“James”

“Thought you were making a James Band Joke. Hard to tell with that accent”

“The scariest people in the world are not always the ones who are bent on evil, James. Sometimes, the scariest person is the one who mistakes their own lies for truth.”

“Suresy, are we? Mmm! Beans, beans, the musical fruit!” Peeves dismissed James and swooped back up to the rafters again. “The more I plant, the more to toot!”

“Phew,” Zane muttered as James plopped down next to him and reached for the last piece of toast. “These little waiters of yours may be weird-lookin’ buggers, but they know how to make a good cup of coffee.”

“James had, of course, heard of television and video games, but having had mostly wizard friends, he’d assumed Muggle children only engaged in those activities when there was absolutely nothing better to do”

“By the time James had dressed and made his way down to the Great Hal for breakfast, it was nearly ten o’clock. Less than a dozen students could be seen moving disconsolately among the detritus of the morning’s earlier rush. At the far corner of the Slytherin table, Zane sat hunched and squinting under a beam of sunlight. Across from him was Ralph, who saw James enter and waved him over. As James made his way across the Hal , four or five house-elves, each wearing large linen napkins with the Hogwarts crest embroidered on them, circled the tables, meandering in what at first appeared to be random paths. Occasional y, one of them would duck beneath the surface of a table and then reappear a moment later, tossing a stray fork or half a biscuit casual y onto the mess of the table. As James passed one of the elves, it straightened, raised its spindly arms, and then brought them swiftly down. The contents on the table in front of him swirled together as if caught in a miniature cyclone. With a great clattering of dishes and silverware, the corners of the tablecloth shot upwards and twisted around the pile of breakfast debris, creating a huge clanking bag floating improbably over the polished wood table. The house-elf leaped from floor to bench to tabletop, and then jumped, turning in midair and landing lightly on top of the bag. It grasped the twisted top of the bag, using the knot as if it were a set of reins, and turned the bag, driving it bobbingly toward the gigantic service doors in the side of the Hal . James ducked as the bag swooped over his head.”