"Fenrir Greyback is, perhaps, the most savage werewolf alive today. He considers it as his mission to bite and to contaminate as many people as possible; he wants to create enough werewolves to overcome the wizards. Voldemort has promised him prey in return for his services. Greyback specializes in children... Bite them young, he says, and raise them away from their parents, raise them to hate normal wizards. Voldemort has threatened to unleash him upon people's sons and daughters; it is a threat that usually produces good results."
—Remus Lupin describing Fenrir Greyback, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
|

AVADA KEDRAVA!
Every since the creation of the franchise Rowling has created quite a few vile villains.
The Books and Films[]
- Lord Voldemort, AKA Thomas Marvolo Riddle Jr., may be an archetypal villain, but he's still notably an utter sociopath; the very first chapter of the first book is all about how he killed two young parents and then tried to kill their one-year-old. He started TWO genocidal wars against Muggle-borns, voluntarily split his own soul into seven parts using the murders he committed, and casually uses Avada Kedavra - one of the three spells so horrible that a single use puts you in Azkaban for life. During a flashback to the night of the murder of Harry's parents (that Harry experiences from Voldemort's POV), Voldemort encountered a child who mistook his face for a mask. Said child fled when he quickly learned that wasn't the case, and yet he still contemplated killing the child for the "grievous" offense of basically looking at him funny. Naturally, he would only become worse over time his magical transformations and soul-mutilations have visibly taken a toll on his mind. And yet, for all his craving of death and destruction, it also proved to be his biggest fear - so much that he was willing to utterly destroy his soul and the lives of many innocents in order to escape death and rule the Wizarding World.
- The sixth and seventh books explain his transformation into a monster, but do not attempt to change the fact that he was a heartless, manipulative killer before he even graduated. Rather than feeling any remorse for his actions, his only concern was making sure he could avoid discovery and continue his education. Specifically, in the sixth book it's revealed he was conceived under a Love Potion, with the implication that children conceived this way always turn out sociopathic; this could have been mitigated had he been raised by a loving mother, but his mother was so distraught that she allowed herself to die after giving birth.
- Dolores Umbridge is a domineering and abusive matron figure and a bureaucrat whose pettiness and personal failings cause catastrophic harm to those under her control, with a constant housewife-smile about her in the film, even when she's administering those horrible crimes against humanity. She forces misbehaving students to cut up their own skin, which is surpassed by talking herself into both performing an illegal torture spell that has been proven to cause insanity, on a minor to boot. She is so repugnant and wicked that many readers despise her far more than the series' Big Bad. Doesn't even end there. She was also the reason why Remus Lupin, an unwilling werewolf, wasn't even able to find a job elsewhere and the reason why Dementors were sent out at Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley, as she ordered the Dementors to go after Harry to silence him regarding Voldemort's return (Dudley would just have been collateral damage). She orchestrated a situation where Harry Potter is forced to use the Patronus Charm in front of Dudley in an attempt to save them both, nearly resulting in Harry getting expelled. In the seventh book she presides over trials in a kangaroo court for the sake of sending innocent Muggle-born witches and wizards to Azkaban where more than a few of them died, just for their non-magical lineage and threatens to allow the Dementors to perform the Dementor's Kiss should they try to resist. And to top it off, these trials make her disturbingly similar to real-life Nazi war criminals. She also had Mad Eye Moody's fake eye hung up on her door. When Umbridge obtained one of Voldemort's Horcruxes She developed an affinity for this object, exponentially amplifying her magical power to the point where she could cast and uphold indefinitely a Patronus so powerful that its mere aura was enough to repel an entire Dementor swarm. Harry even alludes that she seemed to be in her element at the time. In fact, Rowling herself explained that Umbridge is such a horrible person, the Horcrux's aura was aiding her rather than harming her, hence how she was able to maintain such a powerful Patronus during a trial. Not to mention the fact that Umbridge was working for a regime Voldemort was controlling from behind the scenes. By this point in the story, the Ministry of Magic had acknowledged Voldemort's return, were trying to stop him, and the previous Minister of Magic had been assassinated and the Ministry of Magic was under Death Eater control. Rather than fight back against the coup, Umbridge signed on with them.
The Book Series[]
- Bellatrix Lestrange is a psychopathic female Death Eater who seems to be motivated primarily by her desire to inflict as much pain on as many people as possible - except Voldemort, on whom she has an obsessive crush. Bellatrix's insanity makes her an unfettered case of The Fundamentalist, and while Voldemort is a cold and unfeeling murderer, Bellatrix is gleeful cruelty incarnate. She has a special fondness for torturing people with the Cruciatus curse, sometimes to the point of driving them mad from the pain. In fact, she was the one primarily responsible for torturing Neville Longbottom's beloved auror parents into insanity and is disgustingly proud of it to the point to where she casually taunts Neville about it when they first meet. Actually, the depictions of her passion at points would almost produce some empathy for her. But that emotion is so horribly misguided that it only emphasizes her monstrosity. Bella is actually given one humanizing quality: she seems to care about her younger sister Narcissa. However, given that she makes a point of personally executing relatives who stray from the family tradition such as her own cousin Sirius Black and niece Nymphadora Tonks and went as far as to childishly taunt Harry over the death of the former, it's quite clear that this would last only as long as Narcissa is loyal to Voldemort. Bellatrix even said in the fifth book when they're talking to Snape about Voldemort giving Draco the mission to murder Dumbledore that if she had any sons, she'd gladly give them up in service to Voldemort. Narcissa eventually does betray the Dark Lord, though Bella doesn't live long enough to realize it. Bellatrix is so masterfully characterized that she's legitimately the most terrifying character in the whole story with her torture of Hermione (ESPECIALLY in the movie, which added some creepy, creepy rapey overtones to it) being one of the most nightmarish parts of the entire series. Her Karmic Death at the hands of Molly Weasley for threatening to murder Ginny was probably the most satisfying moment in the series.
- Fenrir Greyback. It's one thing for a werewolf to go helplessly violent in wolf form; it's another to bite people in human form just for the pleasure of ruining their lives. Or purposefully hiding in the woods near a family's home on the night of a full moon, so that when he transforms, they'll be his first targets. He's also responsible for Remus being a werewolf, biting Remus just because his father insulted him. Even though Malfoy was plotting to kill Dumbledore in the fifth book - admittedly under heavy duress - and name-dropped Greyback to intimidate people, when Greyback appeared at Hogwarts Malfoy was horrified Greyback actually showed up and denied inviting him despite having other Death Eaters there. Greyback has engaged in full-blown cannibalism too. When Dumbledore saw him in the sixth book, he voiced his suspicion that Greyback had a developed a taste for human flesh even when not in werewolf form. Greyback not only proudly confirmed it, but spoke with relish of "...throats to be ripped out... delicious, delicious" then offered to kill and/or eat Dumbledore afterwards. In the seventh book he outright wanted Hermione for himself when the main trio were held captive in Malfoy's manor and was very keen on the idea. In his last appearance he went to eat Lavender Brown during the Battle for Hogwarts in the book and was found gnawing on her bloodied neck in the film.
- Gormlaith Gaunt is Lord Voldemort's distant cousin from the 17th century, sharing all of his ruthlessness, bigotry, and devotion to the bloodline of Salazar Slytherin. Murdering both her own estranged sister and brother-in-law for helping their Muggle neighbours, Gormlaith adopts her 5-year-old niece Isolt and spends the next twelve years psychologically torturing her, even forcing the child to watch as she used dark magic on animals and innocent Muggles. When Isolt flees to America and starts a family with a Muggle husband, Gormlaith hatches a plan to repeat the entire process again by trying to slaughter the couple and kidnap her great-nieces, who would be subjected to the same horrors that their mother had to endure.
The Film Series[]
- Peter Pettigrew (AKA Wormtail) was already a traitor to the Order of the Phoenix in the originals, but in the films he doesn’t have any of his book counterparts mitigating qualities. He sets up his friend James and his wife Lily to be killed by Lord Voldemort along with their son, and frames another friend of his (Sirius Black) for the deaths along with the deaths of several Muggles. He later brings Lord Voldemort back to life, and voluntarily kills Cedric Diggory for his master. It’s made clear that he has a sadistic streak and actually enjoys killing others in this version as opposed to his book counterpart, and he never hesitated to kill Harry, either. And unlike the books, he never has any second thoughts about joining Voldemort.
- While he has a Freudian Excuse in the book - that of a "Well Done, Son" Guy who found approval in Lord Voldemort and seemed pitiable in the face of his abusive father - Barty Crouch Jr. is this in the film version of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. He disguises himself as professor Alastor Moody, locks the actual Alastor Moody in a magical trunk for nine months to the point of near-insanity, and then enters Harry into a life-endangering contest Harry was underage for, trying to make it look like Harry had entered himself into it. It's also implied that when the port-key in the maze led to Voldemort's lair, in turn causing the death of Cedric Diggory and almost causing the death of Harry Potter himself, apart from causing him to be tortured and traumatized, it was because Barty Crouch Junior had deliberately tampered with said portkey with intent to cause these things in the first place. While all this occurs in the book as well, he's presented without any sympathetic traits here, and even his motive has seemingly become For the Evulz. He even has something of a signature tongue flick resembling a snake!
- One of the things that makes him especially loathsome is that, along with Bellatrix, he helped turn Frank and Alice Longbottom insane. When teaching the students about the Cruciatus Curse, he intentionally drew out the torture of a bug to freak out Neville so he could show him exactly what he did to his parents. To be so proud of such a disgusting action that you show it to the nervous woobielicious son of your torture victims shows that Crouch Jr. is even more of a bastard than your standard Death Eater.
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery[]
- Patricia Rakepick is a Dark Witch seeking the power of the Cursed Vaults for herself and the organization known as "R". During Jacob's time at Hogwarts, Rakepick would work with Jacob in finding the Cursed Vaults, only to betray Jacob by willingly leaving him trapped in a portrait world within the Fifth Vault upon fleeing from the dragon guarding it. Resurfacing in Hogwarts in 1987, Rakepick would pose as a Curse-Breaker and use this position to gain the trust of Jacob's sibling and their friends, with the goal of using them as expendable bait for the dragon. After revealing her true colors at the end of the Fifth Year, Rakepick callously subjects Merula Snyde to the Cruciatus Curse multiple times and would have killed her had it not been for the intervention of Jacob's Sibling. Returning in the Sixth Year, Rakepick would launch an ambush in the Forbidden Forest and kill Rowan Khanna with a killing curse meant for Ben Cooper. When defeated at the end of Year Six, she displays no remorse for Rowan's murder, claiming that Rowan brought it on themselves by diving in harm's way.