We first see Ginny Weasley on the platform, at King’s Cross station, when Harry is wondering how to get through the barrier onto platform Nine and Three-Quarters. As soon as she hears that he is Harry Potter – the Harry Potter – she wants to go and see him.

She figures rather more prominently in the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Her crush on Harry is something of a joke to her brothers, when Harry comes to stay for the summer, after being broken out of Number 4, Privet Drive, by the Weasley twins and Ron in their Dad’s flying car. She drops things, puts her elbow in the pudding – she is altogether painfully awkward. This crush on Harry almost gets her killed in this book. She writes in a diary that writes back to her, pouring out her heart ad soul to the diary, all about how much she likes Harry and how she didn’t think that he would ever like her. She lets out Slytherin’s monster, the Basilisk, under the influence of the Riddle in the diary and is eventually taken into the Chamber of Secrets. Harry finds her and saves her life, though – but this only seems to make her even more tongue-tied in Harry’s presence. She also does something to embarrass Harry rather gravely in the book. During Lockhart’s extensive Valentine’s Day celebration, Ginny sends Harry a singing Valentine, which included the lines ‘His eyes are as green as pickled toads’, something the Weasley twins and the Slytherins did not let him forget in a hurry.

In the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, she doesn’t appear much, except as an afterthought. In the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, though, she makes an appearance for the Yule Ball, for which she accepts Neville’s invitation. Harry almost invites her, as he hadn’t invited anybody, and Ginny is very disappointed – but this is the last time that we see Ginny Weasley as something of a doormat.

Her character undergoes some rather radical transformation after that. In the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Ginny is suddenly very popular with the boys.  We see her dating Michael Corner and then Dean Thomas, much to Ron’s chagrin. She is shown as quite tough, good at Quidditch, and more than capable of standing up to her brothers is need be. Her introduction in the book is when she says that she had been chucking Dung bombs at a door to see if it had been made Impenetrable – rather a departure from the helpless little girl that readers have been used to.

She is the one who comes up with the name Dumbledore’s Army. She is one of the best in the DA, her Bat-Bogey Hex is already beginning to get some notoriety, and she plays Seeker in the Gryffindor team when Harry is prohibited from playing for the team. She is also one of the people who go with Harry to the Department of Mysteries, at the Ministry of Magic. However, her role and her character’s evolution, as well as the notice Harry is beginning to take of her, is missing in the movie. Since her role in the next book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is even more important, this is significant.

In the sixth book, Harry and Ginny finally get together, though they break up in the end. We can see that the Ginny Weasley is very different from the rather awkwardly shy young girl in the first few books. She becomes one of the main characters here in her own right, fighting the Death Eaters at the end of the book. She is also shown as being a tough, resilient and extremely attractive young woman.

Since her role in the fifth movie was not prominent, while she is very important in the sixth book, her role in the movie about to be released should be worth waiting for. In the last book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, too, she is important, but it is in the sixth book that her character truly evolves – but will it in the movie?