Blog response #2: Neville Longbottom

One character who has undergone the most transformation since the beginning of the Harry Potter series is Neville Longbottom. Ron Weasley, I feel, deserves an honerable mention because of his character transformation since the Sorcerer's Stone. Ron starts out as Harry's source of knowledge of the wizarding world, and forms an important corner of the Hermione, Harry, Ron trio. Hermione is book smart, and simply knows everything. Harry is the fearless leader who heads the plans. And Ron has the strategical know-how to put Hermione's brains and Harry's fearless nature into action. This however only happens once in the first book in the form of life-sized wizard's chess, when the trio dungeion dives for the stone. After that heroic moment Ron becomes a much less important character and is mostly just there to be Harry's best friend.

In the background of the first book, wee see an awkward little kid fumbling with his toad - named Neville Longbottom. This character appears to be around for just sheer amusement, but as the series progesses, Longbottom in turn progresses into a powerhouse in his own right. He first starts to find his nitch in Herbology by the third book, really excelling in the fourth. We then learn in the fifth book that Neville has a traumatic past very much like Harry. His parent, while not dead, and in St. Mungo's due to being tortured to insanity by Death Eaters, and he has severe performance anxiety because his parents were amazing aurors - so he feels he needs to live up their talent. He starts to live up to this talent thanks to Dumbledore's Army in the fifth book, and demonstrates how far he's come once a small number of the D.A. infiltrate the Ministry. By the end of the encounter, he and Harry are crawling around the department's floor when the Death Eaters and Phoenix Members are dueling about them - Longbottom suffering from a rather gruesomely depicted curse on his legs.

The difference between Longbottom in a body-bind curse in the Gryffindor common room, and Longbottom on the ministry floor with his legs cursed is a great amount of confidence. He is beginning to develop into a bolder figure, and we can expect him to continue onward and be a significant character once we get to the close of the series.