title: Life Lessons Harry Potter Taught Me: Discover the Magic of Friendship, Family, Courage, and Love in Your Life
author:  Jill Kolongowski 
description: <b>Jill Kolongowski</b> is a Hufflepuff who teaches writing and literature at the College of San Mateo. She is also the managing editor at YesYes Books. Her essays have won Sundog Lits First Annual Contest series and the Diana Woods Memorial Prize in Creative Nonfiction at <i>Lunch Ticket</i> magazine. Other essays are published in <i>Profane</i>, <i>Sweet: A Literary Confection</i>, <i>Southern Indiana Review</i>, <i>Fugue</i>, and elsewhere. She lives in California, and her Patronus is a tortoiseshell cat.
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  **LIVING
  
  
  DANGEROUSLY**
  
  
  
  
  
  **KATIE
  
  
  FFORDE**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter One
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  To everyone at Mother Nature who inspired me.
  
  
  
  
  
  To Alison
  
  
  Moylan, who taught me to throw a pot. To Nicholas
  
  
  and Maggie Gundry of Nicholas Gundry Wines, who taught me about wine
  
  
  merchants. To Radio Gloucestershire, who were so generous with their time. To
  Sarah Molloy, my agent, for taking me on, and keeping
  
  
  me. To Hilary Johnson, Elizabeth Harrison and the rest of the R.N.A. for every
  
  
  kind of support. To Jane Osborn, Barbara Gordon-Cumming and Peg Gardner, who
  taught me how to write. To Lyn Coleman for helping with my research. To my
  children and my friends, who put up with so much neglect, and to
  
  
  my cats, who were no help at all but thought they were.
  
  
  
  
  
  Denied even a
  
  
  spritzer's worth of Dutch courage, Polly ran her fingers despondently up the
  
  
  side of her glass. It was going to be a dreadful evening.
  
  
  
  
  
  She could see
  
  
  the man Melissa was _dying for her to meet_ fro