HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX BY J.
K
ROWLING
Listen to me! Just listen to me, all right? It sounds great when you say
it like that, but all that stuff was luck -- I didn't know what I was doing
half the time, I didn't plan any of it, I just did whatever I could think of,
and I nearly always had help --Don't sit there grinning like you know
better than I do, I was there, wasn't I? I know what went on, all right?
And I didn't get through any of that because I was brilliant at Defense
Against the Dark Arts, I got through it all because -- because help
came at the right time, or because I guessed right -- but I just
blundered through it all, I didn't have a clue what I was doing -- STOP
LAUGHING!
You don't know what it's like! You -- neither of you -- you've never had
to face him, have you? You think it's just memorizing a bunch of spells
and throwing them at him, like you're in class or something? The
whole time you're sure you know there's nothing between you and
dying except your own -- your own brain or guts or whatever -- like you
can think straight when you know you're about a nanosecond from
being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friends die -- they've
never taught us that in their classes, what it's like to deal with things
like that -- and you two sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be
standing here, alive, like Diggory was stupid, like he messed up -- you
just don't get it, that could just as easily have been me, it would have
been if Voldemort hadn't needed me --
