The snow wasn't deep - in many places its crust was firm enough that they actually walked on top of it - but the wind was surgical, a precision instrument with needles for teeth, and it found even the tiniest exposed places on her skin, attacking them.

That was how evil magnified itself: it took root in the young and grew along with them.

I consider Yoda to be just about the most evil character that I__e ever seen in the history of literature. I have gotten people into tongue-tied snits unable to name for me one scene in which Yoda is ever helpful to anybody, or says anything that__ genuinely wise. 'Do or do not, there is no try.' Up yours, you horrible little oven mitt! 'Try' is how human beings get better. That__ how people learn, they try some of their muscles, or their Force mechanism heads in the right direction, that part gets reinforced and rewarded with positive feedback, which you never give. And parts of it get repressed by saying, 'No, that you will not do!' It is abhorrent, junior high school Zen. It__ cartoon crap.

I know [Umbridge] by reputation and I'm sure she's no Death Eater-""She's foul enough to be one...""Yes, but the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters.

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!

Whatever happened next, good or bad, it would be wonderful finding out.