One of the larger themes in Harry Potter is defiantly the coming of age aspect. I think that one of the things that happens as we get older is that we do learn that people are more complicated than what they may appear on the surface. There are no totally good or bad guys.
Most of the characters in the series fit in with this because for many of the characters there have been times when they have done something that is morally wrong for a very good reason. All the characters have faults and in later books that is really realized.
I’ll use Snape as my example because he is a pretty complex character from the start of the series. In the Sorcerer’s Stone most readers will instantly peg him as the bad guy. I think that this is especially true if you were a younger kid the first time that you read it because he fits the stereotypes so well. He wears black all the time, he’s mean to the main characters, nice to the people that are mean to the main characters, he is sneaky and he teaches in the dungeons. It also doesn’t help that in the movie adaption Alan Rickman makes Snape seem even scarier with his acting.
But even in the first book we learn that Snape can't all bad because he does try to save Harry, even though he doesntr like him, in the Quidditch match and as the series progresses we learn about his motivations and also his history and some of the events that led to him being a mean old snarky git as a lot of people call him in the fanfiction world. I think that this is the growing up element. As we get older we witness change in ourselves and we became capable of understanding that people change due to the things that happen to them and just because they are doing things that make us upset or angry doesn’t necessary mean that they are all bad.
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