What exactly is the function of a rubber duck?

Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.

The first story I finished was when I was six years old.

I've wanted to be an author as long as I can remember. English was always my favorite subject at school, so why I went on to do a degree in French is anyone's guess.

You can try, but you seem cleverer than Fudge, so I'd have thought you'd have learned from his mistakes. He tried intervening at Hogwarts. You might have noticed he's not Minister anymore, but Dumbledore's still headmaster. I'd leave Dumbledore alone, if I were you.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

There is a lot of comedy in magic, and magic going wrong, and also it is a dramatic subject.