Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)

‘Although I think you ought to relax it in favour of your friends, Mr Ronald Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger. Yes,’ he continued, when Harry looked startled, ‘I think they ought to know. You do them a disservice by not confiding something this important to them.’ ‘I didn’t want –’ ‘– to worry or frighten them?’ said Dumbledore, surveying Harry ov

It was as though the potion was illuminating a few steps of the path at a time: he could not see the final destination,

He kept up a relentless flow of encouragement all the way back to the castle, and by the time

The shock of her desertion may have contributed to his early death – or perhaps he had simply never learned to feed himself.

‘I have no time to explain now,’ said Dumbledore. ‘It is a thrilling tale, I wish to do it justice.’

‘Now, I must give you warning that Felix Felicis is a banned substance in organised competitions … sporting events, for instance, examinations or elections. So the winner is to use it on an ordinary day only … and watch how that ordinary day becomes extraordinary!

It’s all this uncertainty with You-Know-Who coming back, people think they might be dead tomorrow, so they’re rushing all sorts of decisions they’d normally take time over. It was the same last time he was powerful, people eloping left right and centre –’

thought could not be a witch if she had succumbed to the shameful human weakness of death.

Harry, who thought it most unlikely that Rufus Scrimgeour was a vampire, but who was used to Luna repeating her father’s bizarre views as though they were fact, did not reply;