How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of!" said Mrs. Longbottom angrily. "You should be proud, Neville, proud! They didn't give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them, you know!"
"I'm not ashamed," said Neville, very faintly, still looking anywhere but at Harry and the others. Ron was now standing on tiptoe to look over at the inhabitants of the two beds.
"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it!" said Mrs. Longbottom. "My son and his wife," she said, turning haughtily to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, "were tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who's followers."
Hermione and Ginny both clapped their hands over their mouths. Ron stopped craning his neck to catch a glimpse of Neville's parents and looked mortified.
"They were Aurors, you know, and very well respected within the wizarding community," Mrs. Longbottom went on. "Highly gifted, the pair of them." (23.200-204)
We spend so much of the series focusing on Harry's personal struggles that it can sometimes be difficult to remember that Voldemort has destroyed many, many lives. It's not always all about Harry – something that Harry slowly comes to learn over Book 5. Meeting Neville in the Spell Damage ward on Christmas shakes Harry out of his own self-centered pain (at least, for a little while). Neville may not be the Chosen One of prophecy, but he still shares Harry's courage and devotion to those he cares about. He's a hero just as much as Harry is, as his showdown with Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman who tortured his parents to insanity, at the end of Book 5 proves.
Quote #5
[Mr. Weasley] and all the other Weasleys froze on the threshold, gazing at the scene in front of them, which was also suspended in mid-action, both Sirius and Snape looking towards the door with their wands pointing into each other's faces and Harry immobile between them, a hand stretched out to each, trying to force them apart.
"Merlin's beard," said Mr. Weasley, the smile sliding off his face, "what's going on here?" (24.60-61)
We're a little troubled by the Hogwarts House sorting system, since it divides kids against each other based on their essential personalities from age eleven onwards. For proof of the long-term damage that these House rivalries can do, we need look no further than Sirius and Snape's ongoing feud. They're both well into adulthood and fighting on the same side of the war against Voldemort, but they're still willing to curse each other at a moment's notice. It takes Harry, the actual teenager in this situation, to break the two of them apart until the Weasleys can come home – a totally inappropriate role reversal.
Quote #6
"D'you think you managed to get all the signs [to identify a werewolf]?" said James in tones of mock concern.
"Think I did," said Lupin seriously, as they joined the crowd thronging around the front door eager to get out into the sunlit grounds. "One: he's sitting on my chair. Two: he's wearing my clothes. Three: his name's Remus Lupin."
Wormtail was the only one who didn't laugh.
"I got the snout shape, the pupils of the eyes and the tufted tail," he said anxiously, "but I couldn't think what else —"
"How thick are you, Wormtail?" said James impatiently. "You run round with a werewolf once a month —" (28.195-199)
It's interesting to observe the group dynamics of the Marauders knowing what happened to all of them a few years down the line. Here, we can see that Peter Pettigrew (a.k.a. Wormtail) is the least secure of the group. And when he asks for reassurance, he gets put down immediately by James. Wormtail clearly hangs around with James, Remus, and Sirius, but they don't take him seriously or respect him at all. It's this deep lack of respect that makes Wormtail turn on the Potters – and it's also this same lack of respect from Sirius that drives Kreacher to Bellatrix Lestrange. This problem of respect seems to be at the heart of a number of the betrayals in the Harry Potter series: Rowling warns us of what might happen if we don't treat our friends kindly!