They missed the dark stone wall by inches as the car turned in a great arc, soaring over the dark greenhouses, then the vegetable patch, and then out over the black lawns, losing height all the time.
For seven years, workers have been moving inch by inch, town by town, digging out layers of poisonous waste, dropping it into plastic bags, and storing it at temporary sites.
George passed to Angelina; she reverse-passed to Harry, who had not been expecting it, but caught it in the very tips of his fingers and passed it quickly to Ron, who lunged for it and missed by inches.
Literally inch by inch because that we are talking about half-an-hour rails here, tapes that would play for half an hour, which will give you 2500 feet I think in total.
Converse mastered the art of sparseness, relying on her ability to create a tiny chamber in which all that could survive is a voice and the pinpricks of a guitar's strings, moving along inch by inch.
As Laszlo puts it: " If they had seen the painfully slow progress, the inch by inch improvements, they would not have been so quick to call Susan a prodigy."
Six of the Death Eaters ran toward them: Harry, Ron and Hermione backed as quickly as possible down the nearest side street, and the Death Eaters missed them by inches.