Ginevra "Ginny" Molly Weasley (born August 11, 1981)^[1][2] is a fictional character in the Harry Potter series of books and movies. She is the youngest of Arthur Weasley and Molly Weasley's children and the younger sister of Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George and Ron, the latter being one of Harry Potter's best friends. She has vivid red hair and bright brown eyes, is described as small, and is occasionally likened to a cat. She is also the first female who has been born into the Weasley line for several generations.

Ginny in the books

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorcerer'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 — which contains her brothers, who are leaving for Hogwarts — then falling back to wave.

Harry Potter and the 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) — 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!") — 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 Lord Voldemort, 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 — 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 has not been Ginny at all, but rather to discredit her father, Arthur, who has 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 again (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. While not explicitly stated, this probably creates a powerful magical bond between them, as Dumbledore explains in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: "When one wizard saves another wizard's life, it creates a certain bond between them... [...] This is magic at its deepest, most impenetrable, Harry."

The Prisoner of Azkaban and The 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 (catching his eye and laughing at the train station; exchanging grins when Harry first arrives at the Burrow in book 4; and being suggested as his date for the Yule Ball by Ron but, in an impressive display of integrity, turning him 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 having her presence noted in passing. She also stands up for Neville, demanding that Ron and Harry stop laughing at him, and when the Dementors go aboard the train in Prisoner of Azkaban, she is notably affected by them almost as badly as Harry is (having acquired some unpleasant worst memories to be forced to re-experience in 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^[3]; see princess and dragon). However, several other glimpses of her personality are in stark contrast to this stereotype, and function as foreshadowing for the exposition of her more fully-fledged character later.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix develops Ginny's character in an unexpected way, and portrays her as a forceful personality with a no-nonsense attitude, 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 one to directly confront Harry's constant inconsiderate, egocentric attitude and 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 tunnel vision when he believes himself to be possessed by Voldemort; in one particularly ironic scene, during a whole ride Harry wallows in miserable thoughts of himself being the weapon Voldemort was using to attack people, "contaminated" and unworthy of the company of his friends—without Ginny having gone through the exact same thing in her first year occurring to him, even though she has been sitting next to him for the whole ride. When she reminds him of this to make him stop alienating himself from his friends, it dawns on him that he forgot all about it and he genuinely 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, where she is successful, though not of the same calibre as Harry (she confesses that she would rather be a Chaser than a Seeker, and will probably apply for position as a Chaser the next year, when two of the current three Chasers would graduate and leave 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 the 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 and 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 extention of the original three (Harry, Ron and Hermione).

It is also revealed in Order of The Phoenix that during the previous year (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) Ginny has given up on Harry ever reciprocating her feelings and turned her attentions to other boys, probably because she realised how fixated on Cho Harry was. 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 — Harry's fresh ex-girlfriend — 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 (whether such interest exists or was made up for the sole purpose of riling Ron up is unclear).

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.

Ginny's graduation can be estimated to have happened in 1999 at the age of seventeen years, but it is unlikely to be covered in the series since this will be after the seventh book, Rowling's self-promised limit.

Ginny in the films

Ginny is played by Bonnie Wright in the film adaptions and, to date, has only five lines in all the films. Only her first cameo in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was left in the film, as the movie ended with the Hogwarts Express leaving Hogwarts and not with its arrival at King's Cross station.

Ginny's role in the second film was larger, but only marginally so. Her crush on Harry, which is very obvious in the book, is only hinted at and most of the foreshadowing hints about her acting strangely were left out. Since Ginny doesn't play a major role in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, she only appeared in the third film as an extra, though she had one line.

Ginny in the Harry Potter fandom

Ginny's portrayal in fan fiction prior to The Order of the Phoenix varied greatly. She was usually depicted as either a naive, fresh-faced ingénue or a rugged tomboy. Following the fifth book, she is almost exclusively depicted as the latter, often to an extent exceeding the actual book. She is usually paired with either Harry or Draco Malfoy.

It was fanon for many years that Ginny's full name was Virginia, as the name Ginny is usually short for Virginia, but J. K. Rowling revealed this not the case on her website. Since then, use of Virginia as Ginny's first name had been abandoned by fans.

See also

• Weasley family
• Harry/Ginny "shipping"

Trivia

• Ginny's crush on Harry is ironic in comparison to Charlie Brown's crush on the little red-haired girl in Peanuts, because it is the little red-haired girl (Ginny) who has a crush on the main character (Harry) and not vice versa.
• Ginevra is the Italian form of Guinevere. There seems to be somewhat of a running theme of Arthurian legend in some Weasley family names.

External links

• Ginny's entry at the Harry Potter Lexicon
• Essay about Ginny posted at the Harry Potter Lexicon

References

• ^[1] "JKRowling.com Archives: Birthdays" from MuggleNet
• ^[2] Information about the Weasley children's relative ages from the J.K.Rowling Official Site
• ^[3] Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Screenplay by Steve Kloves (Based on the Novel by J.K. Rowling) "Harry WHEELS, sword in hand, and fends off the slashing serpent like St. George and the dragon."