Rowling also said that Harry's two worst character flaws are "anger and occasional arrogance", but that Harry is also innately honourable. "He's not a cruel boy. He's competitive, and he's a fighter. He doesn't just lie down and take abuse. But he does have native integrity, which makes him a hero to me. He's a normal boy but with those qualities most of us really admire." After the seventh book, Rowling commented that Harry has the ultimate character strength, being able to do what even Voldemort can not: he is not afraid of death.
Rowling has also maintained that Harry is a suitable real-life role model for children. "The advantage of a fictional hero or heroine is that you can know them better than you can know a living hero, many of whom you would never meet […] if people like Harry and identify with him, I am pleased, because I think he is very likeable."
Rowling also gave Harry Potter an uncanny outward appearance. Throughout the entire series, Harry sports his father's perpetually untidy black hair, his mother's green eyes, and a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead because of his encounter with Lord Voldemort and round, thick eyeglasses. She explained that this image simply came to her when she first thought up Harry Potter, seeing him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy".
In the books, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or feeling particularly murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby, Voldemort gave him "tools (that) no other wizard possessed – the scar, and the ability it conferred, provided a magical window into Voldemort's mind." Asked why Harry's forehead scar is lightning bolt-shaped, Rowling said, "to be honest, because it’s a cool shape," and joked, "I couldn’t have my hero sport a doughnut-shaped scar."
In the books, Harry is categorised as a "half-blood" wizard in the series, because although both his parents were magical, his mother, Lily Evans, was "Muggle-born". According to Rowling, to characters for whom wizarding blood purity matters, Lily would be considered "as loathsome as a Muggle", and derogatively referred to as a "Mudblood".
Throughout the series, Rowling wrote Harry Potter as a gifted wizard apprentice. She stated in a 2000 interview with "South West News Service" that Harry Potter is "particularly talented" in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and also good in Quidditch. Rowling said in the same interview that until about halfway through the third book, his good friend Hermione Granger –written as the smartest student in Harry's year– would have beaten Harry in a magical duel. From the fourth book onwards, Rowling admits Harry has become quite talented in the Defence Against the Dark Arts and would beat his friend Hermione in a magical duel. His power is evident from the beginning of the series; specifically, Harry shows immediate command of a broomstick, produces a Patronus at an early age and survives several confrontations with Voldemort. Harry is able to speak and understand Parseltongue, a language associated with Dark Magic, which, according to Rowling, is because he harbours a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul. After Voldemort destroys that soul piece in the seventh book's climax, Harry loses the ability to speak Parseltongue. Harry "is very glad" to have lost this gift.
According to Rowling, Harry's favourite book is "Quidditch Through the Ages", an actual book that Rowling wrote (under the pseudonym Kennilworthy Whisp) for the "Comic Relief" charity.
When Harry's parents were murdered by Lord Voldemort, they left behind a large pile of wizard's gold, used as currency in the world of magic, in a vault in the wizarding bank, Gringotts. This becomes Harry's source of paying for all of his Hogwarts textbooks, wizarding clothing, and spending money.
As is the case with most wizards in the Harry Potter series, his wand is among his most valued magical items. Harry's is made of holly, a wood Rowling chose because it is said to get rid of evil. It forms a deliberate contrast to the wand of his nemesis Lord Voldemort, whose wand is made of yew, which symbolises death. Rowling states she later learned that in the Celtic calendar a type of wood is assigned to each month; and Harry's fictional birthday (31 July) is linked to holly. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger also happened to get wands made from the appropriate woods identified the Celtic calendar, according to their fictional birth months.
Another valued and useful possession is Harry's Cloak of Invisibility. In his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he gets it anonymously as a Christmas gift. He later learns it was given by Albus Dumbledore, who had it in turn from Harry's father.
Harry also owns half of a pair of two-way mirrors, given by his godfather Sirius Black, as a means of maintaining covert communications. In Book 7, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", when Harry and several friends are captured at Malfoy Manor, which Lord Voldemort was using as his headquarters, Harry uses the mirror to communicate with Aberforth Dumbledore, who sends rescue in the form of Dobby the House Elf.
After Sirius' death, all of his remaining possessions were passed along to Harry. This included the Black family residence, located at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, and all the contents and furnishings of the house, including Kreacher (the old Black family House Elf). Harry also inherited the remainder of Sirius' wealth in wizard's gold at Gringotts.
Another notable possession of Harry's is a magical knife, given to him by Sirius Black. The knife has the power to open most mechanical locks and magical seals. The knife was destroyed when Harry attempted to use it on a lock in the Department of Mysteries, when instead of opening the desired lock, an enchantment destroyed the knife's blade.
By the end of "Deathly Hallows", Harry possesses all three Deathly Hallows: the Cloak of Invisibility, the Resurrection Stone, and the Elder Wand, They are three of the most powerful magical items in all of the wizarding-world. However, Harry lost the Resurrection Stone inside the Forbidden Forest, and decides to leave it there. Harry also takes the Elder Wand and lays it with Dumbledore's body, so the power of the wand might be extinguished if he dies a natural death.(In the movie, Harry destroys it by snapping it in half.) However, the new portrait of Dumbledore in the Headmaster's Office agrees that Harry should keep the Invisibility Cloak for himself, since it was his father's.
Throughout most of the books, Harry also has a pet owl named Hedwig, used to deliver and get messages and packages. When Hedwig is killed in the seventh book, the author said she expected the strong emotional reaction of her readers: "The loss of Hedwig represented a loss of innocence and security. She has been almost like a cuddly toy to Harry at times. I know that death upset a lot of people!"
In the novels, Harry is the only child of James and Lily Potter, but orphaned as an infant. Rowling made Harry an orphan from the early drafts of her first book. She felt an orphan would be the most interesting character to write about. However, after her mother's death, Rowling wrote Harry as a child longing to see his dead parents again, incorporating her own anguish into him. Harry's aunt and uncle kept the truth about their deaths from Harry, telling him they died in a car accident. Through his marriage to Ginny Weasley, Harry links the Peverell and the House of Black families. It is unknown whether there have been other links between the two families' history, but this is possible, as they are among the most prominent wizarding families.