Portrayed by: Richard Harris, later Michael Gambon

Full Name: Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and considered to be the modern Merlin in terms of his magical ability. Like any good old, wise guy, he's extremely vague about everything important he says; he is also humorously eccentric. Founded the Order of the Phoenix, the organization that spearheads the fight against Voldemort; most of the characters in the series are personally loyal to him. He dies at the hands of Snape, but is ultimately revealed to have planned it beforehand as part of an elaborate Batman Gambit.

Enjoys tenpin bowling, lemon sherbets and chamber music.

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• Animal Motifs: Old, powerful, respected, and wise — it's no surprise that his Patronus is a phoenix.
• Anti-Hero: Early on, he has shades of being a minor, Classical Anti-Hero, reflecting a mysterious past and questionable decisions. He's eventually revealed to be a Pragmatic Hero, at least in his youth, with ideas of a "greater good" that were mostly discarded in his adult life; he also does a fair bit of manipulation throughout the series proper that is revealed in later school years.
• Aerith and Bob: Ancient Roman, Old-French, and Anglo-Saxon names. Followed by Brian.
• Awesome McCoolname
• Badass
  • Badass Beard
  • Badass Gay
  • Badass Grandpa: "The Only One He Ever Feared," indeed.
  • Badass Longhair
• Batman Gambit: Almost everything he does is part of one of these.
• Because I Said So: Really not too keen on explaining why he does things.
• Belated Backstory: In Book 7.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's extremely powerful.
• Berserk Button:
  • Attempt to harm ANY of his students, and you'll instantly discover why Voldemort fears Dumbledore.
  • Does not like Dementors.
• Big Good
• Broken Ace
• Broken Pedestal: Both subverted and played straight. While he wasn't perfect and did do some bad things, he wasn't as bad as Rita Skeeter implied, and he did genuinely see the error of his ways.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer
• Celibate Hero: After everything that happened the last time he fell in love...
• The Chessmaster: Just about everything in the overarching plot of the series happens thanks to his plotting and machinations. Luckily, his ultimate goal is good and he more guides Harry than manipulates him, but he crosses more than a few moral lines in his plans (including part of his plan to destroy Voldemort involving Harry's sacrifice. If Voldemort hadn't used Harry's blood to regenerate and the Elder Wand plot had not worked out as it did, Harry would have truly died in book seven. Though, as soon as he found out about these, Dumbledore did change his plans to make sure that Harry would be able to survive his "death." However, it still may have been unsuccessful, because Dumbledore only made a guess that the Horcrux inside Harry would be killed instead of Harry himself. He was right of course, but it could have turned out for the worst, as he states.)
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Difficult to tell how much is Obfuscating Stupidity.
• Cool Old Guy: Possibly the king of this trope.
• Crazy-Prepared
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Defied. He knows that if Marvolo Gaunt's cursed ring doesn't do it, then Fenrir Greyback or Bellatrix Lestrange will, so he orders Snape to give him a quick and clean death via the Killing Curse.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Inverted — he was going through a Well-Intentioned Extremist phase before the death of his sister Ariana snapped him out of it.
• Disney Villain Death: Although he isn't a villain.
• Does Not Like Spam: He avoids Berty Bott's Every-Flavor-Beans after eating a vomit-flavored one in his youth. The one time he tries giving them a chance after that, he gets earwax.
• The Dreaded
• Eccentric Mentor: Former Trope Namer.
• Evil Former Friend: He have one in the person of Gellert Grindelwald. They used to work together finding the Deathly Hallows, that is, until he and Gellert have a fight with each other that results in the death of Ariana, Albus' sister.
• Fair For His Day: In-Universe. While the quotes from his adolescence bother many readers and Harry immensely, it's worth pointing out that his teenage years took place a hundred years ago, in a time of immense, institutionalized racism. With that in mind, his comments may seem extreme, but not malicious.
• Four Temperament Ensemble: Phlegmatic
• Gambit Roulette: Way too many of his schemes require exceptionally precise combinations of events and circumstances that can't realistically be predicted. For example, his master plan for removing the Horcrux from Harry would have failed if Voldemort had been a little more thorough with one particular murder.
• Genius Sweet Tooth
• Guile Hero
• Horrible Judge of Character: Played straight with Gellert Grindelwald. Averted in later life with Snape and Tom Riddle in which he's the only one to judge them perfectly. Subverted with Snape as his initial judgement of Snape is unknown. But he's the only character to really judge him properly after Lily's murder.
• Informed Ability: Hogwarts’ status as a safe haven is mainly attributed to Dumbledore’s hawk-like watch over the place. For all the cunning he displays elsewhere, it's worth noting that, in only six years, two Death Eaters slipped into the payroll as teachers, one of them lugging around Lord Voldemort himself, Slytherin’s monster was unleashed on the grounds and carried out five attempted murders, a hunted (presumed) murderer slipped into the grounds repeatedly, once reaching as far in as the bedside of his presumed target, the horde of Dementors hunting said murderer slipped out of control repeatedly and tried to kill a student, a fascist-racist child torturer was legally instated as teacher and later Headmistress while the staff failed to pose effective resistance, underestimation of Draco allowed a squad of Death Eaters to enter the heart of the castle with only a handful of defenders posted and, of course, the yearly near-death situations and almost bi-monthly grievous injuries Harry faces while within the grounds. It’s no surprise that Hogwarts’ blatant unsafeness is a running joke among the fans.
  • To be fair there was nothing he could have done to stop the Dementors from guarding the school or Umbridge from joining the staff and he did everything in his power to stop the Dementors from harming his students and foil her without stepping on the Ministry's toes.
  • To be fair, Quirrell actually transferred from teaching Muggle Studies to DADA in 1991, and the other Death Eater played his role so perfectly, fooling Dumbledore was evidence of how good he was playing his part.
• Insufferable Genius: Throughout his youth.
  • And occasionally in his older age, too. Dumbledore tries to be humble, but can't help but pat himself on the back occasionally.
• Killed Off for Real
• Knight Templar: How some fans see him. He manipulates those under his guidance and raises Harry to be a Sacrificial Lamb in his quest to defeat Voldemort, and he once thought that plotting World Domination would be best for everyone. Granted, he suspected that Harry would probably live, but it was still a big risk. However, he only does this when he realizes Harry may be a Horcrux, and this isn't until much later after he puts Harry with the Dursleys. He was not raising Harry for slaughter, but realized that it was the only way to defeat Voldemort. It can be argued that it was Harry's choice to sacrifice himself and that Dumbledore did not manipulate him.
  • It's implied that Dumbledore knew Harry would survive especially when he tells Snape it must be Voldemort to kill him in order to destroy the faux Horcrux that Harry had become. It's likely Harry could have been killed by anybody and the faux Horcrux would have been gone. Dumbledore specified this because he believed Harry could survive if it was Voldemort to be the one to do it because of his connection with Harry's blood.
• Large Ham: It is necessary for him to be one.
• Long Lived: He's in his 110s during the events of the books, but still in excellent health.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Classic example.
• Manipulative Bastard: See The Chessmaster.
• Moral Dissonance: Arguably. Whole essays could be written about the alleged wisdom of his actions — or lack of such — throughout the series, and his neglect of Harry's personal well-being and safety, not to mention that of Hogwarts's student body in general is a heated debate amongst the fandom.
• Mr. Exposition: Even postmortem, in Deathly Hallows. Rowling has admitted that whenever something needs explaining, she gives it to either Dumbledore or Hermione to do.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: Unlike most of the examples, he does not use a Unwitting Pawn, since he'd prefer a quick and painless death, and Death Eaters tend to be sadistic.
• Nobody Over 50 Is Gay: Averted, by a margin of nearly sixty-six years.
• Not So Omniscient After All: In Dumbledore's own words:
  "I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being — forgive me — rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Never stupidity per se, but he nearly always knows a lot more about what's going on than he lets on.
  • Michael Gambon seemed to be working under the impression that all of Dumbledore's Cloud Cuckoolander qualities are cases of this. Notice in his portrayal that he only pulls out an oddity like enjoying knitting patterns when he's intentionally trying to fool somebody or throw them off their guard.
• The Obi-Wan
• Omniscient Morality License: Some of the things he says and does could make him seem like an outright Jerk Ass, but it's all okay because he knows everything about what needs to happen already. Some critics of the books have labeled him as a Jerk Stu as a result.
• The Other Darrin
• Overly-Long Name: "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore."
  • Note that the only thing that makes "Brian" an Odd Name Out is the fact that it is still in common(er) use today. It is an old name.
• Papa Wolf: Again, he "cannot allow you to manhandle [his] students." Which is a polite way of saying that if you try to hurt his students, he will END you.
• Parental Substitute
• Passive Aggressive Kombat: Dumbledore has a certain gift for being scathingly condescending yet perfectly polite at the same time, often seen when dealing with people he dislikes.
• Posthumous Character Development: He's alive for most of the book series, but we don't find out his past, his motivations, or really much of anything about him until after he's dead.
• Pride: Not that he lacks a good reason. Still, it gets him into trouble at times, especially in his youth.
• Secretly Dying: Of Horcrux backlash.
• Straight Gay: So much so, which is a tie-in with...
• Suddenly Sexuality: J.K. Rowling revealed his sexuality after the final book was released.
• The Smart Guy: While there are a lot of brilliant characters in the series, Dumbledore is strongly implied to be the brightest of them all. While a student at Hogwarts, he won just about every honor imaginable.
• Teen Genius: When he was a teenager.
• Thanatos Gambit: And how!
• Tragic Hero
• Tranquil Fury
• TV Genius: Sometimes he seems to border on omniscient. See also The Chessmaster, My Death Is Just the Beginning, and The Smart Guy.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • His brother Aberforth and others question the way he uses Harry throughout the series. Snape does a particularly good job of calling him out in one of the memory scenes in Deathly Hallows:
  "I have spied for you, lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter—"
  • He himself calls out Snape when it turns out that Snape begged Voldemort for Lily's life in exchange for Harry's. See You Monster! below.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: A child with a disposition to sociopathy and manipulation, who is already using his powers for the bad? Alienate him from yourself and leave him totally alone. There's no way he will become an evil wizard.
• Wizard Beard: Just look at the picture on the main page.
• Wizard Classic
• The Wonka: Extremely powerful wizard... and more than a little bit quirky. Example: announcing that he'd like to "say a few words" at the opening ceremony, and then saying, "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" He's the headmaster for a reason.
• Word of Gay: Possibly the most famous example.
• You Monster!: A variant, towards Snape:
  Dumbledore: If she means so much to you, surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?
  Snape: I have - I have asked him -
  Dumbledore: You disgust me.

Portrayed by: Alan Rickman

A former classmate of Harry's dead parents, Snape is now a teacher at Hogwarts who seems to hate Harry on sight. It's later revealed that Snape was frequently bullied and tormented by Harry's father James (whom Harry greatly resembles) and godfather Sirius Black, and that he was once a Death Eater but has returned to the light side for some unspecified reason. Whether he is genuinely with the Order of the Phoenix or the Death Eaters becomes a major point of contention for many characters and fans. He is Hogwarts' resident Sadist Teacher (at least until Book 5).

In the sixth book, it's revealed that Snape was the spy who gave Voldemort the (incomplete) prophecy, leading to the murder of Harry's parents. In the seventh book, it's revealed that he and Harry's mother, Lily Evans, were best friends since childhood, and he subsequently fell in love with her, though she cut off said friendship when he referred to her as "mudblood" during a fight. When his actions as Voldemort's spy led Voldemort to begin hunting her, he was instantly remorseful. This is how Dumbledore knew his repentance was genuine, and ever since, he has helped the Order protect Harry because Lily died to save Harry's life. His patronus is a doe, the same as Lily's, and it was he who sent his Patronus to Harry in Deathly Hallows when he was lost in the woods, guiding him to the Sword of Gryffindor in a frozen pond.

Harry names his youngest son after him and Dumbledore.

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• Alliterative Name
• Abusive Parents: He's implied to have had an abusive father. Cruelly ironic, given his treatment of the students under his care. Or it's simply the only way he ever learned to exert authority over people subordinate to him.
• The Ace: Not quite. See Broken Ace below.
• All of the Other Reindeer
• Ambiguously Evil: Rowling did a good job of keeping his true loyalties in the dark.
• Anti-Hero: Unscrupulous Hero
• Anti-Villain: In The Deathly Hallows.
• Apathetic Teacher: Mixed with Brilliant, but Lazy. Merely following Snape's one-decade-outdated school notes allows Harry to come off as a genius potion-brewer. One can only imagine what results he could get from his students if he actually cared enough to teach them properly.
• The Atoner
• Badass
  • Badass Bookworm
  • Badass Longhair
  • Badass Teacher
• Belated Backstory
• Black Cloak
• Blue Oni: And one who is condescending to the Reds at that: "Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words — they stand no chance against [Voldemort's] powers!"
• Berserk Button: Anything that has to do with the Marauders and Lily Potter generally manages to unbalance him pretty badly for several reasons.
  • In Prisoner of Azkaban, learning that Sirius escaped and dodged the Dementor’s Kiss completely cracks his normally cold exterior, and he starts shouting in rage at the top of his lungs in front of the Minister for Magic himself while blaming the obvious culprit.
  Severus Snape: THIS -- HAS -- SOMETHING -- TO -- DO -- WITH -- POTTER!
  • While he doesn’t visibly burst after Harry sees his “worst memory”, he disobeys Dumbledore’s explicit orders to teach Harry Occlumency even when aware of what was at stake and reaches such levels of spite for him that he decides to completely ignore Harry’s presence. Harry actually appreciates that last bit.
  • Most famously, Harry calling him a coward at the end of Half-Blood Prince along with everything that was happening to him at the time briefly sends him over the edge, and he shifts from effortlessly defending Harry’s attacks to actually striking him in the face with the unincantated Sectumsempra before Buckbeak intervenes and Snape resumes his escape.
  Severus Snape: DON'T CALL ME A COWARD!
• Broken Ace: In terms of fighting ability, Snape would fall somewhere between Voldemort/Dumbledore and everyone else. But well above Gilderoy Lockhart. Outside of duels, he created a slew of potions techniques that made Harry the top of Slughorn's class, several jinxes and hexes, and an extremely powerful curse. Even more telling, he also creates a cure years later. Problem is, he also was so incredibly bitter over his (admittedly bad) experiences in school that he was willing to sell out his first and only love's husband and child in exchange to have her spared from death, and it bit him bad in the ass later as she dies anyway, and his Heel Face Turn comes from having to assume the huge screw-up that such an action was.
• Broken Pedestal: Not towards everyone, but for his former friend, Lily Evans. If only he hadn't joined the pureblood supremacists in the first place, thereby resulting in him calling her a "mudblood"...
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer
• Cain and Abel: With Lily of the childhood friends variety. He is the Cain to Lily's Abel.
• Character Development: Up to Eleven. Even people who don't care for the series, if they've read it all the way through, agree that Snape is the most well-written character.
• Chessmaster Sidekick: Most of Dumbledore's plans boil down to "Disappear for a few chapters and let Snape handle it." Usually it works. Except when Dumbledore decides to ignore the fact Harry and Snape do not get along.
• Childhood Friend Romance: A one-sided example with Lily Evans.
• Comforting the Widow: Tries to do this until Dumbledore calls him out on it. It also goes horrifyingly wrong, as she dies anyway.
• Consummate Liar: By necessity. He has a Deep Cover to maintain.
• Creepy Child: Heavily implied to be this, thanks to a combination of poor social skills and his knowledge of the Dark Arts, which, according to Sirius Black, was disturbingly comprehensive when Snape was eleven years old. In the series, he occasionally seems to be the grown-up version of this trope; the rest of the time, he comes off as a semi-normal (if moody, depressed, and extremely emotionally-detached) adult.
• Curtains Match the Window
• Dark and Troubled Past: Had an abusive father and neglectful mother, and was bullied by James Potter and Sirius Black.
• Dark Is Evil—> Dark Is Not Evil
  • Light Is Not Good/Light is Good: Considering he can create a Patronus, and a doe shaped one to boot.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sometimes borders on The Snark Knight.
• Deadly Dodging: Used to great effect in the final movie when he duels McGonagall, still under the ruse of being a Death Eater. This doesn't stop him from parrying McGonagall's attacks specifically to take out both the Carrows without anyone noticing before fleeing.
• Debt Detester: James Potter saved Snape's life and it's implied that Snape protects Harry because he regrets not being able to save James' life in return. Or at least that's the story in the first few books, until it's revealed that he also loved Lily.
• Determinator: Say what you will about how badly he screwed up in his youth, but once Voldemort threatens Lily, Snape vows to protect her child, no matter the cost. There's a reason why in the end, Harry considered him to be the bravest man he ever knew.
• Did Not Get the Girl: It's revealed in the past before the events of the series in that he did not win Lily's affection.
• Died In Harry's Arms Tonight: He is conciliatory toward Harry in his final moments, sharing his memories which explain his actions. He also gets to look into the eyes of his beloved Lily, one last time.
• The Dog Bites Back: It's ironic at that. Snape would've remained loyal to Voldemort if he didn't kill Lily.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Although the Snape we see for most of the series is anything but nice, he was this to Lily. In the end, she didn't return his love, mostly due to Snape siding with the Death Eaters. Lily married formerly-Jerk Jock James Potter instead.
• Double Agent: Basically becomes a Double Reverse Quadruple Agent by the time of Deathly Hallows.
• The Dragon: Or so Voldemort thought...
• Dragon with an Agenda: As it turns out, he have a different goal, in contrast to Voldemort. He's actually on Harry's side all along.
• Dramatic Pause: Good lord, he makes Jim Kirk sound like Robin Williams.
• Enemy Mine: Played with. Snape never really viewed Dumbledore or Voldemort as his "enemies", but he never really wanted to work with either of them... At first. He was quite happy to be a Death Eater until Voldemort threatened Lily, and when Voldemort reneged on his promise to spare her, he appeared to be siding with Voldemort to bring him down.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Averted when we find out the real reason why he killed Dumbledore.
• Evil Former Friend: Towards Lily. It was his Fantastic Racism that drove her away.
• Face Heel Revolving Door: His actions look like this to Harry. And to the reader.
• Fake Defector
• Fatal Flaw: His belief in pure-blood supremacy back in his youth, something he's implied to have grown out of. But not soon enough, as this was the main force that drove a wedge between him and Lily. Had he simply thrown away his prejudice, he and Lily could have had the relationship he always wanted with her.
• Finding Judas
• Four Temperament Ensemble: Melancholic
• Freudian Excuse: For his abuse towards Harry and Gryffindor, because of his years of bullying by James Potter and other Gryffindors and his unrequited love for Harry's mother.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: In a group of Hogwarts teachers, the only one who could stand being around him is Dumbledore.
• Gag Nose: His hooked nose is often mentioned and is one of the things the Marauders made fun of about him.
• Genre Savvy
• Get Out: After Harry sees Snape's worst memory.
• Good Is Not Nice: There are few characters in literature who exemplify this trope as well as Snape does.
• Guile Hero
• Hate Sink: For the early part of the series, he was largely viewed as a cruel, bitter, and absurdly unfair Jerkass by readers. This changed somewhat in Book 5 when Umbridge replaced him as Hogwarts' resident Sadist Teacher, and of course there's Book 7, when we find out just how much of a Big Damn Hero he was all along.
  • Word Of God says he was never fully redeemed in the public eye following the war, as most people still rightly believed he killed Dumbledore (but, of course, didn't know of the plan.)
• Heel Face Turn: Near the end of the first war.
  • The thoroughness of which is displayed by an exchange between him and Dumbledore in his memories that originally took place during the sixth book, showing that he had become unambiguously good during the time he spent as Dumbledore's double agent.
  Dumbledore: Don't be so shocked, Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?
  Snape: Lately, only those whom I could not save.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: On purpose.
• Hey You: "Snivellus", courtesy of the Marauders.
• Hidden Depths
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Okay, we get it: He's not the kind of guy you'd go out for drinks with. Nevertheless, he does have people's best interests at heart, and given his brains and loyalty, he's exactly the kind of guy you'd need on your side to win the fight. Dumbledore knew this. Voldemort did not.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In the film, it's implied Voldemort whacks him with Sectumsempra, a spell Snape invented, before unleashing Right Hand Attack Snake Nagini on him.
• Hyper Competent Sidekick: Not quite. Snape is very powerful and, for lack of a better word, competent, but he's ultimately a sidekick to Voldemort and Dumbledore, the two strongest characters.
• Inspector Javert/Cassandra Truth: Snape takes it as an article of faith that Harry Potter is doing something stupid or illegal at any given time. He's usually right.
• Insufferable Genius: Improved his textbook while still a student; invented his own spells at the same time; one of only two wizards capable of independent flight.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation
• Jerkass: Hoo boy. He was a rather nasty person to every student.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Possibly the king of this trope, although it's more "Jerk" than "Heart of Gold".
• Killed Off for Real: By Voldemort in Deathly Hallows.
• Knight in Sour Armor
• Knight Templar: Sure, he may not be a fully-fledged Sadist Teacher like Umbridge was, but he abused his authority a lot.
• Large Ham
• Like Father, Like Son: His father was hinted at being emotionally abusive and prone to angry outbursts. Snape himself has no problems verbally tearing down his students to the point of reducing Neville to a nervous wreck at times, although he prefers to do it via cold sinister threats rather than shouting. The really sad part is, if he hadn't pushed Lily away and she would have fallen for him instead of James, he would have succeeded in ''not'' turning out like Tobias.
• The Lost Lenore: He never gets over Lily's death.
• Love Redeems
• Mind Reading: Legilimency, a very limited and forbidden craft. Snape is a master nonetheless, alongside Dumbledore and Voldemort.
• Meaningful Name: He's also known as "Piton" (in the Italian translation) and "Rogue" (in the french one).
• Mercy Kill: What his killing Dumbledore is ultimately revealed as.
• Moment of Weakness: What ruined his relationship with Lily Evans.
  • Though again, according to Lily herself, choosing to surround himself with wizards obsessed with the Dark Arts like Lucius Malfoy was what strained their friendship. Snape calling Lily a mudblood was just the final straw.
• Mommy Issues: Eileen, the mommy in question is neglectful, alongside Tobias, his abusive father.
• Morality Pet: Lily Evans. Harry by extension for being "Lily's Son."
• More than Meets the Eye
• My God, What Have I Done?: When he realizes that his own actions hurt Lily, the person he cared the most for, and eventually led to her murder.
• My Name Is Not Snivellus
• Nobody Calls Me Coward
• Not So Different: While he never realizes it, there are more than a few parallels between himself and Sirius Black. Both were branded as criminals, both hated their families (or, at the very least, Snape hated his father and Sirius hated his entire family), both were hated to a murderous degree by Harry for something they did or more accurately, were accused of doing: Sirius's supposed betrayal of James and Lily, and Snape's murder of Dumbledore, and both are extremely protective of their friends' sons (Sirius to Harry, Snape to Draco). Furthermore, the accusations against them were publicly cleared only after they were killed, and both refused to let go of schoolboy grudges. And, let's face it, they're both noble assholes.
• Not So Stoic: "DON'T CALL ME A COWARD!"
• Obstructive Code of Conduct: In Goblet of Fire, Snape accuses Harry Potter of theft, and wants to prosecute, but the use of Veritaserum on students is "regrettably forbidden".
• Only Friend: In his teenage years, his only friend was Lily, until she ended their friendship. In his adult life, is he has a friend, it's Dumbledore; he's certainly the only person who truly knows and likes him.
• Papa Wolf: Towards Draco Malfoy, and via Narcissa's request; if you mess with that kid, you will have a come-to-Severus meeting in your immediate future. (Not that Draco actually needs Snape's protection, but this is the reason fanon has it that Snape is his godfather.)
  • Also towards Harry. Snape may treat him like shit most of the time but you'll have to go through him to hurt a hair on his head.
• Please Spare Her, My Liege!: He begged Voldemort to spare Lily's life after she (along with James and Harry) became #1 on Voldy's hit-list. It almost works — Voldemort gives her a chance to step aside and let him kill Harry, but for obvious reasons she doesn't take it.
• Redemption Equals Death: His ultimate redemption in Harry's eyes takes place posthumously.
• Red Baron: The Half-Blood Prince.
• Red Herring Mole: He is this, over and over and over again. In the first book, all evidence points to him as the person trying to steal the titular Stone. In the fourth, we learn both that he is an ex-Death Eater and that Voldemort has a mole at Hogwarts. Guess who it is? Not him. In the fifth, we learn that his rivalry with Harry is deeply personal, and he seems to be conspiring with Sadist Teacher Dolores Umbridge against Harry. He isn't. And let us not forget his killing of Dumbledore, meant as part of one of Dumbledore's own plans, but taken as "proof" of his treachery by Harry (and any readers who hadn't yet picked up on the pattern.)
• Reverse Mole
• Rival Turned Evil: He himself in question is a rival towards James, and he turned evil because he joined the Death Eaters.
• Sadist Teacher: To all the Gryffindors, and Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter in particular. However, he pales in comparison to some real Sadist Teachers that appear later in the series and generally just walks the line between stern and sadist.
  • To Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff too, since it's noted several times that he only respects and likes Slytherin students.
• School Bullying Is Harmless: Subverted. In his own schooldays, he was bullied mercilessly by James and Sirius (something that horrifies and disillusions Harry when he finds out). Decades later, he still absolutely hates them for it, despite the fact that they grew up to be decent people, and has turned into quite the bully himself.
• Selective Enforcement: He goes out of his way to punish Gryffindor students for no reason, while letting the Slytherins get away with murder.
• Shed The Family Name: Of a form. Having been a pure-blood supremacist as an adolescent, he definitely didn't think much of his Muggle father, Tobias Snape (not that he had any reason to, anyway). While he never completely sheds his surname, he does label his Potions textbook, and presumably his other possessions, as "the Property of the Half-Blood Prince", identifying himself as a Prince (his mother's maiden name) rather than a Snape.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Implied to be this as he never expresses any romantic/sexual interest in anyone besides Lily Evans/Potter.
• Sinister Schnoz: Played with. His hooked nose is probably intended to make him seem more like a villain, especially at the beginning. Ultimately subverted, however, since he isn't really evil and is actually on Dumbledore's side.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Never able to take out his resentment on James Potter, he picks on Harry instead, to the point that he automatically assigned him all of James’ character flaws without ever bothering to actually see if the shoe fit. Considering that he believed Harry of all people enjoyed the spotlight, one has to wonder if he ever looked at Harry as an individual instead of as a remnant of his parents.
  Severus Snape: –mediocre, arrogant as his father, a determined rule-breaker, delighted to find himself famous, attention-seeking and impertinent–
  Albus Dumbledore: You see what you expect to see, Severus. Other teachers report that the boy is modest, likable and reasonably talented. Personally, I find him an engaging child.
• Stealth Mentor: At the end of book 6, and other subtle instances besides, you know, his job as a Potions Master.
  • The stealthiest example maybe "Expeliarmus", which might be the single most famous spell from the series (famous enough to be referred to in a Doctor Who episode). Harry uses this spell so often, by Book 7 Death Eaters have come to think of it as Harry's "signature spell". Guess which teacher Harry inadvertantly learned this spell from during a certain Dueling Club way back in Book 2?
• Sour Outside Sad Inside: After his years being mercilessly bullied in school, he seemed to grow into a very bitter, emotionally detached adult. The death of his childhood friend and love of his life didn't help his mood either.
• The Stoic: For most of the series, he only really shows two emotions: stoicism and Jerkass-ness. This is completely flipped upside-down in "The Prince's Tale".
• Super Window Jump Towards the end of book seven, leaving behind an Impact Silhouette.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: His What the Hell, Hero? speech in Deathly Hallows carries one about if Snape actually does care about Harry. Snape says he doesn't, but the news that Lily's Heroic Sacrifice for Harry might have been for nothing inspired Snape's outburst in the first place.
• Talking Down The Suicidal: Although he doesn't act on it, when Snape and Dumbledore talk after Liiy Potter's death, Snape makes the much forgotton remark "I wish...I wish I were dead...". Dumbledore quickly shoots this down by saying in a harsh tone "And what use would that be to anyone?"
• Tall, Dark and Snarky: He's that page's image for a damn good reason.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Sirius Black throughout Order of the Phoenix.
• The Smart Guy
• Tragic Hero: His very fatal flaw is embracing Fantastic Racism.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: In the seventh book, he is bitten by Nagini and left to bleed to death by Voldemort. In the eighth movie, however, Voldemort cuts his throat and lets Nagini bite him over and over. And you can hear each blow she deals him. Bloody Hell, indeed.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: So it seems at first in Book 7 when he becomes headmaster of Hogwarts.
• Unbalanced By Rival's Kid: It turns out that he is a former childhood friend of Lily.
• Undying Loyalty: Everything he does is because of Harry's mother, Lily.
• Unscrupulous Hero: Snape used to be a Death Eater, and never really gives up the dickishness and ruthlessness of his past.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Courtesy of Lily's death, which he never gets over and his own devoloping Fantastic Racism.
• What Could Have Been: Two major in-universe examples:
  • According to Rowling, if Snape had chosen Lily's friendship over the Death Eaters, his life would have turned out completely differently. He is painfully aware of this.
  • Dumbledore quotes that "I think sometimes we sort too soon" in regards to the courage shown by Snape and his sorting into Slytherin instead of Gryffindor. By the end of the books, Harry himself ends up acknowledging it, calling Snape "the bravest man I ever knew" in the epilogue.
• You Are What You Hate: See Like Father, Like Son, Not So Different, and Insufferable Genius.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Voldemort kills him to gain full power over the Elder Wand.
• Zero Approval Gambit: Arranged between Snape and Dumbledore: arguably all of Dumbledore's plans for Snape (and Harry, for that matter) would have failed if Harry and Snape had liked each other at all.

Portrayed by: Maggie Smith

Professor of Transfiguration, Deputy Headmistress, and Head of Gryffindor House. She is the third professor Harry encounters (after Hagrid and Quirrell), and he promptly decides that she is someone "not to be crossed." He's right. Stern but fair, McGonagall is protective of her students and really dislikes it when Snape wins the Quidditch Cup from under her nose. Though she takes no crap from anyone, she does have a sense of humor — she assists Peeves during Umbridge's reign of terror and turns a blind eye to the Weasley twins' antics during that year. In fact, she has several Crowning Moments of Awesome during Order Of The Phoenix, up to and including shutting down Umbridge at every opportunity. She is Dumbledore's right hand, deputy leader of the Order, and a powerful witch in her own right, and she is probably the teacher Harry trusts the most. Her Animagus form is that of a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes, reminiscent of her glasses. She has a fondness for tartan and Ginger Newts. If she walks into a scene and is startled, expect her to drop the stack of books she is always carrying.

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• Action Girl: Is able to fight Voldemort alongside Kingsley and Slughorn in the final book.
• Adults Are Useless: Subverted during the final book, where she's shown to be thoroughly competent when it comes down to it. She and the other teachers ready various defenses in preparation for Voldemort's siege; she kicks the butt of the Carrows too.
• Age Lift: This ended up being the case for her portrayal in the films. Though she acts very stern and grandmotherly, Word Of God places her age at the start of the series at 56, which isn't actually all that old (much less for a powerful witch like herself). Maggie Smith was in her late sixties when filming started on Sorcerer's Stone, and as such McGonagall looks like she's about seventy. Word Of God described McGonagall at one point as 'a sprightly seventy-year-old', which may mean that the movie version of McGonagall, much like that of Harry's parents and their acquaintances, might have received an age-up to correct mistakes Rowling feels she made with the book. *
  Like having Harry's parents younger than it turned out she wanted.
  • Additionally, for the opening scene in the first movie, Book!McGonagall is in her mid-forties. Movie!McGonagall... not so much.
  • Playing Hamlet: If it's not an Age Lift and McGonagall is still supposed to be 46, then 56-63, then this applies to Maggie Smith, who was 66 when filming started on Sorcerer's Stone and 76 at the end of Deathly Hallows, Part Two.
• Alliterative Name
• Animorphism
• Apron Matron
• Authority Equals Asskicking: And there is a lot of asskicking.
• Badass: Unquestionably one of the biggest in the series.
  • Badass Boast: "We teachers are rather good at magic, you know." This was her nonchalant response when asked if it was possible to secure the school against Voldemort. Yes, you read that right; that response was against VOLDEMORT.
  • Badass Bookworm
  • Badass Grandma
  • Badass Teacher: Two words: Piertotum Locomotor.
• Berserk Button: Don't mess with her students, current or former. No, seriously. Don't; if you do, she will OWN you. Seriously… she will.
• Big Good: Shares this position with Neville and ultimately Harry himself in the last book.
• Big "NO!": Upon seeing Harry's 'dead' body in Deathly Hallows. See also Tear Jerker.
• Career Versus Man: Pottermore reveals she turned down a proposal from her Muggle love in favor of a job at the Ministry that she ended up unhappy with.
• Commander Contrarian: To Dumbledore. She'll follow through on helping Dumbledore with whatever course of action he decides, but not before voicing her objections, improvements, and alternatives to the plan du jour.
  • Probably the reason Dumbledore values her so highly. He has good reason to be wary of his own judgment.
• Cool Old Lady
• Cool Teacher: Especially in the final book.
• Daddy's Girl: According to Pottermore, she was very close to her Muggle father.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has her moments.
  "I should have made my meaning plainer," said Professor McGonagall, turning at last to look at Umbridge directly in the eyes. "He has achieved high marks in all Defense Against the Dark Arts tests set by a competent teacher."
  • Extra points when you consider that the only teacher McGonagall could be talking about was werewolf Remus Lupin, who had taught Harry in his third year; Remus Lupin is also the one teacher that Umbridge loathes above all others.''
• Do Wrong, Right: In moments of dire need, she will approve of rule breaking. Most notable is telling Peeves the chandelier he is trying to drop unscrews the other way.
• Foil: To Flitwick. Made more explicit with Pottermore's revelation that the Sorting Hat had had difficulty sorting the both of them; both were toss-ups between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.
• Four Temperament Ensemble: Choleric
• Hidden Depths: Who would have expected stern Professor McGonagall to be so into Quidditch? Pottermore reveals that she received a bad Quidditch injury in her final year at school which left her with a life long desire to see Slytherin crushed! Thankfully, she gets to see this happen on several occasions.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: A variation in the final movie. After summoning an army of stone statues and ordering them to protect the school she looks pleased with herself - indeed, almost reminiscent of Hermione after getting to use a particularly cool bit of magic - and notes that she's "always wanted to use that spell."
• Iron Lady: Most definitely. Though she does have rare emotional moments.
• The Lost Lenore: That tends to happen when you marry someone much older than yourself. She keeps her chin up though.
• The Maiden Name Debate: She kept her maiden name out of respect for her Muggle father. Considering that he was Muggle and her husband was a pure-blooded wizard, this was met with some derision in the magical community.
• Mama Bear: She will fight to the death to defend any one of her students, especially Harry, Ron, or Hermione.
• Mayfly-December Romance: Her late husband, Elphinstone Urquart, was much older than her.
• Meaningful Name: In Roman mythology, Minerva is the goddess of wisdom, strength, and skill. Now why does this sound familiar, again? Her surname is taken from Giftedly Bad poet William McGonagall, apparently only because Rowling found the idea of someone as brilliant as Minerva being a distant relative of someone as talentless as William to be amusing.
• Minored In Ass Kicking: Though it may not be expected, McGonagall holds her own in pretty much every battle at Hogwarts. Most notably, attacking Snape with a fire-lasso and a swarm of knives in Deathly Hallows. She also has an army of galloping desks.
• Never Mess with Granny: She is not a woman you want to cross.
• Not So Stoic
• Number Two: To Dumbledore, as Deputy Headmistress.
• Parental Substitute: One of many to Harry. It says a great deal about their relationship that when, in Deathly Hallows, Harry uses an Unforgivable Curse against Amycus Carrow, all he has to say about it is, "He spat at you." Nobody requires further explanation.
• Prim and Proper Bun: She always has her hair up in a tight bun. It's even slightly lampshaded in Goblet of Fire when several students giggle at her describing the Yule Ball as a "chance to let our hair down."
• Reasonable Authority Figure: While she's quite strict and doesn't favor Gryffindor with the same devotion that Snape favors Slytherin, she is the one teacher to go to when you need help. She might scold you later, but she'll help whenever you need it.
• Running Gag: Dropping a stack of books whenever something shocking happens.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: Her resistance to Umbridge in Book Five includes encouraging mutinous, rule-flouting anarchy among the students. In which she participates. "It unscrews the other way," anyone?
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Her first love was a Muggle named Dougal McGregor. She accepted his eventual proposal, but had to go back on it after considering how her mother's revelation as a witch hurt her father and home life.
• Stern Teacher: To a T. Defeat a troll all by yourselves? 5 points added, after subtracting points for punishment and rewarding points for the impressive act. Caught out of bed in the middle of the night, and then questioning the teacher's punishment? 50-point penalty! Each!
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Try as she might to avoid it, every time Lee Jordan did Quidditch commentary she'd hopelessly try to correct his rambling, only to eventually fall into his pace and begin playing the Straight Man to him in something resembling an unintentional comedy routine. This is averted in Prisoner Of Azkaban when Malfoy jumps onto Harry's broom; McGonagall flips! Literally! She can be seen shaking her fist at Malfoy with her hat now lopsided.
• Sugar and Ice Personality
• Supporting Leader
• The Stoic
• Tranquil Fury: Minerva vs. Severus in Deathly Hallows.
• Teen Genius: Had one of her papers published in Transfiguration Monthly while she was still in school.
• Undying Loyalty: To Dumbledore.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: As an Animagus, she can transform into a cat whenever necessary.

Portrayed by: Miriam Margoyles

The short and plump professor of Herbology and Head of Hufflepuff House, Sprout doesn't mind getting dirty when dealing with dangerous plants. Like Flitwick, she is cheerful and fair to her students. Not a member of the Order, but loyal to Dumbledore even through Umbridge's reign and she played a significant role in the Battle of Hogwarts.

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• Beware the Nice Ones: Don't mistake her sweetness nor Head of Hufflepuff status for weakness. She can handle tough and dangerous plants without much fuss, and she rebelled against the tyranny of Umbridge and Voldemort before using her knowledge of magical plants in the Battle of Hogwarts.
• Covered in Mud: She is described as having lots of earth on her clothes and fingernails that would make prim and proper Aunt Petunia faint.
• Fluffy Tamer: Apparently, the only person the Whomping Willow won't attack.
• Green Thumb: She weaponizes her plants in the Battle of Hogwarts.
• Meaningful Name
• Never Mess with Granny

Portrayed by: Warwick Davis

The short professor of Charms and Head of Ravenclaw House. A cheerful man who usually stands on a pile of books while addressing his class. Like Sprout, cheerful and fair to his students. Not a member of the Order, but loyal to Dumbledore and a former Duelist. He displayed the former under the rules of both Umbridge and Voldemort and the latter in the Battle of Hogwarts.

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• Alliterative Name
• Beware the Nice Ones: Prof. Filtwick is one of Hogwarts's nicest teachers; however, he is one of the main teachers at Hogwarts, and he used to be a dueling champion, as several Death Eaters and Snape would find out.
• Cool Old Guy
• Foil: To McGonagall. Made more explicit with Pottermore's revelation that the Sorting Hat had had difficulty sorting the both of them; both were toss-ups between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.
• Funny Background Event: Is treated as this in the book at times. If the trio are having a discussion during his class, count on Flitwick being victimized by someone's spell going awry.
• Nice Guy
• Our Goblins Are Different: J. K. Rowling envisioned him as just a tiny old man, but his appearance in the first two movies made her rationalize he has a dash of goblin ancestry.
• Retired Badass: A dueling champion in his youth.

Portrayed by: Robbie Coltrane

The Hogwarts gamekeeper, and a half-giant as well. Hagrid was the one who explained the wizarding world to Harry, and remains his friend throughout Harry's years at Hogwarts. He also has an unusual affection towards vicious beasts, including Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback (dragon), Fluffy (three-headed dog), Aragog (acromantula), and Blast-ended Skrewts. Also has a thing for alcohol.

By the fifth and sixth books, he has become Dumbledore's recruiting agent, and tries to recruit several giants to fight Voldemort. It doesn't go over so well. Hey, at least he didn't die.

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• Admiring the Abomination: Which invariably leads him to trying to tame it.
• All Genes Are Co Dominant: He splits the difference between giant and human in size.
• Badass: See below to Beware the Nice Ones.
  • Badass Beard
  • Badass Biker: For two short periods during the series. It doesn't hurt when the bike in question can shoot dragon flames at enemies and conjure freaking brick walls out of its exhaust pipe.
  • Badass Grandpa: Hagrid was in school with Tom, so he's only three, maybe four years younger than the guy.
• Bear Hug: He does this to Harry, Ron, and Hermione frequently.
• Berserk Button: "NEVER - INSULT - ALBUS - DUMBLEDORE - IN - FRONT - OF - ME!"
  • Also, he's justifiably pretty pissed when the Aurors came calling to sack him in Book 5, but it was only after McGonagall came out to defuse the situation and took four Stunners to the chest that Hagrid well and truly flips out.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While Hagrid is a generally lovable chap, it's recommended you don't anger him, by either insulting Dumbledore in front of him, or attacking his friends or his pet boarhound, Fang. If you do that, he will force you to repent. Hell, he may not even aim for you. In PS, when Vernon Dursley insults Dumbledore, Hagrid loses it and aims a curse at Dudley, intending to turn him into a pig. Of course, since there was so much pig in Dudley back then, there wasn't much else to do left, so Dudley got a pig tail instead.
  • Umbrige and four Ministry-trained Aurors found this out the hard way when they tried to ambush him one night. Umbrige, sadly, was the only one who escaped conscious. (Although, in another example of this trope, Hermione made her wish she hadn't.)
• Boisterous Bruiser
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: He's more soft spot than bruiser unless you make him mad, in which case the ratio switches over.
• Cannot Keep A Secret: Trust Hagrid with your business, trust him with your treasures, trust him with your life, heck, trust him with taking care of Harry Freaking Potter, but for the love of all that is holy, don’t trust him with your secrets. A habit of slipping into Did I Just Say That Out Loud? mixed with being a chatty drunk ensures nothing in his knowledge stays with him alone for long.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Played with. He certainly knows his own strength when it comes to doing heavy physical labor or fighting — and he puts it to good use. But the problem comes in when he tries to use normal 'human' signs of affection, like hugs or pats on the shoulder and winds up nearly breaking his friends in half.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Occurs many times, especially when he's drinking.
• Disney Death: He is apparently overwhelmed by acromantulas during the Battle of Hogwarts, but is merely taken prisoner by the Death Eaters.
• Emotional Bruiser: He's perhaps about ten feet tall, can bend metal with his bare hands, and most spells will simply bounce off him. Are you going to tell him it's not manly to cry in public? Didn't think so.
• Fluffy Tamer: One of the best known examples, and even named one of his pets (a three-headed dog, to be precise) "Fluffy."
• Four Temperament Ensemble: A fairly even mix of Phlegmatic and Sanguine.
• Friend to All Living Things: As such, he knows a great deal about various creatures, magical and non-magical. Though he seems to consider "normal" creatures (as in, anything that isn't a walking death trap) relatively boring, but loves them just the same.
• Funetik Aksent: If yeh want ter sound like Hagrid, talk like this, o' course. I shouldnta told ya that.
• Gentle Giant: He may be half-giant, but he also has a heart of gold, and wouldn't hurt a fly... as long as you don't insult Albus Dumbledore, as Vernon Dursley learned to his cost. Also, it's a good idea not to mess with his friends.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Dad was a human wizard, and reportedly a short one; mom was a giantess. Look, don't ask us how they breed, okay? It just happened.
  • Dad was a human wizard.
• Herald: In Philosopher's Stone.
• Intergenerational Friendship
• Last Name Basis: For some reason, nobody ever calls him "Rubeus" regardless of how close they are to him. Even Dumbledore, who's in First Name Basis with pretty much everyone.
  • Correction: No one calls him by his first name, except Mr Ollivander.
  • The book Chamber of Secrets has Riddle address Hagrid by his given name in the memory he shows Harry of "arresting" him; the movie changes it back to the surname form of address.
• Lethal Chef: His food is not so much inedible as it is simply unchewable, often described as having the consistency of solid rocks.
• Man Child
• Missing Mom: His mother, a giantess, left him when he was three. Hagrid mentions her death casually, as he hardly even remembers her.
• Nice Guy
• Nightmare Fetishist: Considers dragons, Acromantulas and huge, three-headed dogs to be "cute."
• The Obi-Wan: He is the one who gets Harry himself started on his journey as The Chosen One. He is also the Obi-Wan to Harry's Luke.
• Older Than They Look: He's really in his sixties, yet acts a third that age.
• Papa Wolf: Towards the children of Hogwarts.
• Paper Tiger
• Parasol of Pain: His wand, which was snapped when he was expelled, is actually in one piece and hidden in his umbrella.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Hagrid was apparently one of these; his role getting smaller throughout the series is due to the series becoming darker.
• Skewed Priorities: Sometimes places the safety and well-being of some of the bloodthirsty monsters he is so fond of above that of other people. Notably in Books 2 and 7.
  • And in book 4, where he frantically tries to instruct his students to not hurt the Blast-Ended Skrewts.
• Stout Strength: His entire life as an employee of the school is spent doing physically taxing and highly dangerous tasks that other wizards would rather not (his predecessor left "to spend more time with his remaining limbs", according to Dumbledore). This is, of course, BEFORE one begins adding in the very dangerous situations he finds himself in as a result of his friendship with Harry.
• Undying Loyalty: To Dumbledore. Dumbledore returns the favor and notes he "would trust Hagrid with his life", although it's unclear exactly what Hagrid did to win his trust.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He never finished his schooling as a wizard and is not exactly the clever sort, but makes up for it by being massively strong and resistant to magic due to his Giant heritage. His standard fighting strategy amounts to walking up to whichever poor bastards he's fighting while shrugging off their spells and crushing them with his hands. It's pretty effective.
  • Appears to have had some promise in transfiguration, though, if his attempt to turn Dudley into a full pig is any indication. (One at least could wonder if he really did have a point about Dudley being too much of a pig as it was for the spell to be that effective.)

Portrayed by: Emma Thompson

The professor of Divination. Trelawney fancies herself a great seer "possessed of the Inner Eye", but is widely regarded by other characters as a fraud who makes up nonsensical prohecies on the spot, particularly because of her habit of predicting death to one student of every new class she teaches. She is able to make the occasional genuine prophecy, though: She was the one who made the prediction that marked Harry as a possible Chosen One to defeat Voldemort, thereby indirectly setting the events of Harry's life in motion. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil seem to be the only two students who take her seriously.

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• The Alcoholic/Drowning My Sorrows: She starts drinking a lot of cooking sherry after Umbridge puts her on probation.
  • Implicitly, she seems to have had this habit before, and never quite gets out of it (she's seen with a bottle of cooking sherry and looking quite unstable in Book 6)
• Animal Motifs: When Harry first sees her, his first impression is of a "large, glittering insect" because of all the bangles and beads she wears, as well as her enormous glasses.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the book, she bludgeons Greyback with a crystal ball in the final battle to save Lavender Brown's life.
• The Cassandra: Well, often not to Dumbledore and occasionally not to Harry. Her mumblings, however, often contain actual predictions of the future that turn out to be true, such as her tarot vision of "the lightning-struck tower" and "calamity" in Book 6. The "lightning" turns out to be the blazing green Dark Mark and the "calamity" Dumbledore's death.
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Chew Toy: She rarely gets through a scene without somebody making a joke at her expense. Even Harry, or rather especially Harry, can't quite help himself.
  Sybill Trelawney: Everything went pitch black and the next thing I knew, I was being hurled headfirst out of the Room!
  Harry Potter: And you didn't see that coming?
  Sybill Trelawney: No, I did not, as I say, it was pitch-[Throws him a dirty look].
• Fainting Seer
• Fortune Teller
• Four Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine
• Genius Ditz
• Improbable Weapon User: Crystal balls.
• Lady Drunk: After Umbridge repeatedly humiliates her, she can often be seen with a bottle of sherry.
• Mama Bear: In Deathly Hallows she saves Lavender Brown from being eaten alive by Fenrir Greyback by smashing his head in with her crystal ball! Poor Lavender wasn't so lucky in the movie though...
• Not-So-Phony Psychic: The only real prophecies Trelawney has ever made (all two of them) happen when she goes into a trance, and thus she can't remember them afterwards. Every prophecy she actually makes on purpose is made up. Though, she did warn Dumbledore about being on any towers. Guess how he died.
  • Look closely at her prophecies and you will see that many actually happen but not in the way she interpreted. For example: She claimed to be seeing a grim a lot in POA but was really seeing Sirius Black in his animagus form (a large black dog which is what a grim looks like). Likewise in HBP she idly makes several prophetic comments while attempting to read some tarot cards, but dismisses them due to not recognizing their significance.
• Prophecies Are Always Right: Subverted, then hilariously doubly subverted when all of her predictions eventually come true — almost never in quite the way she expects.
• Quirky Curls
• Small Name, Big Ego
• Tarot Troubles

Portrayed by: Ian Hart

The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher during Harry's first year at Hogwarts (and a Muggle Studies professor prior to that, according to Word Of God). He initially comes across as inconfident and incompetent, stuttering constantly, but this is appearantly a facade: He eventually reveals himself to be a servant of Voldemort, and the host to his spirit. He tries to steal the Philosopher's Stone for his master, but is thwarted by Harry and dies when Voldemort's spirit leaves him.

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• Above Good and Evil:
  "Lord Voldemort showed me the truth. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it."
• Alliterative Name
• Be Careful What You Wish For: According to Pottermore, Quirrell was intentionally seeking out Voldemort during his travels in hopes that he could use his power or at the very least get credit for his discovery.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing
• Butt Monkey: Or so it seems until the end.
  • Word Of God is that he sought Voldemort out because he was tired of being laughed at and wanted to do something impressive.
• The Dragon: To the Big Bad — in fact, he's the very first Dragon introduced in the series.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind
• Evil Teacher: He doesn't actually act evil while teaching as part of his cover, though.
• Fan Nickname: Quirrelmort.
• Master Actor
• Nice Turban: Voldemort hides under it.
• Obfuscating Stupidity
• Starter Villain
• Stuttering Into Eloquence

Portrayed by: Kenneth Branagh

The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher during Harry's second year at Hogwarts, Lockhart is a wizarding celebrity famous for his claimed defeats of various monsters like Yetis, banshees, werevolves, and trolls and his books detailing these exploits. When he arrives at Hogwarts, he completely fails to live up to his hype, proving himself to be quite untalented and incompetent, as well as vain and egotistical.

At the end of the book, he's unsurprisingly exposed as a fraud. It turns out he used his one real talent, Memory Charms, to take credit for the accomplishments of others. When he tries to silence Harry and Ron, the Memory Charm backfires due to him using Ron's broken wand and Lockhart accidentally erases his own memory. Three books later, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny visit St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, where it's revealed Lockhart is now a permanent resident.

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• Added Alliterative Appeal: The titles of pretty much every book he's ever released (Holidays With Hags, Traveling With Trolls, Year With a Yeti...)
• Attention Whore: Oh, yes. When he tells Harry about his childhood, he gives the impression that he was always this trope, but it's only as an adult that he achieved the fame he craved. That's assuming, of course, that anything he said was true. He doesn't have a great record for telling the truth, after all.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing
• Butt Monkey
• Chick Magnet: His book signing at Flourish and Blotts is stated to have been full of middle-aged witches. On top of that, the vast majority his female students have crushes on him.
• The Dandy
• Dirty Coward
• Fake Ultimate Hero
• Feet of Clay
• Genius Ditz: Can't really do anything but memory charms, which he is implied to be a genius at.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: As lampshaded by Dumbledore:
  Dumbledore: Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy!
  Memory-Wiped Lockhart: Sword? Haven't got a sword. That boy has, though. He'll lend you one.
• Hot Teacher: According to Hermione.
• Inept Mage
• It's All About Me: He begins his lectures by reciting all his awards, up to and including Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award. Also, their first test is on the important information in his books. You know, stuff like, "What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?"^note Lilac. and "What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?"^note To rid the world of evil and market his own range of hair-care potions. And what exactly is Lockhart's definition of the word "secret" anyway?
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: His real talent is Memory Charms.
• Leitmotif: As usual, John Williams is awesome.
• Miles Gloriosus
• Mr. Fanservice: has in-universe fangirls, including Hermione and Mrs. Weasley.
• Narcissist
• The Obi Wannabe: Lockhart assumes that Harry is a narcissistic celebrity like himself and tries to mentor him accordingly. Harry obviously finds this annoying.
• Small Name, Big Ego
• Smug Snake
• Unlimited Wardrobe
• Villain with Good Publicity: A milder form of a "villain", considering his true nature.
• What Could Have Been: Rowling's first choice to play him? Hugh Grant.
• Write Who You Know: Rowling has stated she based Lockhart on a real person, and that she barely exaggerated his real personality. As a matter of fact, she claims she toned it down!

Portrayed by: David Thewlis

Introduced as a (temporary) teacher at Hogwarts, Lupin turns out to have been one of James Potter's best friends when they were all in school together. Also, as his Meaningful Name might suggest, he's a werewolf. A member of the Order of the Phoenix. Only one to exit the Battle at the Ministry unharmed, except Dumbledore.

He and Nymphadora Tonks fall in love sometime between years 5 & 6, marry sometime between years 6 & 7, and have a child (Teddy) towards the end of year 7.

Tragically, they are both killed during the Battle of Hogwarts. (Their son is raised by his grandmother with the help of his godfather, Harry.)

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• Ambiguously Gay: This.
• Badass
  • Badass Bookworm
  • Badass Teacher
• Beware the Nice Ones: At the climax of the third book when he and Sirius confront Peter with the evidence of his betrayal, Sirius asks him casually "Shall we kill him together?" and Remus simply answers "Yes, I think so."
• Cool Teacher
• Five Temperament Ensemble: A mixture of Melancholic and Phlegmatic. (In the four Marauders.)
• Gentleman and a Scholar: Remus is a mild-mannered, pleasant, scholarly figure who genuinely cares about the children under his care and is generally well-liked.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: His Fatal Flaw. In Rowling's own words, "Lupin's failing is he likes to be liked. That's where he slips up – he's been disliked so often he's always pleased to have friends so cuts them an awful lot of slack."
• Killed Off for Real
• The Lancer: In Deathly Hallows, especially the second half of the film, he becomes one to Kingsley.
• Meaningful Name: Remus is a legendary co-founder of Rome who was raised by wolves; "Lupin" is Latin for "wolf-like." His codename on Potterwatch was Romulus, referencing the same legend. It gets to the point that those who are well-rehearsed in Latin and mythology can predict what he actually is early on in Prisoner Of Azkaban.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard
• Nice Guy: He's pretty much unfailingly kind and considerate towards everyone. He even felt sympathy for the werewolf who bit him as a child, until he learned that it was Fenrir Greyback.
• No Respect Guy: Among the Marauders.
• One Mario Limit: Since many characters are on a Last Name Basis with him, it can be hard not to think of another Lupin.
• Only Sane Man: As a youth, among the Marauders, but also as an adult, since he's arguably the sanest Hogwarts professor to appear in the series. He could also be thought to be this amongst his fellow werewolves. While many of Lupin's kind turn against humanity and join Voldemort, he stays firmly on the side of good.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: With Involuntary Shapeshifting every full moon, and The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body if he hasn't taken a Wolfsbane potion.
• Perpetual Poverty: A side-effect of being a werewolf. James and Lily supported him financially while they were still alive, but for most of his adult life Remus has been prevented from gaining any form of employment by the Ministry's anti-werewolf laws.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The first really accessible teacher in the story. One of the first accessible adults to appear in the story.
• The Professor
• Prophetic Name: Remus, as in Remus and Romulus.
• Save Our Students: After two useless Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers (and before two downright evil ones), he comes along and actually teaches them what they need to know.
• The Smart Guy: Of the Marauders; by smart, we mean "with common sense."
• Theme Naming: Remus coming from the story of Remus and Romulus, twins raised by a she-wolf.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: He goes Ax Crazy at the climax of Prisoner of Azkaban due to this trope being a trait of lycanthropy.
• Truth in Television: After the first Dementor encounter, he offers students chocolate, which has been shown to aid in the release of endorphins, or pleasure hormones. It really is quite useful if you've just had joy sucked out of you.
• Werewolf Theme Naming
• What Did You Expect When You Named It ____?: As already mentioned.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The prospect of having a child, who could potentially inherit his lycanthropy and would face discrimination either way for being a werewolf’s son, sends him into such a fit of panic that he tries to follow Harry in the Horcrux hunt, arguing that Tonks and his child would be better off without him. Although his fears are justified, his response is certainly not, and unsurprisingly, Harry is very much not on board with the “Kids are better off without their parents” argument and calls him on it immediately.
  Harry Potter: If the new regime thinks Muggle-borns are bad, what will they do to a half-werewolf whose father’s in the Order? My father died trying to protect my mother and me, and you reckon he’d tell you to abandon your kid to go on an adventure with us? [...] I’d never have believed this. The man who taught me to fight dementors – a coward.
• Wolf Man: In the film adaptations...although not the case in the books.

See Harry Potter Ministry Of Magic.

Portrayed by: Jim Broadbent

An old friend of Dumbledore's and, until 1981, the Potions Master and Head of Slytherin House. In 1996, he returned to his post as Potions Master, and in 1997, resumed his post as Head of Slytherin. He runs an informal organization nicknamed the Slug Club, which an invitation-only club of students whom Slughorn believes will be successful. He has recruited Tom Riddle, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger into this club.

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• Ambition Is Evil: Averted; indeed, he's the first Slytherin in the story shown to not be obsessed with blood purity.
• Berserk Button: He flips out when Harry asks him about Horcruxes. In part this is because of his regret over telling Tom Riddle about them.
• Catch Phrase: "Merlin's beard!"
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He takes on Voldemort in the last book along with McGonagall and Shacklebolt, and all three hold their own. Horace Slughorn fights Voldemort head-on.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He was specifically created to show that not all Slytherins are evil and/or assholes.
• Defector from Decadence: Returns near the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, leading the Slytherins in battle against the Death Eaters and dueling Lord Voldemort. Not bad considering he was too comfortable to move at the start of the last book...
  • Combat Pragmatist: Left with his students to make sure they escaped Hogsmeade safely, then gathered up enough forces to go back to the castle and guarantee victory.
• Expy: It can be argued that he is an expy of Dr.Quartz, a character created by C. S. Lewis who collected students and made a lasting impression on them and would "drop them" if they proved to be unsavoury in later life.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he's not as big a Jerk Ass as Snape, Slughorn's definitely got his moments, including his shock that a Muggle-born would be better at magic than a pureblood and his favoring of certain students over others. Nevertheless, he is overall a decent guy, and he genuinely adores his favored students.
• Knowledge Broker
• Lovable Coward
• The Mentor: A couple of lines from Book 6 and some simple math imply that Slughorn took Snape under his wing during the latter's N.E.W.T. years.
• My Greatest Failure: Telling Tom Riddle about Horcruxes; both because it casts him in a bad light and because it led to the death of Lily Evans, "one of my all-time favorite students."
• Noble Bigot: A minor example; though he's one of the most sympathetic Slytherins in the series, there are hints that he holds to some aspects of 'blood purity' ideology, such as his assumption that Voldemort must be a pureblood and his surprise at Muggle-born wizards with above-average talent. He doesn't hold it against them, though, and tends to adore them even more in the face of their "minor problem".
• Reasonable Authority Figure
• Some of My Best Friends Are X: Makes it a point to bring up his famous Muggleborn students as proof that he is not prejudiced, even while, as Harry put it, still “seeming much too surprised that a Muggle-born should make a good witch.” To his credit, he IS genuinely kind towards Muggleborns who display talent, he simply seems to have a subconscious expectation for purebloods to usually be better.
• Sweet Tooth: See below.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Crystallized pineapple.
• You Owe Me: Given his habit of taking promising students under his wing and giving them their initial "foot in the door" to high-flying careers, almost every person of note in the Wizarding world owes him a favour. Although Slughorn is too lazy to take advantage of this beyond asking for free concert tickets and sweets.

Portrayed by: Zoë Wanamaker

The Hogwarts flying teacher and referee for the school Quidditch matches. She doesn't appear much, but she seems to be very strict and serious, though she humorously went gaga over Harry's Firebolt in the third book.

While she is seen off and on throughout the books, she only appears in the first movie due to salary disputes with her actress. However, the character didn't do much in the other books anyway.

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• Animal Motifs: Her eyes are constantly being compared to those of a hawk.
• Fake Brit: Kind of. Zoë Wanamaker was born in the U.S. to American parents, but lived in the U.K. from a very young age. As it happened, her father was shooting a movie in England (Mr. Denning Drives North) when he was put on the infamous Hollywood blacklist, so he just decided to stay. In any case, she's been in the U.K. long enough to have a legit British accent and that's the part that matters as far as Harry Potter is concerned.
• Stern Teacher: The penalty for flying a broom without her permission? Expulsion.
• Unnecessary Roughness: She deplores the use of this trope in Quidditch, but is sometimes lackadaisical when it comes to enforcing against it.
• Written-In Absence: Madam Hooch originally had a small part in the second film, but she got written out when a deal couldn't be reached with Zoë Wanamaker. Later on, Wanamaker was willing to come back for Deathly Hallows: Part 2, but was never asked.

Portrayed by: Ray Fearon

The Centaur that rescued Harry from Quirrell in the Forbidden Forest when he was serving detention in Philosopher's Stone. When Dolores Umbridge fired Sybill Trelawney in 1996, Dumbledore hired him to replace her so as to prevent the Ministry from installing another puppet teacher. After Umbridge's removal at the end of the year, Trelawney was reinstated and the Divination curriculum was split between them, much to her irritation.

Unlike other Centaurs, Firenze is polite and friendly to humans, even allowing the 11-year old Harry to ride on his back when taking him to safety. This made him unpopular among his kind and his herd attempted to kill him after his hiring as Professor for daring to spread the Centaurs' art of Divination to humans. Hagrid rescued him, but he was banished from the herd and the forest for his transgression.

After the final battle, the Centaur herd became more accepting of humans and finally welcomed him back.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: Inverted. The book describes his human half as that of a handsome blonde man with striking blue eyes, whereas the movie made him look far more bestial and covered with grey hair.
• Big Damn Heroes: His debut in the series
• Brutal Honesty: While he concedes that Trelawney may or may not have seer gifts he does not know and doesn't outright call her a fraud, he is brutally frank about what he thinks of her methods. Mostly anyone who spends any time with the woman usually agrees.
  Parvati Patil: Professor Trelawney did astrology with us! Mars causes accidents and burns and things like that, and when it makes an angle to Saturn, like now, that means people need to be extra careful when handling hot things-
  Firenze: [calmly] That, is human nonsense.
• Expy: His kindly, humble and wise attitude are extremely similar to the wise centaur Chiron, the trainer of heroes in Classical Mythology
• Hot Teacher: As mentioned above, his human features are very handsome, prompting Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown to put their grief over Trelawney's sacking aside to swoon over him.
• Magical Native American: Centaurs as a whole are very analogous to Native Americans, especially with the mentions of being allowed restricted territories by the government. Their main methods of Divination consist of stargazing and burning leaves to find patterns in the smoke.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Decidedly humbler and more accepting and appreciative of humans than any others of his herd.
• Only Sane Man: Among the centaurs, or at least in the eyes of Harry and his friends. In the eyes of his own species he’s a traitor to his kind
• The Stoic: Comes off as it, especially when factoring in his tolerance. Even after Dean Thomas unintentionally wonders if Hagrid breeds the Centaurs like cattle, he merely corrects him and continues the lesson, whereas far lesser insults send the other centaurs into violent indignant rage.

The History of Magic teacher and the only ghost teacher. Student legend has it that he died in his sleep while seated by the staff room fire and got up to teach the next day, leaving his body behind. Binns's lessons consist of him delivering lectures which are so boring that they put everyone to sleep, except for Hermione, of course. But he doesn't care and just keeps droning on and on.

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• Adapted Out
• Agent Scully/Genre Blindness: He insists the Chamber of Secrets could not possibly be real. Someone more Genre Savvy would know that All Myths Are True.
• Composite Character: He doesn't appear in the movies. His only real scene in the books was explaining the Chamber of Secrets, and McGonagall does that instead in the film. Flitwick does it in the video game, though the GBA one featured Binns doing it.
• Lecture As Exposition: The one time he's useful in the series is when he explains the Chamber of Secrets. He thinks the legend is stupid, but he tells it anyway because the students are paying attention to him for once.
• Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: When he actually speaks to the students in the second book, he gets all their names wrong. It's assumed he's calling them by the names of students from long ago.
• Ultimate Job Security: Not that there'd by any real way to fire a ghost teacher. I mean, who you gonna call?
  • It's implied by Moaning Myrtle's death story that the Ministry does in fact have means to keep ghosts from bothering people, so clearly Dumbledore just doesn't care.

Portrayed by: Carolyn Pickles

The Muggle Studies teacher and an opponent of pure-blood prejudice. Muggle Studies is mentioned throughout the series, but Harry never takes the class and the teacher was unidentified. The first and only time we meet Burbage is in the Villain Opening Scene of Deathly Hallows, in which Voldemort murders her and then feeds her to Nagini. After the Death Eaters gain control of Hogwarts, her class is taken over by Alecto Carrow, who uses it to churn out anti-Muggle propaganda.

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• Fantastic Racism: Burbage is outspoken against this. Shortly before the Death Eaters got her, she published an editorial against pure-blood prejudice in the Daily Prophet.
• Names To Trust Immediately: Her first name is "Charity" for crying out loud. This fits with the editorial mentioned above.
• Red Shirt: Pretty much. She exists to die and her death doesn't really have an emotional impact on any characters. It's already well-established by this point that Anyone Can Die, after all.
• Remember the New Guy: "Oh no, Voldie's going to kill a Hogwarts teacher! Oh wait, it's someone we've never met." Justified since Muggle Studies was mentioned as an elective class in previous books. Harry never took the class, but someone must have been teaching it.

The rarely seen professor of Astronomy.

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• Dances and Balls: At the Yule Ball, she has a very awkward dance with the fake Professor Moody.
• The Ghost: An unusual example, since unlike other rarely seen Hogwarts teachers such as Professor Vector or Charity Burbage, Harry does in fact take Sinistra's class - it's just that no scene in the entire series actually depicts one of these classes and Sinistra is thus never given any description or characterization.
  • Actually, he sees Umbridge and co. arresting Hagrid while taking his Astronomy O.W.L. Sinistra's characterization, however, is pretty much "shocked" and "tries to regain order of the class."
• Living Prop
• Meaningful Name: An aurora is a kind of astronomical phenomenon, like Aurora Borealis, aka The Northern Lights.

Portrayed by: David Bradley

The Hogwarts caretaker, he has an extremely antagonistic relationship with the students and mostly acts as an obstacle to Harry throughout the series. His bitterness torwards the students probably stems from the fact that he is a Squib, that is, someone who while born into a magical family has no magical abilities on his own. He has a cat named Mrs. Norris, probably the closest thing he has to a friend.

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• Anti-Hero: Type V (books 1-4 and 6) —> Type IV (book 7)
• Arch-Enemy: Peeves the poltergeist and the Weasley twins.
• Berserk Button: Hurting Mrs. Norris, as shown in the second book.
  • Track in mud or make a mess and feel his wrath. Or be Peeves.
• Black Shirt: He's the only Hogwarts employee who supports Umbridge when she takes the helm because she allows him to use harsher methods to discipline the students. Alas, he never gets to use them, because the school is too full of rebels by that point.
• Butt Monkey
• Child Hater
• Crusty Caretaker
• The Dragon: To Umbridge.
• Familiar: It's implied, at least in the earlier books, that Filch shares a far deeper connection with Mrs. Norris than it seems. Apparently Mrs. Norris patrols the school on her own, and if she witnesses any rule-breaking Filch turns up shortly afterwards. In one encounter Harry actually had to tell Mrs. Norris he wasn't breaking any rules.
• Flat Character: Despite appearing in all seven books, there really isn't much to say about Filch's personality: he hates the students and loves Mrs. Norris, and that's about it. The revelation of his Squib status in book 2 may have earned him a bit of sympathy, but that raises more questions than it answers, the primary two being (1) why would a man who detests children as much as Filch does want to work at Hogwarts cleaning up their constant magical messes, instead of getting a job at Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, or somewhere else where he can still stay connected to the wizarding world without having to put up with so much day-to-day vexation?; and (2) why would Dumbledore, in turn, hire a Squib to clean up the students' messes the long and hard way, instead of hiring someone who can vanish every spilled potion away with a flick of their wand? Since Rowling never gives the slightest hint of an answer to either of these questions, it's pretty obvious that she didn't see Filch as even a low-priority target for characterization.
• Formally-Named Pet: Mrs. Norris.
  • Name's the Same/Homage: According to Word Of God, named after the heroine's abusive aunt in Mansfield Park.
• Fun-Hating Confiscating Adult: Filch had a room full of things confiscated from students, including the Marauders' Map, which the Weasley twins liberated and then gave to Harry.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic "Villain"
• Jerkass
• Lawful Stupid
• Loves the Sound of Screaming
• Meaningful Name: Argus was the hundred-eyed guardian of Io in Classical Mythology, using his multiple eyes to keep watch on her forever, and Filch is notorious for keeping a hawkish eye on students and showing up to bust troublemakers at inopportune times.
• Muggle Born of Mages: Former Trope Namer.
• Right-Hand Cat: Mrs. Norris.
• Ultimate Job Security: The man is a borderline sociopath explicitly enjoys causing children pain. At no point is the option of firing him ever considered.

Portrayed by: Gemma Jones

The Hogwarts matron and nurse, expert in medical magic. While she is kind-hearted and always well-meaning, she's overprotective of the students in her care, which is Played for Laughs. She regards Harry, and his tendency to fall into dangerous exploits, with a kind of friendly exasperation. A frequent sight in the hospital wing is Harry, landed there after his latest crazy adventure, begging to be allowed to do something while Madam Pomfrey insists he needs to rest more.

Madam Pomfrey shows up in all the books, but appears very infrequently in the movies.

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• Alliterative Name
• Berserk Button: For all that is holy, do NOT walk into the hospital wing if you're covered in mud.
  • Be Gilderoy Lockhart, that'll do it.
• Combat Medic: While her main claim to fame is as a medic, she's also an effective duelist, as she demonstrates during the final battle.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has moments:
  Pomfrey: Nothing to worry about, I mended it at once, but I'm keeping you in overnight. You shouldn't over exert yourself for a few hours.
  Harry: I don't want to stay here overnight, I want to find McLaggen and kill him.
  Pomfrey: I'm afraid that would come under the heading of 'overexertion'.
• Don't Ask: She seems to know not to ask. In all her years at Hogwarts she probably has seen a fair share of students with injuries the result of things students shouldn't be doing. Just looking at Ron's dragon bite, there's no way that she bought Ron's story that a dog bit him. Also, given her status as a healer, it's very likely she knew Hermione had a mishap with Polyjuice Potion. Could also be a case of I Don't Want To Know.
• I Can Still Fight: She's the one who replies, "No, you can't. Go to sleep, Harry."
• The McCoy: Working in the same field as the real McCoy, no less.
• Meaningful Name: Her last name rhymes with 'comfrey', an herb traditionally used to dress wounds.
• The Medic
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Upon seeing Harry in the third book, "Oh, it's you, is it? I suppose you've been doing something dangerous again?"
• School Nurse

Portrayed by: Sally Mortemore

The Scary Librarian who runs the Hogwarts library. Madam Pince doesn't trust students any further than she could throw Hagrid, and is known for putting odd jinxes on her books to protect them. Word Of God says she exists because a nice, helpful librarian would resolve plots too quickly.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: The woman on the right hardly look like any vulture, right?
• Animal Motifs: Apparently she looks like an "underfed vulture". Lovely.
• Berserk Button: No food in the library!
  "Chocolate in the library!" she screamed. "Out — out — OUT!" And whipping out her wand, she caused Harry's books, bag and ink bottle to chase him and Ginny from the library, whacking them repeatedly over the head as they ran.
  • That was nothing compared to her reaction at seeing Harry's written-on Potions textbook in the sixth book.
• Continuity Cameo: Sally Mortemore plays her in the second film, though you'd only know her nonspeaking character is meant to be Madam Pince from the credits. She doesn't appear in any of the other films.
• Disproportionate Retribution: She's placed dozens of curses on each of the books should they be mistreated, stolen, or vandalized. Dumbledore himself notes that he made to the mistake of doodling in one of her library books, then found the book trying to beat him on the head. And he can not guarantee he's gotten off all the curses on the very copy of Quidditch Through The Ages that the reader is holding...
• Lean and Mean
• Nice Hat: One of the few wizard hats you'll see in the films, but it's pretty cool.
• Pair the Spares: In a possible parody of Shipping, students speculate about her and Filch in the sixth book.
• Playing Gertrude: In the second film, she appears to be in early middle-age, but the books' description implies that she is an old woman.
• Scary Librarian: To a tee.