Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

Yeah, well, food's one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfigurations," said Ron, to general astonishment.

I look at the effect that an individual's fame has on their family, for example, and the limitations that places upon your life to an extent - of course, it brings marvelous things too, but it brings them mainly to the individual. The people around the famous person often pay a price without reaping many of the rewards.

I don't feel quite normal if I haven't written for a while. I doubt I will ever again write anything as popular as the "Harry" books, but I can live with that thought quite easily. By the time I stop writing about Harry, I will have lived with him for 13 years, and I know it's going to feel like a bereavement. So I'll probably take some time off to grieve, and then on with the next book!

I always felt an outsider.

From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork.

But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog cards.