The character that I will be looking at is Neville. When we first meet Neville, he is a shy, unconfident child who lost his toad in Sorcerer’s Stone. As the series progresses, we start to see small acts of bravery: the first time being Neville standing up against Harry, Ron and Hermione in the Sorcerer’s Stone telling them not to get Gryffindor in trouble again. By the end of Half-Blood Prince, we see Neville in a lieutenant role, leading members of the DA against the Death Eater attack within Hogwarts while Harry was with Dumbledore. Neville’s character is much like Harry. While Neville isn’t really an orphan, it may be easier for Harry to be an orphan to not know his parents, rather than having to visit living parents who are only shells of who they once were. Neville’s parents were tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange, so Neville’s bravery doesn’t begin to really show itself until Neville can come to terms with his parents’ injuries which we see in Order of the Phoenix when Harry meets Neville at St. Mungo’s. Another problem for Neville is his shyness which really hinders his ability to stand up for himself and succeed. Some of this is due to his grandmother’s unreasonably high expectations for him because of the comparisons to his parents. His parents were extremely talented witches and wizards so it was a disappointment for Neville’s grandmother to have to raise a clumsy grandson. This shyness affects Neville in terrible ways, especially in Snape’s potions classes where Snape chooses to unfairly pick on Neville which causes him to perform much more poorly. However, when given the chance, Neville clearly belongs in Gryffindor because he is brave; he just takes a majority of the series to develop that bravery and understand just how talented he really is.
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