The Boy Who Lived

O-O-

The moment when you read this page for the first time not knowing just how much it was going to change your whole entire life!

My love for Harry Potter has grown immensely since I have started a relationship with Vincent Mallone. I loved Harry Potter like everyone else for the most part, but I was never infatuated until now.

As a young girl, I had the sheets, bedspread, some "magical stones", a few Harry Potter stuffed animals, a musical-light up pen, and keychains of Harry Potter. Now my collection of the Harry Potter things have really grown. I have been to the theme park and the Harry Potter museum. I have numerous copies of the books. These books give me an escape and an adventure with my family.

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

...[S]aid Hagrid[,] “Harry — yer a wizard.”

“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother — why, its brother gave you that scar.”

There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.

Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.

[H]umans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.

What Harry found most unusual about life at Ron’s, however, wasn’t the talking mirror or the clanking ghoul: It was the fact that everybody there seemed to like him.

“You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago — the precise date is uncertain — by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school Houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.

Fred and George, however, found all this very funny. They went out of their way to march ahead of Harry down the corridors, shouting, “Make way for the Heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through. . . .”

“Because that’s what Hermione does,” said Ron , shrugging. “When in doubt, go to the library.”

I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch?

Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.

“She deserved it,” Harry said, breathing very fast. “She deserved what she got. You keep away from me.”

“You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble?

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. . . . Had all four of them been out on the grounds tonight?

“This is magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable, Harry. But trust me . . . the time may come when you will be very glad you saved Pettigrew’s life.”

Fifty years before, at daybreak on a fine summer’s morning, when the Riddle House had still been well kept and impressive , a maid had entered the drawing room to find all three Riddles dead.

He had cake, and Dudley had nothing but grapefruit; it was a bright summer’s day, he would be leaving Privet Drive tomorrow, his scar felt perfectly normal again, and he was going to watch the Quidditch World Cup.

“We’ve been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things,” said Ginny. “We thought they just liked the noise.”

“I’m not putting them on,” said old Archie in indignation. “I like a healthy breeze ’round my privates, thanks.”

“Aaaaah,” said Ron, imitating Professor Trelawney’s mystical whisper, “when two Neptunes appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry. . . .”

"Nothing like a midnight stroll to give you ideas."

If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

Curiosity is not a sin,” he said. “But we should exercise caution with our curiosity . . . yes, indeed . . .

You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!

As Hagrid had said, what would come, would come . . . and he would have to meet it when it did.

But Dumbledore says he doesn’t care what they do as long as they don’t take him off the Chocolate Frog cards.

“You're a prefect? Oh Ronnie! That's everyone in the family!"
"What are Fred and I? Next door neighbors?”

“Is it true that you shouted at Professor Umbridge?"
"Yes."
"You called her a liar?"
"Yes."
"You told her He Who Must Not Be Named is back?"
"Yes."
"Have a biscuit, Potter.”

“Yes, but the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters,” said Sirius with a wry smile.

“Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have,” said Hermione nastily, picking up her quill again.

“You know, Minister, I disagree with Dumbledore on many counts . . . but you cannot deny he’s got style . . .”

And whipping out her wand, she caused Harry’s books, bag, and ink bottle to chase him and Ginny from the library, whacking them repeatedly over the head as they ran.

“May I offer you a cough drop, Dolores?” Professor McGonagall asked curtly, without looking at Professor Umbridge.

“Potter,” she said in ringing tones, “I will assist you to become an Auror if it is the last thing I do! If I have to coach you nightly I will make sure you achieve the required results!”

“Give her hell from us, Peeves.”

“She got carried away,” said Harry. “By a herd of centaurs.”

“Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness —”

“You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young . . .

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. . . .

"I cared about you too much ,” said Dumbledore simply. “I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act."

“The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.”

“And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”

“Why are you worrying about YOU-KNOW-WHO, when you should be worrying about YOU-NO-POO? The constipation sensation that's gripping the nation!”

“Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right,” said Hermione. “I heard him telling your mum, Ron.”

Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.

“An Unbreakable Vow?" said Ron, looking stunned. "Nah, he can’t have.... Are you sure?"

"Yes I’m sure," said Harry. "Why, what does it mean?"

"Well, you can’t break an Unbreakable Vow..."

"I’d worked that much out for myself, funnily enough.” 

“He accused me of being Dumbledore's man through and through."

"How very rude of him."

"I told him I was."

Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry's intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore's bright blue eyes looked rather watery, and stared hastily at his own knee. When Dumbledore spoke, however, his voice was quite steady.
"I am very touched, Harry.”

“Three dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if it’s true you’ve got a hippogriff tattooed across your chest.” Ron and Hermione both roared with laughter. Harry ignored them. “What did you tell her?” “I told her it’s a Hungarian Horntail,” said Ginny, turning a page of the newspaper idly. “Much more macho.” “Thanks,” said Harry, grinning. “And what did you tell her Ron’s got?” “A Pygmy Puff , but I didn’t say where.”

Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.

“I have experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed —” “Of some kinds of magic,” Dumbledore corrected him quietly. “Of some. Of others, you remain . . . forgive me . . . woefully ignorant.”

Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!

There is nothing to be feared from a body, Harry, any more than there is anything to be feared from the darkness.

It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.

“I am not worried , Harry,” said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. “I am with you.”

You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them — I, the Half -Blood Prince!

“Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world.” 

“Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without: It was his own grief turned magically to song..”

“Such loyalty is admirable, of course,” said Scrimgeour, who seemed to be restraining his irritation with difficulty, “but Dumbledore is gone, Harry. He’s gone.”

“He will only be gone from the school when none here are loyal to him,” said Harry, smiling in spite of himself.”

Scrimgeour turned a nasty purple color highly reminiscent of Uncle Vernon. “I see you are —” “Dumbledore’s man through and through,” said Harry. “That’s right.”

“I’m going back to the Dursleys’ once more, because Dumbledore wanted me to,” said Harry. “But it’ll be a short visit, and then I’ll be gone for good.”

“I thought I might go back to Godric’s Hollow,” Harry muttered. He had had the idea in his head ever since the night of Dumbledore’s death. “For me, it started there, all of it. I’ve just got a feeling I need to go there. And I can visit my parents’ graves, I’d like that.”

“I don’t think you’re a waste of space.” If Harry had not seen Dudley’s lips move, he might not have believed it.

“Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry,” said Fred earnestly. “Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever.”

Fred and George turned to each other and said together, “Wow — we’re identical!”

“Saintlike,” repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother. “You see . . . I’m holy. Holey, Fred, geddit?”

“‘The Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore’ . . . Yes, here we are . . . ‘To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator, in the hope that he will remember me when he uses it.’”

“He . . . he knew I liked books,” said Hermione in a thick voice, mopping her eyes with her sleeve. “But why that particular book?” “I don’t know. He must have thought I’d enjoy it.”

“‘ To Harry James Potter,’” he read, and Harry’s insides contracted with a sudden excitement, “‘ I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.’”

“Kreacher, I’d, er, like you to have this,” he said, pressing the locket into the elf’s hand. “This belonged to Regulus and I’m sure he’d want you to have it as a token of gratitude for what you —”

“Dobby has no master!” squealed the elf. “Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!”

Grief, it seemed, drove Voldemort out . . . though Dumbledore, of course, would have said that it was love. . . .

It was not, after all, so easy to die. Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged , and he was clinging to each second.

It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it . Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.

You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.”

“Do not pity the dead, Harry . Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.

Kreacher, his bullfrog’s voice audible even above this din: “Fight! Fight! Fight for my Master, defender of house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord, in the name of brave Regulus! Fight!”

 The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.

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                         __\   \      Hunter Collins, Slytherin
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