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- Despite the Harry Potter series being long over, new additions like the Fantastic Beasts franchise and the Hogwarts Legacy game have kept the Wizarding World alive. More so than any official entry, though, the fans have kept the series alive through the jokes they make with each other. From the leads to beloved side characters, fans have captured every character through the power of memes.
The characters in the Harry Potter series are deep and well-developed, with flaws and quirks as well as strong character growth. It's hard to sum them up in a few sentences, much less in one moment. But they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so those with a talent for meme-making can capture quite a bit.
These Harry Potter memes cover main characters, professors, and villains, using the images to summarize a broad spectrum of characters by capturing their best moments or predominant traits. Whether the memes look at one moment or the character's entire arc, they are all completely hilarious.
Updated on September 23rd, 2022 by Meagan Bojarski:
Despite the Harry Potter series being long over, new additions like the Fantastic Beasts franchise and the Hogwarts Legacy game have kept the Wizarding World alive. More so than any official entry, though, the fans have kept the series alive through the jokes they make with each other. From the leads to beloved side characters, fans have captured every character through the power of memes.
Dobby
Dobby is an absolutely vital character in the Harry Potter franchise, known for his rebellious spirit and his loyalty to Harry, but his best-known moment will always be when he was unintentionally given a sock by Lucius Malfoy. It became something of an identifier for him, which makes it the perfect moment to be highlighted.
Dobby later proudly announces, "Socks are Dobby’s favorite, favorite clothes, sir!" He gives Harry a hand-knitted pair for Christmas and collects an assortment of them for himself. While this meme might seem like a surface-level joke, it actually has a lot of depth for book fans who know just how much Dobby valued socks as symbols of his freedom.
Remus Lupin
The dementors are terrifying figures, and when Harry first encounters them, they drag up deeply repressed memories. Lupin gets rid of the dementor and offers Harry some chocolate to help ease the side effects, but otherwise leaves Harry alone to recover.
This meme, which draws on a quote from Frank Reynolds in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, sums up just how underwhelming his response is. This is one of his first encounters with the child of his best friends since they died, and yet he hardly acknowledges Harry. Lupin may become more of a mentor to Harry in the future, but he has a tendency toward cowardice when it comes to being vulnerable with the people he cares for most.
Peeves
Peeves is an important character from the Harry Potter books, yet movie fans may not even know his name. That fact is one of the biggest points of division between fans of the books and fans of the movie, and this meme sums it up perfectly.
Peeves is the school's poltergeist, and he had a major impact on the running of Hogwarts. For example, he broke the Vanishing Cabinet that Malfoy had to fix in Half-Blood Prince, and he helped the students fight back against both Umbridge and Voldemort. The looks of condemnation on each face in the meme are a strong representation of book fans' disappointment that Peeves was not only left out of the movies but was actually completely unheard of by many of the franchise's fans.
Molly Weasley
From: Harry Potter Memes
Molly Weasley had quite a temper, but always directed it very specifically. This meme takes the moment after the flying car has been stolen the first time to illustrate the point, showing a snarling dog as Molly lays into her sons, followed by the same dog smiling happily at Harry. The same concept happens later on in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Molly sends Ron a howler that pauses in its tirade to congratulate Ginny on her sorting.
This captures Molly's harsh and soft sides and how easily she can switch between the two in a second, showering affection on those she feels deserves it as readily as she rages at those she feels earned her ire. This marks her as the ultimate parent, capable of pure maternal love and being a firm disciplinarian at the same time.
Neville Longbottom
Neville Longbottom is a complicated character, shown as bumbling in the first few books before coming into his own as a brave, powerful young man. This meme shows off every side of him, from his subpar broom skills and disappointment over constantly being the butt of the joke to his strength of will and importance as a possible chosen one.
While other memes focus on his glow-up in appearance, this captures every side of his personality and explains why Neville is one of the best wizards in the series.
Ginny Weasley
Ginny is one of many Harry Potter characters that were better in the books than in the movies. In the books, she eventually grew out of her crush on Harry through some advice from Hermione, growing into her own strong and confident person. In the movies, she doesn't have as much of a transition, making her simply a girl whose childhood crush came true.
Either way, it's hard to doubt that Ginny was obsessed with Harry in the beginning. She struggled to talk to him when he visited the Burrow, and her horrible love poem is one of the best parts of Chamber of Secrets. This meme shows how perfectly Bonnie Wright portrayed that side of Ginny, with her expressive face capturing the mix of shock, excitement, and terror when a long-shot crush acknowledges your existence.
Albus Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore has historically had a problem with open transparency. Throughout the series, Harry has to survive dangerous situations explicitly because Dumbledore neglected to tell him important information. This is especially clear in the last three books (and four movies) when the secrets come out and Harry realizes how much was hidden from him before.
While this is not saying Dumbledore is a bad person or character, there is certainly a trend of him not telling Harry and his friends information they desperately needed to know.
Professor McGonagall
In case fans ever forget how absurdly powerful Professor McGonagall is, this post perfectly illustrates her sheer strength. Professor McGonagall survived getting hit in the chest by half of the spells it takes to subdue a dragon. McGonagall is known for being fiercely protective of her charges and just the right kind of strict, but it can be easy to forget just how mystically blessed she is.
While there are plenty of other fun facts and jokes about McGonagall out there, this meme captures her power in a way that no other does.
Hagrid
Hagrid is one of the most interesting characters in Harry Potter because he always sees the fearsome beasts of the series as lovable creatures, just needing a little affection. This is true of the dragon he hatches in his kitchen, the giant spider he raised from childhood, and, of course, the three-headed guard dog Fluffy.
Fans have to wonder how Hagrid looked at the Cerberus dog and came up with the name Fluffy, particularly when the creature doesn't have any discernable fur. This meme perfectly captures the difference between audience perceptions and Hagrid's perceptions when it comes to Fluffy, and can be applied more broadly to just about any creature Hagrid interacts with.
Severus Snape
There are a lot of different ways that fans can react to Snape's reveal of his love for Lily, and evidently, humor is one of them. Harry doesn't actually learn the truth until after Snape dies, but fans have imagined different ways in which the Potions professor could have told Harry the truth himself.
This meme imagines that moment happening in a juvenile way, with Harry genuinely concerned for Snape while Snape himself makes a Yo Mama joke. It actually does a great job verbalizing the uncomfortable side of Snape's confession, which fans especially point out in the movie, when Snape stepped over James's body and ignored Harry's cries to mourn Lily. His love for Lily was selfish and did not extend to Harry, and this meme does a good job showing just that.
Draco Malfoy
Although the Harry Potter series is written from the third-person point of view, it is very limited to Harry's perspective for the vast majority of the series. This meme considers how the series would be different if looked at from Draco Malfoy's point of view. The meme highlights the most significant moments of each book that audiences know happened to Draco Malfoy and titles the books accordingly.
Although most of the entries are jokes, it does highlight how little of each year audiences know from his perspective, as Harry's rejection of his handshake is the most significant event of book one. Seeing the books from this perspective would be interesting because it would help explain why Draco became a bully and Death Eater to begin with. This meme captures the fact that Draco has his own stories, and that they had some pretty significant moments too.
Voldemort
The prophecy presents the conditions of who Voldemort's mortal enemy will be, before explaining that Voldemort must mark the other person as his equal. While some might consider looking for pre-existing enemies that demonstrated power worthy of being "marked an equal," Voldemort takes the more classical route—trying to kill an infant and thereby marking him as his equal.
This Harry Potter meme illustrates Voldemort's fatal flaw: responding to prophesy as if it was fact and thereby making his enemies himself. The books repeatedly question whether Voldemort would have been defeated if he hadn't believed the prophecy, or if he hadn't attacked the Potters that Halloween night, and it seems likely that he would have succeeded if he hadn't become obsessed with a baby after hearing part of a prophecy.
Ron Weasley
Ron Weasley is known for his jealousy, and that can keep him from staying focused on the problem at hand. As the youngest boy in the Weasley family, he learned that the only things he could get were hand-me-downs, which made him feel consistently lesser than his siblings. The fact that so many of them excelled didn't help that fact.
However, his biggest source of jealousy was Harry, who was rich and famous from childhood. Ron knew that Harry didn't want the attention, but it was still hard to accept on a daily basis. This came out most when Ron was influenced by the Horcrux because it amplified his deepest insecurities. This meme highlights how his jealousy got in the way, twisting his perception of events until the world was working against him personally.
Hermione Granger
Gryffindor house loses points constantly due to picking fights and doing poorly in classes. The only saving grace, other than Harry's acts of daring, is Hermione, earning house points for all of her correct answers and perfectly-done spells throughout the series. Fans have to wonder if her back hurts from bearing the weight of the whole house.
Hermione is also brave and a good friend, but her intelligence and commitment to helping her house are central to who she is as a person. It's easy to believe that, without her brains, Gryffindor House would have failed to win the House Cup, no matter how much Dumbledore swung it in their favor.
Harry Potter
One of the biggest jokes of Harry Potter is that, despite six years of magic training and proficiency with Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry only ever uses "Expelliarmus" in his most important moments. He gets scolded for this trend in the seventh book because his use of the non-violent spell gives away which of the seven Harrys is him.
Although other memes might describe his character more, this one focuses on his spell of choice, which reveals a lot about who he is morally and what message the story is trying to send.