Harry Potter's Relatives

The following are fictional characters in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. They are all relatives of the main character, Harry Potter.

The Potters

Adrian Rawlins as James Potter, one of the Saunders triplets as baby Harry, and Geraldine Somerville as Lily Evans

James and Lily Potter had a son, Harry James Potter, born on July 31, 1980. In an interview, Rowling revealed that James and Lily were asked by Lord Voldemort to join the Death Eaters, but refused, making it "one strike against them before they were even out of their teens".¹ Both of them belonged to the Order of the Phoenix, an organisation created and led by Albus Dumbledore for wizards and witches who want to battle Voldemort and his followers, the Death Eaters. Dumbledore was given a prophecy by Sybill Trelawney that someone who could defeat the Dark Lord would be born to parents who had already defied him three times. Voldemort was told part of the prophecy by Severus Snape, who had been caught outside the door after hearing the first half of the prophecy.

Although both Harry and Neville Longbottom matched the description, Voldemort went after Harry because he was a half-blood just like him and resolved to kill him. The Potters were deep in hiding through the Fidelius Charm, but on 31 October, 1981, the Potters' whereabouts were betrayed by their friend Peter Pettigrew, and they were attacked without warning at their home in Godric's Hollow. James told his wife to run and take Harry while he held Voldemort off. Wandless, and quite incapable of holding back the Dark Lord, he was killed.

Lily could have saved herself when Voldemort attacked her family, since he offered her the chance to step aside while he killed Harry. Voldemort's single motive for offering to spare Lily's life at the request of Snape is revealed in the seventh book, but Lily refused and Voldemort killed her. The result of her selfless act of love was to invoke an ancient magic that gave Harry an innate defence against Voldemort. Rowling has stated that Lily did not know that this would happen because "it never happened before". This magic manifested itself two ways: First, when Voldemort attempted to kill Harry with the Killing Curse, Avada Kedavra (which had never before been survived), the spell backfired, rendering Voldemort non-corporeal.

The lingering protection afforded to Harry by Lily's sacrifice rendered Voldemort unable to touch him physically. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Professor Quirrell, acting as host to Voldemort, was prevented from stealing the Philosopher's Stone because, while attempting to attack Harry, encountering Harry's skin severely burned him, eventually causing Quirrell to die, and forcing Voldemort to return to his non-corporeal state. Voldemort later overcame this inability to touch Harry by using Harry's blood to regenerate his own body. When Harry told Dumbledore this, he thought he saw, for a fleeting instant, something like "a gleam of triumph" in Dumbledore's eyes. When asked about the gleam of triumph, Rowling said, '"That's still enormously significant. And let's face it, I haven't told you that much is enormously significant, so you can let your imaginations run free there".² In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, after Voldemort used the Killing Curse on Harry, Dumbledore told him that so long as his blood, with Lily's protection in it, still lived in Voldemort, Harry's life was protected.

The second way in which Harry is protected by Lily's sacrifice occurs at the Dursley residence in Little Whinging. Harry was taken in by Lily's sister, Petunia. Dumbledore told Harry that he had extended Lily's protection to the home where Petunia lived, because Lily and Petunia are related by blood. This protection ends when Harry comes of age at 17.

In Deathly Hallows, when Harry goes off to die at Voldemort's hands, he uses the Resurrection Stone to summon the spirits of Lily, James, Sirius, and Lupin. They come back as "more than ghost but less than flesh" and tell him that they are proud of him. The four of them escort him to Voldemort, and when he drops the Resurrection Stone, they disappear. Their presence gives him the courage to do what he needs to do. Also in the final book, Harry visits his parents' tomb in the graveyard in Godric's Hollow where the quotation "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" is engraved upon the tombstone. This quotation is from the Bible, 1 Corinthians 15:26.

James Potter

James Potter is the father of Harry Potter. According to the Chronology of the Harry Potter stories he was born on 27 March 1960, and died on 31 October 1981.

Rowling describes James and Harry as having similar attributes: the same thin face, same hands, and the same untidy black hair sticking up at the back, and (nearly) the same height as his son during their school days. However, Rowling also describes James as having hazel eyes and a slightly longer nose than Harry does. Like Harry, James is generally described to be a good, loyal friend who "regarded it as the height of dishonor to mistrust his friends".³ He attended Hogwarts from 1971 to 1978 where he was in Gryffindor. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban it is revealed that James's best friends were Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, and that the four were known as The Marauders. They illegally became Animagi in order to keep Remus company when he involuntarily transformed into a werewolf in the Shrieking Shack. James became a stag, thus he was nicknamed Prongs. (Harry's Patronus Charm takes the form of a stag, clearly a likeness of "Prongs", his father). Rowling confirmed that the animal one turned to as an Animagus reflected one's personality.⁴ James's wand was 11 inches long, made of mahogany, pliable and excellent for Transfiguration.

Characters in the books often comment on James's personality, about which Rowling comments that "there was a lot of good in James".⁵ The Hogwarts student population seems to have admired James back in his day⁶. Minerva McGonagall, Albus Dumbledore, Madam Rosmerta, and Rubeus Hagrid maintain positive feelings about him⁷⁸⁹, whereas Severus Snape constantly tells Harry that he considered James to be "exceedingly arrogant".¹⁰ Even Lily once calls him an "arrogant toerag",¹¹ and at one occasion, Sirius admits that he and James could sometimes be "arrogant little berks" but that "[James] grew out of it" (which Lily is said to have noted by their seventh year).⁶ In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, after seeing a scene from Snape's memories of a fifteen-year-old James within a Pensieve, Harry agrees with Snape's assessment of his father's arrogance after witnessing his father and Sirius bullying Snape; the revelation leaves Harry deeply depressed and disheartened. According to Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, however, James and Snape shared a rivalry not unlike that of Draco Malfoy and Harry. In addition, Lupin tells Harry in Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix that Snape "never lost an opportunity to curse James".⁶ According to Rowling in a recent interview: "James always suspected Snape harboured deeper feelings for Lily, which was a factor in James's behaviour to Snape".¹² However, when Sirius had attempted to goad Snape into the Shrieking Shack where Lupin was transforming into a werewolf, James saved Snape's life.

As an only child, James was very pampered as "an extra treasure" because his parents were already elderly when he was born.¹³⁵ At Hogwarts, James was a brilliant student, appointed as Head Boy without being a prefect, and said to have been a talented player on the Gryffindor Quidditch team.¹⁴¹⁰⁶ In the film version of Philosopher's Stone, Harry and his friends find James's name listed on a plaque as a Seeker on his Quidditch team; however, Rowling stated in an interview that he was in fact a Chaser.¹⁵

After graduating from Hogwarts, James — along with Lily and his friends — were "full-time fighters" for the Order of Phoenix, and did not hold regular jobs. Remus's status as a werewolf made him unemployable, and so James supported his friend, himself, and Lily off inherited family gold.¹⁶¹⁷

In the film series, James is portrayed by Adrian Rawlins as an adult, and by Robbie Jarvis as a teenager.

Lily Evans

Lily Potter (née Evans) is the mother of Harry Potter, who was murdered on the same night as her husband by Lord Voldemort. According to the Chronology of the Harry Potter stories she was born on 30 January 1960, and died on 31 October 1981.

While at Hogwarts, James met his future wife Lily, who was also in her first year. Lily's wand was 10¼ inches, made of willow, swishy and excellent for Charms. She is described as being very pretty,¹⁸ with startlingly green almond-shaped eyes and thick, shoulder-length dark red hair. In addition, Lily was one of the brightest students of her year, with a natural and intuitive ability at Potions.¹⁹²⁰ She was one of the "all-time favourite students" of Professor Slughorn, who described her as "vivacious", "charming", "very brave", and "very funny".²⁰²¹ Rowling describes Lily as being "a bit of a catch", she was a popular girl for whom many boys, including James, had romantic feelings.¹³

Lily was Muggle-born, and her sister Petunia despised her for being a witch and viewed her as a "freak". The reader learns that Petunia resented the manner in which their parents favoured Lily and that she herself had wanted to attend Hogwarts, an ambition gently turned away by Dumbledore. Rowling stated on her site that Lily did receive warning letters for testing the limits of the statute of secrecy.²² Lily's Patronus is a doe, presumably to pair with James's Animagus shape of a stag.²³²⁴

Lily was Head Girl in her final year at Hogwarts. For most of the time they were students, she and James addressed each other only by their surnames. However, James was shown doodling Lily's initials during an examination in their fifth year, and Sirius recalled that James could not resist showing off (and making a fool of himself) whenever she was around. Harry gathered the impression that Lily hated James, but Sirius and Lupin assured him that she did not hate him; they "simply got off on the wrong foot".⁶ Rowling confirmed this view when asked how Lily and James had gotten together if Lily hated him; Rowling replied, "Did she really? You're a woman, you know what I'm saying".¹³ Lupin told Harry that after James matured and changed his attitude, Lily started dating him in their seventh year.⁶ Rowling later echoed Lupin's words, describing it as James having to "[tone] down some of his more 'bombastic' behaviour".⁵ They married soon after leaving Hogwarts with Sirius acting as best man at their wedding. The four were full-time members of the Order and did not hold regular jobs; Remus and Lily were supported by James's money.¹⁶¹⁷

The old, pre-Hogwarts friendship between Lily and Snape is fully revealed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, along with the fact that Snape harboured unrequited romantic feelings for Lily from childhood. Rowling states that Lily might even have returned those feelings if Snape had not become so seriously involved in the Dark Arts.²⁵ During their early years at Hogwarts, Lily expressed her concerns about Snape's attraction to these arts and about his choice of friends. Already strained, their relationship ended in their fifth year at Hogwarts, when Snape, in a moment of humiliation, unthinkingly called Lily a "Mudblood" after she had defended him against James and Sirius.¹¹ Subsequently, Snape refuses to utter the word "Mudblood" and hates hearing it used, as shown in book 7, when Phineas Nigellus Black refers to Hermione Granger as a "Mudblood". Snape becomes a Death Eater and informs Voldemort of an overheard prophecy, which Voldemort takes to refer to Lily and her son, Harry. Fearing for Lily's life, Snape joins the Order of the Phoenix, as a spy for Dumbledore, in exchange for what he hopes will be Dumbledore's protection of Lily. This hope fails when, despite Snape's pleas that she should be spared, Voldemort kills Lily because she refuses to step aside so that he can murder Harry. After Lily's death, Snape is persuaded by Dumbledore to devote his life to protecting Harry in order to honour the sacrifice of the woman he never ceased to love.

Though Harry bears a great resemblance to his father, it is often noted that he has Lily's eyes. In a 1999 interview, Rowling stated that "Harry has his father and mother's good looks. But he has his mother's eyes and that's very important in a future book".²⁶ That "future book" was Deathly Hallows. In Snape's death scene in that novel, after having passed his memories to Harry, he whispers to Harry: "Look... at... me..." In one of Snape's memories, it is revealed that Dumbledore convinces Snape to protect Harry after Lily's death by mentioning the fact that he has "precisely" the same eyes as his mother.

Lily is portrayed by Geraldine Somerville as an adult, and by Susie Shinner as a teenager.

The Dursleys

Fiona Shaw as Aunt Petunia, Harry Melling as Dudley, and Richard Griffiths as Uncle Vernon

The Dursley family are Harry Potter's last living relatives. In order to ensure his safety, Albus Dumbledore placed Harry under their care as a baby. The Dursleys live at Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging in Surrey, England.

The Dursleys are all Muggles, and despise all things related to magic and the Wizarding World, including Harry himself. One morning Petunia discovers her infant nephew, Harry, on her doorstep as she put out the milk bottles. There is a note left with baby Harry by Dumbledore, which explains that his parents Lily and James had been killed by Voldemort, how Lily has sacrificed herself to save her son's life and how living with his only other relatives would protect him from Voldemort until he comes of age at 17, when the charm his mother left breaks. Petunia and Vernon grudgingly agree to raise Harry, but they keep him as downtrodden as possible in an attempt to squash the magic out of him; they never tell him how his parents died, instead telling him they had been killed in a car crash and not to ask questions (about that or anything else).

The name "Dursley" derives from the small town in Gloucestershire, near to the birthplace of J. K. Rowling.

Vernon Dursley

Vernon Dursley is the first character introduced in the Harry Potter series. He is Harry's uncle —he is married to Petunia, Lily Potter's sister, and they have a son named Dudley. Vernon is described as a big, beefy man, with hardly any neck, and a large moustache. He is very much the head of his household, laying down most of the rules for Harry and doing most of the threatening while his wife turns a deaf ear, as well as spoiling his own son. He is also the director of a drill-making company, Grunnings, and seems to be quite successful in his career.

Uncle Vernon and his wife have grudgingly raised Harry from an early age, denying him any information about the magical world, including how his parents died. Unlike Petunia, who seems to have the slightest feeling of familial loyalty to Harry, Vernon seems to hate his nephew so much that in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, he is willing to throw him out of the house, knowing that doing so would put him in grave danger. In fact, while discussing the Dementor attack with Harry, Vernon actually hopes aloud that Harry would receive the death penalty. Vernon also has an aversion to imagination, or to any references to magic, or anything even slightly out of the ordinary—such as in the first book, when Harry mentions dreaming about a flying motorcycle, Uncle Vernon responds by angrily bellowing that motorcycles do not fly, despite Harry's protests that it was only a dream.

When the family leaves Privet Drive for the last time in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, he nearly shakes Harry's hand good-bye, however due to his dislike of both Harry and magic overall, refrains from doing so at the last second. It is implied that after their separation in the beginning of the seventh book, Uncle Vernon and Harry would never see each other again.

Vernon is portrayed by British actor Richard Griffiths in the film series.

Petunia Dursley

Petunia Dursley (née Evans), is Harry’s aunt. She is described as being a blonde (changed to dark haired in the films), bony woman with a "rather horsey" face and a very long neck, which she uses to spy on her neighbours. Her eyes are large and pale, quite unlike her sister's. Her whole family is made up of Muggles, except for her sister Lily who was a Muggle-born witch. According to Petunia, her parents were proud of having a witch in the family, but Petunia saw her sister as a freak, due to jealousy of her magical abilities.²⁷

In the seventh book, it is revealed that the Evans girls lived near Spinner's End, the residence of Tobias and Eileen Snape. Their son, Severus, seems to have observed Lily's magical talents from a young age, and took a strong liking to her (despite her status as a Muggle-born). Petunia on the other hand, seems to have been envious of her sister's abilities. She went so far as to write to Dumbledore pleading to be allowed to enter Hogwarts. Petunia was gently denied enrolment at Hogwarts; she has since been terribly cold towards the school, and by extension, the magical community as a whole. In a letter that Lily wrote to Sirius Black (which Harry read in the Blacks' house), she makes reference to Harry nearly smashing "that horrible vase that Petunia sent" with his toy broomstick and adds "no complaints there". This indicates that the sisters were still in touch at the time, and at least enough for Petunia to send her sister holiday gifts. This also echoes Harry's Christmas presents from the Dursley family which are never pretty or welcome, but do show a grudging sign of attachment from the family. At some point, she met Vernon Dursley and married him. On 22 June 1980 they had a son named Dudley. Petunia had not seen her sister for years and usually pretended she did not have one at all.

Petunia has more knowledge about the wizarding world than she will admit. At the very least, Petunia has proved she knows what Dementors and Azkaban are. In Order of the Phoenix, Petunia hears her husband ask what a Dementor is, to which she responds, "They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban." When Harry and the rest of her family look at her strangely for knowing this magical information, she responds that she heard "that awful boy" telling Lily about them years ago. Harry angrily retorts that if she is going to talk about his parents, she could at least use their names, but she does not respond to his retort. It is revealed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, after Snape has died and passed his memories to Harry, that Petunia was in fact referring to Snape, who had a long friendship with Lily and used exactly the same words, "They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban," to describe Dementors to her. Petunia overheard the exchange and remembered Snape's explanation. While she resents Lily for being able to do magic and go on to Hogwarts while she is left behind in the Muggle world, Petunia retains knowledge of the magical world and has a bit of an idea of the dangers that Harry faces (mainly from information that she had gleaned from eavesdropping on conversations between Snape and Lily).

When Harry leaves the Dursleys at the beginning of the seventh book, it is implied that he never sees Petunia again. Before the Dursleys leave, she almost wishes him good luck, showing that she does feel a tiny amount of attachment to her nephew, however her enforced dislike of Harry and magic prevent her from doing so and she leaves without a word.

Actress Fiona Shaw portrays Petunia in the films.

Dudley Dursley

Dudley Dursley is the only child of Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and as Harry's only cousin, he is quite an unlikable character. Described as a very large, blond (although his hair is black in the films) boy, Dudley is generally given his way in almost everything, and shows the symptoms of a spoiled brat. A great bully, he leads a gang of thugs with whom he regularly beats up younger children on the flimsiest of excuses. Dudley and Harry went to a school in Surrey together, where Dudley and his gang of bullies ruled the school. With each passing year Dudley was overindulged in every way by his parents, which eventually made him morbidly obese and a careless student.^[HP4] The same year Harry started at Hogwarts, Dudley was enrolled at his father's old boarding school, Smeltings. By age fifteen, Dudley has become physically strong, and he has taken an interest in boxing and seems skilled in it. Dudley also starts smoking on street corners and throwing rocks at passing cars and children with his gang.

Dudley has had incredibly bad luck during the books and is therefore a rather ineffective person. In Philosopher's Stone, Dudley knocks Harry down to get in front of the glass case of a python at the zoo and Harry inadvertently vanishes the glass. Though the snake slithered out to freedom and gave passers by a few playful nips at the heel, Dudley declares that the snake nearly took a chunk out of his leg. In the same year, he is given a pig's tail by Rubeus Hagrid. This tail had to be removed at a private hospital in London. In Goblet of Fire, he becomes wider than he is tall, and the school outfitters tell the Dursleys that they do not stock school uniforms that can accommodate Dudley's size; the Smeltings school nurse advises the Dursleys to put Dudley on a strict diet, and sends a list of recommended foods—fruits and vegetables. During the summer when this diet is enforced, the Weasley family comes to pick Harry up for the Quidditch World Cup. Dudley is afraid of them and attempts to protect his buttocks from magical abuse by keeping his hands clamped on it and shuffling along the wall. Fred and George Weasley "accidentally" drop a magical Ton-Tongue Toffee which enlarges Dudley's tongue to four feet before his hysterical mother reluctantly allows Mr Weasley to shrink it.

In the fifth book two dementors (sent by Dolores Umbridge) attack Dudley and Harry. Dudley collapses, and Harry uses the Patronus Charm to drive the dementors away from himself and his cousin. He half carries the shaken Dudley home, while Dudley is convinced that Harry used magic to draw the dementors to them. After the confrontation, Harry wonders what sort of bad memories the pampered, spoiled Dudley could have relived, as dementors force people to relive their worst experiences. Rowling later revealed, in an online chat, that Dudley's worst fear was seeing himself for who he really was, and that this was what the dementors inflicted on him.²³ The experience did, in fact, give Dudley a more favourable impression of Harry, although this new impression did not by any means extend to Dudley's parents. Even so, Harry would remain unaware of Dudley's changed viewpoint until the final book. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Dudley is the only member of the Dursley family to accept Harry: he shakes his hand and thanks him for saving his soul from the dementor attack in the events of Order of the Phoenix. Harry, as well as Petunia and Vernon, are surprised by Dudley's reaction. It is thought that he may have wished to make amends with Harry over the summer, as he left a cup of tea outside Harry's door and showed some concern for him when the Dursleys left to go into hiding. In his appreciation of his cousin's belated gratitude, Harry says good-bye to him using Dudley's former gang name, "Big D".

Rowling revealed on her website on December 7th in the year of 2007 that many people have asked her to include an adult Dudley with a wizarding child in the epilogue of Deathly Hallows, and that she herself considered it, but decided upon reflection that any "latent wizarding genes would never survive contact with Uncle Vernon's DNA" and thus she did not do so. Rowling says that Harry and Dudley would stay on "Christmas Card" terms for the rest of their lives,²⁸ and that Harry would take his family to visit Dudley's when they were in the neighbourhood, but it was something that James, Albus and Lily "would dread".²⁹ However, Dudley's kids and Harry's occasionally would "get together while the adults sat in awkward silence".

Dudley is portrayed by Harry Melling.

Marge Dursley

Marjorie "Marge" Dursley is Vernon's sister and is described as being just like him, a large woman with hardly any neck and even a bit of a moustache. Though she is not a blood relative of Harry, he has been forced to call her "Aunt Marge" throughout his whole life with the Dursleys. Marge lives in the country, where she breeds bulldogs. Due to this, she rarely visits Privet Drive, to Harry's great delight. However, each of her visits stands out in Harry's mind for her cruelty to him. Owing to Vernon and Petunia's beliefs, Aunt Marge believes that Harry is a horrible boy, and delights in insulting both him and his dead parents. Her most recent known visit was in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, when, after she insulted Harry's mother and father, an enraged Harry accidentally inflated her, causing her to thus resemble a floating balloon--a possible metaphor towards her being high on her own 'hot air'. She was later rescued, changed back to normal, and the Ministry of Magic modified her memory. She also appeared in a memory in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—Harry being chased up a tree by one of Marge's bulldogs at age ten while the Dursleys laugh at him from the ground and Marge refuses to call the dog off.

Pam Ferris appeared as Marge in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Family tree