Harry Potter Quotes

Assorted useful quotes from the books.

• Prophecy / Lily's Sacrifice
• Events of Halloween 1981
• Harry's Lack of Family
• Wandless Magic
• Sensing Stuff
• Reading Minds
• Apparating / Disapparating
• Little Voice in Harry's Head
• Questions About Snape's Loyalty
• Expressions

• Dumbledore: "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."
  "I know you haven't," said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."
  "You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."
  "Only because you're too -- well -- noble to use them." [SS-1]
  
  
• Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry. But -- he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke -- and that's why he's gone."
  Dumbledore nodded glumly.
  "It's -- it's true?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done ... all the people he's killed ... he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding ... of all the things to stop him ... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"
  "We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know." [SS-1]
  
  
• Hagrid: "You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then -- an' this is the real myst-ry of the thing - he tried to kill you too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh -- took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even -- but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age -- the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts -- an' you was only a baby, an' you lived."
  Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before -- and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh. [SS-4]
  
  
• Hagrid: "Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on -- I dunno what it was, no one does -- but somethin' about you stumped him, all right." [SS-4]
  
  
• He started having nightmares. Over and over again he dreamed about his parents disappearing in a flash of green light, while a high voice cackled with laughter. [SS-13]
  
  
• Voldemort: "I always value bravery. ... Yes, boy, your parents were brave. ... I killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight ... but your mother needn't have died ... she was trying to protect you. ... Now give me the stone unless you want her to have died in vain." [SS-17]
  
  
• Harry sprang toward the flame door, but Voldemort screamed "SEIZE HIM!" and the next second, Harry felt Quirrell's hand close on his wrist. At once, a needle-sharp pain seared across Harry's scar; his head felt as though it was about to split in two; he yelled, struggled with all his might, and to his surprise, Quirrell let go of him. The pain in his head lessened -- he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone, and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers -- they were blistering before his eyes.
  "Seize him! SEIZE HIM!" shrieked Voldemort again, and Quirrell lunged, knocking Harry clean off his feet, landing on top of him, both hands around Harry's neck -- Harry's scar was almost blinding him with pain, yet he could see Quirrell howling in agony. [SS-17]
  
  
• Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell's face --
  "AAAARGH!"
  Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn't touch his bare skin without suffering terrible pain -- his only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, keep him in enough pain to stop him from doing the curse.
  Harry jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell by his arm, and hung on as tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Harry off -- the pain in Harry's head was building -- he couldn't see -- he could only hear Quirrell's terrible shrieks and Voldemort's yells of, "KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" and other voices, maybe in Harry's own head, crying, "Harry! Harry!"
  He felt Quirrell's arm wrenched from his grasp, knew all was lost, and fell into blackness, down ... down ... down ... [SS-17]
  
  
• Dumbledore: "Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good." [SS-17]
  
  
• Hermione: "... and we were dashing up to the owlery to contact Dumbledore when we met him in the entrance hall -- he already knew -- he just said, 'Harry's gone after him, hasn't he?' and hurtled off to the third floor." [SS-17]
  
  
• Harry: "He's a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know. I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help. I don't think it was an accident he let me find out how the mirror worked. It's almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could. ..." [SS-17]
  
  
• At the age of one year old, Harry had somehow survived a curse from the greatest Dark sorcerer of all time, Lord Voldemort, whose name most witches and wizards still feared to speak. Harry's parents had died in Voldemort's attack, but Harry had escaped with his lightning scar, and somehow -- nobody understood why -- Voldemort's powers had been destroyed the instant he had failed to kill Harry. [CoS-1]
  
  
• Dippet: "You are Muggle-born?"
  "Half-blood, sir," said Riddle. "Muggle father, witch mother."
  "And both your parents --?"
  "My mother died just after I was born, sir. They told me at the orphanage she lived long enough to name me -- Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather." [CoS-13]
  
  
• "Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, "how is it you -- a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent -- managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?" [CoS-17]
  
  
• "To business, Harry," said Riddle, still smiling broadly. "Twice -- in your past, in my future -- we have met. And twice I failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk," he added softly, "the longer you stay alive." [CoS-17]
  
  
• "No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly. "I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common Muggle-born mother," he added, shaking with suppressed rage. "She stopped you killing me. And I've seen the real you, I saw you last year. You're a wreck. You're barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. You're ugly, you're foul --"
  Riddle's face contorted. The he forced it into an awful smile.
  "So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful counter-charm. I can see now ... there is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Salazar Slytherin himself. We even look something alike ... but after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That's all I wanted to know." [CoS-17]
  
  
• "You can speak Parseltongue, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly, "because Lord Voldemort -- who is the last remaining ancestor [descendant] of Salazar Slytherin -- can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you that night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure. ..."
  "Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry said, thunderstruck.
  "It certainly seems so." [CoS-18]
  
  
• "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
  "Stand aside, you silly girl ... stand aside, now. ..."
  "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead --"
  Numbing, swirling white mist was filling Harry's brain. ... What was he doing? Why was he flying? He needed to help her. ... She was going to die. ... She was going to be murdered. ...
  He was falling, falling through the icy mist.
  "Not Harry! Please ... have mercy ... have mercy. ..."
  A shrill voice was laughing, the woman was screaming, and Harry knew no more. [PoA-9]
  
  
• "When they get near me --" Harry stared at Lupin's desk, his throat tight. "I can hear Voldemort murdering my mum." [PoA-10]
  
  
• But the classroom and the dementor were dissolving. ... Harry was falling again through the thick white fog, and his mother's voice was louder than ever, echoing inside his head -- "Not Harry! Not Harry! Please -- I'll do anything --"
  "Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!" [PoA-12]
  
  
• White fog obscured his senses ... big, blurred shapes were moving around him ... then came a new voice, a man's voice, shouting, panicking --
  "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off --"
  The sounds of someone stumbling from a room -- a door bursting open -- a cackle of high-pitched laughter --
  "Harry! Harry ... wake up. ..."
  Lupin was tapping Harry hard on the face. This time it was a minute before Harry understood why he was lying on a dusty classroom floor.
  "I heard my dad," Harry mumbled. "That's the first time I've ever heard him -- he tried to take on Voldemort himself, to give my mum time to run for it. ..." [PoA-12]
  
  
• Harry had been a year old the night that Voldemort -- the most powerful Dark wizard for a century, a wizard who had been gaining power steadily for eleven years -- arrived at his house and killed his father and mother. Voldemort had then turned his wand on Harry; he had performed the curse that had disposed of many full-grown witches and wizards in his steady rise to power -- and incredibly, it had not worked. Instead of killing the small boy, the curse had rebounded upon Voldemort. Harry had survived with nothing but a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, and Voldemort had been reduced to something barely alive. His powers gone, his life almost extinguished, Voldemort had fled; the terror in which the secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had lifted, Voldemort's followers had disbanded, and Harry Potter had become famous. [GoF-2]
  
  
• So that was how his parents died ... exactly like that spider. Had they been unblemished and unmarked too? Had they simply seen the flash of green light and heard the rush of speeding death, before life was wiped from their bodies?
  Harry had been picturing his parents' deaths over and over again for three years now, ever since he'd found out they had been murdered, ever since he'd found out what had happened that night: Wormtail had betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, who had come to find them at their cottage. How Voldemort had killed Harry's father first. How James Potter had tried to hold him off, while he shouted at his wife to take Harry and run ... Voldemort had advanced on Lily Potter, told her to move aside so that he could kill Harry ... how she had begged him to kill her instead, refused to stop shielding her son ... and so Voldemort had murdered her too, before turning his wand on Harry. ...
  Harry knew these details because he had heard his parents' voices when he had fought the dementors last year -- for that was the terrible power of the dementors: to force their victims to relive the worst memories of their lives, and drown, powerless, in their own despair. ... [GoF-14]
  
  
• Harry: "D'you -- d'you know why my scar's hurting me?"
  Dumbledore looked very intently at Harry for a moment, and then said, "I have a theory, no more than that. ... It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred."
  "But ... why?"
  "Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed," said Dumbledore. "That is no ordinary scar." [GoF-30]
  
  
• "You know, of course, that they have called this boy my downfall?" Voldemort said softly, his red eyes upon Harry, whose scar began to burn so fiercely that he almost screamed in agony. "You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him. His mother died in the attempt to save him -- and unwittingly provided him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen. ... I could not touch the boy."
  Voldemort raised one of his long white fingers and put it in very close to Harry's cheek.
  "His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice. ... This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it ... but no matter. I can touch him now."
  Harry felt the cold tip of the long white finger touch him, and thought his head would burst with the pain. Voldemort laughed softly in his ear, then took the finger away and continued addressing the Death Eaters.
  "I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman's foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. Aaah ... pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body. I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost ... but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know ... I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal -- to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked ... for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself ... for I had no body, and every spell that might have helped me required the use of a wand ..." [GoF-33]
  
  
• "I wanted Harry Potter's blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago ... for the lingering protection his mother once gave him would then reside in my veins too. ..." [GoF-33]
  
  
• "But how to get at Harry Potter? For he has been better protected than I think even he knows, protected in ways devised by Dumbledore long ago, when it fell to him to arrange the boy's future. Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the boy's protection as long as he is in his relations' care. Not even I can touch him there." [GoF-33]
  
  
• "He said my blood would make him stronger than if he'd used someone else's," Harry told Dumbledore. "He said the protection my -- my mother left in me -- he'd have it too. And he was right -- he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face."
  For a fleeting instant, Harry thought he saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore's eyes. But the next second, Harry was sure he had imagined it, for when Dumbledore had returned to his seat behind the desk, he looked as old and weary as Harry had ever seen him.
  "Very well," he said, sitting down again. "Voldemort has overcome that particular barrier. Harry, continue, please." [GoF-36]
  
  
• "You survived when you were just a baby," [Cho Chang] said quietly.
  "Yeah, well," said Harry wearily, moving toward the door, "I dunno why, nor does anyone else, so it's nothing to be proud of." [OotP-21]
  
  
• "There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry," said Dumbledore's voice. "On the contrary ... the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength."
  Harry felt the white-hot anger lick his insides, blazing in the terrible emptiness, filling him with the desire to hurt Dumbledore for his calmness and his empty words.
  "My greatest strength, is it?" said Harry, his voice shaking as he stared out at the Quidditch stadium, no longer seeing it. "You haven't got a clue ... You don't know ..." [OotP-37]
  
  
• Dumbledore: "Voldemort's aim in possessing you, as he demonstrated tonight, would not have been my destruction. It would have been yours. He hoped, when he possessed you briefly a short while ago, that I would sacrifice you in the hope of killing him." [OotP-37]
  
  
• Harry glared at him for a moment, then flung himself back into the chair opposite Dumbledore and waited. Dumbledore stared for a moment at the sunlit grounds outside the window, then looked back at Harry and said, "Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well -- not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years."
  He paused. Harry said nothing.
  "You might ask -- and with good reason -- why it had to be so. Why could some Wizarding family not have taken you in? Many would have done so more than gladly, would have been honored and delighted to raise you as a son.
  "My answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but myself realized. Voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters -- and many of them are almost as terrible as he -- were still at large, angry, desperate, and violent. And I had to make my decision too with regard to the years ahead. Did I believe that Voldemort was gone forever? No. I knew not whether it would be ten, twenty, or fifty years before he returned, but I was sure he would do so, and I was sure too, knowing him as I have done, that he would not rest until he killed you.
  "I knew that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is perhaps more extensive than any wizard alive. I knew that even my most complex and powerful protective spells and charms were unlikely to be invincible if he ever returned to full power.
  "But I knew too where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated -- to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative."
  "She doesn't love me," said Harry at once. "She doesn't give a damn --"
  "But she took you," Dumbledore cut across him. "She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother's sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you."
  "I still don't --"
  "While you can still call home the place where your mother's blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years." [OotP-37]
  
  
• Dumbledore: "And then ... well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite clearly as I do. You rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you, and sooner -- much sooner -- than I had anticipated, you found yourself face-to-face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man's fight. I was ... prouder of you than I can say." [OotP-37]
  
  
• Dumbledore: "Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you." [OotP-37]
  
  
• Dumbledore's memory of Trelawney's prediction:
  "THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES. ...
  BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES ...
  AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT ...
  AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES. ...
  THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES. ..." [OotP-37]
  
  
• "It meant," said Dumbledore, "that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times." [OotP-37]
  
  
• "He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him," said Dumbledore. "And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him, not once, but four times so far -- something that neither your parents, nor Neville's parents, ever achieved." [OotP-37]
  
  
• Dumbledore: "He heard only the first part, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in July to parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. Consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring power to you -- again marking you as his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait or to learn more. He did not know that you would have 'power the Dark Lord knows not' --"
  "But I don't!" said Harry in a strangled voice. "I haven't any powers he hasn't got, I couldn't fight the way he did tonight, I can't possess people or -- or kill them --"
  "There is a room on the Department of Mysteries," interrupted Dumbledore, "that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you." [OotP-37]
  
  
• He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear. ... He climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in. ... She had no wand upon her either. ... How stupid they were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that weapons could be discarded even for moments. ...
  He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wavd of his wand ... and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead. ...
  "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
  "Stand aside, you silly girl ... stand aside, now."
  "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead --"
  "This is my last warning --"
  "Not Harry! Please ... have mercy ... have mercy. ... Not Harry! Not Harry! Please -- I'll do anything --"
  "Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"
  He could have forced her away from the crib, but it seemed more prudent to finish them all. ...
  The green light flashed around the room and she dropped like her husband.[DH-17]
  
  

• SS-1
  • When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country.
  • At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase ...
  • It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar -- a cat reading a map.
  • ... he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks.
  • The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.
  • Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. ... Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning.
  • He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery.
  • He found it hard to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.
  • "Don't be upset, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating this happy, happy day!"
  • As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw -- and it didn't improve his mood -- was a tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.
  • Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Won't!"). Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went to the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:
  • "Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early -- it's not until next week, folks!"
  • "Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls ... shooting stars ... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today ..."
  • He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.
  • The Dursley got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley.
  • Mr. Dursley had been drifting into uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness.
  • In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.
  • A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground.
  • "All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."
  • "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"
  • "What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are -- are -- that they're -- dead."
  • "They're saying he tried to kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke -- and that's why he's gone."
  • Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took out a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"
  • "I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."
  • "I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son -- I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets."
  • A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they looked up at the sky -- and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.
  • "Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."
  • "No, sir -- house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."
  • He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two.
  • "Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall -- Professor Dumbledore, sir."
  • 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 awoken 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.
• SS-4
  • "Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em ... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' -- an' --"
  • "Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's order. Brought yeh ter this lot ..."
  • "Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see ... he was gettin' more an' more powerful -- why'd he go?
• SS-17
  • "Don't be a fool," snarled the face. "Better save your own life and join me ... or you'll meet the same end as your parents. ... They died begging for mercy. ..."
    "LIAR!" Harry shouted suddenly.
  • "How touching ..." it hissed. "I always value bravery. ... Yes, boy your parents were brave. ... I killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight ... but your mother needn't have died ... she was trying to protect you. ... Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain."
• PoA-3
  • "He murdered thirteen people?" said Harry, handing the page back to Stan, "with one curse?"
    "Yep," said Stan, "in front of witnesses an' all. Broad daylight. Big trouble it caused, dinnit, Ern?"
  • "Anyway, they cornered Black in the middle of a street full of Muggles an' Black took out 'is wand and 'e blasted 'alf the street apart, an' a wizard got it, an' so did a dozen Muggles what got in the way. 'Orrible, eh? An' you know what Black did then?" Stan continued in a dramatic whisper.
    "What?" said Harry.
    "Laughed," said Stan. "Jus' stood there an' laughed. An' when reinforcements from the Ministry of Magic got there, 'e went wiv 'em quiet as anyfink, still laughing 'is 'ead off. 'Cos 'e's mad, inee, Ern?"
  • "They 'ad a job coverin' it up, din' they, Ern? Stan said. "'Ole street blown up an' all them Muggles dead. What was it they said 'ad 'appened, Ern?"
    "Gas explosion," grunted Ernie.
• PoA-10
  • "And then, barely a week after the Fidelius Charm had been performed --"
  • "I met him!" growled Hagrid. "I musta been the last ter see him before he killed all them people! It was me what rescued Harry from Lily an' James's house after they was killed! Jus' got him outta the ruins, poor little thing, with a great slash across the forehead, an' his parents dead ... an' Sirius Black turns up, on that flyin' motorbike he used ter ride. Never occurred to me what he was doin' there. I didn' know he'd bin Lily an' James's Secret-Keeper. Thought he'd jus' heard the news o' You-Know-Who's attack an' come ter see what he could do. White an' shakin', he was. An' yer know what I did? I COMFORTED THE MURDERIN' TRAITOR!" Hagrid roared.
  • "An' then he says, 'Give Harry ter me, Hagrid, I'm his godfather, I'll look after him --' Ha! But I'd had me orders from Dumbledore, an' I told Black no, Dumbledore said Harry was ter go to his aunt an' uncle's. Black argued, but in the end he gave in. Told me ter take his motorbike ter get Harry there. 'I won't need it anymore,' he says.
    "I shoulda known there was somethin' fishy goin' on then. He loved that motorbike, what was he givin' it ter me for? Why wouldn' he need it anymore? Fact was, it was too easy ter trace. Dumbledore knew he'd been the Potter's Secret-Keeper. Black knew he was goin' ter have ter run fer it that night, knew it was a matter o' hours before the Ministry was after him.
    "But what if I'd given Harry to him, eh? I bet he'd've pitched him off the bike halfway out ter sea. His bes' friends son! But when a wizard goes over ter the Dark Side, there's nothin' and no one that matter to 'em anymore. ..."
  • "It was not we who found him. It was little Peter Pettigrew -- another of the Potters' friends. Maddened by grief, no doubt, and knowing that Black had been the Potters' Secret-Keeper, he went after Black himself."
  • "Pettigrew died a hero's death. Eyewitnesses -- Muggles, of course, we wiped their memories later -- told us how Pettigrew cornered Black. They say he was sobbing, 'Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?' And then he went for his wand. Well, of course, Black was quicker. Blew Pettigrew to smithereens. ..."
  • "Nobody but trained Hit Wizards from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad would have stood a chance against Black once he was cornered. I was Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Catastrophes at the time, and I was one of the first on the scene after Black murdered all those people. I -- I will never forget it. I still dream about it sometimes. A crater in the middle of the street, so deep it had cracked the sewer below. Bodies everywhere. Muggles screaming. And Black standing there laughing, with what was left of Pettigrew in front of him ... a heap of bloodstained robes and a few -- a few fragments --"
  • "Black was taken away by twenty members of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad and Pettigrew received the Order of Merlin, First Class, which I think was a comfort to his poor mother. Black's been in Azkaban ever since."
• PoA-18
  • "Peter Pettigrew's dead!" said Harry. "He killed him twelve years ago!" He pointed at Black whose face twitched convulsively.
    "I meant to," he growled, his yellow teeth bared, "but little Peter got the better of me ... not this time, though!"
  • "There were witnesses who saw Pettigrew die," he said. "A whole street full of them ..."
    "They didn't see what they thought they saw!" said Black savagely, still watching Scabbers struggling in Ron's hands.
    "Everyone thought Sirius killed Peter," said Lupin, nodding. "I believed it myself -- until I saw the map tonight. Because the Marauder's Map never lies ... Peter's alive. Ron's holding him, Harry."
• PoA-19
  • "He's got a toe missing," said Black.
    "Of course," Lupin breathed. "So simple ... so brilliant ... he cut it off himself?"
    "Just before he transformed," said Black. "When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I'd betrayed Lily and James. Then, before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself -- and sped down into the sewer with the other rats. ..."
  • "Harry ... I as good as killed them," he croaked. "I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me. ... I'm to blame, I know it. ... The night they died, I'd arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he'd gone. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didn't feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parents' house straight away. And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies ... I realized what Peter must've done ... what I'd done. ..."
  • "We've been having a little chat, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died."
  • "You haven't been hiding from me for twelve years," said Black. "You've been hiding from Voldemort's old supporters. I heard things in Azkaban, Peter. ... They all think you're dead, or you'd have to answer to them. ... I've heard them screaming all sorts of things in their sleep. Sounds like they think the double-crosser double-crossed them. Voldemort went to the Potter's on your information ... and Voldemort met his downfall there."
• GoF-20
  • Harry had been a year old the night that Voldemort -- the most powerful Dark wizard for a century, a wizard who had been gaining power steadily for eleven years -- arrived at his house and killed his father and mother. Voldemort had then turned his wand on Harry; he had performed the curse that had disposed of many full-grown witches and wizards in his steady rise to power -- and, incredibly, it had not worked. Instead of killing the small boy, the curse had rebounded upon Voldemort. Harry had survived with nothing but a lightning-shaped cut on his forehead, and Voldemort had been reduced to something barely alive. His powers gone, his life almost extinguished, Voldemort had fled; the terror in which the secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had lifted, Voldemort's followers had disbanded, and Harry Potter had become famous.
• HBP-22
  • "No -- well, I was only one when they died," said Harry, his eyes on the flame of the candle flickering in Hagrid's heavy snores. "But I've found out pretty much what happened since. My dad died first. Did you know that?"
    "I -- I didn't," said Slughorn in a hushed voice.
    "Yeah ... Voldemort murdered him and then stepped over his body towards my mum," said Harry.
    Slughorn gave a great shudder, but he did not seem able to tear his horrified gaze away from Harry's face.
    "He told her to get out of the way," said Harry remorselessly. "He told me she needn't have died. He only wanted me. She could have run."
    "Oh dear," breathed Slughorn. "She could have ... she needn't ... That's awful. ..."
    "It is, isn't it?" said Harry, in a voice barely more than a whisper. "But she didn't move. Dad was already dead, but she didn't want me to go too. She tried to plead with Voldemort ... but he just laughed. ..."
• DH-17
  • And along a new and darker street he moved, and now his destination was in sight at last, the Fidelius Charm broken, thought they did not know it yet. ... And he made less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge, and stared over it. ...
    They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the tall black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand for the amusement of the small black-haired boy in his blue pajamas. The child was laughing and trying to catch the smoke, to grab it in his small fist. ...
    A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he could not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the mother. He threw his wand down upon the sofa and stretched, yawning. ...
    The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear. His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open.
    He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall. It was too easy, too easy, he had not even picked up his wand. ...
    "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
    Hold him off, without a wand in his hand! ... He laughed before casting the curse. ...
    "Avada Kedavra!"
    The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the banisters glare like lightning rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut. ...
    He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear. ... He climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in. ... She had no wand upon her either. ... How stupid they were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that weapons could be discarded even for moments. ...
    He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wavd of his wand ... and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead. ...
    "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
    "Stand aside, you silly girl ... stand aside, now."
    "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead --"
    "This is my last warning --"
    "Not Harry! Please ... have mercy ... have mercy. ... Not Harry! Not Harry! Please -- I'll do anything --"
    "Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"
    He could have forced her away from the crib, but it seemed more prudent to finish them all. ...
    The green light flashed around the room and she dropped like her husband. The child had not cried all this time: He could stand, clutching the bars of his crib, and he looked up into the intruder's face with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was his father who hid beneath the cloak, making more pretty lights, and his mother would pop up at any moment, laughing --
    He pointed the wand very carefully into the boy's face: He wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. The child began to cry: It had seen that he was not James. He did not like it crying, he had never been able to stomach the small ones whining in the orphanage --
    "Avada Kedavra!"
    And then he broke: He was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, and he must hide himself, not here in the rubble of the ruined house, where the child was trapped and screaming, but far away ... far away. ...

• "I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now." [SS-1]
  
  
• When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family. [SS-2]
  
  
• No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives -- he didn't belong to the library; so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. [SS-3]
  
  
• The Dursley family of number four, Privet Drive, was the reason that Harry never enjoyed his summer holidays. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and their son, Dudley, were Harry's only living relatives. [PoA-1]
  
  
• Asleep was the way Harry liked the Dursleys best; it wasn't as though they were ever any help to him awake. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were Harry's only living relatives. [GoF-2]
  
  
• "I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative." [OotP-37]
  
  

• Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly. [SS-2]
  
  
• Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until it finally might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished. [SS-2]
  
  
• On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed the wind must have caught him in mid-jump. [SS-2]
  
  
• Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.
  "Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened -- one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.
  Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits. [SS-2]
  
  
• He'd never been more nervous, never, not even when he'd had to take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that he'd somehow turned his teacher's wig blue. [SS-7]
  
  
• "Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch," said Neville, "but the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off guard and force some magic out of me -- he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned -- but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced -- all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy." [SS-7]
  
  
• Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Harry. [SS-17]
  
  
• He clapped his hands once, and the ropes binding Harry fell off. [SS-17]
  
  
• Harry tried to concentrate on his food, but his hands shook and his face was starting to burn with anger. Remember the form, he told himself. Think about Hogsmeade. Don't say anything. Don't rise --
  Aunt Marge reached for her glass of wine.
  "It's one of the basic rules of breeding," she said. "You see it all the time with dogs. If there's something wrong with the bitch, there'll be something wrong with the pup --"
  At that moment, the wineglass Aunt Marge was holding exploded in her hand. Shards of glass flew in every direction and Aunt Marge sputtered and blinked, her great ruddy face dripping.
  ...
  Outside in the hall, he leaned against the wall, breathing deeply. It had been a long time since he'd lost control and made something explode. He couldn't afford to let it happen again. [PoA-2]
  
  
• But Aunt Marge suddenly stopped speaking. For a moment, it looked as though words had failed her. She seemed to be swelling with inexpressible anger -- but the swelling didn't stop. Her great red face started to expand, her tiny eyes bulged, and her mouth stretched too tightly for speech -- next second, several buttons had just burst from her tweed jacket and pinged off the walls -- she was inflating like a monstrous balloon, her stomach bursting free of her tweed waistband, each of her fingers blowing up like a salami --
  "MARGE!" yelled Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia together as Aunt Marge's whole body began to rise off her chair toward the ceiling. She was entirely round, now, like a vast life buoy with piggy eyes, and her hands and feet stuck out weirdly as she drifted up into the air, making apoplectic popping noises. [PoA-2]
  
  
• Harry tore from the dining room before anyone could stop him, heading for the cupboard under the stairs. The cupboard door burst magically open as he reached it. [PoA-2]
  
  
• Fudge marched Harry along the narrow passage after Tom's lantern, and then into a small parlor. Tom clicked his fingers, a fire burst into life in the grate, and he bowed himself out of the room. [PoA-3]
  
  
• "Come on, all of you," he said. He clicked his fingers, and the ends of the cords that bound Lupin flew into his hands. "I'll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the dementors will have a kiss for him too --" [PoA-19]
  
  
• "DUDLEY, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! WHATEVER YOU DO, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! Wand!" Harry muttered frantically, his hands flying over the ground like spiders. "Where's -- wand -- come on -- Lumos!"
  He said the spell automatically, desperate for light to help him in his search -- and to his disbelieving relief, light flared inches from his right hand -- the wand tip had ignited. Harry snatched it up, scrambled to his feet, and turned around. [OotP-1]
  
  

• He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."
  ...
  "Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall." [SS-1]
  
  
• Harry felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library; he swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic. [SS-5]
  
  
• They walked on through the dense, dark trees. Harry kept looking nervously over his shoulder. He had the nasty feeling they were being watched. [SS-15]
  
  
• Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. Harry felt it shudder -- he knew what was happening, he could sense it, could almost see the serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth. [CoS-17]
  
  
• Harry opened his trunk again and pushed the contents aside, looking for the Invisibility Cloak -- but before he had found it, he straightened up suddenly, looking around him once more.
  A funny prickling on the back of his neck had made Harry feel he was being watched, but the street appeared to be deserted, and no lights shone from any of the large square houses.
  He bent over his trunk again, but almost immediately stood up once more, his hand clenched on his wand. He sensed rather than heard it; someone or something was standing in the narrow gap between the garage and the fence behind him. Harry squinted at the black alleyway. If only it would move, then he'd know whether it was just a stray cat or -- something else.
  "Lumos," Harry muttered, and a light appeared at the end of his wand, almost dazzling him. He held it high over his head, and the pebble-dashed walls of number two suddenly sparkled; the garage door gleamed, and between them Harry saw, quite distinctly, the hulking outline of something very big, with wide, gleaming eyes. [PoA-3]
  
  
• There was silence. Harry got to his feet and peered around the tree. It was too dark to see very far, but he could sense somebody standing just beyond the range of his vision.
  "Who's there?" he said.
  And then, without warning, the silence was rent by a voice unlike any they had heard in the wood; and it uttered, not a panicked shout, but what sounded like a spell.
  "MORSMORDRE!" [GoF-9]
  
  
• Harry kept looking behind him. The old feeling that he was being watched was upon him. The maze was growing darker with every passing minute as the sky overhead deepened to navy. [GoF-31]
  
  
• They pulled out their wands. Harry kept looking around him. He had, yet again, the strange feeling that they were being watched. [GoF-32]
  
  
• Feeling Mrs. Weasley's eyes on the back of his head, Harry regretfully closed the drawing room door and rejoined the doxy party. [OotP-6]
  
  
• Sirius was staring at the patch of carpet where the boggart, pretending to be Harry's body, had lain. Moody was looking at Harry, who avoided his gaze. He had a funny feeling Moody's magical eye had followed him all the way out of the kitchen. [OotP-9]
  
  
• Harry thought of the photograph again, of his parents' beaming faces. He knew Moody was still watching him. [OotP-9]
  
  
• They collected their schoolbags from a corner and returned to the chairs by the fire. People were coming back from dinner now. Harry kept his face averted from the portrait hole, but he could still sense the stares he was attracting. [OotP-13]
  
  
• They all followed her up the escalator, Moody clunking along at the back of the group, his bowler tilted low and one gnarled hand struck in between the buttons of his coat, clutching his wand. Harry thought he sensed the concealed eye staring hard at him; trying to deflect more questions about his dream he asked Mad-Eye where St. Mungo's was hidden. [OotP-22]
  
  
• "People have written to me because I gave an interview," said Harry. "About what happened to me last June."
  For some reason he glanced up at the staff table as he said this. He had the strangest feeling that Dumbledore had been watching him a second before, but when he looked, Dumbledore seemed to be absorbed in conversation with Professor Flitwick. [OotP-26]
  
  
• He could feel Professor Marchbanks's eyes on the back of his neck and pressed his eye again to his telescope, staring up at the moon though he had marked its position an hour ago, but as Professor Marchbanks moved on he heard a roar from the distant cabin that echoed through the darkness right to the top of the Astronomy Tower. Several of the people around Harry ducked out from behind their telescopes and peered instead in the direction of Hagrid's cabin. [OotP-31]
  
  
• They walked on for what seemed a long time, until they were once again so deep into the forest that the dense tree canopy blocked out all light. Harry had the feeling he had had before in the forest, one of being watched by unseen eyes. ... [OotP-33]
  
  
• Harry avoided his yellowish eyes as they scanned the Hall; Harry had the uncomfortable feeling that Scrimgeour was looking for him. [HBP-30]
  
  

• Potions lessons were turning into a sort of weekly torture, Snape was so horrible to Harry. Could Snape possibly know they'd found out about the Sorcerer's Stone? Harry didn't see how he could -- yet he sometimes had the horrible feeling that Snape could read minds. [SS-13]
  
  
• "Silence!" said Snape coldly. "What have you done with the car?"
  Ron gulped. This wasn't the first time Snape had given Harry the impression of being able to read minds. [CoS-5]
  
  
• Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling light-blue gaze made Harry feel as though he were being X-rayed. [CoS-9]
  
  
• Harry arranged his face into what he hoped was a puzzled expression. Snape was looking right at him, and the bell that rang ten minutes later could not have been more welcome.
  "He knew it was me," Harry told Ron and Hermione as they hurried back to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. "I could tell." [CoS-11]
  
  
• "It has nothing to do with weakness," said Professor Lupin sharply, as though he had read Harry's mind. "The dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that the others don't have." [PoA-10]
  
  
• Snape's eyes were boring into Harry's. It was exactly like trying to stare down a hippogriff. Harry tried hard not to blink. [PoA-14]
  
  
• "But then ..." Lupin muttered, staring at Black so intently it seemed he was trying to read his mind. [PoA-17]
  
  
• "Don't lie to me," Snape hissed, his fathomless black eyes boring into Harry's. "Boomslang skin. Gillyweed. Both come from my private stores, and I know who stole them."
  Harry stared back at Snape, determined not to blink or to look guilty. In truth, he hadn't stolen either of these things from Snape. Hermione had taken the boomslang skin back in their second year -- they had needed it for the Polyjuice Potion -- and while Snape had suspected Harry at the time, he had never been able to prove it. Dobby, of course, had stolen the gillyweed. [GoF-27]
  
  
• "I wanted to talk to you, Professor," Harry said quickly, looking at Dumbledore, who gave him a swift, searching look. [GoF-30]
  
  
• "Voldemort?" said Dumbledore, looking at Harry over the Pensieve. It was the characteristic, piercing look Dumbledore had given him on other occasions, and always made Harry feel as though Dumbledore were seeing right through him in a way that even Moody's magical eye could not. [GoF-30]
  
  
• Harry inclined his head awkwardly at each of them as they were introduced. He wished they would look at something other than him; it was as though he had suddenly been ushered onstage. He also wondered why so many of them were there.
  "A surprising number of people volunteered to come and get you," said Lupin, as though he had read Harry's mind; the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. [OotP-3]
  
  
• "Angelina still won't let him resign," Ginny said, as though reading Harry's mind. [OotP-26]
  
  
• He gazed blankly at the back of Parvati's head again. If he could only perform Legilimency and open a window in the back of her head and see what it was about trolls that had caused the breach between Pierre Bonaccord and Liechtenstein. ...
  Harry closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands, so that the glowing red of his eyelids grew dark and cool. Bonaccord had wanted to stop troll-hunting and give the trolls rights ... but Liechtenstein was having problems with a tribe of particularly vicious mountain trolls. ... That was it. ... [OotP-31]
  
  
• His cold, dark eyes were boring into Harry's, who met his gaze unflinchingly, concentrating hard on what he had seen in his dream, willing Snape to read it in his mind, to understand ... [OotP-32]
  
  
• Harry's eyes met Ron's. He knew that Ron was thinking exactly what he was: If he could have chosen any members of the D.A. in addition to himself, Ron, and Hermione to join him in the attempt to rescue Sirius, he would not have picked Ginny, Neville, or Luna. [OotP-33]
  
  
• Tall, thin, and black-hooded, his terrible snakelike face white and gaunt, his scarlet, slit-pupiled eyes staring ... Lord Voldemort had appeared in the middle of the hall, his wand pointing at Harry who stood frozen, quite unable to move.
  "So you smashed my prophecy?" said Voldemort softly, staring at Harry with those pitiless red eyes. "No, Bella, he is not lying. ... I see the truth looking at me within his worthless mind. ... Months of preparation, months of effort ... and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again. ..." [OotP-36]
  
  
• Harry wondered whether he could slip his Invisibility Cloak back on, thereby gaining his seat at the long Gryffindor table (which, inconveniently, was the farthest from the entrance hall) without being noticed. As though he had read Harry's mind, however, Snape said, "No cloak. You can walk in so that everyone sees you, which is what you wanted, I'm sure." [HBP-8]
  
  
• "Who suspects me?" said Malfoy angrily. "For the last time, I didn't do it, okay? That Bell girl must've had an enemy no one knows about -- don't look at me like that! I know what you're doing. I'm not stupid, but it won't work -- I can stop you!"
  There was a pause and then Snape said quietly, "Ah ... Aunt Bellatrix has been teaching you Occlumency, I see. What thoughts are you trying to conceal from your master, Draco?" [HBP-15]
  
  
• Harry sat there feeling mutinous. How would it be if he refused to permit the change of subject, if he insisted upon arguing the case against Malfoy? As though he had read Harry's mind, Dumbledore shook his head. [HBP-17]
  
  
• "I see," said Dumbledore eventually, peering at Harry over the top of his half-moon spectacles and giving Harry the usual sensation that he was being X-rayed. [HBP-20]
  
  
• "Liar," said Snape. Harry's throat went dry. He knew what Snape was going to do and he had never been able to prevent it. ...
  The bathroom seemed to shimmer before his eyes; he struggled to block out all thought, but try as he might, the Half-Blood Prince's copy of Advanced Potion-Making swam hazily to the forefront of his mind.
  And then he was staring at Snape again, in the midst of this wrecked, soaked bathroom. He stared into Snape's black eyes, hoping against hope that Snape had not seen what he feared, but --
  "Bring me your schoolbag," said Snape softly, "and all of your schoolbooks. All of them. Bring them to me here. Now!" [HBP-24]
  
  
• "Your nickname," repeated Snape.
  "Yeah ... that's what my friends call me," said Harry.
  "I understand what a nickname is," said Snape. The cold, black eyes were boring once more into Harry's; he tried not to look into them. Close your mind. ... Close your mind. ... But he had never learned how to do it properly. ...
  "Do you know what I think, Potter?" said Snape, very quietly. "I think that you are a liar and a cheat and that you deserve detention with me every Saturday until the end of term. What do you think, Potter?" [HBP-24]
  
  
• If he only knew Legilimency, really knew it, and could read Hermione's mind; he could practically hear her brain whirring beside him. [DH-7]
  
  
• He met Aberforth's gaze, which was so strikingly like his brother's: The bright blue eyes gave the same impression that they were X-raying the object of their scrutiny, and Harry thought Aberforth knew what he was thinking and despised him for it. [DH-28]
  
  

• A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have though he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed. [SS-1]
  
  
• He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone. [SS-1]
  
  
• The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone. [SS-5].
  
  
• With a crack like a whip, Dobby vanished. [CoS-2]
  
  
• And with a final loud crack, Dobby disappeared. [CoS-18]
  
  
• Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier than Harry had ever seen him. [GoF-5]
  
  
• At that moment, a wizard in plus-fours appeared out of thin air next to Mr. Roberts's front door. [GoF-7]
  
  
• A wizard had just Apparated at their fireside, and he could not have more of a contrast with Ludo Bagman, sprawled on the grass in his old Wasp robes. [GoF-7]
  
  
• He waved, Barty Crouch nodded curtly, and both of them Disapparated. [GoF-7]
  
  
• He disapparated. [GoF-9]
  
  
• Bagman swore loudly.
  "Damn them!" he said, looking quite distracted, and without another word, he Disapparated with a small pop! [GoF-9]
  
  
• Harry turned -- Ron was hurriedly scooping up his miniature Krum -- the three of them started across the clearing -- but before they had taken a few hurried steps, a series of popping noises announced the arrival of twenty wizards, appearing from thin air, surrounding them.. [GoF-9]
  
  
• Just then there was another pop, and Ludo Bagman Apparated right next to Mr. Weasley. [GoF-9]
  
  
• "I'd better hurry -- you have a good term boys," said Mr. Weasley to Harry, Ron, and the twins, fastening a cloak over his shoulders and preparing to Disapparate. "Molly, are you giong to be all right taking the kids to King's Cross?"
  "Of course I will," she said. "You just look after Mad-Eye, we'll be fine."
  As Mr. Weasley vanished, Bill and Charlie entered the kitchen. [GoF-11]
  
  
• But Mrs. Weasley only smiled and waved. Before the train had rounded the corner, she, Bill, and Charlie had Disapparated. [GoF-11]
  
  
• The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks. Between graves, behind the yew tree, in every shadowy space, wizards were Apparating. [GoF-33]
  
  
• A loud echoing crack broke the sleepy silence like a gunshot; a cat streaked out from under a parked car and flew out of sight; a shriek, a bellowed oath, and the sound of breaking china came from the Dursleys' living room ... [OotP-1]
  
  
• Harry was sure that the cracking noise had been made by someone Apparating or Disapparating. It was exactly the sound Dobby the house-elf made when he vanished into thin air. [OotP-1]
  
  
• There was a loud crack and a strong smell of mingled drink and stale tobacco filled the air as a squat, unshaven man in a tattered overcoat materialized right in front of them. [OotP-2]
  
  
• And with another loud crack, he vanished. [OotP-2]
  
  
• Crack.
  "OUCH!"
  "Keep your voice down, Ron, or Mum'll be back up here."
  "You two just Apparated on my knees!"
  "Yeah, well, it's harder in the dark --" [OotP-6]
  
  
• "Mum," said George, and without further ado there was a loud crack and Harry felt the weight vanish from the end of his bed. [OotP-6]
  
  
• Crack.
  Fred and George Apparated right beside Harry. He was so used to them doing this by now that he didn't even fall off his chair. [OotP-9]
  
  
• And with another loud crack, the twins Disapparated. [OotP-9]
  
  
• He had just turned it upside down to see whether it looked better that way when, with a loud crack, Fred and George Apparated to the foot of his bed. [OotP-23]
  
  
• Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts. [OotP-25]
  
  
• Voldemort raised his wand and sent another jet of green light at Dumbledore, who turned and was gone in a whirling of his cloak; next second he had reappeared behind Voldemort and waved his wand toward the remnants of the fountain; the other statues sprang to life too. The statue of the witch ran at Bellatrix, who screamed and sent spells streaming uselessly off its chest, before it dived at her, pinning her to the floor. Meanwhile, the goblin and the house-elf scuttled toward the fireplaces set along the wall, and the one-armed centaur galloped at Voldemort, who vanished and reappeared beside the pool. [OotP-36]
  
  
• Voldemort vanished. The snake reared from the floor, ready to strike --
  There was a burst of flame in midair above Dumbledore just as Voldemort reappeared, standing on the plinth in the middle of the pool where so recently the five statues had stood. [OotP-36]
  
  
• For a few seconds Voldemort was visible only as a dark, rippling, faceless feature, shimmering and indistinct upon the plinth, clearly struggling to throw off the suffocating mass --
  Then he was gone, and the water fell with a crash back into its pool, slopping wildly over the sides, drenching the polished floor. [OotP-36]
  
  
• "I saw him, Mr. Fudge, I swear, it was You-Know-Who, he grabbed a woman and Disapparated!" [OotP-36]
  
  
• But then, with a very faint pop, a slim, hooded figure appeared out of thin air on the edge of the river. The fox froze, wary eyes fixed upon this strange new phenomenon. The figure seemed to take its bearings for a few moments, then set off with light, quick strides, its long cloak rustling over the grass.
  With a second and louder pop, another hooded figure materialized. [HBP-2]
  
  
• He flicked his wand for a fifth time. There was a loud crack, and a house-elf appeared, with a snout for a nose, giant bat's ears, and enormous bloodshot eyes, crouching on the Dursleys' shag carpet and covered in grimy rags. [HBP-3]
  
  
• Kreacher, who was now lying flat on his back with his arms and legs in the air, gave Harry one upside-down look of deepest loathing and, with another loud crack, vanished. [HBP-3]
  
  
• Harry felt Dumbledore's arm twist away from him and redoubled his grip; the next thing he knew, everything went black; he was being pressed very hard from all directions; he could not breathe; there were iron bands tightening around his chest; his eyeballs were being forced back into his head; his eardrums were being pushed deeper into his skull and then --
  He gulped great lungfulls of cold night air and opened his streaming eyes. He felt as though he had just been forced through a very tight rubber tube. [HBP-4]
  
  
• Braced this time, Harry was ready for the Apparition, but still found it unpleasant. When the pressure disappeared and he found himself able to breathe again, he was standing in a country lane beside Dumbledore and looking ahead to the crooked silhouette of his second favorite building in the world: the Burrow. [HBP-4]
  
  
• Tonks hurried past Dumbledore and Harry into the yard; a few paces beyond the doorstep, she turned on the spot and vanished into think air. [HBP-5]
  
  
• He made Mrs. Weasley a bow and followed Tonks, vanishing at precisely the same spot. [HBP-5]
  
  
• There was a very loud crack, and the sounds of scuffling and squeaks filled the silent room. Ron awoke with a yelp. [HBP-19]
  
  
• Crack.
  Hermione let out a little shriek; Ron spilled ink all over his freshly completed essay, and Harry said, "Kreacher!" [HBP-21]
  
  
• Crack.
  Dobby appeared alongside Kreacher, his tea-cozy hat askew. [HBP-21]
  
  
• "Get out of it," Harry snapped at him, and Kreacher made one last deep bow and Disapparated. "You'd better go and get some sleep too, Dobby."
  "Thank you, Harry Potter, sir!" squeaked Dobby happily, and he too vanished. [HBP-21]
  
  
• Dung panicked, I heard him cry out, Mad-Eye tried to stop him, but he Disapparated. [DH-5]
  
  
• Guests were sprinting in all directions; many were Disapparating; the protective enchantments around the Burrow had broken. [DH-9]
  
  
• He caught hold of Hermione's free arm, and Harry felt her turn on the spot; sight and sound were extinguished as darkness pressed in upon him; all he could feel was Hermione's hand as he was squeezed through space and time, away from the Burrow, away from the descending Death Eaters, away, perhaps, from Voldemort himself. ... [DH-9]
  
  
• Then, on Harry's count of three, they reversed the spells upon their three victims, and before the waitress or either of the Death Eaters could do more than stir sleepily, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had turned on the spot and vanished into the compressing darkness once more.
  Second later Harry's lungs expanded gratefully and he opened his eyes: They were now standing in the middle of a familiar small and shabby square. [DH-9]
  
  
• There was a loud crack and the house-elf that Harry had so reluctantly inherited from Sirius appeared out of nowhere in front of the cold and empty fireplace ... [DH-10]
  
  
• "Well, it's obvious, isn't it, Harry?" said Ron. "He Disapparated!"
  "But ... you couldn't Apparate in and out of that cave," said Harry, "otherwise Dumbledore --"
  "Elf magic isn't like wizard's magic, is it?" said Ron. "I mean, they can Apparate and Disapparate in and out of Hogwarts when we can't." [DH-10]
  
  
• He then made two low bows to Harry and Ron, and even gave a funny little spasm in Hermione's direction that might have been an attempt at a respectfully salute, before Disapparating with the usual loud crack. [DH-10]
  
  
• "I had to Apparate very precisely onto the top step outside the front door to be sure that they would not see me." [DH-11]
  
  
• "It's impossible to track anyone who Apparates, unless you grab hold of them as they disappear!" [DH-11]
  
  
• He was in the process of lowering the newspaper to ask Ron's and Hermione's opinions, when a deafening crack echoed around the kitchen. [DH-11]
  
  
• He had nearly lost his balance as he Apparated onto the top step just outside the front door, and thought that the Death Eaters might have caught a glimpse of his momentarily exposed elbow. [DH-12]
  
  
• Hermione Disapparated with Ron first, then came back for Harry.
  After the usual brief spell of darkness and near suffocation, Harry found himself in the tiny alleyway where the first phase of their plan was scheduled to take place. [DH-12]
  
  
• Little more than a minute later, there was a tiny pop and a little Ministry witch with flyaway gray hair Apparated feet from them, blinking a little in the sudden brightness ... [DH-12]
  
  
• Seconds later there was another pop, and a small, ferrety-looking wizard appeared before them. [DH-12]
  
  
• "LET'S GO!" Harry yelled. He seized Hermione by the hand and Ron by the arm and turned on the spot.
  Darkness engulfed them, along with the sensation of compressing bands, but something was wrong, Hermione's hand seemed to be sliding out of his grip. ...
  He wondered whether he was going to suffocate; he could not breathe or see and the only solid things in the world were Ron's arm and Hermione's fingers, which were slowly slipping away. ...
  And then he saw the door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, with its serpent door knocker, but before he could draw breath, there was a scream and a flash of purple light; Hermione's hand was suddenly vicelike upon his and everything went dark again. [DH-12,13]
  
  
• Then they Disapparated to the outskirts of a small market town. [DH-15]
  
  
• Every morning they made sure that they had removed all clues to their presence, then set off to find another lonely and secluded spot, traveling by Apparition to more woods, to the shadowy crevices of cliffs, to purple moors, gorse-covered mountainsides, and once a sheltered and pebbly cove. [DH-15]
  
  
• Hermione seemed unable to find any more reasons to delay: She and Harry grasped hands and Disapparated, reappearing on a windswept heather-covered hillside. [DH-16]
  
  
• It was therefore a full week later -- once they had surreptitiously obtained hairs from innocent Muggles who were Christmas shopping, and had practiced Apparating and Disapparating while underneath the Invisibility Cloak together -- that Hermione agreed to make the journey. [DH-16]
  
  
• They were to Apparate to the village under cover of darkness, so it was late afternoon when they finally swallowed Polyjuice Potion, Harry transforming into a balding, middle-aged Muggle man, Hermione into his small and rather mousy wife. The beaded bag containing all of their possession (apart from the Horcrux, which Harry was wearing around his neck) was tucked into an inside pocket of Hermione's buttoned-up coat. Harry lowered the Invisibility Cloak over them, then they turned into the suffocating darkness once again.
  Heart beating into his throat, Harry opened his eyes. [DH-16]
  
  
• Glass cut his cheek as, pulling Hermione with him, he leapt from bed to broken dressing table and then straight out of the smashed window into nothingness, her scream reverberating through the night as they twisted in midair. ... [DH-17]
  
  
• "I wanted to come back the minute I Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn't go anywhere!" [DH-19]
  
  
• "Then two of them got into a fight and while the others were distracted I managed to hit the one holding me in the stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine, and Disapparated. I didn't do it so well, Splinched myself again" -- Ron held up his right hand to show two missing fingernails; Hermione raised her eyebrows coldly -- "and I came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank where we'd been ... you'd gone." [DH-19]
  
  
• "So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere. ..." [DH-19]
  
  
• "But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, and the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these woods." [DH-19]
  
  
• They had an excellent view of the village of Ottery St. Catchpole from the breezy hillside to which they Disapparated next morning. [DH-20]
  
  
• Hermione twisted in midair and the thundering of the collapsing house rang in Harry's ears as she dragged him once more into darkness.
  Harry fell, panting, onto grass and scrambled up at once. [DH-20,21]
  
  
• "The name's Taboo!" Ron bellowed, leaping to his feet as a loud crack sounded outside the tent. [DH-22]
  
  
• They Disapparated, pulling the prisoners with them. Harry struggled, trying to throw off Greyback's hand, but it was hopeless: Ron and Hermione were squeezed tightly against him on either side, he could not separate from the group, and as the breath was squeezed out of him his scar seared more painfully still --
  ...
  The prisoners lurched into one another as they landed in a country lane. [DH-23]
  
  
• The door slammed shut and at the same moment a loud crack echoed inside the cellar. [DH-23]
  
  
• They caught hold of the elf's outstretched fingers. There was another loud crack, and Dobby, Luna, Dean, and Ollivander vanished. [DH-23]
  
  
• Hoisting the groaning goblin, who still clung to the sword, over one shoulder, Harry seized Dobby's hand and spun on the spot to Disapparate.
  As he turned into darkness he caught one last view of the drawing room: of the pale, frozen figures of Narcissa and Draco, of the streak of red that was Ron's hair, and a blur of flying silver, as Bellatrix's knife flew across the room at the place where he was vanishing --
  Bill and Fleur's ... Shell Cottage ... Bill and Fleur's ...
  He had disappeared into the unknown; all he could do was repeat the name of the destination and hope that it would suffice to take him there. The pain in his forehead piereced him, and the weight of the goblin bore down upon him; he could feel the blade of Gryffindor's sword bumping against his back; Dobby's hand jerked in his; he wondered whether the elf was trying to take charge, to pull them in the right direction, and tried, by squeezing the fingers, to indicate that that was fine with him. ...
  And then they hit solid earth and smelled salty air. Harry fell to his knees, relinquished Dobby's hand, and attempted to lower Griphook gently to the ground. [DH-23]
  
  
• Harry turned on the spot, with Griphook on his shoulders, concentrating with all his might on the Leaky Cauldron, the inn that was the entrance to Diagon Alley. The goblin clung even tighter as they moved into the compressing darkness, and seconds later Harry's feet found pavement and he opened his eyes on Charing Cross Road. [DH-26]
  
  
• Harry pulled the Cloak down as far as it would go, and together they turned on the spot into the crushing darkness.
  Harry's feet touched road. He saw the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street: dark shop fronts, and the outline of black mountains beyond the village, and the curve in the road ahead that led off toward the Three Broomsticks, and with a lurch of the heart he remembered, with piercing accuracy, how he had landed here nearly a year before, supporting a desperately weak Dumbledore; all this in a second, upon landing -- and then, even as he relaxed his grip upon Ron's and Hermione's arms, it happened. [DH-28]
  
  
• In the pitch-blackness, he felt Hermione take hold of his arm and together, they turned on the spot.
  The air through which they needed to move seemed to have become solid: They could not Disapparate; the Death Eaters had cast their charms well. [DH-28]
  
  
• "Get right out of Hogsmeade, up into the mountains, and you'll be able to Disapparate there." [DH-28]
  
  

• But I'm in Gryffindor, Harry thought. The Sorting Hat wouldn't have put me in here if I had Slytherin blood. ...
  Ah, said a nasty little voice in his brain, but the Sorting Hat wanted to put you in Slytherin, don't you remember? [CoS-11]
  
  
• Black made a startled movement that almost dislodged Crookshanks; Harry gripped his wand convulsively -- Do it now! said a voice in his head -- but the footsteps were thundering up the stairs and Harry still hadn't done it. [PoA-17]
  
  
• And then he heard Mad-Eye Moody's voice, echoing in some distant chamber of his empty brain: Jump onto the desk ... jump onto the desk. ...
  Harry bent his knees obediently, preparing to spring.
  Jump onto the desk. ...
  Why, though? Another voice had awoken in the back of his brain.
  Stupid thing to do, really, said the voice.
  Jump onto the desk. ...
  No, I don't think I will, thanks, said the other voice, a little more firmly ... no, I don't really want to. ...
  Jump! NOW!
  The next thing Harry felt was considerable pain. He had both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping -- the result was that he'd smashed headlong into the desk, knocking it over, and, by the feeling in his legs, fractured both his kneecaps. [GoF-15]
  
  
• He had forgotten completely about prefects being chosen in the fifth year. He had been too anxious about the possibility of being expelled to spare a thought for the fact that badges must be winging their way toward certain people. But if he had remembered ... if he had thought about it ... what would he have expected?
  Not this, said a small and truthful voice inside his head.
  Was that true? Harry wondered, anxiously probing his own feelings. I'm better at Quidditch, said the voice. But I'm not better at anything else.
  That was definitely true, Harry thought; he was no better than Ron in lessons. But what about outside lessons? What about those adventures he, Ron, and Hermione had had together since they had started at Hogwarts, often risking much worse than expulsion?
  Well, Ron and Hermione were with me most of the time, said the voice in Harry's head.
  Not all the time, though, Harry argued with himself. They didn't fight Quirrell with me. They didn't take on Riddle and the basilisk. They didn't get rid of all those dementors the night Sirius escaped. They weren't in that graveyard with me, the night Voldemort returned. ...
  And the same feeling of ill usage that had overwhelmed him on the night he had arrived rose again. I've definitely done more, Harry thought indignantly. I've done more that either of them!
  But maybe, said the small voice fairly, maybe Dumbledore doesn't choose prefects because they've got themselves into a load of dangerous situations. ... Maybe he chooses them for other reasons. ... Ron must have something you don't. ...
  Harry opened his eyes and stared through his fingers at the wardrobe's clawed feet, remembering what Fred had said.
  "No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect. ..."
  Harry gave a small snort of laughter. A second later he felt sickened with himself.
  Ron had not asked Dumbledore to give him the prefect badge. This was not Ron's fault. Was he, Harry, Ron's best friend in the world, going to sulk because he didn't have a badge, laugh with the twins behind Ron's back, ruin this for Ron when, for the first time, he had beaten Harry at something? [OotP-9]
  
  
• He felt as though the memory of it was eating him from inside. He had been so sure that his parents had been wonderful people that he never had the slightest difficulty in disbelieving Snape's aspersions on his father's character. Hadn't people like Hagrid and Sirius told Harry how wonderful his father had been? (Yeah, well, look what Sirius was like himself, said a nagging voice inside Harry's head. ... He was as bad, wasn't he?) Yes, he had once overheard Professor McGonagall saying that his father and Sirius had been troublemakers at school, but she had described them as forerunners of the Weasley twins, and Harry could not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside down for the fun of it ... not unless they really loathed them. ... Perhaps Malfoy, or somebody who really deserved it ... [OotP-29]
  
  
• He's still alive, he's fighting, I can feel it. ...
  If Voldemort decided Sirius was not going to crack. ...
  I'd know. ... [OotP-34]
  
  
• They passed row eighty-four ... eighty-five ... Harry was listening hard for the slightest sound of movement, but Sirius might be gagged now, or else unconscious ... or, said an unbidden voice inside his head, he might already be dead. ...
  I'd have felt it, he told himself, his heart now hammering against his Adam's apple. I'd already know. ... [OotP-34]
  
  
• Another flash, shouts, retaliatory jets of light, and Harry understood: Hagrid had emerged from his cabin and was trying to stop the Death Eaters escaping, and though every breath seemed to shred his lungs and the stitch in his chest was like fire, Harry sped up as an unbidden voice in his head said: not Hagrid ... not Hagrid too ... [HBP-28]
  
  

• "You know what this means?" he finished breathlessly. "He tried to get past that three-headed dog at Halloween! That's where he was going when we saw him -- he's after whatever it's guarding! And I'd bet my broomstick he let that troll in, to make a diversion!"
  Hermione's eyes were wide.
  "No -- he wouldn't," she said. "I know he's not very nice, but he wouldn't try and steal something Dumbledore was keeping safe."
  "Honestly, Hermione, you think all teachers are saints or something," snapped Ron. "I'm with Harry. I wouldn't put anything past Snape. But what's he after? What's that dog guarding?" [SS-11]
  
  
• "I knew it," Hermione gasped. "Snape -- look."
  Ron grabbed the binoculars. Snape was in the middle of the stands opposite them. He had his eyes fixed on Harry and was muttering nonstop under his breath.
  "He's doing something -- jinxing the broom," said Hermione. [SS-11]
  
  
• "It was Snape," Ron was explaining. "Hermione and I saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn't take his eyes off you."
  "Rubbish," said Hagrid, who hadn't heard a word of what had gone on next to him in the stands. "Why would Snape do somethin' like that?" [SS-11]
  
  
• "But Snape's trying to steal it."
  "Rubbish," said Hagrid again. "Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort." [SS-11]
  
  
• "I'm tellin' yeh yer wrong!" said Hagrid hotly. "I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn' try an' kill a student!" [SS-11]
  
  
• "So we were right, it is the Sorcerer's Stone, and Snape's trying to force Quirrell to help him get it. He asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy -- and he said something about Quirrell's 'hocus-pocus' -- I reckon there are other things guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy, loads of enchantments, probably, and Quirrell would have done some anti-Dark Arts spell that Snape needs to break through --"
  "So you mean the Stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?" said Hermione in alarm.
  "It'll be gone by next Tuesday," said Ron. [SS-13]
  
  
• "Snape?"
  "Yeah -- yer not still on abou' that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped protect the Stone, he's not about ter steal it." [SS-14]
  
  
• "Snape wants the Stone for Voldemort ... and Voldemort's waiting in the forest ... and all this time we thought Snape just wanted to get rich. ..." [SS-15]
  
  
• "We've got to go to Dumbledore," said Harry. "Hagrid told that stranger hot to get past Fluffy, and it was either Snape of Voldemort under that cloak -- it must've been easy, once he'd got Hagrid drunk." [SS-16]
  
  
• "Professor, I think -- I know -- that Sn- -- that someone's going to try and steal the Stone. I've got to talk to Professor Dumbledore." [SS-16]
  
  
• "But I thought -- Snape --"
  "Severus?" Quirrell laughed, and it wasn't his usual quivering treble, either, but cold and sharp. "Yes, Severus does seem the type, doesn't he? So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat. Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?"
  Harry couldn't take it in. This couldn't be true, it couldn't.
  "But Snape tried to kill me!"
  "No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your friend Miss Granger accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set fire to Snape at that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with you. Another few seconds and I'd have got you off that broom. I'd have managed it before then if Snape hadn't been muttering a countercurse, trying to save you."
  "Snape was trying to save me?"
  "Of course," said Quirrell coolly. [SS-17]
  
  
• "I saw you and Snape in the forest --" he blurted out.
  "Yes," said Quirrell idly, walking around the mirror to look at the back. "He was on to me by that time, trying to find out how far I'd got. He suspected me all along. Tried frightening me -- as though he could, when I had Lord Voldemort on my side. ..." [SS-17]
  
  
• "But Snape always seemed to hate me so much."
  "Oh, he does," said Quirrell casually, "heavens, yes. He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn't you know? They loathed each other. But he never wanted you dead."
  "But I heard you a few days ago, sobbing -- I thought Snape was threatening you. ..."
  For the first time, a spasm of fear flitted across Quirrell's face.
  "Sometimes," he said, "I find it hard to follow my master's instructions -- he is a great wizard amd I am weak --" [SS-17]
  
  
• "Quirrell said he hates me because he hated my father. Is that true?"
  "Well, they did rather detest each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy. And then, your father did something Snape could never forgive."
  "What?"
  "He saved his life."
  "What?"
  "Yes ..." said Dumbledore dreamily. "Funny the way people's minds work, isn't it? Professor Snape couldn't bear being in your father's debt. ... I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year because he felt that would make him and your father even. Then he could go back to hating your father's memory in peace. ..." [SS-17]
  
  
• "Dumbledore happens to trust me," said Snape through clenched teeth. "I refuse to believe that he gave you orders to search my office!"
  "'Course Dumbledore trusts you," growled Moody. "He's a trusting man, isn't he? Believes in second chances. But me -- I say there are spots that don't come off, Snape. Spots that never come off, d'you know what I mean?"
  Snape suddenly did something very strange. He seized his left forearm convulsively with his right hand, as though something on it had hurt him. [GoF-25]
  
  
• "What ... d'you reckon Moody's here to keep an eye on Snape as well as Karkaroff?"
  "Well, I dunno if that's what Dumbledore asked him to do, but he's definitely doing it," said Harry, waving his wand without paying much attention, so that his cushion did an odd sort of belly flop off the desk. "Moody said Dumbledore only lets Snape stay here because he's giving him a second chance or something. ..."
  "What?" said Ron, his eyes widening, his next cushion spinning high into the air, ricocheting off the chandelier, and dropping heavily onto Flitwick's desk. "Harry ... maybe Moody thinks Snape put your name in the Goblet of Fire!"
  "Oh, Ron," said Hermione, shaking her head skeptically, "we thought Snape was trying to kill Harry before, and it turned out he was saving Harry's life, remember?"
  "I don't care what Moody says," Hermione went on. "Dumbledore's not stupid. He was right to trust Hagrid and Professor Lupin, even though loads of people wouldn't have given them jobs, so why shouldn't he be right about Snape, even if Snape's a bit --"
  "-- evil," said Ron promptly. [GoF-26]
  
  
• "You just want to think Snape's up to something," said Hermione, sending her cushion zooming neatly into the box.
  "I just want to know what Snape did with his first chance, if he's on his second one, said Harry grimly. [GoF-26]
  
  
• "So you think Snape could be up to something, then?" asked Harry, but Hermione broke in.
  "Look, I don't care what you say, Dumbledore trusts Snape --"
  "Oh, give it a rest, Hermione," said Ron impatiently. "I know Dumbledore's brilliant and everything, but that doesn't mean a really clever Dark wizard couldn't fool him --"
  "Why did Snape save Harry's life in the first year, then? Why didn't he just let him die?"
  "I dunno -- maybe he thought Dumbledore would kick him out --"
  "What d'you think, Sirius," Harry said loudly, and Ron and Hermione stopped to listen.
  "I think they've both got a point," said Sirius, looking thoughtfully at Ron and Hermione. "Ever since I found out Snape was teaching here, I've wondered why Dumbledore hired him." [GoF-27]
  
  
• "There's still the fact that Dumbledore trusts Snape, and I know Dumbledore trusts where a lot of other people wouldn't, but I just can't see him letting Snape teach at Hogwarts if he'd ever worked for Voldemort." [GoF-27]
  
  
• "Snape!" he shouted. "Severus Snape!"
  "Snape has been cleared by this council," said Crouch disdainfully. "He has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore."
  "No!" shouted Karkaroff, straining at the chains that bound him to the chair. "I assure you! Severus Snape is a Death Eater!"
  Dumbledore had gotten to his feet.
  "I have given evidence already on this matter," he said calmly. "Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am."
  Harry turned to look at Mad-Eye Moody. He was wearing a look of deep skepticism behind Dumbledore's back. [GoF-30]
  
  
• "Er," he said, "Mr. Bagman."
  "... has never been accused of any Dark activity since," said Dumbledore calmly.
  "Right," said Harry hastily, staring at the contents of the Pensieve again, which were swirling more slowly now that Dumbledore had stopped adding thoughts. "And ... er ..."
  But the Pensieve seemed to be asking his question for him. Snape's face was swimming on the surface again. Dumbledore glanced down into it, and then up at Harry.
  "No more has Professor Snape," he said.
  Harry looked into Dumbledore's light blue eyes, and the thing he really wanted to know spilled out of his mouth before he could stop it.
  "What made you think he'd really stopped supporting Voldemort, Professor?"
  Dumbledore held Harry's gaze for a few seconds, and then said, "That, Harry, is a matter between Professor Snape and myself."
  Harry knew that the interview was over; Dumbledore did not look angry, yet there was a finality in his tone that told Harry it was time to go. [GoF-30]
  
  
• Ron stared into the common room fire. Harry thought he saw Ron shiver slightly, even though the evening was warm.
  "And he trusts Snape?" Ron said. "He really trusts Snape, even though he knows he was a Death Eater?"
  "Yes," said Harry.
  Hermione had not spoken for ten minutes. She was sitting with her forehead in her hands, staring at her knees. Harry though she too looked as though she could have done with a Pensieve. [GoF-31]
  
  
• "He can't be back, Dumbledore, he just can't be ..."
  Snape strode forward, past Dumbledore, pulling his left sleeve of his robes as he went. He stuck out his forearm and showed it to Fudge, who recoiled.
  "There," said Snape harshly. "There. The Dark Mark. It is not as clear as it was an hour or so ago, when it burned black, but you can still see it. Every Death Eater had the sign burned into him by the Dark Lord. It was a means of distinguishing one another, and his means of summoning us to him. When he touched the Mark of any Death Eater, we were to Disapparate, and Apparate, instantly, at his side. The Mark has been growing clearer all year. Karkaroff's too. Why do you think Karkaroff fled tonight? We both felt the Mark burn. We both knew he had returned. Karkaroff fears the Dark Lord's vengeance. He betrayed too many of his fellow Death Eaters to be sure of a welcome back into the fold." [GoF-36]
  
  
• "Him!" he snarled, staring at Sirius, whose face showed equal dislike. "What is he doing here?"
  "He is here at my invitation," said Dumbledore, looking between them, "as are you, Severus. I trust you both. It is time for you to lay aside your old differences and trust each other." [GoF-36]
  
  
• "Severus," said Dumbledore, turning to Snape, "you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready ... if you are prepared ..."
  "I am," said Snape.
  He looked slightly paler than usual, and his cold, black eyes glittered strangely. [GoF-36]
  
  
• What was it that Snape had done on Dumbledore's orders, the night that Voldemort had returned? And why ... why ... was Dumbledore so convinced that Snape was truly on their side? He had been their spy, Dumbledore had said so in the Pensieve. Snape had turned spy against Voldemort, "at great personal risk." Was that the job he had taken up again? Had he made contact with the Death Eaters, perhaps? Pretended that he had never really gone over to Dumbledore, that he had been, like Voldemort himself, biding his time? [GoF-37]
  
  
• "Snape?" said Harry quickly. "Is he here?"
  "Yeah," said George, carefully closing the door and sitting down on one of the beds; Fred and Ginny followed. "Giving a report. Top secret."
  "Git," said Fred idly.
  "He's on our side now," said Hermione reprovingly.
  Ron snorted. "Doesn't stop him being a git. The way he looks at us when he sees us. ..."
  "Bill doesn't like him either," said Ginny, as though that settled the matter. [OotP-4]
  
  
• Neither of the others answered; all three of them knew that Snape and Harry's mutual enmity had been absolute from the moment Harry had set foot in Hogwarts.
  "I did think he might be a bit better this year," said Hermione in a disappointed voice. "I mean ... you know ..." She looked carfully around; there were half a dozen empty seats on either side of them and nobody was passing the table. "... Now he's in the Order and everything."
  "Poisonous toadstools don't change their spots," said Ron sagely. "Anyway, I've always thought Dumbledore was cracked trusting Snape, where's the evidence he ever really stopped working for You-Know-Who?"
  "I think Dumbledore probably got plenty of evidence, even if he doesn't share it with you, Ron," snapped Hermione. [OotP-12]
  
  
• "I've warned you, Snivellus," said Sirius, his face barely a foot from Snape's. "I don't care if Dumbledore thinks you've reformed, I know better --"
  "Oh, but why don't you tell him so?" whispered Snape. "Or are you afraid he might not take the advice of a man who has been hiding inside his mother's house for six months very seriously?"
  "Tell me, how is Lucius Malfoy these days? I expect he's delighted his lapdog's working at Hogwarts, isn't he?" [OotP-24]
  
  
• "I am working!" said Harry, nettled. "You try it sometime, Snape trying to get inside your head, it's not a bundle of laughs, you know!"
  "Maybe ..." said Ron slowly.
  "Maybe what?" said Hermione rather snappishly.
  "Maybe it's not Harry's fault he can't close his mind," said Ron darkly.
  "What do you mean?" said Hermione.
  Harry and Hermione stared at him. Ron looked darkly and meaningfully from one to the other.
  "Maybe," he said again in a lower voice, "he's actually trying to open Harry's mind a bit wider ... make it easier for You-Know --"
  "Shut up, Ron," said Hermione angrily. "How many times have you suspected Snape, and when have you ever been right? Dumbledore trusts him, he works for the Order, that ought to be enough."
  "He used to be a Death Eater," said Ron stubbornly. "And we've never seen proof that he really swapped sides. ..."
  "Dumbledore trusts him," Hermione repeated. "And if we can't trust Dumbledore, we can't trust anyone." [OotP-25]
  
  
• "You see, when you gave Professor Snape that cryptic warning, he realized that you had had a vision of Sirius trapped in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries. He, like you, attempted to contact Sirius at once. I should explain that members of the Order of the Phoenix have more reliable methods of communicating than the fire in Dolores Umbridge's office. Professor Snape found that Sirius was alive and safe in Grimmauld Place.
  "When, however, you did not return from your trip into the forest with Dolores Umbridge, Professor Snape grew worried that you still believed Sirius to be a captive of Lord Voldemort's. He alerted certain Order members at once."
  Dumbledore heaved a great sigh and then said, "Alastor Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Remus Lupin were at headquarters when he made contact. All agreed to go to your aid at once. Professor Snape requested that Sirius remain behind, as he needed somebody to remain at headquarters to tell me what had happened, for I was due there at any moment. In the meantime he, Professor Snape, intended to search the forest for you." [OotP-37]
  
  
• "Snape made it worse, my scar always hurt worse after lessons with him --" Harry remembered Ron's thoughts on the subject and plunged on. "How do you know he wasn't trying to soften me up for Voldemort, make it easier for him to get inside my --"
  "I trust Severus Snape," said Dumbledore simply. "But I forgot -- another old man's mistake -- that some wounds run too deep for the healing. I thought Professor Snape could overcome his feelings about your father -- I was wrong." [OotP-37]
  
  
• "And what am I to understand by that, Bellatrix?"
  "That I don't trust you, Snape, as you very well know!"
  ...
  "Why is it that you do not trust me?"
  "A hundred reasons!" she said loudly, striding out from behind the sofa to slam her glass upon the table. "Where to start! Where were you when the Dark Lord fell? Why did you never make any attempt to find him when he vanished? What have you been doing all these years that you've lived in Dumbledore's pocket? Why did you not return at once when the Dark Lord was reborn? Where were you a few weeks ago when we battled to retrieve the prophecy for the Dark Lord? And why, Snape, is Harry Potter still alive, when you have had him at your mercy for five years?" [HBP-2]
  
  
• "You can carry my words back to the others who whisper behind my back, and carry false tales of my treachery to the Dark Lord! Before I answer you, I say, let me ask a question in turn. Do you really think that the Dark Lord has not asked me each and every one of those questions? And do you think that, had I not been able to give satisfactory answers, I would be sitting here talking to you?"
  She hesitated.
  "I know he believes you, but ..."
  "You think he is mistaken? Or that I have somehow hoodwinked him? Fooled the Dark Lord, the greatest wizard, the most accomplished Legilimens the world has ever seen?" [HBP-2]
  
  
• "Not quite," said Snape calmly. "He wouldn't give me the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, you know. Seemed to think it might, ah, bring about a relapse ... tempt me into my old ways." [HBP-2]
  
  
• "I had a comfortable job that I preferred to a stint in Azkaban. They were rounding up Death Eaters, you know. Dumbledore's protection kept me out of jail; it was most convenient and I used it. I repeat: The Dark Lord does not complain that I stayed, so I do not see why you do." [HBP-2]
  
  
• "I returned two hours later. I returned on Dumbledore's orders."
  "On Dumbledore's -- ?" she began, in tones of outrage.
  "Think!" said Snape, impatient again. "Think! By waiting two hours, just two hours, I ensured that I could remain at Hogwarts as a spy! By allowing Dumbledore to think that I was only returning to the Dark Lord's side because I was ordered to, I have been able to pass information on Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix ever since!" [HBP-2]
  
  
• "The Dark Lord is satisfied with the information I have passed him on the Order. It led, as perhaps you have guessed, to the recent capture and murder of Emmeline Vance, and it certainly helped dispose of Sirius Black, though I give you full credit for finishing him off." [HBP-2]
  
  
• "I have played my part well," said Snape. "And you overlook Dumbledore's greatest weakness: He has to believe the best of people. I spun him a tale of deepest remorse when I joined his staff, fresh from my Death Eater days, and he embraced me with open arms -- though, as I say, never allowing me nearer the Dark Arts than he could help." ... "But through all these years, he has never stopped trusting Severus Snape, and therein lies my great value to the Dark Lord." [HBP-2]
  
  
• "It so happens that I know of the plan," he said in a low voice. "I am one of the few the Dark Lord has told. Nevertheless, had I not been in on the secret, Narcissa, you would have been guilty of great treachery to the Dark Lord."
  "I thought you must know about it!" said Narcissa, breathing more freely. "He trusts you so, Severus. ..." [HBP-2]
  
  
• "No!" said Harry, so loudly that many heads turned in his direction. He did not care; he was staring up at the staff table, incensed. How could Snape be given the Defense Against the Dark Arts job after all this time? Hadn't it been widely known for years that Dumbledore did not trust him to do it? [HBP-8]
  
  
• "'Course, you know what they'll all say? Dad and Dumbledore and all of them? They'll say Snape isn't really trying to help Malfoy, he was just trying to find out what Malfoy's up to."
  ...
  Harry said nothing. It had already occurred to him that this would be the most likely objection to his new evidence; he could hear Hermione now: Obviously, Harry, he was pretending to offer help so he could trick Malfoy into telling him what he's doing. ..." [HBP-16]
  
  
• "Has it occured to you, Harry," said Mr. Weasley, "that Snape was simply pretending -- ?"
  "Pretending to offer help, so that he could find out what Malfoy's up to?" said Harry quickly. "Yeah, I thought you'd say that. But how do we know?"
  "It isn't our business to know," said Lupin unexpectedly. He had turned his back on the fire now and faced Harry across Mr. Weasley. "It's Dumbledore's business. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us."
  "But," said Harry, "just say -- just say Dumbledore's wrong about Snape --"
  "It comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore's judgment. I do; therefore, I trust Severus."
  "But Dumbledore can make mistakes," argued Harry. "He says it himself." [HBP-16]
  
  
• "Don't you think -- ?"
  "-- he was pretending to offer help so that he could trick Malfoy into telling him what he's doing?"
  "Well, yes," said Hermione.
  "Ron's dad and Lupin think so," Harry said grudgingly. "But this definitely proves Malfoy's planning something, you can't deny that." [HBP-17]
  
  
• "Again, I am glad that you have confided in me, but let me reassure you that you have not told me anything that causes me disquiet."
  Harry sat in seething silence, glaring at Dumbledore. What was going on? Did this mean that Dumbledore had indeed ordered Snape to find out what Malfoy was doing, in which case he had already heard everything Harry had just told him from Snape? Or was he really worried by what he had heard, but pretending not to be?
  "So, sir," said Harry in what he hoped was a polite, calm voice, "you definitely still trust -- ?"
  "I have already been tolerant enough to answer that question already," said Dumbledore, but he did not sound tolerant anymore. "My answer has not changed." [HBP-17]
  
  
• "Hagrid, why is Dumbledore angry with Snape," Harry asked loudly.
  ...
  "I dunno, Harry. I shouldn'ta heard it at all! I -- well, I was comin' outta the forest the other evenin' an' I overheard 'em talking -- well, arguin'. Didn't like ter draw attention to meself, so I sorta skulked an' tried not ter listen, but it was a -- well, a heated discussion an' it wasn' easy ter block it out."
  "Well?" Harry urged him, as Hagrid shuffled his enormous feet uneasily.
  "Well -- I jus' heard Snape sayin' Dumbledore took too much fer granted an' maybe he -- Snape -- didn' wan' ter do it anymore --"
  "Do what?"
  "I dunno, Harry, it sounded like Snape was feelin' a bit over-worked, tha's all -- anyway, Dumbledore told him flat out he'd agreed to do it an' that was all there was to it. Pretty firm with him. An' then he said summat abou' Snape makin' investigations in his House, in Slytherin. Well, there's nothin' strange abou' that!"
  ...
  "I know what yeh're like abou' Snape, Harry, an' I don' want yeh ter go readin' more inter this than there is." [HBP-19]
  
  
• Breathing hard as though he was fighting, Harry turned away from Dumbledore, who still had not moved a muscle, and paced up and down the study, rubbing his knuckles in his hand and exercising every last bit of restraint to prevent himself knocking things over. He wanted to rage and storm at Dumbledore, but he also wanted to go with him to try and destroy the Horcrux; he wanted to tell him that he was a foolish old man for trusting Snape, but he was terrified Dumbledore would not take him along unless he mastered his anger. ... [HBP-25]
  
  
• "Professor Snape made a terrible mistake. He was still in Lord Voldemort's employ on the night he heard the first half of Professor Trelawney's prophecy. Naturally, he hastened to tell his master what he had heard, for it concerned his master most deeply. But he did not know -- he had no possible way of knowing -- which boy Voldemort would hunt from then onward, or that the parents he would destroy in his murderous quest were people that Professor Snape knew, that they were your mother and father --"
  Harry let out a yell of mirthless laughter.
  "He hated my dad like he hated Sirius! Haven't you noticed, Professor, how the people Snape hates tend to end up dead?"
  "You have no idea of the remorse Professor Snape felt when he realized how Lord Voldemort had interpreted the prophecy, Harry. I believe it to be the greatest regret of his life and the reason that he returned --"
  "But he's a very good Occlumens, isn't he, sir?" said Harry, whose voice was shaking with the effort of keeping it steady. "And isn't Voldemort convinced that Snape's on his side, even now? Professor ... how can you be sure Snape's on our side?"
  Dumbledore did not speak for a moment; he looked as though he was trying to make up his mind about something. At last he said, "I am sure. I trust Severus Snape completely."
  Harry breathed deeply for a few moments in an effort to steady himself. It did not work.
  "Well, I don't!" he said, as loudly as before. "He's up to something with Draco Malfoy right now, right under your nose, and you still --"
  "We have discussed this, Harry," said Dumbledore, and now he sounded stern again. "I have told you my views." [HBP-25]
  
  
• "Yeah, well, you still didn't realize who was behind that stuff, did you?" sneered Malfoy, as Dumbledore slid a little down the ramparts, the strength in his legs apparently fading, and Harry struggled fruitlessly, mutely against the enchantment binding him.
  "As a matter of fact, I did," said Dumbledore. "I was sure it was you."
  "Why didn't you stop me, then?" Malfoy demanded.
  "I tried, Draco. Professor Snape has been keeping watch over you on my orders --"
  "He hasn't been doing your orders, he promised my mother --"
  "Of course that is what he would tell you, Draco, but --"
  "He's a double agent, you stupid old man, he isn't working for you, you just think he is!"
  "We must agree to differ on that, Draco. It so happens that I trust Professor Snape --"
  "Well, you're losing your grip, then!" sneered Malfoy. [HBP-27]
  
  
• "But what happened, Harry? I jus' saw them Death Eaters runnin' down from the castle, but what the ruddy hell was Snape doin' with 'em? Where's he gone -- was he chasin' them?"
  "He ..." Harry cleared his throat; it was dry from panic and the smoke. "Hagrid, he killed ..."
  "Killed?" said Hagrid loudly, staring down at Harry. "Snape killed? What're yeh on abou', Harry?"
  "Dumbledore," said Harry. "Snape killed ... Dumbledore."
  Hagrid simply looked at him, the little of his face that could be seen completely blank, uncomprehending.
  "Dumbledore wha', Harry?"
  "He's dead. Snape killed him. ..."
  "Don' say that," said Hagrid roughly. "Snape kill Dumbledore -- don't be stupid, Harry. Wha's made yeh say that?"
  "I saw it happen."
  "Yeh couldn' have."
  "I saw it, Hagrid."
  Hagrid shook his head; his expression was disbelieving but sympathetic, and Harry knew that Hagrid thought he had sustained a blow to the head, that he was confused, perhaps by the aftereffects of a jinx. ...
  "What musta happened was, Dumbledore musta told Snape ter go with the Death Eaters," Hagrid said confidently. "I suppose he's gotta keep his cover. Look, let's get yeh back up ter the school. Come on, Harry. ..." [HBP-28]
  
  
• "Snape," repeated McGonagall faintly, falling into the chair. "We all wondered ... but he trusted ... always ... Snape ... I can't believe it. ..."
  "Snape was a highly accomplished Occlumens," said Lupin, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. "We always knew that."
  "But Dumbledore swore he was on our side!" whispered Tonks. "I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didn't. ..."
  "He always hinted that he had an ironclad reason for trusting Snape," muttered Professor McGonagall, now dabbing at the corners of her leaking eyes with a tartan-edged handkerchief. "I mean ... with Snape's history ... of course people were bound to wonder ... but Dumbledore told me explicitly that Snape's repentance was absolutely genuine. ... Wouldn't hear a word against him!"
  "I'd love to know what Snape told to him to convince him," said Tonks.
  "I know," said Harry, and they all turned to look at him. "Snape passed Voldemort the information that made Voldemort hunt down my mum and dad. Then Snape told Dumbledore he hadn't realized what he was doing, he was really sorry he'd done it, sorry that they were dead."
  They all stared at him.
  "And Dumbledore believed that?" said Lupin incredulously. "Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James. ..."
  "And he didn't think my mother was worth a damn either," said Harry, "because she was Muggle-born. ... 'Mudblood,' he called her. ..." [HBP-29]
  
  
• "Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn, who looked the most shaken, pale and sweating. "Snape! I taught him! I thought I knew him!" [HBP-29]
  
  
• "Yeah, that fits," said Harry. "He'd play up the pure-blood side so he could get in with Lucius Malfoy and the rest of them. ... He's just like Voldemort. Pure-blood mother, Muggle father ... ashamed of his parentage, trying to make himself feared using the Dark Arts, gave himself an impressive new name -- Lord Voldemort -- the Half-Blood Prince -- how could Dumbledore have missed -- ?"
  He broke off, looking out the window. He could not stop himself dwelling upon Dumbledore's inexcusable trust in Snape ... but as Hermione had just inadvertently reminded him, he, Harry, had been taken in just the same. ... In spite of the increasing nastiness of those scribbled spells, he had refused to believe ill of the boy who had been so clever, who had helped him so much. ... [HBP-30]
  
  
• "I should've shown the book to Dumbledore," said Harry. "All that time he was showing me how Voldemort was evil when he was at school, and I had proof Snape was too --"
  "'Evil' is a strong word," said Hermione quietly.
  "You were the one who kept telling me the book was dangerous!"
  "I'm trying to say, Harry, that you're putting too much blame on yourself. I thought the Prince seemed to have a nasty sense of humor, but I would never have guessed he was a potential killer. ..."
  "None of us could've guessed Snape would ... you know," said Ron. [HBP-30]