Dolores Umbridge is often regarded as the worst villain of the Harry Potter series—even more evil than Lord Voldemort—and her backstory reveals that she was always just as horrible. The character was introduced near the end of the series in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but she clearly left her mark on the fandom. Umbridge’s approach to teaching and cruel methods of punishment made Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts the most infuriating to read or watch. Still, the professor and Ministry official’s backstory makes her seem even worse in retrospect.
The majority of the villains in Harry Potter fall under the standard definition of evil. Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters wear dark clothing, commit horrendous murders, and leer everywhere they go. This isn’t the case for prim and proper Dolores Umbridge. Her love of pink and adorable kittens starkly contrasts with her cruel personality, and her determination that everything she does is good and right contradicts all that the Death Eaters stood for. Umbridge is the very definition of the lawful evil morality type, and the details about her past revealed on the Wizarding World website demonstrate that she was the same way long before the start of Harry Potter.
Dolores Umbridge Had A Muggle Mother & Squib Brother
Dolores Umbridge was born to a wizard father and a witch mother, both of whom she despised. Orford Umbridge, who worked at the Ministry of Magic in the Department of Magical Maintenance, had never received a promotion throughout his entire career, and Dolores considered this a disgusting lack of ambition. Dolores was deeply embarrassed by her father, but this was nothing compared to how she felt about her mother. As a Muggle, Ellen Umbridge was a great shame to her daughter, who adhered to the Slytherin belief that non-magical people were inferior and unclean.
This meant that when Dolores’ younger brother failed to demonstrate any magical ability, she and her father determined that it was entirely Ellen’s fault. The strain led Orford and his wife to divorce, with the former taking Dolores and the latter taking the Squib younger sibling. The future Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic never saw her non-magical family again and denied having any such stain on her family tree.
At Hogwarts, Umbridge wasn’t a particularly impressive student. Her prejudice was alarming even to her fellow Slytherin students, and the witch learned to hide her ugliness behind a misleadingly sweet mask. As a deeply ambitious witch, Umbridge felt unfairly disregarded at Hogwarts. She had no great achievements and was passed over for positions she would have relished, such as prefect or Head Girl. This is likely why Dolores’ stint as Hogwarts High Inquisitor during Harry Potter got so out of control—she saw it as her moment to shine at long last.
Umbridge Climbed Positions At The Ministry By Claiming The Work Of Others
Dolores Umbridge’s self-discipline still managed to earn her decent marks at Hogwarts, which allowed her to secure an internship with the Ministry of Magic’s Improper Use of Magic Office. At this point in her life, she was already rather difficult to like, but her ability to identify those with power and shower them with sickly sweet praise meant she began to climb the ranks rather quickly. Still, it was her talent for sneakily claiming the hard work of others that got her to such a high position within the Ministry. This was especially effective on Cornelius Fudge, who believed Umbridge’s flattery with little convincing.
When Fudge became Minister for Magic, he brought Umridge along with him, and she was awarded the position of Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. According to Wizarding World, Umbridge recognized the power that marriage could bring her, and she tried her hand at seducing the men in power within the Ministry. However, anyone who got to know her true self behind the pink and bows found her utterly unlovable.
Anyone Who Questioned Umbridge’s Lies Would Mysteriously Disappear
As was seen in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Umbridge liked to pretend that she was descended from the powerful pure-blood wizarding family, the Selwyns. This was how she had claimed to have acquired Slytherin’s locket, which was embossed with the letter “S.” This was, of course, a lie—but it was far from Umbridge’s first. As previously mentioned, Dolores’ father had worked for the Department of Magical Maintenance his entire career. This simply wouldn’t do for the ambitious witch once she started working at the Ministry. She couldn’t have her superiors knowing that Mr. Umbridge had been nothing much a magical janitor.
As Umbridge began to climb within the Ministry of Magic, she used her finances to set Orford up for retirement and stuck him somewhere out of the way where no one would discover him. If any of her colleagues ever learned the truth about Delores’ parentage, they would mysteriously disappear. This allowed Umbridge to maintain her reputation as a pure-blood witch—a classification she seemed to eventually believe she had indeed been born into.
Dolores Umbridge Truly Believed That She Was Good – But It Didn’t Save Her From Azkaban
Though villains like Bellatrix Lestrange and Lord Voldemort himself knew they were evil, Dolores never seemed to consider this about herself. This was why she never explicitly joined the Death Eaters, despite the fact that Voldemort’s anti-Muggle movement aligned with her own beliefs. Umbridge considered the Ministry for Magic the definitive good—and as a member of its governing force, that meant she was as well. However, when the Death Eaters began to silently run the Ministry in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Umbridge found herself entirely within her element.
As the Head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission, Umbridge was able to exercise control over witches and wizards without magical parentage and send them to Azkaban for the crime of stealing an actual magical individual’s wand. It seems unlikely that Dolores could have fooled herself into believing that the people she convicted were actually non-magical since Muggles cannot use wands even if they managed to steal one. Therefore, when Voldemort fell and Kingsley Shacklebolt was named Minister for Magic, Umbridge had little defense for her actions. She was sent to Azkaban for the false imprisonment and deaths of Muggle-borns—a fitting punishment for the worst of the Harry Potter villains.
