Over twenty years ago, a Scholastic book editor took a chance on a single mom of two who wrote a book about a boy wizard. In a rags-to-riches turn that everyone wishes would happen to them, it wasn't until just a couple of years later, now fifteen years ago, that her books were turned into movies and the characters that many grew up with, finally came to life on the big screen.

One of the great things about the Harry Potter books is that its readers grew with the characters. It's definitely no coincidence that Harry was 11 when the first book was published in 1997 and turned 17, when the last book was published ten years later in 2007. Timeless in nature, the Harry Potter books continue to this day to be the bestselling series.

Without further ado, lumos! Let's shine some light on what these 18 actors from Harry Potter have been up to since the release of the last movie. The obvious ones, such as Harry, Hermione, and Ron, of course, all have a mention, but numerous other secondary characters have also been featured.

Who is now a rising MMA star, who has had break-out roles in other major movies and who is now completely unrecognizable? Not to mention, many already have kids of their own!

18 Neville Longbottom - Matthew Lewis

After the release of the last Harry Potter movie, Matthew Lewis confided to Gizmodo: "I feel like I am living somebody else's life and every day I sort of have to pinch myself or try and think is this really happening to me. And if I never work again, I will always look back and go: you had a pretty good run there." He also added: “And I just feel so honored to be able to play a character like Neville as well, who is a hero and he's really inspirational. He inspired me.”

Sometimes, the most blundering and shy ones prove to also be the most courageous. Unless you have been living under a rock, then you should know that the actor who played Neville majorly shocked fans when he appeared on the cover of Attitude, effectively giving David Beckham a run for his money.

But just where exactly is Lewis now? Apart from maintaining a very active Twitter profile with close to 1.5 million followers, Lewis got engaged to events planner Angela Jones back in 2016. He’s not married yet though, so there might still be hope for a lucky fan. Apart from doing some stage acting after the Harry Potter movies, he now appears to be getting back into acting on the big screen, with a role in the upcoming movie Terminal with Margot Robbie and Simon Pegg.

17 Nymphadora Tonks - Natalia Tena

Best way to get over the end of one franchise? By getting cast in another! If you haven’t recognized Natalia Tena in Game of Thrones, then don’t despair and prepare to be shocked. The former Nymphadora Tonks has played Osha, the wildling woman who develops a close relationship with Bran Stark.

Her GoT role hasn’t even been her only major role. Prior to being cast in the Harry Potter franchise, the very talented Tena had already secured a couple of roles, most notably in About a Boy. Once Harry Potter wrapped up, she landed herself a couple of shorts stints on TV shows such as Shameless, Residue and Wisdom of the Crowd. After turning 18, she even busked on the London Underground by playing the accordion. There are even a couple of YouTube videos of her singing and playing the guitar.

16 Ginny Weasley -  Bonnie Wright

Not too surprisingly, Bonnie Wright is one of the most fiercely private cast members from the Harry Potter movies. Having been cast in the series at the young age of just ten years old meant that her appearance was thrown into the limelight for the public to dissect. As she pointed it out the best in an interview with the Telegraph: “It’s not fun when you’re a teenager and experiencing those things. You’re growing into yourself and see photos of yourself like, 'oh God!' Especially when you’re changing so much every year.”

She’s nearly 30 now, but at just 19, she was already engaged to fellow Potter actor Jamie Campbell Bower, who played a young Gellert Grindelwald. They broke it off just a couple of months later and she hasn’t been linked to anyone else since, focusing instead on trying to make headway in screenwriting and directing. After pursuing a Bachelor degree in Arts, she wrote and directed a couple of movies, most notably Separate We Come, Separate We Go, starring David Thewlis, who previous played Professor Lupin.

In that same interview, she also mentioned: “I’m so respectful and understand those 10 years on Harry Potter were the foundation of my life. It was seminal to my growing up”

15 Fred & George Weasley - James And Oliver Phelps

We're willing to bet that you wouldn't recognize the former Weasley twins if you saw them walking out and about. They had already ditched their signature longer hair by the fifth movie, but now they are both going for a more volumized kind of hair look. Even funnier is that although J.K. Rowling has revealed that it was Fred who was born first in the franchise, in real life, James, who played Fred, was actually born 13 minutes after his brother Oliver, who played George.

Out of the entire Harry Potter cast, the twins are probably the most involved when it comes to anything Potter-related. They posted a video to their YouTube channel just recently about their trip to Orlando for “A Celebration of Harry Potter”, alongside Bonnie Wright and a few other former cast members. As their IMDB pages show, although Oliver appears to have stopped acting for now, James is currently working on Own Worst Enemy, set to be released soon.

Although James isn’t married yet, Oliver has been married to Katy Humpage since 2015.

14 Draco Malfoy - Tom Felton

Having played one of the Harry Potter villains that we love to hate, Tom Felton has been incredibly busy since the ending of the series. Although at the time of the filming of Potter, he had been attempting to get a musical career going, it does appear that he has put that dream on the back burner, at least for the time being, having released his last EP Hawaii in 2011.

With regards to acting, he has already starred in more than a dozen movies, most notably as Dodge Landon in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Patrick in The Apparition, Matt in Feed etc. He also has a major role in a smaller upcoming movie titled Whaling. He has also most notably inserted himself into the Arrowverse universe with a recurring role as Doctor Alchemy in The Flash. No kids or marriage on the horizon for him as of yet either, especially since he appears to have broken up with his long-time girlfriend, who also played his wife in Potter.

13 Dudley Dursley - Harry Melling

Absolutely unrecognizable now, Harry Melling is probably one of the former child actors who worked the hardest to distance himself from his role in the franchise. In an interview with the Telegraph, he confided: "I can now shed the child-actor thing, like the fat, and start a new career, because no one sees me as Dudley."

It's especially brutal when you take into consideration that his role as Dudley was nearly recast in Deathly Hallows Part 1 because of his tremendous weight loss. Luckily, he got away with just wearing a fat suit.

So what has Melling been up to since Potter? Not much. He has never been very active on social media and despite making a rare appearance on The Lost City Of Z red carpet in 2017, hasn’t been seen since.

12 Luna Lovegood - Evanna Lynch

Evanna's Potter story is a fairytale of the acting world. As producer David Heyan said it best himself: "The others could play Luna; Evanna Lynch is Luna." Despite having never acting before securing her role, Evanna Lynch's performance was so powerful that she influenced J.K. Rowling's subsequent writings of the character in the book. "I saw her. [She] got in my head. I even heard her voice when I was writing Luna," confided Rowling in an interview with Charlie Rose.

After the last Harry Potter wrapped up, she went on to take a couple of indie movies, but it's starring role in 2015's My Name Is Emily that put her name back on the map. Despite voicing Luna in LEGO Dimensions, she does appear to have laid somewhat low since in terms of acting, although she did have a role in the indie film Indigo Valley.

Acting aside, she has been a huge proponent of veganism and is currently pushing for the United Kingdom to ban foie gras. As evidenced by her Instagram, she is also a crazy cat lady in the making, with 90% of her pics being of her cat.

11 Cho Chang - Katie Leung

Whereas many Harry Potter cast members loved their experience on the multi-million franchise and credit their luck with being cast, Katie Leung unfortunately sees the situation of her casting differently. Despite beating out 3,000 other girls for the role of Cho Chang, who captures develops a romantic relationship with Harry by the Order of the Phoenix book, Leung revealed to the Telegraph: “It wasn’t until I came to the end of filming that I realised it might have just been a case of luck that I got the role. No more.”

As a result of her on-screen relationship with Harry, Leung also described having to deal with a lot of online hate and racism from jealous fans, causing her to take a step away from acting. Since the end of the series, Leung has instead focused on taking photography courses and has also taken up a couple of stage acting gigs. Despite a small role as a nurse in T2 Trainspotting, she also has a starring role in the upcoming short film The Feast.

10 Fleur Delacour - Clémence Poésy

Did Clémence Poésy's role as Fleur Delacour open doors for her afterwards? It's hard to say because prior to Harry Potter, she had already been working hard to make her acting career take off by scoring smaller television film roles. Despite holding a smaller part in the Harry Potter movies, Poésy, to this day, continues to be shocked at the fan mania that she experiences. Talking to InStyle.co.uk, she recounted: "Once there were some sweet boys waiting outside a theatre wearing Hogwarts costumes. Because my part was so small, I never knew it was going to make such a difference in my life […] At the time I thought it was going to be a really small thing, but I’m still asked about it in every interview I do as the scale of it is so big."

Since the final Potter movie, she has had even more acting gigs, most notoriously as Chloe in In Bruges, Rana in 127 Hours, Natasha Rostova in War and Peace and Elise Wassermann in TV series The Tunnel. She also gave birth to her first child, Liam, in early 2017.

9 Ron Weasley - Rupert Grint

Don't believe everything you hear because although there's a video on YouTube on "Why Hollywood won't cast Rupert Grint anymore", it's simply not true that he has been blackballed in any way. He almost quit acting after Harry Potter, saying: "After we finished, I felt a bit lost really, because it was such a huge part of my life."

Another major reason why acting took a backseat for him is because the movies had eaten a big chunk of his teenage years. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he said: "I definitely did think, 'Is this really what I want to do?' I wanted to live a little bit. I felt like I'd missed out on a lot."

Unlike many of his former Potter co-stars, Our King Rupert Grint also isn’t on social media, having never actually even had a Facebook account. But the undeniable bright side of earning millions from the franchise is that he was able to focus on smaller acting gigs, most recently as Charlie Cavendish in the TV series Snatch. He also plays Rosse in the upcoming movie Instruments of Darkness.

8 Viktor Krum - Stanislav Ianevski

What has the Bulgarian Bonbon been up to since the release of the final Potter movie? Lots of selfies. Catering to almost 100k followers on Instagram, Stanislav Ianevski has been enjoying the fruits of his workout, demonstrating how Rita Skeeter's nickname for his Viktor Krum persona aptly applies to him as well. If Hermione would just see him now!

According to his Insta profile, he’s an actor and artist, but he has yet to truly make a name for himself in Hollywood. He has starred in a couple of episodes of a Bulgarian TV show and he landed himself a role in Hostel: Part II. Apart from that, he appears to possibly have a starring role in the upcoming movie The Cloaking. It remains to be seen if it will help him secure bigger roles, but he does appear to be trying hard to revive his acting career.

7 Dean Thomas - Alfred Enoch

Fans of How To Get Away With Murder are sure to instantly recognize Albert Enoch. Having previously played Dean Thomas in six Harry Potter movies, Enoch then secured the role of Wes Gibbins on the popular drama TV series. The break-out role actually came after a number of smaller roles. For a while, there was also heavy fan speculation that Enoch might be dating fellow co-star Aja Naomi King, but it doesn't appear to be the case anymore. Although he won't be returning to How To Get Away With Murder (the reason won't be given as it's a spoiler!), he has since been cast as Aeneas in Troy: Fall of a City.

His acting career is definitely looking quite promising compared to many other actors on this list and we anticipate seeing him a lot more from here on out.

6 Lavender Brown - Jessica Cave

Although Lavender Brown was initially played by Kathleen Cauley in the second movie and then in a non-speaking role by Jennifer Smith, the role was eventually given to Jessica Cave for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as well as Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Part 2. The re-casting decision didn't come without controversy as fans were outraged when a white actress was cast in a role that had previously been played by a black actress.

In any case, Jessica did play Lavender Brown for longer and has had more lines. So what has Cave been up to since the last Potter movie?  Although she hasn't posted a video in over a year, there was a time that she frequently posted vlogs to her YouTube channel, amassing nearly 16k subscribers. The now mom of two has also published two books: Love Sick and Love Sick (kfa). In terms of acting, she does still take on smaller roles and does regular comedy sketches in London.

5 Cedric Diggory - Robert Pattinson

Robert Pattinson pretty much went from being a heartthrob on one mega franchise to another when he traded his wand for fangs. It's no secret that after playing the doomed Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Pattinson then turned his attention to Twilight, even admitting to Vanity Fair that it felt "weird" to be "kind of representing something you don't particularly like." Brutal!

He has starred in many other successful movies, such as Remember Me, Bel Ami, and The Lost City of Z. Now that his engagement to FKA Twigs has ended, rumors are once again swirling about a rekindling romance with Kristen Stewart. None of the gossip is probably true since she has come out as gay and is in a relationship with Stella Maxwell.

4 Gregory Goyle - Josh Herdman

Herdman's career couldn't have taken a more different turn than the rest of the Harry Potter cast. Although he originally auditioned for the role of Dudley, he instead spent seven years playing Draco Malfoy's sidekick (or should we say henchman?) Gregory Goyle. After the movies wrapped up, he actually managed to secure himself a couple of smaller roles, along with a secondary part in the upcoming Robin Hood with Taron Egerton, Jamie Dornan and Jamie Foxx.

Despite an acting career seemingly on the career, the father of one has now also fully dedicated himself to MMA, telling the Daily Star: "I was a party animal. But I had enough of it so I decided I was going to get fit and I needed something to focus on and martial arts did change my life."

3 Hermione Granger - Emma Watson

Little miss perfect is still as perfect as she ever was playing Hermione Granger. After the last Harry Potter movie, Watson split her time between taking up a few acting gigs and earning a bachelor's degree in English literature from Brown. Since graduating, she has modeled for Burberry and Lancôme, been an outspoken UN Women Goodwill ambassador, and earned a number of awards for her acting. Just recently, she secured a couple of awards for her role as Belle in Beauty and the Beast.

With nearly 29 million followers on Twitter, she takes full advantage of all of her social media platforms to spread the word about two major campaigns: HeForShe and Time's Up.

And if you ever find a book either in London's Tube or New York City's Subway, then know that it was probably left there by her. Frequently making headlines, Emma Watson is also another former Harry Potter cast member who is off the market. The recent news is that she is dating singer and actor Chord Overstreet.

2 Harry Potter - Daniel Radcliffe

Sorry, but despite the very convincing movie poster that circulated on April 1st 2018, Daniel Radcliffe will not be reprising his role in an upcoming Harry Potter and the Cursed Child movie. The very convincing claim was nothing but an April Fool's joke and in fact, there is no such movie even in the works.

Out of everyone from the former cast, Harry Potter is probably the one who took the most peculiar turn in his career. Although he has had some normal roles, such as Walter Mabry in Now You See Me 2, Nate Foster in Imperium and a few others, but it's roles like the one he took on in the play Equus and the movie Swiss Army Man that have put a serious damper on his professional acting career. It’s clear that after playing a The Boy Who Lived for a decade, Radcliffe has merely wanted to diversify his talents, especially since he has accumulated more than enough money to allow him to not have to worry about his finances.

The fiercely private actor also avoids social media like the plague, telling People: “Also, I don’t have Twitter and I’m not on Facebook, and I think that makes things a lot easier because if you go on Twitter and tell everybody what you’re doing moment to moment, and then claim you want a private life, no one’s going to take that request seriously.” Unfortunately, he is still off the market and in a relationship with Erin Darke, but he isn’t married yet.

1 Seamus Finnigan - Devon Murray

Devon Murray is a great example of an actor stuck in the past. If we look at his Twitter bio, it says: "Actor, Devon Murray, Played Seamus Finnigan In Harry Potter For 10 Yrs Of My Life. The Silly Irish Guy Who Kept Blowing Up 💥". It would be a fantastic bio if it weren't for the fact that since Harry Potter wrapped up, he hasn't actually acted all that much or rather, practically none at all. He seemingly had a promising career prior to the Potter mania, with a couple of movie roles. Since the final Harry Potter movie, he has appeared in a music video by Simonna, with whom he is clearly in a relationship. He now also has the smallest of roles in Damo & Ivor: The Movie.

Despite calling himself an actor without really acting anymore, he does maintain an active Twitter following at least with nearly 300k follower and over 6.4k tweets, so there is at least a little something to be proud of.

References: IMDB.com, DailyStar.co.uk, People.com, InStyle.co.uk, Vox.com, Gizmodo.com, GlamourMagazine.co.uk, Hollywood.com, Mugglenet.com, and Telegraph.co.uk.