I have to write the story I want to write. I never wrote them with a focus group of 8-year-olds in mind. I have to continue telling the story the way I want to tell it.

Your devotion is nothing more than cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go.

We tried to shut him in a pyramid, but Mum spotted us.

A tiny little wooden man [was] slowly ascending the steps to a real set of gallows, both perched on a box that read: Reusable Hangman — Spell It Or He’ll Swing!

We have to choose between what is right, and what is easy.

Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?” James lifted an invisible sword. “‘Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.” Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him. “Got a problem with that?” “No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy —” “Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.

There was a brief silence in which the distant echo of Hagrid smashing down a wooden front door seemed to reverberate through the intervening years.