Ginevra Weasley

Ginevra "Ginny" Molly Weasley (born August 11, 1981) is the youngest of Arthur Weasley and Molly Weasley's children. She has vivid red hair and bright brown eyes, is repeatedly described as small, with long red hair and bright brown eyes. According to Fred and George, she is a deceptively talented witch in spite of her size, noted for her skill with the Bat-Bogey Hex. She is also the first female to be born into the Weasley line for several generations.

Philosopher's Stone
Ginny is first introduced in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (she is, in fact, the first girl of about Harry's age properly introduced in the series). Her presence in Philosopher's Stone consists of two cameos, at the beginning and ending of the book, both at King's Cross: a minor one at the end of the book where she points at Harry and essentially squeaks, "Look, it's Harry Potter," and a more substantial one at the beginning of the book, where Harry manages to see her running, half-laughing, half-crying, after the train he is on &mdash; which contains her brothers, who are leaving for Hogwarts &mdash; then falling back to wave.

Chamber of Secrets
Ginny's entrance as a more solid character into the storyline co-incides with her entry to Hogwarts in 1992, a year after her brother Ron. While she appears to play a mostly behind-the-scenes role during the events of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (placed in the school year 1992 - 1993) &mdash; mainly looking mysteriously ill every once in a while, providing light comic relief resulting from her obvious crush on Harry and showing insight as to Harry's opinion of his fame ("He didn't want all that!") &mdash; she turns out to be the key to the whole mystery outlining the year, as it is revealed that an old magical school diary made by Tom Riddle (later revealed as one of six of Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes) took advantage of her insecurities and innocence, causing her to spill her soul into it, and eventually started to spill some of its own spirit into her &mdash; possessing her to access the Chamber of Secrets and unleash the Basilisk within on the school.

It turns out that Lucius Malfoy was the one responsible for making sure the diary would find its way into Ginny's hands, and that his target had not been Ginny at all, but rather to discredit her father, Arthur, who had been trying to pass a Muggle protection act. Riddle, however, put his own twist on the course of action he was predicted to take. Once Ginny tells "Tom" about Harry's survival and the destruction of Voldemort, rather than using Ginny to attack Muggle-borns and half-bloods, Riddle decides to force Ginny to walk into the Chamber itself, so he may completely absorb her spirit and become alive (leaving Ginny lying unconscious on the Chamber floor in a kind of coma) and more importantly, to lure Harry Potter himself into the Chamber. Riddle is, after all, terribly curious about how Harry has "defeated" him, and obviously wants to kill him as revenge. Harry indeed goes down to the chamber, but with indirect help from Dumbledore in the form of Fawkes and the Sorting Hat manages to destroy Riddle and thus save Ginny's life.

Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire
Ginny is not involved in the storyline as actively throughout Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire. She only directly interacts with Harry three times: in book 3 she catches his eye and they share a laugh at the train station, in book 4 they exchange grins when Harry first arrives at the Burrow, and Ron later suggests that she go with Harry to the Yule Ball, but in an impressive display of integrity, she turns Harry down because she has already accepted an invitation from Neville. She frequently appears in the background in these two books, however, either interacting with other characters or just being noted in passing. She also stands up for Neville, demanding that Ron and Harry stop laughing at him, and when the Dementors board the train in Prisoner of Azkaban, she is affected by them almost as badly as Harry is (having acquired some unpleasant "worst memories" to be forced to re-experience from her first year).

In the first four books as a whole Ginny's portrayal has a definite streak of a 'Damsel in Distress' to it, an impression created chiefly due to her role in Chamber of Secrets where the adhesion to this formula goes as far as her heroic rescuer having to slay the proverbial dragon in order to save her (Steve Kloves compares this to the legend of St. George and the dragon in the script of the Chamber of Secrets movie. However, several other glimpses of her personality are in stark contrast to this stereotype, and function as foreshadowing of the more fully-developed character she becomes in the fifth book.

Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix develops Ginny's character in a way only hinted at through the first four books. No longer letting a crush affect her behaviour around Harry, she emerges as a forceful personality with a no-nonsense attitude, good magical and acting ability, pride (perhaps to a fault), talent at Quidditch, and several other characteristics very unlike the average damsel in distress.

Apart from Phineas Nigellus, Ginny is the only character in the book to directly confront Harry's inconsiderate, egocentric attitude and his wallowing in self-pity, although she tends to do this in a much more diplomatic fashion than Phineas' elaborate speeches on how Harry's attitude is the precise reason he cannot stand teenagers. Ginny is also used as a parallel to emphasise Harry's self-centeredness when he believes himself to be possessed by Voldemort. In one particularly ironic scene, Harry spends a long train ride wallowing in miserable thoughts of himself being the weapon Voldemort was using to attack people, "contaminated" and unworthy of the company of his friends. It never occurs to him that Ginny went through the exact same thing in her first year, even though she is sitting next to him through the whole ride. When she forcefully reminds him of her experience so that he will stop alienating himself from his friends, it dawns on him that he forgot all about it and he sincerely apologises, something he was not inclined to do throughout his whole fifth year in general.

When Harry receives his "life-long" ban from playing Quidditch courtesy of Dolores Umbridge, Ginny replaces him as Seeker on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. She is successful, though everyone (including herself) admits that she is not of the same calibre as Harry. She says that she would rather be a Chaser than a Seeker anyway, and will probably try out for a Chaser position the next year, when two of the current three Chasers will have graduated and therefore left the team.

Ginny is a member of (and came up with the name for) Dumbledore's Army, a group started by Harry, Hermione and Ron to provide students with practical instruction in Defence Against the Dark Arts, which Dolores Umbridge had removed from that course's curriculum. This, combined with her now being a close friend of Hermione, Ron, Harry, Luna, and Neville, with their expedition to the Department of Mysteries being the final trigger, makes her a member of a more tightly-knit group consisting of the six of them, which can be viewed as an extension of the original three (Harry, Ron and Hermione).

Hermione also tells Harry in Order of The Phoenix that during the previous year Ginny gave up on Harry ever reciprocating her feelings, turning her attention to other boys. Most notable among her romantic interests is Michael Corner, whom she dates for over a year and a half, but eventually breaks up with due to him getting sulky over Gryffindor beating Ravenclaw at Quidditch (in an ironic twist, Michael runs to Cho &mdash; Harry's fresh ex-girlfriend &mdash; for romantic comfort). It is made clear that in spite of Ginny's feelings for Harry being apparently gone, her brother, Ron, is hoping to see them together still, and is not-so-subtly upset when Ginny throws him an off-hand remark about an alleged developing interest in Dean Thomas.

For reasons unknown, during the hextet's detour to the Department of Mysteries, Ginny is fascinated by a particular egg which keeps hatching and unhatching and is a part of the section the department uses to study the concept of time.

Half-Blood Prince
In Half-Blood Prince, Ginny buys a pet Pygmy Puff which she names "Arnold" from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. She is also chosen for the Slug Club for her excellent use of the Bat Bogey Hex.

However, her main role is as a romantic interest. Firstly, it is revealed that Ginny is indeed dating Dean. While at The Burrow, she expresses her distaste for Fleur Delacour who is going to marry Ginny's brother Bill and refers to Fleur as "Phlegm". Once back at school, she becomes a Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, alongside Katie Bell and Demelza Robins. She also plays as the reserve Seeker while Harry is in detention.

As Harry witnesses Ginny repeatedly refusing his company in favor of Dean's, he starts feeling odd twinges of animosity which he fails to attribute to their source; he only finally does so during an incident where Harry and Ron run into Ginny and Dean passionately kissing in a corridor. Ron is outraged because he feels over-protective of his sister and Harry is seized by a powerful impulse to curse Dean into oblivion. It is then that he admits to himself that he has developed romantic interest in her and comically struggles with a crush on her throughout the year, haunted by dreams, daydreams and imaginary scenarios of them together.

At this point, Ginny gets into an argument with Ron, pointing out that he is the only one who finds snogging disgusting. Ron's attitude changes when he gets into a relationship with Lavender Brown. Harry first becomes aware of this by Ginny rather smugly calling Ron a "filthy hypocrite".

Eventually, Ginny and Dean break up (though this is partly due to Harry's Felix Felicis luck potion), and Ginny has massive arguments with both Ron and Hermione Granger. After she helps Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup, she and Harry spontaneously kiss, and Ron seems to mind nowhere near as much as when she kissed Dean. This marks the beginning of Harry's relationship with her.

When the Death Eaters attack Hogwarts, aided by Draco Malfoy, Ginny joins the fight, along with Ron, Hermione, Luna and Neville, each taking a small dose of the aforementioned luck potion, Felix Felicis.

After Albus Dumbledore is killed by the Half-Blood Prince, Harry decides to break off their relationship, as he knows Lord Voldemort will try to target her if he learns of such a bond between the two. Ginny is as displeased as Harry is about the necessity of this measure, but accepts it, noting that she knew that given Harry's agenda, this was an inevitability. Ginny accepts Harry's decision, but seems hopeful for their future after Voldemort is killed. She also confides that she never really gave up on him noticing her, and that Hermione had been giving her bits of advice in this area throughout the year.

Deathly Hallows
It is known that we will "See impressive [stuff] again" from Ginny in book seven, implying that at some point, whether Harry likes it or not, she will become involved in the fight against Voldemort.