"She has dark blue eyes and a practised, costumer-friendly smile on her lips when she asks can she help him, and Percy shakes his head awkwardly." –Crina, "Second"

"I don't understand why he looked so uncomfortable," Audrey commented afterwards to her mother. "I thought I said it in the right tone and timbre; I even gave him the smile you had me practise."

"Really?" said Mrs Dean. "Let's see… oh, no, no, dear," she said as Audrey replicated the smile in question. "That's the costumer-friendly smile, the one you're to use if Madam Malkin or someone of that sort drops in. The Junior-Assistant-to-the-Minister-friendly smile isn't nearly so broad, and it doesn't expose the teeth."

Audrey's shoulders slumped, and she let out a soft groan. "Oh, Mother," she said plaintively, "why does this have to be so complicated? Why can't I just greet everyone the same way, instead of having to tailor it to each person's profession? No-one else in Diagon Alley ever worries about this sort of thing."

"I dare say," said Mrs Dean austerely. "But just because all the other vendors have forgotten the ancient Vocational Blandishments, that doesn't mean my daughter's going to. –Now, quickly, run and get changed before Professor Burbage arrives to pick up her order; if you walk toward her in those robes, you'll certainly never produce a Muggle-Studies-teacher-friendly rustle."

"Mowgli claims kinship with Ka, the snake." –setepenre-set, author's note to "Harriet Potter Is"

"Well, now, really, sir," said the Minister's assistant, "he's hardly a snake just for claiming that. The two of them are kindred, in a sense; in fact, you could say that all the characters who came to life when the Wreaker wrought upon that shelf of Nobel laureates' books are brothers and sisters of each other, so…"

"Whose side are you on, Ross?" the Minister demanded. "The point is, that little jungle brat's trying to turn his technical kinship with Pamuk's character into a claim of Turkish citizenship – and it's probably going to work, bleeding-heart fool that the Turkish Minister of Magic is. Then he'll be outside our jurisdiction, and we'll have lost our chance to find out what makes the Wreaker's magic tick by studying him – or any of the others, probably, since Forsyte and Stevens and the rest are sure to pull the same trick once Mowgli's carried it off successfully. You're telling me that doesn't sound snakish to you?"

In truth, Ross actually thought it sounded pretty prudent of Mowgli. He knew how little the current batch of Unspeakables scrupled at when it came to "studying" unclassified forms of magic; any Wreaker-realised literary character who was once secreted into Level Nine was unlikely to emerge again with all his faculties intact. But he didn't suppose his employer was interested in such views.

"Lucky Old Possum was on that shelf, that's all I can say," the Minister muttered. "That's one character, at least, who can't claim citizenship protections of any kind; we'll be able to detain him in the St Mungo's veterinary ward as long as we… oh, is that my fireplace? Excuse me, Ross, just a moment."

He rose from his seat, and went into his office proper – and, a few moments later, Ross heard a furious bellow rattle the walls: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, MACAVITY'S NOT THERE?"

"Another METMA challenge involving bunt cakes, Pepsi [T]wist, and maybe, if you're good, you'll get a cookie!" –Translucent Horizon, summary to "Whatever Happened…?"

The potion instructions seemed quite straightforward: crumble three ounces of bunt fungus into a sucrose-based solution containing citric acid, then simmer for twenty minutes at 105° C. If this were done properly, the resulting potion was supposed to exactly replicate the flavour of one's all-time favourite foodstuff – and Rose Zeller, who had poignantly fond memories of a certain chocolate-covered biscuit that Honeydukes had discontinued when she was seven, determined that this would be her extra-credit project.

The bunt was no problem; Professor Slughorn had plenty of one-pound cakes of it freely available in his stores. Sucrose and citric acid, however, were in less demand as potion ingredients, and Rose was worried that she would have to blow half her class time rushing to the kitchens for caster sugar and lemons – but then she spotted the nearly-full can of Pepsi Twist that a Muggle-born classmate had left on his desk. Sure enough, the ingredients label listed sugar and citric acid as major ingredients; receiving the young man's blessing, she rushed over and poured the whole can into her cauldron.

Alas, she should have asked one or two questions first. The poor young witch had no idea that the Pepsi-Cola Company, when it said "sugar" on its labels, meant high-fructose corn syrup rather than cane sugar – nor had she heeded the textbook's warning that substituting fructose for sucrose in the recipe would transform the Madeline Potion into a particularly potent form of Disappearing Draught. And so it came about that, for the rest of the school year, the question kept recurring throughout the halls of Hogwarts, "Whatever happened to Rose Zeller?"

"The lady answered with a smile, taping her forehead with her finger." –slayst, "You're a Wizard, Little Us"

"So you're all right, then, Iris?" said Harry.

"Better than all right," said Iris with satisfaction, removing the electronic prosthetic that (since an unfortunate accident on the Quidditch pitch in fourth year) served her for a right ring finger. "You know what Voldemort's idea of torturing me was? To temporarily burn a complete description of his Horcruxes' whereabouts onto my forehead, line by line, and taunt me all the while for not being the twin who could read Parselscript. All I had to do was sit there with my hands on my knees and grin at him; I don't think he even suspected the camera in this thing."

"O-ho," said Harry, a grin of his own stealing across his face. "Well, let's see the tape, then."

"My pleasure," said Iris, extinguishing the room's lights with a wave of her wand. "Good-bye, Uncle Giovanni –" she aimed her finger at a nearby family portrait, and pressed a hidden switch under the first joint "– hello, me!"

There was a moment's pause, then – "I," said Harry.

Iris glanced at him. "Pardon?"

"It's 'hello, I'," said Harry. "You use the subject form of pronouns for addresses, not the object."

Iris blinked. "Says who?"

"Says Keats," said Harry. "Remember the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'? It's not 'thee still unravish'd bride of quietness'."

Iris stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head. "You think too much, Harry," she said.