Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Ron's eyebrows rose so high that they were in danger of disappearing into his hair.

There's a time and a place for getting a smart mouth.

He was slumped in the back, gazing out of the window, as though his parents were two people who had picked him up hitchhiking, connected to him merely by chance and proximity.

The barman sidled toward them out of a back room. He was a grump-looking old man with a great deal of a long gray hair and a beard. He was tall and thin and looked vaguely familiar to Harry.

Andrew hated to see her humiliated and pathetic like this; but he half hated her too for landing herself in it, when any idiot could have seen.

It's best to know what the enemy are saying.