20 Life Lessons I Learned from Harry Potter

Friends can give you happiness but money can't.

Although Harry's parents left lots of gold coins for him. But the Mirror of Erised didn’t show him a landmine of coins, but rather the reason for his inherited wealth – his deceased parents.

There is always be someone who will stand beside you in every moment in your life.

The best example of this in the series for me was when Harry wasn’t receiving any letters from his friends all summer, feeling neglected and rejected by them, only to find out Dobby had been hiding them from him the entire time. The next scene that followed, with Ron and the Weasley twins rescuing him in their flying car.

Friends will get you out of trouble, but best friends will get in trouble with you.

A friend will help you out of a predicament (like Lupin did when Snape caught Harry with the Marauder’s Map), but any time Harry found himself in a troubling situation (facing a whomping willow, three-headed dog, and life-size lethal chess set), Ron and Hermione faced it with him.

We can’t rely on our friends or family to somehow save us from our own problems every time.

We have to learn to fight our own battles at some point, whether it’s dealing with the petty jealousy of a friend when you’re unknowingly entered in a contest, or defeating a massive basilisk in the demented water park of your school’s basement. No one said it’d be easy, but Harry Potter proved it’d be worth it.

"Bravery comes from within and cannot be confused with its egotistical cousin, confidence."

For this prime example will be Professor Lockhart and the rest is known to all.

"What happens, happens for your own good."

Harry didn’t know it throughout the course of the series, Snape was always on the side of Dumbledore in protecting Harry from Voldemort, despite Harry’s continuous distrust in him.

When power is used for good, power has the ability to change the world for the better. When it’s used for evil though, power has the ability to destroy it.

The best example will be the detrimental nature of ultimate power is the creation of the elder wand. Wizards have to kill its master to own it, friends kill each other to own it…it’s just all-around a machine of destruction.

Better would be with experience comes wisdom.

Whenever Harry found himself in a tough situation, we could always rely on Dumbledore to give brilliant advice or offer a wise suggestion.

Harry Potter showed us that we can triumph in our relationships with loved ones.

Even with Voldemort’s constant death threats, Harry Potter always had a support system of family and friends to help him along the way.

Our original assumptions of others are often not as spot-on as we think.

In Harry Potter’s life, this seemed to be especially relevant. From Snape to Sirius, to even Dobby, Harry was proven wrong time and time again by his initial judgments.