But no one can say Rowling has simple ideas about evil. If you look closely, Voldemort turns out to be an unusual villain for a story like this one. And there’s another kind of evil in the story, perhaps more powerful and more dangerous than Voldemort, which Rowling believes to be present in real life.

If there’s supernatural evil in the background of Harry’s world, Rowling doesn’t mention it. Given the magic in the series, this omission is especially unusual. In most traditions, the power of magic comes from summoning supernatural spirits, including Satan or figures like him. In the Harry Potter books, no one summons the evil dead.

For Rowling, evil has a human face. Voldemort’s twisted mind is explained, at least in part, as a result of his childhood circumstances.

Even before being born, Voldemort had the odds against him. His mother, Merope, had suffered her own abuse as a child, then used a love potion to trick Voldemort’s father into a loveless marriage. “The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion,” Rowling explained to an interviewer when the series was complete. “There can’t be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world.” Voldemort’s father left his mother when she let the enchantment lapse. She became homeless, and died giving birth to Voldemort, who was raised in a Muggle orphanage. In an extreme version of the “family romance” described in a previous chapter, Voldemort’s rage led him to kill his father and his father’s parents.

This is psychological, not supernatural. In interviews, Rowling talks about Voldemort being a “psychopath.” He’s evil, but not demonic. And, she adds, “Everything would have changed for him if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him.”

Voldemort “is what he is, and he’s beyond redemption,” Rowling has said. “But the people around him, that’s what’s more interesting in a way . . . People who do have a choice, did make a choice, like the Malfoys of this world. I think it’s always worth examining why people choose to make those decisions.”

Choices. Decisions. The Death Eaters are more than mindless underlings.

For a story with so much magic, it’s a surprise, and an important one, that Voldemort doesn’t use magic to attract his followers. With his powers, he might easily have enchanted the cronies he needed. That’s a common way for Dark Lords to gain power. Or he might have created an army the way Tolkien’s Orcs were created, by giving life to something inanimate, like clay and rock. Examples of supernatural armies go back to ancient myths. In the Greek story of the Golden Fleece, warriors sprout from dragon’s teeth planted in a field. Jewish folklore tells of a Golem, a giant clay monster given life to protect Jews against attack.

But Voldemort wins followers without even casting a spell. He doesn’t tempt them, trick them, or convince them that he has a better idea than other wizards. They follow him because of their own psychology. They need to follow. They were fascinated by him when he was just Tom Riddle, an extraordinary student. He wasn’t recruiting Death Eaters then, but they were already beginning to gather around him. Even Horace Slughorn, who thought of himself as a leader, and who had created the Slug Club to give himself admirers, was enthralled by Riddle.

Why do these wizards, who already have great skills and bright futures, follow Riddle?

Psychologists describe this desire for a father figure as a desire for “magical protection.” Sigmund Freud remarked that leaders, like parents, eliminate fear and allow followers to feel powerful. That’s true whether it’s Crabbe and Goyle following Draco Malfoy, or Draco and Lucius Malfoy following Voldemort. Rowling’s wizards, for all their magical powers, look for the same thing from a wizard whose powers are greater than their own.

The leader gives followers a view of the world they want to see: He appeals to their narcissism, telling them that they are good, and their enemies are evil. If they don’t have enemies, he creates them. Voldemort, for example, makes enemies of Muggles and “Mudblood” wizards.

Of course, that’s a lie that people tell themselves. They’re doing what they’ve wanted to do all along. This brings up the question, are the followers actually doing the leading? People often choose leaders who have the courage to do what they might be ashamed to do themselves. Becker explains:

When Harry’s search for Voldemort’s Horcruxes leads to the goblins, Bill Weasley tells Harry to ignore conventional wisdom about goblins. Harry has been taught that wizards have treated the goblins well, and that the hate goblins feel toward wizards comes from the goblins’ nature. Bill knows Harry has heard only the wizards’ version. The wizards, to use Becker’s phrase, “are avoiding responsibility for their own acts in a cowardly way.” Unfortunately, Harry doesn’t fully understand. Despite Bill’s warning, he tries to trick Griphook instead of just explaining that he’ll need to borrow the sword for a while. Harry, for all his compassion, doesn’t heroically overcome the bigotry he has been taught.

That’s because Harry’s not the hero in the battle against this kind of evil. Hermione is.

Hermione is obsessed with fighting injustice. (Rowling says that quality came from her own teenage years.) In Chamber, when Harry and Ron are happy to believe the wizards’ self-serving lie that house-elves don’t want freedom, she creates S.P.E.W., the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. Although she stumbles along the way, offending the house-elves she’s trying to help, her heart is in the right place, and her mission is more than teenage folly.

In Hallows, she’s the one who convinces Harry that Kreacher’s nastiness comes from mistreatment by wizards. Harry doesn’t want to believe that one of his own heroes, Sirius, could have been so unjust. He thinks the opposite: he believes Kreacher is responsible for the death of Sirius. But Hermione is right. “I’ve said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves,” she reminds Harry. “Well, Voldemort did . . . and so did Sirius.” Harry’s merciful treatment, which comes at Hermione’s urging, leads Kreacher to rally the house-elves to help the wizards in the Battle of Hogwarts.

Hermione even manages to open Ron’s eyes. As the Battle of Hogwarts is about to start, it’s Ron who thinks of warning the house-elves. “Ron had finally got S.P.E.W. and earned himself a snog!” is how Rowling put it to fans in a webchat.

And what future does Rowling see for her alter ego? She imagines that Hermione ended up in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, where Hermione “was a progressive voice who ensured the eradication of oppressive, pro-pureblood laws.”

Rowling’s message is that even good societies—like Harry’s, like ours—commit great injustices. To define themselves as good, they imagine outsiders to be evil. They find some way to make a virtue out of their beliefs or rituals, and to belittle the customs and beliefs of their closest neighbors. It’s a narcissism of little differences. In Harry’s world, even people who devoted themselves to fighting Voldemort were blind to the bigoted assumptions they inherited.

Hermione’s victory isn’t as dramatic as Harry’s, but in Rowling’s view, it’s just as important.