It's really easy to read the Harry Potter books and assume that Harry Potter is the sole hero of the story. However, to assume that Harry Potter would have gotten where he was at the end of the seventh book, without the help of a legion of friends would be to totally delusional. First off, Harry had friends like Ron and Hermione who kept him alive and sane during his time at Hogwarts. There's also the teachers like Lupin and McGonagall who were role models to him as he was growing up — not to mention other adults who were positive influences, like Sirius and the Weasley parents. That being said, there's one hero of the series that is never given any credit for what she brought to the table. That hero is Ginny Weasley and here are 15 reasons why. 

15 Ginny Weasley, The Hero No One Notices

Ginny Weasley was basically a hero of another life for the entire Harry Potter story. During the second book, she spends her entire school year trying to fight Voldemort's influence on her at just 11 years old. The only person who could possibly empathize with what she went through was Harry Potter himself, and he didn't end up having Voldemort's voice inside his head until he was aged 15. She suffered so silently that everyone basically forgot what happened to her until she had to remind them. On top of that, she could have reminded Harry a lot earlier, driving the point home that she knows what she's talking about when she talks about Voldemort. However, she stays mum because she's that humble about it.

14 Ginny Was Luna's First Friend

Luna Lovegood came to Hogwarts during the same year Ginny had her encounter with the Voldemort diary. So by the time Ginny was going to be a regular student in her second year, she probably didn't have a ton of friends and most likely isolated herself. Luna and Ginny would have been the answers to each other's prayers: Ginny would have been the first person to give Luna a chance, and Luna would have been the person to bring Ginny out of her shell after her horrifying experience. She was definitely that person for Harry in the fifth book with the Thestrals, so it would make sense that she would do the same thing for Ginny. If only we saw this play out onscreen, however, the Internet is filled of theories and canons for us to fawn over.

13 Ginny Learned Everything By Herself

Being the only girl in your family is really hard. It's really easy to pick up some ways of thinking that are pretty toxic; not because your family in itself is toxic, but because sometimes even the best people in our lives end up teaching us some toxic things.

Ginny Weasley ended up doing something similar: growing up around all boys, she seemed kind of like that girl who would say things like "I don't have any female friends, they're just too much drama." She could have very well became that person, but she didn't. She ended up making some incredible female friends in Hermione and Luna, and eventually grew to accept women like Fleur, even though she didn't really understand her at first. Ginny is a truly understanding woman.

12 She Low Key Had Skills

We don't get to see it in the books, but Ginny Weasley had skills. Like, mad skills. She was in Slughorn's Slug Club not because she was Harry's girlfriend or a Weasley, but because Slughorn stumbled across her on the train casting amazing hexes on people who were annoying her. As much as the other Weasley kids were totally influential on life in Hogwarts, Ginny was probably the only one who was capable of striking real fear into people's hearts. Fred and George were lovable pranksters, Percy was Head Boy (but kind of harmless and annoying), and Ron, bless his heart, was best known for being someone else's best friend. Ginny established a reputation for herself without anyone's help, and she's low key the scariest Weasley.

11 She Was Better At Quidditch Than Harry

Harry was great at Quidditch, as were the other Weasleys, even Ron when he got his confidence up. However, no main character was better at Quidditch than Ginny Weasley, Keep in mind, she taught herself how to play because her older brothers wouldn't let her play with them, and she was clever enough to steal her brothers' brooms and put them back. They never found out she borrowed them until she went and tried out for the team and blew everyone away. Out of all of those Weasley Quidditch players, only one went on to play professionally. Not even Harry Potter played Quidditch professionally: that honor belongs solely to his wife. She then went on to be a sports reporter, so she's still a major part of the world of Quidditch.

10 Harry Was Perfect For Her

Ginny Weasley wasn't perfect for Harry Potter for a good portion of the story. Harry had to become worthy of her before they could date. Keep in mind, by the time our protagonist got his head out of his butt and realized Ginny was amazing, Ginny had moved on from her childhood crush. She dated quite a few guys, even Dean Thomas, before deeming Harry worthy of dating her. They could finally understand each other regarding Voldemort, which is a pretty rare thing. Considering what Harry was going through, he needed a woman who could take care of herself, and Ginny is very much that woman. While Harry was going on his solo mission, hanging out in the woods, Ginny was leading a Hogwarts revolution and getting in trouble with the Carrows. She had her own life and didn't just glom onto Harry.

9 She Would Regularly Put The Boy Who Lived In His Place

This is one of those instances that should have made it into the movies, but I guess the directors of the movies wanted a less nuanced love interest character, so they could ride on the coattails of such franchises like Twilight. The thing is that they didn't need to do that! Ginny Weasley had no problem putting The Boy Who Lived in his place, reminding him of things that he really should have never forgotten. She was also the person who handled her breakup with Harry a lot better than even he did. She understood his mission and also understood that she had her own work to do, so she let him do his thing and she went off and did hers. Out of everyone in the cast, she understood the concept of letting someone go and trusting that they would find their way back if they were truly hers.

8 She Would Have Figured Out Most Of The Twists On Her Own

This scene didn't happen in the books or movies, but I can guarantee that if the series had put a little more focus on Ginny in the third book, we might have gotten a scene like this. Ginny wasn't just strong and brave, she was clever in a more practical way than, say, Hermione. She's capable of thinking on her feet in a different way, not about academics, but about people. She would have taken one look at Lupin, realized his name literally means Werewolf McWerewolf, and put two and two together. She might have even been able to piece together who made the Marauder's Map. I think part of the reason Ginny wasn't part of the Golden Trio and didn't take part in the Deathly Hallows thing is because Ginny being there would have revealed all the answers too early.

7 She Didn't Wait Around For Harry To Realize What He Was Missing

Out of everyone in the main six characters, Ginny was the one who did the most dating. Sure, Ron got a bit of traction in the whole Lavender Brown thing, and Hermione had her thing with Viktor Krum, but Harry didn't really talk to any other girl beside Cho Chang; and depending on the medium, Neville and Luna either ended up together or ended up marrying characters existing in the periphery. Ginny did some dating while she was at Hogwarts, and she knew her worth during that time. She didn't let her brothers give her any crap about the boys she dated, and she didn't hide any of her relationships. On top of that, she didn't deal with any drama: when Michael Corner got annoying, she didn't lament about his behavior, she just dumped him! We could all learn a lot from her.

6 She's Just As Bad At Naming Things As Harry

Honestly, I didn't think of this at first. I think we were all so mad that Harry seemed to get all of the naming privileges for their three children that we totally forgot that Ginny is also terrible at naming things. Sure, Harry named his son Albus Severus, after two of the people who manipulated and abused him throughout his life, but he also named his owl Hedwig, which is a pretty awesome name for an owl. On the other hand, Ginny named her Pygmy Puff Arnold and Ron's owl Pigwidgeon. Keep in mind, that owl wasn't even hers! She just named the owl and then poor Ron was stuck with a tiny owl with a ridiculous name. On the other hand, Lily Luna is a pretty great name, and I'm pretty sure Ginny had at least a little influence on that one.

5 She Was A World Class Troll When She Wanted To Be

This is a headcanon, but there's plenty of evidence in the books that Ginny would have done things like this. For example, when she got with Harry, she told everyone that he and Ron had weird tattoos, and she told the story in such a convincing way that people believed her. She's also the person who bumrushed Zacharias Smith in the books when he wasn't doing fair commentary on the game they were playing. Ginny Weasley might not have been the pranksters Fred and George were, but she was a low-key troll of legendary proportions. She would have had to be in order to survive her sixth year at Hogwarts with all the trolling of authority she would have had to do in order to build the resistance in the first place.

4 Her Brothers Didn't Have To Give Harry 'The Talk' Because She's More Intimidating Than Them

The Harry Potter fandom seems to think that the Weasley brothers would have been totally against Harry dating their sister — almost to the point that they gave him the talk that brothers give the boyfriends of their sisters, because they want them to know that they mean business. However, the Weasley brothers wouldn't have needed to. For one, Harry was raised as one of them for years, and one of the Weasley brothers is his best friend. For another, Ginny's way scarier than her brothers, and they know it. For them, Ginny is the best example of unlimited power in a small living space. This is their little sister, sure, but she's also the person who casts better hexes than them and plays better Quidditch than them. I mean, she taught herself how to play for crying out loud. If anything, I could see them warning Ginny to take care of Harry!

3 Her PTSD Was Probably One Of The Worst Cases Among The Main Cast

The Harry Potter story is essentially a story about a bunch of kids who have to deal with varying degrees of PTSD, and Ginny would have had to have one of the worst cases in the whole cast. For one, she had to contend with the biggest part of Voldemort's soul for nearly a year by herself, all while juggling a full magic student's workload and dealing with the fact that her brother made friends and kind of left her behind. Then she finds herself in the middle of a full-on war against a powerful, evil wizard and fighting for the freedom of her world. She did this all while putting her own life on the line in the process. By the end of the war, she's lost a brother, several friends, and her innocence. However, unlike some other characters, she deals with all of this internally and we don't get to see too much of it. It just goes to show how strong she is.

2 She Had The Most Interesting Life We Never Got To See

I kind of want to see a few Harry Potter books done in the perspective of other characters. Harry's great and all, but I swear, some of his friends must have way more interesting inner lives. For example, I'd love to see a book about Lupin's tenure as a DADA teacher, or McGonagall being a headmaster or a story about the day to day life of the next generation of kids, like Ron and Hermione's kids hanging out with Luna's and Neville's. However, one book that I would absolutely need to read is a book about Ginny's day to day life at Hogwarts when we don't really see her. I'd want to see her asking Neville to the Yule Ball and hanging out with him and Luna, and her playing just as many pranks as Fred and George but getting all her antics pinned on them. It would be an incredible story because Ginny herself is a great character.

1 The Movies Really Didn't Do Her Any Justice

Literally, everything about the movies shafted Ginny's character. She wasn't just the girl who waited around for Harry. In fact, she didn't do any waiting around at all. She dated other guys, and apart from the earliest books, she didn't even really pine over Harry at all. While all of the other characters in this series have some inconsistencies about how they're portrayed (the physical appearance stuff, in particular, is annoying), they also had the privilege of being portrayed relatively accurately aside from that. Every character is given some level of justice except for Ginny, and that's kind of tragic, especially considering how formative this series was for a lot of young women who saw themselves in characters like Hermione, Ginny, and Luna. Just because we don't see too much of Ginny doesn't mean she isn't just as much of a role model.