“Round-the-clock security meant that some of them got stuck on the day shift, which was hard on vampires. At least I assumed that was why, after a week or two, they started looking a little peaked.”

“Ted shrugged. “Dunno. We got sent off to find you three while McGonagal was stil getting everybody together. I assume she meant to meet him herself. She was looking pretty peaked about it if you ask me.”

“Looking at it, I got, for the first time, why people would bring flowers to sick people, stuck inside the hospital with no way to get outside. It was like bringing them a little bit of the world that was going on without them.”

“Italians have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that's why they have godfathers.”

“A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.”

“They were small, brightly coloured, happy little creatures who secreted some of the nastiest toxins in the world, which is why the job of looking after the large vivarium where they happily passed their days was given to first-year students, on the basis that if they got things wrong there wouldn't be too much education wasted.”