When I sat down to come up with a list of Harry Potter Characters, I quickly realized that trying to fit all of the characters onto one page would make the page waaay to big, so I have decided to break it down into a series of pages. This is the first one, and it focuses on the main characters in Harry Potter, including a character description for each of the characters.
But what exactly qualifies a character to be a “Harry Potter main character”? Some people might think that there are only three main characters: Harry, Ron, & Hermione. Others might say that any character that appears in all seven books should count as a main character. There are so many ways that this could be broken down, and I want to keep this page to a reasonable length, so I will say that, for my purposes and for the sake of organization, I will go with the following : Harry, Ron, and Hermione are the main characters in Harry Potter. Characters who appear in all seven books, and who get a good amount of “on screen” time (meaning they are featured for a good portion of the action of the novels), will be counted as one of the “supporting main” characters. Unfortunately for Professor McGonagall, although she is a fan favorite and she does play a pivotal role, she does not enjoy a lot of on-screen time, so she and other similar characters will be considered “supporting characters” and they will be covered in one of the follow-up posts (but I promise I will get to her—she’s one of my favorites)! The following list is pretty much SPOILER-FREE (there might be some small, minor spoilers), so that anyone who hasn’t read all the books or seen the movies yet won’t be surprised by any of the revelations that come later.
So who are we left with? Here is the short list:
Harry Potter (our hero)
Hermione Granger
Ron Weasley
And that’s it! Supporting main character summaries will be coming soon, and we will announce it here when they are published. On with the main character summaries:
Harry Potter Characters
Harry Potter
Harry is a young boy who is the son of two wizards, although he is not aware of that. He believes that he is simply an orphan who has been raised by his horrible aunt and uncle. On his eleventh birthday, however, Harry gets the shock of his life when Hagrid (a huge, gruff wizard) tells him who he actually is. It turns out that Harry’s parents were murdered by the most powerful wizard in the world (Voldemort), and that Voldemort himself was killed when he tried to kill Harry as a young infant. Harry is world-famous among the wizarding world (and he’s also rich, by the way)! He is known as “the boy who survived.” As with other young wizards, Harry receives a letter on his eleventh birthday, informing him that he has been summoned to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his training as a wizard. Harry quickly meets and makes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, two other first-year students, and they will turn out to be his best friends for the rest of the series. Harry goes on to have many adventures, and he is faced with the fight of his life when it turns out that The Dark Lord (Voldemort) might not be dead after all!
Hermione Granger
Hermione comes from a Muggle family, meaning that neither of her parents are wizards. For this reason, some of the snootier wizard families look down on her and her kind, calling them “mudbloods”, which is a word that carries the same weight as some real-world racist epithets. When we meet her, she is a young girl who is fascinated by magic, which is of course very new to her, since she was unaware that she was a wizard until her eleventh birthday. She buckles down and studies, and she is often the first in her class to catch on to new spells, and she is also magically powerful (she casts strong and effective spells, which cannot be said for all of the young wizards). She is a good girl who doesn’t want to do anything that will get her in trouble, but she is also loyal, so she can be counted on to help out a friend in need. It could be said that she pushes herself too hard, exhibiting a sort of “Type A” personality, meaning that she is driven to succeed beyond the point where it is normally considered healthy. She has a mind that recalls spells and facts quickly, and she is also fast to make connections that other people might overlook. She is, quite simply, smart.
Ron Weasley
Ron is a ginger (a red-head, for our American readers!) who comes from a large wizarding family. He has many brothers and one sister, and his father works at the Ministry of Magic, which is the wizarding world equivalent of the federal government. Ron is the sixth boy in a row born to his family, and he has always felt that he disappointed his mother, who was still hoping for a girl (she did get a girl on her next try!) Ron has a sort of classic middle-child syndrome, where he is not as talented or as powerful with magic as his older siblings, but he is a loyal friend, and he has a good sense of humor. Ron Weasley could be best described as a boy’s boy, or an average, good-natured, normal lad. Ron’s family is not a wealthy one, so Ron often has to wear his older brothers’ hand-me-downs, and he gets modest presents for Christmas. He is always up for adventure, and he doesn’t mind risking getting into trouble. While Ron would not be described as “smart,” exactly, he also isn’t dumb.
That’s it for our three main Harry Potter Characters. We could say much more, but it’s hard to describe them without giving away the plot and events. Trust us, the books are great, so if you’ve never read them, or if you’ve only seen the movies, do yourself a favor and read the Harry Potter books!
More Harry Potter Characters:
