As a classic Campbellian hero, the Boy Who Lived doesn't leave us asking for much. If you look at the great mythic archetypes throughout literature—Perseus, Arthur, Luke Skywalker—Harry Potter...

Bossy-PantsShe's bossy, excessively enthusiastic about pop quizzes, and the most irritatingly talented kid in the class. She's also brilliant, keeps her cool in a crisis, and will fall on a sword f...

Enter the sidekick. Ron is basically the Chewbacca to Harry's Han Solo: his confidant, his best bud and his fellow traveler on the road to adventure. On the surface, there's not much to Ron beyond...

Mentor Knows BestFrodo had Gandalf. Luke had Yoda. And Harry's got Dumbledore.Every hero needs a guide, someone wise and learned who can show them the ropes and make sure they don't skewer themselv...

Big LoveDumbledore and McGonagall are Harry's mentors and teachers. Ron and Hermione are Harry's friends. In between them sits a gigantic mass of hair and beard named Rubeus Hagrid: Hogwarts' groun...

Worst. Teacher. Ever.You know Severus Snape, even if you're new to Hogwarts. You know that teacher that always gives you the stink eye, no matter how good you're being? The one who seems to live fo...

McGonagall is the head of Gryffindor House, Dumbledore's second in command, and professor of Harry's transfiguration class. She may be the greatest witch on the planet… but she's the Glinda kind...

Professor Quirrell may be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher…but he's also a total wet noodle.You spend most of this movie wondering what the heck he's doing teaching Defense Against the D...

We learn a lot more about the malevolent yin to Harry's righteous yang in later chapters of the saga, but for now, it's enough to know the basics: he's evil, he's scary, and he tried to take over t...

Ah, that human ferret we ordered has arrived right on time. Draco Malfoy doesn't quite qualify for villain status. He's too snotty, too bratty, and he really doesn't scare us the way Voldemort does...

The Dursleys—Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and their hephalump of a son, Dudley—are Harry's Muggle relatives. They agree to take him in after Lord Voldemort murders his parents. Once he's in their...

There are characters, there are challenges, and sometimes there are artful ways of making one out of the other. Filch is a minor-league adversary, the Hogwarts's custodian who fulfills the all-impo...

We'll be honest: Nearly Headless Nick is a lot more interesting in the books than in the movie. In the books, he makes for interesting color and the presences of ghosts in general set up some reaso...

Neville 's one of Harry's fellow Gryffindors, and for now he seems like a fairly anonymous one. In The Sorcerer's Stone, he's simply a surprisingly klutzy student at Hogwarts: regularly bullied, te...