Hypocrite examples in Harry Potter.
- Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters are prejudiced against wizards with less than pure wizarding blood and non-human magical creatures in general despite himself having a muggle parent. While he's counting on the anti-Muggle feelings of his followers, he genuinely despises Muggles and anything he considers Mud-blood — and he apparently has a one drop rule for everyone except himself and personal Death Eaters like Snape. While they also recruited Giants and Werewolves, they probably rationalized them as second and third-tier "citizens" in Voldemort's new England.
- In her introductory book, Dolores Umbridge is seen as an agent of the Ministry, sycophantic to its causes and forcing tyrannical laws onto the school in order to get her own way, yet at the same time, she gleefully (although secretly) engages in activities that are highly illegal and certainly unforgivable, even by the Ministry. Worse, she punishes Harry most severely for asserting that Voldemort is at large, insisting that he "not tell lies" while aping the official Ministry line on Voldemort, which is patently and obviously false (though this may be a case of Believing Their Own Lies instead). In the final book, she persecutes Muggle-borns for "stealing magic" which she should certainly know is a nonsensical charge while claiming that the locket she took as a bribe is an old family heirloom supporting her own bloodline. The injustice and cruelty of this enrages Harry so much that he attacks her immediately without resorting to a more subtle plan.
- Draco Malfoy has his moments:
- He loses his temper at Harry and tries to curse him because Harry has insulted his mother, even though Malfoy insulted Ron's own mother mere lines earlier.
- In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, he gets furious at Harry calling him out for splitting up his son Scorpius with his Harry's son Albus, Draco is the last person who calls anyone out on segregation or morals. He is also very critical of Hermione's work as Minister of magic, even though Voldemort and the Death Eaters (whom he was one of) took over the Ministry by force.
- Sirius Black, despite his axiom that the measure of a man is how he treats his inferiors, behaves detestably towards Kreacher (since Kreacher reminds him of the house and the family he hated while growing up). Indeed, this is one of his least admirable qualities. It also bites him in the arse. Hard. But as Dumbledore clarifies, Sirius was kind to House Elves in general but Kreacher was special as a reminder of his home and the bad childhood that he hoped to escape. Additionally, his belief that "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters" goes out the window during the argument with Snape. Though the latter is himself not blameless in that regard. Word of God admits that this is a serious flaw for Sirius, but she also admits that it's difficult to be morally consistent in life.
- Lupin in the third book tells Harry that he's appalled that Harry never brought the Marauder's Map to a teacher's attention given how useful it would be to catch Sirius or how useful it'd be to Sirius if he found it. Yet Lupin never bothers telling Dumbledore (or anyone except Harry, Ron, and Hermione) that Sirius is an animagus and knows about the tunnel from the Shrieking Shack onto Hogwarts grounds.
- Even though he was bullied by the Marauders, Severus Snape does nothing to stop Malfoy and the Slytherins from bullying Harry and company and even bullies them himself. Snape's bullying of Hermione in particular is very ironic since she's a gifted muggle-born witch very similar to Lily whom Snape deeply loved all his life. Snape even gets angry at Phineas Nigellus Black calling Hermione a "Mudblood" likely remembering his Moment of Weakness when he called Lily that, yet he had no qualms bullying Hermione viciously.
- Molly Weasley's complaints about her oldest son Bill (who's 26) jumping into marriage too fast and how just like in the previous war "people are eloping left, right, and center." One of her other children points out that she and Arthur got married right out of school, meaning she got married even younger than Bill and Fleur, but Molly brushes it off as her and Arthur being "meant for each other". Earlier in Goblet of Fire, despite her protests she clearly believed the lies Rita Skeeter wrote about Hermione... and then berated Amos Diggory for believing the lies Rita Skeeter told about people.
- Hermione Jean Granger, while she is a very good person, is still an Insufferable Genius and her actions and words do contradict each other a lot.
- She's a huge Soapbox Sadie for House Elf's rights and frequently lectures Harry on the best way to treat Kreacher and even states Sirius deserved what he got for how he treated Kreacher. While her intentions are pure, it's worth noting Harry is the one who freed Dobby and inspired Kreacher while Hermione's own attempts to liberate House Elves are complete failures in comparison. Also her efforts to liberate House Elves involve hiding woolen hats under rubbish which the Elves will unthinkably pick up, meaning she's essentially trying to trick and force them into freedom which is an incredibly scummy thing to do, Ron rightly calls her out on it. Worse of all during the Yule Ball Hermione was having such a good time that she doesn't even comment on how the event is probably overworking the House Elves in the kitchens to the extreme, in essence showing the same neglect to them that she despises in others.
- She frequently bemoans Harry, Ron, and others for not reading as many books and studying as much she does. Yet in the sixth book when Harry starts reading the Half-Blood Prince's potion's book and doing very well in Potions because of it, Hermione gets extremely pissy not being the best in the class and becomes a real Sore Loser in the process.
- She claims Harry is cheating by using the notes in the Prince's book. Hermione herself in the third book used the Time-Turner to get to as many classes as possible improving her overall grade through suspect means, just like Harry. She also used magic to reduced the size of her teeth, rather than braces, and used a Confundus Charm on Cormac McLaggen during the Quidditch tryouts so that Ron would get on the team rather than him.
- Hermione is highly vocal against violence, cruelty, and torturous methods such as the Cruciatus Curse. However she herself has absolutely no qualms delivering some Disproportionate Retribution to Marietta Edgecombe for ratting on DA, cursing her with permanent pimples that read "SNEAK" across her face which Marietta still has a book later.
- In the seventh book, Hermione — out of guilt for destroying Harry's Phoenix feather wand — encourages him to get used to a new wand and writes off his complaints that it feels wrong. When she is forced to use Bellatrix Lestrange's wand to infiltrate Gringotts, Hermione moans and frets not liking it at all, Harry thinks about calling her out on it but decides to not antagonize her.
- Hermione also prides herself as "sensible" (which JK supports) yet in the books, we see that Hermione is very much capable of being immature when things don't go her way and is highly temperamental especially when it comes to poor Ron. This includes attacking him with conjured birds in a fit of jealously after seeing him kiss Lavender Brown.
- She often calls Ron out on his insensitivity, even once saying he has "the emotional range of a teaspoon." Hermione herself can be very insensitive, such as sniggering after Ron reveals he's scared of spiders, using the death of Lavender Brown's pet rabbit Binky to show why Divination is rubbish, calling the Quibbler rubbish in front of Luna and referring to Firenze (a centaur) as a "horse."
