Characters

Defeated Grindelwald in 1945 and led Hogwarts through both wars with Voldemort. He became headmaster sometime after December 1956, not in the mid-1940s. He dies on the Astronomy Tower having already arranged Snape’s part in the end.

A Ministry man obsessed with Muggle objects and quietly opposed to blood prejudice. Nagini attacks him in the Department of Mysteries corridor. He survives, and the family stays in the Order.

A Death Eater smuggled out of Azkaban and kept under the Imperius Curse by his father. He impersonates Alastor Moody for a year, delivers Harry to the graveyard, and is kissed by a Dementor before the school can hear the full story. His Hogwarts house is not stated.

The most fanatical of Voldemort’s followers. She tortured the Longbottoms into lasting madness, killed Sirius, and guarded the Hufflepuff cup. Molly Weasley kills her in the Great Hall.

A fair Hufflepuff seeker and Hogwarts champion. He shares the Tournament’s victory with Harry and is murdered in the graveyard the moment they arrive. His death is the proof the Ministry spends a year denying.

The Malfoys’ house-elf until Harry frees him with a sock. He spends years trying to protect Harry badly, then saves him, Ron, and Hermione from Malfoy Manor and dies on the beach at Shell Cottage.

The Ministry’s smiling enforcer. She tortures students with a blood quill, drives Dumbledore from the castle, and later sits in judgment wearing the locket Horcrux. Her Hogwarts house is given in supplementary writing, not in a Sorting scene.

Lucius and Narcissa’s son, raised to sneer at Muggle-borns and never quite as cruel as the mark on his arm requires. In sixth year he is ordered to kill Dumbledore. He fails, hesitates in the Room of Requirement, and survives the war.

Beauxbatons champion in the Triwizard Tournament and later Bill Weasley’s wife. Part veela, sharper than the boys who gape at her, and host to the fugitives at Shell Cottage.

One half of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. He and George leave school in a blaze of fireworks. Fred dies laughing in the Battle of Hogwarts, and the family does not recover the joke.

Fred’s twin. He loses an ear in the flight from Privet Drive and a brother in the battle. He keeps the shop, and the epilogue still has the joke shop’s name in the world.

A celebrity author who stole other witches’ and wizards’ deeds and wiped their memories. Hired for the Chamber year, he tries the same spell on Harry and Ron and erases himself instead.

The youngest Weasley and a formidable witch in her own right. Tom Riddle’s diary nearly kills her in her first year. She later flies, fights, and marries Harry.

One of the four founders. A duelist from the West Country whose sword presents itself to a worthy Gryffindor. He argued with Slytherin over who should be taught, and stayed.

The boy who lived through the killing curse, then spent seven years learning why. Son of James and Lily, godson of Sirius Black, and the unintended Horcrux Voldemort made when the curse rebounded.

The founder who said she would teach the lot and treat them fairly. Her cup became a Horcrux and sat for years in the Lestrange vault.

A Muggle-born witch who treats the library as a weapon. She keeps the trio alive with preparation, from the blue flames in the first year to the tent, the Ministry raid, and the last battle.

Former Head of Slytherin who collects famous students. His edited memory hides the advice he once gave Tom Riddle about Horcruxes. Harry wins the true memory, and Slughorn returns to fight.

A pure-blood Gryffindor, Animagus stag, and Harry’s father. Brilliant and arrogant at school, especially toward Snape, and brave at the end. He dies wandless in the hallway at Godric’s Hollow.

Lily Evans, a Muggle-born Gryffindor, married James Potter and died refusing to step aside from her son. That refusal is the protection that saves Harry and later lets him return from the Forest.

The name Tom Marvolo Riddle made from his own. He split his soul to survive, fell in 1981 when Lily’s sacrifice rebounded the curse, and returned in 1995. He dies in the Great Hall when the Elder Wand refuses him.

A wealthy Slytherin who slips Tom Riddle’s diary into Ginny’s cauldron and buys influence at the Ministry. He fails Voldemort more than once, loses the diary, and is present, diminished, at the last battle.

A Ravenclaw who believes odd things and notices true ones. She fights at the Department of Mysteries, is kidnapped to pressure her father, and stands with Harry in the Room of Requirement. Later she becomes a naturalist.

Transfiguration teacher, Head of Gryffindor, and the spine of the staff. Dumbledore hired her in December 1956, while Armando Dippet was still headmaster. She leads the defence of the castle in the last battle.

The Weasley matriarch. She knits terrible jumpers, fears for too many children, and kills Bellatrix Lestrange when the duel reaches Ginny. The Burrow is the closest thing Harry has to a family home.

A Black by birth who cares more for Draco than for the Dark Lord. She binds Snape with the Unbreakable Vow and, in the Forest, lies to Voldemort that Harry is dead so she can get back into the castle and find her son.

Raised by a formidable grandmother after Bellatrix tortured his parents. He grows from a boy who loses his toad into the student who kills Nagini with the Sword of Gryffindor. The epilogue has him teaching Herbology.

A Metamorphmagus Auror and a Black by her mother. She joins the Order, marries Remus Lupin, and dies in the Battle of Hogwarts beside him. Their son Teddy is left with Andromeda, and Harry is his godfather.

The Marauder who became a rat. He betrayed James and Lily, framed Sirius, and lived as Scabbers until the third book. He restores Voldemort’s body and is strangled by his own silver hand in the cellar of Malfoy Manor.

Sirius’s younger brother. He joined the Death Eaters, learned that Voldemort had made a Horcrux of the locket, and died in the cave after switching it. Kreacher finishes the errand years later.

Bitten as a child and schooled anyway, because Dumbledore planted the Whomping Willow for him. He teaches Harry the Patronus, marries Nymphadora Tonks, and dies in the Battle of Hogwarts, leaving their son Teddy.

Harry’s first friend on the train and the youngest Weasley son. He is loyal, jealous, and braver than he thinks, from the chessboard under the trapdoor to the return that destroys the locket.

The founder who prized wit. Her diadem was stolen by her daughter and, much later, turned into a Horcrux and hidden in the Room of Requirement.

A half-giant expelled in his third year after Tom Riddle framed him for opening the Chamber. He brings Harry from the ruins of Godric’s Hollow, guards dangerous creatures with too much affection, and stays loyal to Dumbledore to the end.

The founder who wanted to limit the school to pure-bloods. He built the Chamber of Secrets and left a basilisk for his heir. The heir, a thousand years later, was Tom Riddle.

A half-blood Slytherin who loved Lily Evans and spent the second war as Dumbledore’s spy. His cruelty to students is real. So is the vow that makes him kill Dumbledore and protect Harry until Nagini kills him.

James Potter’s closest friend, an Animagus dog, and the heir who ran away from a pure-blood house. Framed by Pettigrew, he spends twelve years in Azkaban, then two as a fugitive. Bellatrix kills him in the Department of Mysteries.

The orphan who became Lord Voldemort. This entry is the schoolboy and the diary: brilliant, already murderous, sorted into Slytherin in 1938. The diary Horcrux opens the Chamber again in 1993 and is destroyed by Harry.

Bulgaria’s seeker and Durmstrang’s Triwizard champion. He is a better wizard than his scowl suggests, asks Hermione to the Yule Ball, and is at Bill and Fleur’s wedding when the Ministry falls.