So I was thinking about this today: how powerful are the various characters? I don't think a definitive ranking is the best way to do it as various characters might have been having good or bad days when going up against each other, or the terrain didn't favour their styles, or they just never fought. So tier instead, people who are at roughly the same level and who one on one would consider the other to be dangerous if fought.

Old list:

Spoiler

Tier 1 - Polymath Masters - individuals who were masters of many difficult fields of magic.

• Dumbledore
• Voldemort
• Grindlewald
• Flamel (If only by virtue of his long life?)

Tier 2 - Masters - People who mastered one or two fields of magic that has combat applications.

• Snape
• Bellatrix
• Moody
• Flitwick

I want to put Lily in here given she and Snape were implied to be pretty equal, but I think her early death means that Snape had 15 years to far surpass her.

Tier 3 - Veterans - Very capable professionals

• Tonks
• Shacklebolt
• Lucius Malfoy
• McGonagall
• Most of the Death Eaters at the DoM

Tier 4 - Very capable amateurs.

• Sirius
• Harry
• Most of the Order rank and file (?)
• Average Death Eater (?)

Tier 1 - Polymath Masters - individuals who were masters of many difficult fields of magic.

• Dumbledore
• Voldemort
• Grindlewald

Tier 2 - Masters - People who mastered one or two fields of magic that has combat applications.

• Snape
• Bellatrix
• Moody
• Flitwick

I want to put Lily in here given she and Snape were implied to be pretty equal, but I think her early death means that Snape had 15 years to far surpass her.

Tier 3 - Veterans - Very capable professionals

• Tonks
• Shacklebolt
• Lucius Malfoy
• McGonagall
• Most of the Death Eaters at the DoM

Tier 4 - Professionals

• Average inner circle Death Eater (?)
• Average Hogwarts teacher (?)

Tier 5 - Gifted amateurs

• Sirius
• Harry
• Most of the Order rank and file (?)
• Average Death Eater (?)

Does this sound right to people? I'm curious what others think.

 

I'd add a Tier between Veterans and Very Capable Amateurs.

Basically professionals or something. Sirius, Tonks, Remus, etc should go there.

 

Going by canon, yeah, this looks right. There's always something to be tweaked with categories like these, but this, I think, is as close to objective as we can get if we want to assign power levels to characters.

I wouldn't necessarily say that a Master has to have mastered some field with combat application. I think someone who is say, great at potions and arithmancy could be in Snape's tier based on their knowledge/understanding of magic, even if they're not combat-focused. I also think that any wizard or witch who has gone so far as to master a discipline or two would have picked up some magic along the way that would make them dangerous in a fight, in a sense of generalist understanding of magic as a whole.

As for what I would add to your list, Merlin would probably be a Polymath (gonna use your naming scheme). The Founders... I wanna say Masters because I don't recall them being praised as uber wizards, rather just historically revered for founding Hogwarts. So definitely Masters (of their time), but not Polymaths.

At first I balked at your placement of Sirius, especially in contrast to Tonks, but I thought about it, and Sirius did spend half his life in Azkaban. He was very talented at school (implied by the animagus skill), but so was Harry (implied by his early corporeal Patronus). And Tonks is an Auror, after all, although I think I'd put her towards the bottom of Tier 3, while Kingsley would be towards the top. James and Peter would be in Tier 4. Remus as well, probably, but I'm not sure.

Wouldn't McGonagall be a Master, along with Flitwick and Snape? She was one of the people who ganged up on Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts. Same for Slughorn and perhaps Aberforth Dumbledore. I also don't know about Lucius in Tier 3 as opposed to 4.

At the time of Cursed Child Harry would definitely be a Veteran. I don't know if canon Harry would ever move up higher. His virtues in canon came more from his character rather than magical pwnage.

Edit because of Arthellion's post: I agree, and I'd put Lucius in that additional tier.

 

I didn't want to include people that far back. We just don't know enough about them.

I'm not sure we know enough about Tonk and Kingsley's skills to differentiate like that. Sirus not ending up in Azkaban would have allowed him to be quite a dangerous person.

I think there's a big difference between someone as talented as McGonagall, and someone as talented as her who also trained to fight.

 

Hate to say this because whew we all know he had a shitty life, but...

Sirius doesn't really do fuck all in the books to show he is magically talented at dueling. Ok he was really smart in magical high school - including pulling off animagus skillz, but other than that...

1. He got bamboozled and framed by Peter
2. He escaped prison (but not in a way that tested his capabilities as a fighter)
3. Got bamboozled by Peter a second time
4. Hung around in a spooky house
5. Died

He was a 'capable amateur' who then had his life sucked out of him in prison even if not his literal soul. I don't know if the Sirius *as we get to see him* raises to that level.

That said, I would put McG in the category with Snape and Flitwick. We do not know what training she has had, but we do know that she is a very capable Transfiguration Mistress and Dumbledore, in the whole time he knew Voldemort was still alive, appointed her his second.

 

If it's the case that we're ranking them based on their capabilities in a duel rather than their overall abilities, things like arithmancy and potions that would ordinarily make them incredibly useful in wars, I would hesitate to put Flamel at the highest level. He lived a long life and was almost certainly brilliant, but it's quite possible he was a pacifist or someone with no interest in combative magic, as it's stated in canon that he preferred the quiet life. Since we have no information about his combative abilities, I would be inclined to not have him on any tier. Given this particular tier list, I would probably put most Aurors at the same level as the powerful Death Eaters. I have literally no idea how Harry and his friends were able to fight off Voldemort, Bellatrix, Lucius, and the rank and file at the Department of Mysteries before the Order showed up with the numbers advantage, but that's Rowling's fault.

 

Voldemort showed up later. I agree it's kinda bullshit, but we can at least try and fudge things a bit by pointing out that Bellatrix and other escapees were still recovering from Azkaban, and the Death Eaters were hindered by the fact that they

1. Had to not destroy the prophesy
2. Were presumably still trying to keep things plausibly deniable for the press

 

Harry and Co were also mostly trying to run, not fight.

 

It's fair that their skills went to rot in Azkaban, but they could probably get away with using the Cruciatus and Imperius on anyone not carrying the prophecy. Running away was the right decision for Dumbledore's Army, but there were several encounters between students and Death Eaters, and the results in each encounter simply weren't as bad as they logically should have been. As an example, Dolohov and Jugson chased Harry, Hermione, and Neville, fought them, and weren't able to secure the objective. At the end of the day, the students did lose and had to be rescued, but the other side had a two to one advantage. They really should have mopped the floor with them in a matter of seconds rather than have this whole Scooby Doo chase montage.

 

McGonagall does actually fight Snape in canon. Its not a long fight, but it is pretty even before Snape flees when the other teachers show up.

Professor McGonagall moved faster than Harry could have believed: Her wand slashed through the air and for a split second Harry thought that Snape must crumple, unconscious, but the swiftness of his Shield Charm was such that McGonagall was thrown off balance. She brandished her wand at a torch on the wall and it flew out of its bracket: Harry, about to curse Snape, was forced to pull Luna out of the way of the descending flames, which became a ring of fire that filled the corridor and flew like a lasso at Snape —

Then it was no longer fire, but a great black serpent that McGonagall blasted to smoke, which re-formed and solidified in seconds to become a swarm of pursuing daggers: Snape avoided them only by forcing the suit of armor in front of him, and with echoing clangs the daggers sank, one after another, into its breast —

“Minerva!” said a squeaky voice, and looking behind him, still shielding Luna from flying spells, Harry saw Professors Flitwick and Sprout sprinting up the corridor toward them in their nightclothes, with the enormous Professor Slughorn panting along at the rear.

“No!” squealed Flitwick, raising his wand. “You’ll do no more murder at Hogwarts!”

From DH Chapter 30.

I think McGonagall does deserve to be in that master tier, if slightly lower than Snape. In the canon fight, Snape is taken by surprise, but holds his own. It implies that he holds a slight edge in combat, but not a large one.
In addition, McGonagall has forty more years of experience than Snape does, and I think that would also help close the hypothetical gap.

 

Something to consider is that he wasn't trying to win. I'm sure she's excellent, but this isn't the best piece of evidence in favor of that.

 

That’s fair, but in this case the best way to not win would probably be to win the fight non-lethally. I just used this example because it is a direct conflict between the two of them.
However, I also believe that she makes the criteria you stated in your original post.
McGonagall is a master of transfiguration, which is highly applicable to combat. It’s been a while since I’ve read the fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort in OotP, but I’m pretty sure they both use transfiguration, and this is the highest skill magical fight we see.

 

I'll use the same ranking system, though I have significant reservations regarding the supposed importance of being "professional", given that we frequently see Aurors getting slapped around by "amateurs".

Tier 1 - Polymath Masters - individuals who were masters of many difficult fields of magic.

• Dumbledore
• Voldemort
• Grindlewald

Tier 2 - Masters - People who mastered one or two fields of magic that has combat applications.

• Snape
• Bellatrix
• Lily - pre-Hogwarts controlled wandless magic, something we only see characters in Tier 1 do
• Sirius - matched Bellatrix in a duel before he got cocky, described as the most talented student in Hogwarts (along with James), Dumbledore was genuinely cautious about him in PoA.
• James - described to be on the same level as Sirius.
• McGonagall - was matching Snape spell for spell in DH

Tier 3 - Veterans - Very capable professionals

• Shacklebolt
• Dolohov
• Harry (as an adult)
• Remus Lupin
• Hermione (as an adult)
• Ron (as an adult)
• Bill

Tier 4 - Professionals

• Tonks - she seems to be a pretty average Auror, frequently losing duels to regular Death Eaters
• Flitwick - little evidence of being particularly powerful. Only real evidence is a reference to being a duelling champion but we don't know what that involved
• Lucius Malfoy - again, doesn't ever show particular power or competence
• Percy
• Average Death Eater
• Average Hogwarts teacher
• Average Auror

Tier 5 - Gifted amateurs

• N/A

 

While it would make sense that Aurors would be good and experienced duellist they are kind of trash in canon, didn't Augusta trash two Aurors in DH besides Moody is described as the best of them and has a ton of hype but he got owned everytime we see him in canon.

Mostly agree with Taure except that I think McGonagall is above the mauraders and Bellatrix iirc, Jk put out some additional info about her saying she already showed incredible power and controll as a baby, that she got straight O's and got an award in Transfiguration imo she is slightly under Snape.

Flitwick is also definitely in the master list in DH he actually won against Dolohov who killed Lupin and being duelling champion seems pretty conclusive. I don't see how he could be in anyway inferior to adult Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Lily, James, Sirius I would agree if they had time to grow but as it is Dolohov, Lupin, and Shacklebolt are above them.

Characters like Moody and Bellatrix are hard to place. Moody got hype but no impressive feats and Bellatrix has Occulemeny and was the only Death Eater who could escape Dumbledore when he captured all the Death Eaters but she got her ass kicked by Molly no matter how much she underestimated her it just doesn't make sense.

 

It's just a choice of phrase to discriminate between tiers I didn't put much thought into.

 

Additionally, Hagrid (or was it Madam Pomfrey) seems pretty convinced that the Aurors who knocked out Minerva wouldn't have had a chance if they hadn't sneak-shotted her. I'd definitely place her with Snape and the like.

Also pretty sure it's Grindelwald, not Grindlewald.

 

Ultimately I think power tiers in Harry Potter is a bit pointless. The only tiers that really matter are Dumbledore/Voldemort level...and then everyone else. The reason I say this is because of the nature of the novels.

Magic Combat for most is like a gun. It doesn't take a whole lot of training to use. You have some that are more skilled than others (Soldiers vs. Civilians), but a civilian can just as easily kill a soldier with a gun as vice versa with a lucky shot.

But when you get to Dumbledore/Voldemort level...magic is like a sword. Or maybe like a Jedi with a lightsaber is a more apt comparison. The jedi were pretty much immune to blaster fire (though it could overwhelm them and annoy them in large quantities), but duels required legitimate skill.

I think magic is similar.

 

My head canon is always that James, Sirius and Lily were going to be the Dumbledore of their generation (in terms of power)
Only for James and Lily to die young before maturing fully into their skills and Sirius to take a vacation in Azkaban club.

Harry in the early years had a promising career, the Patronus it self.
Or winning battle of wills against Voldemort in the graveyard.
Afterward it took a nose dive if I remember canon correctly (?)

HP series as a major flaw, we have 70 years genius Wizard vs a teenager who didn't finish his studies.
With most of the adults are useless, fanfics introduce various powers up to level the field.
(Or make Voldemort a retard)

 

Going by pure cannon, I have to agree with Arthellion. Sure you can know spells, but to have the finesse to use them, to counter them, and to do that for an extended amount of time. To truly shape every aspect of the world around you, you have to be a "polymaster". Everyone else is just meh.

Headcannon, I honestly believe Harry toured the world much like Dumbledore after he beat Voldemort. I don't have the book on me right now but the "final battle" in The Deathly Hollows, Harry spoke about Dumbledore with such reverence, I see him trying to retrace Dumbledore's world tour. This all makes sense given the fact that he's tired by the war, he wants to get away from the people, and truly become his own person.

 

Lol at James, Sirius and Lily being as good as Dumbledore.