Ginny Weasley started her life in the Harry Potter world as effectively a superfan. Weirdly, this was before the series became a world-beating hit, making Ginny, in effect, the first ‘fangirl’. However, she didn’t stay this way.
Over the course of the series, she developed in a lot of ways, establishing a personality far from her simple obsession with The Boy Who Lived, while getting involved in many important adventures. Aside from her prominence in The Chamber Of Secrets, Ginny only had about twenty minutes of screen time, but we’ve still found ten big ways her character developed.
She Became Brave
The first interactions we have with Ginny Weasley see her silently standing by at Platform 9¾, watching Harry like a hawk, but doing and saying very little. Similarly, in The Chamber Of Secrets, she stares at Harry like a rabbit in headlights, simply running off before much interaction can take place.
By the end of the franchise, she is brave and noble, taking her place in many of the most important fights, proving herself as much more valuable than just an admirer of Harry Potter.
She Became Confident
On a similar note, those early interactions with Harry show a girl who rarely speaks, and when she does, it is with a timid, weak voice that doesn’t quite know what it’s doing. Even after her ordeal in The Chamber Of Secrets, she seems a little shy.
Over the course of the series, she seems to gain a lot of confidence, standing up for herself and others as well as asking Harry the age-old question: “zip me up, will you?”.
She Started Dating
Ron isn’t keen on Ginny’s dating life. As a protective brother, it’s sort of fair enough, but at the same time, maybe mind your own business? Either way, Ginny through a flurry of dates as her character developed.
She took Neville to the Yule Ball (infatuating him to the point where he danced around the dormitory as soon as he returned home), went on a date with Dean Thomas to the pub, and then spent a little while as Harry’s girlfriend, even if he temporarily broke this off to go and kill Voldemort.
She Became A Very Important Part Of Voldemort’s Rise
Despite not really having any lines beforehand, Ginny Weasley very quickly becomes one of the central characters in the Harry Potter universe when she is captured by a massive snake, taken into a secret underground chamber and tormented by the memory of a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle who lives in a diary. Pretty weird when you say it out loud, right?
Either way, her interactions with the Horcrux make her a major part of Voldemort’s story. Most of the other side characters are there to help out, but don’t have a lot of one-on-one interaction; Ginny Weasley was right on the frontline aged just twelve.
She Became A Good Leader
This particular part of her character development shows a bit of a discrepancy between the films and books. Firstly, her feisty nature was played down to a ridiculous degree in the films, she was much more boisterous and fierce in the books.
Secondly, while Harry, Ron and Hermione were busying themselves elsewhere, Neville and Ginny were recruiting for Dumbledore’s Army, showing Ginny to have developed some impressive leadership skills. For some reason, we’re never really shown these skills in the films.
She Became A Good Quidditch Player
Ginny Weasley found a talent for Quidditch during her time at Hogwarts. Considering Harry was the younger seeker for the Gryffindor team in a century, it was surely fated that Ginny would end up such an impressive chaser.
She was made captain and scored many goals against Slytherin in her first match while using her newfound boldness to intentionally crash into the anti-Gryffindor Zacharias Smith’s commentary box. After the events of the books/films, Ginny went on to captain the professional team, the Holyhead Harpies, and then ended up a Quidditch correspondent, post-retirement.
And A Good Witch
She also quickly learnt how to be quite an impressive witch. We didn’t see a lot of Ginny’s magical abilities early on, but the fact that she was almost killed by the memory version of Voldemort suggests that she wasn’t particularly powerful aged twelve (which is completely understandable).
However, during the training sessions with Dumbledore’s army, we quickly saw her learn some impressive skills and perform some good magic. She was able to use this to defend herself skilfully during the Battle of Hogwarts.
She Brushed With Death
Ginny might not have been able to see the Thestrals, but she very nearly could. She defended herself brilliantly during the Battle Of Hogwarts but was no match for a witch as experienced and aggressively evil as Bellatrix Lestrange. Back in the Great Hall, Bellatrix’s killing curse missed Ginny by just centimetres, meaning she was a hairs-width from dying right then and there.
This particular scene inspired the wrath of Molly Weasley, who leapt up and killed Bellatrix straight away: “Not my daughter, you bitch!”.
She Married Harry
There are a lot of people who still think Harry should have ended up with Hermione, but the signs were always there to suggest Harry and Ginny were perfect for each other. Sure, she might have spent a sizeable portion of her early life idolising and worshipping him, but once this tamed itself a little, they were always going to be together.
Just look at them at the end of The Deathly Hallows Part 2 as they wait to send their children off to Hogwarts. They look like the couple they were always destined to be.
And They Had Children
The couple ended up having three children, each with absolutely terrible, cringy referential names: James Sirius, Albus Severus, Lily Luna. They all went off to Hogwarts, getting up to a variety of adventures that ended up front and centre in The Cursed Child.
For example, Albus Severus befriended Draco Malfoy’s son Scorpius, and the two went on a mission to stop the child of Voldemort from turning back time and changing history into that of Voldemort-dominated world of pain and torture.