Mrs Dursley… and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbours
Nothing like this man had ever been seen in Privet Drive. He was tall, thin and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak which swept the ground and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man’s name was Albus Dumbledore.
这句话我首先想捉个小虫：「nothing like this man had ever been seen」里，「看」这个动作的主体，应该还是女贞路上的住户们，而不是「女贞路」这条路本身。罗琳在原文中用的是 in 而不是 by，也能看出她本来的用意，因此这句话或许意译成「女贞路上从来没有出现过这样的男人」更合适。不过总体上瑕不掩瑜：两位翻译老师用一连串动词和衣物的搭配，来翻译罗琳英文里那一串只跟在一个动词「wear」后面的各式衣物；也很妥帖地把英文中的部分从句，调整到更适合中文阅读的位置上，并将英文的长句拆分，让中文读者读起来更自然。
It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now.
这里的英文原文是一个完整的长难句，「the real reason」承接上文的「the point」，紧随其后的是一个先用 for 解释原因、同时也包含了麦格教授动作的从句。这句的翻译难度，我个人认为是相当大的。总体上我认为翻译老师把这个长难句翻译得非常好，但在处理「麦格教授看起来焦急」这一点是从她此刻的表情推断出来的这层逻辑时，两位翻译老师似乎没有做得十分完美——这也是我回过头来读中文译本时，觉得原文长句那种连绵感在中文里有所丢失的原因。
Mr Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren’t young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him!
首先，我个人觉得「生气」哪怕加上「很」字，和英文原文里「enraged」的感情色彩也不是特别对得上；其次，这里的「why」是用来解释前文提到的弗农姨父生气的原因，我们也可以考虑用「为什么？因为……」来对应。不过翻译老师最妙的一手，还是把「The nerve of him!」这种在中文里不太好对应的短句，译成了「真不知羞耻」，在情感色彩和儿童易理解度之间取得了不错的平衡。当然，或许我们也可以试试「好大的胆子！」。不过小声蛐蛐一句，因为我最近刷到了太多甄嬛传的短视频，现在一看到「好大的胆子」，脑子里想到的都是「谋害龙toy」。
