'-mediocre, arrogant as his father, a determined rule-breaker, delighted to find himself famous, attention-seeking and impertinent -' said Severus. 'You see what you expect to see, Severus.' said Dumbledore.

Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?

On Harry dug, deeper and deeper into the hard, cold earth, subsuming his grief in sweat, denying the pain in his scar.

And sure enough, in seeking to become superhuman this foolhardy young man renders himself inhuman. The heart that he has locked away slowly shrivels and grows hair, symbolising his own descent to beasthood.

Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.

The poor things keep calling in those – those pumbles, I think they're called – you know, the ones who mend pipes and things – " "Plumbers?" " – exactly, yes, but of course they're flummoxed.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.