Dolores Umbridge

"Because you know, deep down, you deserve to be punished!"

- Dolores Umbridge after Harry uses her "special" quill to write in his own blood.

Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge is a villainous character from the Harry Potter franchise. She was a Ministry of Magic official and served as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic under three successive ministers: Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeour and Pius Thicknesse. She was designated as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by order of the Ministry and was later promoted to Hogwarts High Inquisitor and eventually Headmistress. This was part of a Ministry effort to keep the school and Harry under control. She later reappears as a judge under Voldemort's supremacist reign in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Her film character was portrayed by Imelda Staunton.

Early Days
Umbridge was a half-blood witch and the first child of a wizard named Orford Umbridge and a Muggle Ellen Cracknell. Her younger brother was a Squib but she herself was born a witch. Under her father's influence, she despised her Muggle mother and her Squib brother, considering them inferior to her and her father, and they both denounced them. Ellen and her son returned to the Muggle world, never to be heard of again. At the age of eleven, she purchased her wand, an unusually short one, at Diagon Alley, most likely at Ollivanders. According to Garrick Ollivander, abnormally short wands usually selected those whose moral character was stunted, rather than because they were physically short. Umbridge attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where she was Sorted into Slytherin.

After leaving Hogwarts, Umbridge quickly rose to influential positions in the British Ministry of Magic. At the age of 17, she started an internship at the Improper Use of Magic Office, and by the age of 30, she became the Head of the Office, due to her ruthless tactics and tyrannical leadership under her sweet attitude. She also, while gaining power, overthrew her own father and had him fired from his job, severing all of ties to him and also denying she was related to him, from that point on considering herself only a pure-blood rather than a half-blood. She became Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic and had a place amongst the Wizengamot.

Order of the Phoenix
Umbridge's first appearance in the film took place at Harry Potter's hearing, to address his underage use of magic in the presence of Muggles (non-magic people). He had performed a Patronus charm to defend himself and his Muggle cousin Dudley against two Dementors. Various members of the Ministry, including Fudge and Umbridge, believed that the presence of Dementors in Privet Drive was impossible since they were under the Ministry's control. Harry claims that the reason for this occurrence was the return of the Dark Lord, but Fudge insisted on pressing charges against Harry. It is later revealed that Umbridge was the one who sent the Dementors as an attempt to silence Harry in order to prevent him from contradicting the Ministry's claim that Voldemort is vanquished. However, under Albus Dumbledore's persuasion, the vast majority of the crowd – Umbridge excluded – were in favor of clearing Harry of all charges.

When Harry Potter began his first day of his fifth year at Hogwarts, he discovered that Umbridge was appointed as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Throughout the story it became more clear that the Ministry was interfering at Hogwarts. Later she was made the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, giving her the power to enforce new rules and dismiss teachers. At a time, she inspected every professor, and attempted to banish Professor Trelawney from Hogwarts permanently.

To escape Professor Umbridge's restriction from using magic in her class, Harry and his friends created a secret organization of students, called "Dumbledore's Army" to improve skills of using magic for defense. Umbridge was the one to catch them in the act, and brought several of them them to Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts. After Dumbledore admitted that he was responsible, Fudge requested Dumbledore's immediate sentence to Azkaban, awaiting trial. When Dumbledore escaped, Umbridge became the new headmaster, and she enacted severe punishments on students suspected of participating in secret organizations.

Dumbledore's Secret Weapon
"What are you doing!? I am Senior Undersecretary Dolores Jane Umbridge! Let me GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

- Dolores Umbridge being carried off by the centaurs thinking they will put her down. (some chance)

Umbridge knew that Harry Potter was the main offender of her rules, and that he "deserved to be punished". Umbridge then attempted to perform the Cruciatus Curse on Harry in front of several Hogwarts students. She appears to be close to the Ministry as she obeys all the rules of the Ministry but her true colors are revealed when she is about to perform the Cruciatus curse on Harry which is actually illegal; she responds by saying "What Cornelius doesn't know won't hurt him". However, before she was able to follow through with the curse, Hermione Granger stopped Umbridge. She told her about Dumbledore's "secret weapon", which didn't actually exist, and successfully fooled Umbridge into following her to the "weapon's" location. Hermione, along with Harry, led her into the Forbidden Forest, a location which, forbidden to students, contains monstrous creatures and dark alleys. After Umbridge realized she was being manipulated, she inadvertently attracted the attention of centaurs and proceeded to insult them. This resulted in the centaurs capturing and dragging her away out of rage. She was later removed from Hogwarts following Cornelius having been overthrown by the wizarding community due to his failure to announce the return of Voldemort. This was her last appearance in the fifth book.

Deathly Hallows Part 1
Imelda Staunton reprised the role for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.



Her role in this movie is much shorter and she is only important when Harry, Ron, and Hermione disguise themselves to get into the ministry to steal a locket that Umbridge was wearing. Harry uses a spell to knock her out to get the locket from her and to rescue the victims. After Voldmort's defeat, she was charged for crimes against humanity and she was sentenced to life in Azkaban.

Trivia

 * Dolores Umbridge is considered by fans to be one of the most hated Harry Potter characters (sometimes even surpassing Voldemort and Bellatrix.) Though not part of Voldemort's Death Eaters, she forms an alliance at least with two of them, Lucius Malfoy and Yaxley. She also has no qualms about working in a Death Eater controlled Ministry of Magic, and agreed to send the Muggle-Borns to Azkaban.
 * Additionally, she's considered one of the crueler examples of evil fictional teachers considering the harsh punishments she doled out to students who dared to cross her (such as when she forced Harry Potter to slash "I must not tell lies" onto his hand with a magical quill), the obvious favoritism she showed towards those who sucked up to her, and her feverish desire to place Hogwarts firmly under Ministry control with her as a proxy.
 * She's revealed to be extremely racist, as Remus Lupin noted she was one of the main supporters of proposed anti-werewolf, legislation, advocated for merpeople to be rounded up and tagged, and considered centaurs to be inferior to wizards. In the seventh book she's become a Ministry judge who determines the "blood purity" of witches and wizards and was one of the main forces behind anti-Muggle propaganda distributed by the Ministry.
 * In the Order of the Phoenix book, it is revealed that Umbridge was the one who sent the Dementors after Harry in order to silence his claims of the Dark Lord returning. This isn't mentioned in the film.
 * While Harry couldn't cast a Patronus charm while wearing the locket, Umbridge manages to conjure a patronus which takes form of a cat. The reason she is able to cast the Patronus charm is because the horcrux helped her rather than hindered her due to the fact that she was already evil.
 * She is played by Imelda Staunton, who also voices Queen Victoria Bunty in Chicken Run and Mrs. Claus in Arthur Christmas.
 * Novelist Stephen King noted that Umbridge is the greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter.
 * Actress Imelda Staunton said that she nearly vomited when she had to film the scene where Umbridge makes Harry write in his own blood. She said it was one of the most "sickening parts she ever filmed".