Life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement.

I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

My parents are muggles, mate. They don't know nothing about no deaths at Hogwarts, because I'm not stupid enough to tell them.

What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter?" said Snape softly. "Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade.

Harry, you wonderful boy, you brave, brave man.

Then you should have died! Died, rather than betray your friends, as we would have done for you!

This group had a kind of dark glamour within the castle. They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty.