J. K. Rowling

Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors.

“You can’t blame them,” said Dumbledore gently. “We’ve had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.”

It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now.

“What they’re saying,” she pressed on, “is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric’s Hollow.

He couldn’t kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they’re saying that when he couldn’t kill Harry Potter, Voldemort’s power somehow broke — and that’s why he’s gone.” Dumbledore nodded glumly.

“It’s — it’s true?” faltered Professor McGonagall. “After all he’s done . . . all the people he’s killed . . . he couldn’t kill a little boy? It’s just astounding . . . of all the things to stop him . . . but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?” “We can only guess,” said Dumbledore. “We may never know.”

Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles.

These people will never understand him! He’ll be famous — a legend — I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day in the future — there will be books written about Harry — every child in our world will know his name!”

But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?” She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.

“I’m not saying his heart isn’t in the right place,” said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, “but you can’t pretend he’s not careless.

Brilly and Flintlock brawled in potions class, then they brawled on the soccer field, and finally they brawled sitting in the principal's office.

Oooh, look, powdered horn of a Bicorn – don’t know where we’re going to get that …

"We're not going to use magic?" Ron ejaculated loudly.

Ron continued to chunter under his breath all the way down the street.

"This is merely the antechamber, the entrance hall," said Dumbledore after a moment or two.

A little later, Harry sensed, by a freshening of the air, that they had reached the edge of the forest.

Harry doubted that Snape had even heard her strictures on Mulciber and Avery.