- "I won't blast people out of my way just because they're there," said Harry. "That's Voldemort's job."
- "Remembered you're not at school, have you?" said Scrimgeour, breathing hard into Harry's face. "Remembered that I am not Dumbledore, who forgave your insolence and insubordination? You may wear that scar like a crown, Potter, but it is not up to a seventeen-year-old boy to tell me how to do my job! It's time you learned some respect!"
- "It's time you earned it," said Harry.
- "You've never heard of The Tales of Beedle the Bard?" said Ron incredulously. "You're kidding, right?"
- "No, I'm not!" said Hermione in surprise. "Do you know them, then?"
- "Well, of course I do!"
- Harry looked up, diverted. The circumstance of Ron having read a book that Hermione had not was unprecedented. Ron, however, looked bemused by their surprise.
- "Oh come on! All the old kids' stories are supposed to be Beedle's, aren't they? 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune"...'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot'...'Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump'..."
- "Excuse me?" said Hermione, giggling. "What was that last one?"
- "Come off it!" said Ron, looking in disbelief from Harry to Hermione. "You must've heard of Babbitty Rabbitty--"
- "Ron, you know full well Harry and I were brought up by Muggles!" said Hermione. "We didn't hear stories like that when we were little, we heard 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'
and 'Cinderella'--"
- "What's that, an illness?" asked Ron.
- "Oh, it's fine," said Luna, sucking her finger in a dreamy fashion and looking Harry up and down. "You look smart. I told Daddy most people would probably wear dress robes, but he believes you ought to wear sun colors to a wedding, for luck, you know."
- "...then I declare you bonded for life."
- "Merlin's pants!"
- Unfortunately, the brilliance that Bathilda exhibited earlier in her life has now dimmed. "The fire's lit, but the cauldron's empty," as Ivor Dillonsby put it to me, or, in Enid Smeek's slightly earthier phrase, "She's nutty as squirrel poo."
- They were standing in the most peculiar kitchen Harry had ever seen. The room was perfectly circular, so that it felt like being inside a giant pepper pot. Everything was curved to fit the walls--the stove, the sink, the cupboards--and all of it had been painted with flowers, insects, and birds in bright primary colors. Harry thought he recognized Luna's style. The effect, in such an enclosed space, was slightly overwhelming.
- "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure!" -Rowena Ravenclaw
- "'And then Death asked the third and youngest brother what he would like. The youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers, and he did not trust Death. So he asked for something that would enable him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death. And Death, most unwillingly, handed over his own Cloak of Invisibility.'"
- "Death's got an Invisibility Cloak?" Harry interrupted again.
- "So he can sneak up on people," said Ron. "Sometimes he gets bored of running at them, flapping his arms and shrieking...sorry, Hermione."
- "...the fact remains he can move faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo when he wants to..."
- "There," said Hermione, "how does he look, Harry?"
- It was just possible to discern Ron under his disguise, but only, Harry thought, because he knew him so well. Ron's hair was now long and wavy; he had a thick brown beard and mustache, no freckles, a short, broad nose, and heavy eyebrows.
- "Well, he's not my type, but he'll do," said Harry.
- Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive and more aware of his own living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone...or at least, he would be gone from it.
- "It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon then, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well."
- "You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying."
- "Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love."
- Bellatrix was still fighting too, fifty yards away from Voldemort, and like her master she dueled three at once: Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, all battling their hardest, but Bellatrix was equal to them, and Harry's attention was diverted as a Killing Curse shot so close to Ginny that she missed death by an inch--
- He changed course, running at Bellatrix rather than Voldemort, but before he had gone a few steps he was knocked sideways.
- "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"
- Mrs. Weasley threw off her cloak as she ran, freeing her arms...
sep 8 2010 ∞
sep 8 2010 +