One of the best-loved pieces of cinematic history is the Harry Potter saga. A whole generation was hooked as the franchise single-handedly revitalized the fantasy genre, thanks to its magical premise and charming cast of colorful characters.
Back in the day, everyone waited for their letter from Hogwarts, imagining that longed-for first walk down those magical halls and having a butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks.
Every great story requires an exceptional villain. Although Voldemort is the primary bad guy of the series, hundreds of other villains cropped up throughout the eight Harry Potter movies. Leading antagonists that hunted Harry for years, small-time troublemakers whose short presence really counted, these villains made Harry's life difficult. Let us recount 20 such characters from the iconic movies.
20. The Dursleys:
The Dursleys constitute the main reason for Harry's misery for years. They neglect him, abuse him, insult him, and always make him feel unwanted. Even after Harry departs for Hogwarts, he has to bear their cruel treatment from time to time when he goes back home. However, the Dursleys seem to make less of an impact with the progression of the plot. Harry realizes that he is stronger than them, and he finds a true family in his friends.
19. Crabbe And Goyle:
In other words, the sidekicks, Crabbe and Goyle, are probably not the best pair of followers that Malfoy could have gotten. Crabbe and Goyle do supply some backup for Draco, but brute force is all they have. In the wizarding world, physical power does not take one places. Harry and his friends outwit and escape them time and again. They really only make an impact during the Battle of Hogwarts.
18. Aragog:
Aragog is a nightmare, as you would surely assume the enormous spider that he is. His fearsome reputation is well-earned due to his size, but what makes him more dangerous still is the power he has over his colony of spiders. This makes him as powerful as hundreds of them collectively. He decides what his colony may and may not feed upon.
17. Salazar Slytherin:
Salazar Slytherin was one of the co-founders of Hogwarts and was certainly a powerful wizard, but his obsession with pure-bloods sealed his fate as a rogue.
His darkest legacy, however, is the Chamber of Secrets, a secret trap meant to emit a killing Basilisk to terrorize students he considered unworthy long after he was dead. The fact that he continues to wreak havoc on Harry hundreds of years beyond his time makes him one of the franchise's most tenacious villains.
16. The Giants:
The giants in Harry Potter are a formidable force, though their numbers shrink over time due to the Wizarding Wars. The ones on the side of Voldemort did not have better reputations as they had been a hunted race in the First Wizarding War, and it was the Aurors who tracked them down. Hagrid and Madam Maxime hardly escaped when they tried to make friends with the giants.
15. Nagini:
Nagini is the right-hand to Voldemort and is fully trusted by him. In most cases, the attacks from her are fatal. Nagini's most significant role, however, is as one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. So long as she lives does a part of Voldemort; therefore, she is crucial to his survival.
14. Dementors:
We have seen how evil these creatures can be. No wonder Dementors were chosen to guard Azkaban, which houses the most malicious wizarding folk in the world. Even harder to shake off than the Dementors themselves, and impossible to ignore is the sadness and the chill they bring everywhere they go. They draw happiness out of the very air around them.
13. Peter Pettigrew:
Peter Pettigrew is a coward who is not loyal but is quite cunning. He is a rare breed in wizards for he can change into an Animagus, but stays in rat form for over ten years until The Prisoner of Azkaban.
When he turns again to Voldemort's side, he is able to sustain the Dark Lord in a weak corporal. Wormtail must be knowledgeable of much magic, but he is prone to using it only to save his own neck. He is easily one of the most reprehensible Harry Potter antagonists.
12. Fenrir Greyback:
Fenrir Greyback is a major ancient evil character. Most werewolves try to stay away from humans while they are transforming, and Greyback is no exception. He transforms Remus Lupin when he is still a child and forces him to live a lifetime as a werewolf.
It makes for a more genuinely terrifying character who attacks families while working for Voldemort. He devastates and destroys many lives by being either an attacker or a turner in his status as a lycanthropic and uses that power maliciously without restraint. Greyback's attacks are nightmares in themselves, and even Dumbledore is afraid of him.
11. Barty Crouch Jr.:
Crouch Jr. is undoubtedly one of Voldemort's most zealous followers with absolute and blind loyalty toward him. He waits for years for the return of Voldemort, and then he acts without a moment's hesitation once the time comes. Clever, cunning, and willing to go to any extent on behalf of Voldemort-from killing his father to milking the sweet feelings of loyalty within his domestic elf-Crouch Jr. is utterly despicable and discomforting, yet also one of the saga's most effective, if underrated, villains.
10. Professor Quirrell:
Professor Quirrell is perhaps most interesting as a host of Lord Voldemort, as he does little otherwise to stand out. He is shy and quiet and suffers from an extreme lack of confidence. His reason for existence is to feel important and to serve a cause, which he finds in essentially resurrecting Voldemort.
His cowardice also gives him an advantage as a servant of Voldemort as nobody ever suspects him of trying to grab the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone. He succeeds in using a few minor spells, but nothing that cannot be replicated by a group of 11-year-old kids or softly verified by Professor Snape. Nevertheless, this Harry Potter villain has some validity in that he helps Voldemort return as a living threat.
9. Narcissa Malfoy:
Narcissa is Draco Malfoy's mother and a member of the black house which has existed for many years and is one of the most influential. She is portrayed as being very sensitive and protective of her son to the extent that she even pleads with Severus Snape to protect her son. At all points in the series, she comes across as war-weary.
8. Lucius Malfoy:
Lucius Malfoy is probably the most significant Death Eater to Voldemort. Lucius masterminds most of Harry's early troubles putting Voldemort's plans into action. He controls the events of The Chamber of Secrets from Tom Riddle's diary to Dumbledore's removal.
The return of Voldemort sees Lucius take on a leadership role among the Death Eaters. However, their influence is rapidly negated when they fall from favor with Voldemort. His social standing is transient, and his magical powers do not match up with the enemies who are coming at him from all sides.
7. Draco Malfoy:
Draco Malfoy was more of an irritating and childish nuisance than a genuine threat to Harry. Their relationship could not be the best mainly because they were children encouraged to fight each other by almost every adult around them; even the Hogwarts House system prompted them to compete, with one being a daring Gryffindor and the other a cunning Slytherin.
Eventually, he renounces the Death Eaters and matures into a fine father and husband. Draco serves only as a childhood rival to Harry, but he is not a killer.
6. Gilderoy Lockheart:
He was certainly the weakest of all the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors. Some of his moments of incompetence come when Lockhart tries to fix Harry's broken arm and ends up removing the bone entirely.
He attempts to instruct his class about Cornish Pixies and releases an untamed chaos. His only real power is memory charms, which he uses to buff up his own glossy image, and even those spells rebound on him in the end.
5. Severus Snape:
Since the very beginning, Severus Snape has always known exactly what he needs to do. No matter what's happening or who is employing him, there is always a magical fix to the dilemma at hand. However, he also represents more of an obstacle to Voldemort than an ally, though he isn't always sure of it.
Snape, however, is an antagonist to Harry. He makes his life difficult at every turn, mostly because he hates his father. He captures Sirius Black and tries to have his soul sucked out because of an old grudge. Snape's plans usually work out, but his power as a Harry Potter villain is tempered by his divided loyalties.
4. James Potter:
Like all humans, James was flawed. He was an arrogant bully as a child but according to his friends and the people who knew him, he grew out of it and turned into a better person. Virtually everyone in the books who told Harry they knew his parents said they liked them, the only real exception being Snape. Though it is a matter of perspective, Harry's father was a bully when at Hogwarts.
3. Bellatrix:
Bellatrix Lestrange is a right-hand worthy of Voldemort. She demonstrates extraordinary talent in the Dark Arts in that she is infamously skilled with both the Avada Kedavra and Cruciatus Curses. Her fierce loyalty to Voldemort and her pure-blood mania make her the Dark Lord's most committed henchperson.
Bellatrix will never run away from Voldemort's cause and will fight to her dying breath. In fact, she defeats several accomplished duelists including Sirius Black, powerful enough on his own. In fact, among all of Voldemort's Death Eaters, Bellatrix is the only one who deserves to be taken seriously as a threat against Harry's friends.
2. Dolores Umbridge:
Dolores Umbridge is probably Harry Potter's most universally hated evil character, and for a good reason. Coming up through the ranks due to her Ministry connections, Dolores worms her way up to become Headmistress at Hogwarts. She invents new magical devices for discipline that abuse disobedient students both physically and emotionally.
She's also magical with both Dark and forbidden Curses. She doesn't have any problems casting whatever charm she needs to, in the most absolute confidence, even when her life is being threatened. It takes the Centaurs to remove her from Hogwarts, and even then she pops up again at the Ministry and continues to cause problems in The Deathly Hallows.
1.Lord Voldemort:
Lord Voldemort forces his will on a large section of the Wizarding World and, in doing so, transcends Grindelwald's actual power as a tyrant. Voldemort's mastery of the Dark Arts inspires fear in a manner that no other villain could hope to.
Even when he is presumed dead, wizards fear taking his name, and doubt that if such a wizard could really be defeated once and for all. His Horcruxes make him nearly indestructible, invincible, and immortal: tools few other Harry Potter villains are willing to abuse. He is the most powerful wizard feared by mankind, but this comes at the expense of his humanity.
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