The hippogriff took off into the air. . . . He and his rider became smaller and smaller as Harry gazed after them . . . then a cloud drifted across the moon. . . . They were gone.

Seventeen, eh!" said Hagrid as he accepted a bucket-sized glass of wine from Fred. "Six years to the day we met, Harry, d’yeh remember it?" "Vaguely," said Harry, grinning up at him. "Didn’t you smash down the front door, give Dudley a pig’s tail, and tell me I was a wizard?" "I forge’ the details," Hagrid chortled.

The ones that love us never really leave us.

But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog cards.

All those poor elves I haven’t set free yet, having to stay over during Christmas because there aren’t enough hats!

The dementors send their love, Potter!

Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have "essential" and "long overdue" meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg.