Harry Potter: 12 Best Supporting Characters

12. Arthur Weasley

The Weasley family patriarch may not be the most eye-catching creation in JK Rowling's world but he provides one of the few things in Harry's life that the latter is in desperately short supply of; a caring and present father figure who actively looks out for his welfare as much as he does for his own kids.

If his wife gets the showier, more emotional role in both book and film as something of a surrogate parent to Harry, then Arthur is the understated rock upon which the Weasley family dynamic is built, something which Mark Williams conveys smartly underneath his eccentric exterior, despite limited minutes onscreen.

(Side note: the character cheated death twice in Rowling's original drafts, having been provisionally penciled in to meet his maker in both Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows.)