“I’ve had a rough six months, okay?” she cried. “Little Blue was my last friend,and frankly the last time his batteries ran out I had a fleeting moment of panicthat he’d been compromised!”

“I was an idiot,” were my mother’s last words. I’ll never know what she meant because I wasn't there when she died. I am left with unanswered questions while I grieve for a woman I had barely spoken to during the last six months of her life. In fact, by the time I found out she had six months to live we’d been estranged for almost a year.”

“God, I loved her. She was the piece I had been missing for the last three months. She was everything I wanted in my life but was still unsure I deserved.”

“My name is Cassie Palmer and I’ve cheated death more times than anyone has a right to expect. In the last two months, I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten and blown up a few dozen times, and that doesn’t count all the magical ways I’ve almost been killed. I’d have been dead a long time ago if not for my friends, one of whom had just jumped off the cliff after me. I’d have been a lot more appreciative if he hadn’t pushed me first.”

“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.”

“During the last six months the little girl Harriet, without her noticing it, had disappeared and a new Harriet had taken her place. A Harriet who looked much the same outside, but was more of a person inside.”