Yes, Harry, blessed as I am with extraordinary brainpower, I understood everything you told me. I think you might even consider the possibility that I understood more than you did.

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.

Harry's status as orphan gives him a freedom other children can only dream about (guiltily, of course). No child wants to lose their parents, yet the idea of being removed from the expectations of parents is alluring. The orphan in literature is freed from the obligation to satisfy his/her parents, and from the inevitable realization that his/her parents are flawed human beings. There is something liberating, too, about being transported into the kind of surrogate family which boarding school represents, where the relationships are less intense and the boundaries perhaps more clearly defined.

There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry,' said Dumbledore's voice. 'On the contrary... the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.

You haven't got a letter on yours," George observed. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid-we know we're called Gred and Forge.

That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger,” said Snape coolly. “Five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all.

And what in the name of Merlin’s most baggy Y Fronts was that about?