Liars always did everything they could, laying their plans step by step to make others believe them. Many children judged people by whether they liked or disliked them. At home, they had no freedom—controlled by their parents in this way, scolded in that way. Compared to that, being with like-minded friends felt far freer. That was how people gradually left their families, moving from dependence on their parents to estrangement from them.
Albus Dumbledore refused to allow the school broomsticks to be replaced, so did that make Carter, who represented the students' wishes and fought to replace them, a good person?
Whatever you liked, a liar gave it to you. Once you slowly began to trust him and revealed your most precious possession, he could take it away with ease. Compared to what you had received from the liar, it was hardly worth mentioning.
Though Pomona had expected there to be much to do the next day, Dumbledore had convened a meeting first thing in the morning. Aside from the usual start-of-term business, he announced next year's prefect list. Bill Weasley had become Gryffindor's male prefect, even though he had nearly failed to escape an ancient tomb with his younger brothers the day before.
Then Hufflepuff was kept behind for a separate meeting concerning the school's recent "magical creature" problem.
Compared with Centaurs, mermaids were more mysterious. Yet the mermaids of the Black Lake, like the Centaurs, liked necklaces made of stones strung on thick cords. This differed from the customs of mermaids in other waters.
Mermaids were intelligent beings. They made handicrafts, used undersea volcanoes to forge weapons such as tridents, collected shells and pearls to make jewelry, and created sculptures. They had their own language as well. While humans could only communicate through basic gestures underwater, mermaids could