“Warlock D. J. Prod of Didsbury says:“My wife used to sneer at my feeble charms, but one month into your fabulous Kwikspell course and I succeeded in turning her into a yak!Thank you, Kwikspell!”

“How long have you been ‘Big D’ then?” said Harry.“Shut it,” snarled Dudley, turning away again.“Cool name,” said Harry, grinning and falling into step beside his cousin. “But you’ll always be Ickle Diddykins to me.”“I said, SHUT IT!” said Dudley, whose ham-like hands had curled into fists.“Don’t the boys know that’s what your mum calls you?”“Shut your face.”“You don’t tell her to shut her face. What about ‘popkin’ and ‘Dinky Diddydums,’ can I use them then?”

“You are the Chosen One?”“Of course I am,” said Harry calmly.“But then . . . my dear boy . . . you’re asking a great deal . . .you’re asking me, in fact, to aid you in your attempt to destroy —”“You don’t want to get rid of the wizard who killed Lily Evans?”“Harry, Harry, of course I do, but —”“You’re scared he’ll find out you helped me?”Slughorn said nothing; he looked terrified.“Be brave like my mother, Professor. . . .”

“Jealous?...Of what? I don't want a foul scar right across my head, thanks. I don't think getting your head cut open makes you that special, myself.”

“I am what I am, an’ I’m not ashamed. 'Never be ashamed,’ my ol’ dad used ter say, ‘there’s some who’ll hold it against you, but they’re not worth botherin’ with.”

“I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.”

“Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?”James lifted an invisible sword.“‘Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.”Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him.“Got a problem with that?”“No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy —”“Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.”