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Dolores Jane Umbridge is the ‘Defence Against the Dark Arts’ teacher, and Senior Undersecretary to the Minister himself in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. She is a short, squat woman described as resembling a large pale toad, with “short, curly, mouse-brown hair.” She speaks with a quiet, childish, high-pitched voice, and loves kittens, chocolate cakes, biscuits, tea and other cute things, decorating her office with related paraphernalia. She has a tendency to speak to people she feels are her lessers in a very condescending tone, as if they are simpletons or very young children.

Played to perfection by the actress Imelda Staunton, it is merely one in a series of acclaimed roles the London born actress has appeared in over the last three decades.