The wealth of detail slowly injected into the Wizarding World in the years after the Harry Potter franchise came to a close means that we now have access to canonical information about characters we never even met. Or met while they were ‘alive’, that is...
There are plenty of Harry Potter characters that died on-screen that we’re still trying to process (Fred, for example), but a fair few that we never even had time to mourn as they were either already dead by the time the franchise began or were killed before we ever had the chance to meet their living selves. We’ve listed the cause of death of ten of these interesting characters.
James Potter Was Killed By Voldemort
Harry, despite not having any memory of knowing his father who died when he was incredibly young, got to have a surprising amount of interactions with him during his time at school. He stood with him in the Mirror of Erised, had a rather intense chat at the end of The Goblet Of Fire and managed to bring him semi-back for a few minutes with the resurrection stone.
As every fan of Harry Potter know, James was killed at the hand of Lord Voldemort on the 31st of October, 1981.
Lily Potter Was Killed By Voldemort
Lily Potter’s death happened on the same day as her husband’s at the hand of the same man. At first, Voldemort only planned to kill Harry at the request of Snape, but after Lilly had refused to step aside, she was killed too.
It was her sacrifice and desire to allow herself to die for Harry that created a love sacrifice so strong that the killing curse was able to rebound off of Harry and semi-kill Voldemort.
Kendra Dumbledore Died In An Explosion
Despite his position of power and grandeur as an old man, the early life of Albus Dumbledore was often rather harrowing and complex.
One of the most difficult things he ever had to witness came just six months before the turn of the twentieth century was seeing his sister Ariana lose control of her magical abilities and becoming the cause of their own mother's death via explosion.
Ariana Dumbledore Was Caught In The Crossfire
After a brutal encounter with muggle children, Ariana lost the ability to control her magical powers and ended up directly causing her mother’s death. Albus Dumbledore became her guardian, though he didn’t do a particularly good job.
Her death rather soon after that of her mother's came as a result of a three-way duel between the Dumbledore brothers and Gellert Grindelwald. It is still unknown who dealt the deadly blow.
Merope Riddle Died In Childbirth
The life of Merope Riddle was a complex one. She was a pure-blood, directly descended from Salazar Slytherin who could speak Parseltongue.
However, she fell in love with a muggle (who happened to be the enchanted Tom Riddle Sr.) and became pregnant with the child who would go on to become Voldemort. She died in childbirth, thus avoiding having to ever find out what her son would become.
Regulus Black Was Mauled By The Inferi
Considering how kind-hearted and pure Sirius Black is, it’s rather shocking how frequently his family tree descends into the realms of pure evil. Regulus Black is the perfect middle ground: he became a Death Eater early on in life, demonstrating the evil side, but found Voldemort’s actions so barbaric that he decided to attempt to destroy the locket Horcrux.
While the mystery around his name was prominent in the franchise, he had died many years before the events of the films at the hands of the Inferi after attempting to drink from the lake that surrounded the locket.
Bathilda Bagshot Was Killed & Re-Animated By Voldemort
Fans have heard the name Bathilda Bagshot for many years before they even saw her face. She was the author of A History Of Magic and was well-respected by the wizarding community.
While viewers did technically see her physical form in The Deathly Hallows, this was nothing more than her recently murdered corpse being controlled by Nagini.
Nicolas Flamel Died Of Natural Causes
In Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, the most important object mentioned is, obviously, the Philosopher’s Stone. The man who invented it, Nicolas Flamel, was a friend of Albus Dumbledore and at least 650 years old.
After realizing that the stone could have a terrible impact in the wrong hands, he agreed it should be destroyed and died a peaceful death alongside his wife soon after. He may have had an important role in the Fantastic Beasts sequel, but he is nowhere to be seen in the mainline Harry Potter movies.
Evan Rosier Died Under Mysterious Circumstances
Evan Rosier isn’t an important character from the Wizarding World. In fact, he is a faceless Death Eater who followed Voldemort during the First Wizarding War. The only reason why fans even know his name is because Igor Karkaroff tried to sell him out in exchange for his freedom. But because he was dead before The Goblet Of Fire's events, Igor had no choice but to name drop someone else (i.e. Barty Crouch Jr.).
He is one of the many Death Eaters known to have been killed at the hand of Mad-Eye Moody during his prolific time as an Auror. To his credit, he did manage to take a chunk of Moody’s nose with him, as is mentioned during the trial of Karkaroff.
Alice & Frank Longbottom Were Tortured To Death
There is a reason why Alice and Frank Longbottom are on this list. On the one hand, fans actually did very briefly get to see them in the books and they aren’t physically dead.
But on the other hand, they were never seen beyond an old photo, even if many characters mentioned that they suffered a fate that could be considered worse than death. As it turns out, they were tortured into insanity by a group of Death Eaters led by Bellatrix Lestrange.