In the sixth book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" Harry enters a tumultuous puberty that, Rowling says, is based on her and her younger sister's own difficult teenage years. Rowling also made an intimate statement about Harry's personal life: "Because of the demands of the adventure that Harry is following, he has had less sexual experience than boys of his age might have had". This inexperience with romance was a factor in Harry's failed relationship with Cho Chang. Now his thoughts concern Ginny Weasley, Ron's sister, a vital plot point in the last chapter when Harry ends their budding romance to protect her from Voldemort.
A new character appears when former Hogwarts Potions master Horace Slughorn returns to replace Severus Snape, who takes over the Defence Against the Dark Arts post. Harry excels in Potions by using an old textbook once belonging to a talented student known only as, "The Half-Blood Prince." The book contains many handwritten notes, revisions, and new spells; Hermione, however, believes Harry using it is cheating. Through private meetings with Dumbledore, Harry learns about Lord Voldemort's orphaned youth, his rise to power, and how he splintered his soul into Horcruxes to achieve immortality. Two Horcruxes have been destroyed, and Harry and Dumbledore locate another, although it is a fake. When Death Eaters invade Hogwarts, Snape kills Dumbledore. As Snape escapes, he proclaims that he is the Half-Blood Prince–Harry's admired mentor is actually his hated enemy. It now falls upon Harry to find and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes and to avenge Dumbledore's death. In a 2005 interview with NBC anchorwoman Katie Couric, Rowling stated that [after the events in the sixth book] Harry has, "taken the view that they are now at war. He does become more battle hardened. He’s now ready to go out fighting. And he’s after revenge [against Voldemort and Snape]."
In "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", Harry, Ron and Hermione leave Hogwarts to complete Dumbledore's task: to search for and destroy Voldemort's remaining four Horcruxes, and then find and kill the Dark Lord. The three put themselves against Voldemort's newly formed totalitarian police state, an action that tests Harry's courage and moral character. According to J.K. Rowling, a telling scene in which Harry uses "Cruciatus" and "Imperius" (unforgivable curses for torture and mind-control) on Voldemort's servants shows a side to Harry that is "flawed and mortal." However, she explains that, "He is also in an extreme situation and attempting to defend somebody very good against a violent and murderous opponent".
Harry comes to recognise that his own single-mindedness makes him predictable to his enemies and often clouds his perceptions. When Severus Snape is killed by Voldemort later in the story, Harry realises that Snape was not the traitorous murderer he believed him to be, but a tragic anti-hero who was loyal to Albus Dumbledore. In Chapter 33 ("The Prince's Tale") Snape's memories show that he loved Harry's mother Lily Evans, but their friendship ended over his association with future Death Eaters and "blood purity" beliefs. When Voldemort killed the Potters, a grieving Snape vowed to protect Lily's child, although he loathed young Harry for being James Potter's son. It is also revealed that Snape did not kill Albus Dumbledore, but carried out Dumbledore's prearranged plan. Dumbledore, who was dying from a slow-spreading curse, wanted to protect Snape's position within the Death Eaters and spare Draco Malfoy from completing Voldemort's task to murder him.
To defeat Harry, Voldemort steals the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's tomb. It is the most powerful wand ever created, and he twice casts the Killing Curse on Harry with it. The first attempt merely stuns Harry into a deathlike state. In the chapter "King's Cross", Dumbledore's spirit tells Harry that when Voldemort failed to kill baby Harry and disembodied himself, Harry became an unintentional Horcrux; Voldemort could not kill Harry while the Dark Lord's soul shard was within Harry's body. Voldemort's second Killing Curse also fails because Voldemort used Harry's blood in his resurrection. Voldemort's soul shard within Harry was destroyed because Harry willingly faced death. In the next chapter, "The Flaw in the Plan", it is established that Harry, not Voldemort, became the Elder Wand's true master. In the book's climax, the Elder Wand disobeys the Dark Lord's command and rebounds the curse onto Voldemort, killing him. J.K. Rowling said, the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry willingly accepts mortality, making him stronger than his nemesis. "The real master of Death accepts that he must die, and that there are much worse things in the world of the living."
After Voldemort's defeat, Harry joins the Auror Office for a revolutionised Ministry of Magic. Ten years afterwards, Harry is appointed department head by new Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt. Ron, who helped George run the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes Joke Shop for a time, is also an Auror. In the end, Rowling said his old rival Draco Malfoy has overcome his animosity after Harry saved his life three times in the seventh book.
In the "Deathly Hallows" epilogue, set nineteen years after Voldemort's death (i.e. 2017), Harry and Ginny are married and have three children: James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lilly Luna.
In the eight "Harry Potter" movies from 2001-2011, Harry Potter has been played by British actor Daniel Radcliffe. Radcliffe was asked to audition for the role of Harry Potter in 2000 by producer David Heyman, while in at a play titled "Stones in His Pockets" in London. The Harry Potter role has earned much money for Radcliffe. As of 2007, he has an estimated wealth of £17 million.
In a 2007 interview with MTV, Radcliffe stated that, for him, Harry Potter is a classic coming of age character: "That's what the movies are about for me: a loss of innocence, going from being a young kid in awe of the world around him, to someone who is more battle-hardened by the end of it." He also said that for him, important factors in Harry's psyche are his survivor's guilt about the death of his parents and his lingering loneliness. Because of this, Radcliffe talked to a bereavement counsellor to help him prepare for the role. Radcliffe was quoted as saying that he wished for Harry to die in the books, but he clarified that he, "can't imagine any other way they can be concluded". After reading the last book, where Harry Potter and his friends survive and have children, Radcliffe stated to be glad about the ending and lauded author J. K. Rowling for the conclusion of the story.
Radcliffe stated that the most often repeated question he has been asked is how Harry Potter has influenced his own life, to which he regularly answers it has been "fine", and that he did not feel pigeonholed by the role, but rather sees it as a huge privilege to portray the character of Harry Potter.
According to author J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter is strongly guided by his own conscience, and has a keen feeling of what is right and what is wrong. Having "very limited access to truly caring adults", Rowling said, Harry "is forced to make his own decisions from early age on." He "does make mistakes", she conceded, but in the end, he does what his conscience tells him to do. According to Rowling, one of Harry's pivotal scenes came in the fourth book when he protects his dead schoolmate Cedric Diggory's body from arch villain Lord Voldemort, because it shows he is brave and unselfish.