• By MuggleNet Editorial Staff
• 4 Sep, 2026
• Latest

HBO is already filling some of the most important roles for Harry Potter’s second year at Hogwarts.

Lenny Rush will play Dobby, Billy Barratt has been cast as the teenage Tom Riddle, and Bonnie Hill will become Ginny Weasley beginning with Season 2 of HBO’s Harry Potter series. Hill succeeds Gracie Cochrane, who filmed Ginny’s appearances in the upcoming first season but will not continue with the production after that.

All three characters become major pieces of the story in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which Season 2 will adapt. HBO renewed the series for a second season in May, months before its first season airs, and production on the next installment is rumored to have already begun.

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧

Before You Head Off to Hogwarts

Your First Year Starts Here

Get ready for life at Hogwarts with The Ultimate Wizarding World Student Handbook, a guide to the classes, school traditions, and magical details every new student should know before stepping aboard the Hogwarts Express.

Get the Student Handbook →

Available now to preorder on Amazon.

Lenny Rush Will Bring Dobby to the New Series

Rush takes on Dobby, the house-elf whose frantic warnings to Harry provide one of the earliest signs that something is very wrong at Hogwarts.

Although Rush is still young, he arrives with an impressive list of credits. He won the 2023 BAFTA for Male Performance in a Comedy Programme for Am I Being Unreasonable?, in a field of nominees that also included original Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe. Rush has also appeared in Enola Holmes 2, Doctor Who and Dodger.

Dobby presents a different casting question from most of the series’ characters because the house-elf will ultimately need to be created through visual effects. Toby Jones provided Dobby’s voice in the original films, with the character appearing onscreen as a digital creation. HBO has not yet detailed how Rush’s performance will be translated to the screen, including whether the new Dobby will use performance capture, on-set reference work, voice performance or some combination of techniques.

However the production approaches it, Rush will have plenty to work with. Dobby is funny and occasionally disastrous in Chamber of Secrets, but he also needs to establish the emotional qualities that make him increasingly important as the series continues.

Billy Barratt Takes On a Young Tom Riddle

Barratt has been cast as Tom Riddle, giving the new adaptation its first look at the boy who will eventually become Lord Voldemort.

The role requires a very different kind of menace from the Voldemort Harry encounters elsewhere in the story. In Chamber of Secrets, Riddle initially appears to Harry as an intelligent and composed Hogwarts student preserved through a magical diary. His true significance emerges gradually as Harry investigates events that took place at the school decades earlier.

Barratt already has experience with intense material. He starred in the BBC television film Responsible Child, and at 13 became the youngest-ever winner of the International Emmy for Best Performance by an Actor. More recently, he appeared in Apple TV’s Invasion and the 2025 horror film Bring Her Back.

Christian Coulson played the teenage Riddle in the 2002 film adaptation of Chamber of Secrets. HBO’s longer-form version of the books may eventually give Barratt opportunities beyond the second season as well. Later novels return to different periods of Riddle’s life, particularly through memories explored in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, though HBO has not announced how those future scenes will be cast or filmed.

Audible trial offer

Ready to start the Harry Potter full-cast audiobooks?

Try Audible Standard

First month free then $8.99/month

Bonnie Hill Becomes the Series’ New Ginny Weasley

Hill will take over as Ginny after Cochrane’s departure from the role. Cochrane completed Ginny’s limited Season 1 material before her family announced in May that she would not return for subsequent seasons.

The timing means the change comes just before Ginny becomes essential to the plot. Her appearances in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone are expected to be brief, while Chamber of Secrets brings her to Hogwarts as a first-year student and places her directly at the center of the mystery unfolding inside the castle.

Hill has previously appeared in The Six Triple Eight and Film Club, but there are also two amusing coincidences surrounding her new job.

First, she becomes the second Bonnie to play Ginny Weasley after Bonnie Wright portrayed the character throughout the original film series.

Even better, Hill already spent part of 2026 playing a character named Ginny in the CBBC series Girl Troop versus Aliens. Apparently, some names are difficult to escape.

Season 2 Is Taking Shape Before Season 1 Arrives

The three additions offer another indication of how far HBO is looking ahead with its Harry Potter production. Season 1, officially titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, will debut this Christmas, with Dominic McLaughlin as Harry, Alastair Stout as Ron and Arabella Stanton as Hermione.

Meanwhile, preparations for Chamber of Secrets are already underway. Kit Harrington has also been cast as the series’ new Gilderoy Lockhart, giving Season 2 another of its most prominent new characters.

There are still several familiar faces from Harry’s second year that have yet to be revealed, so Dobby, Ginny and Riddle are unlikely to be the last additions we hear about before the Chamber opens again.

Photos: HBO Max Instagram, Nicholas Dawkes, Emily Goldie, YellowBelly