The 10 best Ron, Hermione, Neville, McGonagall and Dumbledore moments, ranked

As Nagini goes for Ron and Hermione, Neville draws the Sword of Gryffindor out of the Sorting Hat, the hat that gave Harry the same sword in the Chamber of Secrets, and beheads the snake. She is the last Horcrux, so the blow that saves two friends also leaves Voldemort mortal, before the final exchange of Harry’s duel.

Earlier that morning, with Harry apparently dead in the arms of Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), Neville was the one who told Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), “It’s not over!” His last act belongs to the boy who kept stepping forward: he stood in his friends’ way in the first film, faced his Boggart before the class and refused to practise the Cruciatus Curse on first years. Nagini’s death makes his importance unmistakable after the earlier moments have already made his courage clear.

Harry asks for time, and McGonagall tells him, “Do what you have to do. I’ll secure the castle.” She raises her wand at the armoured statues, “Piertotum Locomotor!”, and sends them out with orders: “Hogwarts is threatened! Man the boundaries, protect us! Do your duty to our school!” Then the delight shows. She has “always wanted to use that spell”.

The teacher who scolds people for wasting time ends up running the castle’s defence, in the voice she once used on two boys late for her class (“Then perhaps a map?”). Six films of classroom authority become something the whole school needs. Maggie Smith keeps both halves of her. The command belongs to the familiar teacher, and the pleasure afterwards lets her enjoy magic herself.

On the night Harry, Ron and Hermione go after the Stone, Neville catches them in the common room and tries to stop them: “No, I won’t let you! You’ll get Gryffindor into trouble again. I’ll fight you.” Hermione freezes him with “Petrificus Totalus,” and the fight is over.

At the end-of-year feast, Dumbledore has already brought Gryffindor level with Slytherin when he makes one last award: “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.” The ten points he gives Neville win Gryffindor the House Cup.

Neville receives credit for courage that did not win the confrontation, and first place starts here. His courage keeps arriving before his confidence and his skill.

Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy) and his officials come to arrest Dumbledore after the discovery of Dumbledore’s Army, Harry’s secret defence group. Dumbledore questions their idea that he intends to “come quietly”, grasps his phoenix, Fawkes, and disappears in fire before they can take him. Kingsley Shacklebolt (George Harris) supplies the verdict: “Dumbledore’s got style.”

The boss move is refusing the arrest before escaping it, with no scramble for the door. Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore works when he answers a threat with action and an awkward question with a straight face. He does not have to know everything to be the boss man in the room. A Death Eater spent a school year teaching in his castle in disguise, and that failure does not erase scenes like this one.

Ron’s wand breaks when the flying car hits the Whomping Willow, and for most of the year the joke is on him. When he aims “Eat slugs!” at Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) for calling Hermione “you filthy little Mudblood”, the spell backfires and Ron is the one bringing up slugs.

The payoff comes in the tunnels under the school. Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh) grabs Ron’s wand and aims it at Harry, “The adventure ends here, boys,” and his “Obliviate!” rebounds through the broken wand. For once, Ron’s broken wand is somebody else’s problem. Lockhart comes round asking, “Hello. Who are you?”, and Ron sums it up: “He hasn’t got a clue who he is.” The running joke that has cost Ron all year finally hits a teacher who was trying to wipe two boys’ memories.

Hermione researches the monster and is petrified with a library page about basilisks clutched in her hand. Harry finds it, with her note about pipes. The page explains what the creature is, and her note explains how it moves.

She leaves Harry the answer while she cannot tell him herself. Her book knowledge has become an investigation, connecting a monster’s abilities to the attacks, and Harry can follow that work while she lies in the hospital wing. Earlier the same year, she worried whether Lockhart was all right after Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) flattened him at the Duelling Club, because knowing the text does not tell her which author to trust. Her reading is useful because she keeps trying to put it to work.

Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) wants to know what McGonagall is “insinuating”. McGonagall spells it out: “I am merely requesting that when it comes to my students, you conform to the prescribed disciplinary practices.” When Umbridge suggests she is questioning “my authority in my own classroom”, the answer is “Not at all, Dolores, merely your medieval methods.”

McGonagall can make politeness sound like a warning. When Umbridge sacks Sybill Trelawney (Emma Thompson) in the courtyard in front of the school and invites McGonagall to speak, she says, “Oh, there are several things I would like to say,” and keeps the list to herself. When Dumbledore arrives and asks her to take Trelawney back inside, she leads her away.

To reach a locket they believe is a Horcrux, Dumbledore has to drink the potion covering it, and he makes Harry promise to keep making him drink even when he begs to stop. When Harry takes water from the lake for him, the Inferi, dead bodies animated by magic, rise and attack.

Dumbledore gets to his feet and casts the firestorm that drives them back. The man Harry has had to force through the potion is still able to save him from the lake. The scene shows what Dumbledore can still do at his weakest, and the films have little time left to build on it, because he dies on the Astronomy Tower the same night.

After the escape from the wedding, Hermione produces clothes from a small beaded bag and explains that she has used an Undetectable Extension Charm. Ron calls her amazing, and she objects to his surprised tone. When the bag rattles, she identifies the noise: “That’ll be the books.”

She has prepared room for the library as well as the clothes, and regards that preparation as something her friends should expect. The books matter later. She reads The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore in the tent, and when Xenophilius Lovegood (Rhys Ifans) asks whether they know The Tale of the Three Brothers, she has The Tales of Beedle the Bard ready. She does not wait for an exam to use what she knows.

Before a match, Ron’s nerves win: “I’m resigning.” Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch) offers her own assessment, “You look dreadful, Ron,” and Harry pretends to tip Felix Felicis, a luck potion, into his drink. Sure he has taken it, Ron relaxes and keeps goal like a real Keeper. Afterwards Hermione works out the trick, asking Harry, “Ron only thought you did?”

Rupert Grint lets the face announce the problem before Ron has worked out what to say, and here the face goes from dread to certainty. The skill was his all along, a rare win for a character who pays for most of his jokes himself. Little later in the story builds on it, which keeps it at tenth.