16 Times The Heroes In 'Harry Potter' Were Just As Bad As The Villains
In the Harry Potter series, it is established that "the world isn't separated between good people and Death Eaters," and that people can act like villains even if they're not supposed to be bad. While the worst Harry Potter characters are stereotypically evil, the protagonists themselves have been guilty of behaving just like the villains. This list considers the characters that are generally deemed to be "good guys" who act unlike what heroes are supposed to be like.
It ranges from their worst decisions to them displaying nasty - even malevolent - attitudes and the kind of behavior that doesn't leave much to separate them from the baddies.
- 13,646 VOTES
Snape Abuses Neville To The Point That He's The Boy's Worst Fear
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- Prisoner of Azkaban
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Snape is established as a good guy when it turns out that he was Dumbledore's double agent all along. That doesn't mean everything he did was an act, as his bullying of Neville was for his own fun.
Neville spends the first five years at Hogwarts dreading being around Snape, as the latter bullies him relentlessly by mocking him in class and hurling personal insults at him. This results in Snape being the form Neville's boggart takes, proving he so severely traumatized the boy that Snape is his biggest fear.
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- 23,178 VOTES
Snape Attempts To Poison Neville's Pet
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- Prisoner of Azkaban
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Snape's bullying of Neville aside, this move is completely inexcusable, as he intended to harm an innocent animal. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, when the students are supposed to be making a shrinking potion, Snape knows that a wrong concoction will turn into poison and tells Neville that he'll make his toad drink the potion to see if he made it right, knowing that Neville is useless at concocting potions and is guaranteed to make poison instead of the shrinking potion.
It's Hermione's heroic act of giving Neville instructions under her breath that allows him to create the right potion, which saves the life of the toad by turning it into a tadpole instead of poisoning it. To this, Snape takes points from Gryffindor since he wanted to see the toad be poisoned.
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- 33,339 VOTES
James Potter Has A History Of Extreme Bullying - Including Snape And Other Students
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- Order of the Phoenix
- Warner Bros. Pictures
James Potter is lauded in the entire series for being a good guy who was killed in his youth. However, Harry finds out that James was a bully, and that he and Sirius had hexed people just for the heck of it. It is said that he "outgrew" this, but considering James was only 21 when he perished, and was on the run for a year or two, he was basically a bully for just about his whole life.
What's worse is that James picked on Snape to the point where Snape developed severe trust issues and became bitter beyond redemption. In Snape's memories, Harry sees James bullying him due to Sirius being bored, and James proceeds to pelt Snape with spells to make Sirius laugh. He also takes Snape's clothes off with magic to further humiliate him while belittling him in front of Lily since he knows Snape is his romantic rival. This bullying wasn't just for Snape, as it's revealed that James picked on just about anyone because he was too arrogant with his natural talent.
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- 43,047 VOTES
Sirius Treats Kreacher Horribly, And It's Treated Like A Joke
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- Deathly Hallows: Part 1
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Hermione isn't wrong when she brands the servitude of house-elves as slave labor, seeing as nobody other than her considers the ethics of making these creatures do their bidding or thinks that outright hitting or cursing at them makes a difference. Sirius certainly doesn't consider Kreacher to be worthy of care, as he severely mistreats the house-elf by hurling things at him and screaming at Kreacher as his exclusive mode of communication.
The other characters even laugh whenever Sirius mistreats Kreacher, considering it a source of amusement, with the justification that Kreacher is "ugly." Kreacher openly weeps in front of Sirius, only for the latter to throw him out or toss around Kreacher's cherished possessions. It gets worse when one realizes that Kreacher was treated better by the insane Bellatrix than by Harry's beloved uncle Sirius.
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- 53,194 VOTES
Dumbledore's Original Plan Involves Actively Getting Harry Killed By Voldemort
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- Deathly Hallows: Part 2
- Warner Bros. Pictures
It's pure luck that saves Harry in the end, as Dumbledore's plan was to prepare him for the moment he can walk up to Voldemort and face his demise. Voldemort chooses to take Harry's blood to make his new body, which grants Harry protection from Voldemort since they both share the blood that was magically protected by Harry's mother. Dumbledore never anticipated this - instead, he feels glad that Harry can now have a chance of survival.
His original plan was to simply make Harry aware of the Horcruxes to destroy them, while using Snape to keep Harry safe until all the Horcruxes were gone. At that point, Harry (being the last Horcrux himself) would skip along to Voldemort to get himself killed. This is essentially the biggest betrayal in the series since all of Dumbledore's relationship with Harry is just a sham that conveniently gets side-stepped due to Voldemort taking Harry's blood.
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- 62,398 VOTES
Everyone Has A Distinct Lack Of Sympathy Toward Moaning Myrtle
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- Chamber of Secrets
- Warner Bros. Pictures
It becomes a running gag to see Myrtle lose her head in anger whenever anyone makes a comment on her deceased nature. However, it's not really a laughing matter since she was slain by the basilisk at a time when she had been crying due to being ostracized. Harry and his friends never ponder this, as they consider Myrtle a nuisance and think her sadness over her demise isn't important.
In Half-Blood Prince, Ron intentionally mocks her when he suggests Myrtle's newest friend (later revealed to be Malfoy) lives in a toilet S-bend like her, then laughs when she leaves in tears. Harry doesn't react - other than feeling glad Ron is in a better mood after making fun of Myrtle.
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- 72,869 VOTES
Harry Almost Takes Malfoy's Life But Worries Only About His Book
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- Half Blood Prince
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Harry finds a spell called "Sectumsempra" in the Half-Blood Prince's book and reserves it for use against enemies. He later gets into a duel with Malfoy, who himself is a real piece of work for attempting to use the Cruciatus Curse. However, Harry's use of Sectumsempra leaves Malfoy lacerated and with severe hemorrhaging that is about to end him. Snape arrives at the right time to reverse the spell, although it still leaves Malfoy with permanent scarring.
What's bad is that Harry doesn't really care about the fact that he nearly terminated someone, as he's more worried about Snape finding out about the Half-Blood Prince's book. Harry then goes to great lengths to hide the book, and still intends to retrieve it after he's off of Snape's radar while never pondering what he did to Malfoy or feeling guilt over it.
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- 82,527 VOTES
The Marauders Let A Werewolf Run Around In The Open Because They Think It's Fun
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- Prisoner of Azkaban
- Warner Bros. Pictures
After learning how to be Animagi, the Marauders - Sirius, James, and Peter Pettigrew - accompany Remus Lupin whenever he turns into a werewolf. Years later, Lupin admits this was his greatest regret. He allowed his friends to manipulate him into leaving the Shrieking Shack to roam around at night because they thought it was fun. When Hermione points out that Remus could easily have bitten or savaged someone along the way, the latter has no response but to agree that he and his friends were wrong.
In this scenario, the remaining Marauders are the ones who truly acted as villains because they acted deliberately despite knowing the potential consequences.
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- 92,273 VOTES
The Weasley Twins Put Montague's Life In Danger, Then Joke About It
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- Goblet of Fire
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Montague is one of the Slytherins who gets inducted into the Inquisitorial Squad - Umbridge's goons who antagonize the other students - and tries to take house points from George and Fred. The twins respond by stuffing Montague into a Vanishing Cabinet, then trotting off to brag about it. This is never treated as a big deal even though Montague is trapped all by himself, and Malfoy later recounts his story that Montague almost perished in there.
In the end, Montague escapes only because he apparates out of there, and has to be placed in the hospital in a delirious state. The Weasley twins never get any comeuppance for this and mention this story as if they did it out of boredom.
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- 102,349 VOTES
Ron Tells Harry That People Have Perished Because Of Him
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Nothing can harm a person like Harry as much as those closest to him turning their backs on him. This is what Ron does to him in Deathly Hallows, where he pins the blame of his family being under threat on Harry. Although Ron is influenced by Voldemort's Horcrux locket, Hermione also wears it and doesn't treat Harry any differently. Meanwhile, Ron snaps and accuses Harry of undermining the Weasleys' troubles, claiming he doesn't have anything to worry about since his parents are deceased, and that Harry is causing his family to go that way, too.
After Ron abandons Harry, his words leave a lasting impression, as Harry spends the remaining weeks burdened by the feeling that he's the one who has caused all the bloodshed so far.
- 112,223 VOTES
Hermione Assaults Ron To The Point Where He's Injured
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- Half Blood Prince
- Warner Bros. Pictures
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ron finds out that Lavender Brown is interested in him and returns her advances. Hermione is dismayed that Ron doesn't realize she likes him too, and hides out in a classroom where Harry finds her. Admittedly, Ron does act like a prat because he's angry Hermione had once kissed Viktor Krum, but that doesn't warrant physical mistreatment, which Hermione follows through with.
After her anger gets out of control, she conjures birds that dart toward Ron and start pecking him furiously and relentlessly. They attack him to the point that Ron's arms get bloody and bruised, and he's later seen sporting cuts that the birds left on him - all because Hermione didn't like that Ron kissed a girl when he wasn't even involved with Hermione to begin with.
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- 122,459 VOTES
Hermione Permanently Scars Marietta And Doesn't Regret It
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- Deathly Hallows: Part 1
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Marietta Edgecombe betrays Dumbledore's Army when she thinks they have plans to overthrow Umbridge's hold on the school. While she's definitely a traitor, her point of view is a little more sympathetic since her mother works for the Ministry and Marietta wants to save her job while believing, like the rest of the Wizarding World at the time, that Harry is lying. As soon as she betrays them, boils appear on her face that spell out "SNEAK." Understandably, Marietta is distraught that she's been disfigured.
Hermione reveals that she put a jinx on the parchment containing all the names of Dumbledore's Army members, and the one to break the secret would suffer this jinx. However, she never reverses this curse even after Harry is proven right and the Ministry acknowledges this. Marietta goes on to live with this permanent disfigurement, which can't be hidden even when she wears thick makeup. Hermione doesn't regret leaving Marietta this way for the rest of her life, even though it's a horrible thing to do.
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- 131,994 VOTES
Fred Weasley Purposefully Makes Dudley Choke On His Own Tongue
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- Goblet of Fire
- Warner Bros. Pictures
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Fred accompanies his brothers and father to the Dursley house to take Harry to the Burrow. He spots Dudley there and "accidentally" drops a toffee near him, knowing that Dudley wouldn't be able to resist eating it.
The toffee - which Fred had experimented upon - turns out to be cursed to enlarge Dudley's tongue enormously, with Dudley eventually choking on his own tongue, as it's too big for him to be able to breathe. This nearly ends Dudley until Mr. Weasley intervenes, but the whole ordeal is treated as a joke by Harry and the other Weasley children.
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- 142,255 VOTES
Harry Torments A Death Eater And Enjoys It
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- Order of the Phoenix
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Harry can get a pass for using the torture curse on Bellatrix since she had just taken out his uncle, but his next use of the Cruciatus Curse was for his own satisfaction.
In Deathly Hallows, Harry sees Amycus Carrow spit on Professor McGonagall while in hiding, prompting him to reveal his presence, then send Carrow into oblivion. Harry keeps the curse on hold long enough for Carrow to be knocked out, which is remarkable since the curse is designed to torment the target extensively until they lose their minds. Harry comments in satisfaction that he did mean to hurt Carrow so badly, something that leaves Professor McGonagall shaken, as she's never seen Harry take delight in causing pain.
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- 151,922 VOTES
Harry Verbally Abuses Ron And Hermione In Their Fifth Year
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- Order of the Phoenix
- Warner Bros. Pictures
To Harry's credit, he's viciously attacked by the Ministry and the media, and has to deal with his mind being hacked by Voldemort in Order of the Phoenix. However, this level of frustration doesn't mean abusing the ones on his side is okay. Harry makes it a habit to lash out at Hermione and Ron at every turn in their fifth year - so much so that the two are shown cowering in fear whenever he bursts out of control, or when they have something to say they know he'll get mad listening to.
Harry openly screams at the pair whenever he's in a bad mood, with Ron and Hermione feeling belittled and hurt by his harsh words. Considering how even Malfoy's verbal abuse never fazes them, Harry's angry tangents doing the trick proves he's even worse.
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- 162,331 VOTES
Harry Bullies Dudley Because He's Bored
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- Order of the Phoenix
- Warner Bros. Pictures
In the opening of Order of the Phoenix, Harry is disgruntled over being left out of the loop of the Wizarding World after he fought Voldemort, feeling nobody's valuing his struggle. To blow off steam, he spots Dudley with his friends and relishes the idea of bullying Dudley in public. When they don't notice Harry's presence, Harry pursues Dudley and finds him alone to begin belittling him. Dudley had only kept to himself before this, but Harry wanted to make fun of "Big D" just for kicks.
He goes on to mock Dudley's size, his mother's affection for him, and insults Dudley's intelligence. Harry even realizes what he's doing is mean but still bullies Dudley because it gives him the satisfaction of being in control. Considering Dudley had picked on him back in the day, Harry should have known how awful it feels to be on the receiving end.
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