you say hi to as you pass in the halls, and the ones you don’t. It’s about the younger students you don’t pay attention to and the older ones you look up to, the people who you know best and the ones you don’t know at all. School is about community, and one of the main reasons Hogwarts feels as real as it does is because it has a vibrant community of students. Let’s have a quick roll call:

• Lee Jordan, Zacharias Smith, Angelica Johnson, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Alicia Spinnet, Cormac McLaggen, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Percy Weasley, Hannah Abbott, Parvati and Padma Patil, Marietta Edgecombe, Katie Bell, Dean Thomas, Blaise Zabini, Seamus Finnigan, Penelope Clearwater, Pansy Parkinson, Colin and Dennis Creevey

And there’s plenty more where that came from. Some of those students we get to know pretty well, and others barely at all. Many of them participate in the Battle of Hogwarts, and anchor that final section of the series better than three  lone characters, however well we know them, ever could.

Mostly, though, the Hogwarts student body gives life to a place that, in reality, exists only on paper. In the imagination of a reader, Hogwarts can become as real as the halls of any high school, bustling with students on their way to class.

Next: The best headmaster Hogwarts ever had

4. Professor Dumbledore

As with Snape, our understanding of Albus Dumbledore changes as the series goes on. He’s almost two characters. For the first few books, he’s a prototype of a wise old sage. Rowling’s choice of iconography is very specific here. Dumbledore has a long beard, spectacles, and a pointed hat—in other words, he looks exactly like a stereotypical wizard from a fairy tale. In these early sections, he’s nearly as distant and unknowable as Voldemort, if far more benevolent.

Then, around Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, things start to change. Harry gets older, and we see that Dumbledore has his own agenda and his own quirks. Rowling starts to deconstruct the wise old wizard archetype, and by the middle of Deathly Hallows, we’re as confused as Harry concerning who this man really was, and what Harry meant to him.

And that’s the point. In J.K. Rowling’s world, as in life, no one is an archetype, and by accepting that even Dumbledore had faults, Harry takes an important step on his journey into adulthood. Dumbledore gets to remain two people: the benevolent sorcerer in the pointy hat and the secretive strategist. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way Dumbledore would have wanted it.

Next: Best friend in chief

3. Ron Weasley

Let’s be frank: in the trio of Ron, Harry, and Hermione, Ron is sort of the other one. Harry’s the one with the big epic destiny and Hermione’s the one with the brains and the talent. Ron is the best friend of the first and has a crush on the second, but he brings less to the party than either of them. And that makes his willingness to stick around as the situation gets increasingly dire all the more meaningful.

Not that he doesn’t struggle with it. As someone who came from a large family, Ron was used to being overlooked, and it was doubly frustrated for him to be outshone by his friends at every turn. He threw his share of teenage snits about it, too—growing pains were bound to happen, and Rowling doesn’t shy away from the drama or the comedy they entail.

But in the end, Ron always came through, and by sticking with the best and the brightest, he built a resume many wizards would envy. By the time he was 17, he’d played a game of chess that prevented Voldemort from returning to power, descended to the threshold of the Chamber of Secrets, fought Death Eaters in the Ministry of Magic, helped turned the tide at the Battle of Hogwarts, and even got the girl of his dreams (whether he deserved her is a topic for another time). Ron was the most insecure of the three main characters, but over the course of the series he proved he was made of fine stuff.

So let Ron Weasley stand as an example to all the other ones out there: actions speak louder than words, and if you just swallow your fear and start acting, you might find they speak pretty loudly.

Next: Our hero

2. Harry Potter

Writing the main character of a fantasy saga can be tricky. Generally speaking, they have to be likable, which means their personality can’t be too extreme. That’s true of Harry. Sure, he indulged in a few teenage mood swings here and there, but overall he was mild, agreeable, and respectful. He’s a nice guy, that Harry Potter.

The problem is that if the main character’s personality is too low-key, he or she can become boring. That was never the case with Harry. Right from the beginning, there was something kind of incredible about the the fact that he was such a nice guy, considering he’d grown up in a social services employee’s worst nightmare. And for the first couple of books, Rowling threw more than enough sights and sounds at readers to make up for any blandness in Harry’s personality. He was our eyes and ears in the wizarding world, and he served that function admirably.

And in the background, Rowling was sculpting him bit by bit, so when the time came for him to bear the weight of the story on his back, he was ready. I’d say he really came into his own in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when he started taking more charge of his life. It’s not that he didn’t take initiative in the earlier books—it’s more that, like a lot of people with epic destinies, trouble seemed to find him without his needing to look for it. People suspected he was the heir of Slytherin in Chamber of Secrets through no fault of his own, Sirius Black was hunting him to his genuine surprise, and someone placed his name in the Goblet of Fire, despite what Ron wanted to think. In Order of the Phoenix, Harry chooses to teach a rebel group of students and to fly to the Department of Mysteries, embracing his role as a leader.

That showed maturity (not that there weren’t a few kinks to work out along the way), and in Deathly Hallows, Harry went even further and embraced his role as a sacrificial lamb, because he knew it was the right thing to do. Whether at age 11 or 17, it’s that devotion to doing the right thing, even if it’s done at his own expense, that makes him a great hero, and a terrific role model for young readers. So here’s to you, Harry, the Boy who Lived and Died and Lived Again.

Next: The Brightest Witch of her Age

1. Hermione Granger

Harry Potter is a great hero, as far as heroes go. He’s smart and brave and loyal and kind. Hermione Granger shares those qualities, and has several helpings more good sense. Harry Potter headlined the Harry Potter series, but Hermione stole the show.

Let’s watch part of her hit parade. She figured out Lupin was a werewolf long before Harry and Ron. Ditto what the basilisk was up to in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. She had the sense to realize immediately that the Invisibility Cloak was the most valuable of the three Deathly Hallows, and had the forethought to encourage Harry to make sure Sirius wasn’t at 12 Grimmauld Place before rushing off to the Ministry of Magic to mount a rescue mission in Order of the Phoenix. Hermione took charge when she and Harry went back in time to rescue Sirius in Prisoner of Azkaban, and kept Harry going when things were looking grim during their wanderings in Deathly Hallows—and thank god she thought to pack everything they needed.

When the gang’s was in a sticky situation, Hermione could be depended upon to get them out (e.g. leading Umbrige to Gwarp, or making the getaway from Xenophilius Lovegood’s house). When there’s a problem that can’t be solved, Hermione hunkers down in the library and studies until she finds the answer. When the guys need help with their homework or advice on their love lives, Hermione was the person to ask. She was on around the clock, this girl, a never-ending font of know-how, follow-through, and on-to-the-next-thing. Also, she socked Draco Malfoy in the mouth, which was great.

So she can be a bit intense about her schoolwork. She’s smart as a whip and wants to put her intelligence to good use. That’s something to be praised, and if Hermione inspires even one young reader to apply himself or herself more in school, then that’s worth everything. So she can be a bit of a know-it-all. Well, if everyone around you was wrong all the time, you’d wanna correct them, too. She laid down the knowledge over and over again, and those dunderheads who’d never even cracked Hogwarts, A History always ended up thanking her for it. She’s brilliant and confident and never feels the need to lower herself and apologize for being really good at everything. She’s awesome, plain and simple.’

Next: The 16 Most Fantastic Beasts of Harry Potter

So raise your glass to Hermione Granger, the Brightest Witch of her Age, and the greatest character to come out of the Harry Potter series.