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Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #682, A Tapestry of Secrets (OOTP Chapter 6, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black)

Show Intro

[Show music plays]

Eric Scull: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom, and currently, the Order of the Phoenix book. Grab your Doxy spray and settle in – maybe a Swiffer duster or two as well – because today on the pod, we will be discussing Chapter 6 of Order of the Phoenix, “The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.” I have Laura and Micah with me. Hello, guys.

Laura Tee: Hey, Eric, how you doing?

Eric: Hanging in there.

Laura: Yep, same. [laughs]

Eric: It’s nice to have habits that you can go back to on a weekly basis that keep you grounded and centered during all tumult.

Laura: Yeah, I think that’s a really great message for us to start this week’s show with, because there’s just a lot going on, and people aren’t living under rocks, so we all know. And I think it’s really important during times like these, when there are so many difficult conversations and just a lot going on that is outside of all of our spheres of influence, try to remember to pour energy into yourselves and take care of yourself first, and then turn your focus to your communities, because the people you love need you.

Eric: Yeah, and we’re really happy to continue to be everyone’s Harry Potter friends in your ears, so that has not changed. That will not change.

Micah Tannenbaum: No, and we’ve been here through many an administration since 2005.

Eric: Yeah, we counted, right?

Laura: Yeah, we have!

Eric: It’s quite a lot. [laughs]

Micah: And we haven’t changed one bit, and we’re not going to, so there you go.

Laura: Yeah, we’re not going anywhere. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah. As we move forward and do what I think will be a fun episode with Chapter 6 of Chapter by Chapter, we also want to remind people that we have cool MuggleCast merch! This time I’m finally wearing the shirt, “Security nightmare,” pink. Yeah, it’s awesome. I’m very proud of it. And we’ve received several posts from our listeners as well, that they’re getting their exclusive merchandise one-off. Anyone who visits the MuggleCast merch store, you’re in for a good time. We’ve got some really good products, “Choo-choo” hats and otherwise.

Laura: Yeah, and honestly, something that I love about our merch store is the customization that is available for shirts, so a lot of the shirts that we offer, you can get in multiple different colors. That might sound, I don’t know, like maybe not the most exciting thing in the shop – and it’s definitely not, because there’s exciting merch – but I am someone who likes to customize. I have a very specific aesthetic that I’m going for, so when I got my “No theory is safe” shirt, I wanted it in that deep maroon color because I thought it was so beautiful, so it just gives everyone some customization. Wear MuggleCast your way.

Eric: Oh, I mean, Laura, what you’re talking about is exactly what got me to getting this shirt. I mean, I love the decal for “Security nightmare” that Anna designed for our Collectors Club, but when I saw I could get it in a pink shirt, I’m like, “Oh, yeah. All in. 100%.”

Laura: And it looks great on you.

Eric: Micah, do you want to do the Santa reminder?

Micah: Yes, something cheery in these not-so-cheery times, at least for some of us. But speaking about Patreon, one of the things that I love each and every year is the Secret Santa that we do over on… usually organized through our Facebook group, and Brittney is the one who’s been doing it for the last several years. And it is now open through December 2, so if you are a patron and you’re not a part of this Facebook group and you want to be a part of the Secret Santa, definitely now is the time. And as I said, it’s something that I really do look forward to each and every year, and I’ve gotten a lot of great Secret Santa gifts over the years, and I’ve hopefully gifted a lot of very fun Secret Santa gifts over the years.

Eric: Yes, your recipients, they’re not here to testify…

Micah: They’re not.

Eric: … but they always seem very well-received.

Micah: I have not once drawn a fellow cohost as part of the Secret Santa, though I assume that could be a possibility.

Laura: Maybe.

Micah: But that’s not as fun. Sorry. [laughs]

Eric: I agree.

Laura: Wow, Micah, tell us how you really feel.

Micah: I take care of y’all anyway, so it’s fine.

Eric: We get each other.

Laura: That is true.

Eric: Yeah, yeah. And even Dumbledore participates in our inter-host…

Micah: No secrets needed.

Eric: With cookies.

Micah: Dumbledore? Oh, yes. He has a special kind of cookie that he sends.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Okay, all right. So as we move forward, I’m going to need me some of those. I really need to calm down. There is actually something that is newsworthy for this episode; let’s go to our News Center in New York for that as well.

Micah: [laughs] Is it still open after all these years?

Eric: We’ve been paying the lease on it. Have you not been going?

Micah: No. Well, there hasn’t been a whole lot of news. I’m not sure why we’re paying that lease.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Micah: But actually, some exciting news, and I think we had talked a little bit about the fact that Hogwarts Legacy will be getting a sequel, but new information that came out this week is that it’s going to… at least some of the storylines in Hogwarts Legacy 2, the plan is to crossover with the new Harry Potter TV show. David Haddad, who is the president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, told Variety that Avalanche has been coordinating some of the big picture storytelling elements in the Hogwarts Legacy sequel with the storylines that will play out in the Harry Potter HBO TV show. I don’t know what that means. I’m very confused. Anybody? Laura, you’re a big… well, both of you are big gamers.

Laura: I guess the thing that immediately comes to mind for me is that whatever elements they’re going to crossover from the game into the show either need to not matter that much, or they need to be definitive convergence points that all players in the game will reach. Because sometimes in certain games – Eric, you know this – you can make choices. Hogwarts Legacy is a game where you can make some choices, so they’re going to have to… if they want to integrate it, at least the way I’m imagining it, they need to do it at almost a… bottleneck’s not the right word, but a point that is going to be mutually converged on by all players so that everyone can have the same experience.

Eric: Yeah, that’s a good point. So their House-specific missions could never be referenced.

Laura: Right.

Eric: Hogwarts Legacy each had one of those. To me, this news is a shock because they couldn’t be more different. Hogwarts Legacy, the narrative is there’s this thing called ancient magic, and it typically manifests in the way of a late-blooming wizard who then is doing these amazing feats, kind of akin to what we see Dumbledore doing when he’s facing off against Voldemort at the end of Book 5. It’s that kind of stuff, that level stuff. I can’t see how that’s anywhere close to 10- or 11-year-old Harry, which is going to be the age Harry is when the TV starts, presumably. He won’t be older than that, that’s for sure. So how can you connect anything to do with the Hogwarts Legacy universe and this ancient magic to having anything to do with baby Harry?

Micah: That’s a great question. Because we’re in 1800s, correct?

Eric: That’s another thing. Yeah, we’re 90 years, at least, away from the plot of Sorcerer’s Stone.

Micah: But not Dumbledore.

Eric: But not Dumbledore.

Laura: Yeah. Wait, when does Hogwarts Legacy take place? And when was Dumbledore born?

Eric: Mid to late 1880s? And… well, the earliest reports on Dumbledore’s age was that he was 150.

Micah: And that was in the 1990s. Oh, so presumably he’s around.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Laura: So are they going to retcon it? I mean, to be honest, though, he would have been born about 1840 based off that.

Eric: If the 150… yeah.

Laura: So yeah, I don’t know. I wonder how they’re going to retcon it to make Dumbledore involved, because it seems like that’s their favorite move.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Laura: Just based off Fantastic Beasts.

Eric: Well, but at the same time, if he was in love with Grindelwald, who later rose to power around World War II, that puts him being a teenager in the early 1900s, maybe? So there’s that aspect of it, where he would be maybe a student in the game. Uncertain on that.

Laura: Maybe.

Micah: Sure. Let’s not forget that this is also a sequel, so it could be totally different, from a storyline perspective, than what we got in the first edition of it.

Eric: Fair enough.

Laura: That’s true. It does make me wonder who you’re going to play as, because in the first one, you just get to invent your own character. If they’re somehow trying to connect the second one to the Harry Potter story, are you going to be playing as a specific character? You just going to still create your own character, but you’re in the universe with these other characters that we know and have actually met in Harry Potter lore?

Eric: Yeah, well, I mean, what I liked possibly most about Hogwarts Legacy is how disconnected it was from Harry Potter main story, because it was still Hogwarts that we knew and loved. There were familiar archetypes, almost, and that with the teachers, but I liked that they didn’t connect. [laughs]

Micah: I agree with you. That was one of the things I really did enjoy, is that when you’re talking about the expansion of the world, this was the best example of that expansion that we’ve gotten since the books concluded in 2007, and I don’t know that I want something that’s more modern day or that weaves into some of the storylines in the Harry Potter series. I like where we are, so I hope they don’t do things a little too drastically.

Laura: Yeah. Becky in our Discord is suggesting maybe the show is going to be flashback heavy, either that or the sequel will be set in the modern day, and maybe there will be a lot of young Dumbledore flashbacks. So y’all are definitely on to something there. I just… I hope that they don’t lean into this in order to drive success, because I hope they already saw from Hogwarts Legacy 1, they don’t need to do that to get people interested. Hogwarts Legacy was a huge success, so I mean, they’ve already got the formula.

Micah: Right. This Variety article overall was an interesting read because a lot of it was talking about the expansion of the Harry Potter franchise as we move into 2025 and beyond, where they were talking about the TV show, they were talking about Hogwarts Legacy 2, the new theme park at Epic Universe, and now something that’s coming in the next couple of days from the time this is released, is The Hogwarts Wizards of Baking, which is going to premiere on Food Network and Max on November the 14th. It’s hosted by James and Oliver Phelps, and there’s going to be some guest judges, as we would expect: Warwick Davis, Evanna Lynch, Bonnie Wright. And we’ve seen them explore these types of shows before. I’m thinking of the quiz show that they did, which was not the name of it, but…

Eric: Tournament of Champions?

Micah: There you go. This seems fun; it seems interesting. I’m sure everything is going to be themed Harry Potter that the contestants are going to have to bake. It seems more of like a dessert-focused show, but it’s something fun for the holidays I think that Harry Potter fans could get into, and they seem to do a good job in bringing on James and Oliver Phelps. Those two seem to be the signature go-to guys when it comes to a lot of these different events and shows that Warner Bros. explores, so I always think back to them; they’re always at the opening of everything.

Laura: Yeah, that’s true.

Eric: They’re the hype guys.

Laura: Yeah. Kind of surprised they didn’t get Bradley Bakes to join for this.

Eric: Maybe he’s an extra surprise guest.

Laura: Oh, that would be cool.

Micah: Maybe he’s a contestant.

Eric: Oooh!

Laura: Oh, yeah. Ohh.

Eric: And we didn’t hear about it because he’s sworn by an NDA.

Laura: Right, right. [laughs]

Eric: That would be very cool.

Micah: So it’s nice. We haven’t had some news in a while.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Laura: I love getting fun news like that.

Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner

Eric: With that, let us delve into Chapter by Chapter. We’ve had a few weeks off, honestly. Feel a little rusty; feels a little odd getting into.

Micah: So we’re going to do a seven-word summary?

Laura: Oh, hell no.

[Micah laughs]

Eric: Uh, no, that’s too off. And also, Laura is like, “No, we’re done with those.”

Laura: Absolutely not.

Eric: But we are going to get into MuggleCast’s Time-Turner segment; let’s herald the return of that. The last time in which we talked about Chapter 6 of Order of the Phoenix was October 21 of 2019 for Episode 439, titled “Dumbledip,” and before that was Episode 230 of MuggleCast, “Trendsetter,” for June 4, 2011.

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.

Ron: What the…?

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 230.

Andrew: In this chapter we also see Mrs. Weasley really keeping them busy with house chores, and that’s again another thing. And the kids pick up on it, this is a way for them to be distracted from discussing what’s going on.

Micah: Yeah. I mean, she employs the same thing in Deathly Hallows when she wants to keep them apart as much as possible, so she puts them to work for the wedding. She’s crafty, that one.

Andrew:* Crafty? Yeah, I guess that’s one way to describe it. [laughs]***

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 439.

Emily: it’s probably therapeutic for Sirius because he’s been cramped up in here and not allowed to leave anyway, so in order to do something productive, at least he can sort through and throw out a bunch of stuff that has really bad associations for him.

Andrew: Which is pretty much everything in the house.

Emily:* Exactly. [laughs]* Everything he can remove without being stuck on the walls.

Andrew:* Nothing sparks joy for Sirius, except maybe Harry. [laughs]***

[Whooshing sound]

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.

[Bell dings]

Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion

Eric: Whole lot of cleaning going on.

Laura: Yeah, yeah. I actually titled the first part of this discussion, “Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere.” Does anyone remember singing that in pre-K and kindergarten?

Eric: Barney? Ahh. It’s from Barney, right?

Laura: Yeah, it definitely… it’s ringing some Barney bells, I would say.

Eric: “Everybody do your share.”

Laura: [laughs] Right. Well, we’ve definitely touched on a couple different interpretations of how Molly shows up in this chapter with the cleaning, and how the cleaning serves the double purpose of, I think, trying to distract the kids and keep them occupied, but also making the place livable. But something I wanted to look at a little differently was her very overt orders before the cleaning even starts, to tell the kids not to talk to each other after they’re going to bed for the night, so I’m wondering, to kick us off, have we ever been in a situation where an adult forbade us from talking to our friends about hearing something that they deemed inappropriate for us?

Eric: I’m thinking back to scout camp, really, and I don’t know that there was any one instance where we heard something we shouldn’t have, but that whole “Okay, children, we know you could probably be up for three more hours, but it’s past midnight and you really have to go to bed, so don’t talk to each other. Even though I’m now leaving the room and leaving you to your own devices, don’t stay up. Go to bed.” Seems like the quintessential adult versus a group of kids situation.

Micah: Yeah. I’m sure for me, at some point I did that, but I thought it would be almost funny in that, if we were to look at how many different mediums of communication there are today versus back then when this is taking place, or even when we were growing up, the speed with which communication can happen, almost. Phones, texting, apps, computers. It has to be a lose-lose situation for parents, or guardians, authority figures, to try and keep their children from talking about things that maybe they don’t want them to be talking about, right?

Eric: I mean, even just, yeah, looking back to how I used to read books at night with a tiny little light that was part of a gloved hand device that was… it was this whole thing. Now you could just use your phone flashlight, and screen time is unlimited when you’re unsupervised.

[Micah laughs]

Laura: Right.

Eric: So yeah, it’s a good thing this is set in the ’90s, so Molly doesn’t have to take their phones before bed.

Micah: What I find to be very just comical about how Molly approaches all of this is that they’re in the same room with each other, right? Ron and Harry are in the same room; Fred and George are in the same room; Hermione and Ginny are in the same room, so the fact that she thinks that Ginny is not going to learn anything from what happened downstairs is, in my opinion, comical. And then the way that she’s policing outside of the doors, trying to listen to see if there’s anything being said, it’s just… relax, Molly. Chill out. She is making me anxious reading this chapter.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: Yeah. I’m so glad you called that out, Micah, because I felt the same way. I was like, “Does Molly not know how teenagers work?” And Camille in our Discord is calling that out as well and saying, “I kind of can’t believe Molly is telling teenagers to go to bed. You think that’s going to work?” Of course not, and it doesn’t. I mean, the second she leaves them, Fred and George Apparate into Harry and Ron’s room, and they’re going back and forth for a while until Molly comes around with her policing to make sure that nobody’s talking. [laughs] It’s just like… you’re not going to be able to avoid it. These are kids who are home from school for the summer; they don’t really have anything else to do except hang out with each other.

Eric and Micah: Yeah.

Micah: And this the first time they’re seeing each other, at least for Harry.

Laura: Right.

Eric: Well, and things are just getting interesting, right? This is the first time all summer I think they’ve had enough to talk about or to speculate about. And the thing of it is, they have to utilize this after-bed time, because it’s not like Molly is going to let them talk about it during the day either; she keeps them occupied during the day. So I did appreciate the sympathetic look we took toward Molly in the previous chapter discussion about how she’s just trying to control the things that she can control, because there’s so much that she can’t control, but in this chapter, it absolutely feels like overkill.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s a good reminder that all people have stressors, and all people have stress behaviors that manifest when they’re going through something really bad, and I think this is Molly’s stress behavior. I think she’s trying to control the kids because in her mind, she’s keeping them safe, and they may not like it, and it may not be a perfect arrangement, but from her perspective, she’s thinking, “Well, if they stay alive, then that’ll be good enough.”

Eric: “I’ve done my job.” Yeah, that’ll justify… yeah, yeah. Em in our Discord says, “Molly doesn’t respect personal space or boundaries, and it’s kind of toxic sometimes.” I can get behind that. I complained about her cutting off Mundungus’s apology to Harry in the last chapter; that I felt was a branch too far. But Ariane Beth in our Discord says, “There’s this weird theme of safety in isolation that runs throughout the books, which the kids are constantly pushing back on. This is just another example.”

Laura: Ooh.

Eric: And that is a much broader view that I really love, actually, thinking about all the times in which Harry is out of bed at night. And we know why he’s doing it, that it’s accomplishing some goal that he has and doing good, but it’s unsafe, for starters, and Molly would hate it.

Laura: Yeah. Well, Molly is, at the very least – at the very least – trying to make Grimmauld Place livable for all of them, so she does enlist a small army of teenagers to help her deal with a Doxy infestation. I thought we could chat a little bit about the Doxies, and we’ll also get into, over the course of this discussion, some of the other things that they find in Grimmauld Place, because this place really is a treasure trove of little breadcrumbs for what is to come in the rest of the series. In this cleaning, Harry notices that Fred and George are trying to make off with one of the Doxies that has been stunned, basically.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: They’re using some kind of stunning spray. They have spray bottles, and they’re squirting these Doxies. The Doxies are paralyzed by this, not killed. And Fred and George, one of them – don’t remember who – is trying to stuff one of the Doxies in his pocket, and he tells Harry, “Yeah, we actually want to experiment with Doxy venom for our Skiving Snackboxes,” which we’re going to play a little game with later in this episode. But I just think it’s so funny to see the ingenuity at work from Fred and George. They confirm that right now they are their only test subjects for their materials…

Eric: Thank goodness.

Laura: … which is great. It’s not going to stay that way, though.

Eric: No.

Laura: And it definitely should raise eyebrows that they’re saying, “Yeah, we want to experiment with these edible candies we’re making with poison.” [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, well, a little bit of venom here and there, build up immunities, make you stronger. No, I like that they’re keeping an open mind as far as sourcing ingredients, though. They are not worldly yet; they’re still tied to a school year, so the fact that Grimmauld Place can provide these interesting substances like Doxy venom is something that… I like that they’re keeping an open mind and open to the idea of seeing if it’s anything worthwhile.

Micah: Yeah, and I think that it’s very brave on the part of Fred or George; again, I don’t… I’m not able to recall either which of the twins puts the Doxy into their pants, but it seems a very dangerous thing to do, because presumably those Doxies at some point in the future are going to be revived, [laughs] and it just seems like something you don’t want hanging around in your front pocket. Or your back pocket, for that matter.

Eric: Any pocket. They’ll nibble your buttocks off.

Laura and Micah: Yeah.

Laura: Well, so that was kind of my question. I was like, “What do they do with them?” Because in this scene, they’re just piling these immobilized Doxies into a bucket, and I’m like, presumably, you’re doing something with them to make sure they don’t re-infest the home. What is that? Are we doing a capture/release program on the Doxies?

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Eric: Let’s hope so.

Laura: I kind of doubt it, because they consider them household pests, right?

Eric: Right.

Micah: One thing I just wanted to bring up from earlier – and Eric, you were talking about this a bit – was that this idea of cleaning the house really does seem like a task to preoccupy the kids from actually doing other things, maybe exploring it. It’s busywork at the end of the day, but I do think – and we’ll get to talking about the tapestry and the Black family – that there is something to be said for cleansing a place that’s consumed by pure-blood mania.

Laura: Yep.

Eric: Oh, yeah. Decluttering feels amazing. It’s just not an appropriate headquarters until they’ve gotten a little further in than this, and it’s not really fit for habitation until they make sure they’re not breathing in clouds of whatever’s been there for ten years with a apparently dysfunctional house-elf that is possibly making matters worse, even. So I think that’s the real concern. And that’s kind of what kids are good for, that free, unpaid labor of it all.

[Micah laughs]

Eric: If you’re a parent with multiple kids at your disposal, it’s like, “Hey, why not clean the living room today?” I mean, you could make a game out of it. You could play music. Who knows?

Laura: Yeah. Well, for this particular cleaning assignment, they have to have antidote on hand because obviously, Doxy bites are poisonous. And Mrs. Weasley is kind of cavalier about it; she’s just like, “Yeah, we got antidote over here if anyone needs it,” because presumably these Doxies are going to go straight to the source of whatever is trying to paralyze them, and they’re going to bite. [laughs]

Eric: Presumably.

Laura: Also, over the course of this afternoon of cleaning – and it is a full afternoon of cleaning – Mundungus Fletcher shows back up and he rings the doorbell, which becomes somewhat of a theme this chapter. It seems like nobody who’s been to the Order before can remember not to ring the doorbell, because of course, that sets Mrs. Black’s portrait off and just creates total mayhem downstairs. But he not only shows up and does that; he shows up with a crap ton of the dodgy cauldrons that he ditched Harry’s security detail to obtain, and Molly is not having it. And honestly, when I was reminded of this, I was like, “Why don’t they wipe his memory and kick him out of the Order?” He’s a liability!

Eric: They need his skills. They need him to be this ill-reputable thief, this complete… I don’t even know what the word is for it. This complete ass. They need that because… so that’s why they put up with his… he has some redeeming qualities. He saves one of the Weasley kids – is it Ron? – from getting eaten by a sweater or cardigan in this chapter.

Laura: Yeah, but like, do we think nobody else would have saved him?

[Micah laughs]

Eric: I mean, Harry was just going to let him die. He’s still mad about the other stuff.

Laura: [laughs] “You ignored me all summer.”

[Eric laughs]

Micah: I’m trying to recall offhand: Throughout the series, has he ever had a shining moment where he’s come through outside of supposedly passing information along to the Order that is valuable information?

Eric: No, he kind of sucks.

Laura: I mean, I guess there’s something to be said for they’re in a phase where they can’t trust a lot of people, and you only have so many who are going to be willing to sign up for an anti-Voldemort resistance operation, especially when nobody in the wizarding world even knows or believes he’s back. So I guess this is one of those “Beggars can’t be choosers” moments about Order membership. [laughs] We do have a foreshadow alert.

[Foreshadowing sound effect plays]

Laura: There’s this mysterious locket that no one can open; that’s going to be huge in the next book, and even bigger when we get the full pay-off for the story at the end. So it’s just really crazy, and one of those Easter eggs that I always love picking up on when we’re doing these rereads are these blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments of quick asides, quick mentions of things that end up becoming extremely consequential later on. And the fact that it’s here in this room that they’re trying to clean out – we also get quite a bit of interaction with Kreacher coming up soon – so just the fact that two big answers were actually right there staring them in the face. They just didn’t know the question to ask, right?

Eric: Exactly, yeah. Absolutely. It’s a shame Dumbledore isn’t around to help with the housecleaning because I bet if he were given the locket, it’d be like, “Yeah, we can’t seem to figure this out. Can you open this?” He would have figured it out, or taken it for further study.

Laura: Well, we’re going to get into all of that and much more in a moment, but first, I think I need to go check my curtains to make sure that we don’t have a Doxy infestation, so I’m going to go take care of that. While we’re gone, listen to these sponsors, and we’ll be right back.

[Ad break]

Laura: Okay, so there’s a portion of this whole cleaning in the chapter sequence where Harry and Sirius come upon “The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black” family tree, and I wanted to ask a question that might be controversial, Eric, so I apologize in advance.

Eric: Yeah, all right.

Laura: Do we feel like Sirius is being a little self-centered here? Because over the course of this conversation, Harry is clearly trying to relate to Sirius and both feeling like they’ve been prisoners in their homes, in their childhood homes where they were miserable all summer. But it kind of feels like Sirius is brooding so much on his own misfortune, he misses a genuine moment to connect with his godson.

Eric: I can see that, because at one point Harry restates his interest in moving in with Sirius, and Sirius is almost entirely oblivious to it. Gone is the joy he felt at the end of Book 3 when Harry suggests, and he’s like, “Wait, you would want that?” and it’s this amazing moment. Here, Harry flat out says, “After my hearing, if it doesn’t go well, I’d love to come back here. Anything’s better than Privet Drive.” And Sirius is like, “Ah, you’d hate it here. It sucks here.” So that’s an opportunity where his brooding is overtaking what could be a nice moment; I see that entirely. I think also, though, the fact of matter is Sirius has a lot of information about the context of this room, who’s on the tapestry; it’s just they’re not happy memories for him. It’s fascinating stuff, but he doesn’t necessarily… you’re not going to love talking about your cousins that are all evil, and various family members that were cool but then your mom struck them off the record. Sirius is having a hard time finding the joy in relating to Harry. I pick up that he likes to tell Harry this stuff, especially when he gets excited about being able to tell him that he went over to James’s when he moved out; that’s a touching moment, but the rest of the scene is entirely, like you’re saying, it’s lost on Sirius the joy of this moment because of the bad memories, and he’s kind of in his head.

Laura: Yeah. Well, and we get to hear a little bit more about the Potters as a family. Sirius says, “I was always welcome at Mr. and Mrs. Potters’ for Sunday dinner.” He talks about how it got to the point where he stayed with James’s family during school holidays, so they kind of adopted him… in fact, I think he says they kind of adopted him as a second son.

Eric: Yep.

Laura: So that just paints a really rosy picture of the family dynamic Harry never got to experience as a kid, and that is really sad. But speaking of families…

[Micah laughs]

Laura: … we do get introduced to Regulus Black on this family tapestry. Interestingly enough, his middle name is omitted from this, and I don’t know if that’s because he didn’t have a middle name at this point, or if it was an intentional choice to make sure that people didn’t connect the dots for what’s going to happen in the next book. But I feel like people already did that anyway, because that was the prevailing theory at the time, that R.A.B. was Regulus Black.

Eric: Regulus. I remember some of the earliest MuggleCasts have that theory, I think, which actually… oh, it wasn’t a theory; at that point it was confirmed because Regulus’s locket is opened at the end of Book 6, the fake one. Got it.

Laura: Right. Yeah, because the real one is right here in this room with them as they’re cleaning, right?

Eric: Or wait, it is until Book 7. Yes, but you’re right, Laura. Yeah, it’s not revealed to be… so the locket just says, “Signed R.A.B.,” so that sparked the… I remember thinking that it could have been Regulus, though.

Laura: Yeah, no, that was the note that he left in the locket.

Eric: Yeah, like, “Dear Dark Lord, neener-neener-neener.”

Laura: Yeah, basically.

[Micah laughs]

Eric: “I found your darkest secret.”

Micah: That would have been much better, actually.

Laura: That would have been funny.

Eric: It was pretty sassy, honestly. I mean, we love, I think… I love Regulus, and it’s amazing that Sirius has no capacity for love because they grew up years apart, and he was considered the perfect son by Black standards, which means they really didn’t have the same personality. They were probably more alike than each of them ever knew. One thing that strikes me – Laura, you mentioned Kreacher popping in and out – you really do have all the ingredients here for figuring out what happened. If anybody were to ask Kreacher, “Guy, can you tell me this story about this locket?” Or, “Do you know anything about it?” Or, “Speaking of Regulus, hey, Kreacher, when was the last time you saw Regulus?” There could have been a lot of character growth in a short amount of time. Would have ruined the whole series and the plot, but I find myself wanting this catharsis to come to Sirius, especially in a moment when he’s feeling down about his family, to find that his brother actually would have done a heroic act in defiance of Voldemort, would have been a really nice thing for Sirius to know about before he died.

Micah: Well, that is, in a way, the tragedy of Regulus, because we hear in this conversation that both of Sirius’s parents had died prior to them learning that Regulus went on to become a Death Eater, and Sirius points out that he’s sure that his parents would have been thrilled by that information. And on the flip side, Sirius dies prior to finding out that Regulus actually defied the Dark Lord and committed probably one of the biggest acts of bravery against him. But what I find so interesting about Regulus is that he’s another one of those characters, much like Draco, when they get in too far and they realize just how sinister Voldemort actually is, they can’t escape it.

Eric: Yeah, “This wasn’t like the brochure.”

Micah: Draco does to some extent, but Regulus couldn’t.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, Draco only escapes it because that mother’s love story came full circle with Narcissa, and Regulus didn’t have that opportunity. But we do get some good timeline information here. I don’t know that we’ve ever looked at it this way, but Harry notes that Regulus Black’s death is listed as some 15 years prior to this. So we know this takes place in 1995, so that would have meant Regulus died in 1980, which is the same year Harry was born. So does that mean that R.A.B. stole the locket the year that Harry was born? Or maybe he did it in advance, and ultimately he carried out his mission near when Harry was born. I guess I’m just wondering, where does this fit in the timeline in relation to Snape overhearing the prophecy?

Eric: God, what a great question. Yeah, maybe Snape would have heard the prophecy a few months before Regulus did his thing, though they aren’t necessarily connected, because Regulus never made it out of that cave, so no one knew he was going in there to begin with. But I love the idea that Voldemort’s deepest, darkest secret was found out a month or two before he was killed.

Laura: Yeah. I just… and I mean, it’s sad too, but I like the fact that there were actually multiple inside efforts in Voldemort’s inner circle to try and overthrow him; they just didn’t recognize each other. Snape, of course… I don’t know why Regulus reached the point where he wanted to turn coat; Snape did it purely out of self-interest, but at the end of the day, you had two people very close to Voldemort who made the conscious choice to go on their own and try to overthrow the guy. And I mean, who knows if they had communicated with each other, with their powers combined, could have been different.

Eric: Yeah, neither of them sat back and waited for a lucrative book deal to do their work against.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: So that’s kind of cool of each of them.

Laura: Wow. Are you saying that they have more ethics than people who sit back and wait for book deals?

Eric: Bob Woodward? Absolutely.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Yes. Anyway.

Laura: Yeah, would have been useful information. But at any rate, when we’re looking at this tapestry as well, we do get this reminder that all pure-blood wizard families are related, and this is something we touch on from time to time. But the way Sirius describes it here is so matter of fact, and I think that’s an important takeaway to have, that there is this pure-blood society that’s basically saying, “Yeah, we’re going to get kind of incestuous within ourselves to stay pure.” [laughs]

Eric: To keep it pure.

Laura: And I mean, that’s historically accurate. I mean, you look at royal families at a certain point in history, and they were keeping it all in the family, literally. So it’s an intentional choice, but it’s funny because not every relative of the Black family is listed here. The Weasleys don’t even make the cut. There are members of the family that are just simply blasted off the tapestry because they’ve become traitors. But yeah, Molly and Arthur never end up on here. I don’t think there’s anyone with the last name Weasley on this tapestry. [laughs]

Eric: No, no, but maybe their ancestors were… maybe they’re such blood traitors that their grandfather’s grandfather was a blood traitor, and so he was blasted off way at the top.

Micah: It would be interesting to see if Prewett was on there anywhere, though.

Eric: Yeah, I was thinking about that.

Laura: Yeah, I kind of wish we had an official version of this family tree.

Micah: I want to say it was on… a website.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: It might have been on JKRowling.com at some point; she wrote it out. Does that sound familiar at all?

Laura: Maybe.

Micah: Maybe the Discord can check me on that.

Eric: What I keep thinking about is the notebook paper that had the various chapters of Book 5 and how different things related to each other in a circle. That was on Rowling.com at one point.

Micah: Yeah. Laura, also, when you were talking about the fact that there are so many breadcrumbs in this chapter, there is one that comes out of this moment too. There’s probably several as Sirius is talking Harry through the family tree, but I’m thinking about when Neville’s parents pop into Harry’s mind because of the mention of Bellatrix Lestrange. He’s able to recall back to that moment where he was inside of the memory in Goblet of Fire during Barty Crouch, Jr.’s trial, and while it’s not explicitly stated here, he seems to remember her name for explicitly the reason of the torture of the Longbottoms, and that comes into play later on in this book because Harry is able to actually meet… not meet, but walks in on Neville and his grandmother with Frank and Alice in St. Mungo’s.

Eric: It’s really doing… for such a low-key or not well-stated moment in the books, it’s doing double and triple duty, because Sirius also tells Harry that anyone on this tapestry Kreacher would be loyal to, so the Bellatrix being on there is double and triple duty. It works on so many levels.

Laura: Right. It’s so interesting, too, because Harry, of course, when he makes the connection about all these families being interrelated, he kind of gasps, and he’s like, “You’re related to the Malfoys!” And I found myself thinking, “Well, Harry, you probably are, too, because your dad was a pure-blood, so presumably the Potters were interrelated with all the other pure-blood families. So yeah, you probably are related to the Malfoys.” And I mean, we know he’s distantly related to Voldemort.

Eric: Yeah. This is the extrapolation of that, I think, very good line from Hagrid that’s in Chamber of Secrets, right? Where it’s like, “There’s not a wizard alive who’s not half or less.” It’s like, literally, because all of this inbreeding and inter-marrying of cousins.

Micah: One of the things that I wanted to bring up was the Black family motto that’s on this tapestry, “Toujours pur.” I think it’s notable that Mr. and Mrs. Black were subscribed to Voldemort’s way of thinking, but wouldn’t go so far themselves as to become Death Eaters or part of his inner circle. I think Sirius calls that out specifically, basically that they support the way of thinking, but they’re not willing to actually step into the ring.

Eric: They sat out this election.

Micah: Yeah, exactly. And I wonder, does that show that there’s a bit of middle ground even amongst a family that is pure-blood? I’m not saying that they were good people by any stretch, [laughs] with some of the things that Mrs. Black is screaming when the doorbell rings all the time… which, by the way, I think is a reminder to all of us and to the members of the Order of where they are and whose house they’re in, and what that means and what that represents. I think that’s why the doorbell keeps getting rung over and over again; it’s the author’s way of reminding all of us that there’s danger inside of the house. As much cleaning as they may do, this is still home to a dark, pure-blood family.

Eric: Yeah, and that aunt of Sirius’s that started the tradition of beheading the house-elf and all of that is in this chapter, and you’re like, “This place is dark. These are dark people.” But yeah, the idea that Regulus was the only straight-up Death Eater of the group does speak to Sirius’s own line of “The world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters.”

Micah: It does say something, though, about the Black family that their motto is “Always pure.” I mean, it’s pretty intense. There’s no cutting corners on that one. [laughs]

Laura: No, but it’s also… I mean, it’s a lie, right? I mean, you just brought up the great point that Hagrid raised, and it’s the kind of thing that you see in the real world, too, when people take pride in certain genetics and they want to claim beyond a shadow of a doubt that they know, back to the start of time, what their exact genealogy is. And a lot of times you don’t know, and people sometimes take their Ancestry or their 23andMe and they get surprised to learn, “Oh, I guess I just hate myself.”

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Laura: But yeah, I think that this book in particular really drives home a lot of the real world consequences and attitudes that emerge in this type of environment.

Micah: Right. And I do think it’s a lesson for Harry, too; as he’s talking with Sirius, I think he’s learning a lot about the wizarding world. He’s learning a lot about wizarding families. I think up until this point, for the most part, it’s been very clear cut, right? You have Malfoy. Malfoy is bad. His father’s bad; his mother’s bad. You have the Weasleys; for the most part, they’re all good. Ron is good, Fred and George… on and on you go. But now the waters are starting to get a little bit more murky when he looks up and sees this tapestry and all these different people and how they’re interrelated to each other; they’re all part of the same family. It goes to what, Eric, we said earlier, that the world isn’t divided into good people and Death Eaters, and I think that’s a huge lesson for Harry here too. It’s not just, “One family; this is who they are. They’re good or they’re not good.” Everything is kind of mixed together here.

Eric: I just learned that Walburga Black’s maiden name is most likely Rosier.

Laura: Ohh, interesting.

Eric: Or at least Bellatrix and Narcissa and Andromeda… or not Andromeda. Wait, who’s…? Yeah, Andromeda. Their father was, I think… or no, their mother was Druella Rosier, so they’re Rosiers.

Laura: Interesting.

Eric: I’m looking… so the HP Wikia, by the way, our listeners provided.

Laura: It does have it. Great. Thanks for sending that, y’all.

Eric: Sirius and Regulus’s father’s name was Orion. That’s kind of cool. It’s another star…

Micah: They’re playing on these constellations way too much. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Micah: The Black family.

Laura: It’s the first and last cool thing about him, apparently. But while we’re talking about some of these disturbing trends and themes and breadcrumbs and foreshadowing, let’s talk about Kreacher, because we get to spend some time with Kreacher. And my initial thought upon reading this is… I was like, is it not alarming to anyone that Kreacher basically already predicted the ending of this story? When he says… because Sirius claims that he’s going to kick him out, and Kreacher starts talking about himself in the third person and saying, “Oh, well, you can’t kick Kreacher out, because then Kreacher could go and share all of your plans to try and defeat the Dark Lord.”

[Micah laughs]

Laura: He basically tells us what’s going to happen. So I’m wondering does Kreacher have an inkling that this might come to pass? And is he goading Sirius intentionally to try and make that happen?

Eric: Ohh. I think it’s clear that Sirius has no love for Kreacher. It is one of his character flaws, his… no ability to reckon with him. And it’s also clear that Kreacher fantasizes about being closer to a Black cousin that is not a Muggle lover, so I think the pieces are there for sure.

Micah: I agree, and Kreacher is a reflection of this house; he is the embodiment of Grimmauld Place. And that said, I do think that Sirius… it’s not that he wrongly associates, but it’s not the full story when he really is saying that Kreacher’s behavior is a result of him being locked up in Grimmauld Place all these years. I think that’s partly true, but Kreacher has been damaged. He’s been damaged by the cave potion; he’s been damaged by the Horcrux locket; he’s been damaged by losing Regulus. And Laura, when you were talking about how he was referring to himself in the third person, as I was reading through this chapter, I kept saying to myself, “Who does Kreacher remind me of?” And it finally clicked, that he’s so like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Laura: Oh, yeah.

Micah: He behaves almost identically to him. And if you want to kind of… locket/ring comparisons, I definitely think that there’s something there. Now, I don’t know that the author was a huge Tolkien fan, or that she was…

Laura: She was.

Micah: She was, okay. So I mean, there’s possibility that she drew upon Gollum to inspire Kreacher.

Laura: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of overlap and a lot of inspiration there. I think that’s a safe bet.

Eric: What I love about something that Michelle just said in our Discord is that “It’s so interesting that they are all Kreachers of that house, but they each went their different ways and made different choices. It is understandable that Kreacher is damaged; they all were. It’s just so interesting to see the diversity.” I agree with that. The Black family are each unique, I think, in their personality, despite all coming from the same house.

Laura: As we move on towards the end of the chapter, Harry actually gets a little bit of a reprieve from all the cleaning and all the worrying that he has about his upcoming trial, because sometimes certain members of the Order will hang out with them around the house to help with things. Tonks is one such person. And what I love about this is it also mentions, in the same large paragraph, that Remus was also staying at the Order of the Phoenix. He would go away for long periods of time on missions, but he was staying there. And I was like, were they just keeping things quiet at this point, or did the other adults know and just not mention anything?

Eric: About…?

Laura: About Remus and Tonks.

Eric: Oh, I thought that was… I thought something else entirely was happening here. Because doesn’t it say that when Remus comes, he stays with Sirius?

Micah: That’s what I found interesting reading that.

Eric: I was like, “Wolfstar!” [laughs]

Laura: Oh, yeah. No, I mean, that’s another way to read it, too. But knowing the way that the story goes.

Eric: Oh, right. You have to bring canon into this? Come on.

Laura: Yeah, I know, I know, it’s so boring. Listen, the Wolfstar read is way more interesting. [laughs]

Eric: I love it. But this would be where Tonks and Lupin are getting the most of each other’s company, for sure, during these little cleaning sessions, even. Or dinner, during dinners.

Laura: Yeah, during dinners. I mean, and then it’s mentioned at least once that Tonks is there helping them to get a particularly nasty ghoul out of there. But yeah, I just found it interesting, and I thought that this could be one of those really cool opportunities for fanfiction to fill in the gaps here. What was going on from Remus and Tonks’s perspectives during this time? Was their romance already starting?

Eric: I definitely wonder. I think it wouldn’t have evolved into something as close to romance until later, because Remus wouldn’t allow it; he’s not open to that kind of a thing, and it’s only after persistence that he would realize he does have feelings for Tonks as well, is my read on that.

Laura: Yeah. Remind me, when does Snape tell Tonks that her Patronus is weak? Is that this book, or the next one?

Eric: Isn’t it after the train? It’s the next one. And I’m not sure if it’s September 1, after Harry has got his nose smashed and all that, or if it’s later that year as she’s guarding the school, and Harry happens to… I think it’s probably way later, so maybe Christmas of next year.

Laura: Yeah, probably. At any rate, I think this is where it started.

Eric: Fair enough.

Laura: I think it all started this summer.

Micah: That’s why the doorbell kept getting rung.

Laura: [laughs] I mean, I think Tonks is smart enough not to do that. She will knock over the damn umbrella stand every time she comes in.

[Micah laughs]

Eric: I was surprised that she didn’t botch something when she was helping out cleaning in this chapter. I was waiting for that to happen.

Laura: Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe as a writing device it had already been used too many times.

Eric: Maybe, yeah.

Laura: Well, we kind of are left on a foreboding note at the end of this chapter because Harry is suddenly jerked back to reality when Mrs. Weasley is like, “Hey, just a reminder, your trial’s tomorrow, and you’re going to go to work with Arthur. I ironed out your best clothes, so you need to eat and go to bed.” And what worse feeling for a 15-year-old who’s on their summer break, [laughs] than to have just been reunited with his friends and finally feeling normal, and then boom, “You’ve got to go to your trial tomorrow.”

Eric: Plus he finds out that Dumbledore has been there but gone away, too, and I’m like, “Man, again?”

Laura: Well, and it was even… the excuse was “You were sleeping” or something. “You were occupied.”

Eric: [laughs] “Oh, I guess I missed my chance.”

Laura: Yeah, like, “Excuse me? No, you should have come and woken me up so I could talk to this man. I got a bone to pick.” [laughs]

[Ad break]

Lynx Line

Laura: But anyway, we will see how Harry’s trial goes in our next Chapter by Chapter installment. But for now, we are going to turn to our Lynx Line. This is our newest benefit on Patreon; thank you so much to all of us who support us over there. This is a benefit where we will ask our Slug Club patrons a question pertaining to either our discussion that week or pertaining specifically to the chapter, and the question that we asked was, “You have to pick one item from the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black to display in your home. What is your choice?”

Eric: First one comes from Carlee, who says,

“I think I’d take the music box that makes people sleep. My husband has chronic insomnia, and sometimes it keeps me from sleeping. Plus, when my 6-year-old won’t sleep, Mama has a little trick up her sleeve! This is, of course, assuming the music box only makes you sleep and doesn’t do anything more nefarious.”

I agree, this would be… I kind of slated this for something I would want to take with me. Also, creepy music boxes are creepy; perfect for this season we just got out of.

Laura and Micah: Yeah.

Laura: Also, props to Ginny here, right? Because she’s the only one who has enough sense to snap the box shut when they all start getting drowsy and sleepy.

Eric: Yeah, I’m so glad that you caught that moment of Ginny’s triumph there, Laura, and gave her her flowers.

Laura: Honestly, I think Ginny is a great character who didn’t get enough moments like that in the series. I think I would have enjoyed her a lot more if she had.

Eric: Fair enough.

Micah: Zach says,

“The portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black. I would love to pester him daily about that potion he needed in Hogwarts Legacy.”

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Oh my God. He’s not going to talk about it. He’s never going to talk about it.

Laura: Oh, man. Oh, how fun would it be if they cast Simon Pegg to play Phineas Nigellus Black in the TV show?

Eric: Oh, absolutely. 100%.

Laura: Oh, God, that would be incredible. And they could include… maybe this is how they can include game lore in the show.

Eric: Oh, that would be so good. But not till, like, Season 8, right? Or Season 5?

Laura: Yeah, but the funny thing is they can show Phineas and he can be seated, and he can be shifting uncomfortably in his chair to give a hint about what it was he was using that potion for. [laughs] Our next one comes from Rachel, who says,

“The family tree would be so cool! I don’t remember if there was any kind of grandfather clock, but I’d be interested in that if so.”

Yeah, that’s a good one. Yeah, the family tree is cool.

Eric: Definitely agree. Ashley says, “The coughing wastebasket.” No explanation given, so we’re left to speculate on that.

Micah: That would get annoying really quickly, though.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: Michael says,

“I think they had a piano that didn’t seem to be nefarious in any way, so I’ll please take that, thank you very much.”

Laura: That’s what you think, Michael. Basically everything that is in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is haunted automatically, bare minimum.

Eric: There was a ghoul in a toilet upstairs. What’s that doing there?

Micah: It’s a bidet.

Laura: I mean, it’s not the first time we’ve heard of a ghoul in a toilet in this series.

Eric: Fair enough.

Laura: Next one comes from Eleanor, who also says,

“Family tree. It’s very cool both in concept and design from the film. I also really like the fact that it proves that even in a ‘bad’ family – pure-blood mania and Death Eater support – there are people who turn their backs on that. What Dumbledore said is true: There’s light and dark in all of us.”

Yeah, absolutely, just like what we were touching on about Regulus earlier in this discussion.

Eric: Kayde also says, “The creepy music box. Not sure what that says about me as a person.” Kayde, you’re all right. Like I said, I would go for that one too.

Laura: Yeah, I think it’s fun.

Micah: Leah also likes the family tree.

“I already purchased it and display it in my living room as a throw pillow. Thanks, MinaLima!”

Eric: Oh, that would be a very comfortable pillow.

Laura: Yeah. No, that’s very cool. And I mean, you can’t go wrong with MinaLima either.

Eric: Right.

Micah: I wonder, did you burn cigarette butts into it to make it more authentic?

Eric: [laughs] Distressed.

Laura: I mean, I would hope that it would come with that already on there; I feel like that’s a major part of the aesthetic. Cassandra says,

“I would like my house to have the Black house’s ability to hide in the neighborhood, to be unplottable.”

Yeah, I love that idea.

Eric: Yeah, it’s pretty… and I believe that that probably wouldn’t have been a thing until the Order took it over, or was it? Do we think that that’s unique to Dumbledore’s Secret-Keeping here?

Laura: Honestly, I think it was already unplottable because Sirius mentioned that it was the perfect location for headquarters because his father had put so many different protection charms on it.

Eric: Oh, that’s right! See, you’ve changed my mind, because I would have thought… I always associate the Fidelius Charm with Dumbledore because that’s exactly what he suggested Lily and James do, but that doesn’t… yeah, I mean, you would also think that Orion Black would know some stuff, so that’s cool. Yeah, okay. Julianne says,

“I’d take the writing desk with the boggart inside. Would certainly liven up my work days.”

I feel like there’s a fun, quirky sense of humor to these Lynx Line replies. You’re kidnapping a boggart just for an interesting afternoon.

Laura: [laughs] Can boggarts experience trauma?

Eric: Boggarts are trauma.

Laura: True. Can trauma experience trauma? Oooh.

Eric: Let’s not get… yes, and I’m living it right now.

[Laura laughs]

Micah: Ning has an interesting one.

“The portrait of Mrs. Black. It’s how I’m scaring off those pesky door-to-door salespeople/scammers/burglars.”

Laura: That’ll do it for sure.

Micah: You might just want to put a filter on her, though, because she may get you in a little bit of trouble.

Eric: Oh, yeah. Jump ahead to Chelsea, who says, “One of Sirius’s bikini-clad woman posters.” I bet they’re vintage. They were in 20 years ago.

Laura: Honestly, I found this to be such an interesting piece of context about his character, because presumably these are Muggle women, I’m guessing.

Eric: [laughs] Maybe that’s why his family…

Laura: Maybe that’s why they were like, “Get out.” [laughs]

Eric: The only thing more controversial than your son looking at a calendar of scantily clad women is if they’re Muggle women!

Laura: Well, because I don’t recall that we ever see anything like this in the wizarding world, really.

Eric: Like if Witch Weekly has a bikini calendar or something? Yeah, I don’t know.

Micah: Oh, it’s got to exist. [laughs] But I don’t know if we can talk about it right now.

Laura: Yeah, probably not.

Eric: Playwiz.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Laura: Playwiz, oh my God.

Micah: Broc wants to know,

“Is Kreacher an option? Having some help with chores would be a hell of a convenience. And after you warm up to him, you know he has some mad stories to tell.”

Eric: Yeah, agreed with that.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, honestly, Kreacher is not doing too well here, so Broc, if you wanted to treat him as a roommate, I think you could really move the needle for sure.

Eric: Agreed.

Laura: [laughs] Catherine says, “I don’t know about ‘display,’ but does Buckbeak count?”

Eric: Yeah, Buckbeak is upstairs. That was a good catch.

Laura: Yeah, that was a good catch. I think we said items, though, right?

Eric: Yeah, so maybe the bag of treats for Buckbeak.

Laura: Yeah, there you go.

Eric: And then if you put them out…

Laura: Oh, the bag of dead rats. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Laura: Well, thanks so much to all of our patrons who participated in this week’s – and every week’s – Lynx Line. I did want to pose a question to the panel now. We didn’t talk a ton about the variety of Skiving Snackboxes that Fred and George are getting into, but we do learn about a couple of them this chapter. So I wanted to ask, which joke candy would we be willing to try to get out of something we don’t want to do? And your options are Puking Pastilles, Fainting Fancies, or Nosebleed Nougat.

Eric: This is like that game FMK because there’s one I would never choose, which is the Puking Pastille. I just feel like that is not a pleasant feeling. None of them are pleasant. Having a nosebleed is not pleasant. I’m choosing the least annoying option, which is still pretty dangerous, but not in a wizarding world where they can heal your bones. Fainting Fancies would be my choice.

Laura: Oh, that would be so scary to me.

Eric: You ever just want to disconnect, unplug, lose consciousness?

Laura: I mean, but losing consciousness, I don’t know if I want that.

Eric: I’ll take it.

Laura: But I understand not wanting to puke.

Eric: Yeah, and I had nosebleeds a lot as a kid.

Laura: Oh, I see. See, I didn’t; I’ve never been someone to have a lot of nosebleeds, so I chose Nosebleed Nougat.

Eric: I can see how that would be a novelty.

Laura: Yeah. Well, also, I mean, I have had them before and they’ve never been severe for me, so I guess that’s what I’m comparing it to.

Eric: Yeah, like, what seems the least severe? Absolutely.

Laura: What about you, Micah? We’re doing, like, suffering Olympics over here with our Skiving Snackboxes. [laughs]

Micah: I’m trying to think, what’s the one most likely to get you out of class with least suspicion?

Eric: Oh.

Laura: Probably puking.

Eric: Yeah, because they want you out.

Laura: Nobody can argue with that.

Micah: That is true. None of these widely appeal to me.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: They’re not supposed to!

Laura: You don’t say.

Micah: It’s funny because one could lead to the other. If you bleed enough from your nose, you could get a little bit faint, or you could puke as a result of it. So yeah, if I had to pick one, I’d probably go with the Puking Pastilles.

Laura: Yeah. Well, and don’t forget, y’all, there is an escape plan that comes with these. Remember, they’re two-tabbed candies. You take one to bring your illness on, and as soon as you are away from any parties who could witness you doing so, you can take the other half and you’ll be right as rain, so no more puking, no more nosebleed, no more fainting. Although, I don’t know how that works with the fainting, because if you faint, how do you…?

Eric: You kind of come to and then you’re in the hospital wing… yeah, I don’t know. Maybe you have some of your afternoon back, maybe not. Asterisk, though, Fred and George are still working on fixing the puking thing.

Laura: Yes. Yeah, they are, and we’re going to get to see them test it out in not too many moons here. [laughs]

Eric: Well, so the one that’s not mentioned, that apparently is also confirmed, is Fever Fudge.

Laura: Ah, yeah, yeah.

Eric: That’s the best one, because first of all, it’s fudge. And also, you just have to be ill enough, present ill enough to get out of class. So if you feel your forehead, you’re like, “Oh…” Teacher says, “Oh, you’re so hot, you’re burning up…”

Laura: Yeah, that’s true.

Eric: And then you leave. But getting a fever can be pretty dangerous.

Laura: Yeah. No, that’s true. That’s true. I think I left it out because I hate getting fevers.

Eric: Oh, there’s that.

Laura: Yeah, we don’t hear about it yet, but we do find out about it later. Well, thanks so much for taking part in my particular spin on the weekly question. We like to mix it up here on the show. Instead of leaning into the old MVP of the Week format, we want to ask each other a specific question about the chapter.

Eric: I love that.

Laura: If you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo recorded on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com.

Quizzitch

Laura: And now it is time for Quizzitch.

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s question: How many Halloween feasts do we see Harry attend during his time at Hogwarts? And the correct answer was three, as a matter of fact! He misses the second year Halloween feast because he’s at the deathday party, and he attends the first, the third, and the fourth years, but after that, they never mention them again. 75% of people said they didn’t look it up. They got the correct answer. Congratulations to these winners: Buff Daddy; Ben; Educational Decree Number 31, Halloween feasts will hereby be disbanded… which is pretty much what happened. Elizabeth K.; Pilbus Dumbledough; Spooky Scary Slytherin; Stubby Boardman’s biggest fan; and Whipped Aquafaba. Think we’ll go with that. Here is next week’s Quizzitch question: So a lot of talk about Doxies in this chapter. In the Sorcerer’s Stone PC game, what spell do you primarily use to deal with Doxies? It’s one of the classics of old video gaming. Submit your answer to us on the Quizzitch form on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or if you’re already on the website, maybe reading transcripts, checking out our must listens page, a.k.a. the Hall of Fame, just click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav.

Laura: You know, Eric, I actually have a copy of the OG Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for PS1 that Marc got for me as a gift…

Eric: Aww.

Laura: … and I am going to be playing it soon, and y’all might…

Eric: You should submit your Quizzitch answer.

Laura: Yeah, so I’m going to have to go back and see if I can get the answer to this, because I don’t remember.

Eric: They go to the greenhouses, I think, is when you first meet them.

Laura: Oh, okay, okay. Well, I’m looking forward to sitting down and playing that game and Flipendo-ing everything, because that’s all I remember from that game. [laughs]

Eric: “Flipendo!”

Micah: You can’t Avada Kedavra them, can you?

Laura: No, you can’t.

Eric: No. You have to really mean it.

Laura: And that is where Hogwarts Legacy is superior.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: Oh, man. As a reminder, everyone listening, listener support is the only reason we’ve been able to podcast 19 years later, and there are, in fact, three great ways to help us out. If you are an Apple Podcasts user, please subscribe to MuggleCast Gold, which gets you instant access to ad-free and early releases of MuggleCast, plus – as our Patreon too – two bonus MuggleCast installments every month, and October’s were both very spooky. For even more benefits – and this is the best way to support us – pledge at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You’ll get the benefits of MuggleCast Gold, plus livestreams, yearly stickers, Lynx Line participation, physical gift, a video message from one of the four of us made just for you, our private Facebook and Discord groups where you can hang out with fellow Potter fans, and so much more. And once again, please visit MuggleCastMerch.com. It’s the giving season, and it’s all of our brand new one-off merchandise that has never been seen before. It’s exclusive for you. And if you enjoy MuggleCast and think other Muggles would too, please tell a friend about the show, and leave a five star review on your favorite podcast app. And we’re excited to get to Chapter by Chapter next week, Chapter 7, “The Ministry of Magic.”

Laura: Looking forward to it. Thanks so much, y’all.

Eric: Bye.

Laura: Bye, everybody.

Micah: Bye.

The post Transcript #682 appeared first on MuggleCast.

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This week, grab your doxy spray and settle in because we’re deep cleaning the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Join Eric, Micah and Laura as they dodge possessed music boxes, coughing wastebaskets, and mysterious lockets all while fighting with a deranged House-Elf and learning about pureblood wizarding families!

• News Alert: Hogwarts Legacy 2 to crossover with the new Harry Potter TV Show! Plus, get in the holiday spirit as Hogwarts: Wizards of Baking premieres on Food Network and MAX on Nov. 14!
• Chapter-by-Chapter continues with Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 6: The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. And our Time Turner segment has us spinning some old recordings from past discussions! Be sure to check out Episode 439 and Episode 230 for prior Chapter 6 analysis!
• Have we ever been in a situation where an adult forbade us from talking to our friends after hearing something they deemed inappropriate?
• Does Molly not understand how kids work? Forbidding them from staying up to talk is the best way to ensure they absolutely do that!
• Your putting those doxies WHERE?! What happens to these immobilized creatures? Are they permanently paralyzed?
• STOP RINGING THAT DAMN DOORBELL!!!
• Has Mundungus ever proven his value to the Order?
• Foreshadow alert: The locket no one could open
• What do we make of Sirius’s behavior in this chapter? Harry is clearly trying to relate to him, but is Sirius brooding so much on his own misfortune?
• The Black Family Tapestry, Regulus Black and the meaning of Toujours Pur
• Did Kreacher predict the ending of Order of the Phoenix?
• Comparing Kreacher and Gollum from Lord of the Rings
• Did Lupin and Tonks have secret sleepovers?
• Lynx Line: Our patrons pick one item from the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black to display in their home.
• Which Skiving Snackbox candy would each of the hosts be willing to try to get out of something we didn’t want to do?
• Quizzitch: In the Sorcerer’s Stone PC game, what spell do you primarily use to deal with doxies?’
• Reminder! The MuggleCast Merch Store is now open! Grab brand-new, original MuggleCast designs. We have t-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, hats, and more!
• And don’t forget you can support the show over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast! You’ll get great benefits such as Bonus MuggleCast, live streams, yearly stickers, Lynx Line participation, a physical gift, a video message from one of the four of us made just for you, our private Facebook and Discord groups where you can hang out with fellow Potter fans, and so much more!
• Visit MuggleCast.com for episode transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and to contact us!

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The post Episode #682: A Tapestry of Secrets (OOTP Chapter 6, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black) appeared first on MuggleCast.

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Join Andrew, Eric, Laura and Micah as we dive into the Muggle Mailbag and respond to listener feedback from the first five chapters of our Order of the Phoenix reread!

• Visit our new online store for can’t-miss items that are one of a kind! MuggleCastMerch.com. And don’t miss our Overstock Store for our Cozy Comfy Combo Pack!
• Voicemails cover what Hermione would be like in grad school, and a theory as to why the Cursed Child runtime keeps being shortened in America.
• An astute listener writes in about the historical name origins of the wizengamot! We are all impressed.
• Ron wearing the locket in Book 7 has the same exact feelings we see Harry have in early Book 5.
• Other topics include: Why Salazar Slytherin may have chosen emeralds as a house gem, whether we should feel sorry for Petunia Dursley, why Nearly Headless Nick should still be frozen, and Harry’s sparse security detail.
• A fun What If… segment and Chicken Soup for the MuggleCast Soul round out the discussion.
• Finally, our Lynx Line benefit exclusively for Patrons has them sharing their overall thoughts on Book 5 so far.
• Next week’s Quizzitch question: How many Halloween feasts do we see Harry attend during his time at Hogwarts?
• This episode is brought to you by Better Help. Get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/mugglecast

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The post Episode #681: Should We Feel Sorry for Petunia Dursley? And more MuggleMail appeared first on MuggleCast.

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Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #680, Harry Potter and the Graveyard of Goods

Show Intro

[Show music plays]

Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.

Eric Scull: I’m Eric.

Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.

Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Halloween is upon us, and to celebrate, we have a special episode that we’re calling “Harry Potter and the Graveyard of Goods.”

Laura: Oooh.

Andrew: This is not about canon, though. This is about the numerous official projects by Wizarding World Inc. that have died over the decades.

Eric: Tragic deaths.

Andrew: These have been, you could say, rejected by the Sorting Hat, and mischief was not managed. They were Wingardium let-downs that are now in Diagon Fail-y.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: “Fail-y.”

Andrew: They were potions gone wrong, and left us disarmed, so we’re going to run through all of these today.

Laura: The Goblet of Fire spit ’em right out.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: It was like, “Don’t come past that age line.” [laughs]

Andrew: Chewed on ’em for a while and was like, “You know what? Ain’t my thing. Bye.”

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: So we have done many different types of Halloween episodes on MuggleCast over our 19 year history. Micah, do you want to give us a rundown for anybody who might be wanting to keep up the Halloween spirit this week?

Micah: Yeah, why not? I mean, there’s plenty of episodes to go back and give a listen to around the Halloween spooky season, and don’t have to go that much far back than Episode 633, which was last year. We actually did a Quizzitch Live Halloween-edition, and we released it as an episode, so if you want to test your Harry Potter Halloween candy/Lily and James trivia, we highly encourage you to go check out that episode. And then going a little bit further back, Episode 535, “Halloween Extravaganza.” This was in 2021. We talked about whether or not the hosts ever dressed up as a Harry Potter character for Halloween, we invented some of our own wizarding world candy, we discussed which characters would give out the best candy, and we also Potterized some classic Halloween movies, so that was a lot of fun. You could tell we might have been grasping a little bit as with some of the more recent episodes, because we’ve talked about Halloween so much in the Harry Potter series early on in our podcasting days…

Eric: It’s rough.

Micah: … but there’s also Episode 487, “The Scariest Moments in Harry Potter.”

Eric: Oooh.

Micah: Episode 343, which was titled “Fantastic Beasts and the Not 2.” I’m not really sure what that’s a reference to…

Andrew: Me neither.

Micah: … but we talked about some of the key moments that happened on October the 31st in the Harry Potter series; there are quite a few. Going way back to 2008, Episode 161, were there enough traditional Halloween characters in the series, right? Thinking about werewolves and vampires and that sort of thing. And then very, very early on, in 2006 we did Episode 61, which was all about the ghosts in Harry Potter. And there’s probably other episodes – because that’s only just a handful – but a lot of the ones when I was looking back, we were doing Chapter by Chapter, but I’m sure we brought up Halloween. So just look around that October 31 date in the MuggleCast archive.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: But those are some good ones, and we’ll put them in the show notes so it’s easy for folks to just pop over and listen.

Eric: I love our little Time-Turner segment keeping on rolling.

Andrew: And a reminder that the MuggleCast merch store recently opened up. MuggleCastMerch.com is where you can grab brand new, original MuggleCast T-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, hats, and glassware. Actually, all four of us brought some merch today. Laura and I are actually twinsies; we both showed up with the “Security consultant” hat. How’s it feel, Laura, to be a security consultant at Hogwarts?

Laura: Honestly, I feel like I have so much power.

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: I know, right? I need a clipboard.

Eric: Power to affect change.

Laura: I was fully… and see, now you wearing the same hat as me kind of ruins it.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: But I was going… at some point during the episode, if I was having a disagreement with someone, I was going to be like, “Look at me. I am the security consultant now.”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: We need to get you a clipboard and you’d be all set.

Laura: Honestly, yeah.

Andrew: And then Micah, you’re wearing one of our T-shirts, right?

Micah: I’m wearing my T-shirt, yes. “Choo-choo.”

Andrew: It is the Micah T-shirt, basically. Yeah, it’s got the Hogwarts Express on there. A nice red. Great for the holidays.

Micah: And then the… I like this little MC mic bolt on the side of the sleeve. That’s a really nice touch. And these are very comfortable T-shirts, by the way.

Andrew: Good. And Eric, what did you bring?

Eric: I brought the glassware, the stemless glassware that says “Potions Master,” and I plan to actually pour a Butterbeer in here a little later on and take some photos.

Laura: Ooh.

Andrew: Heyyy.

Eric: But for now, it’s got my La Croix.

Andrew: Excellent. I also have here today the MuggleCast hat, which we’re calling the MuggleCap in the merch store. It has “Est. 2005.” By the way, these hats that Laura and I are wearing, and this MuggleCap, they’re embroidered! I mean, this is nice stuff. It looks really nice.

Eric: It’s really cool. Honestly, there’s a reason it’s taken us this long to get official merch that’s for everybody, as we were waiting for the quality to show up, and here it is.

Andrew: Right, so MuggleCastMerch.com. Great idea as the holiday season approaches, by the way; check out the store and maybe find something you like and send it along to a friend or family member and they can get it for you for the holidays. And once you do receive your merch, listeners, please do tag us, and we’ll be happy to share it on social media. And by purchasing any of these products, you are helping us run the show, so thank you so much, and enjoy this great merchandise.

Main Discussion: Graveyard of Goods

Andrew: All right, it’s time for this year’s Halloween episode: “Harry Potter and the Graveyard of Goods.” Today we’re going to look at various aspects of the Wizarding World that came into existence and then ended up being canceled. We’re going to start with some of the more obvious ones, and then we’ll dip into the more obscure ones that you may have forgotten about or have never heard of before.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: So let’s start with one of the biggest of all, the Fantastic Beasts film franchise; we’ve spoken about this a lot over the years. So the original plan was to make five films chronicling Newt and his friends. It was actually announced to be a trilogy when it was first revealed by Warner Bros. and J.K. Rowling, but then Rowling said – and I believe it was right around the time the first movie came out, while she was promoting it – that it would actually be five movies, and everybody was very excited about that. Well, of course, it turns out it ended up being three anyway. We got these three movies between 2016 and 2022, and the series was just surrounded by controversy between Johnny Depp, the bad storytelling… I’m still not over all that boat nonsense.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: And J.K. Rowling was trying to separate herself from it by the end, it seemed like. And the box office performance slid with each movie.

Eric: Yeah, yeah, they rehired Steve Kloves to come in and do work on the screenplay for the third film, which, they essentially soft-landed it. I know technically it’s not dead; it’s just “parked,” but it definitely is probably dead, and RIP Fantastic Beasts.

Laura: You know, I will say I was pleasantly surprised by the first Fantastic Beasts movie.

Eric: Ah!

Andrew: Agreed.

Laura: I was one of these people who was skeptical of the series when it was announced, because initially, when it was three movies, I was like, “How are they going to get a three movie, a trilogy story, out of this 41-page book?” And then they turned it into five movies, and I was like, “Uh, how are they going to do that?”

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: And then I saw the first movie and it was so good, and I was like, “Man, I’m so glad to be wrong about this.” And then Crimes of Grindelwald happened. [laughs]

Eric: Well, and I would argue, yes, the first film did not in any way fail to show us how five films could exist.

Laura: Right!

Eric: The second film did that. [laughs] It was like, “Ooh, yikes!” I think the first Fantastic Beasts is probably my favorite Harry Potter film.

Andrew: Oh, wow. I enjoyed number one very much. I really liked number three too. Hated number two. And the series still had potential, in my mind; it was working towards that big Dumbledore/Grindelwald duel, and we were expecting to see Ariana’s death as well, which was a pivotal moment in the Harry Potter series, so it’s just a shame that we didn’t end up getting all that.

Micah: Yeah, I think that the point that you bring up about how the story pivoted also was such a major contributor as to why this film series did not take off the way that they were expecting it to. They did have something with those core four characters in the first film, and like we’re saying, we all really very much enjoyed Fantastic Beasts, the original. But I think they tried to stretch it too much with the Dumbledore and Grindelwald storyline. I think there’s a way that that could have been woven in, but when you move away from Newt as the main character, along with Jacob, Queenie, and Tina, that’s really where it felt like, “Okay, well, we just watched this first film about these four characters, and now all of a sudden we’re going in a completely different direction.”

Eric: Some of them aren’t even in the movie in the third one!

Micah: Right.

Eric: Like, Tina is “on assignment.”

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: So it’s disappointing, though, because this was our first opportunity to really expand the universe in a way, I guess, even though it’s kind of a prequel.

Eric: We brought the show back. We brought the show back because of this movie series.

Micah: That’s true. [laughs]

Eric: We were out of here!

Andrew: This wasn’t my intention, but it’s appropriate that we’re opening with Fantastic Beasts in this discussion since it did, like you said, Eric, bring the show back. [laughs]

Eric: It revived us back from the dead.

Laura: Well, something good came out of it, so…

Andrew: There you go. Episode title: “Something good came out of it.”

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: For any listeners who don’t know – maybe some newer listeners – we ended MuggleCast back in… what was it, 2013, I believe?

Eric: Episode 269, by the way.

Andrew: And then two weeks later they announced Fantastic Beasts, and we were like, “Oh, okay, I guess Harry Potter and MuggleCast aren’t over after all.”

Laura: Yeah, and I will say Justin in our Discord is calling us out right now. He said, “Brought the show back,” and then he added, “after two weeks.” [laughs]

Andrew: That’s how excited we were to have an excuse to continue podcasting.

Eric: Listen, we needed a break. We needed that two weeks.

Andrew: Yeah, that too. We did need a break. [laughs]

Eric: It was the most restorative two weeks of our lives.

[Laura laughs]

Micah: And we haven’t been off for two weeks since.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Right. Well, around the holidays. So moving along in our list here, the MinaLima illustrated editions…

Eric: This one still hurts.

Andrew: … and this was actually a pretty recent development. So MinaLima are the creative duo behind much of the visual design for the Wizarding World films – including Fantastic Beasts – and they were planning to create a fully illustrated series of the Harry Potter books. They got up to Book 3. And while I personally didn’t love that they were releasing these editions and the Jim Kay editions at the same time, the MinaLima editions stood on their own. They had the pop-out sections; they had little things you could play with. The books were physically smaller than the Jim Kay illustrated editions, so that was a nice alternative. And then earlier this year, MinaLima announced that Scholastic had not commissioned them to continue after Prisoner of Azkaban, and it came as a shock, because MinaLima has always had a great relationship with the Harry Potter filmmakers, and why would they cancel it mid-series? And we still don’t really have a solid answer as to why. But Scholastic does claim they are going to continue this illustrated series, but MinaLima is so distinctive in their art style; how do you continue that without it seeming like it’s a ripoff?

Eric: You can’t, yeah.

Laura: I mean, I also have to think there’s potential infringement in that, too. I mean, it is such a unique style; I cannot imagine that MinaLima does not have some sort of copyright around their stylistic approach, so…

Eric: I think that’s right.

Andrew: Maybe they’ll send some scary emails to… their lawyers will send some scary emails to Scholastic and scare them off from continuing the series. If I were MinaLima, I wouldn’t want them to continue.

Eric: No, absolutely not, especially if they burned that bridge and didn’t recommission them. I think that this is something that MinaLima would have made the time for if negotiations hadn’t, apparently, broken down.

Andrew: This left fans with a bad taste in our mouths because we were invested in this illustrated edition series, and it’s hard to imagine that MinaLima were the bad guys here. Maybe… my only guess is they were asking for too much money, and Scholastic said no, but I don’t… Scholastic should have paid them.

Eric: We discussed this in a special bonus, I remember, and I remember saying that it’s MinaLima; there’s no “too much” money. There’s no price, really, that you can get them to be this invested in. The way that they make these books is extraordinary, and it does really make you question… I mean, they were one of the few creators that I loved to still support by way of official merchandise, and that’s gone now.

Micah: Well, you could still support them via their shop, right, in London?

Eric: That’s for sure.

Andrew: Yeah, and you can buy all their products online, by the way. MinaLima.com.

Micah: There’s just an authenticity that comes with the illustrated editions that they did because they worked on the Potter films; they worked on the Fantastic Beasts films. There’s nobody like them when it comes to that type of content, so I do agree it would be very strange for somebody else to step in and to continue these editions. I feel like we’re going to probably talk about this with other editions of the Harry Potter books, but they’ve never seemed to be able to complete a set outside of the original seven books.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: Honestly, yeah. It’s a good thing that the original seven books are a thing, but every other attempt…

Andrew: Yeah, there have been others, but I think they do them all at once, and normally it’s just cover redesigns. It’s not like…

Eric: Yeah, like the House editions or whatever.

Andrew: The House editions, or the… I’m forgetting his name. Kazu Kibuishi? Released new covers. Those were just paperback, I think.

Eric: Yeah, that was the first Scholastic rebrand, and then they kneecapped him by releasing brand new ones a year or two later. It was ridiculous.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Eric: They didn’t let that one breathe. And whatever they’re selling now, with that charcoal drawing of the kids, I hate it. I can’t stand it.

Andrew: Oh, I don’t like that either. It’s black and white.

Eric: No, it’s so… the books, the world is so rich and vibrant and colorful, any charcoal book cover just is going to fall flat.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, let’s go further back in fandom history: Pottermore classic, [laughs] I’m calling it.

Eric and Laura: Ahh.

Andrew: So Pottermore.com launched in 2011, and it allowed fans to experience the Harry Potter universe interactively with House Sorting quizzes, potion-brewing; you could collect a bunch of stuff. One of the biggest features for us long-time fans was there was exclusive writings by J.K. Rowling, and she was revealing new information about canon and a lot more. It primarily… if I remember how they introduced it at the beginning, it was a place for new readers to have this companion as they read each chapter of the Harry Potter books. You could go really chapter by chapter on Pottermore and get additional information about each chapter, along with beautiful original artwork. It was also the first home for the Harry Potter ebooks, and that was a big deal because they did not… they were kind of late to the ebook train, and they launched with Pottermore in partnership with Sony. It was very exciting, I remember, to see the new chapters and books slowly be rolled out on Pottermore, and it felt to me like a modern spin on the long-promised encyclopedia. By this point, 2011, we were coming to terms with the fact that we wouldn’t probably get an encyclopedia, but then here comes Pottermore. More Potter. Oh my gosh, it’s like the Internet version of an encyclopedia. That’s cool!

Eric: The rollout was exceptional. The hype was real. There was this website placeholder where it was like, “The owls are gathering.” Just the…

Andrew: They teamed up with fansites to tease it, I remember.

Eric: That’s right!

Andrew: MuggleNet had a thing… yeah.

Micah: Weren’t there coordinates that were provided on Google Maps, and then each site had a set of coordinates, and each coordinate revealed a certain letter that spelled out Pottermore?

Andrew: That’s right, yep.

Micah: Which was very cool.

Andrew: I think you could go into Street View and then you would see the letter.

Micah: Right. Exactly, yeah.

Andrew: Yeah, so it was an interesting rollout. But then they turned Pottermore basically into a very simple, uninspiring, unoriginal blog in 2016.

Eric: Ugh. This was…

Andrew: All the charm of the original site was stripped. The chapter by chapter area was gone, as was the gorgeous artwork.

Eric: Yes.

Andrew: And the worst part about it, which really cheapened it, was they started doing these Buzzfeed-y type articles. “Seven times Ron… this or that.” You know? Just trash. It’s like, “What happened?”

Eric: I don’t understand at all that decision. That’s one of the most perplexing decisions I think I’ve ever seen anyone make, is the decision to make it into a fansite, because there were already still huge fansites. And if you have the ear of the series’ author, you don’t need to be writing speculative articles about “Ooh, Lavender Brown may or may not be dead!”

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, presumed dead.

Eric: No! Just tell us or shut up! Ugh, can’t believe it. And they did that with everything; they did that with teasing the new films. And even after the film was come out, they wouldn’t give us a straight answer. It’s like, who’s writing this?

Laura: Yeah, it also feels a little bit like what happened with the author’s original website, because her website back in the day was so good. It was also really interactive; it was very clever. What I loved about the chapter by chapter stuff on Pottermore was it was like living artwork; things moved, cauldrons bubbled. You could see characters sitting there breathing; you could see them moving, and it was really, really cool. And to see them take such an ingenious idea and boil it down to what Eric was talking about is just unfortunate, and it reminds me of what happened, and how we all felt when J.K. Rowling’s original website went away because it was so cool, the original design.

Eric: Well, and with Pottermore, the Sorting quiz! You could actually get Sorted.

Laura: You could get your Patronus too.

Eric: Yeah, well, eventually. I think years later.

Andrew: And I think they still offer those, right? They have those…

Laura: Oh, do they?

Eric: They do, but it’s not as animated. I think it’s like radio buttons on a simple page, but the original… I mean, that’s why I’m okay with being a Hufflepuff, is because I’m a Pottermore Hufflepuff. After taking that whole quiz and then reading that welcome letter, I was like, “Yeah, this is me.” Yeah, I don’t know.

Andrew: So then Pottermore turned into WizardingWorld.com, and actually, we have a new development here. Over the last couple weeks, they have now gotten rid of the Wizarding World branding, and they’re just… if you try to go to WizardingWorld.com now, it redirects to HarryPotter.com, and at the top, it’s the same Wizarding World site, but instead of that branding, it now just says “Harry Potter.”

Eric: Oh no.

Andrew: So it looks like they’re taking a step back from the Wizarding World branding for the overall franchise, too. The Wizarding World branding, it launched in 2018 with a great logo, depicting an open book and wands for pages.

Eric: Love the logo.

Andrew: We were analyzing it, I think. [laughs] And it made sense that they introduced this new branding because they were expanding with Fantastic Beasts, and now as of the last couple weeks, they’re ditching that. And I guess it makes sense as they gear up for the Harry Potter TV series, but I think it’s also an acknowledgement they’re going to stay focused on Harry Potter’s story for the foreseeable future.

Eric: Yeah, yeah. That’s just… I can’t… what are they going to do with Wizarding World Games? Is it going to be Harry Potter Games again?

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. Well, right now they’re under the Portkey Games label, right?

Eric: Oh, that’s right.

Andrew: Yeah, but maybe they will just start calling them Harry Potter Games.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: So speaking of games, actually, Wizards Unite. Ah! This was developed by Niantic, the creators of the massively successful Pokémon Go. The still very popular Pokémon Go, by the way. I see commercials on TV for Pokémon Go, even in the last week. [laughs] This was released in 2019, and players could act as wizards and witches protecting the wizarding world from the “Calamity.” That’s where the weirdness started.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: And you would catch these Confoundables across the Muggle world and… I don’t know. You were saving the world from evil.

Micah: Calamity.

Andrew: From calamity.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Eric: Right.

Andrew: But the game just didn’t… we were so excited about this because, like I said, Pokémon Go was so popular, and we thought, “Oh my God, a Harry Potter Pokémon Go. This is the best thing ever.” But it was just… it was darker than Pokémon Go. Pokémon Go worked because you were collecting all these cute creatures, and they have so many waves of Pokémon that have been released over the years.

Eric: Right.

Andrew: Wizards Unite just was dark and repetitive, and there was a story.

Eric: Yeah, it’s not like you go across the street and find a Squirtle. You would get Filch instead.

Andrew: Right, who wants to collect Filch?

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Death Eater.

Andrew: And it wasn’t even Filch; it was a Confoundable of Filch, which did what?

Eric: I was never clear on that.

Andrew: Me neither.

Eric: I didn’t hate it. I played the game; I liked it.

Andrew: I did too.

Eric: I liked going around, but it was quickly repetitive, and I was not incentivized to keep playing it the way that Pokémon Go has, from time to time, managed to get group events correct and… yeah.

Laura: Wasn’t the first Confoundable – or one of the first ones – you found Hagrid? Do y’all remember that?

Eric: I think that’s right.

Laura: Yeah. I just remember because I was sitting in my living room and all of a sudden Hagrid was just on my screen.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Well, you’ll never forget that.

Andrew: “Hagrid is in my living room? Whoa.”

Laura: Yeah, well, the whole thing is it’s basically… it’s mimicking the same technology as Pokémon Go, where you’re seeing these figures in your living space if you…

Eric: Yeah, it’s augmented reality.

Laura: Yeah, thank you. That’s the word I was looking for. So Hagrid was just standing on my coffee table?

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Micah: As you do.

Andrew: You’re like, “Um, should I call the police?”

Laura: I was like, “Sir, this is a private residence.”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: Andrew, didn’t you go to a public Wizards Unite event?

Andrew: I did, yeah, in Indianapolis, and you could go around with fellow fans and collect Confoundables. We were saving Indiana all together. So I just loaded up Pokémon Go; I’m catching some Pokémon now. I registered a new Pokémon to my Pokédex. Yeah, it should have been something else. Couldn’t they have focused more on wizarding world creatures instead of catching humans in Wizards Unite? And it felt more tedious than Pokémon Go. So it’s a shame.

Eric: I think the thing that a lot of these iterations get wrong is they’re too dark. They’re unexplainably dark. Heavy on the Death Eaters, heavy on the Acromantulas. And it’s like, “You know, there’s a lot of lightness to be had in Harry Potter. Give us more of that.”

Andrew: There is.

Laura: Honestly, though, I mean, based on the timing… because that was what, 2016? It is kind of surprising they didn’t try to do something that was more aligned with Fantastic Beasts. It just seems like that’s built-in promotional material.

Andrew: Exactly.

Eric: I mean, I think you could catch a Mooncalf, but it wasn’t… you didn’t have your own case or anything.

Micah: Not like catching a Mooncalf in Hogwarts Legacy.

Eric: Right.

Micah: Which you can do.

Laura: You can.

Eric: That magical encounter, yes.

Micah: I mean, you can catch a lot of things. So yeah, maybe they were just punting it down the road a couple years.

Andrew: Yeah. Speaking of mobile games, there’s one I don’t think any of us played, Harry Potter: Magic Awakened, and this was combining a collectible card mechanic game with RPG-style gameplay. It was initially released in China in 2021 before it expanded around the world in 2023, but now it’s going to be closing in select countries, including the US, by the end of 2024.

Eric: Yeah, you’re right. I think that one missed me.

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, it wasn’t on any of our radar.

Laura: I know there was another one that was really frustrating because you needed gems or some kind of currency.

Eric: Was that Hogwarts Mystery?

Laura: Yes, Hogwarts Mystery. It was so annoying.

Eric: Hogwarts Mystery… I do agree. It’s possible they adjusted that in the end. It was to keep you coming back, but you literally would get to a point where a few story cards in, you would be out of energy because you encountered something, and it’s like, “Oh, I can’t even take in the story that I’m being given because it’s siphoned off.” So Hogwarts Mystery, though, for what it promised… it was set, I think, in the 1980s, or you’re in Charlie Weasley’s year, so Tonks is around. They eventually did complete all the years of Hogwarts, so that’s actually quite a lot of story. I’m assuming that one’s still available.

Andrew: I think it is.

Eric: But the various mobile games throughout the year, yeah.

Andrew: So let’s look at WizardingWorld.com again. There was something called Wizarding World Gold, and we talked about this a bunch on MuggleCast.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: This was a paid subscription on WizardingWorld.com that was launched in 2019. It offered fans exclusive perks, like early event access, discounts at official stores, collectible pins that you could get at the Cursed Child or Wizarding World theme park. You also got a unique physical book that was personalized to the subscriber; that part was cool. It had your name printed in it.

Eric: Did you receive that?

Andrew: I did, yeah. It was nice. But the subscription didn’t gain any traction, and we all… everybody who had it was like, “What am I paying for exactly here?”

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: It was $99 a year, I think, or $79 a year. I meant to look up the price.

Eric: I did not buy it, and I’m so happy that I did not buy it.

Laura: Neither did I.

Micah: Well, Andrew and I took the hit for you all.

Eric: Oh my God. You know when the biggest offer was a discount in the stores. Like, come on, guys. [laughs]

Micah: Well, I think – at least I’ll speak for myself – in order to speak knowledgeably about it, you’d have to get the product and be able to talk about it.

Eric: It’s true, yeah.

Micah: But in a way, it was its own Patreon for Harry Potter fans.

Eric: Except that creator did nothing.

Micah: Well, that’s what I was going to say, is that the biggest challenge that it faced was the fact that it really didn’t offer much, and you can’t do that, and that’s why it fell flat. And I’ve got to imagine it was probably challenging for the folks at Wizarding World Gold to keep coming up with different ideas that they could sell people on, and it didn’t end up working out.

Andrew: Yeah, because what would you do? I don’t even have any ideas for them. And I don’t want to give them any.

Micah: The pins is cool, but you could do the pins outside of Wizarding World Gold. You could make pins available at different Harry Potter locations throughout the world and just sell them as one-offs.

Eric: Yeah, so many stores have that license now. And Micah, it makes sense that you had it because you live in New York, so it’s like, at least you could check out the Cursed Child gift shop, the Harry Potter store eventually. Not sure if the timeline adds up for that.

Micah: I didn’t think it did, but definitely for Cursed Child, because I think when we went to see it, that’s when I got the pin for Wizarding World Gold.

Eric: Oh, that’s right. The special… yeah.

Andrew: Well, the Cursed Child was just mentioned, and another item in our graveyard, the original version of the Harry Potter stage play. Before Cursed Child became the official continuation of Harry’s story, early versions of the stage play were conceptualized as a family drama focused on Harry’s early years living under the stairs at the Dursleys’ house. And I still remember when we found out about this, and we were shocked. Of all the things you’re going to do, you’re going to just follow Harry under the cupboard? That sounds dark and depressing as heck.

Eric: I was excited.

Andrew: It was supposed to explore the emotional challenges that Harry faced before discovering magic. It was kind of like a prequel of sorts. [laughs] And luckily, they changed their minds and we got the Cursed Child, which…

Laura: Luckily?

Andrew: Well, yeah, for all that has been said about the plot, it is a very cool show to see on stage, so I think they ultimately made the right decision.

Laura: Mmkay.

Andrew: [laughs] Laura, you can’t judge it until you’ve seen it!

Eric: Yeah, it’s true.

Laura: And here’s the thing, I would love to see it; I’ve heard that the production is something to behold. But I think it would have been possible for them to tell a better story and still put on a really great production. Maybe not this original story, maybe something else, but…

Andrew: See it to believe it.

Laura: Yeah, I don’t know. I think… I feel like one of the big pitfalls that this franchise has encountered again and again is assuming that if they slap “Harry Potter” on something, it’s going to sell and be successful.

Eric: Thank you.

Laura: And we’ve seen that how many times over at this point? Stop doing this. Actually do something good. It’s insulting.

Eric: That’s the word. It was insulting, releasing Harry’s story and claiming that these were the same characters. They don’t read the same, sound the same, say the same things. It just… it was insulting. It played to the lowest common denominator of general audience in many ways.

Andrew: You’re talking about Cursed Child still?

Eric: Yeah.

Andrew: [laughs] This is a rough take.

Laura: I’m just speaking in general.

Micah: I agree with what Laura is saying, though. Anytime you’ve tried to expand the story, at least those that they’ve tasked that with haven’t done a good job. When you look at Fantastic Beasts, when you look at Cursed Child… we’ve said the production of Cursed Child, without question, is fantastic, but the story is horrible.

Eric: I remember you freaking out, Andrew, about Delphi. Like, “Voldemort can have kids?”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: There you go. I made you laugh.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Yeah, that was… yeah. Well, the Bellatrix/Voldemort angle in particular was the shocking…

Eric: Now you’re on board. I had to remind you how bad it was.

Andrew: I still have a soft spot in my heart for Cursed Child. I think it’s enjoyable. I’m willing to forgive the story because of what you witness on stage. [laughs] I think it’s…

Eric: I will say, Scorpius and Albus Severus is the closest thing to a gay couple that we’ve seen realized in official Harry Potter canon.

Andrew: There is that, too.

Laura: Yes.

Eric: And it beats out Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and they had three films to do that.

Andrew: Yeah. We actually do have a new entry for the Cursed Child graveyard section of the graveyard that we’ll get to a little bit later. Let’s return to the illustrated editions. I mentioned the Jim Kay ones; I’m putting a question mark on this gravestone. So Jim Kay’s illustrated editions of the Harry Potter books began with Philosopher’s Stone in 2015, and these books are beautiful. I think I prefer these to the MinaLima editions. There was supposed to be all seven books, but Jim Kay stepped down after Order of the Phoenix; he said it’s a huge burden on him, and we totally understand that. Scholastic and Bloomsbury have said that this series is going to continue; I would have presumed with the person who was assisting Jim Kay on Book 5; there’s somebody else on that book who assisted with some illustrations. But we haven’t heard anything about Half-Blood Prince yet, and we should have by now, because Order of the Phoenix illustrated came out in 2022, so it’s been a solid two years. They were on a two-year cadence, especially with the more recent ones. Neil Packer was the person who was helping Jim Kay on Order of the Phoenix. So we’ll see, but I hope we’re not going to have two incomplete illustrated edition series.

Eric: That would be awful, especially because I think Book 6 is such a joy that it’s going to be a shame not to at least get Book 6. They should have just not took too much on. They should have split the books and made smaller books, like done Book 5 in two parts, like I was suggesting…

Andrew: You’re still on this. You’ve been asking for this forever.

Eric: [laughs] I know, I’m sorry.

Andrew: Stop trying to make split books happen!

Eric: It’s a great opportunity to relive sort of what our thoughts were, past, present, and continuing, so… forgive me. [laughs]

Andrew: No, no, I love flipping through those Jim Kay books. Just so good.

Eric: Yeah, his art of Ginny – I think it’s in Prisoner, because there wasn’t any art of Ginny in Chamber; a travesty – was really good. I love that art.

Micah: The only thing that I could point to here is just that you’re going to lose consistency. And I think when they start talking about doing something that is going to require somebody – or multiple people – to step in to do it for seven books, they really need to think about if that’s something that’s possible. We’re seeing it with MinaLima. We’re seeing it with Jim Kay. We’re going to talk about the anniversary editions that they only did one of.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: They said, “Okay, let’s celebrate ten years of Sorcerer’s Stone. That’s it.” I think it’s a missed opportunity, honestly, for Scholastic and Bloomsbury to not celebrate big milestones for Harry Potter.

Andrew: Oh, yeah.

Eric: It’s money on the table too.

Micah: There’s that, but I still think there’s an opportunity to celebrate, aside from just saying, “It’s 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and we’re going to give you another book for it.” Collectors love it, for sure, but I just… I don’t feel like they’ve celebrated the books in the way that they could have.

Eric: I’m going to give them a tip: Next time you want to start a seven-book collectible series, start with 7. Start with number 7. Work backwards.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Work your way backwards. It only gets easier, right?

Eric: We have enough Book Ones, and then it gets easier! That’s exactly right.

Andrew: Right, right, yeah. So Micah just mentioned the 10th anniversary editions. There was one that came out for Sorcerer’s Stone. I love this cover! It’s new artwork by Mary Grand-Pré; she did it just for the 10th anniversary edition. The book also included some new material, some bonus material from the author. Micah is modeling off the book right now. It’s Harry staring into the Mirror of Erised; you could see the silhouettes of his parents in the background. Something about this cover, just the colors… look at that artwork in there too. Very nice. So they did the one, and that was it. And I would have loved if Mary Grand-Pré did new covers for each of the books. Maybe that’s asking too much, because she also did do a lot of extra art, not just the chapter art, but did other stuff for posters and whatnot. They could have used all that for new covers. The 10th anniversary is a special one; I wish they saw that series through.

Eric: Yeah, yeah. I agree.

Laura: Why do you think they didn’t continue it? Did it just not sell very well? Did Mary Grand-Pré say, “I’m done; I’m out”?

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: My understanding – take this with a grain of salt or not – my understanding is a soured relationship. Mary Grand-Pré was a relative unknown when she did the Harry Potter books; as such, she doesn’t own her own art, and so somebody, an art insider, told me that was sort of the situation, is Warner Bros. on one hand… or Scholastic, rather. Nothing to do with WB. But Scholastic would be like, “Make us more art. Come make more art.” She’s like, “Why would I do that? I don’t own my art that I make for Harry Potter.” So I think that was another instance, though, where a soured relationship with the artist not being willing to give up either some creative control or some money or contractual disputes probably soured, and the artist was just like, “Nope, I’m walking away.”

Andrew: Yeah. So here’s something that’s not a book or a game or a movie: a Celebration of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando. This was an official event for fans. Ran from 2014 to 2018, and fans could attend panels – not fan panels, mind you – meet cast members, participate in interactive exhibits; they had a little show floor. Micah and I went once, maybe twice, and it was surprising to see it wasn’t coming back, because it was the one annual Harry Potter event in America, so it was… and you would think Universal would have wanted to continue doing it because it was a great way to bring people to the parks for the Wizarding World lands.

Eric: Yeah, they tried a couple of gatherings like the expos, and then this other convention they tried to do. It just felt very, I think, corporate in the end, because it wasn’t…

Andrew: It did.

Eric: Well, by that point – and none of these are viewed in a vacuum – it’s like, what was the fandom doing at the time? Or what had the fans accomplished? And there were a lot more personable conventions, gatherings, things like Dragon Con and the Chestnut Hill conference, which just had its seventh year. There are so many fan-led conventions and gatherings, and then you look at what WB was going to do, and yeah, it’s in the park, but we were in the park for a fan convention. We rented it out at night in 2010, 2011, 2014, 2017. They couldn’t offer anything the fans themselves hadn’t already done, basically.

Micah: Yeah, I don’t disagree with that. I’m trying to remember what the experience was like outside of Andrew and I getting caught in a thunderstorm at one point, but… [laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, it was fine. It wasn’t…

Micah: I think there was a performance of some of the Harry Potter music, right? Outside? Do you remember that?

Andrew: I don’t know. I can’t remember. I’m starting to realize why this hasn’t returned. [laughs]

Micah: There was some Q&A with cast that were present.

Andrew: And there were… you could learn how to cast a spell with the wand coordinator from the Harry Potter movies.

Micah: Right, you…

Andrew: But he shows up at the unofficial cons too.

Micah: You rode a broom, from what I remember. They had a lot of props there as well. They had the Goblet of Fire. They had the thing spitting out all of the letters that Harry gets from Dursleys’.

Andrew: Oh, right. They had some props; that was cool.

Micah: Anyway.

Andrew: Yeah, this is… I’m bored talking about this.

Micah: Yeah, let’s move on. [laughs]

Andrew: But there was something else that was supposed to happen last year and didn’t. It was called Wizarding World Festival, and it was announced on Back to Hogwarts Day in 2022. It was supposed to happen summer 2023 somewhere in America. It was going to be this three-day festival featuring “panel discussions, film screenings, special guest appearances, cosplay and trivia competitions, autograph signings, photo opportunities, exclusive merchandise, special announcements, and more magical experiences.” So more going on than a Celebration of Harry Potter. Like I said, it was supposed to happen last year. It never happened. They had a website; a mailing list. “Stay tuned, everybody.”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: It went nowhere! My only guess is, in light of all the JKR backlash, they thought maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to do this, because they were also marketing it as sort of this outdoor festival. Would there be people protesting? Would people be trolling the event? Maybe they realized it would be too much trouble to do and too risky, possibly? I don’t know. Then again, if it’s a ticketed event… I don’t get it. It’s just so weird. They announced it in 2022, and then we never heard another peep. So this one, I think, hurts fans the most: an official Harry Potter encyclopedia. It’s very much in the graveyard at this point. For years, the author was promising a comprehensive encyclopedia covering everything about the wizarding world. We were expecting it to include boatloads of new information, reveal old notes, etc. It just would include everything we could have ever dreamed of. And the author said multiple times – on Pottercast, in court, and on her official website…

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Yep.

Andrew: … that she was working on this and that it would be released. It never happened. We got Pottermore, like we said earlier; that kind of felt like a Internet version of the encyclopedia, even though it wasn’t what we were fully hoping for in an encyclopedia. Last year, we did get something called the Wizarding World Almanac, which is just a rehashing of information we already knew in an illustrated format, so it was like, “Meh.” We never got what we dreamed of most of all.

Eric: No, this one hurts, because you just know that many, many years of planning went into this wizarding world. Even of the first seven books; by the time Deathly Hallows was published, there were an encyclopedia’s worth of things that could have been organized into some form of what could be the encyclopedia, and it would be fascinating. Stuff like the lineage of Dean Thomas, and not just a screenshot of a picture of the thing, but the actual thoughts behind it and stuff. Really could have been honed, I want to say. But even with Pottermore, the special exclusive writing from J.K. Rowling got lesser and lesser, I think, as the books went on, and that was a real shame, because if the author had committed to writing one new piece per chapter, or for every other chapter, even, there would have been a lot more of that same content that we wanted that belongs in an encyclopedia.

Laura: Do y’all think that had the official encyclopedia happened, do y’all think that it would have included poop mountain?

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Absolutely.

Micah: How could it not?

Andrew: Yeah! She’s supposed to tell us everything.

Eric: We know that she’s been waiting to… well, that was the other thing, is that the author’s own writing ability, I think, waned in the years… if you look at the screenplay for Crimes of Grindelwald, you’re like, “Can she even tell the story anymore?” But before that, the Ilvermorny stuff was straight up appropriation. Unapologetic, didn’t consult anybody… the controversy over the years about her writing was growing, and for good reasons. So I don’t know; if we hadn’t gotten the encyclopedia in 2008, 2011, maybe at the latest 2012, we were never going to get it.

Micah: Wasn’t there talk of it being an accessibility issue as well, and that’s why Pottermore was created in the first place? Meaning that presumably most people could access – and I know not every place in the world has Internet access – but the ability for folks to be able to access Pottermore.com is greater than having to go out and buy a $25 encyclopedia.

Eric: I think you’re right.

Andrew: Eh, are you thinking of Cursed Child? Because that’s why they released the script book?

Micah: No, I seem…

Eric: No, I think somebody legitimately… yeah, somebody said that about Pottermore. Somebody official, prominent, said that it was more accessible, but…

Andrew: Well, they were just BS-ing, because this started as a book series. [laughs]

Micah: Well, I’m not agreeing with it; I’m just saying…

Eric: Yeah, yeah. You’re talking about people who somehow have the Harry Potter books, so… [laughs]

Andrew: Right.

Eric: It’s like, “Eh.”

Andrew: I wouldn’t be surprised if we do end up seeing whatever the author had put together at some point down the road still, but the shame of it all is that the people who were once claiming for this now don’t care, and so it won’t receive the excitement that once would have rocked the fandom.

Micah: So it’ll probably happen.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Andrew: Right, yeah. We’ll see. So another project… and I had forgotten about this, or I didn’t really know about this until doing research for this episode. Electronic Arts – the makers of older Harry Potter video games, The Sims, Sim City, and many more titles, of course – they were working on a Harry Potter MMO. This was in the early 2000s, and it was a massively multiplayer online game. It actually had made it well into the development process; they were at the beta process. They were ready to go with a beta. And we don’t have any other details about this, but somebody who worked on the game commented on it a couple of years ago, which was one of the few if only times we have an official record of it. But that would have been awesome. On the other hand, video games have evolved a lot over the last 20 years, and if they work on something like this now, it’ll be incredible, and hopefully they do.

Laura: They better.

Andrew: The Harry Potter Ultimate Edition DVDs. This is another item in the graveyard. These started strong; they had lavish packaging and behind-the-scenes content for the first four movies when they started being released in 2009, and it was nice to have, “Okay, here’s Sorcerer’s Stone and every extra piece of content we filmed for the movie, the deleted scenes, outtakes, behind-the-scenes looks,” this and that. But then with the later movies, 5-8, the content in them was lacking, right, Eric? I think you feel very strongly about this.

Eric: Yeah, it’s complicated. So they did eventually… the biggest reason to get the Ultimate Editions, apart from the version of the movie with the deleted scenes back in – which is a feature I’ve never liked, but I put up with people who love it – the eight-part documentary, the “Creating the World of Harry Potter.” That was the big deal, was every film was going to get one of those, and every film was going to get an Ultimate Edition, which would be the exclusive home for those. They did eventually actually do that eight-part documentary; it’s on YouTube, but it is also on some of the Blu-ray collections as well, so you can still get… they fulfilled the promise of the documentary, at least, but the Ultimate Editions as we know them I don’t think made it past four, and so it was… and then Blu-ray itself, I think, came out, which made DVD… studios probably weren’t investing in creating DVD boxsets in the same way, and nowadays we’re back to studios not really doing any special features for films, even on their home video release. So the tide turned, I think, in the industry and otherwise, and it ate up what was originally this promising, very colorful boxset.

Andrew: Yeah, hopefully one day they do release the boxset we’ve all waited for. Just throw literally everything into this boxset for all eight movies. Fantastic Beasts, too, sure. Everything. Everything you’ve got. [laughs]

Eric: I mean, as you get to the later films, the deleted scenes weren’t meant to be put back in the film, because they were alternate stuff, right? And they were… in the first movie, it was stuff that was in the books that was just a little extra that they cut for pacing; that makes sense to put back in the movies. But in the later ones, if you look at the deleted scenes from the later films, it really wouldn’t have made sense to put some of them back in. Still, the Ultimate Edition… they could have done something else with it.

Andrew: Yeah. I want to touch on one more item, and this was the most recent, and this is a bit of news: The Cursed Child on Broadway is going to be further shrinking its runtime.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: So the touring version of Cursed Child just opened up in Chicago, and it’s going to be coming to DC and LA next year. The Broadway version is currently one part. London still has the two-part version of Cursed Child, but they couldn’t make the… they were trying to make it work on Broadway; I think financially, they were too constrained, so then they shifted to this single-part version. But now they’re going to take the touring version and make that the new Broadway version, so it’s going to go from three and a half hours to under three hours long. It seems worrying that they have to keep shrinking the runtime, especially if you have to cut it an extra half hour?

Eric: What is there to cut? And if there’s that to cut, you should have cut it originally.

Andrew: And I bet they’re going to cut all the gay stuff that they added in by shrinking it down to one part.

Laura: Yep.

Eric: Oh no!

Andrew: [laughs] And you know what’s so funny? I got a press release about this the other day. So Sonia Friedman, who produces the show, she said in this statement, “From the very beginning, we and the creative team have challenged ourselves to find new and innovative ways to bring the extraordinary storytelling and stage craft to life.” That’s how you’re introducing this? You’ve always strived to make it shorter? Is that what you’re saying?

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: I don’t get the spin here. [laughs]

Eric: You’re giving audiences 30 minutes less.

Andrew: Right. For the same price, surely, that it’s been. [laughs]

Laura: Honestly, it’s just corporate. That’s all it is. She’s just speaking in corporate.

Andrew: Yeah, I mean, this is all PR’ed to hell, but I just had to laugh when I saw that. “We have always challenged ourselves.” Like, okay?

Laura: What the heck?

Micah: You know, having seen Cursed Child very recently, I’m not sure what they could cut that would… it’s not like being there for three and a half hours you feel it drag at any point, so I’m curious… I can understand maybe when you’re on the road in other cities, but when you’ve been in New York for so long, and you’ve already cut it from two shows down to one, to further cut down the run time, what it suggests to me, maybe, is that this is going off Broadway sooner rather than later.

Andrew: Oh, I fully agree. And you know what I was thinking about, too? So we had on one of the stars of Cursed Child – for the next month or so – Joel Meyers, and he was talking about how physically demanding this show is. I’m imagining him reading this news and being like, “Oh, why couldn’t I have had the three-hour version? Why did I have the three and a half hour?” [laughs] “I could have been working less, damn it!”

Eric: Amazing.

Andrew: Well, I have not seen the single version, single part-version of Cursed Child. I would like to; I’ve heard very good things about it. I’ve heard very good things about the Chicago version, too, so I’m sure people who see this new version on Broadway are going to have just as good of a time, but it is worrying that they keep shrinking it on Broadway. So that is the graveyard of goods. But I do have a question for everybody: As a wise poet likes to sing, “Everything dies, baby; that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.” So if we could bring one of the above items back, what would it be? Eric?

Eric: Oh, everybody gets… each of us get a reprieve that we get to give?

Andrew: Yes, you have the power to revive something. What would it be?

Eric: Oh, I love this question so much. I think the original Pottermore.com. All of the artwork, the chapters by chapter, more content about and behind the scenes of the books… I really would just want that. It was a moment in time; captured our hearts. I think we were all getting a little anxious about the end of Potter when that came along, and it was so pure and had the best intentions, and never really got completed in the way that I think it was intended, and didn’t stay.

Andrew: Yeah. Laura, how about you?

Laura: That Harry Potter MMO. They better do some online multiplayer gameplay with the next Hogwarts Legacy or I’m going to riot.

Andrew: Micah, how about you?

Micah: I have so much nostalgia for the original JKRowling.com, but I’m a completionist, and I’m going to go with the MinaLima editions.

Andrew: Ooh, good one.

Eric: So they work it out. They keep going.

Micah: There were never any problems. It’s all resolved.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: They’re working on Goblet of Fire.

Eric: Aww.

Andrew: So I would say Fantastic Beasts. I really would’ve loved to have seen that series fully through. Number three was fantastic – beasts – and I was left excited about where they were going with it, so I wish it was seen through.

Lynx Line

Andrew: This week’s Lynx Line question was exactly this topic for patrons: If you could bring back one of these, what would it be? And I did a poll. Number one at 28% of the vote was the Fantastic Beasts film series. At 22% was the MinaLima editions. At 19% was the official Harry Potter encyclopedia; I’m actually surprised that made the top three. And then number four was the Jim Kay illustrated editions, and then Pottermore classic. Thanks, everybody who participated in that poll. If you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo that’s recorded on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com, and next week will be a Muggle Mail episode, so get your feedback in now. Email anything about Order of the Phoenix Chapter by Chapter or today’s discussion. Again, MuggleCast@gmail.com. No Quizzitch this week; it’ll be back next week. This show is brought to you by Muggles like you. We’re an indie podcast just sharing our love of Harry Potter with fellow fans, so your financial support is of the utmost importance. In fact, listener support is the only reason we’ve been able to podcast for 19 years and counting. And there are three great ways to help us out: If you’re an Apple Podcasts user, subscribe to MuggleCast Gold – it’s better than Wizarding World Gold…

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: … which gets you access to ad-free and early releases of MuggleCast, plus two bonus installments every month. For even more benefits, pledge at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and you’ll get all the benefits of MuggleCast Gold, plus livestreams, Lynx Line participation, a physical gift every year, and more. And the newest way to support us – and we’re all showing off something today – is by purchasing some MuggleCast merchandise at MuggleCastMerch.com. Do you think any of your Muggle friends want to have more Harry Potter friends? Then tell them about us, and you can also help us spread the word by leaving a five star review in your favorite podcast app. Lastly, visit MuggleCast.com for transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and more. That does it for this week’s episode. Don’t forget to check out all of those Halloween episodes that we plugged at the top. Happy Halloween, everybody. We’ll see you next time. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Laura: bye.

The post Transcript #680 appeared first on MuggleCast.

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Happy Halloween! Welcome to Harry Potter and the Graveyard of Goods! Join us as we discuss the official projects by Wizarding World Inc. that’ve perished over the decades. These’ve been rejected by the Sorting Hat. They’re on display in Diagon Fail-ey. You get the point.

• Our Time Turner segment takes us back to the echoes of Halloween episodes past! Be sure to check out Episode 633: Quizzitch Live – Halloween Edition (2023); Episode 535: Halloween Extravaganza (2021); Episode 487: The Scariest Moments in Harry Potter (2020); Episode 343: Fantastic Beasts And The Not 2 (2017); Episode 161: Larger Than Life (2008) and Episode 61: Ghosts (2006).
• Reminder! The MuggleCast Merch Store is now open! Grab brand-new, original MuggleCast designs. We have t-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, hats, and more!
• So what names are on the headstones in the Graveyard of Goods?
• Fantastic Beasts… more like Fantastic Busts!
• Who really axed the MinaLima Illustrated Editions?
• Potter-NO-more
• Who pulled the plug on Wizards Unite & Magic Awakened?
• What happened to the Original Version of the Harry Potter Stage Play?
• Will Jim Kay’s Illustrated Editions get a sixth and seventh installment?
• Why was there only one 10th Anniversary Edition of a Harry Potter book?
• Wizarding World Festival… oh, you never heard of that either?
• Is the Official Harry Potter Encyclopedia the biggest bogeyman of the Wizarding World!
• Who scratched up all of the Ultimate Edition DVDs?
• Plus, if each of the hosts could pick one item, what would each of them revive?
• On this week’s Bonus MuggleCast, we discuss how Harry Potter characters would (or wouldn’t) survive famous horror movies! You can get Bonus MuggleCast and other great benefits at Patreon.com/MuggleCast!
• Visit MuggleCast.com for episode transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and to contact us!

Download now OR, now read the Episode 680 Transcript!

The post Episode #680: Harry Potter and the Graveyard of Goods appeared first on MuggleCast.

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Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #679, Disorder of the Phoenix (OOTP Chapter 5, The Order of the Phoenix)

Show Intro

[Show music plays]

Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.

Eric Scull: I’m Eric.

Micah Tannenbaum: And I’m Micah.

Andrew: Get ready to be mollycoddled, because this week we’re talking about how much info Harry needs to know and why the adults fuss over letting him have it. It’s time for Chapter 5 of Order of the Phoenix, called, easily enough, “Order of the Phoenix.” And joining us this week is friend of the show, fellow Hypable podcaster, Pam! Welcome back, Pam.

Pam Gocobachi: Hi, thanks for having me back.

Andrew: Of course. You coho… you cohost Millennial with Laura and I. You coho…

[Andrew and Pam laugh]

Andrew: Coho, coho. You cohost What the Hype?! with us.

Micah: Wrong show, wrong show.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Pam is putting in all the podcasting work this week, so we appreciate it while Laura takes the week off.

Eric: Thank you, Pam.

Pam: I’m playing bingo with our whole little podcast family.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Listeners, before we jump into Chapter by Chapter, reminder that last week we launched our brand new MuggleCast merch store, available at MuggleCastMerch.com. This is where you can grab brand new, original MuggleCast shirts, hats, hoodies, and more. For example, we have Security Nightmare gear. We have Choo-choo hats and shirts. We have a “We criticize because we care” T-shirt, which I’m a big fan of. We even have a Pickle Pack T-shirt. So there’s lots of great options at MuggleCastMerch.com, and this is an excellent place to support us if you don’t already support us on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Though I will say, patrons are getting an additional merchandise discount that they can use at checkout at MuggleCastMerch.com. So once again, check out MuggleCastMerch.com and pick something up.

Eric: And one other announcement: ‘Tis the season for MuggleCast Secret Santa. This is something that has been long running for the show, particularly on our patrons Facebook group, which you get by being a part of the Patreon community. And many thanks to Brittney B., who all these years has been running it. You guys participating this year, do you think?

Andrew: I think so. I need to check out the… I need to get on the list.

Eric: I’ve gotten some great gifts. The sign-up deadline is December 2, and if anyone has any questions, feel free to message us. But that’s just a courtesy announcement to let you know.

Micah: I actually got these very cool Ravenclaw coasters…

Eric: I like that.

Micah: … from one of our Secret Santas.

Pam: Cute.

Micah: There’s more than one; there’s four of them, so it’s not just like they…

Pam: [laughs] Just one coaster?

Micah: … hauled it off of a local diner and sent it along. But it’s something that I really enjoy doing every year, so I’m glad that it’s back, and thanks to Brittney for pulling it all together again.

Eric: Yeah, and full instructions – because we do do it through Elfster and all that – can be found on a pinned post in the Facebook group.

Micah: You never know what I’m going to pull off the shelf.

Andrew: [laughs] You’ve got a lot on those shelves.

Eric: I don’t ever know.

Andrew: [laughs] Well, speaking of Patreon, this week on bonus MuggleCast, we will celebrate Halloween by coming up with our own potions that we think would solve a specific problem, so we came up with some concoctions. We came up with names for these; at least, I came up with a name for mine.

Eric: Yes, yes. I was pressured to also come up with a name when I saw that you did.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: And Pam had one in there.

Pam: Well, only because Andrew put one in. I was like, “Oh, is that what we’re doing?”

Eric: I know!

Andrew: [laughs] Wow, I am such an influencer.

Pam: Monkey see, monkey do over here.

[Andrew and Pam laugh]

Micah: We all contributed.

Andrew: Okay, excellent. So we’re going to have a fun bonus MuggleCast this week. Again, over on Patreon and also through Apple Podcasts, we release two bonus MuggleCast installments every month.

Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner

Andrew: So without further ado, time for Chapter by Chapter Order of the Phoenix Chapter 5, “The Order of the Phoenix.”

Eric: [laughs] We last spoke about this chapter on Episode 230, titled “Trendsetter,” for June 4, 2011, and Episode 437, “The Voldeport.”

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Micah: What?

Eric: Which I thought I had an idea what that would be, and it’s not what I thought that it was, interestingly enough, the meaning of Voldeport. Anyway, that one was from October 7, 2019. Let’s roll the Time-Turner clip.

Andrew: Pam, get ready for this production value.

Eric: Ooh.

Pam: I’m so excited.

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.

Ron: What the…?

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 230.

Micah: Yeah, you…

Andrew: Because we’re getting in deeper into the story here, things are getting a lot darker, so it’s like you expect that we’re going to see some very dark, powerful magic going down in this book.

Micah: Yeah, and you think “weapon,” you think like…

Andrew: A deathstick.

Micah: Yeah, I don’t know.

Andrew: Like a sword or…

Micah: Yeah, something like that. Something that if he physically had it, could do serious damage to other people. But it’s just a prophecy.

Andrew: Right, right. It is a bit misleading.

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 437.

Micah: And I don’t think Sirius really has had the opportunity to mature because he was locked up in Azkaban for 13 years, and he’s very much been a prisoner, despite the fact that he’s not in jail, if we think about everything that he’s been through since Prisoner of Azkaban.

Pat: Yeah, he spent a year just living with Buckbeak. You can’t talk to Buck… well, I mean, you can, but he’s not going to talk back.

[Andrew squawks]

[Whooshing sound]

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.

[Bell dings]

Micah: That was you, Andrew?

Andrew: Oh, that was me making the noise, but Pat was on there too. I did not realize he was on that long ago.

[Andrew and Pam laugh]

Micah: I was going to say, June 4, 2011, the allergies were definitely kicking in for you and me, Andrew. [laughs]

Eric: We all have that problem going back ten or more years. Yeah, we all had allergies called puberty.

Andrew: I think it was a nasally voice. We were just trying to be a little more radio-y back in the day. Comes a little more natural now.

Eric: It’s why these look-backs are so fun.

Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion

Andrew: Well, to kick things off, I just want to set the scene by observing how the scene is described, because I think it says a lot about this chapter and the Order of the Phoenix. So the kitchen is in the basement, and there is this haze of pipe smoke hanging in the air like battle fumes. And I love the symbolism here, because the kitchen, which is normally the gathering spot for families – or in this case, the Order – it’s underground. It’s hidden, which I think is emblematic of this hidden operation going on right now. And the battle fumes add to the vibes that this is a war crew; it feels like Harry just entered the war room, the Situation Room.

[Pam laughs]

Eric: Yeah, the whole underground thing reminds me of a bunker. And not only is this war time, you’re right to point out, but there’s going to be a war fought over Harry in this chapter.

Andrew: [laughs] I didn’t think about that.

Pam: Yeah, I was just going to say that the idea of battle fumes is almost like a premonition of what’s to come. So it kind of also gives you the sense that they’ve probably been arguing down there for a while, because everybody’s stuck living under the same roof too. This is definitely not the first time that they’ve butted heads.

Micah: And you could blame Mundungus for the battle that’s about to come, because if he didn’t Disapparate, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand.

Eric: Right, Harry would still be on Privet Drive, very, very upset with everyone for not telling him what’s going on.

Andrew: The Battle of Molly versus Sirius.

Eric: Let’s. Get. Into. It.

Micah: It’s on.

Eric: [in an announcer voice] In the left corner…

[Pam laughs]

Micah: We need that… I forget his name, but the boxing announcer.

Pam: Don King, is it? Or something?

Micah: No, not Vince McMahon. [laughs]

Eric: Was that…? Did I say something wrong? [laughs] “Let’s get ready to rumble!”

Andrew: He’s been canceled, hasn’t he?

Eric: That’s not Vince McMahon?

Micah: No, it’s not Vince McMahon.

Eric: Oh, damn. I don’t know anything about boxing. Okay, in the first corner, we have Sirius, Harry’s godfather, who in this chapter, more than any other chapter before, is doing godfatherly things, like telling Harry that he didn’t have it so bad on Privet Drive. It’s kind of funny, after another chapter of Harry’s shouting, to have him be reintroduced to Sirius, and Sirius is like, “Yeah, you didn’t have it that bad. I have it worse than you.” And the fact that Harry doesn’t also flip out with this information… I’m pretty sure Sirius is the only one alive who could survive saying such a thing to Harry right now, in the middle of all of his rage.

Micah: I think he was taken off guard by it.

Andrew: Like, he can’t be angry?

Micah: And Harry is also… he’s had a little time to process; he’s gotten a little bit of that emotion out of him. But I do think Sirius’s comment took him a little bit by surprise.

Eric: Yeah, agreed with that. But Sirius, of course, is referencing his own isolation, and it’s funny to see them go back and forth. Harry is like, “Well, at least you knew what’s going on,” and Sirius is actually… when I say he’s doing godfatherly things, I think he intuits both in general and directly from what Harry says, “At least you know what’s going on,” that Harry has wanted to know and probably been desperate for more information. And so really, the crux of this chapter is Sirius loudly saying, “Well, honestly, Harry, I’m surprised you haven’t been pressing us for more information on Voldemort,” and it lights the fire that the battle smoke comes, so I feel like this is a great assist. I feel like all the ways in which Sirius goes to bat during the argument with Molly is great, but just in general, having that conversation happen here, most people would prefer that it didn’t occur at all, and that’s just not, I think, reasonable, so Sirius has his back.

Micah: He does, and I like the word that you used, the “assist.” He gets Harry’s situation better than most, and I think he uses this moment to refocus him on what’s important, and that’s getting more information about what’s happening with Voldemort. And I just think Sirius, though, given how glum things are at Grimmauld Place, he figures, “Hey, can use a bit of drama around here. Let me stir the pot a little bit.”

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: “Let me be a little bit like my good friend Albus, and get the drama going.”

Andrew: That is the impression I got as well. Molly is ready to get the kids up to bed, and he’s like, “Uh-uh-uh, I want a little prime time entertainment before everybody goes to bed for the night.” But I do also understand… I think you’re kind of joking, Micah, but I also wouldn’t put that past Sirius, the idea of shaking up his lonely, isolated days here at Grimmauld Place with a little bit of excitement. And he wants his godson to know what’s been going on, and he knows his godson deserves to know.

Eric: Yeah, for sure. Do we think that Sirius actually understands Harry’s situation better than Molly does? Just the whole being excluded thing?

Pam: I think so, because Sirius was isolated for a long time, and we all know that they’ve been in correspondence, and that Harry was genuinely excited to go live with him after the events of Prisoner of Azkaban; that’s obviously before Wormtail escapes and all of that happens. But yeah, I just… I don’t know if the Weasleys, barring Ron and maybe Fred and George… because they see the bars on his window when they go and rescue him, right?

[Eric laughs]

Pam: … know really how bad he has it at the Dursleys’. He’s severely being abused there, maybe not fully physically, but it takes a toll on you to live in a house where people just think you’re a terrible human.

Micah: Yeah. Going off of what you said, Pam, and then also looking back to what we were discussing on Episode 437, Sirius has been a prisoner ever since he committed the crime against Pettigrew. It’s not changed; just the definition of prisoner has changed for him, right? He’s been in Azkaban for a period of time, but once he’s out, he’s really still a prisoner of circumstance. He never really gets to be free.

Eric: Right.

Micah: And this is his one opportunity, because it’s his home, so in a way, it’s a bit of “My house, my rules,” and I think that’s what’s going on here at the start. He wants to feel some level of control.

Pam: I think you could say, honestly, the same for Molly, but she’s coming at it from a different perspective, right? I think that she is coming at it from wanting to keep her family safe, and there’s so much that she cannot control with regards to that. And so they’re both lashing out for the same reason, but the catalyst for both of them is completely different.

Eric: Yeah, Molly has always been the pillar of her family, the heart of her family, and doesn’t… I really doubt she’s felt isolated in many, many, many, many years.

Pam: Yeah. Just think about the clock she has in her kitchen and why that exists, and maybe how many spoons she’s taken off over the years. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, seriously, Sirius’s clock would – for all the years he was in Azkaban – just be the shadows he made friends with on the wall.

Pam: [laughs] Right, exactly.

Andrew: And she’s also obeying Dumbledore’s orders. Dumbledore had asked that they not share a lot of info – or any info – with Harry, and she brings that up in this chapter.

Eric and Pam: Yeah.

Eric: So let’s… okay, so [in an announcer voice] in the other corner…

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: And by the way, it’s Michael Buffer, not Vince McMahon. In the other corner, Molly, somebody else’s mother, does someone-else’s-mother things, is what I titled this, because she is so extra in this chapter. It’s not just when she gets into it with Sirius. Long term listeners of the show will know that I have problems when anybody attacks my boy, but even before then, she’s interrupting people; she is really just trying to take control of everything. Kind of what you were saying, Pam; she doesn’t… she wants to exert this level of control because she probably feels as powerless as some of the others do. But there’s a moment that I forgot happens in this chapter, which is that Mundungus Fletcher opens his mouth to actually apologize to Harry for ditching him, and I couldn’t believe, as I was rereading this, that it was about to happen.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Dung is like, “I believe I owe you an apology,” and he’s about to actually apologize, but then Molly, from across the room, is like, “Mundungus Fletcher, I told you not to smoke that pipe in here!” And so what could have been a really redemptive moment for Dung is interrupted! And then it’s over. I’m like, “Ahh.”

Andrew: But in hindsight, we also know he ends up being a terrible person…

Eric: Ohh.

Andrew: … so I don’t think I want that redemptive moment from him. It’s also his fault for smoking in the house when Molly has already asked him not to.

Eric: Listen…

Andrew: Now, that said, I will play devil’s advocate with Dung. If you’re in the Order of the Phoenix, are you being paid for this role? He needs to make a little bit of money. They all need to make some money. I don’t think it’s fair they should be working in the Order for free.

Pam: It’s volunteer basis.

Andrew: I don’t like that! That’s not right.

[Pam laughs]

Micah: He can’t go outside and smoke; it’s too risky.

Andrew: He needs one of those, like, nicotine patches, I guess. You’re telling me…?

Eric: He needs a smoker’s corner. They need to build in an unplottable…

Andrew: Yeah, there’s not a spell or a potion to help people who have the urge to smoke in the wizarding world?

Micah: It adds to his character.

Andrew: It does.

Eric: Yeah, I agree. His character… I mean, honestly, if 12 Grimmauld Place smells like an old school bowling alley used to smell with all that cigarette…

Micah: Or a casino?

Eric: Yeah. Well, maybe not a casino, but bowling alley is what I think of. You know that smell. I would stay in Grimmauld Place for a summer if it smelled like that, because that was a good smell.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Eric: It was probably really bad for you. But I mean, Dung’s whole thing adds character. I think he’s okay for now, for two more books. It’s nice that he recognizes that he did a bad thing. See, if Mrs. Figg were here, she’d be forcing Dung to apologize. Nobody’s here doing that, and still, he looks at Harry, and he’s like, “I guess I owe you an apology.” And then he says, “I had a business deal,” and yeah, if they’re not getting paid, Andrew… duty calls, business calls, the money… you can’t line the inside of your wallet with hopes and dreams.

Andrew: [laughs] Right.

Eric: So she’s also, I guess, over-controlling. I can understand there’s this whole thing about dinner and people offer to help, and she’s kind of overboard on like, “Tonks, don’t help; you’ll only make things worse,” and I just think that that’s not very polite.

Micah: No.

Eric: She’s trying to be nice, but also like, “Tonks, don’t get anywhere near this food I’m making because you’ll ruin it.”

Andrew: She had also just asked for some help from anybody, I think…

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: … and then Tonks tries to help. I mean, this is just erratic behavior. Just ask somebody specific to help you if you don’t want somebody in the room to offer to help you.

Micah: She’s stressed. Some of her behavior isn’t defensible, but it’s understandable. And I’m thinking back to last episode; we talked a little bit about how she lost both of her brothers in the first wizarding war. Now she has Charlie, Bill, and Arthur all in the Order; Arthur is in the cross hairs of the Ministry; Percy is at odds with the family; Fred and George are a handful at the best of times; and Harry has just gone through this attack by Dementors, so throw that all together with the fact that she seems to be the caretaker now of Grimmauld Place, and I think that any one of those things is enough to be stressed about.

Eric: I mean, who asked her to become the caretaker of Grimmauld Place? I mean, well, though and maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s a conscious emotional labor.

Andrew: Maybe she offers.

Eric: But it’s somebody else’s house. It’s Sirius’s house?

Andrew: Do you want Sirius to cook? I don’t.

Pam: But that’s all she knows how to do. She’s a homemaker, until they give her the warrior moment, right? In Deathly Hallows. But up until then, we know that she’s a homemaker, and so I think she just tries to slip into that role for some semblance of normalcy. And maybe she should have asked, because you also can’t smother or mother adults, right? That’s ridiculous, especially adults that are not your children.

Andrew: Yeah, and I love this point Safir is bringing up in our Discord right now: Remember how cray we all went in lockdowns? Here’s something that happened since the last time we discussed this chapter: We’ve all experienced what lockdowns are like. They are in a lockdown, effectively, so of course some of the people are going to be going crazy, and there’s going to be some fights.

Micah: And the emotional effect that you were talking about, Andrew, we see it come to a head with what happens when she confronts the boggart in the wardrobe, and it’s constantly turning into different members of her family and then Harry.

Pam: Right.

Micah: She’s just very overwhelmed in this moment, and I think she unfairly takes it out on Sirius.

Eric: Well, thank you for… yeah, I mean, look, it’s clear that she’s overwhelmed, and everybody gets overwhelmed sometimes. What’s interesting to me is that the argument that develops is all about what Dumbledore has said probably a little bit ago, which was that, “Don’t tell Harry any more than he needs to know.” And I think it’s Dung who argues – or maybe Lupin – circumstances have changed since then. So there was this old edict from Dumbledore saying, “Don’t tell Harry more than he needs to know,” but none of these adults can get on the same page as one another on what that means, what that entails, and it ends up being… leading to this big argument.

Micah: It does seem strange, though, that there was no prep. They knew Harry eventually was going to be coming to Grimmauld Place. Why did they not discuss this? Why were they not ready to present some kind of information to him? It just seems like…

Pam: That has to be on Dumbledore, though…

Micah: Yes. [laughs]

Pam: … because the only argument anybody can give is that Dumbledore said “Need to know,” but if he doesn’t clarify “Need to know,” then that’s why all the other adults are at odds over what they should and shouldn’t say, and it’s probably because Dumbledore himself doesn’t know at that point. He’s still a little scared about how deep this connection goes with Harry, and he can’t tell anybody that because he’s keeping all his cards close to the chest, so…

Eric: What’s that, Pam? Insufficient orders from Dumbledore?

[Andrew and Pam laugh]

Pam: Sure. Is there a button for that?

Andrew: No.

Micah: The Disorder of the Phoenix.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Disorder of the Phoenix?

Eric: Disorder of the Phoenix. [laughs]

Andrew: Episode title.

Eric: There it is.

Micah: You’re welcome.

Eric: Oh my God.

[Ad break]

Eric: So let’s get into this, and I’ve prepared something of a blow by blow, because I do find it interesting – some people might think I’m coming for Molly; I’m not coming for Molly – but each character has different feelings about different aspects of the whole thing. Harry’s need to know, his danger level, whether or not he should be considered of age or responsible enough to know what Voldemort is doing, I think the whole thing’s offensive to even ask whether he needs to know anything about Voldemort. But we know there is a very good reason, ultimately, to keep Harry at least somewhat in the dark, in that it protects the plans that the Order have to defeat Voldemort. So with that in mind, let’s talk this through. So Molly first says that Ron and Hermione are too young for this information and to be in the Order of the Phoenix. Sirius is the one who says, “Who says they have to actually be in the Order? Harry has a right to know,” so Sirius again with the assist on Harry. But then Fred and George, who nobody asked, say, “Wait a minute, why can Harry be told stuff but we can’t? Because we’re of age.” And for me, I’m thinking this could have gone so well for Harry. Fred and George probably would have found out eventually, but now they want to throw their hat in, because they’ve been kept out of the loop as well.

Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I understand where they’re coming from. Harry is younger than them; Fred and George are adults. They deserve to know this information, especially when Ron and Hermione are going to be hearing this information too.

Eric: Do you think that the fact that Harry will tell Ron and Hermione – and he admits as such – means that anyone older than Ron and Hermione should also be told?

Andrew: Since they are in the house, yeah. I mean, why not? Fred and George are going to find their own way to get this information out of the trio if they’re not sitting there.

Eric: There’s a certain amount of trust that’s been extended to them all. They are inside the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.

Andrew: And that’s what we spoke about last week, I think, on the show. By being within this house, there is an unspoken… there’s a trust among this whole group.

Eric: Agreed. And all Sirius can say… he’s not going to engage with the whole “Of age, not of age” thing. He says, “This is up to your parents, ultimately. But as for Harry…” And this is when Molly goes off the deep end. She says, “‘It’s not down to you to decide what’s good for Harry!’ Her normally kindly face looked dangerous.”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: She leans on Dumbledore. She says, “Remember what Dumbledore said: Don’t tell him any more than he needs to know.”

Micah: So this is where I start to side a bit with Sirius in that Sirius is Harry’s guardian, and I think for Molly and for us as readers, we forget that there was a full year where Sirius got to be a godfather to Harry, when James and Lily were still alive. And he is definitely immature at times, but he’s still a good human being, and the shots that she takes at Sirius… I’m trying to think who I could possibly compare it to, but it’s not somebody that we would normally associate with Molly’s character.

Andrew: It’s an interesting dichotomy because it’s the woman who was taking care of Harry over the last four years in certain ways, looking out for him, versus, to your point, Micah, the guy who was his godfather IRL, saw him in person for a full year before James and Lily died. So it’s an interesting debate.

Eric: Yeah, and there’s evidence that Sirius cares for Harry and is a good godfather.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Eric: I mean, he gives him the Firebolt, and he gives him all that advice in the last year.

Andrew: I trust him. Is it partly his tone, maybe? Bringing this up right before Molly is trying to send them up to bed? Could Sirius and Molly have hashed this out in advance of Harry getting back?

Eric: That’s exactly it. They’re cooped up together, business associates. They’re in this underground, smoke-filled den of depravity and dung…

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: … and they just haven’t… yes, I think that Molly is like, “Oh, God, not this now.” Sirius is the one who’s… I think we’re right in thinking he’s having a bit of fun when he at least brings it up. Like, “Yeah, so Harry, you haven’t asked about what’s up with Voldemort.” I’m sure Molly is thinking anything but that right now, like, “Let’s get these people to bed,” and so I think that that knocks her off her edge, and she’s more likely to blow a gasket or say something offensive.

Pam: I wonder, too, if she has, in the time that they’ve all been cooped up together, noticed that Sirius is a little bit stunted of growth as a result of the fact that he’s been incarcerated for so long. And that’s of no fault of his own, but I just wonder if part of the reason why she seems hesitant to trust his judgment is because she sees how prone he is to being rash or doing things that are potentially dangerous, and so she doesn’t want that to rub off on Harry and for Harry to go and do something stupid. We all know Harry is also prone to being rash and playing the hero and jumping the gun. It’s a very Gryffindor trait, and he has that in spades, so…

Eric: It’s just shocking to see, I guess, so little respect for Harry’s legal guardian.

Pam: Yeah, yeah. No, I agree with that.

Eric: And that’s the interesting thing, is Molly has made her mind up about Sirius possibly long ago. Maybe there’s still remnants of thinking that he was a criminal.

Pam: And wasn’t there…? When Dumbledore said that… when he told Sirius to reveal himself to the Weasleys, wasn’t she a little bit dubious?

Eric: Oh, right.

Pam: So you’re right, maybe part of that prejudice has also not completely rubbed off.

Eric: Well, she just doesn’t know Sirius enough to say “He’s not James.” That is such a… and I know the movies are partially at fault for this whole thing, too, but ultimately, I think it’s way out of line for her… if she is having her feelings – which she is – that she needs to be the one to speak for Harry, she is stepping on the toes of Sirius. She is not listening to Lupin and some of these other people that may have different, rational arguments, and she goes straight for the jugular.

Pam: Yeah, Lupin specifically is so rational that it is surprising, you’re right, that she doesn’t concede at least to somebody like him, because he’s so calm and collected.

Micah: One thing I did want to bring up and just wanted to note, and certainly not something, I don’t think, I would have picked up on the last time we were reading this chapter or the time before that, but – and Pam, I definitely want your thoughts on this – is that aside from Tonks, Molly is the only adult woman that’s present, and she’s clearly the only vocal adult woman, and I got a sense of, or a vibe of, her opinion, her voice being drowned out by all the men in the room. You have Arthur, you have Lupin, you have Sirius. Is there anything to that? I’m thinking back to the episodes you did when you were talking about women in Harry Potter, and maybe the author is trying to make a point here.

Pam: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting you say that because I think that perhaps there is something to that, but also, I think at the detriment to Molly, she’s also written really shrilly and very stereotypically like a mother hen, and so when women are often described as being hysterical or too emotional, the idea behind that is that they’re not in their right mind to be making decisions. And so I think that inadvertently, as a result of her being an emotional character, she actually ends up falling prey to some of these stereotypes of women that are not always accurate, because you can be emotional, but also be making a good point, and I think at the end of the day, she really, truly in her heart believes that she’s trying to make the right decision for Harry, but because she’s so emotional, because she’s leading by smothering everybody else and trying to tell everybody else what to do, you cannot separate that, almost, from the way that she’s trying to mother the entire group of adults that are present.

Eric: She’s also guilty of not being able to see Harry for the person that he is, I think, which is… funnily enough, this is exactly what she accuses Sirius of, but I think that all she sees when she looks at Harry is a young child. She know he’s 15, but she forgets that even three years ago, he saved her daughter’s life alone, and…

Pam: Well, she probably doesn’t want to think about how much he’s had to go through at such a young age.

Eric: The trauma. [laughs]

Pam: Right, not only losing his parents, but even the events of the last year, watching Cedric die, watching Voldemort come back, fighting Voldemort… that’s so much to go through for a 14-year-old.

Eric: Right, but these are his credentials.

Pam: Of course.

Eric: These are literally what everyone else is using to be like, “He needs to know.”

Pam: Yeah, yeah. But I think her way is compartmentalizing that; it’s like, “Okay, that happened. That does not mean we have to put him in a position for that to happen again.”

Eric: Right.

Pam: And I almost kind of feel like that’s why Dumbledore is operating the way that he is, and I think he says that later. He’s like, “I was just trying to protect you. I wanted you to stay a child for a little bit longer,” which is a whole other thing, because you also can’t be so obtuse about what’s actually happening in the real world? So it just doesn’t make sense. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, Harry hasn’t been innocent; he’s been abused all these years, to your point.

Pam: Right.

Eric: But so my argument is that Molly can’t see Harry for Harry. The way that she sees that when Sirius looks at Harry, he sees James, she also just sees a child. There’s no half step here that she takes for telling Harry pretty much anything. The only reason he finds out anything is because of the others that go to bat for him.

Micah: Yeah, the whole comparison to James, it makes me wonder how well Molly actually knew James.

Eric: Or Sirius.

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.

Micah: Well, yes. To make that kind of a comment, you need to have some kind of connection to the person that you’re referencing here, and that’s why it falls flat for me. The other piece which comes up during this conversation, which was totally out of line, was her blaming him for being in Azkaban. [laughs]

Andrew: I know. Yeah, not his fault. [laughs]

Eric: “You haven’t exactly been there for Harry, have you?”

Andrew: She’s grasping for straws.

Micah: She’s lost her cool.

Andrew: Yeah. And one more point about how Molly gets depicted in the series and in this chapter in particular: Pam, you described her as being shrill and controlling, loud. Our first introduction – and Harry’s first introduction – to a Howler is from Mrs. Weasley.

Eric: Oh. [laughs]

Pam: Oh my goodness.

Andrew: Which I think also says a lot about how Rowling was trying to depict Molly across this series.

Eric: Forgot about that.

Andrew: She’s the one sending off the Howler and screaming at Harry in front of everybody, and Ron.

Eric: She’s very Dumbledore-esque, isn’t she?

Pam: Well, even, I guess, if we’re going by even movie-isms, the whole “Where have you been?” That’s also very… I feel like that is Molly in a nutshell for so many people, even if she is more than that.

Eric: Yeah. So Arthur Weasley… we’re getting on to some of these peripheral adults who are here. Arthur Weasley does, I think, the coolest thing he could have done – I want to see this depicted somewhere – where in the middle of it all, Molly asks Arthur for support, and he takes his glasses off and just starts to wipe them down, and he’s not responding.

Andrew: He’s exhausted.

Eric: And everyone else just has to wait, and then he puts them back on.

Pam: He’s probably just trying to figure out how he’s going to… what his next move is going to be.

Andrew: Dramatic pause.

Pam: He’s like, “How do I get out of this without having to sleep on the couch later?” [laughs]

Andrew: Happy wife, happy life.

[Micah and Pam laugh]

Eric: You can always do that! Listeners at home, honestly. If you ever need just an extra second to think, take your glasses off and make a show of wiping them down. You’ll get an extra ten seconds.

Pam: I’m going to do what with my invisible glasses and see if it flies the same way.

Eric: Aw, Pam. Join the club.

[Pam laughs]

Micah: Going back to the conversation earlier, could you look at this as another stereotypical moment of the wife having to defer to the husband, to have to support…? Because his voice has impact; his voice has influence. She can’t stand on her own in this moment.

Eric: I think in any partnership, it’s a great check and balance to have your partner be able to be there. And I don’t think Arthur is a bad husband. I don’t think he’s a bad partner.

Micah: No.

Eric: I think normally he would be there to step in and say, “Your mother’s right, boys. Get upstairs.” That’s his normal track. The fact that he doesn’t do that and actually does not side with Molly should show her that she’s gone too far, that she’s too out of the opinion of it. After Arthur says his thing, she’s like, “Well, I’m going to be outvoted.” But yeah, props to Arthur. And I think the interesting thing for me here is that what Molly is specifically arguing against in these moments is giving Harry a blank check to ask any questions he might have. She’s not saying, “Don’t tell him this one thing”; she’s saying, “Don’t let him ask questions.” And this specific nuance here really rubs me the wrong way, because not being able to at least ask a question seems a little, I don’t know, authoritarian. Because ultimately, not letting him ask the question…

Andrew: She’s trying to protect him. But this gets back to a…

Pam: But they could just say, “You can’t know that. Next question.”

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Eric: Like what Dumbledore said at the end of Book 1: “Alas, the first question you asked me, I cannot tell you.” But at least entertain the forum for Harry to ask some things, anything that comes to mind.

Andrew: But this gets back to a point I raised a few minutes ago: Why didn’t they prepare better in advance? Yeah, things are hectic and busy. Why not say, “Hey, Harry is coming tomorrow. Why don’t we say x, y, and z to him?” And come with some opening remarks, and then if Harry wants to ask any other questions, he can. But they had to have known he would want to ask questions. Of course he’s going to.

Eric: It’s a great point. And if you’re at war, which these people are, and you cross into a new territory and meet up with your fellow soldiers, you get briefed. You get briefed on the situation, and where’s Harry’s brief, essentially? He needs that, and that’s what Sirius is fighting to give him. Lupin argues that if Harry is going to get facts, he should get them from them. I agree with that; you can’t trust a game of telephone to get you all the info you need. And pretty much the only thing I can say for Molly is she is actually right that Dumbledore does not want Harry to know certain things, but he did not specify. And here’s another example of how Dumbledore not confiding in his closest allies about something relating to Harry, ultimately, is dangerous for everybody, because if he had just said, “Here’s where the line is; especially now that he’s coming, here’s where the line is,” his allies, these adults would have been a lot more prepared to handle the Harry situation, and therefore the rest of the children that are living at Grimmauld Place.

Andrew: So quick question for everybody – maybe not so quick – whose side would James and Lily be on here?

Eric: I love this.

Andrew: I mean, this is a big question, I think. But I think one reason this chapter is so interesting is because you can see the perspective of both sides. I want to say… well, first I think James has to be on… maybe the answer is James is on Sirius’s side and Lily is on Molly’s side. [laughs]

Eric: Oh my God.

[Pam laughs]

Andrew: No, I think Lily would trust James… sorry. “He’s not James, Sirius!” I think Lily would trust Harry to know a bunch of information about what’s going on.

Pam: This is assuming they lived, but Voldemort is still trying to kill Harry, right? Is that…? Because I need some parameters here. [laughs]

Andrew: Right.

Eric: Well, if Lily and James are also equally in the dark about why Dumbledore doesn’t want to tell him everything, they would probably advocate for…

Pam: No, I think that they would have had to know. I assume that if they were to be alive, then they would know everything. Yeah, I think that for different… I agree; I think that James would probably be on the side of telling Harry more, and I think Lily would probably say, “Listen, we were too young when we entered this war, and I don’t want that for our kid.” But they’d probably come to some happy medium that ends up being like what he’s told in the book.

Eric: It’s an interesting question about which of his parents would side with who in this room, because this argument exists as a result of Harry not having parents, so these people are trying to play at being Harry’s parents. But the other aspect is if Jily… [laughs] Jily and Lames were alive, they would be saying, “We’ll just protect Harry. We don’t need to tell him everything; we’ll just keep him safe.”

Pam: Yeah, but I think that they would also know what parts of themselves their son inherited, and I think that the idea of Harry being rash like Sirius, like James was – what we know of James – I think that they would have known that they would have had to tell him something in an effort to get him to cool his jets a bit while he’s over at Hogwarts, because they can’t protect him there.

Andrew: Right.

Eric: Micah, any thoughts?

Micah: It is a good question because it’s so hard to answer. Like Pam was saying, you need some parameters around it, because if I’m imagining James and Lily just kind of hovering over the kitchen in the smoke that’s coming from Mundungus’s pipe…

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: … observing all that’s going on, I do think that Lily would, in part, side with Molly from a protective standpoint, but I also think she would want to make sure that her son was armed with the most information possible, so I could see her also leaning in the direction of Sirius. It’s also hard because we don’t really know them as characters.

Andrew: Yeah. Brave, fighting the greater good, Gryffindors.

Eric: Yeah, I think of them as Aurors, although that’s probably not true. It’s just the fact that they thrice defied Voldemort; they’ve gone toe to toe with Voldemort as much as possible. The topic of what Voldemort is up to and what he’s doing would have been extremely important for James and Lily to know at all times, and therefore, if they were somehow still alive and still on the run from Voldemort, you’d better bet your butt that they would tell Harry everything.

Micah: Yeah, that’s what makes me think that they wouldn’t necessarily disagree with Molly’s intentions, but I think they would ultimately side with Harry getting more information.

Eric: Well, yeah, I don’t disagree with Molly’s intentions either, but yeah, the methods is just wild. So we have more to come after a word from our sponsors.

[Ad break]

Andrew: We also wanted to look at the uphill struggle against willful ignorance in the wizarding world right now. And Sirius tells Harry that it was great that they had so quickly a heads up when Voldemort returned, and it gave the Order an advantage. We’ve got to give props to Dumbledore here.

Eric: Ugh.

Andrew: Sirius said it was only because Harry went to Dumbledore, and then Dumbledore got the band back together so quick, that they were able to start moving on fighting back against Voldemort. So give Dumbledore some props, okay?

Eric: It’s funny because Harry is like, “So what did that do?”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: And it’s true that he has not yet seen a direct result. He hasn’t himself witnessed… Harry has not witnessed the benefits of his own actions, telling Dumbledore. He’s like, “Yeah, you got a headquarters, but you’re not telling me any information, so how do I know you even have any information to give?” is kind of a fun angle. But yeah, the Order is in a bad spot. Sirius talks about how he himself is still a wanted man; he’s not able to go out. They can’t hand out leaflets. They can’t… the position that the Ministry has taken means they can’t openly recruit for the Order of the Phoenix. This is the struggle against ignorance. It’s literally like the whole world doesn’t know and isn’t being told by the powers that be that Voldemort is back, and that is such a disadvantage to everyone who’s not already in the Order.

Micah: Doesn’t Little Hangleton have CCTV?

Andrew: Probably.

Micah: Is that not something that Dumbledore could bring as evidence to Fudge and say, “Hey, check out this event in the graveyard that happened”? [laughs]

Eric: If anywhere in Little Hangleton had CCTV, it’s a graveyard, because they’re very secure.

Micah: See?

Andrew: I don’t think there’s security cameras in graveyards. That seems like an invasion.

Eric: There is, because they have to deter grave robbers.

Andrew: Maybe. I don’t know; I have a hard time picturing that.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Eric: Okay, that’s an aside. We’ll do some research later. But yeah, there’s a time to credit Dumbledore a little later, but here, let’s talk about Fudge. He’s keeping the public in the dark. Lupin says that being unaware makes the public much easier targets for Death Eaters also, especially on the point of the Imperius Curse. This is something that I find very interesting, because the Death Eaters, we know, are not afraid to use the Unforgivable Curses, but with Imperio specifically, you’re so much more susceptible if you’re not even aware that somebody’s going to come at you and just cast it. So there’s an example of how Fudge’s actions and his fears and everything he’s doing just make people victims; people are so innocent and so susceptible because of this choice that their Minister has made.

Andrew: And all in part because of Fudge’s ego. He hates that Dumbledore – he thinks – wanted his position as top dog at the Ministry. I love the politics of all this, too, as we learn in this chapter.

Eric: Yeah, yeah. It’s well developed. You could hate the situation but be like, “This is really interesting.” Fudge is also leaning on the Daily Prophet; he’s suppressing whatever stories there would be; he’s raising politically motivated discourse; he’s encouraging everybody to discredit Harry and Dumbledore, which is what Hermione was saying in the previous chapter. And so even if they do hear what a member of the Order of the Phoenix were to tell them, “Voldemort’s back,” they’re less inclined to believe it. And this is the part where Fudge crosses over, in my mind, from unconscionable to completely insanely unforgivable, because that’s really the issue. If you have really allowed for skepticism on this part, you are so much worse than somebody who’s just ignorant, because you’re causing so much… now there’s so much… they’re going to have to work so much harder to get anyone to believe them. The truth, by the way.

Andrew: Right, right. And this is something that would have been interesting to see, too, post-Book 7. How does a new Ministry of Magic regain the trust of its citizens when it’s been broken so far?

Eric: Oooh.

Andrew: Not to mention the Daily Prophet. Totally in the gutter in terms of its reputation.

Eric: Is there any fantasy series with good news media? Like, honestly.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Eric: I need to escape into a book about good journalism. [laughs]

Micah: And I like the fact that you framed this as an uphill battle. It really paints the picture, the conversation that happens here, just how much the Order is up against. It’s not just Voldemort; it’s Fudge and the Ministry, it’s the Daily Prophet, and it’s meant to convey to the reader that, “Look, this is the adult side of what’s happening now in the wizarding world.” Because for so long, we were just so focused on what was going on at Hogwarts with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Now it’s… we often talk about how the world opens up as these books go on, and this is another example of that.

Eric: Well, that’s a great point. Because again, yeah, like you’re saying, this might be the first time we really get a sense of what it’s like to be an adult in the wizarding world. When all that stuff with the Chamber of Secrets was happening and they were like, “Oh yeah, the Board of Governors wants to close Hogwarts,” you’re like, “Oh, that must be what it’s like to be an adult in the wizarding world and be a school administrator.” But everybody else that’s an adult is having to go to work, worry about their own safety, worrying about their family, worrying about their reputation, having to sneak around, provide misinformation so that their allies can succeed… being an adult right now sucks harder than being a Hogwarts student, and that’s saying something. It also really draws to light how much the Order members are all kind of misfits. I mentioned earlier, but Sirius is a wanted man; he can’t leave his house. Lupin has a funny line about not being invited to dinner places because of his werewolf status. [laughs]

Andrew: Aww. That’s not funny; that’s sad, Eric.

Eric: Somebody get this man an invite to your dinner party; the raw steak will be delicious. And unfortunately, I think what they’re doing is apologizing in advance for why they haven’t made more gains. Harry is like, “What do you have to show me?” Honestly, not much.

Andrew: Yeah. But here’s another plus one for Dumbledore, because it’s noted here that Dumbledore is the only one who’s been pounding the alarm and sticking his head out about Voldemort being back. No other Order member is able to do this. It’s because…

Micah: No other Order member is in a position to do that.

Eric: I was going to say, it’s because it’s him, isn’t it? It’s him. It’s always him.

Andrew: Yes. Sure, but you’ve still got to credit Big D. Dumbledore is the only one who’s able and willing. He doesn’t have to stick his head out; he could get thrown in prison. That is stated in this chapter. He can’t push it too much because he could get thrown into Azkaban, and then Voldemort would have an easier time rising.

Pam: Yeah, and I love that line Charlie has where he says, “Dumbledore doesn’t care as long as he gets to stay on the Chocolate Frog Cards.”

[Eric and Pam laugh]

Andrew: That’s great.

Pam: That’s so good.

Andrew: And Dumbledore told him that, too.

Pam: I mean, obviously he wants to make sure he’s around, yeah, but it’s like… that’s such a great way to diffuse the worry that I’m sure a lot of them have about him being demoted or losing some of these big accolades that are… they’re all being stripped to discredit him, to your point.

Eric: It’s honestly…

Andrew: It’s so Dumbledore.

Pam: Yeah, it is. [laughs]

Eric: It’s pretty badass. The reason we’re not having a “Where’s Dumbledore?” segment this week is because he just stuck his neck out bigly for the Wizengamot. And you can imagine that that statement would have just been amazing to witness, Dumbledore coming out to his fellow Wizengamot members and being like, “I have an announcement. Voldemort is back.” And then just being… trying to shut him down and him keep going and just get the information out.

Micah: Yeah. The hard part right now is there’s not a whole lot of evidence for Dumbledore to present. It’s really just his word. What else are you going to put in front of the Wizengamot or Fudge to prove otherwise?

Andrew: Harry. Harry James Potter.

Micah: Yeah, not going to really do too much there, in my opinion.

[Andrew laughs]

Pam: Just give him some Veritaserum and call it a day.

Andrew: Yes, exactly!

[Pam laughs]

Eric: So Molly… ultimately, the only control she was able to exert in the end was putting Ginny to bed, which is a darn shame. But she comes back just as they’re mentioning the prophecy, and says, “Well, that’s enough. You’ve told him far enough already.” And I guess that’s where we have to leave things for this chapter, so that was exciting.

Odds & Ends

Eric: But we do have a number of odds and ends to get into.

Andrew: There was an Evanesco appearance in this chapter from Bill; it’s when he has some papers out, some scrolls, and Mrs. Weasley doesn’t want the kids to see them, so he Evanescos them away. And the reason I bring this up is because they just get moved somewhere else; they’re not disintegrated and thrown into a fire, never to be seen again. And yet, we all can never forget that day when Pottermore/Wizarding World on Twitter said, “Hey, by the way, everybody, I know nobody was asking, but Evanesco is great for when a student pees on the floor and it needs to be cleaned up.” I’m paraphrasing, but I was like, “Wait, that’s how Evanesco is used in this chapter; it’s not how it’s been described on social media by official Wizarding World accounts.”

Eric: It’s not all it can do. [laughs]

Andrew: It’s a very versatile spell.

Eric: I think what it was was before Hogwarts had indoor plumbing – because that was only invented at a certain year – and it’s like, “Oh, before that, the wizard just used the Vanishing sp…” It’s like, “Oh, God.” But thank you, Andrew, as always, for keeping right on top of any reference to…

Andrew: I keep an eye on the number 7, the number 12, and Evanesco.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Those are my three lanes.

Micah: Very important. Two things that caught my eye – one was just a warmhearted moment – Crookshanks balling up on Sirius’s lap, and I just thought, “They’ve been buddies since Prisoner of Azkaban.” Because I was thinking to myself, “Well, wait, why is Crookshanks being so nice to Sirius?” And then I remembered back, their communication in Book 3.

Eric: They’re buddies.

Micah: And then we have a foreshadow alert.

[Foreshadowing sound effect plays]

Micah: When Fred and George are using magic to try and help Molly out with dinner, they end up dropping a knife, and the knife drops right where Sirius’s right hand was previously.

Andrew and Eric: Ooh.

Andrew: Good one.

Micah: Now, can I ask a question on this, though? If Molly hadn’t yelled at them, do we think everything would have flown all over the place?

Andrew: Ehh, that probably wasn’t helpful.

Eric: They’ve got it under control.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Yeah, they got it… no, because the cauldron, yes, it sloshes a little bit, but it stops at the end of the table. They’re good. They’re good.

Micah: Poor Sirius.

Andrew: I want to throw out another foreshadow alert, too: Dung actually asks Sirius about a 15th century solid silver goblet, and to me, this is foreshadowing Dung ransacking the place after Sirius Black dies. Curious about what he’s got on hand there.

Eric: [laughs] Also, we’re always looking for evidence of the Horcrux inside Harry that negatively affects his mood, and I found what I think is my favorite one that we’ve ever covered before, which is when Ron and Hermione are arguing to be included, Ron says, “Harry’ll tell me and Hermione everything you say anyway! Won’t – won’t you?’ he added uncertainly.” And then it says – douche Harry is about to come out – it says, “For a split second, Harry considered telling Ron that he wouldn’t tell him a single word, that he could try a taste of being kept in the dark and see how he liked it. But the nasty impulse vanished as they looked at each other.” And then he says, “‘Course I will,” and Ron and Hermione both beamed. I think they’re relieved. So this moment of Harry’s instinct… his mood is rotten; he’s still pissed at them, and he’s inclined to actually tell Ron, “No, I’m not telling you anything.” But then he looks at his friends, and what’s happening is the same thing that happened with the Dementors earlier in this book: He’s overcome with love. Even in the most dire circumstances, it bursts out of him. He can cast a whole Patronus; it drives out this influence from Voldemort. And we know that when Voldemort tries to take possession of Harry at the end of this book, it’s that love that drives Voldemort out. So the closeness, the quickness with which Harry looks at Ron, and all of a sudden this nasty crap evaporates, and he tells Ron, “Of course I’ll tell you everything.” Wow. I think that’s an example of the Horcrux’s influence on Harry.

Andrew: “The weapon we have is love!” to quote the wizard wrock song by… who was that? Harry and the Potters.

Eric: Harry and the Potters.

Lynx Line

Eric: So before we wrap the chapter, we have a Lynx Line question this week, which is… I’m very fond of these answers. And we asked the question: The Order of the Phoenix is made up of teachers, parents, criminals, Aurors, and more. But when we think about the group and our favorite members, what characters stick out from the Potter series that haven’t joined the Order – at least as of where we’re reading now in Book 5 – and how would the series be different if they had joined the Order? So what characters aren’t in the Order but should be? And we heard from Leah Jamison, who says,

“Firenze. It’s always a good idea to include different perspectives, and having more non-human beings like centaurs would bring a certain… wisdom? to the group’s decisions. Plus, he’s been ‘othered’ from the herd at Hogwarts, so he might need somewhere to go.”

Andrew: Breann said,

“Professor Flitwick. I feel like he is such an under-appreciated character who is pretty badass with charms.”

And a few other listeners said Flitwick as well. For example, Barry said,

“Former dueling champion is exactly who you need. Also, Ollivander would be a great resource, even if he feels a little chaotic neutral as a member.”

Micah: Monet said,

“Oliver Wood! They need some new grad/young blood on the team! He’s strategic, nimble, and athletic.”

[Eric laughs]

“Plus, since he’s playing professional Quidditch, he can make oh-so-important alliances cross-country and internationally and travel without suspicion.”

Eric: Oh, I like that last part. Travel without suspicion.

Andrew: Mev said, “Neville’s grandmother. She is badass.”

Eric: Oh, that’s such a good one.

Pam: Do you think she would agree, though? I don’t know. I go back and forth on whether or not she would.

Andrew: [in an old lady voice] “Oh, I want no part of this. Let me stay at home. I’m too old for this, for Dumbledore’s latest antics.”

[Micah laughs]

Pam: “My son and his wife are at St. Mungo’s. I’ve had enough.” [laughs]

Eric: Oh my God. I think… yeah, you’ve solved it, Pam, why Dumbledore hasn’t invited her.

[Andrew and Pam laugh]

Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “She’s been through too much.”

Eric: I bet she would have words with Dumbledore if he was like, “Do you want to join my Order?” And she’s like, “Your cause…”

Pam: “I’ll show up for the final battle, but not a second before.”

Eric: Oh, man.

[Andrew and Pam laugh]

Andrew: Well, how about this lady? Rachel said,

“As awesome as it would be for the owners of Honeydukes to drop in with snacks, my answer is Madame Hooch. Seriously, what happened to her? She always seems so shrewd. She’d be a good addition.”

Eric: Jennifer says,

“I think for the purposes of camaraderie through the wizarding world, we should include the goblins. They have control of Gringotts bank. They know all its secrets. Bring the goblins and humans together to help fight Voldemort.”

I’ve got to say, this is reminding me – between Firenze, goblins, all these other suggestions – that for somebody who preaches international magical cooperation, and read that to be multi-species cooperation, Dumbledore’s Order of the Phoenix is not very diverse in species.

Andrew: No. I really like this one from Kuroichloe:

“Ernie from the Knight Bus! I feel like Dumbledore would find value in a bus driver who sees and hears all kinds of things while out on his route, just like how Mundungus Fletcher is a good ally in the underground scenes. Plus, free transportation for Order members!”

Andrew: [laughs] That’s a really funny one.

Eric: From Steph:

“Wilkie Twycross (the Apparition instructor who works at the Department of Magical Transportation). Imagine how much easier Harry’s trip from Privet Drive to the Burrow would have been with an insider on board, and he’s such a wet blanket that no one would suspect him to be part of the Order, so he’d fly under the radar (both literally and figuratively).”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Thank you, patrons, for submitting those answers. We are really liking this new segment that we have over on our Patreon. Stay tuned for more questions and answers in the weeks and months ahead.

MVP of the Week

Andrew: And now it’s time for MVP of the Week, and this week’s theme, Eric?

Eric: … is most outrageous, over the top thing that Molly Weasley does in this chapter.

[MVP of the Week music plays]

Andrew: I’m going to give it to when she says, “He’s not James, Sirius!” That was a low blow.

Eric: Yeah, Sirius didn’t say he was. Hello.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Okay, I think it’s still the interrupting Dung’s apology, because darn it, I would have wanted to hear, or read that, so… [laughs] Just to tell him off for smoking. Come on.

Micah: I am actually going to let Pam go first here, because I am going to plus one what she says.

Pam: Okay.

Eric: Good strategy, Micah.

Pam: [laughs] Mine is throwing Sirius’s wrongful incarceration right back in his face, because that was ridiculous.

Micah: Yep, that was probably the worst thing she said to him.

Eric: Yeah, there’s a lot of bad things, but yeah, I’ll agree.

Andrew: Listeners, if you have feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo recorded on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com. We also have the contact form on MuggleCast.com, and I think we’re going to have a Muggle Mail episode in the next couple of weeks.

Eric: In two weeks.

Andrew: Two weeks’ time. Next week, as we approach Halloween, we’re going to have a special episode for everybody that we are calling the Wizarding World g;;raveyard, but we’re not looking at canon; we’re going to look at the various parts of the Harry Potter franchise that have been buried by Warner Bros. and Rowling over the years.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Things like Pottermore, Wizards Unite. I’m actually wearing a Wizards Unite T-shirt right now. And actually, I don’t know if you three saw, but just the other day they put something else in the graveyard, but I’m going to leave it right there as a teaser for next week.

Eric: What is it? Oh, no!

Andrew: You’re just going to have to find out. Just going to have to peek into next week’s doc. [laughs]

Eric: Fair enough.

Andrew: We’ve got a good list already going in that doc, which is also another Patreon benefit. You get access to our planning docs.

Quizzitch

Andrew: So now it is time for everybody’s favorite game show, one that will never be buried, Quizzitch!

Eric: Aww.

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s question was: In honor of the portrait of Walburga Black, what famous artist and sculptor was given an exclusive license to use a material known as blackest black? This really happened; you can Google it. The correct answer was Anish Kapoor, and 32% of people said they didn’t look this up. He is definitely a name in the art world. So last week’s winners were as follows: A Ravenclaw in Maryland; Andrew’s Elbow… oh, that was nice of your elbow, Andrew, to submit a Quizzitch answer.

Andrew: Okay…

Eric: … Crookshanks’s squashed and fried eggy face after Ron hit it with a frying pan he was using to make breakfast; Distant relative Vantablack Black… [laughs] That’s actually an Anish Kapoor reference. Very clever. Elizabeth K.; I am studying art in college and we talked about the feud over it today so I was very happy when I heard the Quizzitch question… wow, what are the odds of that? Jim Dale is my husband; Loeblack Slow, Black, Crow, Black, Fishing Boat Bobbing Sea… I don’t know what that’s a reference to. Me checking Temu’s “new arrivals” every day for Laura’s Pants…

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: … Patronus Seeker; PUFF DOWN UNDER; Sirius in Tibet (Max that); and The wand that Neville left in his back pocket that made his bottom so long. And here is next week’s question: Since there was a lot of talk in this chapter about being of age, please – Quizzitch entrance – name a nation within the United Kingdom where the legal voting age is 16 years. That’s kind of early, kind of young to be voting.

Micah: I thought that you were doing this in celebration of the upcoming Election Day here in the United States.

Eric: I don’t want to think about the Election Day. Nope, not thinking about it.

Micah: Reminding people to register to vote, and to go out and vote.

Eric: You should register to vote.

Andrew: IWillVote.com, my favorite website.

Eric: In the United States, you have to be 18 years of age to vote, but what nations can you be 16 within the United Kingdom? That’s a good reference, Micah. It’s definitely worthwhile. Everybody, check your voter registration status. And submit your Quizzitch answers to us on the Quizzitch form, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav if you’re already on our website, looking at transcripts, checking out must listens, or any other thing that you would do.

Andrew: And this show is brought to you by Muggles like you. We are an independent podcast, and because of that, your financial support is very important. In fact, it’s the only reason we’ve been able to podcast for 19 years and counting. We’ve got three great ways you can help us out: If you’re an Apple Podcasts user, subscribe to MuggleCast Gold. You get ad-free and early access to MuggleCast, plus two bonus MuggleCast installments every month. we’re going to be recording a brand new one after today’s episode. For even more benefits, hit up Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You get the Lynx Line, the livestreams, a personal video message from one of the four of us, and a whole lot more. Also, number three best way to support us: Visit MuggleCastMerch.com for all your brand new merchandise. Don’t go to Temu for Laura’s pants; come to MuggleCastMerch.com for Laura’s pants. I don’t even think Pam gets this reference, and she’s probably very concerned about what we’re talking about right now.

Eric: Don’t worry, Pam, it’s…

Pam: Yeah, what are you guys doing with Laura’s pants? [laughs]

Eric: Sending them back to her.

Andrew: We’re going to produce them in mass.

Micah: Returning them.

[Everyone laughs]

Pam: Okay. [laughs]

Andrew: Don’t worry; she’s cool with this. It’s an old joke.

Pam: All right, all right, got it.

Andrew: If you enjoy MuggleCast and think other Muggles would, too, tell a friend about the show, and we would love a five star review in your favorite podcast app. Pam, thanks again for joining us on today’s episode.

Pam: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Andrew: We’ll catch you on What the Hype?! and Millennial every week too. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening once again. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Pam: And I’m Pamela.

Andrew: Bye, everybody!

Eric, Micah, and Pam: Bye.

The post Transcript #679 appeared first on MuggleCast.

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More like DISorder, are we right? The cracks against Dumbledore keep coming as the MuggleCasters discuss the events of Book 5, Chapter 5 in our continuing re-read. Join Andrew, Eric, Micah, and Pam as they discuss Sirius’ godfatherliness and Molly’s intentions.

• Reminder! The MuggleCast Merch Store is now open! Grab brand-new, original MuggleCast designs. We have t-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, hats, and we’ll be rolling out more in the months ahead!
• Chapter-by-Chapter continues with Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 5: The Order of the Phoenix. And our Time Turner segment has us spinning some old recordings from past discussions! Check out Episode 437 and Episode 230!
• We learn just how underground this “underground” organization really is! (Positively subterranean)
• Why Sirius is good for Harry
• Interrupting!Molly interrupts a would-be apology from Mundungus to Harry, and in general is trying to do too much all at once.
• Has nobody checked in with Dumbledore on his definition of “need to know” for Harry?
• This debate is ugly, but it would have been less stressful if Dumbledore were around to ask.
• Why do Fred and George pick now to fight for their own right to know what’s going on? Can’t they read the room?
• The Order members detail just how bad their uphill struggle is, thanks to Fudge.
• We examine the harm that Fudge’s lean on the Daily Prophet is causing for getting the word out to the public, and how the unsuspecting public is being placed in great danger by the leaders sworn to potect it.
• Andrew gives props to Dumbledore for sticking up to the Wizengamot.
• Odds and Ends include Crookshanks’ friendship with Sirius, the Vanishing Charm, and more Horcrux evidence.
• Lynx Line: Our patrons share which non-Order members should be in the Order!
• What do we each think is the Most Over-the-Top Molly Moment of the Week?
• Quizzitch: Name a nation within the United Kingdom where the legal voting age is 16 years?
• Visit MuggleCast.com for episode transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and to contact us!

Download now OR, now read the Episode 679 Transcript!

The post Episode #679: Disorder of the Phoenix (OOTP Chapter 5, The Order of the Phoenix) appeared first on MuggleCast.

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Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #678, Sugar Daddy Harry (OOTP Chapter 4, Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place)

Show Intro

[Show music plays]

Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.

Eric Scull: I’m Eric.

Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.

Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: And this week, come join us as we analyze Order of the Phoenix Chapter 4, “Number 12 Grimmauld Place,” but be sure to tiptoe down the hall quietly, because we don’t want to wake up Walburga Black. I don’t know if I’ve ever pronounced her name out loud before. Walburga? Did I get that right?

Laura: Yeah, that’s how I would say it. To be honest with you, I forgot that was her name until I Googled her, so there we go. [laughs]

Micah: Gotta say, “Wall-burga!”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: That’s what I was thinking. It sounds like Wahlburgers. Now I’m going to go get a Wahlburger after the show.

Eric: You know when you’re in college and you’re working, you’re studying all day, and then you and your friends go out at night for a Wahl-burga?

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: Wahl-burga.

Eric: And fries?

Andrew: I’ve never had a Wahlburger.

Eric: Yeah, it’s good.

Micah: What do you think her nickname was?

Eric: Wally.

Micah: Molly had… Wallywobbles.

Eric: Wallywobbles, then.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: I like Wally.

Eric: I think Mr. Black, dearly departed Mr. Black, probably called her Wallywobbles.

Andrew: Well, before we get started with Chapter by Chapter, we have some actually pretty exciting news: We now have an official merch store available at MuggleCastMerch.com. This is the new home of all MuggleCast merchandise, all original MuggleCast merchandise. This is stuff we haven’t released to patrons either; this is all brand new stuff. We have T-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, hats, and we will be rolling out more in the months ahead. We even have Security Nightmare gear, including a couple things that say “Security Consultant” on them, and that means you will be hired at Hogwarts to finally get that place under control. I mentioned a hat; we’re calling it the MuggleCap in the store. We have drinkware. We even have a Pickle Pack shirt!

Eric: This stuff has never existed before, which is a big moment of excitement for me. And also, Andrew, what are you wearing right now?

Andrew: I’m glad you asked. I’m wearing a “We criticize because we care” T-shirt, and this shirt and other designs have our iconic mic bolt design on them as well. This shirt… it’s a common refrain on the show, “We criticize because we care.”

Eric: It’s true.

Andrew: We’ve gotten feedback over the years. “Why are you guys complaining about this or that?” We’re criticizing because we want to see the fandom thrive! We want to see the story thrive! We criticize because we care. So this shirt is not just for people in the Harry Potter fandom; it’s for people in all fandoms, because it’s a common issue everywhere. We do ship worldwide, and like I said, we plan to roll out new products in the months ahead, so stay tuned. How about y’all? What are you most looking forward to wearing?

Eric: I definitely got a Security Consultant – or Security Nightmare – shirt, and that’s on order, as well as some of the glassware. We have glassware.

Laura: Look how fancy we are.

Andrew: Very sophisticated.

Eric: It says “Potions Master” on it, which I love.

Micah: Old fashioned would look nice in that.

Eric: Yeah, mix me up a cocktail. And Micah, you have to come to Chicago and bring yours, and then we’ll mix them up.

Andrew: We have a MuggleCast mug as well, and there’s a strong emphasis on “Mug” in MuggleCast, as you’ll see in the design. Slug Club patrons right now have access to a special discount code, so please check that out, Slug Club patrons. They were the first to receive access to the store. So yeah, once again, MuggleCastMerch.com. For the first time ever, we have an official merch store. This is a new opportunity to support us, and we know people have been asking for MuggleCast merch outside of Patreon, so it’s a win-win. Check it all out. Thanks, everybody.

Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner

Andrew: And now it’s time for Chapter by Chapter, and this week we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 4, “Number 12 Grimmauld Place.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: I love saying those numbers back to back.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: And Eric, we got a Time-Turner segment this week, right?

Eric: We do, we do. Yes, we last discussed this chapter on Episode 229, called “Sunglasses Not Recommended.” Okay. And also Episode 436 – this one makes sense – it’s called “ALL CAPS” in all caps.

Andrew: Ooh, good one.

Eric: And that was… so 229 was on May 27, 2011, and 436 was September 23, 2019. Over five years ago. I’ve got to say, for this week’s audio clip of the Time-Turner segment, it’s rated PG-13. I just want to put that out there.

Andrew: Oh, boy.

Eric: Luke, Forrest, cover your ears.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: I’m sorry, but Micah has been bringing it with the innuendo, and this week, I decided to let him.

Laura: Oh, dear.

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.

Ron: What the…?

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 229.

Eric: We learn that Bill Weasley is home from Egypt; he’s taken a desk job at Gringotts in London. And we also find out that “old Fleur Delacour” is working at Gringotts and getting private English lessons from Bill.

Andrew: Private English lessons.

Eric: Right.

Andrew: Locked in a room all by themselves.

Eric: Yes, funny how…

Andrew: I can see where true love is going to spark now.

Eric: Bill is being very…

Micah: Yeah, she was probably having some fun with those Knuts.

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 436.

Andrew: A couple pages later, Harry describes the house “as though it belonged to the Darkest of wizards,” which I found interesting because two books ago, that was Sirius to Harry. He was the Darkest of wizards.

Eric: Oh, man. I love that.

Laura: That’s a really nice kind of connecting the threats moment. I love that.

Andrew: Yay, I did one.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: Go Andrew.

[Whooshing sound]

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.

[Bell dings]

Micah: Andrew is just the setup man. He set me up for that joke, if you listen back to 229.

Andrew: There you go.

Eric: Hey, you had to take it.

Laura: And what I love about it is it’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment. I love it.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion

Laura: Well, I love reflecting on this chapter because reading it back at this point, so much about what is going to go down in this book is, in retrospect, incredibly obvious, because we have a lot of setup happening here. First and foremost, the foreshadowing about Sirius’s eventual unaliving is really blunt, and I’m wondering if any of us picked up on any of this the first time. So we have Grimmauld Place, which really just sounds like it’s intended to be like “Grim old place,” which I think is a great descriptor for Sirius’s childhood home. There’s of course the connection to Sirius’s Animagus form being mistaken for the Grim, which is the omen of death two years prior. And when they enter the home, Harry and the Advance Guard, it’s noted that “it was as though they had just entered the house of a dying person,” because they’re speaking in hushed tones. Mrs. Weasley also warns Harry to keep quiet so as to not wake anything up, which I think just lends a sense of foreboding of what the heck they’re walking into here. And Andrew, you had something else you wanted to call out?

Andrew: Well, yeah, I just wanted to mention because we see it used across the series; here is another example of the number 12 being used, and this is probably one of the most prominent uses of number 12 in the series. But yeah, I don’t remember personally reading this the first time and thinking, “There’s bad news ahead for one of the characters,” but at this point in the series, we’re five books in. Somebody either gets unalived or disappears by the end of the book, so maybe I should have been more cautious when reading this and thinking, “Well, somebody’s going to be disappearing. Maybe it’s going to be a Black with all this foreshadowing that’s going on around here.”

Eric: I just remember feeling a sense of dread this whole book, but because it starts off Harry is in such a bad place, and now this new place is not exciting in a happy way.

Micah: It’s not the Burrow.

Eric: Yeah, “What great terror awaits us around this corner? Or in this drawer?” is something that everyone’s asking, and it’s depressing.

Laura: Speaking of depressing, Harry is still feeling really isolated in this moment, even though he’s having a couple of reunions here. Mrs. Weasley pretty quickly shoos him off to the room that he’s going to be staying in, which is where Ron and Hermione are hanging out right now, and she does this in the service of getting him out of the way so that she and the other adults can go to an Order meeting that the kids are not allowed to go to. And I thought this would be a really good opportunity for us to reestablish the conversation we’ve had over the years of “Is the Horcrux acting up here?” because initially, Harry feels a “warm glow” flare inside of him at the sight of his two best friends…

Andrew: Aww.

Laura: … but he suddenly feels it “extinguished as something icy flooded the pit of his stomach. All of a sudden – after yearning to see them for a solid month – he felt he would rather Ron and Hermione left him alone.”

Andrew: Wow.

Laura: So I thought it would be interesting for us to watch for the actual descriptors, the adjectives that are at play when these moments happen, when Harry is really agitated, or we see him described as starting to get ticked off really quickly, because I think there might be some clues here that we can use to justify whether or not we think this is Horcrux influence or it’s just Harry. And to me, when I read this description of something icy flooding the pit of his stomach, it feels like the Horcrux to me.

Eric: Yeah, you expect to hear a sound cue that’s like, [makes a drooping noise]

Laura: Right.

Andrew: [imitating Voldemort] “Don’t get too happy! I’m still haunting you!”

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: Yeah, moments like these can definitely be attributed to the Horcrux, but I also think that it’s important to note that the Horcrux needs to feed off of certain emotions. Harry is behaving much how we would expect a 15-year-old who’s been isolated all summer from his friends to behave, but there’s this extra edge to him in this chapter, and really, we haven’t seen Harry like this before; we haven’t seen these emotions bubble up to the surface. But this is that initial moment… like you said, Laura, there’s this warm glow initially to see the people that he has been longing to see for so long and spend some time with, but then it’s almost like he catches himself and he puts himself in check and says, “Hold on. These are also the people who haven’t been talking to me all summer long, so I’m going to let loose.”

Eric: Yeah. Like, “Wait a minute, I’m mad at these people!”

Andrew: Yeah. Well, and also, it is exciting to see Ron and Hermione, but they’re in this very depressing area. Like, “Oh, this is cool, but where are we right now?” I mean, he still doesn’t even know this is a Black family home.

Eric: No, he’s desperate to be so mad at them, and when he finds out that they’ve been miserable too, or in the same awful place, the fact that he really can’t be mad at them and shouldn’t be mad at them to begin with, it doesn’t stop him from blowing up, because he just needs to get this out. And to Micah’s point about Harry behaving in a way in which you’d expect, Hermione and Ron did expect this. They expected him to be angry. Hermione says as much at least twice, like, “We knew that if you were left alone and given no info…” And Harry says things that aren’t quite fair. And the problem is… I think it’s pretty clear the person he should be mad at exclusively is Dumbledore, but Dumbledore is untouchable. You can’t be mad at Dumbledore because Dumbledore ain’t around. He’s not taking any calls. Nobody talk to him; he’s away. So in the meantime, his friends get shouted at, and it’s not great.

Andrew: I like this question from Ariane Beth, who’s listening live on our Patreon right now: “Could Harry’s Horcrux also be reacting to proximity to the locket? Which is there until Sirius dies and Mundungus ransacks the place.” So that’s a good theory, right?

Laura: Yeah, I mean, Harry, I think, would certainly be more susceptible to being sensitive to it. We’ll have to pay attention to what happens when we actually see the locket, because we are going to see it.

Eric: It’s funny; from what I recall, nothing happens? They don’t feel a sense of dread or anything? They’re actually curious more than ever, because when they find it during cleaning, every single one of them gets a chance to try and open it, and they can’t open it, so they’re all kind of exposing themselves, getting really, really close to the locket, and it’s just a locket. It’s fun that it’s mentioned, but none of them seem to come down with anything. But what I was just thinking of was what if the locket has really expanded on that sense of dread? Because it’s been in this house for many years now at this point, so what if it’s taken over… as we know that it’s contained in the locket, but this particular Horcrux has a way of emanating out and making everyone around it miserable, so what if at this point it’s confined in the whole house? And not just…

Laura: That’s interesting.

Eric: I wonder if… and then that would explain why everything is so grim, on top of the fact that there are just grim circumstances in the world.

Micah: Don’t we attribute the locket to why Kreacher behaves much of the way that he does as well? Because he’s in possession of it?

Eric: Yeah, either the locket or the potion, but he definitely keeps the locket real close.

Micah: One question I did want to ask, though, about this iciness that he gets in his stomach: Couldn’t that just be anxiety? Couldn’t it be nerves building up as he’s about to explode?

Laura: Yeah, for sure.

Andrew: Yeah, because now he knows… he’s excited to see Ron and Hermione, but now he knows he needs to have a talking with them, because he’s got feelings that he needs to get out. So yeah, that could explain it.

Laura: Yeah, and maybe some fear, too, because I’m sure there’s got to be not only anxiety driving the response that he has here, but he probably is a little bit afraid of yelling at his friends, deep down.

Andrew: I would be too! That’s tough. They deserve it, but that’s tough.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Do they? No, no, they don’t. No, they don’t.

Laura: Well, let’s actually talk about some specific examples of Harry’s Caps Lock rant, and talk about whether we think they’re mostly being driven by Harry himself, or are they being driven by the Horcrux? And I’m actually wondering if I can get some dramatic readings out of y’all. So has anyone had a hard day? Does anyone feel like shouting?

Andrew: I think Micah said he had a hard day. Let’s have Micah do it.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: Come on, get the rage out, Micah. This is like ax-throwing, but on a podcast.

Micah: Well, I’ll start with a little bit of self-doubt and calmness. “Maybe he thinks I can’t be trusted.”

Laura: This is about Dumbledore. Harry or Horcrux, y’all?

Andrew: Harry.

Eric: That one’s Harry, just because that level of insecurity… he says it in a way that it’s like it would be unfair and ridiculous for Dumbledore to think that, but it’s real, raw insecurity. That’s what Harry’s best explanation is for why Dumbledore is not being forthcoming with him.

Laura: Yeah. All right, Micah, are you ready?

Micah: I’m ready. Let’s go.

Laura: Okay.

Micah: “YOU’VE STILL BEEN HERE, HAVEN’T YOU? YOU’VE STILL BEEN TOGETHER!”

Eric: Ohh.

Andrew: Oh my God, that was scary as hell.

Micah: [laughs] Well, wasn’t that the idea?

Andrew: I don’t like that. Laura, this was a bad idea.

[Laura laughs]

Micah: I think I triggered Andrew.

Andrew: I feel like I just saw the beast in Beauty and the Beast when he’s raging.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Eric: “STAY OUT OF THE WEST WING!”

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Oh, incredible.

Andrew: No, that was great, Micah.

Micah: Harry, right?

Laura: Yeah, I think so.

Eric: That one… yeah, he’s holding it against them that Hermione… yeah, it’s just unfair, but it’s all Harry, I think.

Laura: All right, anyone else want to shout?

Eric: I’ll do this one. “I’VE HANDLED MORE THAN YOU TWO’VE EVER MANAGED AND DUMBLEDORE KNOWS IT!”

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Damn, Harry. That’s so rude.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s a little much.

Eric: What are we thinking?

Andrew: I’m going to say Horcrux Harry.

Micah: Agree.

Eric: Okay. How come?

Andrew: It’s just out of character to say, “I’ve done more than you two have, so why am I in the dark?”

Eric: Well, and he says things like, “Who fought the…? Who got the Stone? Who went to the Chamber?” It’s like, “Dude, you didn’t do that in a vacuum, okay? These two were with you.”

[Micah laughs]

Eric: Ron literally laid down himself to get you as far as the Stone. It’s completely uncalled for. And it gives me… it’s giving Voldemort when he says, “I, who have traveled further and studied more and done more than the others to evade death. I’ve gone farther than any other wizard.” It’s literally like…

Micah: He’s bragging.

Eric: He’s bragging, yeah. “I’ve handled more than you two.”

Micah: And he invokes Dumbledore.

Eric: Well, this isn’t a job interview. He doesn’t need to prove to them that he’s qualified. They’re his best friends, and he’s their best friend. That’s why I think it’s Horcrux.

Laura: Yeah, this is petty. Harry is not really a petty person, not really, so I agree.

Eric: Well, and to Micah’s point, too, the mention of Dumbledore. If anything is going to bring the Horcrux in Harry out, it’s the name Dumbledore. Keeping totally separate from the fact that Harry has a great reason to be upset with Dumbledore, that’s a name that you would think the Horcrux in Harry, if it were listening, would be like, “Hate that guy,” and then go crazy.

Andrew: We have one more all caps moment here. He says, “I SUPPOSE YOU’VE BEEN HAVING A REAL LAUGH, HAVEN’T YOU, ALL HOLED UP HERE TOGETHER.”

Laura: [laughs] That was very good.

Eric: It was great.

Laura: Great performances.

Andrew: My general feeling about the all caps moments is they are all Horcrux Harry, because even though Harry has reason to be angry with his friends, the all caps, raging, Micah-style yelling just feels out of character for Harry for his best friends. It just seems so inappropriate. Can you imagine yelling at your own best friends, or friends of five, six years in this way?

Eric: Then again, he’s not being given a channel to process the trauma that he still has from just seeing Cedric die a month ago, and so this is very… these outbursts that are not characteristic are, in fact, textbook PTSD or post-trauma reactions because he’s not actually confronting his emotion.

Micah: This one was a little bit more difficult for me, because even though you could blame it on the Horcrux, there’s also this moment of deep insecurity that comes across in what he’s saying here, the fact that he thinks that Ron and Hermione have been off in Grimmauld Place having some laughs at his expense. They’re together; he’s not. He’s the odd man out. He’s being left out of the situation. That speaks very much to his own insecurity of the entire situation that he’s been put into this summer.

Laura: Doesn’t the Horcrux amplify that feeling, though? I think we see that with Ron in two books’ time, right? Where his moments of insecurity are really heightened and amplified when he’s wearing the Horcrux. So Harry’s got one in his head; I think it makes it worse, for sure.

Andrew: So setting angry Harry aside, I actually think this chapter might make him feel better, and not because of the raging, but we’ll talk about that in a moment. We’ll be right back.

[Ad break]

Andrew: So I have a bit of a theory I want to run by y’all. I’m wondering if Harry starts to feel better about being left in the dark after what he learns in this chapter, because he doesn’t learn a lot of great information, and it’s not like Ron and Hermione have been having it easy either. So here are some examples: First of all, Ron and Hermione have been left in the dark when it comes to the Order meetings. They have to be cautious moving around this mystery house that they’re in because of Mrs. Black’s portrait. Snape is popping in. Ew, gross.

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: Dumbledore has been a very busy man. He hasn’t been vacationing; he hasn’t been hanging out with everybody. Fred and George have been popping into bedrooms unannounced to show off their Apparition licenses, which just sounds really annoying. They’re all cramped in this dark and depressing house. Molly is stressed. I just think the Dursleys’ house was abusive and bad, and Harry was left in the dark, but after seeing what’s been going on at 12 Grimmauld Place, hasn’t been that much better over here either.

Eric: Does Harry feel better because of this? No, because it just… he literally did not imagine that Ron and Hermione would also be having a bad summer, because how could you have a bad summer when you’re together?

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: But it turns out, Dumbledore has found a way to not tell people things even when they’re together!

Laura: Yeah. And also, I just… I’ve got to call out here; I don’t think there’s any evidence here to confirm that Dumbledore has not been vacationing.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Yeah, they say he’s been busy, but I don’t know. I need to see receipts. I need to see what the man’s been up to. I don’t believe it. [laughs]

Andrew: Well, okay, maybe…

Micah: Let’s see his AmEx from JJ’s and make sure that he was popping back some margaritas.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Yeah, yeah, he’s been busy. He’s been busy delegating… from the beach.

Andrew: That may be true, but we know he wasn’t at 12 Grimmauld Place, so it’s not like everybody’s been hanging out with Dumbledore without Harry.

Micah: I really do like how you put this all together, though, Andrew, and it just shows that there are varying degrees of isolation. Harry is in one situation in Grimmauld Place, and despite the fact that Ron and Hermione are together, they’re still very much not in the know of what’s going on. But I do think if you were to ask Harry, he would have still preferred to be there, because he would be with his friends. He would be within the wizarding community, which I think that’s the hardest part for him. It’s not that he’s necessarily isolated from his friends; it’s that he’s isolated from this whole other world of which he is now a part of, and that’s the hard part for him.

Andrew: I agree with you. I put this together because while I was reading the chapter, I was like, “Oh, this isn’t that great. Snape. Dirty old house.”

Laura: Right.

Andrew: Oh, Ron and Hermione have to do a lot of cleaning. I think I skipped over that one. That’s not fun. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah. Harry is like, “I know how to clean.”

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, “Let me clean.” I mean, cleaning can be fun, but cleaning this house? I don’t know. I don’t want to deep clean this house. [laughs]

Eric: I don’t know; it’s got all this magic stuff in it. It could be kind of cool.

Laura: See, I feel like cleaning would be a lot more fun if we could use magic to clean. [laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Laura: And I know that’s how the kids are going to feel here in the next couple of chapters. But yeah, I agree with you, and I think adding to the mix here that Ron and Hermione really want to tell Harry what’s going on and they can’t, so they’re having to deal with the frustration and the isolation of their environment all while being told, “No, you can’t tell your best friend what’s going on, even though really scary stuff is happening to him.” So I think Harry does feel a little bad towards the end. We definitely see him start calming down, especially when conversation turns to Percy, which we’ll talk about here in the next few minutes. But before we get to that, I wanted to ask if we agree with Mrs. Weasley not letting the kids attend the meetings. Again, the whole reason this Caps Lock Harry moment is able to play out is because Mrs. Weasley very quickly sends him into a room where he can be alone with Ron and Hermione while she and the other adults attend to Order business. I think it’s interesting that even Fred and George, who are of age, can’t attend.

Eric: I mean, yeah, this is the kind of situation, though, where I think Molly probably suspects – and we believe – that if any one of them hears what’s going on in the meeting, they’re going to spill the beans to the rest of the kids.

Andrew: Especially Fred and George. They cannot be trusted.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: But there is a question about would they tell anyone outside this group? And that, I don’t think so.

Micah: No.

Eric: I can’t see Fred and George even telling their good friend Lee Jordan about what they heard in the meetings if they were allowed in the meetings, because Lee is not in the Order, and so yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about Molly’s decision.

Laura: Yeah, I think another way to think about this is what if Harry had been allowed to know more? Maybe not everything, but more about what the Order was protecting, and specifically where they were protecting it. Would the outcome of this story have been different?

Eric: Oh, 100%. Harry doesn’t yet know that he’s been dreaming about the Ministry of Magic, and it’ll be something that’s interesting to look up in the next chapter when we learn more about what guard duty is or who’s doing what just to… because I think with enough information, Harry would volunteer that he’s been seeing things, and they would have started Occlumency a lot sooner. And yeah, totally different book.

Micah: Just to go back to the Fred and George point and the fact that they are of age: One thing that came to mind for me with Molly is that she already has two sons and a husband who are in the Order; she lost two brothers in the first war. Maybe she wants to limit the risk here a little bit. She does have seven kids in total, and including them all in Order business seems extremely risky, and we know what a protective mother she is of her children. Also of Harry, but I do think it seems a bit silly to not let Harry in a little bit more, and the main reason there just being, look at the first four years of these three at Hogwarts. You don’t give them information, what ends up happening?

Eric: Trouble!

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Micah: They find their way into trouble anyway.

Eric: Mischief! Yeah, yeah. Well, yes, I agree 100%.

Andrew: I think that’s a really good point, Micah, looking at her other family members. I think that Molly is very stressed, and Harry is noting this in this chapter. I think he says she’s looking thinner or more frail, and I would not be surprised if she doesn’t want to push that stress onto the kids by them all learning this information. That said, I do also agree. I like this idea – I think, Eric, you said – if Fred and George learn everything, they’re not going to go and tell Seamus. There’s an unspoken trust that everybody… what happens in this house stays in this house. [laughs]

Eric: Pretty much, yeah.

Andrew: And I don’t even think you would have to tell the kids that. I think there’s an understanding that what’s going on here, what’s being discussed here, is very serious. We have this place on lockdown, and this stuff can’t get out. I would trust the kids.

Eric: Yeah, yeah, I think so too. And actually, getting back to the question about whether Molly is just trying to protect her kids, I think that tracks. I also was reviewing “The Sacking of Severus Snape” from Deathly Hallows, and it’s literally the point where all of her children want to fight in the Battle of Hogwarts, and her only hope is to keep Ginny out of it, because Ginny is still the youngest. And it doesn’t work, sort of, but Molly wants always to protect as many of her children as possible, and even if that means shielding them from the truth, unfortunately.

Laura: Yeah. Well, she’s also, to her credit, probably thinking about what could happen if somehow her children were outed as being Order members, right? I mean, that puts targets on their back, so she is thinking about keeping them safe. Unfortunately, I think keeping them completely in the dark ends up shooting the whole operation in the foot.

Eric: Yeah, but ultimately, it’s not Molly’s decision. You know Dumbledore was probably just like, “No effing kids.” [laughs]

Laura: Oh, for sure.

Eric: And then they all have to follow his orders. There’s no way he’s going to sit in the same meeting as these children. He’s not going to do it.

Andrew: [laughs] That’s a fun point too. Yeah, he doesn’t want to be meeting with Fred and George. Screw that.

Eric: Yeah, what the hell?

Laura: I mean, is he even coming to these meetings? I don’t see him there tonight. [laughs]

Andrew: No. He’s popping in and out real quick.

Micah: He came in through the back door.

Laura: No, he’s literally the guy who sets the meeting, but then doesn’t show up for it.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Yeah, right. Well, and Snape doesn’t want to be working with Fred and George. Like, come on. [laughs] He’s out of the Order if that happens.

Eric: Yeah, like peers? Can you see that happening? Yeah, no. There are still leagues of difference between what some of these adult wizards are getting up to, versus what these children could reasonably contribute. All of that to say that separately, Harry needs to be let in immediately on everything, but they don’t know if they can trust him because if Voldemort is listening. But the fact that that is not described to Harry until after Mr. Weasley nearly dies is messed up.

Laura: I agree with y’all overall, but I will just remind everyone that Mundungus Fletcher is in the Order of the Phoenix, so I mean, I can’t see how any of these kids could be worse than him. [laughs]

Andrew: But he’s an adult.

Eric: Ehh…

Laura: Yeah, who dips out at two very crucial moments that we see in the series.

Eric: In this chapter…

Laura: Yes!

Eric: … Hermione says that Dumbledore was scary-looking. But Dung is still alive, so honestly, bit of fluff there with Dumbledore. He didn’t kill Mundungus. If he didn’t spell that guy flat immediately for doing what he did and putting Harry at risk and putting their whole operation at risk… everyone in the Order knows that this whole book series revolves around Harry. Everyone knows that it’s all because of him. And Mundungus did something so reckless that should absolutely have made him not be able to still be in the Order, but the Order is desperate. Look at their choice in venue as well. Something I was thinking while reading this: They have nowhere else to be. You would think people who have Dumbledore’s magical talent could come up with… literally fabricate a headquarters that is shiny, new, spacious, everything, but no, they’re in this old, dilapidated house. There really is not a plethora of places they can go. The Order is actually, in a sad sort of way, trying to raise awareness for something that the government is completely antithetical to.

Laura: Yeah. Well, Eric, I’m glad that you brought up Dumbledore’s anger about the Dementor attack, because a lot of story beats that we’re left with at the end of Goblet of Fire are picked up here, including that Hermione saying Dumbledore looked scary. And we can remember at the very end of Goblet, Dumbledore really trying to convince Fudge that allying ourselves with Dementors is a terrible idea, and we can tell Dumbledore is obviously ticked off about this, because it’s kind of an “I told you so” moment. What did you think was going to happen? We also get to hear about the Daily Prophet picking up where Rita left off. To Hermione’s satisfaction, Rita is not writing anymore right now, but the Daily Prophet has definitely taken to undermining Harry at every turn and really trying to set expectations that Harry is not to be believed, so that when he says things like “Voldemort is back,” people think he’s just crazy.

Eric: It’s really insidious and unfortunately a really valuable tactic for the Ministry to deploy their campaign to smear Harry, and I also get upset with Harry that he doesn’t have good media literacy. This whole time, he could have been clued in on some of these finer points of what the Ministry was trying to do. I don’t think it would have made him less angry, but unfortunately, there’s this scene between him and Hermione, and she’s like, “Haven’t you been getting the Prophet?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And she’s like, “Well, have you been reading it?” He’s like, “Pfft, first page.” She’s like, “Oh, Harry. No.”

Andrew: “Because I’m the Chosen One, so of course I would be covered on page 1.”

[Laura laughs]

Eric: “I would be on the front page!”

Andrew: “I would be on A1 above the fold.”

Micah: That’s very Horcrux-y of him.

Andrew: [laughs] It does seem like an oversight to not read through the entire paper. I feel like he would read the entire paper simply because he’s bored at the Dursleys’.

Eric: He wants to feel connected! Yeah!

Andrew: Yeah, go further back into the paper. Play the Daily Prophet‘s Wordle or crossword puzzle. He’s only looking at the front page or the front couple of pages?

Laura: Well, he says that’s because he assumed that if there was anything reported about Voldemort’s return, it would be front page news. It’s almost like he forgot everything that Dumbledore said at the end of Goblet. It’s almost like he forgot Fudge’s reaction to everything, and he was leading under the assumption that eventually the truth would come out, and surely it would be front page news. But unfortunately, Fudge is… he’s really, really… what’s the word I’m thinking of? Sorry.

Micah: Strategic.

Eric: Leaning on the…

Laura: Yeah, he’s really leaning heavily on the Daily Prophet to influence the way that they’re reporting on their stories.

Andrew: Well, yeah, and I agree with that, but I just still think Harry is so bored at the Dursleys’; he’s got nothing else to do. Don’t you want to know what’s happening in the wizarding world, outside of Voldemort’s return? Maybe that would make you happier if you saw some good news in the Prophet about…

Laura: It’s very on brand for Harry, though; let’s be honest. In a few chapters, Dolores Umbridge is going to give this tyrannical, autocratic speech at the opening feast of term, and Harry is going to zone out because he gets bored and he’s going to need Hermione to explain to him what the heck it was Dolores Umbridge just said.

Eric: And then he passes off her summary as his own opinion and gets caught on it by McGonagall, I think, which is fun.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: I love that.

Micah: Even if Harry had read the Daily Prophet, though, to me, he seems like more of a skimmer, and if he’s only looking at the headlines, he’s not going to pick up on the nuance that Hermione brings up to him in this chapter. These were just very casual passing references that were included in articles that likely Harry is not going to be sitting there and reading every single article, so unless it’s bold and in the headlines, I don’t think it’s capturing his attention.

Eric: But then think about what it says about Hermione’s love for Harry that she is reading every article, and her ability to comprehend what she’s reading and see what the Ministry is doing. The fact that… the reason that Hermione is so clued in when Umbridge speaks at the start of term is because she’s been seeing the stage get set for exactly this sort of thing. She’s apt. Aren’t we so glad we have Hermione as our great ally? Everyone but Harry can agree that Hermione is great always, and is always on his side, clearly.

Laura: For sure. Before we get back to the dialogue that Harry, Ron, and Hermione have, I did just want to note this moment of great misdirection that comes up. When Ron and Hermione are really trying to give Harry any context that they can give him, they talk about the Extendable Ears that Fred and George have invented that have allowed them to overhear some things, and Ron mentions that they’ve heard them talk about something to do with guard duty, and Harry shoots back at him, “Oh, do you think they might have been talking about me?”

Andrew: [haughtily] “I am the Chosen One. They must be talking about me.”

Laura: And Ron is like, “Oh, yeah, that’s probably it.”

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I love this because yes, they could have… they probably absolutely were talking about Harry, but we know the real thing that they’re talking about, and it’s the prophecy at the Ministry. So really, really fun moment.

Andrew: Yeah, I love that.

Laura: Well, now Fred and George joined the party. They hear Harry shouting, and they Apparate into the room. And I think this is so interesting, because in the last book, Percy was doing the exact same thing after he passed his Apparition exam…

[Eric laughs]

Laura: … and George says, “Percy only passed two weeks ago. He’s been Apparating downstairs every morning since, just to prove he can.” So I think it’s really funny that Fred and George are passing this judgment on Percy a book ago, and now they’re here doing the exact same thing. It really reminded me of how we said that this feels like the wizarding equivalent to getting your driver’s license.

Andrew: Yeah, there’s a certain freedom that comes with being able to Apparate. That said, this is a huge invasion of people’s privacy.

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: I would be so annoyed if somebody did this to me.

Eric: I mean, I bet Fred and George are just trying to make sure no one was murdered; Harry is screaming so much. [laughs]

Andrew: I mean, yeah, that could be a fun joke once, and then after that, I would get super tired of it.

Eric: Oh, yeah. No, but it’s very much “I’m going to the store; you want anything?” “You just went five minutes ago.” “Yeah, I know. I’m going again. You want anything?”

Laura: Exactly.

Andrew: Yeah. Hogwarts was onto something when they set up that “No Apparating in and out of Hogwarts” rule. That was smart.

Eric: Oh, yeah, people would pass time like crazy.

Laura: Yeah. We all thought it was a security measure, but it was really to stop the students from being obnoxious with Apparition.

Andrew: That school is not a privacy nightmare.

[Laura laughs]

[Ad break]

Micah: With Fred and George, though, the way that it comes across is that they do it in a comical sort of way. To me, with Percy, I would assume he did it with a level of arrogance, and maybe that’s just…

Eric: I mean, Percy does everything with a level of arrogance, right?

Micah: Well, that’s why it’s just… it’s not the same.

Eric: [laughs] I mean, Percy couldn’t have been doing it for a more functional reason. He needed breakfast, so he would Apparate down and grab the toast, and Apparate back up.

Micah: Fair enough.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, I also think Fred and George are actually good brothers, and I think in this moment, they’re doing this to diffuse the situation. I mean, they literally say, “Oh, Harry, we thought those were your dulcet tones that we heard.”

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I think that they’re trying to ease the tension in the room, but they’re doing it in a very Fred and George way.

Micah: And he’s their sugar daddy. They want to make sure that he’s okay.

Andrew: [laughs] “Just checking in on you,” yeah.

Micah: He’s bankrolling them.

Laura: Oh, man.

Andrew: Yeah, he’s a long term investor.

Laura: Maybe that’s what it is. They’re like, “We gotta check up on Harry. Gotta check up on our man.”

Andrew: “Our sugar daddy.”

Micah: Sugar Daddy Harry.

Laura: Make sure he’s okay.

Andrew: Episode title!

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Laura: Harry the sugar daddy.

Andrew: New T-shirt!

[Laura laughs]

Micah: How did it take us 670 episodes to get there?

Laura: Well, speaking of Percy – we were just chatting about how obnoxious he was last book with his Apparition – believe it or not, he gets even worse here, because Percy, Harry learns, has gone no contact with his family, as the kids would say, and he’s had some really hurtful things to say to Arthur in the process in particular. He says things like he’s had to struggle with Arthur’s lousy reputation working at the Ministry, and that Arthur has no ambition, and says to his father, to his face, that that is why the Weasley family has always struggled economically. That hurts to read, especially thinking about someone saying that to Arthur.

Eric: For me, this illustrates how… we’ve often seen Ron struggle with being poor, but I think it has affected every member of the Weasley family, and this is something that wouldn’t have come out of Percy’s mouth ever if it weren’t for the special circumstances, I think, and the strain that the circumstances in the world are putting them under. But Percy had this news of getting a promotion; he wanted to be congratulated, and instead, it was met with this suspicion – rightly so, I think – that it wasn’t earned. And there’s not a safe way you can tell someone that their promotion that they’re excited about was not earned, and did Arthur probably bungle it? Maybe, but Percy is not the kind who can hear that sort of thing in the same sentence, instead of “Congratulations,” and then take it to heart. So this is just very unfortunate that these things were said, but…

Laura: Yeah, he’s too proud.

Andrew: Yeah. I can understand the pain from both sides, because like you were saying, Eric, he wants to be congratulated. He is proud of this position. He doesn’t want to be belittled, and he doesn’t want his family to pull the rug out from under his excitement. And I also think maybe the Weasleys could have treaded a little more carefully here. They know he wanted a job like this. They know he wanted to work his way up in the Ministry. Is it worth bringing this up right now? Why not just privately set up your own walls?

Micah: It’s a paranoia, though. It’s a product of the time in which they’re living, and they’re recognizing the fact that Percy didn’t have the best year last year in working for Barty Crouch, Sr. …

Eric: [laughs] Right.

Laura: No.

Micah: … so why in the world would he be promoted to work with the Minister for Magic? The idea that perhaps Fudge is trying to draw him into his inner circle so that he can have a direct line to the Weasley family actually makes a lot of sense. But I would have preferred it if, in the end, we learned that Dumbledore went to Percy and had said, “Percy, look, take this job, and I need you to almost be at odds with your family over it so that you play your role as well as you possibly can.” I think it would have done a lot more for Percy’s character. He does finally come back to the family in Deathly Hallows, but Percy is just so blind because of his own ambition in this moment that he can’t see what’s going on around him, and it reminds me of the line that we’ll hear later on in this book, that the world isn’t divided into good people and Death Eaters. The battle lines are starting to be drawn, right? Even within families. Maybe that’s a strong term to use, but it’s clear that as things progress, it’s not just good side/bad side. There’s people who are going to fill in this middle ground area in these next couple books.

Eric: Yeah, and Percy is the kind of person who genuinely believes that if you work hard, you’ll have great things happen for you. And because he’s worked hard, from his perspective, he thinks that he’s earned this, but he’s also internalized every bit of shame that the Ministry has ever thrown towards Muggle-lovers and all this other stuff. He’s inherited all these other prejudices that most ordinary people have that the Weasleys don’t, and it’s made him turn on his own family like this. It’s coming from a place of deep isolation, and Fred and George have done their part Percy’s whole life to make him feel like the odd one out in the family, so this was a long time coming, but it is very unfortunate.

Laura: Yeah. I wanted to ask y’all if you thought that we had ever seen any other examples of Percy resenting or being embarrassed by his family’s lack of money. I think what stood out to me rereading this is exactly what you just said, Eric; I think Percy’s isolation amongst his siblings is very clear. His resentment about the family’s economic status, I feel like this is the first time that’s ever been addressed. We hear Ron be embarrassed about it all the time, but I can’t recall an instance with Percy.

Eric: I mean, it might just be that Harry is Ron’s friend and they’re the same age, so the stuff Percy would have been going through would have happened at the same age, but two years earlier, before Harry was in the picture. So you’re not going to hear Percy complain about hand-me-downs, because by year five he’s used to it, or something like that.

Laura: Well, Percy doesn’t get as many hand-me-downs, I suspect, right? I think Ron, as the youngest boy in the family, probably gets the most. Well, speaking of people in Harry Potter and their complicated families, I think we can all agree that Percy really sucks here. Overall, I understand him being too proud and embarrassed to accept what his father is saying to him, but he ain’t stupid. He should be able to piece that together. Can we think of any characters other than Percy who maybe should have cut their families off in Harry Potter?

[Eric laughs]

Laura: There are some rough families in this series.

Andrew: Harry Potter himself should have cut off his Dursley family.

Eric: Yeah. Dumbledore wouldn’t let him because he’s got to be welcomed back on Privet Drive. I said Merope, but we know she tried.

Laura: She did.

Micah: Draco? Percy reminds me of Draco in how they kind of do a complete 180 by the end of the book. It’s once they’re in too deep and they recognize just how bad things are, that’s when it clicks for them.

Eric: Yeah, and it wouldn’t… nothing short of that could have, I think, turned them around. Yeah, it’s interesting. I also don’t think that what Percy said to Arthur was fair, necessarily, about not having any ambition. I think that knowing the way the Ministry is – and Fudge is going around, it’s said in this chapter, telling anyone that if they sympathize with Dumbledore, they can be fired – knowing that that’s the way they play it, I actually respect Arthur for getting a position in the Ministry where he has enough autonomy that he can skate by. If he were closer to Fudge in terms of the overall structure, he might have to start being more outspoken against Dumbledore, and that just wouldn’t serve him.

Andrew: The no ambition comment is just so mean to say to your father, too. First of all, Arthur is happy in this role. Second of all, he raised you under his roof. He was able to make it work. Third of all, they had how many kids? Eight? How many Weasley kids are there?

Eric and Micah: Seven.

Andrew: Seven? Of course, seven.

Eric: Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, Ginny.

Andrew: I mean, that takes some ambition right there.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: But yeah, I think it can also be extended to his choice in field, because the reason that he’s not able to climb the ladder as easily at the Ministry is because his chosen field is something that the Ministry is largely not supportive of, and that is the wizarding government passing judgment on what things merit funding and exploratory research, right? And that’s what Percy is saying here. Effectively, what Percy is saying is, “Well, Fudge doesn’t think that Muggle artifacts are important, so why should you? Pick something that our society values more than what you’re doing.” And that is what Percy thinks is a lack of ambition. It’s rough. But yeah, I think Merope is a good example of someone who tried, but…

Eric: Yeah, her family was just completely toxic for her, and she knew it; she imagined better for herself. So Ariane Beth made a comment on the Discord, listening live, and said, “The other side of ‘If you work hard, you’ll have good things happen to you’ is the often unsaid ‘If your life doesn’t meet your expectations, it must be somehow your fault,’ which is not logical or true at all, but I think is what Percy is putting on Arthur.” So that’s interesting. It’s literally this idea of merit and that you actually earn your station in life, and time and again I think in real life we see that be tested, of “Actually, no, it doesn’t necessarily work out.”

Laura: Well, shifting to another Weasley sibling, Ginny, I was really pleasantly surprised to read this and be reminded of this moment. I really feel like we get to see Ginny’s personality shine here in ways that we haven’t gotten to see before. So she is currently flicking Dungbombs at the door downstairs, behind which the Order meeting is happening. She’s trying to test if the door has been Imperturbed; Tonks taught her how to do this, which really adds to the cool vibe here. And the funny part of this is that when Molly comes to get them for dinner, she asks, “Why were all these Dungbombs outside the door?” And Ginny just lies straight to Molly’s face and said that Crookshanks was playing with them.

[Eric laughs]

Laura: It literally says Ginny lied “unblushingly.”

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: She had that justification ready, because she knows her mom.

Eric: Well, this raises so many questions to me. One, why doesn’t Ginny just pick up the Dungbombs after herself? Two, why don’t they go off? You throw a Dungbomb at a door; I understand it bounces off, but it doesn’t lay on a pillow. It hits the floor. Why doesn’t it explode? Does it have to be ignited? How do Dungbombs work? I don’t know.

Laura: I don’t know.

Andrew: In terms of the Dungbomb pieces being on the floor, that house is pretty darn messy, so I actually am surprised Molly is even batting an eye at it, unless Ron and Hermione had cleaned it up previously and suddenly they’re there again. But you could have blamed this on Kreacher, too.

Laura: Well, that’s kind of what Molly does. She says, “Oh, I thought it might have been Kreacher. He keeps leaving weird things laying around.”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: It’s the perfect cover! There’s a lot of people in that house.

Eric: It reminds me of the gift that Kreacher gives Harry. What is it, a maggot-ridden something something? It’s like, “Oh, what if he thinks that’s actually a nice gift?”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: Well, on a related note, Eric, Ron notes that Kreacher is a nutter whose life’s ambition is to have his head mounted on the wall like his mother.

Eric: [laughs] Funny Ron is back, everybody.

Laura: [laughs] I know.

Eric: I thoroughly enjoy Ron in this chapter. I really do.

Laura: Hermione in this moment does what Hermione does best, and says, “Hey, you’ve got to be nice to him. It’s not his fault that he’s a little odd. Can you quite blame him?” And the reality is, we don’t even know the half of it yet.

Eric: Nope.

Laura: I mean, we’re going to find out next book what makes Kreacher as weird and demented as he is. But I also want to see if we can get a foreshadowing alert every time someone is dismissive of or disgusted towards Kreacher, because I really feel like these moments stack on each other and ultimately lead to Kreacher’s betrayal of Sirius.

[Foreshadowing sound effect plays]

Laura: … so Hermione says, “And it’s not just me, Dumbledore says we should be kind to Kreacher too.”

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: And Dumbledore gives this acknowledgement to Harry at the end of the book. When Harry is raging about how Kreacher did what he did, Dumbledore is like, “Kreacher acted that way because of how he’s been treated his entire life, in large part by Sirius.” So we have this nice bookend here at the beginning and the end, really showing that Kreacher is a product of the society and the environment that he’s lived in. And I just want to ask, why does no one listen to Hermione when she has these nuggets of wisdom early? There’s this. We’re going to get the Eileen Prince connection in the next book, and Harry is going to be like, “Ah, the Half-Blood Prince couldn’t be a woman.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Prince, Hermione! Prince! Purple Rain! Prince! Not a woman!

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Pretty sure that’s a direct quote, right?

Andrew: I think in talking about house-elves previously, maybe in our Goblet of Fire discussions, Ron, and to I guess some extent Harry, and definitely other characters in the wizarding world, they’re trying to unlearn everything they know about house-elves. Hermione is trying to make them unlearn these things, and I think it’s very difficult for them to do that. I mean, they grew up – Ron did – thinking that house-elves are housekeepers, and they work for us, and that’s that. That’s just the way it is, kid.

Micah: Well, presumably Kreacher was the only living thing inside of this house when the Order showed up, so Dumbledore is probably thinking, “Let’s treat him with a little bit of respect here, because who knows what kind of information he could have?”

Laura: Why couldn’t they have had their meetings at the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts? I’m just saying.

Andrew: [laughs] They don’t want to be in Hogwarts more than they already have to. Not the adults, anyway. I think Kreacher could just potentially cause more havoc in the house, so they don’t want to rock that boat too much.

Laura: Yeah, for sure. Well, speaking of havoc in the house, we also do get to see Snape briefly. As he’s leaving this meeting, Ron notes that Snape never eats dinner with them, thank God…

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: … but he’s definitely showing up to these meetings with some really valuable intel. We can even tell that members of the Order can’t quite contain themselves but to keep murmuring amongst themselves in the hall as they’re filtering out where they see Snape’s greasy head, as they’re peering down from the top of the stairs. But I’m wondering if we had any thoughts when we were first reading this about what Snape was doing here, because I think that’s a question that’s playing on all the kids’ minds. Like, “Why is he here? Why are we trusting him to be in this organization that’s trying to fight Voldemort?”

Andrew: I hated it. I hated it.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: I didn’t have any theories, but it was just so uncomfortable seeing Snape in this place, being basically in cahoots with the trio, which is something we haven’t seen. It just made me feel uncomfortable. And in these close quarters?

Eric: I never hate Snape more than when he baits Sirius throughout the book.

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Eric: But otherwise, I give them the benefit of the doubt. But except for that. That’s not good.

Andrew: Laura, did you have any guesses when you were reading?

Laura: I think at this point, I really believed that Snape was on the right side of history, and it felt to me like a red herring. But then when we get into the next book, we can talk about how when I got to the end of that one, I was like, “Oh, shoot, was I wrong?”

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Well, our girl Tonks is a little bit clumsy, and this chapter wraps with Tonks knocking over the very heavy troll leg umbrella holder, which is really weird to imagine every time I see it described. [laughs]

Andrew: I think it’s in the movie, too, isn’t it?

Laura: Is it? I don’t remember.

Andrew: No?

Micah: Well, the prop may be in the movie, but this scene isn’t, and I was going to bring up, it’s such a huge miss to not have included this. Now, somewhere… maybe I’m misremembering. Did they initially look to include Mrs. Black in the films, but maybe…? We just watched the movie. I should remember if they actually just have the curtains in front, but they never obviously open up, which would have been a very fun moment.

Andrew: Surprise! I don’t remember if we even saw the curtains.

Laura: No, I don’t feel like they touched on any of her portrait at all, or even alluded to it. But it is a huge miss, because this is a great scene. Tonks knocks this troll leg over, creates quite a din, and this is when Harry learns why it is that everybody has to be so quiet in the entry hall. These curtains fly open, and this portrait of this woman screaming just foul things at all the people in her home – her eyes are rolling, she’s drooling – and all of a sudden, Sirius Black comes out of the kitchen and yanks the curtain shut, telling her to shut up, turns to Harry, and says, “Hello, Harry, I see you’ve met my mother.” [laughs] And I remember laughing out loud at this line when I read it.

Eric: It’s great.

Andrew: Perfect ending.

Laura: Because she’s also… yeah, she’s shouting horrible things at Sirius as he’s coming to get her to shut up. I mean, like “Shame of my flesh” and “Filth” and all this other nasty stuff.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s so good. It’s such a great ending.

Micah: I did do a quick search, and it does look like there’s a shot of Kreacher walking in front of a closed portrait.

Andrew: Oh, okay.

Micah: And we do hear him muttering in the films, talking to Mrs. Black, but we never get, obviously, that official introduction. But I did also want to call out… Laura, you mentioned this severed troll’s leg stand. It is important to get a sense of what kind of house we’re in, the fact that they do have this type of piece of furniture within their home. And then it’s mentioned all of the former house-elf heads are mounted on the wall. We’re not in the nicest of places here.

Andrew and Eric: No.

Andrew: That’s gross.

Eric: Again, do you think that if they had any choice of venue, they would be here? Choose to be here? No. This is… unfortunately, for whatever reason, this is the only place they’ve got.

Andrew: And that foot did make an appearance in the movies. I don’t know if this picture I shared in our Discord is from the set tour, but they did create it for the movie, and it’s foul. And doesn’t that smell? And who wants to look at those nasty toenails? Blegh.

Micah: They’re like Voldemort toenails, except bigger.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Yeah, they are. That’s wild.

Laura: No, it is giving the same vibe as hunters having stuffed versions of exotic animals around their house and animal heads mounted to walls.

Andrew: Oh, yeah.

Micah: It shows their perspective on the larger wizarding world. But I do think we need to Max Mrs. Black for the TV show.

Laura: Yeah, we need that.

[“Max that” sound effect plays]

Eric: I would be okay if they didn’t Max Mrs. Black, if a whole series comes and goes and we don’t get it, because what point does it serve? It’s just another grim thing going on in this grim, old place.

Micah: Well, just so Sirius could say, “I see you’ve met my mother.”

Eric: “I see you’ve met my mother,” yeah.

Andrew: And then it ends on sitcom laughter. [laughs exaggeratedly] Commercial break.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: We need a Max series, How I Met Sirius’s Mother, and told backwards from this point forward.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: See, I don’t know if we need that.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: I think we do. [laughs]

Laura: No, I think it’ll be important to include because it really sets up Sirius’s character in this story and why isolation drives him to do what he does. Isolation is such a huge theme in this book.

Lynx Line

Laura: Well, we did also turn to our Slug Club patrons over on Patreon.com/MuggleCast for our Lynx Line this week; this is our newest benefit on Patreon, where we are asking our Slug Club level patrons a question specifically tailored to that week’s episode. So this week, we asked, “Name a person in Harry Potter, or in real life or in other fiction, living or dead, who you wish you had as a living portrait in your home. Ideally, it’ll be someone much nicer than Sirius’s mom.” And we asked people to please let us know why they would want that portrait installed in their home. So I figured in host order, we could just read through these.

Andrew: Rachel said,

“Of Harry Potter characters, I’d have to say Sirius or Luna. Historical figures, probably Moses or Joan of Arc. People from my own life, my grandmother or the counselor I had in college.”

Andrew and Laura: Aw.

Andrew: Eric, Stephanie’s?

Laura: Do you want to get Stephanie’s, Eric?

Eric: Yeah, sorry. And Stephanie says,

“I love the idea of having a really good chef or baker on the wall, like Nadia from The Great British Bake Off. Put her in your kitchen and never have to google substitutions for ingredients or how to make a puff pastry.”

I think this is a great hack. I want Gordon Ramsay on my… well, maybe not.

Andrew: It’s like an Alexa.

Laura: Yeah, that sounds really stressful, Eric. Gordon Ramsay?

[Micah laughs]

Eric: I just want him to curse at me all the time. [laughs]

Laura: Do you want him to be like British cooking show Gordon Ramsay or American cooking show Gordon Ramsay?

Eric: Oh, straight up Hell’s Kitchen.

Laura: Oh, gosh. Okay.

Eric: Yeah, or Kitchen Nightmares.

Laura: Because he’s different, depending on which audience he’s performing to. [laughs]

Eric: That’s fascinating. I don’t know how to feel about that, actually. No, I’m ready for him to… because you know the meme-ified Gordon Ramsay stuff where he says really funny stuff, like “This squid is so undercooked, it’s still telling SpongeBob ‘[censored] off'”?

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Eric: Sorry for the swear. I want that on a portrait.

Micah: Jennifer says,

“Hmm… this is a tough one. I’d love to have a portrait of P!nk, because she can sing, dance, and also give some great advice.”

Andrew: That’s cool.

Eric: Oh, that’s a good hack too.

Laura: I love that. Love the idea of having a pop icon in your home, just like, “Pink, can I have some advice?”

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: Aw.

Laura: Paxton says,

“I would want one of Fred Weasley! In addition to always being around to make me and others laugh, I feel like he would do his best to keep an eye on the house and protect everyone. Also, his death is one of the ones that broke my heart the most, and by having his portrait, he can live on in a way.”

Andrew: Jeff said,

“I would choose my Great Aunt Harriet, who passed away in 2018 at the age of 97. She was 67 years older than me, but I was closer to her than anybody else in my family; we shared a love of books, including Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.”

Nice answer, Jeff.

Laura: That’s so lovely.

Eric: Yeah, I love that. Breann says,

“Harry Potter-related… Minerva McGonagall, I love how real she is about everything. Plus, she’s super knowledgeable, and I feel like she could give a great pep talk if needed. For fun, Dave Matthews. The man can sing, play the guitar, and say the most off the wall things that will certainly make you laugh. In-home concerts? Yes, please. Dave’s commentary on the craziness of today’s world? Yes, please.”

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: I can actually do that for you, Breann. Here we go; here’s my Dave Matthews impression. [imitates Dave Matthews singing]

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: There you go.

Laura: It’s the same thing.

Andrew: Yeah!

Eric: Andrew, would you have Bruce?

Andrew: I would have you three, because I want you three in my lives more.

Eric: Ohh!

Laura: Aww.

Eric: Infinite MuggleCasts! Oh, I love that.

Micah: You don’t edit us enough?

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Laura: Are you sure you wouldn’t put curtains in front of all of us just to make us shut up sometimes? [laughs]

Andrew: Well, and I think that’s one part of this question that would have been fun, too, for listeners. Like, “And you do have a curtain, so if you want Gordon Ramsay in your house, that’s nice, but you can shut him off, so no worries. He won’t get too… if he gets too annoying, you can shut him up.”

Micah: Leah says,

“Luna. I feel like she always has something interesting to say. She’d have a unique commentary to break up mundane day-to-day tasks. Remember her Quidditch commentary? Imagine that playing while doing chores; she would add humor and interest to everything.”

Laura: Agreed. Actually, I feel like if I had to pick a Harry Potter character, I would pick Luna as well. I’m still thinking about who I would want as a real life person.

Eric: I would pick Dumbledore. Oh, sorry to interrupt, but I would pick Dumbledore, and then during a reread, I would look up and I’d go, “Are you serious with this?”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: And he’d have to defend himself.

Laura: You would confront him with the receipts.

Eric: Oh, oh, yeah.

Laura: Be like, “Sir, where were you?”

Eric: “Sir,” yeah.

Laura: Amy said,

“Personally, I’d love to have my mom on hand for her great wisdom and compassion. But seriously, since you said we can choose people who are alive, how cool would it be to have our four favorite hosts on hand for conversation and laughs?”

Eric: There it is.

Laura: Amy, that’s so sweet.

Andrew: Good answer, Amy. Free month of Patreon for you.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Laura: You already let us into your house once a week with new episodes!

Andrew: That’s a good point.

Laura: So this is quite an honor. [laughs]

Andrew: Zachary said,

“I would love to have a portrait of George Carlin; his commentary on life today would be unimaginable. I would also love a portrait of my Pop; to this day, he’s been all of his grandkids’ number one fan, and continues to help me with daily advice on life and fatherhood and parenting in general.”

Good answer.

Eric: That’s awesome. Julianne says,

“I’ll take a scrolling portrait (like a digital picture frame) with all my book boyfriends, please. We can start with Charlie Weasley, but if we can expand to all fantasy books, I’d like to add Xaden Riorson, Kingfisher, and Cassian.”

Okay.

Laura: [laughs] Yep. Yeah, I think the book boyfriends is a good call. I agree on some of this.

Eric: That’s really… that’s interesting.

Laura: Greta has a very wholesome one. She says,

“Molly Weasley. She’d be the closest equivalent to Alexa when it comes to home-related questions and spells, and she could give you advice on your choice of outfit for the day or tell you what to bring to a dinner party.”

Love that.

Andrew: Carly said,

“Leslie Jordan. He was an absolute icon and amazing human being; I would love to hear his commentary on a daily basis.”

Eric: Aw. Noelle says,

“Phineas Nigellus Black for sure. He’s got portraits in plenty of places I’d want to spy on, and he’d probably yell at me if I got distracted while working. Having portraits of my own family up, on the other hand… I can relate to poor Sirius in not appreciating that.”

Laura: Aww. [laughs]

Eric: Oh, wow. But yeah, somebody who can hassle you whenever you begin to meander and not do your work would be wild. That’s a wild accountability buddy.

Micah: Yeah. Sara says,

“In real life, I’d want my dad or grandma’s portrait. A useful portrait would be a doctor or nurse to help give you advice. And then in the wizarding world, I’d also like a healer, or maybe someone like McGonagall or Dumbledore for life advice.”

Laura: I feel like having a doctor as a portrait in my house, it would be like WebMD on steroids. My health paranoia would reach all new levels.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Laura: I’d constantly be going to the doctor portrait and being like, “I don’t know; my pinky feels weird. What do you think it means?” It’d be terrible.

Andrew: “You have three days to live.”

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Yeah, oh my God. Still, I think we’ve cracked free healthcare on this episode.

Andrew: If they can operate on you and prescribe medication and all that, yeah.

Eric: Oh, well, I guess… okay, I guess not.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: It’s the V1. It’s the V1.

Andrew: Free Telehealth.

Eric: Yeah, it’s the V1. Maybe a therapist. Maybe my therapist. I’ll get a portrait made of my therapist.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Laura: Catherine says, “I mean, I wouldn’t mind a portrait of Henry Cavill up for perpetuity…”

Andrew: Hey now.

Laura: Yeah, good taste, Catherine.

Andrew: Hannah said,

“Wow, where to start? Do you want knowledge, entertainment, or memory? Right now, I would have to say one of my favorite musical artists, Josh Groban, so he can sing and I would never need a radio or Spotify playlist again.”

Eric: Jen says,

“I would love to have my Nana’s portrait in my house. I was very close to her growing up. She passed a number of years ago, and I would love to get to hear her voice and see her smile again. She also passed before I had my kids, so I’d love her to meet them, albeit in portrait form.”

Andrew and Laura: Aww.

Eric: I agree with that. That’s really sweet.

Laura: That’s a really beautiful sentiment. And to really bring us home here, Barry says,

“Honestly, none. I have enough smart home devices watching me; I don’t need a portrait that can share its opinions on my life choices.”

Oh man, imagine if Google and Alexa could talk independently.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

MVP of the Week

Laura: All right, and replacing our old MVP of the Week segment, we also are customizing these pick a character of the week segments to something specific to the chapter. And I think we can all agree that Percy Weasley is the worst Weasley, but I want to give y’all a challenge and basically make this easy for myself, so I’m asking y’all, who’s the worst Weasley? Except I already picked Percy, so you have to pick someone else.

Eric: Great. Okay.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: I’m going to give it to the Weasley twins. I’m putting them together, because spying is wrong.

Eric: Oh my God, you hypocrite.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Okay, I’m going to… you know what? Mine is not better. I’m going to give mine to Arthur for not doing more to get the family some money.

Laura: Oof.

Eric: Clearly, they resent you for it. Gosh.

Micah: I’m going with Molly triple down here. Stop the mollycoddling of these kids.

Eric: Oh my…

Micah: Harry is 15 years old. He was bar mitzvah’ed two years ago. He’s a grown man in the eyes of the wizarding community. Enough is enough.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: He’s faced more than you ever hoped to.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: And Molly is like, “Um, my brothers were killed in the last war?” [laughs]

Andrew: Aw. Listeners, if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo that’s recorded on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com. And we have a bit of news: Our traditional phone number is now being retired, in part because…

Eric: Did you not pay the bill? Did we forget?

Andrew: We may have forgotten to renew it, and Google said, “You know what? We’re not giving it to you, and you can’t have it back.” But you know what? It’s for the best, because the phone calls are not very good quality.

Micah: No.

Andrew: We still have access to all the voicemails, by the way, so if you have called in, we have had them; we do listen to them. But the voice… let’s enter 2024 fully. Voice Memos only. Peace and love.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: You know what it is, too, is just it’s really obnoxious to keep the line going. In theory, it sounds like it’s easy, right? You just have to remember to make a call from it or send a text message. But who’s paying attention to that? Clearly, not me.

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, clearly not you! That’s why we lost it! And honestly, it was just fun to say, “1-920-3-MUGGLE.” Like, it’s cool “Muggle” was in the phone number.

Eric: It will live on.

Laura: Yeah. Pour one out.

Andrew: Yes.

Eric: We’ve long said that voice memos are preferred, emailed to MuggleCast@gmail.com, and that’s been the case; the quality is much better. So think of it as a real attempt at quality improvement.

Laura: So I wonder what’s going to happen, though, because you know some people still have this number saved…

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: … so when this number goes to someone else, are they going to get random phone calls from people talking about Harry Potter?

Micah: I hope so.

Eric: Yeah, I’m going to become that person’s best friend.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: I’m going to call right now. Oh, it just immediately… oh, it says “User busy” when you try to call it right now.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Who’s tying up our line?

Andrew: Yeah, immediate “Doo-doo-doo.” Google’s just put it on lockdown; it’s going to go to some phone number graveyard. Well, anyway, next week we will discuss Order of the Phoenix Chapter 5, “The Order of the Phoenix”! This book’s namesake.

Quizzitch

Andrew: And now it’s time for everybody’s favorite trivia show – Google will never take this away from us – Quizzitch!

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s question: What well-kept lawn in London has been home to a zebra, an elephant, and a helicopter landing pad? The correct answer was the lawn at Buckingham Palace, of course! Fun factoids about that. And 55% of people said they didn’t look up the correct answer that they got correct, and the winners are as follows: Buckbeak waiting for Harry to come upstairs and say hi… aw, okay. Hi to my Ravenclaw husband; Horton Hears a Helicopter; I would tell you, but Dumbledore made me swear not to…

[Laura laughs]

Eric: … Kelsey; Merlin’s missing buttock; The sniffler that got loose in Buckingham Palace; and Yoshie. And congrats to everyone that submitted. And here is – I’m particularly proud of this next one – next week’s question: In honor of the portrait of Walburga Black, what famous artist and sculptor was given an exclusive license in 2014 to use a material known as Blackest Black? Walburga would be very happy with this person. And please submit your answer to us on the Quizzitch form located on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch. And also, you’re able to find it if you’re on the MuggleCast website, checking out transcripts or anything else, by clicking “Quizzitch” from the main nav.

Andrew: This show is brought to you by Muggles like you, dear listener. We are as independent as Percy is isolated from the rest of his family in this chapter…

Eric and Laura: Oooh.

Andrew: … so your financial support is of the utmost importance. In fact, listener support is the only reason we’ve been able to podcast for 19 years and counting, and we now have three great ways to help us out. If you’re an Apple Podcasts user, subscribe to MuggleCast Gold, which gets you instant access to ad-free and early releases of MuggleCast, plus two bonus MuggleCast installments every month. For even more benefits, visit Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You’ll get all the benefits of MuggleCast Gold, plus livestreams, yearly stickers, Lynx Line participation, a physical gift, a video message from one of the four of us made just for you, access to our private Facebook and Discord groups, and more. And then number three, visit MuggleCastMerch.com for all of our brand new merchandise. Laura, earlier in the recording, we had a request. LegalizeGillyweed wondered if we should start selling your pants. And for anybody who doesn’t know, who’s probably really alarmed right now…

Eric: Oh my God.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: … it was a running joke about your pants way back in the day.

Laura: Yeah, and I don’t think that you’ve said anything to assuage people’s concerns.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Well, to make it sound less random.

Laura: Yeah, no. TLDR, y’all, the story is I left a pair of my pants in our hotel room in Los Angeles when we were there for the 2006 Podcast Awards. Eric very kindly carried them home and mailed them back to me, and during a much earlier episode of MuggleCast, in the middle of the recording, Eric just goes, “Laura, did you get your pants?”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: You know, sometimes these thoughts come to me and they’re fleeting, and I gotta check.

Micah: You gotta check it off the list; otherwise…

Eric: You gotta do it. Micah, thank you for understanding.

Micah: Yes.

Andrew: We will also start selling a MuggleCast notepad where people can put their thoughts down and then share these thoughts when the time is right!

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Oh, I get it. Y’all are going to go in on a Christmas gift for me, and it’s going to be that notepad to all of my…

Andrew and Micah: Thoughts.

Eric: Yeah, okay.

Andrew: Now Laura, I mean, we can sell pants. I’m looking at the options right now. We got some… we have choices.

Eric: Let’s just say “Laura’s” on them.

Andrew: “Laura’s pants,” I think it should…

Eric: Custom-made Laura’s pants.

Laura: [laughs] I mean, listen, I’m all about the marketing push, but I will say, if I recall correctly, the particular pants in question were Gaucho pants. They were very popular at the time, and not to say that they’re an unfortunate fashion choice in general; I’ll just say they were an unfortunate fashion choice for me, so I don’t know if I recommend us doing an exact replica pant.

Andrew: Of course, of course.

Laura: Is there something more stylish? [laughs]

Eric: Do you still have them?

Laura: No.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Andrew: Some joggers, maybe. Joggers, leggings…

Laura: Honestly, joggers, leggings, or sweats. Those are all me vibes.

Andrew: Perfect. Okay.

Laura: Comfy pants.

Andrew: And we’ll put “Laura’s pants” down the side, and then we’ll put a picture of your face on the backside?

Laura: Oh, no, don’t do that. [laughs]

Andrew: Okay, never mind.

Laura: I don’t want…

Andrew: But I think it’d be awesome if it said “Laura’s pants” down the side…

Eric: Yeah, down the side. Absolutely.

Andrew: … and then the mic bolt on the other side.

Laura: Yeah, I’m fine with that. I’ll be very surprised if anyone buys a pair, but let’s just see what happens.

Andrew: You see the people in the Discord? They’re buying it.

[Laura laughs]

Micah: LegalizeGillyweed is at least one customer for you right there.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Wow. I really appreciate the support.

Andrew: We’ll get working on this, y’all. Stay tuned.

Eric: Yeah, we’re on it.

Andrew: This is very exciting. All right, so those are the three ways to help us out.

[Everyone laugh]

Andrew: Buying Laura’s pants is priority number one. If you enjoy the show and think other Muggles would, too, tell a friend about the show, and leave a five star review in your favorite podcast app. We couldn’t do this without you all, so thank you so much for your support and your listenership. That does it for this week’s episode of the show. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Laura and Micah: Bye.

The post Transcript #678 appeared first on MuggleCast.

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This week, just let it all out! Join Andrew, Eric, Micah and Laura as they listen in to Harry unloading on his best friends and get the latest Order of the Phoenix goss. But be sure to tiptoe down the hall quietly because we don’t want to wake up any maniacal pureblood portraits!

• BIG NEWS! The MuggleCast Merch Store is now open! Grab brand-new, original MuggleCast designs. We have t-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, hats, and we’ll be rolling out more in the months ahead!
• Chapter-by-Chapter continues with Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 4: Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. And our Time Turner segment has us spinning some old recordings from past discussions! Check out Episode 436 and Episode 229!
• Foreshadow Alert: Grim-Old-Place, “house of a dying person”… OH NO, SIRIUS!
• We break down Harry, Ron and Hermione’s reunion with a fun new edition of “Horcrux or Harry?”
• The hosts try their hands at impersonating ALL CAPS HARRY! One host is SCARY good!
• Does Harry feel better about being left in the dark after learning what Ron and Hermione have been up to all summer?
• Do we agree with Mrs. Weasley not letting the kids attend the Order of the Phoenix meetings? Do her previous losses and the size of her family impact her decision-making?
• Guard Duty Misdirect: was the Order talking about watching Harry or something else entirely?
• PompASS Percy: what do we make of this new Weasley family dynamic?
• The chapter wraps with Ginny, Kreacher, Snape, Mrs. Black and more!
• Lynx Line: Our patrons share who they wish they had a living portrait of in their home and why!
• Who gets our picks for Worst Weasley of the Week?
• Quizzitch: In honor of the portrait of Walburga Black, what famous artist and sculptor was given an exclusive license in 2014 to use a material known as “Blackest Black”?
• Visit MuggleCast.com for episode transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and to contact us!

Download now OR, now read the Episode 678 Transcript!

The post Episode #678: Sugar Daddy Harry (OOTP Chapter 4, Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place) appeared first on MuggleCast.

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Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #677, Lawn Enthusiast Dumbledore (OOTP Chapter 3, The Advance Guard)

Show Intro

[Show music plays]

Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.

Eric Scull: I’m Eric.

Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.

Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: And this week, keep your wand out of your back pocket so you don’t blow your buttocks off! We are discussing Chapter 3 of Order of the Phoenix, “The Advance Guard.” And to help us with today’s discussion, we’re joined by one of our Slug Club patrons, MuggleCast listener Katie! Hi, Katie. Welcome to the show.

Katie: Thank you! Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Andrew: We’re excited to have you. We’re excited your plants are making a cameo on today’s podcast as well.

[Katie laughs]

Andrew: Katie is hailing from the beautiful northwest. And can we get your fandom ID?

Katie: Absolutely. Well, you can get most of it. So my favorite book is Prisoner of Azkaban, and I very much do not have a favorite movie. I was just telling Micah, if I were to pick one, it would just be out of the hat, and so I’m not going to. I actually have really not watched the movies that often; I’m really, really a book reader. So I’m not going to pick one, but if I had to, it would be whatever one I watched most recently, which is Goblet of Fire with the movie commentary, so there you go.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Love it.

Andrew: Good answer.

[Andrew and Katie laugh]

Katie: My Patronus is a wolf. My Hogwarts House is Gryffindor. I feel like those are tied together somehow, but I’m not quite sure how. And my favorite Order of the Phoenix member, up through this point, is Remus Lupin.

Andrew: Okay. Do you think…? Do the movies just sort of let you down as a reader, as a big Harry Potter reader? Is that why you’re…?

Katie: No, I like them. I love them. I just, in general, read more than I watch any media. I’m always behind on TV shows, movies, everything like that. But I read a ton.

Andrew: So on a scale of one to ten, how excited are you for the Harry Potter TV show? Do you not care?

Katie: Oh, I’m really excited. No, I’ll watch that, yeah, for sure.

Andrew: Okay. All right, sweet. It should be more loyal to the book too. At least, that’s what we’re hoping for.

Katie: We can hope. We can hope.

Andrew: Well, welcome again, Katie. Thank you for your support on Patreon, and it’s great to have you. Before we get into Chapter by Chapter, the day after we recorded last week’s episode, Maggie Smith, who played Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, passed away. Died on September 27 at the age of 89 years old. This one hurt a lot of people, I think, because Maggie Smith has felt like a motherly figure to many fans, in part because of her role as Minerva McGonagall, but also she’s had such a storied career, film career, including in Downton Abbey, both the TV show and the two movies. I was a huge fan of her in the Downton Abbey series. And obviously, she’s just an amazing actress as well.

Laura and Micah: Yeah.

Eric: The first thing I saw her in was Hook in the early 1990s, and they actually aged her up for that. I’m so glad that we got several more decades with her.

Laura and Micah: Yeah.

Laura: She’s an incredible talent. And I will say, I heard the news when my mom texted me first thing in the morning with the news article, and I responded to it by just being like, “No!” It’s such a bummer, because you’re not expecting it, right? When someone gets older, you know that time is going to come eventually, but you don’t expect the day that it happens to be the day, right?

Andrew: And you don’t even want to think about it happening, even though it feels inevitable.

Laura: No, you don’t. And we hadn’t heard anything about her health recently, so I think that adds to the feeling of shock that comes with it. But I will say, I have absolutely loved all of the Downton Abbey “Best of” moments coming out with her.

Eric: Oh my God, the supercuts they make. [laughs]

Laura: What an incredible homage to her. She was just a phenomenal talent, and yeah, we’re worse off without her.

Andrew: Yeah, she is so funny in Downton Abbey. And I mean, to your point, Laura, about being a shock, she had a very active career up until the last couple of years. I mean, I mentioned Downton Abbey the movies; Downton Abbey: A New Era came out in 2022, only two years ago.

Micah: Yeah, I think I first saw her in Sister Act. That was my introduction to her, as Mother Superior. And she was just… as we saw in other roles she played, including in Downton Abbey, just the wit, the sarcasm, it came through as McGonagall, too, for sure. And it’s going to be hard – we talk about this a lot with the upcoming TV show – to separate the actors from the movies and whomever is going to take their part in the TV show, because so many iconic British actors and actresses portrayed these roles. It’s really British royalty of acting that was in so many of these Harry Potter films. So I just, as was stated, enjoyed the time we got to watch her, because she was really, really good.

Andrew: Yeah. And speaking of British royalty, people on social media pointed this sad fact out: Michael Gambon, who played Dumbledore in most of the Harry Potter movies, actually died exactly one year prior to Maggie Smith. He passed away on September 27, 2023. Kind of eerie that they died exactly a year apart. Well, rest in peace, Maggie Smith, and thank you for everything you gave Harry Potter fans and all your contributions to the Harry Potter film series. We will not be forgetting you anytime soon, in part because we still love the Harry Potter movies very much and everything you contributed to them.

Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner

Andrew: So let’s move on to Chapter by Chapter, and this week we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 3, “The Advance Guard.” And first, we’re going to hop in our Time-Turner, right, Eric?

Eric: That’s right! We last spoke of Chapter 3, “The Advance Guard,” on Episode 435, which was on September 23, 2019; and before that, on Episode 229, which was May 27, 2011.

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.

Ron: What the…?

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 229.

Micah: Last part of the chapter, they all arrive safely at Grimmauld Place. “Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix,” is what it says on the paper that Harry gets.

Eric: Yeah, paper.

Andrew: Hmm.

Eric: Hmm, interesting.

Andrew: Pen and paper, hmm.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Priorities.

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 435.

Andrew: I like how Mad-Eye cleans his eye like beer pong players clean their ping pong balls.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Just throw it in the cup, swish it around a little bit, it’ll be fine. There won’t be hair in your beer the next time it lands in a cup.

[Laura laughs]

Cristina: You know, it’s funny; we never find out what happens to that glass of water afterwards.

Eric:* [laughs]* It’s just sitting on the dining room table.

Andrew: You know Petunia would put that in the dishwasher.

Laura:* Immediately, yeah. [laughs]***

Andrew: This foreign glass.

[Whooshing sound]

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.

[Bell dings]

Andrew: That’s a pretty funny bit. I forgot we had discussed that.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: Were you going to bring it up again? Because it’s still funny. [laughs]

Andrew: No, no, I’m glad we played that, because I totally forgot about that. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, yeah. Well, and actually, shout-out to the Slug Club member Christina, who helped us on that earlier episode. And Katie, welcome, welcome.

Katie: I listened to that episode, actually, earlier today, and… big shoes to fill. It was a great conversation.

Andrew: Oh, really? Aw, love that.

Katie: Christina was great.

Laura: Look at this preparation.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Unbelievable. This is exactly the kind of preparation that we lack and love.

Micah: It’s more preparation than I did.

Eric: Yes.

[Andrew and Katie laugh]

Micah: The sound effect, though, the warping sound effect; they actually use that in Cursed Child. Is that where you got it from, Eric?

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: No?

Micah: No, it’s just I’d recently seen it.

Eric: Is it really?

Micah: Yeah, when they go back in time, there’s this really cool effect that happens on the stage, and that’s the sound they use.

Eric: That’s the exact one?

Andrew: Is it the exact same? It can’t be the exact same.

Micah: I mean, it’s pretty close.

Eric: Well, okay, because there’s obviously different… it’s from FreeSound.org, and it’s…

[Micah laughs]

Eric: No, really.

Andrew: I heard the budget was tight for Cursed Child.

[Laura laughs]

Micah: A.k.a. the Lyric Theater.

Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion

Micah: So a lot happened in the last chapter; a lot was revealed in the last chapter, and we start this chapter with Harry feeling really further alienated than he probably did prior. And one of the things that jumped out to me right away was just his treatment of Hedwig. With everything that he’s going through, he really could use a friend in this moment, and his first thought is he needs to get letters out to Sirius and Ron and Hermione. He really wants to make them feel guilty for everything that he’s going through. Sure, now there must be a response that’s going to come back to him, but he doesn’t have the means to which to send the letter. And I feel like we’ve probably all been in similar situations before where we’ve taken something out on somebody who doesn’t deserve it, and Hedwig is the one who feels the brunt of this particular situation.

Eric: He doesn’t even let her get her dinner. She’s brought… what is it, a frog in?

Micah: A frog.

Eric: And he’s like, “You drop that down, and you go take these three letters to people!”

Laura: How rude.

Andrew: And it’s even worse when you have to take it out on your pet, on your beloved pet. I mean, that’s when things are really bad, when you have to take out your anger on your pet. But yeah, I’ve been in this situation; I’ve carried grudges, and then I let it get in the way of how I treat other people. But I try to check myself; I try to realize that they’re not the actual problem, and I need to let things go instead of holding these grudges that I hold for way too long.

Eric: Yeah, and I think Hedwig has had her share of times when she’s pecked at Harry and sassed him a little bit. She’s a bit temperamental herself, so maybe this is karmaic? But I just feel devastated at the thought of Sirius, Hermione, and Ron’s hands, you guys. Hands! He instructs Hedwig; he says, “You peck their hands until they write a sufficiently long reply.” What is it with damaged hands in this book?

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: My God, Harry is a mini Umbridge here.

Laura: You think it’s foreshadowing?

Eric: Well, I think it’s terrifying. I think it’s painful.

Laura: It is such an interesting connecting the threads moment, because he’s literally asking for Hedwig to do that while they are writing, to make them write nice, long responses, and then, of course, Umbridge’s punishment of Harry is when he is writing.

Eric: Well, and Ron and Hermione have already told Harry that Dumbledore will not let them say much, and he clearly glosses over that fact when he’s like, “You’ve got to damage their hands until they write me long and well back.” What are they going to do? They can’t do anything! Hedwig is just going to have to attack… Hedwig hasn’t even eaten.

Andrew: He doesn’t really know that at this time, though, that they can’t do anything. I mean, he’s so in the dark. They do explain this in the next chapter, but at this moment, he’s just like, “Why are they ignoring me?”

Eric: Well, I think it’s in their letter. I think it’s in the letters they have sent him already that they can’t say much.

Katie: Either way, I picture it… even if they are trying to write him a longer letter, “I’m so sorry; we can’t explain,” but they’re literally pen in hand and Hedwig is still pecking. The letters get all messed up. They’re trying to write the letters. I mean, I don’t really know how that would have worked anyway if she’s pecking at their hands.

Eric: She’s just trying to do her duty. Yeah, he made her skip dinner. She’s hungry.

Laura: Yeah. I also think it’s just unfortunately common, like we talked about here at the top, to take things out on the people closest to you when you’re having a hard time, and a lot of times it’s not even intentional. I’ll put it out there and say I had some tough times in the last couple of years, and I have to imagine that I was not a terribly easy person to live with when I was going through some tough times, and I think that’s what Harry is seeing here.

Eric: Apology accepted, Laura, by the way.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: Well, okay, is this how we’re revealing that we’ve secretly been roommates for the entire time?

Eric: Yeah, we were on an episode of… we did that whole season of Big Brother together.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: No, but it’s true. Look, who among us has not done this? Maybe not quite so intense. I still just… I feel really bad for Harry here, because he’s just not in a good place. Like Micah said, he’s worse than he ever was now that something exciting has happened and continually he’s been pushed back into the dark.

Micah: He has. But Andrew, you’re happy, though, that Harry is a take charge person in this chapter.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Well, yeah, because I mean, the chapter just straight up opens up with what he writes to Sirius and Ron and Hermione. “I’ve just been attacked by Dementors and I might be expelled from Hogwarts. I want to know what’s going on and when I’m going to get out of here.” Period. Blunt. Straight to the point. He’s had it. I just love the tone that he strikes right there.

Laura: Honestly, I could see that being a Slack message you send to everyone, Andrew.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Be like, “I’ve had it!” [laughs]

Eric: @channel. @here.

Andrew: [laughs] @here: “I’ve just been attacked by Dementors, and I still need to edit the darn podcast. I might be expelled from MuggleCast if you don’t get me these files soon. I want to know what’s going on. Where are the files?”

[Eric laughs]

Laura: “Where are the show notes?”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: That hits too close to home.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: I wasn’t going to say it.

Laura: Yeah, I wasn’t directly attacking anyone. I was just going down the checklist of things Andrew needs to be able to produce the show.

Eric: Yeah. Hey, listen, it takes a lot.

Andrew: Hey, while we’re on the subject, Eric, you have show notes this upcoming Tuesday. Do you know that? Just checking.

Eric: Thank you, thank you.

Micah: And going back to Harry, it’s a bit ironic that having been isolated for so much of the summertime, in this moment where he could have somebody who does mean something to him and is close to him, he chooses to isolate himself even further in his actions by sending Hedwig away.

Eric: He’s got no choice if he wants answers, and has to ask for them, though, because she’s his only way to do that to get them.

Micah: It’s true, but I’m just not sure what he’s expecting to receive in return that’s going to be any different from what he got previously.

Eric: Yeah, I mean, not from Ron or Hermione. There’s no way they can properly explain anything more than anything, but an adult? Sirius, maybe? But…

Micah: Well, to make matters worse, Hedwig doesn’t return. She’s like, “Screw you, Harry. I’m taking my frog, I might go pick up a few more frogs on the way, and you are just going to suck it up at Privet Drive for the next couple of days.”

Eric: [laughs] Do you think it’s possible that when she arrives, they’re like, “We get it,” and they just… they’re saying, “We can’t write you a sufficient reply that you’ll like, but we’re going to go get him.”

Micah: “But Molly is cooking in the kitchen, so go enjoy yourself.”

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Eric: Yeah, exactly. I feel like at that point they would have said to Hedwig, “Look, we know he’s pissed. Just hold on and he’ll be here.”

Andrew: “Just stay here with us and we’re going to go and grab him in a couple days.”

Micah: You think they held her captive? Like, Hedwig is trying to squirm away, and Ron and Hermione are holding her down?

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Well, I do love the idea of them having to keep her in a room because she keeps trying to bite their hands. I like that idea.

Micah: Or they Stun her and say, “Don’t worry.”

Eric: That’s too soon.

Laura: Although, I don’t know; I could also see her being fed up with the whole situation, and showing up there and being like, “You know what? I’m going to roost here. Y’all go pick him up, because I don’t want to deal with him.”

Micah: So it ends up being four days before anything of significance actually happens, and Harry’s anger, his confusion, his paranoia, is entering next level territory. Nobody’s telling him what’s going on. And I know I’ve experienced this many times; your irrational mind just starts to spiral. Do we think this was the right move by Dumbledore? Should he have come for Harry the night of the Dementor attack?

Eric: Ooh.

Micah: Or in fairness to Dumbledore, did he need time to actually implement an exit strategy for Harry without drawing suspicion from the Ministry?

Eric: Probably that.

Andrew: Yeah, given how many Advance Guard members end up being involved in this extraction, I think Dumbledore saw this as a very serious, risky situation that he wanted to be well-prepared for, and that was going to take a little bit of time. Did Dumbledore have to go and speak to Harry himself? I don’t think so. I wish he got some sort of message to him sooner, but in terms of the timing of it all, it seems acceptable to me. Again, considering how many people show up to extract Harry, that implies that they were very nervous about Ministry officials, or maybe even Voldemort getting in the way.

Eric: Absolutely. I think also the night of, or the day of, you’re not sure if that’s the final bit of the attack. Think about the lull between when the towers fell in New York; there was a brief period of time where you probably could have assumed that was the only one. Maybe that’s an extreme example, but Dumbledore would be right for assuming because Privet Drive is now… Harry is stating it’s untenable; it’s not going to work for him. Fine, they’re making other arrangements, but until he absolutely hits his breaking point that he’s doing in this chapter, it’s still the best option to keep him there. And so Dumbledore is not going to act rashly, no matter how pissed Harry might be in the moment, to remove Harry from this situation, because it’s still the safest place for him, and you don’t know what else is coming down the line. If Dementors can make it a Little Whinging, anything can.

Katie: It just seems kind of crazy to me, though. In the previous chapter, we’re seeing owls from everywhere finding the exact locations within the house and delivering new messages, and then no messages for four days. It could not have been that hard to give Harry a little bit of an update. “Hold tight; we’re coming.”

Andrew: Right.

Eric: Yeah, oh, a “Sit tight” message would have been great. Signed, everybody.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Then he’s like, “All 20 of them are together without me?” [laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, I feel like that would have made it worse. But yeah, some sort of short message to let him know help is coming sooner rather than later.

Micah: I agree with that. I think that’s the big missing piece here, is that four days is a long time, especially for somebody who is not allowed, never mind to leave his home, but probably is not leaving his room. And we know what Harry has been through up until this point this summer; we know what he went through at the end of last school year. The fact that he’s getting zero information and zero correspondence after everything that transpired the night before? To me, that suggests that Dumbledore should have stepped in and done something to make Harry just feel a little bit more comfortable. Andrew, I know you mentioned, though, that the level of the extraction, the amount of people that were asked to partake in this or volunteered to partake in this, suggests that this was a pretty big undertaking. And Eric, you agreed as well.

Eric: Yeah, as far as exit strategy, I kept going ahead to Book 7’s “Seven Potters” chapter, because the level of security, the level of precautions that we see the Advance Guard deploy in this chapter are quite similar; in fact, lesser than they end up being in Book 7. And it just really speaks to how necessary this level of precaution is, because they don’t know as much about, like, “Would Voldemort really stage an attack right now?” In Book 7, they know he’s going to, but they have to take this level of precaution. And so even though nothing happens except they get a little bit of frostbite – they’re going to lose a few toes – ultimately, this is a lot safer, but the precautions have to be in place all the same. So I think that the later chapter informs us that the precautions taken in this chapter were actually appropriate.

Laura: Yeah. Lupin also, later in this chapter, mentions that they’ve been setting up headquarters, and that that in and of itself has taken some time. And I think I mentioned this, not last week but the week before, that I could see Dumbledore not wanting Harry to be around as a potential window into the movement that was going into securing Grimmauld Place as headquarters.

Eric: It’s interesting because, what, Harry is just going to breathe in dust and Dumbledore cares a lot about…? Because all they’re doing as far as setting up is you needed the Fidelius Charm, but that had to have been in place before anyone can use headquarters. And they’re just decluttering, right? That’s all they end up doing the rest of the summer is just decluttering. So I like this idea that, “Oh, we have to set up headquarters; Harry can’t…” because he only needs to be there, what, for 24 hours on Privet Drive, we said. But at the same time, he could have come a little sooner, I think.

Laura: He could have. They’re also having a lot of very… they’re having grownup conversations that they’re very sensitive about the kids, particularly Harry, having access to, which, given the connection to Voldemort, makes a certain amount of sense to me. But I agree; there was a more careful and caring way that this could have been handled.

Eric: Yeah. It’s interesting because the reason that not only Harry, but Fred and George and everyone are highstr… all the kids want to listen in to these meetings because there’s so much hubbub around them, and Harry has been kept in the dark for so long. So maybe if they had invited him over sooner, his friendship with all the other kids… it would have had maybe a more relaxed air about it, and so they wouldn’t need to pay that much attention to what’s happening. But the big feature when they get to Grimmauld Place is “We’re not being allowed in these meetings,” and it makes it worse.

Andrew: Well, we will discuss the Dursley angle here as well as the Advance Guard themselves in a few moments, but first, this show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

[Ad break]

Micah: All right, this is something that we definitely touched on a bit when we did Episode 435, but I thought it was worth revisiting, because we have talked so much about how the Dursleys treat Harry in prior discussions in Sorcerer’s Stone, in Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry is being really badly mistreated here. He’s being fed through a cat flap in the door. Vernon is about to lock him in his room as they go out for the evening. He is explicitly told not to steal from the fridge; don’t touch any of their possessions. This is somebody who’s lived in their home now for the last 15 years? 14 years? This is really just nastiness, isn’t it?

Andrew: It is; it’s really rough to see. And I think it’s fair to say at this point that Harry is suffering from depression. Some of these lines really stuck out to me as signs of depression. Quote, “He could not even summon the energy to get up and turn on his bedroom light.” And this other quote, “Harry lay there in a kind of stupor, thinking of nothing, suspended in misery.”

Eric: He’s staring at the ceiling for hours at on end. He’s lost in the injustice. He’s feeling helpless. Yeah, these are all markers.

Andrew: Dark times, dark times.

Katie: And maybe it’s the helplessness and that lethargy that he’s feeling, but I was impressed in this chapter that he actually acknowledges that if he were to go venture out, then he would get into a fight with the Dursleys, and that would not be helpful, whereas last chapter, he was actively picking a fight with Dudley. So even though he is taking out some frustrations on Hedwig, I think the fact that he is aware enough to avoid that extra fight with the Dursleys I was pretty impressed with.

Eric: You’re right, Katie. That’s a great point. He’s got some perspective now!

Andrew: Well, and his temper was up in the last chapter, too, so that’s probably a factor. And I think in this chapter, he even tells himself that he will do some magic he doesn’t intend to do again, or he says he could potentially get himself in in trouble with the Ministry again. He knows he’s in the doghouse right now, so he can’t risk it. He hopes that he can go back to Hogwarts or undo what has occurred, and getting himself in more trouble is not going to help. Now, on the other hand, he’s very much in the dark, so if he acted out again against the Dursleys, I would certainly understand where that rage was coming from. Unfortunately, the Ministry would not.

Micah: But it’s not the worst thing in the world for Harry for the Dursleys to leave the house.

Andrew: No.

Micah: I’m sure that’s probably at the top of his list of things he would want during the summertime. But presumably at other times, he would be able to leave his room.

Andrew: Right.

Katie: So are we to think that the Dursleys have also been home for these four days continuously? I mean, presumably Vernon is going to work; Dudley is going out. I don’t know. Maybe Petunia has to do the shopping.

Andrew: Maybe, but also, they want to do this under the cover of darkness, I assume, as well; get Harry out of Privet Drive, so that’s going to require getting the Dursleys out of the house at night, so maybe that’s why they’ve been waiting as well. Because to your point, yeah, maybe Petunia went out for a little bit, but it’s going to be during the daytime she’s going out, presumably. I, for one, love doing my food shopping during the day, so I assume Petunia would as well.

Micah: Yeah, you two are thick as thieves.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Laura: Yeah, two peas in a pod.

Andrew: We both want our Hogwarts letter, okay? [laughs]

Micah: Well, let’s switch gears a little bit here and talk about the party that arrives to rescue Harry from Privet Drive. Thought we could kick things off with a little bit of a name origin.

[Name origin sound effect plays]

Micah: So an Advance Guard is a body of soldiers preceding and making preparations for the main body of an army, in this case, an army of one being Harry Potter. [laughs] But I did think this was cool, that they were referred to in this way, and this is what the Advance Guard represents. Now, where do we think this particular rescue attempt ranks in rescue attempts from Privet Drive?

Eric: I love this question. This is great.

Andrew: [laughs] Give us a rundown first of all the ones we know.

Micah: All right, so not exactly Privet Drive, but Hagrid shows up in Sorcerer’s Stone to rescue Harry and to tell him that he’s a wizard.

Eric: Okay, okay.

Micah: Fred and George show up via Ford Anglia in Chamber of Secrets; the accidental summoning of the Knight Bus in Prisoner of Azkaban; the Weasleys doing their best Santa impression and showing up via chimney in Goblet of Fire…

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Micah: We have the Advance Guard here showing up in Order of the Phoenix. Dumbledore, the man himself, finally steps foot again on Privet Drive…

Eric: Amazing.

Micah: … after many holidays in Ibiza, in Half-Blood Prince.

[Eric laughs]

Micah: And then something we’re going to talk a little bit more about later, the Seven Potters in Deathly Hallows. So this is kind of the original version of the Seven Potters; like the Seven Potters is part two.

Eric: Yeah, I would rank this in around the middle. Nobody dies. I think it gets points for the fact that nobody… or is seriously injured the way last year Dudley nearly died in that horrible manner because of Fred and George’s prank. It’s really, really nice that Harry has all of a sudden gone from nothing to finding himself surrounded by seven or eight wizards, and they’re clearly there to take care of him. From the outset, he doesn’t know who all of them are, but they’re clearly there for him, and that gives me warm feelings. I don’t know how I’d rank the others, but I’d say this is right in the middle. Do you guys agree? Katie, do you agree?

Katie: I don’t know if I agree. I think if I were Harry, I would have been questioning whether they were truly there to take care of me a little bit more. I mean, it’s like, you don’t really know how much time is passing, but it is minutes before Lupin asks Harry, “How are you?” They’re not even really calling out to him to check where he is when they first get there, and they’re not prepping him to go; they are doing their own thing. And I was just reading this chapter thinking if I were Harry, I think I would have been throwing off curses, thinking, “Are these more Dementors? Am I getting attacked again? What’s going on here?” But he accepts them very calmly, which I don’t know if that would have been my reaction.

Andrew: I think this is actually why it does rank higher for me. I don’t want to put it in a particular place in this list, but I think it ranks high because it is so interesting that Harry thought he was completely in the dark, and then all of a sudden, here’s the Advance Guard, many of them showing up at his doorstep after they successfully got the Dursleys out of their own home by tricking them into thinking they were winners in a lawn competition. And then just the angle of like, “Wait, this is the real Moody? This is bizarre for me to be interacting with the real Moody for the first time.” And then Lupin, yeah, he does take some time to speak with Harry, but Lupin is kind of like his father in the scene, because Lupin at one point does say, “Hey, don’t worry, Harry. You can trust that this is the real Moody.” And I also love – and this is at Harry’s expense, so I’m sorry, Harry – but I love that all of them are just staring at Harry when they arrive like he’s a zoo animal. [laughs]

Eric: They’re starstruck, yeah.

Laura: Some of them definitely are. I think what makes this particular jailbreak from Privet Drive unique compared to everything that came before it is this is the first time that it’s actively dangerous to be transporting Harry from Privet Drive back to the wizarding world. I feel like the examples we get in Books 1 through 4 are presented in a far more lighthearted fashion than this one is. And this really is… Book 4, Goblet, getting into Order, it really is the turning point of the series where things get really dangerous.

Eric: That’s a great point, yeah. Because Voldemort is back.

Katie: Yeah, you can use a little bit of that lightheartedness, even if you think too hard sometimes it might feel out of place, but it feels good to have a little bit of that too.

Micah: For sure. I really liked the Ford Anglia, but if I had to vote, I would say probably Dumbledore’s personal escort service would be at the top, just because of the conversation that happens in the Dursleys’ living room, and then Kreacher shows up, and it’s just so good. But I do like what’s being said. And if you look to the last jailbreak being the Seven Potters, there’s no higher risk involved, and all of those people volunteered to come knowing that they may not make it back to their respective locations alive. It feels like, compared to this, the risk is much higher in Deathly Hallows than Order of the Phoenix.

Katie: Yeah, yeah. And here it still very much has a feeling of “The grownups are in charge, and the grownups are handling it and they’re the ones taking the risk, and they’re here to protect Harry,” but talk about Seven Potters, and it’s all Harry’s generation that’s at risk as well, and so it really has a different level of responsibility involved.

Micah: Yeah, that’s a great point. So what message should it send to Harry that nine wizards, including three Aurors, have been sent to safely transport him from Privet Drive? I mean, this is a big contingent of people.

Andrew: “We do love you, Harry! See, we weren’t ghosting you.”

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: “We just needed some time.”

Micah: Do you think Hedwig should have been there?

Andrew: Hedwig should have been there. That would have been the icing on the cake.

Eric: And her frogs. She should just have a half-eaten frog in her mouth.

Andrew: No, I think… this actually gets back to what I was talking about during Make the Personal Connection last week. Things do get better. You think people aren’t behind you, you think you’re in trouble, you think you’re doomed… things do get better. All you got to do is wait it out sometimes.

Eric: Yeah, I feel like there’s nothing wrong with that, but the idea that he would have been cursing at them or spelling them… they’re ultimately not really that much authorized to say more than Ron or Hermione, or anybody via letter would be, so if he had taken this time to be cross with them, they would have taken him to Grimmauld Place in, like, a cage.

[Eric and Katie laugh]

Eric: They would have just constructed, blindfolded… I feel like they could overpower and subdue him, but I hate to think that they would have to.

Katie: Yeah, totally agree; they could have fought back if he did fire off curses. But I don’t know. I think my reaction to the nine wizards… not the nine wizards themselves, but Moody’s comment about… he said, like, “Never too many,” or “More would have been better.” He said something like that, and I just had the thought that Moody has never heard the phrase “There’s too many cooks in the kitchen.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Katie: Because now I’m picturing so many wizards circling around Harry in the air, and I can’t imagine that would be a great thing for secrecy’s sake, either. But it is nice to show how many people are supporting.

Eric: You’re right. That’s a good point.

Andrew: It is a little strange, too, because they’re so concerned about being spotted up in the air, but they don’t seem to be concerned about going from the ground to getting above the clouds…

Laura: Right.

Andrew: … and that seems like the most obvious place for them to be spotted, right in the front yard of Privet Drive.

Laura: Yeah, it’s not very inconspicuous, that’s for sure. [laughs]

Andrew: No.

Eric: Meanwhile, the Put-Outer has already been used once on Privet Drive for that reason, but it doesn’t make an appearance until they land in London. It’s the beginning of next chapter that it gets used. But one of them’s got it on him; I think it’s Lupin actually has the Put-Outer on him.

Micah: I think it’s… isn’t it Moody? Moody uses it at the end of this chapter.

Eric: There you go.

Andrew: Even still, I don’t see that as a great excuse or a great way to explain how they’re not spotted on the ground.

Micah: Yeah, I’ve never understood how that really works either. It’s like, “Oh, you put out the street light.” There’s still other lights.

Andrew: Coming from the homes?

Micah: People can still see in the dark. [laughs] It’s not like you’re up in the Northwest where at night it gets pitch black, right, Katie?

Katie: Right.

Andrew: Privet Drive is not a dark sky certified area of land.

Micah: No, it’s a suburban street.

[Andrew laughs]

Katie: And it’s also summertime, right?

Laura: Yes!

Katie: So when is sunset? It’s probably only really dusk here. I imagine this award ceremony isn’t at 10:00 p.m.

Andrew: Well, and in Europe, the sun sets very late. I’ll never forget watching Game of Thrones over there at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. and it was still broad daylight. I’m like, “This is weird.” The days are long over there in summer.

Eric: Well, I feel the need to mention that we’re forgetting how overcast and cloudy England always is, so even in the summer, there’d be cloud cover.

Micah: True.

Andrew: Nah, this is one big plot hole. We just unearthed a major plot hole.

Eric: Well, why do they use the Put-Outer when they land?

Andrew: What’s with this book? No longer my favorite. [laughs]

Eric: Wow, the stakes are real on this read-through.

Micah: We’ve talked a little bit about Mad-Eye. We mentioned Remus in terms of members of the Advance Guard. We’re introduced to two new characters in Nymphadora Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt, which will become more important a little bit later on throughout Order of the Phoenix, but later on into the series; you could probably throw Elphias Doge into that mix as well, as he appears in Deathly Hallows.

Eric: And Hestia Jones.

Micah: Yeah. Sturgis Podmore, Emmeline Vance, Dedalus Diggle, and Hestia Jones – as you mentioned, Eric – round out our Advance Guard. And I thought it was a bit ironic that it’s Mad-Eye Moody who questions if Harry is actually Harry; that was clearly thrown in there as a throwback to Goblet of Fire.

Eric: [laughs] Well, it’s a great opportunity to mention it. The last time Harry saw Moody, he wasn’t him.

Andrew: And maybe he’s trying to teach Harry something here, like, “Be on your guard. Remember, I was fake as hell last book, to you at least.”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: “So you should be asking me this question. Wink, wink.”

Laura: I also feel like there were just Dementors here; you don’t know what all the Dark side is up to, so I think it’s actually really smart that he does this. And it could also be foreshadowing to the Seven Potters in Deathly Hallows as well, where we also know there are other examples of characters forcing each other to prove they are who they say they are when they show up at the…

Eric: It’s how we get Mollywobbles.

Laura: Aww, yeah.

Eric: When they’re at the Burrow, it’s how we know what Mollywobbles is. So again, yeah, here’s an example. They’re leading by example and instructing Harry how to verify somebody’s identity. It comes into play two years from now.

Micah: But you’d be checking your breakfast, right, Eric?

Eric: I would be checking for anything in my cereal if I were Moody proper.

Micah: Oh, if you were Moody. That makes sense. What if your eye fell into your cereal?

[Andrew and Katie laugh]

Eric: Then it would be lubed up?

Katie: Then it’s extra checked. That’s how you check it, right? Just throw it in there?

Eric: Yeah, milk’s a lubricant, right?

Micah: We touched on this little bit earlier with Lupin being this familiar face; do we think specifically that’s why he was sent as part of the Advance Guard? And kind of as a follow-up question, given that Harry had just performed the Patronus Charm days earlier, is Lupin’s safety question really that safe? We’re in this whole mindset of making sure Harry is Harry, and not trying to get tricked and accidentally smuggle a Death Eater back to Grimmauld Place, but I don’t think this safety question really stands the test. It’s a poor safety question on the part of Lupin.

Eric: Wow. Wow. I mean, most wizards are shocked to learn Harry can even conjure a Patronus. But for Lupin, it must be a case of just asking the one question he himself knew the answer to. Nobody knows the answer to this question more than Harry himself and Lupin, so that’s…

Andrew: It’s kind of a throwback, isn’t it? [laughs] Just like…

Eric: Yeah, to last time they worked so closely together.

Andrew: Yeah, for the reader.

Eric: But my question is what if Harry had said a moose? Or a deer, right? A deer is not incorrect, but stag is the way that they know James. It’s always called a… it’s never not called a stag. But what if he got close but didn’t nail it? What would that…?

Andrew: That’s a good call.

Eric: How would that play out? Because anybody around the street, or anybody that’s seen Harry cast it from afar, any of the other Hogwarts students… I don’t know. It’s getting into murky territory here.

Laura: Yeah, but I could see somebody calling it a buck, for example, instead of a stag.

Eric: A buck. It’s specifically a stag, is why I’m like, “Okay, yeah, clearly this is Harry, because he calls it the same thing that they called it.” But stag is such a… I don’t know when I’ve had many opportunities to come up with “stag.” I probably would have gone “buck” first as well.

Katie: I kind of took this as Lupin… half safety question, half just getting comfortable with Harry again, kind of joking around, maybe showing Harry we don’t have to take Moody all that seriously. Hopefully, it sounds like Lupin was already pretty confident in Harry’s identity.

Eric: It is a great question as far as “Was he brought along because Harry has a relationship with him?” And I think it’s got to be, because he actually doesn’t have a relationship with these other people. I mean, he’s met Dedalus Diggle twice before, once in a shop and once in the Leaky Cauldron in year one, but there’s no real personal connection here. These strange wizards are going to take him away. What if they’re all Death Eaters? In fact, last year, one of them was disguised… was a Death Eater!

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: So Lupin is really the one that Harry is meant to trust, I think, to go with them.

Micah: Yeah. And I think, though, in the movie the question is different, right? Lupin asks him what was in the tank in the first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson?

Eric: Grindylow! Yeah, that’s right. Well, maybe they identified that it’s a bad question.

Micah: Or am I thinking about Deathly Hallows – Part 1?

Katie: I think that’s a Deathly Hallows question.

Laura: I think that is, yeah.

Micah: Okay. Never mind then. But I still think it’s a weak question.

Laura: But it is funny because in Deathly Hallows, Lupin is the one who really doesn’t believe it’s Harry. He’s a lot more aggressive towards him than he is here.

Eric: Is Harry so desperate that, if Lupin weren’t here, he would go with these strange adult wizards who claim they’re with Dumbledore?

Andrew: Yes. 100%.

Katie: Yeah, he didn’t ask any of them a safety question, right?

Andrew: Right.

Eric: Wow.

Andrew: But he’s so desperate to get out of there.

Micah: He wants to go, yeah.

Eric: We’re all agreeing Harry would just… Harry doesn’t care at this point.

Andrew: He’d go with it anyway, yeah.

Eric: Wow.

Andrew: But you also have to assume, if you’re Harry, that Dumbledore now has even more eyes on you in light of what happened, so I’d be more inclined to believe that these people are who they say they are.

Eric: Okay.

Micah: Well, we are introduced to one of the coolest characters in the Harry Potter series in this chapter in Nymphadora Tonks. And while we’ve been talking a little bit about the fact that Lupin being there disarms Harry, I really think Tonks is the one who grounds him in this chapter, when they go up to his room. And I think it’s important for Harry to see someone close to his age who’s an Auror, and somebody who recognizes her mistakes, her shortcomings, and is willing to own them. I mean, she’s very truthful in her conversation with Harry for just meeting him for the first time.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Eric: Tonks is great. Tonks is great.

Andrew: And I think it’s a nice moment for Harry because Tonks is pointing out, “This house is almost suspiciously clean, isn’t it?”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Which I think says a lot about the Dursleys, and it kind of tells Harry that she immediately understands the type of people that Harry has been living with, these fake people.

Micah: True.

Laura: She also talks to him like a human being. She treats him like a normal person, which isn’t something he’s getting from the other people that he’s meeting for the first time here.

Eric: Yeah, I mean, it is complete with this… she does make him uncomfortable by looking at his scar this one time, but that’s sort of a natural thing that everyone does at this point. But you’re right; she’s just normal. And knowing that Auror is the only career path he’s ever thought of, which is what this chapter says, knowing that she’s an Auror, that somebody so close to him in age and so cool and so flawed – in terms of having, like you said, weaknesses, like she’s clumsy – can become an Auror, and also has this Metamorphmagus thing going on… she’s an immediate role model for Harry.

Katie: I think “grounds,” that Micah said earlier, is also such a great way to describe what she does here, too, because she’s kind of getting to know him on a more personal level. She’s joining him away from the group. I don’t want to say “taking” him away from the group, because that sounds nefarious, but maybe she can tell he’s super overwhelmed with all these new people, so she kind of puts him in a little bit more of a relaxed setting. He can tell that she’s not super worried about the outcome, so maybe that calms him down a little bit as well. So yeah, I think it was a great way to introduce Tonks here.

Laura: You know what? I feel like she has big sister energy here. I think that’s what it is. She’s being a big sister to Harry in this moment.

Eric: Aww.

Micah: How about Moody? Do we feel like he’s overreacting at all? We know about him at this point. We know how he behaves normally, never mind when he’s being impersonated by a Death Eater, and certainly last year would lend itself to him behaving even more paranoid. But he jokes about not breaking rank should one of them die, and I just couldn’t help but think about Deathly Hallows.

Katie: I don’t think he was joking.

Eric: He wasn’t joking, yeah.

Laura: No. [laughs]

Eric: But he mentions it. He’s the hard boiled, straight one. He’s literally the funniest. The funniest thing about Mad-Eye is he’s not funny. There’s no… in a crowd, he’s the most serious one, and that’s funny. So Tonks…

Andrew: And this is why Dumbledore trusts him, I think.

Eric: Yes.

Andrew: And he’s the military guy in the operation, no BS, straight to the point, “We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do this right, and we’re going to save this kid.” I like the tone that Moody strikes here.

Eric: I agree, because you believe also that he’s motivated to do things right, especially after how he spent his last year. He’s motivated to make sure that that doesn’t happen to him again, so you’re extra inclined to trust him. And Tonks is the one who takes him down a peg when she’s like, “Who do you know that’s lost a buttock? You’re being too over-serious here.”

Katie: Yeah, and he does seem to respond well whenever Tonks does push back on him too. It’s like he’s going all in, but then when she pulls him back, it seems like he’s kind of okay with it. I think he wanted to double back at some point, and Tonks was like, “We’re all freezing!” and I don’t think that they ended up doubling back. So maybe he just goes hard all the way and knows that the team will do what’s necessary.

Micah: She’s his protégé, though, isn’t…?

Katie: Mentee?

Micah: I always had the sense that she studied under Moody. Maybe I’m making that up in my head.

Eric: Yeah, I don’t remember where in canon, but I had the same inkling. I had the same thought for…

Micah: So he has a deep level of respect for her. And I think, to your point, Katie, it comes through in this chapter and at other times in the series. But does this whole rescue situation seem overly dramatic?

Andrew: Micah.

Eric: Hindsight is too…

Micah: “We’re going to lure the Dursleys away and we’re going to send nine people, and then we’re going to do all these charms, and then we’re going to go up and fly…”

Eric: I’m going to send you a printout of Deathly Hallows‘ “Seven Potters” and you…

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: I’m sorry, yeah, next chapter: “Number 12 Grimmauld Place.” They make it! It was a successful operation. There’s nothing wrong with this successful operation!

Micah: Well, in fairness to the Advance Guard, I think it was Lupin who mentions how they can’t risk using the Floo Network, and something about Apparating would set off alarm bells, so…

Eric: Well, Harry can’t do it.

Micah: Well, he does it in Half-Blood Prince, right?

Eric: Well, side-along is not invented yet by the author. It’s not a thing.

Micah: Ah, that must be it. Well, surely there could have been another option. We just talked about how he’s rescued in all the other books. [laughs]

Eric: That’s true.

Katie: But Floo Powder would have too much Ministry oversight, right? I mean, I could see the reasons. The one thing that I just… actually, the reason I went back and listened to the previous episode was all of the magic happening at Number 4 Privet Drive.

Eric: Oh! I’m so glad you brought this up.

Katie: How does this not alert the Ministry? I don’t understand.

Eric: There has to be… you know how when you’re coding and you want to put a secret comment in the…? Mark will know; he’s not here.

Laura: Yeah, commenting your code?

Eric: Commenting your code, and stuff that helps for context. I wonder if there’s a way to do a spell where it masks itself, like the way that you do a nonverbal spell when you don’t want your opponent to know what you’re about to cast on them. But there must be a way in which the adults are masking, because they’re using a ton of magic inside the house, but it isn’t getting picked up by a Ministry who would look for this as an opportunity to further penalize Harry.

Andrew: It’s a good question.

Eric: I had that thought.

Katie: I could take that as a headcanon solution. There’s a way to cast your magic in secret.

Andrew: Hide. Yeah, because there’s got to be a lot of interest in being able to do that for a variety of reasons, so you would have to think that adult wizards have figured that out by now, how to trick the system.

Laura: And I’m sure it’s illegal.

[Katie laughs]

Andrew: Yes, for sure.

Laura: It has to be.

Eric: Well, there’s good illegal and bad illegal, right? This is useful to not get Harry in trouble.

Laura: Sure.

Katie: The coding analogy is a little funky because when you comment out code, it no longer is effective, right? But this magic is still being executed.

Eric: There must be a way to subtly… or go incognito with your spellcasting so that the trace can’t…

[Laura laughs]

Eric: There we go. That’s a better…

Andrew: Draw a parallel to a Chrome tab.

Eric: One thing I thought of, though, if we’re really comparing Books 5 and 7 here, Harry does actually flat out ask the adults, “What’s going on with Vol -?” And he doesn’t say Voldemort, and they all stop him from saying it, and I wonder if they, in that moment, are thinking that there’s a possibility that his name might be tabooed the way that it is in the books, and that’s how the Death Eaters find them.

Katie: It’ll be interesting to see how the speaking out loud of the full name “Voldemort” comes up in the rest of the book, if we keep tracking that. Because yeah, they definitely cut him off here, but I wonder if Dumbledore continues to use it like always…

Eric: Yeah. Oh, that’s a great point. Yeah, yeah. I know it’s definitely all adults are squeamish about it, so this scene makes sense, but I was thinking, because Harry is unprotectedly… they’re about to rescue him; the stakes couldn’t be higher. It made it seem like they jump on him.

Micah: This is certainly a precursor for the Seven Potters in Deathly Hallows, and I wonder, too, if Dumbledore was alive, would he have allowed this same kind of rescue attempt to happen? Because there’s a lot of risk, obviously, in doing this, and they’ve already tried it once in Order of the Phoenix; why try and duplicate the effort in Deathly Hallows? So maybe we can talk a little bit about that when we get to our Book 7 reread. But as we mentioned, Harry and company make it safely to Number 12 Grimmauld Place. If I remember correctly, a very fun sequence of events to play in the Lego Harry Potter games.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Eric: Stuff in the fountain. Stuff is all messed up. You’ve got to smash everything to advance.

Micah: But before we head over to hear from our patrons on the Lynx Line, I did want to ask one final question. We hear about the Rear Guard, so there is supposedly another guard that is in place to take over should anything happen, should all nine of these people be killed…

Andrew: Agh!

[Eric laughs]

Micah: … in transit to Grimmauld Place. And I was curious; I don’t remember ever learning about who the members of the Rear Guard were. Who do we think is stationed to collect Harry and bring him safely to Grimmauld Place should something happen?

Andrew: So I feel like the Advance Guard are the A team, right? They’re the good people; we’re feeling confident they’re going to pull off this mission successfully. Once you fill up the Advance Guard with all the good people, there’s the people who aren’t so good, but you’ve got to have this backup plan just in case. Dung. Dung’s got to be in the Rear Guard. And also, Arthur. I’m sorry, but Arthur is not the strongest weapon, so he’s on the backup team. Those are my two guesses.

Katie: I like to picture Hagrid on his… well, I don’t actually remember where the motorcycle is at this point in the story, but I think I like to picture Hagrid just a couple hundred yards back in the sky, alone on the motorcycle, just making sure everything’s going okay.

Andrew: That’s a good idea.

Micah: All right, well, we’re going to hear from our patrons in just a minute, but we need to hear a word from our sponsors first.

[Ad break]

Lynx Line

Micah: So on this week’s Lynx Line, which is our newest benefit on Patreon… of course, thanks to those who support us over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast for answering this week’s questions. In the spirit of the Advance Guard, we asked: What five Potter characters – because nine is too many…

[Laura laughs]

Micah: … would you choose for your own Advance Guard? And I figured we could read these in host order. So Andrew?

Andrew: So this first one comes from Jennifer:

“Picking an Advanced Guard? Heck yes! I’d start off with Dumbledore – if Voldemort fears him, everyone should. Kingsley – he’s just a badass. Lupin – smart and also a werewolf! McGonagall – she’s freaking smart! She’s amazing! Finally, I picked Dobby – he would do anything to save Harry Potter!”

Aw, that was a really cute answer overall.

Eric: Really cute answer. From Carly: “Kingsley: If he protected the Muggle Prime Minister, he’s good enough for this.” Darn good point. “Flitwick: Bro was a dueling champion, so he probably has killer reflexes.” Oh, another great point. “Moody: I relate heavy to his hyper vigilance. McGonagall: Badass + Animagus.” And, “Angelina Johnson, assuming she’s old enough to consent, because being awesome at Quidditch tells me she’s a very skilled flyer.”

Micah: All good choices. Asia says,

“Remus Lupin and Sirius Black (because Wolfstar), Minerva McGonagall (she’s a badass mother… you know the rest).”

[Laura laughs]

“Bill Weasley (he’s a talented wizard who knows about curse breaking), and Hagrid (he’s caring and would be very protective).”

Katie: And Shannon says,

“One: Dumbledore (as long as he’s not too busy ignoring me), Peeves (he would be dedicated to destruction if anyone tried to get in the way of the mission – and he respects Dumbledore, so that’s another reason we need him), Fleur (she could use her Veela powers if needed for a distraction).”

That’s a great idea.

“Mad-Eye (CONSTANT VIGILANCE! And serious dedication), and Lupin (very intelligent with lots of knowledge in various areas of magic).”

Laura: Good choices. Jason says,

“I’d have to say Fred and George (completely unpredictable, which makes them perfect), Kingsley Shacklebolt, Luna Lovegood (who is a totally dedicated friend and would be surprisingly laser-focused), Professor McGonagall,” and also Jason adds, “Snape, but I would assume that he needs to maintain his cover,” so that might be a tricky role for him to play.

Eric: “My Lord, I have something to do tonight between the hours of seven and nine.”

[Laura laughs]

Eric: “Don’t ask me again in two years, and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

Micah: Can I just call out to ZN in the Discord says, “Dobby bringing that dirty sock.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: That’s what Dobby brings to the whole ensemble.

Andrew: Leah’s team would be,

“Viktor Krum, Charlie Weasley, Oliver Wood – three super attractive and talented Quidditch players. It’s a flying mission, after all. Am I secretly hoping they’d fight over me in the process? Absolutely.”

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: And then she added,

“Flitwick and McGonagall, arguably the two most talented and nurturing professors. I can count on them to care about my well-being and I can definitely count on their defensive wandwork, as evidenced by the Battle of Hogwarts.”

Eric: Nice. The Quidditch thing is amazing. It is a flying mission, of course. Rachel S. says,

“I’d have Sir Cadogan cause a crazy diversion. Then the four I’d travel with would be Mad-Eye, McGonagall, Lupin, and Kingsley.”

Awesome.

Micah: Stephanie says,

“I would choose Lupin, for his magical prowess. Hermione, because she’s the smartest person in the series. Charlie Weasley, because dragons! Grawp for his physical dominance. And Kreacher, after Sirius commands him to protect Harry at all costs.”

Laura: Oooh.

Eric: Love to see Grawp on a broom.

Laura: I was just thinking that. How does Grawp become airborne?

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: A bigger broom.

Katie: Also, does Charlie get to ride a dragon during this rescue mission?

Eric: Ohh!

Laura: That would be cool. Grawp could ride on the dragon.

Eric: Everyone would see that. The whole country would see that.

Laura: Yeah, but what if you got an invisible dragon? Aren’t there some dragons that can make themselves invisible? There has to be.

Katie: Just disillusion the dragon. It’s fine.

Eric: Yeah, that’s fine.

Laura: Eleanor says,

“I’m going for the people who we know sacrificed themselves for or choose Harry over themselves in some way: Dobby, Hagrid, Snape, Ron, Draco, who didn’t give Harry up to Bellatrix,” in Book 7. So that’s an interesting choice.

Eric: I love how much thought people are putting in.

Laura: I love the thought behind it.

Katie: And Michael W. says,

“Viktor Krum because he’s a boss. Sirius because he’d distract and enrage the Death Eaters. Dobby, super underrated in a pinch. And Dumbledore, because he obviously doesn’t have anything better to do. And Mad-Eye because duh.”

Eric: [laughs] So glad they mentioned Dumbledore not having anything better to do.

Where’s Dumbledore?

Micah: Well, speaking of Dumbledore, where’s he at?

Andrew: Where you at? So I think he’s sitting at the 12 Grimmauld Place command center waiting to watch the extraction take place. Imagine that photo of Obama in the situation room waiting for SEAL Team Six to take down Osama? That’s the scene going on in the situation room at 12 Grimmauld Place.

Micah: I like that a lot.

Eric: Oh, I’m picturing that scene in The Santa Clause where the elves have the sleigh tracked on a pin board with LED lights, and they’re tracking it.

Andrew: And Hillary Clinton in that photo is Professor McGonagall.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Eric: Okay, I think it works.

Micah: We got the AI on that.

Eric: My answer for where Dumbledore is is that he’s the one who shot up the sparks! There were red, then there were green; someone far off in the distance that tells them the coast is clear shoots off sparks. It’s probably the Rear Guard, if we’re being honest. And I said that Dumbledore stayed behind and probably shot off purple, yellow, pink sparks, too, but that was for a nearby Pride Parade. It is summertime, after all.

Micah: I think Dumbledore is just hiding out in the bushes of Privet Drive drinking it all in.

Katie: Are these the same hedges that Harry was hiding in at the start of the book?

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Exactly.

Katie: Perfect.

Micah: But he doesn’t hit his head on the window.

Eric: Dumbledore is trying to really get in Harry’s head and see what he sees and feel how he feels, so he thought he’d lay in the bushes too.

Laura: He’s just so messy. Well, here’s what I think: So I know a couple weeks ago, I said that I thought Dumbledore was chillin’ on a yacht in the Bahamas, and I think he’s back from that trip now. I think he’s just maxin’ and relaxin’ in the prefects’ bathroom in that giant pool-sized bathtub, and the reason for that is because the Howler that he sends to Petunia creates this horrible echoing that Harry references in this chapter, so I’m imagining that he was just there chilling in the tub, and was like, “Well, I should probably just go ahead and send this.”

[Katie and Micah laugh]

Eric: Amazing.

Katie: You’ve got to hope Dumbledore’s got his own nice bathroom, though, somewhere in the castle.

Micah: Yeah, he’s got a bidet. We established this.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Katie: My headcanon is that once Dumbledore got wind of Tonks’s idea for this All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn competition, he actually organized it and put on the thing, and so where was he? He was hosting the award ceremony and handing out awards.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Ah, that’s so good.

Laura: That is incredible.

Eric: It’s such a good one.

Micah: Love it.

Andrew: The AI art on that too.

Katie: [laughs] And then I actually had a second one too of maybe he was doing this because he was distracting himself from the fact that in the last chapter, Harry didn’t recognize his voice, and in this chapter, Harry didn’t recognize his handwriting, and he’s just feeling alone and neglected, so he has to distract himself with some beautiful suburban lawns.

Micah: All very good answers. Katie, I like yours the best.

Laura: Same.

Eric: Me too.

Andrew: Me three.

MVP of the Week

Micah: Well, we’ve mentioned before that we’re not doing MVP of the Week anymore; we’re replacing it, and this week, I figured we would – sticking with the Advance Guard theme – go with the most trustworthy member of the Advance Guard based on their initial intros.

[MVP of the Week music plays]

Andrew: I’m going to give it to Lupin because he already has a well-established relationship with Harry, and Lupin puts him at ease about Moody, which is, I think, really critical here.

Eric: I’m going to say the most trustworthy member is Moody because he can see 360 degrees, and there’s no way he could be a secret Death Eater twice!

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: 360 when his eye is clean.

Eric: True.

Micah: I’m going to give it to Kingsley; I really liked his introduction. Very cool, calm, collected character, and future Minister for Magic.

Laura: I’m going to give it to Tonks. I think she’s the most relatable of all these characters to Harry at this point, and I think she plays a really big role in getting Harry to calm down a little bit.

Katie: I can’t really believe that Harry trusts any of these people, as I said earlier…

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Katie: … but if I had to give it to somebody, I’ll give it to Dedalus Diggle because he is another familiar face, and if you can say anything, he has been a consistent character, I think, so another moment of familiarity for Harry.

Micah: Very cheerful individual.

Andrew: Bonus question for everybody this week, because…

Micah: Oh.

Andrew: What?

Micah: No, it was a bonus question. I’m thrown off my game.

Andrew: Oh. Yeah, surprise! There’s more to come. We have one more thing. So in this chapter, Moody says, “Don’t put your wand in your back pocket; I know people whose butts have been blown off.”

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: So I was wondering who’s most likely to blow their butt off due to improper wand storage? It doesn’t have to be anybody in this chapter specifically, just who? I don’t have an answer for this, so I just wanted to know what y’all think.

Eric: Wow, wow. Neville. It’s Neville. I’m sorry. It’s Neville.

Katie: No way, Seamus Finnigan for sure.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Well, blowing stuff up, yeah, sure, sure.

Micah: Part of me thinks Moody is talking from experience, but I’m going to go with Mundungus Fletcher.

Laura: Okay. I like the idea that Moody is speaking from experience here and trying to project so that nobody knows it’s him.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: I’m going to say Ron, honestly. I could totally see Ron doing this. Ron can be kind of sloppy about the way that he takes care of things, and yeah, I could see this happening to him.

Micah: And to the point about Moody, HallowWolf is bringing up in the Discord that Moody is missing a leg.

[Katie laughs]

Andrew: There you go. That explains a lot.

Eric: Oh my God.

Laura: But he’s not missing a full leg.

Andrew: Right, but I mean, if it’s in the back pocket, maybe it was pointing at the bottom half of the leg. The overarching point can be you might lose your butt or you might lose something else on you. Well, listeners, if you have any feedback about who’s most likely to blow their butt off…

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: … or you have any other feedback about today’s discussion…

Eric: That can be our recurring segment this whole book.

Andrew: “Who blew their butt off this week?”

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: You can email or send a voice memo that’s recorded on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can use our phone number, which is 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. And next week, we will discuss Order of the Phoenix Chapter 4, “Number 12 Grimmauld Place,” because it was a successful mission. It was a great plan.

Eric: Good point.

Quizzitch

Andrew: And now it’s time for Quizzitch!

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s question: In Scotland, the peck was used as a dry measure until the introduction of imperial units as a result of the Weights and Measures Act of what year? What year was the Weights and Measures Act passed in Scotland that discontinued a peck? The answer was 1824. Sorry for all those who didn’t get it right. 12% of correct answers said that they did not look it up, and last week’s…

Laura: Hmm.

Eric: Yeah, it’s pretty good. It’s 2 out of 18 people. But yeah, last week’s winners: All Snapes and Sizes; Angst Angst Angst Wizard Angst; Anthony; Benny; Buff Daddy; The self-quizzing book lover Elizabeth K.; Goats4Life; Joyoti; Kennahdawn; More OWLs than Hermione and Percy combined; Robbie; Sansitha; SassyRavenclaw43; The Dead Hogwarts Security Inspector; The glass of water that Mad-Eye washed his eye in and had left on the Dursleys’ counter that Aunt Petunia drank when she got home… oh no.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: The Scots pint and the Scots gallon were both around three times the volume of their English equivalents, Hagrid-sized drink; eh, eh? And finally, Issy, who’s only been to Scotland once to see the Eras Tour. Here is next week’s Quizzitch question: What well-kept lawn in London has been home to a zebra, an elephant, and a helicopter landing pad? And for Brits, that’s zeh-bra, not zebra. Submit your answer to us on the Quizzitch form on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or if you’re on the website, doing whatever it is you do on our website, click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav.

Andrew: Katie, thanks so much for joining us today. It was great having you on.

Katie: Yeah, great to be here. Super fun to join you guys. Thanks again for having me.

Andrew: I’ll be thinking about Dumbledore judging the All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition for a while.

Eric: Oh, that’s going to be so good.

Andrew: Maybe that’ll be my Halloween costume this year.

[Andrew and Katie laugh]

Laura: Love that.

Andrew: This show is brought to you by Muggles like Katie. We are an independent podcast. In fact, we’re as independent as Harry was lonely in the first couple of chapters of this book, so your financial support is of the utmost importance. In fact, listener support is the only reason we’ve been able to podcast for 19 years and counting. There are two great ways to help us out: If you’re an Apple Podcasts user, you can subscribe to MuggleCast Gold, which gets you instant access to ad-free and early releases of MuggleCast, plus two bonus MuggleCast installments every month. Recent bonus MuggleCast installments have included discussions on the casting calls for the new Harry Potter trio and our first thoughts on the new Quidditch video game. And then for even more benefits, like our awesome new Lynx Line perk – and this is the best way to help us out – you can go to Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You can cohost the show one day, like Katie did today; you get yearly stickers; you get another physical gift every year; you get a video message from one of the four of us made just for you; you also get access to our private Facebook and Discord groups, where you can hang out with us and fellow Harry Potter fans. So thank you. No matter how you support us, we really appreciate it. We could not do this without you. And speaking of support, if you enjoy the show and think other Muggles would too, tell a friend about us, and help us spread the word by leaving a five star review in your favorite podcast app. That does it for this week’s episode. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: I’m Laura.

Katie: And I’m Katie.

Andrew: Bye, everybody.

Laura: Bye, y’all.

Eric and Micah: Bye.

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On this week’s episode, Harry is rude to his owl. Then someone breaks into his home. It’s very exciting to be leaving Privet Drive! Join us for a chapter of highs and lows as Chapter-by-Chapter covers Chapter 3 of “Order of the Phoenix,” and the hosts as well as Slug Club member Katie discuss the recent passing of Maggie Smith, take answers from our Lynx Line, and generally have a nice time as usual.

• Welcome to our Slug Club guest Katie!
• The hosts reflect on the amazing life of Dame Maggie Smith, who has passed away.
• Chapter-by-Chapter continues with Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 3: The Advance Guard. And our Time Turner segment has us spinning some old recordings from past discussions! Check out Episode 435 and Episode 229!
• Harry interrupts Hedwig’s dinner. Is this one step too far on making his friends’ lives miserable?
• Andrew loves Harry’s plan to ensure his friends give him answers, but it may remind us all of Professor Umbridge.
• Does the delay between the last chapter and the night the Advance Guard arrives exist because Dumbledore needed time to implement the escape route?
• Is the real Moody overcompensating on security?
• The Dursleys are back to their old tricks, of abusing Harry… and Harry is back to his old tricks of appearing indifferent to them.
• The hosts rank this rescue effort against all the other times Harry was saved from Privet Drive.
• Should Harry have been more aggressive about intruders in his home?
• Doesn’t everybody at this point know Harry’s Patronus? How secure is Lupin’s question exactly?
• If this is the Advance Guard, who is in the Rear Guard?
• Lynx Line: What five Potter characters would our patrons have in their Advance Guard?
• Where’s Dumbledore?, the segment, returns!
• Our Most Trustworthy Advance Guard Member of the Week: the hosts explain.
• Quizzitch: “What well-kept lawn in London has been home to a zebra, an elephant, and a helicopter landing pad?”
• Visit MuggleCast.com for episode transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and to contact us!

Download now OR, now read the Episode 677 Transcript!

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On this week’s episode, we learn things are never as they appear to be as Ms. Figg reveals herself as a Dumbledore informant and Petunia recalls her last correspondence with the Wizarding World! Plus, there are owls… EVERYWHERE!

• Welcome back, Meg!
• Chapter-by-Chapter continues with Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 2: A Peck of Owls. And our Time Turner segment has us spinning some old recordings from past discussions! Check out Episode 434 and Episode 228!
• Did Dumbledore suspect that Harry would be attacked on Privet Drive? If so, why was more (competent) manpower not invested in Harry’s protection?
• Why is Harry facing criminal charges for doing a bit of simple, defensive magic?
• Given how fast the owls show up, are they using some form of magic themselves?
• Say what?! Petunia knows about Dementors… and Azkaban!
• When Petunia references that awful boy, does she mean James… or Snape?
• Remember My Last! Was Petunia actually excited to receive a letter from the Wizarding World? Has she ever heard Dumbledore’s voice in person?
• Do Petunia and Snape share a similar love for Lily and disdain for Harry?
• Shouldn’t Vernon have every right to want to protect his family? Especially, after he learns of Voldemort’s return?
• Lynx Line: How would we improve on the Ministry of Magic’s disciplinary process for Harry?
• Our Most Wicked Figg Line of the Week: the hosts do their best impressions!
• Quizzitch: In Scotland, the peck was used as a dry measure until the introduction of imperial units as a result of the Weights and Measures Act of what year?
• Visit MuggleCast.com for episode transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and to contact us!

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Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #675, Figg’s Bat Phone (OOTP Chapter 1, Dudley Demented)

Show Intro

[Show music plays]

Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.

Eric Scull: I’m Eric.

Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.

Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Grab your wand – I should grab my wand – and keep an eye on your neighbors, because this week, we begin our Chapter by Chapter reread of Order of the Phoenix with Chapter 1, “Dudley Demented.” Very excited to jump into Chapter by Chapter, but first we have some sad news about a member of the fandom.

Micah: Yeah, as you mentioned, Andrew, we got some sad news at the beginning of last week about one of the members of the Harry Potter fandom, Caleb Graves. He worked with many of us at MuggleNet for a number of years, and was a cohost on the Alohomora podcast. Eric, I know you and him had very many spirited debates, from what I heard…

[Eric laughs]

Micah: … and he was just a great guy, a friend to all of us, and somebody who I really got to know over the years and would always hang out with whenever he was in New York. We would grab a drink, or when he was going to Georgetown Law down in DC and I was there for work, we would grab a drink. So just somebody I had stayed in touch with very closely. And one of the things that I’m always grateful for, for Harry Potter for doing, is the friends that you make along the way, and we talk about it a lot on this podcast. Without Harry Potter, we wouldn’t have met each other, and the same is true with Caleb, and it’s just a very tragic, heart-wrenching situation.

Eric: Yeah, it definitely… this news always hurts. He was so young. We knew him. We were on over 100 episodes of the podcast together, and it’s really sad. One of the good ones. This reminds me that life’s too short not to tell your friends that you love them; that’s really what the takeaway I have for this, so definitely… even just a text message. Call your friends, tell them you love them, because you’re going to potentially regret not getting to if something horrible were to happen, like it did here.

Andrew: Yeah, and something I’ll add about Caleb is that he had a lot of passions, and that was clear if you followed him on social media, and he really pursued all of them. I don’t know how he had the time to do all of them.

Eric: I know.

Andrew: He was really busy, with his love of Harry Potter and Disney and running, and then he had a really amazing career going on from what I could tell, so just…

Micah: Travel.

Andrew: Oh my God, the travel. Yeah, so like you both said, he was a really great person, and the news was shocking. So rest in peace, Caleb, and thanks for all of your contributions to the Harry Potter fandom.

Eric: We love you, man.

Andrew: Well, changing gears now, there was a little bit of Harry Potter TV show news. They announced that they are now running an open casting call for the new Harry, Ron, and Hermione. We’re actually going to be talking about this today in a new installment of bonus MuggleCast available on Patreon and Apple Podcasts. Additionally, Gary Oldman, who played Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies, it sounds like he wants to audition for a role in this Harry Potter TV show as well, [laughs] so we will talk about that and if that makes sense or not.

Eric: I think they should cast him as Ron.

Andrew: Oh, perfect. Yeah, why not?

[Micah laughs]

Eric: Just not explain it. Just have a grown man…

Micah: Yeah, he could pull off the ginger.

Andrew: Yeah. So we would encourage listeners to audition for the trio, but I think you’re all probably too old. Even our youngest listeners are probably too old. They’re looking for 9-year-olds, and I don’t think we have many 9-year-olds listening. And you have to live in England.

Micah: Sebastian, our youngest listener, is too young.

Andrew: Sorry, buddy. You’ll get ’em next time.

Eric: Maybe when you’re older.

Laura: Well, hey, we have a lot of MuggleCast parents out there, so if your child decides to audition, let us know. We would love to hear about it.

Andrew: And don’t forget to credit us for connecting you with the open casting call.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Yes, we must be involved in one significant cast member getting cast in this series. We must.

Andrew: [laughs] We’ll be two for two, then. Yeah, for anybody who doesn’t know, Evanna Lynch was a huge fan of MuggleNet and MuggleCast, and she heard about the Luna Lovegood open casting call on MuggleNet, and she credits that post on MuggleNet for auditioning for the role of Luna, which is just mind-blowing. So yeah, we’ve got to go for two for two.

Eric: Yep.

Andrew: And Micah, you got up to some Harry Potter fun in the last week, right?

Micah: I did, yeah. After our interview with Joel, I felt like it was only natural to go see this one-part version of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and it was a lot of fun. And I know people have a lot of questions because it was a two-part show, but I thought it was great pacing. It went by very quickly for three and a half hours. And honestly, I wouldn’t have known if there was a scene that was noticeably missing from the first go-around. That might be because it’s been a minute since I saw the two-part version, but it didn’t feel like it lacked at all. And Andrew, I will say, they lean into Albus and Scorpius – well, you have a fanfiction…

Andrew: [laughs] Oh, okay.

Micah: … much more than I remember in the two-part version. It is clear that there’s something going on between the two of them.

Andrew: Okay, okay.

Micah: Or there’s potential for something to be going on between the two of them.

Andrew: Okay, good to know.

Micah: See ya, Rose.

Laura: Sounds like you’re going to have to write a part two, Andrew.

Andrew: [laughs] We interviewed Joel Meyers, who plays Albus, a couple of weeks ago on MuggleCast, and I was tempted to ask him about that because we had heard they maybe gayed it up a little bit between Albus and Scorpius, but I wanted to be professional and didn’t want to push my own wants and needs off on him…

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: … so I avoided asking the question, but Micah went down to the scene and investigated for us, so glad to hear that.

Micah: Reported back for you.

Andrew: Yes, thank you for reporting back. [laughs]

Micah: Yeah. And got a chance to meet Joel after the show – such a nice guy – him and Eric Peterson, who played Scorpius.

Eric: Oh, very cool. I love that.

Micah: And they have a new Playbill, by the way, too.

Andrew: Whoa.

Micah: This is very different from the one that the three of us got.

Andrew: That’s gorgeous.

Eric: See, Albus Severus is in his father’s shadow. That looks great.

Andrew: I wonder if that’s fan art. Was that a fan art competition? That almost looks like something like that.

Micah: Maybe. I’ll see if I can find out a little bit more. Maybe there’s a write-up on it in there.

Andrew: Yeah, cool. Well, glad you had a good time. And I definitely want to check out that single-part version sometime.

Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner

Andrew: All right, well, without further ado, time to get to Chapter by Chapter. And before we get into the segment itself, we are actually refreshing Chapter by Chapter for Order of the Phoenix. Eric, do you want to explain that a little bit?

Eric: Yeah, so we have actually in the past, way back in 2019, discussed Order of the Phoenix as part of our Book 6/Book 5 Chapter by Chapter revamp. Chapter by Chapter originally began on MuggleCast in Episode 32, and 600 episodes later, over time, we’ve needed to refresh it. So it turns out we’ve done Seven-Word Summary and Rename the Chapter and MVP of the Week for Book 5 already, and so it became necessary to envision and dream up new segments that we’re going to be deploying during this Book 5 reread. I’m very excited.

Andrew: Yeah, and when the four of us got together in DC a few weeks ago, we brainstormed some new ideas, which you’ll be hearing some of in today’s installments, so stay tuned.

Eric: Absolutely. So shall we begin?

Andrew: Yeah!

Eric: Okay, we’re talking about Order of the Phoenix Chapter 1, titled “Dudley Demented.” And right off the gate, we’re going to introduce you to the MuggleCast Time-Turner segment…

Laura: Oooh.

Eric: … which is an audio journey, an auditory Odyssey into previous discussions on this chapter of MuggleCast. Take a listen; let us know what you think.

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.

Ron: What the…?

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 228.

Eric: What’s wrong with Harry?

Micah: He’s pissed, man.

Andrew: He’s angry. We were just talking about it.

Eric: [laughs] Sorry, I only ask that question because it was in my notes to ask that question.

Andrew: I know.

Micah: Well, he’s been cooped up for four weeks, like you said. He’s not getting any information. He’s living with people he doesn’t like.

[Bell dings]

[Whooshing sound]

Robotic voice: Episode 433.

Micah: That’s exactly what I was going to allude to with just appearances, right? You would think that the Dursleys would want Harry to look halfway decent and not have torn clothes and baggy clothes and his shoes are falling apart, just given how much they care about what other people think of them and their family.

Laura: I wonder if they’ve been pretty successful at spreading the narrative that Harry is just a degenerate, so maybe their neighbors just accept this.

Andrew: Yes.

Sequoia: Yeah, but he could be a well-clothed degenerate.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

[Whooshing sound]

[Ticking sound]

Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.

[Bell dings]

Eric: The end!

Andrew: Eric produced that. Nice job, Eric.

Laura: Well done, Eric.

Andrew: The sounds and all that.

Eric: Yeah, just a short, brief recap of where we’ve been leading into the new discussion. So again, those episodes were 433, “Gettin’ Figgy,” which came out September 9, 2019, and Episode 228, “Overpriced Non-Invisibility” for May 13, 2011. And in case you want to check out those older episodes, we’ll put them in the show notes.

Andrew: Yeah, now we’re in present day, so let’s jump into our latest discussion on this chapter.

Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion

Eric: Let’s jump into it. You know, I will never forget the earliest morning hours of June 21, 2003, cracking open the massive hardcover for the very blue Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix book. This was the first Harry Potter book I had gotten at midnight, and it was very, very late. There was a release party, and I was very exhausted, but I read the first 20 pages of the book just excitedly. But by the end of this chapter – and I powered through one more – I put the book down, and I was somewhat crestfallen, because Harry, which I at long last held in my hands, was different. I was 15, the same age as Harry, and we were not the same. He was sad. Miserable, even. The answers we were finally getting about Mrs. Figg and all the action of the first two chapters couldn’t make me feel better about Harry being neglected and left alone in the four weeks immediately following Cedric’s death. It’s kind of a sad opening. Harry is not in a great place.

Micah: Damn right, Dumbledore.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: Micah knows where to pin it!

Laura: Here we go.

Eric: But do you guys remember feeling any particular way about Harry’s right-out-the-gate emotions in this book?

Andrew: Yeah, because when we jump from Goblet of Fire to Order of the Phoenix, we’re shown a very isolated Harry who’s just left out from all angles. His real family has never loved him, referring to the Dursleys. Ron and Hermione are only communicating with him via letter; they can’t see him face to face. The adults are keeping him isolated too. It’s a very different Harry. And what I really like about this chapter and how it starts is that the opening passages feel like a fresh start for Harry. He is fully reintroduced, and this story picks up on I believe it’s described as the “hottest day of summer.” Eric, you mentioned the book came out June 21, 2003, pretty well in the summer at that point, at least in some parts of America. I just loved reading this book in summer while Harry is experiencing summer himself, so I didn’t have that same crestfallen feeling that you did, Eric. But what does strike me reading it now is that, yeah, this is a very different Harry from what we saw in the last book by the end.

Micah: And let’s not forget, at the start of Goblet of Fire, there’s a lot of anticipation of going to the Quidditch World Cup, so there’s a bit more of an enjoyment factor about what’s to come, whereas in this chapter, or the start of this book, it’s much darker. To borrow a phrase from many a movie producer on the Harry Potter films.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: Yeah, every year gets more difficult – understandably so – for Harry to return to his relatives. As he gains loved ones from every corner of the wizarding world, we’re consistently reminded that his actual family, as you said, just does not care for him. So there’s a lot of understandable emotions that Harry is going through, and I know in the past that we have speculated a lot about the overall angsty Harry that we get in Book 5. There are times when it’s way out of line; we’ll be sure to keep him in check. But my real question, guiding us and the discussion through this first chapter, is what do we see that strikes us as being reasonable and caused by his circumstances? What do we think is the added teenage hormones aspect of it, where he’s… I don’t know, the way a punk teenage boy would interact with an adversary in him and Dudley? And since we know about the Horcrux connection between Harry and Voldemort that’s overshadowing all of this and causing Harry to feel very prickly and on edge about everything, what bits of his behavior in this chapter with Dudley can we really attribute to just Voldemort?

Laura: I feel like a lot of the examples we’re going to talk about are really rooted in A) jealousy, and B) resentment. And I think to be entirely fair to Harry here, the Horcrux has to poison the well for everything, I think, so I think Harry is heightened across the board. That doesn’t mean that he necessarily shows up as an 11 all the time…

[Eric laughs]

Laura: … but it definitely explains why he’s never beneath an 8 for this entire book.

Eric: That’s a good way of putting it, actually. Yeah, I mean, he threw out the chocolates that Ron and Hermione sent him, but to think…

Micah: They melted.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: It’s hot. Let’s be real, he’s not going to get permission from Petunia to put those chocolates in the fridge.

Eric: Well, the floorboard could be… yeah, you’re right. You’re right, you’re right, you’re right.

Micah: And his house is definitely not air-conditioned, and certainly not his room.

Eric: No, not in the UK. And you know that Errol didn’t get it there quite in time to prevent it melting, the package from the Burrow. But all of that aside, I think he really resents Ron and Hermione particularly. He gets the sense that they’re together, and that really just adds to the overall feeling of isolation, because he’s resenting them their joy. This is not something previous Harry would have done, or Harry before these years in any circumstance, I would argue, but it hurts more that his friends are together because he wants nothing more than to be with them.

Laura: I think that might be what causes him to lash out and pick a fight with Dudley, because you’re totally right; regular Harry wouldn’t do this. The Harry of the last four books would do anything that he could to stay out of Dudley’s way, right? He didn’t want to cross paths with him, and here he’s directly antagonizing him.

Eric: Seeking him out, yeah. And for the Horcrux portion of this, I have a quote from the book that really sticks out to me, and it is when Harry is walking after the loud bang and he sees Dudley and his gang up ahead. It says,

“If Dudley’s friends saw him sitting there, they would be sure to make a beeline for him, and what would Dudley do then? He wouldn’t want to lose face in front of the gang, but he’d be terrified of provoking Harry… It would be really fun to watch Dudley’s dilemma; to taunt him, watch him, with him powerless to respond… and if any of the others tried hitting Harry, Harry was ready – he had his wand… let them try… He’d love to vent some of his frustration on the boys who had once made his life hell.”

That’s not Harry talking; I don’t care what your trauma is. “It would be fun to watch him struggle”? That’s Voldemort talk. Maybe?

Micah: Well, we get that line – I believe it’s in this book – that there’s light and dark in all of us. And I think that Harry has been isolated, and he’s feeling the effects of isolation after having gone through an extremely traumatic event at the end of the previous school year, and we’re going to talk about whether or not he should have been put in this situation, or maybe he should have been given some counseling or given some sort of help to get through what he’s going through in this moment. And I do think you could point to the Horcrux, but part of me believes that this is Harry just being frustrated, both at his current situation and at how Dudley has treated him over the years. He’s definitely goading him. He’s looking for the opportunity for them to get into it. Maybe we just haven’t seen this side of Harry before. He’s growing up. He is maturing; he’s 15 years old. This isn’t necessarily that abnormal for a teenager to feel these types of emotions toward somebody.

Eric: I just remember feeling, 21 years ago, “If this is the new Harry, no thanks. Count me out.”

Andrew: [laughs] But he must go through some challenges before he is free.

Eric: Yeah, great adversity breeds great heroism.

Laura: Yeah, and I do think there’s an interesting point here to be made about Harry wanting to watch Dudley be powerless. I think it’s funny and it’s kind of a projection, because Harry is powerless; that’s how he feels right now.

Eric: Right.

Laura: So he’s wanting to project that upon someone who’s hurt him in the past. Also, “Dudley’s Dilemma”; I guess that was the rejected name or title name for this chapter. It’s why we got “Dudley Demented.”

Eric: Whoa.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: No, I mean, I think that this is Harry projecting his pain onto someone else.

Micah: Yeah, and one question I wanted to bring up was we know Harry is in need of emotional support, that much is clear. Dumbledore chooses to isolate Harry in a known abusive environment. We see both physical and verbal abuse towards Harry from Vernon and Petunia. Now, having read through the series, we also know that Harry doesn’t need to be there for the entire summer; he likely only needs to be there for 24 hours. Why doesn’t Dumbledore work to get Harry somewhere else much, much sooner?

Laura: I was kind of wondering if he was trying to limit Harry’s exposure to whatever they’re doing to establish the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, so that Voldemort’s connection to Harry couldn’t be exploited to perhaps communicate some of the magic that is used to obfuscate that residence from the rest of the world. We know he uses the Fidelius Charm, right? Maybe there’s something to that.

Micah: Yeah, but send him to the Burrow.

Andrew: Maybe he wanted – and I’m not saying it’s a good choice that Dumbledore made – but maybe he wanted to keep Harry separated from everybody else, because he knew Harry would ask him questions, and he wasn’t ready to provide him with any answers yet…

Micah: Classic.

Andrew: [laughs] … so they needed a little time to smooth things out before they had to face, if you will, Harry. I’m not saying it’s right.

Micah: But in fairness, Andrew, Dumbledore ignores Harry for most of this book. It’s not just a summer thing. [laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, but he also comes into communication with Sirius and the trio – or sorry, Ron and Hermione – and maybe Dumbledore wanted to have talks with them first. And also, Figg was keeping an eye on him. Now, I know she’s a Squib who won’t be able to help, but she’s probably got a bat phone and she can call if there’s real trouble at any time.

Eric: [laughs] She got a what?

Andrew: A bat phone.

Eric: A bat phone?!

Andrew: A Dumb phone. No, that doesn’t work.

Micah: A cat phone.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Oh, there we go.

Andrew: A phoenix phone.

Laura: But the thing is, Harry doesn’t know that she’s there and that there’s someone connected to his world who’s living near him until disaster strikes, right? And I think that’s another hit to the trust in Dumbledore and in his friends, right? That he doesn’t know.

Andrew: But I could tie my other point into this, I guess: If he knows that Figg is actually working with Dumbledore, then he’s going to start peppering Figg with questions, and Dumbledore and Figg probably don’t want that.

Eric: Well, but I would then also say maybe it is enough just to know he’s not entirely alone. Yeah, Figg has her own issues; she’s a Squib. But knowing that she knows Dumbledore, even if she can’t give him answers… although, it’s also possible, because she’s reached out to him recently about coming for tea, and he blows her off. He thinks she’s uninteresting. She gave him a boring childhood. He really hated whenever the Dursleys would go to fun places and he would be stuck back with Mrs. Figg watching him, so he doesn’t give her the chance to really come out to him sooner about her connection. And if he had, maybe she would have told him.

Micah: It just… let’s be clear, the only person that’s protecting Harry on Privet Drive is Harry. Not Figg. Not Mundungus Fletcher.

Andrew: “You.”

Micah: It’s Harry at the end of the day.

Eric: [laughs] [imitating Ron in Sorcerer’s Stone] “Not me, not Hermione, you!”

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Well, also, can we talk about why was Mundungus Fletcher posted there?

Eric: Ugh, we’ll have plenty of chapters to talk about why Mundungus Fletcher was there. [laughs]

Laura: Like, what the heck? Come on. Harry is like the golden egg. You don’t put Mundungus Fletcher in charge of protecting the golden egg. Geez. [laughs]

Eric: Well, yeah. I will say, Mundungus’s Disapparation, which causes this loud bang, startles Harry because he correctly predicts that the source of the noise was of magic origins, but this, unfortunately, only makes Harry feel worse. This exacerbates the problem because somebody magical or something magical happened right in his area, but they’re not revealing themselves to him, and I think that’s probably what fuels him to angrily go on his tirade this chapter.

Micah: It probably adds a level of paranoia, too, because he may think somebody’s watching him, and…

Eric: He’s right.

Micah: Well, he is right. But yeah, I mean, between Figg and Dung, it’s like the enemy’s coming with semi-automatics and you’re using a stick. That’s the equivalent here of Harry’s protection.

Andrew: Dumbledore does bring up later to Harry that he avoided him because he didn’t want Voldemort exploiting the connection that Dumbledore suspected, and Dumbledore is right, here; it’s established, even in this chapter, that there is a connection between Harry and Voldemort because – Harry doesn’t realize it at the time – but Harry is having these dreams…

Laura: Right.

Andrew: … of the long, dark corridor. For the reader, in hindsight, there is that world-building, that plot line building secretly in the background that they do have a connection.

Eric: It’s true.

Micah: Couldn’t you argue, though, this type of neglect, which starts in this chapter, also perpetuates Voldemort’s ability to penetrate Harry’s mind later on?

Laura: Yep.

Micah: And so it’s almost like Dumbledore, you could argue, has the right intentions here, but it comes back to bite him anyway.

Eric: Well, Harry… Dumbledore doesn’t want to be bothered by this connection, the excuse that Voldemort might exploit it. You know how Voldemort doesn’t exploit it? Is you being aware that it exists and not letting him exploit you. That’s how you do it. Surely Dumbledore is capable of that.

Laura: Yeah, and I mean, if you have the suspicion, why not have Harry start his Occlumency lessons as soon as he gets back to Hogwarts?

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Andrew: True.

Laura: I get that it’s a bit of a powder keg having him work with Snape, but perhaps if you had started it sooner, you might have made more progress than ultimately gets made.

Eric: So instead of doing the Umbridge Suck count this Book 5, we’re going to be doing the Dumbledore Sucks count.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: Nooo!

Eric: And here’s the… no, no. Kidding, kidding, of course.

Micah: I’m not.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Ultimately, this comes down to Harry needing a connection to the wizarding world, and in fact, he’s listening to the Muggle news. We find him… the book opens on a flowerbed beneath the Dursleys’ window, and he’s listening to the news and trying to see if the Dark side has done anything, because the Muggles would surely notice something big. The reason it isn’t successful is because Voldemort, crucially, is in hiding, and coming off of our Goblet of Fire reread, we really realized that Voldemort prefers to operate under secrecy. These first couple of years – or crucially, the first nine or ten months – are so important that Voldemort remains quiet, and so that’s the reason Harry isn’t seeing stuff on the news. It’s because the mass killings don’t start until the bridge collapse next summer. So it’s really subtle now, and Harry is feeling very frustrated because nobody’s telling him anything.

Andrew: Frustration and isolation are the two words we might be saying most on today’s episode. It’s awful, the situation that Harry is in; I really do feel bad for him. And I think the thing that gets me most about this is that he successfully battled Voldemort. He won, basically, and he’s still the one being put on ice. That is so unfair. And it was very well-written in this chapter, I thought, displaying Harry’s frustration with everything, because we see him venting to himself, like, “I’m the one who fought Voldemort and carried Cedric’s body out of the graveyard, and I’m the one now being isolated from everybody and being left in the dark?” It is completely unfair. It’s a tough chapter to read.

Eric: And it’s not entitlement if you’re right. [laughs]

Andrew: No, no.

Eric: He has proven himself to be very competent and very deserving of the level of, I guess, honesty and bluntness that this sort of situation requires. You don’t have to tell Harry everything still, but if it’s going to come out anyway, don’t make him suffer for it. So we’re going to talk about another key part of this chapter, but first, a word from our sponsors.

[Ad break]

Eric: Okay, so something I really am excited to talk about regarding this chapter is the titular character of this chapter, Dudley. “Dudley Demented.” Dudley Dursley. And big question I have about him… this is the most insight, I think, the most experience, the most time we spend with Dudley for the first time in a long time, if ever, if not always. And here in this chapter, we see, I think, a little bit deeper version of him. We’re not quite at the level where he becomes almost friendly to Harry, and it’s hard to be friendly to Harry when he’s in this state that he’s in in this chapter. But interestingly, when Harry is picking this fight with him, Dudley’s first, second, and third response to that is to de-escalate and to not engage with Harry. Here’s a guy who beats kids up for a living with his group, all this fun time, and Harry is very much coming at him, and Dudley is not having it. So let’s talk about that. How has Dudley changed? Can we say that he’s a good person at this time? How far do we want to take this? But it’s a reformed Dudley.

Andrew: Well, not a good person in general, because he’s still bullying other students, or other kids around town.

Eric: I guess it’s a slightly more mature Dudley; I’ll amend my statement.

Andrew: Yeah. Is he primarily afraid of Harry using magic on him? Even if in his mind, Harry can’t use magic outside of Hogwarts?

Micah: That’s where I was leaning. That’s where my head went, was that Dudley is deep down still very much afraid of Harry.

Laura: And I think he’s afraid of him in very similar ways to Vernon, and I think because he’s away from his parents right now, he doesn’t really… and also, his mates are gone; they’ve gone home for the evening. He’s one on one with Harry. He doesn’t have anyone to back him up. And I think he realizes that, because of the magic, he could very much be outmatched, and if he thinks that Harry is as much of a lunatic as his parents say that he is, maybe Dudley is thinking, “I don’t know if Harry cares about breaking the law, and I’m here by myself with him,” so I think it’s a lot of self-preservation.

Eric: We talked at the start of this discussion about Harry’s trauma and where Harry is at, but think about Dudley’s trauma. Having just read Goblet of Fire, the Ton-Tongue Toffee scene still hurts, still feels like a fresh wound wherein Fred and George poisoned Dudley and nearly caused him to choke to death on his own tongue, and the only reason Dudley is not dead right now is because Arthur Weasley was able to slow and stop it. But not only that, even Hagrid has had a crack at Dudley magically and caused him to need surgery to remove a pig’s tail. Dudley has actually been on the receiving end of magic directly – not just inadvertently, but completely, entirely, meaningfully – so if Dudley is traumatized, if Dudley fears magic, that’s exactly right. Look at what magic’s done to him.

Andrew: To entertain this idea, Eric, that Dudley has maybe gone a little soft, I was also wondering if he feels bad for Harry because of the dreams that Harry has been experiencing recently.

Eric: I love this thought.

Andrew: The reason I say that is because Dudley says to Harry that he’s heard him screaming in his sleep about Cedric, so I’m wondering if he resisted pushing back because he’s like, “Dang, Harry is going through it right now. Poor guy.” I mean, when you’re hearing Harry say these things in his sleep, that’s a very raw look at what Harry is going through internally right now. I don’t know if a family member of Harry’s could hear that and not feel bad for him. He’s clearly going through something terrible and was traumatized.

Laura: I don’t really think Dudley feels bad for him, because he uses that to taunt him.

Eric: Only after Harry really pushes things, though.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Eric: And I think it’s still a way of getting Harry off his back.

Laura: Yeah. Listen, I think Dudley reforms; I’m just not of the opinion that it has happened at this stage.

Eric: I mean, he is still lying to his parents about where he goes. He’s still beating up poor Mark Evans…

Laura: A 10-year-old.

Eric: … a kid with the most unfortunate name in the series.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: But really, it’s interesting to see the struggle, and Dudley really does warn Harry a bunch of times. I mean, if Harry weren’t so overcome with this desire to taunt and play with Dudley, essentially, none of this would happen, and Dudley really would have allowed him to have said, “How long you’ve been Big D?” and this stuff about the pig in the wig. And I just don’t think that anything Dudley is doing is offensive, and I think it’s actually smart, given that he realizes he’s outmatched, to de-escalate, when bullies or younger Dudley would have done something that got him further in trouble. I don’t think he would have the same self-insight as he does in this chapter.

Micah: Well, Dudley reached his breaking point. Harry kept prodding and prodding and prodding, and Dudley just got to the point where most of us would, where we react, we say things. What I found fascinating about watching Harry in this chapter is that it was almost like he was stalking his prey. He watched Dudley go by, he waited for Dudley’s friends to leave, and then took it upon himself to go and get into it with Dudley.

Eric: Yep.

Micah: And again, going back to the first part of our conversation, this is not a side of Harry we have seen ever.

Eric: This is our hero? This is our hero Harry? Crestfallen, I tell you. I was crestfallen. Even if it is explained later, it’s sad to read. Very difficult for a midnight, very excited book read.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Fortunately, Book 6 is better. But Dudley lying to his parents is very interesting, because speaking about Vernon and Petunia, you see them wanting to believe the lie, and maybe this was always the case. But it’s really interesting that all the members of his gang would probably back him up; “Oh, yeah, he’s been coming over for tea.” But not only that, Vernon in this chapter brags that he doesn’t think Dudley even knows who the Prime Minister is of the UK.

Andrew: [laughs] I know.

Eric: There’s an anti-intellectualist pride that Vernon exudes that really makes me question just what it is that they want out of their child and also what they’re like in their… I don’t know, just way they see the world. I’m sorry, but everyone should know who the leader of their own country is, I think.

Andrew: Yeah, and I guess Dudley is a little young to be paying too close attention to the news, but Vernon is more broadly just proud that Dudley isn’t paying attention to what’s going on in the world, and that’s nothing to brag about either. It’s basically like he’s so proud of Dudley, so long as he’s the total opposite of Harry. [laughs]

Micah: Right, that’s it. Exactly right, yeah. Because Harry is interested in the news, as long as Dudley isn’t, it’s a good thing.

Andrew: He’s better than Harry.

Eric: Well, right, because Harry has actually annoyed Vernon by wanting to listen to the news. The flower bed wasn’t his first go-to; he attempted to listen in the living room, and Vernon was like, “What are you doing out?”

Laura: Yeah, I also don’t think of Vernon and Petunia as being the most informed people anyway. They remind me of the types that sit around their living room at night, watching the news and judging every single person being talked about on it from their moral high horse on Privet Drive, [laughs] so I think that they probably feel a sense of pride of being above it all, right? It doesn’t concern them, because they’re so normal that nothing bad would ever happen to them, right? If something bad happens to you, it’s because you did something to bring it on yourself. That’s their attitude.

Eric: Wow.

Andrew: I wonder if Vernon gets so excited when Dudley is the opposite of Harry because it means they aren’t going to become friends or close family members.

Laura: Yeah, probably.

Andrew: The more he sees differences, the more excited he is. Because when they were way younger, this must have been a fear of Vernon’s and Petunia’s. Like, “Oh God, we hate the Potters. What if our son ends up liking the Potters?” Maybe this is a reason why Vernon and Petunia have always treated Harry like crap, to instill in their own son that you should not like that person.

Eric: Yeah, I mean, hatred and fear is taught, not ingrained, or not born. So I think that that’s exactly right. They would have given Dudley every luxury – like 37 presents one year and 36 the next – for his birthday, while giving Harry things like toothpicks, so that Dudley would not become friends with Harry. And the interesting thing about what Laura was saying about that is the underlying theme or theory seems to be “If you become friends with Harry, whose people are weirdos and all that stuff, then you’re going to fail. You’re going to have darkness visited upon you. You’re going to wind up like Harry’s own parents.” So they’re, in their own weird way, protecting Dudley from not getting involved with somebody, his cousin, who is a wizard. It’s pretty interesting. But my overall feeling is that picking on Dudley is not a good look, and it definitely hurts to see, but you hurt to see, most of all, Harry in pain. So there’s this joke about a pig that’s learned to walk on its hind legs. Are we laughing at Harry’s jokes, or are we just consumed by sadness and sympathy for him?

Andrew: Yeah, not laughing, but what struck me here is that it seems clear to me that Harry just wants to get the attention of somebody. Again, this word “isolated.” He’s not… nobody he actually cares about is talking to him. He’s taking out this frustration on Vernon, too; he said something to him that’s going to get him in trouble later. He’s attacking Dudley. He wants to get a rise out of one of these people because he wants somebody to pay attention to him, so in a… I don’t, of course, approve of violence or name-calling, but I also understand that Harry has some urges he needs to get out right now.

Eric: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So it’s also sad to see that when the Dementors do descend, Harry’s first several attempts at conjuring a Patronus fail because he’s so far gone that he can’t think of a happy thought. It’s not at his ready. And Harry is better at conjuring a Patronus than most wizards, but to do it, you need to be in a good place, and it takes Harry a few minutes to start thinking of Ron and Hermione, which that love is obviously very powerful to drive the Dementors away. But yeah, I mean, this physical altercation… I think it’s well adapted in the movie that we just watched and did commentary for, in that Harry, I think, takes a fist to the face, but it’s only after it really does seem like he’s done something with his wand. All the lights go out; essentially, the darkness… I think even Dudley is beginning to feel the effects of Dementors being nearby. And so it’s perfectly understandable, I think – again, going back to Dudley – for him to have punched Harry, because it seemed for I guess all audiences, really, that Harry, up until that moment, was going to curse him.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, I can understand why Dudley reacted the way he did, for sure.

Micah: The natural inclination there for Dudley is to hit Harry because he thinks Harry is doing this, and so by hitting him, his hope is that it will stop.

Eric: Right. Yeah, and that seems like a reasonable deduction. And there’s a fun sort of joke about Dudley learning to box and taking up school boxing, and it’s something like “Harry didn’t think that Dudley learning to punch more accurately was a good thing,” and that’s very funny. But also, I think it is interesting, if you’re more physically inclined, something like the sport of wrestling is actually a good discipline, and kind of… I think it’s possible that this experience with other boys on the wrestling team might actually allow for Dudley a channel for some of his more based or more uncomfortable desires to be more physically abusive. I think it’s maybe a healthy outlet, even, boxing.

Micah: I would just ask the question, though, why does Dudley feel the need to be that physically aggressive? And that likely ties back to his upbringing by Vernon and Petunia.

Eric: Yeah, being pitted… I think we really had a good discussion that covered Dudley’s inner struggle to be superior, because he’s always been told he’s superior. So maybe he’s physically dominating because he was always told he’s better than Harry, so now he has to maybe feel the need to earn it somehow.

Andrew: Could be also what him and his dad watch on TV.

Eric: There’s that.

Andrew: His dad maybe raising him to be this very macho, tough guy. “Men are fighters,” that type of thing.

Eric: Yeah, I mean, remember the Smelting stick.

Andrew: Yeah. I like the point, too, Eric, about boxing. I think of axe-throwing people; going to axe-throwing areas, or whatever you call them.

Laura: It’s fun!

Andrew: Yeah, I was just going to say, Laura’s done it. [laughs]

Eric: I mean, axe-throwing is great.

Laura: Yeah, it’s fun!

Andrew: There is a place here where you can pay however much, and for an hour, I guess it is, you just go around the room destroying everything. Not with axes, just with bats. They have TVs they buy from Goodwill, whatever. Boom. But you just… it’s like a rage room. [laughs] I don’t know what it’s called exactly.

Eric: This is the first I’m hearing of this. This is amazing.

Laura: There are similar places where you can go to break plates and stuff; just throw them around the room. So yeah, I mean, it’s a thing. Hey, better that than taking out your frustrations on someone else.

Eric: No, I know it’s healthy.

Andrew: Yeah, for sure.

Eric: But I feel a mental connection to my plates. I’ve had them for 20 years.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: It’s a whole thing.

Micah: To your point about discipline, though, in boxing, perhaps it was some of that discipline that showed up in this conversation that he was having with Harry.

Eric: There you go!

Micah: And he learned it from being a amateur boxer.

Andrew: I like it.

Eric: Yeah, to summarize: Look, Dudley is still a bully, but not to Harry. Harry is the bully here. And it’s sad to see that he’s in such a negative place, but fortunately, he still saves Dudley’s life at the end of this, when it all comes down to it on the line. Speaking of lines, we’ll get to a certain line after this ad break.

[Ad break]

Lynx Line

Eric: And now it’s time for one of our other new segments for this Chapter by Chapter; we are bringing Lynx Line front and center. Each week on the Lynx Line we will hear from our patrons as they discuss their thoughts on what we’ve asked, and Andrew, what have we asked this week?

Andrew: What do we think of Harry’s “protection” on Privet Drive, with a rotating cast of wizards keeping watch on Harry and Mrs. Figg managing them? And what are some better ways in which Dumbledore could have set things up, so as not to attract the attention of the Ministry, but also better to meet Harry’s needs? And we’re also excited about this new Patreon benefit because it gives the chance for people who can’t join us during livestreams to sound off on each episode. As always, we got a lot of great responses on Patreon, and if you are currently a patron, please check out this post on Patreon to read everybody’s thoughts. It looks like we have 21 replies to this question. Lloyd said,

“I think that there needed to be more communication between Dumbledore/the Order and Harry. If you look at celebrities and politicians, they are very aware of the security and guards they have. I feel Harry would have been more comfortable with the idea if he had been aware. I believe that the Ministry would still not be aware of Dumbledore’s actions, even if Harry knew he was being guarded.”

Eric: So this next one comes from Zachary, who says, “I think this is a classic case of Dumbledore’s favorite game of eff around and find out.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: That should be almost a game show title. [imitating a game show audience] “Eff around! Find out!”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: “Of all the members of the Order,” Zachary says, “Mundungus shouldn’t have been chosen. Like everyone else, I agree Tonks would have been ideal due to her abilities, or even McGonagall. Either of them would have been a great assist to Mrs. Figg.” Yeah. We don’t know who’s on the other shifts, because they don’t botch it the way Mundungus does…

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: … but presumably it’s some of Harry’s other friends or people he’s friendly with, or people who know him, and so any of them would have been fun for casual conversation and absolutely allowed Harry an outlet where even if he can’t figure out what’s going on all the time, he would have not felt so alone.

Micah: Darin says, “I think Dumbledore knew what he was doing with his protection. I mean, he’s Dumbledore!” Oh, Darin.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: “I do think, however, he could have chosen people other than Mundungus to help keep watch over him. Kingsley and Mad-Eye for a start!”

Laura: Yeah, those would have been good ones. Ariane says,

“I did wonder if, when it says Mrs. Figg kept asking Harry to tea, if her goal was to give him some idea of what was happening, or at least that he was being watched for his own protection. As for Mundungus being said protection… good lord, Dumbledore, they told me you were intelligent…”

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: So much Dumbledore hate happening this episode.

Andrew: I know, I know.

Eric: Eh, we’ll gloss over it. It might be the most deserved chapter for that, unfortunately.

Andrew: Well, Rachel has a counterpoint:

“I’m usually all for full transparency, however, I have to remind myself that Harry was 15. I don’t think he needed to be informed, though it would have been nice, and I think he’d have taken the news well if Dumbledore wrote a letter or explained it to him in person. I agree with others who have said Mundungus was not an appropriate choice, and it was so unfair to Mrs. Figg to put this much pressure on her.”

All right, this isn’t totally a counterpoint, but the first sentence kind of was.

“Unless one of her cats is an unregistered Animagus, what can she really do in a pinch?”

Well, like I said, Rachel, the bat phone. The Dumb phone. The phoenix phone.

Eric: That’s pretty much it. She would have to send an owl or one of her Kneazles via the Floo Network, if that works, to get a hold of Dumbledore in a pinch, because she can’t even cast a Patronus, which the Order use for messaging. Here’s a message from Susan:

“I think having Tonks around because of her abilities to change her appearance would be better protection than Dung.”

Have to agree.

“Also, Mrs. Figg was not enough at all. She wasn’t registered at the Ministry to be living on Privet Drive, and how could she contact Dumbledore quick enough? Dumby should have at least sent a letter with a blanket and vague explanation on things that reassured Harry that things would be fine soon.”

Agreed.

Andrew: “With a blanket.” [laughs]

Laura: Oh, like a blanket explanation, I think Susan means.

Andrew: Oh, I was picturing like, [imitating Dumbledore] “Hey, remember when I wrapped you in a blanket and brought you to Privet Drive?”

[Laura laughs]

Eric: In his childhood blanket that comes up in… wait, is that in the new Cursed Child, Micah?

Micah: The blanket? Yep, it’s there.

Eric: Okay, yeah. It’s hard to imagine what they would have cut from the parts. I asked you about the trolley lady; she’s still there.

Micah: Trolley lady is there.

Eric: Man.

Andrew: Love the trolley lady.

Micah: And the magic is just unbelievable. The Polyjuice scene, I still don’t know how they do it. I mean, I kind of can figure it out, but… anyway. And we also heard from Sara, who says,

“I feel like the guard was there to prevent Harry doing something rash or using magic, not the other way around of him needing protecting. Plus, Mundungus was not the best choice of guard. Clearly untrustworthy, even though he’s loyal to Dumbledore. Also think Harry would have been safer had he been informed that he needed to be extra careful, rather than being in the dark about everything.”

Andrew: The first sentence, though… I don’t know if you read that first part; she is reminding us that he is protected from Voldy due to his mother’s magic, so it’s not like he’s totally alone out in the wild to fend for himself. I thought that was kind of an important reminder. He is protected.

Micah: Well, he’s only protected when he’s at the Dursleys’.

Andrew: Right.

Micah: Not when he’s outside.

Eric: There really does come a point… and Dumbledore must know the way that the Dursleys are, especially because he mentions to Harry later that when he was 11, he was so malnourished that there’s no ignoring the abuse that Harry is suffering. There comes a point where it becomes more of a danger to have Harry go back to Privet Drive than what he gains from being protected from Voldemort; that’s just how I feel about it. There has to be some math that ain’t mathing right now.

Micah: And if we’re to connect the threads a little bit between Order of the Phoenix and Prisoner of Azkaban, somewhat similar situations play themselves out here at Privet Drive, right? Where Harry runs away, and there’s some sort of, ultimately, involvement with the Ministry. Harry ends up seeing Fudge in the Leaky Cauldron, and then, of course, he ends up at the hearing a little bit later on. I was also thinking back, too, to the fact of where he sees Sirius for the first time…

Eric: Aww.

Micah: … is also where the Dementors show up in this book, so if we’re playing around with that ring theory…

Andrew: Well, thanks, patrons, for contributing questions, and look forward to more of these questions, and we look forward to reading your answers in the months ahead. We’ll carry this new segment through the rest of the Chapter by Chapter for the whole series.

Eric: Heck yeah.

Where’s Dumbledore?

Eric: And speaking of segments, we’ve got another one coming up: It’s called “Where’s Dumbledore?” [laughs] Because we haven’t pinned enough on Dumbledore in this chapter. I’m imagining, if we have an intro sound, it should be something like Andrew’s Dumbledore impression, and he’s like, “Dos margaritas, por favor,” or something.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Because where is he?

Laura: That would be so funny.

Eric: Do you want to lead us in with it, Andrew?

Andrew: You said, “Dos margaritas, por favor”? Is that what…?

Eric: “Dos margaritas, por favor.” That’s all Spanish, right?

Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “Dos margaritas, por favor.”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Yeah, no, I just couldn’t totally hear what you said. Well, I’m glad you mentioned a drink, because to me, where is Dumbledore during this chapter? He’s winding down a lovely summer vacation in Ibiza, and he’s spending yet another night at a bar called JJ. It’s a real bar, 4.7 stars on Google Maps…

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: … and Dumbledore is just thinking about all the paperwork he has to do before the new term starts, so he’s wrapping up his holiday. Give him a break.

Eric: I just had to look up Ibiza. How’d you come up with that?

Andrew: I don’t know. I just…

Laura: It’s a pretty popular vacation destination.

Micah: It’s a hot spot.

Eric: This is the first time I’m learning about it. That’s cool.

Andrew: Listen to the song “I Took a Pill in Ibiza.”

Eric: Oh.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: Isn’t the mayor…? Anyway. For me, Dumbledore is just putting his own needs ahead of those of a victimized 15-year-old boy.

Andrew: Wow, way to bring the mood down.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: I thought this was going to be a segment where we have fun.

Micah: Well, we have plenty of chapters to talk about where Dumbledore is.

Laura: I imagine that he enchanted some rich guy into letting him spend the summer living on his yacht in the Bahamas, and that he is spending his days tanning and downing Cuba Libres because he knows the next 12 months are going to be so annoying.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Eric: [imitating Dumbledore] “Dos Cuba Libres, por favor.” Oh man. And I have one because, again, we really have not pinned enough things on Dumbledore in this chapter. My idea of “Where’s Dumbledore?” is that he’s somewhere oppressing Sirius, making Sirius feel unwanted and like a prisoner in his own home.

Andrew: Aww.

Eric: So hey, that’s our fun new segment! Yay.

Andrew: We won’t always attack Dumbledore in this segment. At least, I won’t.

Eric: No, no, no. But it is fun to… for a book where Dumbledore is intentionally ignoring Harry – and we love the Dumbledore/Harry interaction in Book 6 – but for Book 5, it seems like we’ll be able to ask that question and come up with genuinely interesting answers from time to time.

Make the Personal Connection

Eric: Now we are going to talk about a personal connection in a segment that we call Make the Personal Connection. And my question, really, to the panel is are there any bits of this chapter that resonate with something that occurred for us? And especially since 2019 when we last discussed this chapter.

Andrew: What are some life lessons that I’ve taken away or noticed maybe in the last five years? And we’ve been talking a lot today about Harry being left alone. I feel like the older you get, the more people end up disappointing you; whether on personal or professional levels, you just have more experiences where you’re just let down. And when you’re the Chosen One and people aren’t living up to your expectations, it feels like an even bigger letdown! He’s doing a lot for everybody, and they’re not meeting him where he is. So that’s his own issue to deal with; he’s on a different level that other people can’t keep up with. [laughs]

Eric: Wow.

Andrew: But on a similar note, with Harry being left for dead, there are times in life when you expect to hear from people and you just don’t, and it makes you question your relationships. Maybe it’s a birthday greeting. Maybe it’s just an everyday check in. Maybe it’s being ghosted.

Micah: Happy Birthday, Andrew.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Oh, man.

Andrew: I just think there are times when people socially let you down, too, and it sucks.

Eric: Yeah, I can say that some of what you said, Andrew, definitely resonates too, and hopefully, again, just fostering good communication with people can hopefully… in general. Everybody goes through stuff; everybody has their periods where they need to isolate themselves and not get back to every message. Because there’s also the opposite, where it’s mentally deprivating to pay attention to everything. But at the end of the day, just be sure to really reach out to people, let them know how you feel, and I believe that’ll be reciprocated. My personal connection here has to do with Mrs. Figg coming out as a Squib to Harry, and definitely over the last couple years, I’ve had the pleasure of several friends telling me new things about themselves that I didn’t know before.

Andrew: Give us a gossip! What? What did you hear?

Eric: No, I mean, it’s in many different ways.

Andrew: I’m just playing.

Eric: But we’re in our mid 30s. Not just we found somebody we’re going to marry, which is always a good announcement, but…

Andrew: Wait, what?!

Laura: Yeah, I’m sorry, Eric.

Eric: Really found my passion… no, we all have friends who are getting married. We’re always going to weddings, aren’t we?

Laura: Uh-huh.

Eric: No one in particular.

Andrew: Oh, I thought you were announcing something. Never mind, okay.

Eric: No, or friends who are able to be their most authentic selves now. I mean, really, the last couple years has shown me that it’s a beautiful, organic process of growth. And so Mrs. Figg… Harry had one impression of her; now he learns this new thing in this chapter. And it’s like, I know they don’t get a chance to have a heart to heart, but I like to imagine that there’s a lot of communication that they could have now that that’s over. What was it like being part of the wizarding world, or wizarding world adjacent? You just learn so much about somebody, the more… like a little thing, you can peel back the onion. And I just love that about people who’ve trusted me with information like that.

Andrew: It is nice when people entrust you with stuff like that.

Eric: And then I’ve done that myself this year with you guys, and it’s been really lovely, so that’s what I thought of, really.

Laura: That’s beautiful.

Andrew: I like it.

Laura: I definitely related to Harry in his feelings of isolation. I feel like every single one of us has a great example of that in the last five or so years with Covid. I think there was a degree of isolation felt by most everyone, and it can be really hard when you’re having overwhelming feelings, and you feel like you don’t have an outlet or a social network, to be able to easily get those things out to, or to even gather with for catharsis, so I can definitely resonate with what Harry is feeling here. But what I would say to him is it does get better.

Andrew: Yeah. And I think why we love still doing Chapter by Chapter and MuggleCast over the years is that we get different lessons and meaning out of the text each time we read, and that’s why we wanted to kick off this segment with Order of the Phoenix, too, to see how these stories are reflective of our own lives since we last talked about Order of the Phoenix.

Eric: Absolutely.

Fakest Character of the Week

Eric: And I’ve got to tell you, we now have something… a fun change to make to what used to be MVP of the Week. Now it’s going to be “Most ______” – fill in the blank, different every week – “Character of the Week,” and this week, there’s a lot of fake people in this chapter, but which and who is the most fake character? We are going to be ranking them now. Cue the music.

[MVP of the Week music plays]

Andrew: Fakest character of the week to me? Vernon Dursley, specifically for his response to his neighbor at 7 Privet Drive. Seven, mind you; there’s another number seven reference…

Eric: Ohh.

Andrew: … asking about the crack noise. “It wasn’t Mundungus! It wasn’t Dung! It was… it was the car! Don’t worry about it, neighbor.”

Eric: “Did you hear that car backfiring?”

Andrew: “Yeah, that was crazy! Hahaha!” And he said it so smoothly, too. He’s a little too good at being fake.

Eric: You know, he’s in sales, so…

Andrew: Ah, true.

Eric: I’m going to give my most fake character of the week to Aunt Petunia, who says, “‘As if were interested in their sordid affairs,’ sniffed Aunt Petunia, who had followed the case obsessively in every magazine she could lay her bony hands on.” We see you, Petunia. It’s okay to read the gossip columns; just don’t hide it, you fake character.

Micah: My fakest character of the week has to go to Dumbledore. This may be one of his worst chapters ever, and he isn’t even physically present.

Andrew: So it’s all up from here in terms of your criticism? Great! Looking forward to it.

[Everyone laughs]

Micah: I said “May be.”

Eric: Oooh.

Laura: And I’m going to have to plus one Petunia. I don’t know if there are four actual fake characters in this chapter that we can really dig into, but no, I agree with you, Eric; she sticks out.

Andrew: Listeners, if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo that’s recorded on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can use our phone number, which is 1-920-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. And we might use your feedback on a future Muggle Mail episode. And next week, Chapter by Chapter continues with Chapter 2 of Order of the Phoenix, “A Peck of Owls.”

Eric: Hee-hee.

Quizzitch

Andrew: And one thing that is not changing episode to episode is, of course, everybody’s favorite Harry Potter game show, Quizzitch!

[Quizzitch music plays]

Eric: Last week’s Quizzitch question: In the United States, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the movie was the fifth highest-grossing film of 2007 domestically. Name at least two films that year which earned more money than Harry Potter 5.

Micah: Oooh.

Eric: Bonus points, I said, if you don’t look it up. So here were the top five grossing films domestic of 2007: It was Spider-Man 3, with $336 million domestically; Shrek 3, $322 million; Transformers 1; Pirates of the Caribbean 3; and Harry Potter 5 was five, as I said. So something interesting we are doing with Quizzitch is we’re asking people if they’ve looked up the answer when they submitted. It is and remains an open book quiz, but 26% of correct answers said they did not look up these answers, and so congrats to those people for knowing your 2007 movies. Some of our listeners weren’t born that year yet. Last week’s winners were Box Office Trivia with the Kneazle; Robbie, I went to all three midnight releases; It’s my 14th birthday! Didn’t leave a name. Just said it’s their 14th birthday. Army of the Phoenix; PatronusSeeker; Spy D-er man; Buff Daddy; Forrest the 11-year-old; I’m having my Harry Potter-themed wedding in a week; Vernon’s skyrocketing health insurance policy; Lloyd the Kiwi; The Death Eaters storing their uniforms on Poop Mountain; [laughs] Trevor Spider-Toad the Third; Fiend for Fanfiction about Harry Potter; and last but not least, Jim! So thanks to everybody for participating in the slightly unusual Quizzitch. I think that I’m going to get more geopolitical and less immediate next chapter with Quizzitch. What do you guys think?

Andrew: Sure, go for it.

Eric: Okay, we’re branching out! New book, new Quizzitch, new rules. Next week’s question: In honor of the drought that’s happening in the beginning of Book 5, what is the hottest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom?

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Your guess, if it’s within three degrees Fahrenheit, will be accepted as correct; and you may give your answer in Fahrenheit or Celsius. Submit your answer to us on the Quizzitch form, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or if you’re on the MuggleCast website – whether you’re reading transcripts, checking out our Must Listens page, or anything else – click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav bar.

Andrew: And this show is brought to you by Muggles like you; it’s the only reason we’ve been able to podcast for 19 years and counting. Here are the two best ways to help us out: Number one, if you’re an Apple Podcasts user, subscribe to MuggleCast Gold, which gets you instant access to ad-free and early releases of MuggleCast, plus two bonus MuggleCast installments every month. And stay tuned for a new bonus MuggleCast this week, in which we will discuss three Harry Potter TV show news items. For even more benefits, best way to help us out: Number two, pledge at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You’ll get all the benefits of MuggleCast Gold, plus livestreams, yearly stickers, another new physical gift every year, a video message from one of the four of us personalized to you, our private Facebook and Discord groups where you can hang out with fellow Potter fans, and so much more. And this week’s bonus MuggleCast will also be available for a one-time purchase on our Patreon. Also, if you enjoy MuggleCast and think other Muggles would, too, tell a friend about the show and leave a five star review in your favorite podcast app. And as Eric said, visit MuggleCast.com for transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and a lot more. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.

Eric: I’m Eric.

Micah: I’m Micah.

Laura: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: Bye, everyone.

Eric, Laura, and Micah: Bye.

The post Transcript #675 appeared first on MuggleCast.

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This week, our Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix re-read begins! We examine the protections surrounding Harry now that Voldemort is back, and ask whether Dudley Dursley is a good boy now.

• News: There is an open casting call for children to become the next Potter trio for the HBO series. We’ll be talking more about it in Bonus MuggleCast, available on Apple Podcasts and our Patreon.
• Chapter-by-Chapter begins again with Book 5, and our brand new MuggleCast Time Turner segment has us spinning some old recordings from past discussions. This week, Episode 433 and Episode 228.
• Harry’s mood has soured significantly! Were we repelled by the book’s immediately sadder protagonist?
• How much of Harry’s rage is justified? How much is due to his horcrux connection?
• Could Harry have been removed from Privet Drive after just 24 hours? If so, why wasn’t he? Is Dumbledore to blame for all of harry’s problems?
• Feeling disconnected, Harry hears a loud noise but it makes him feel more desperate. The noise was the sound of our breaking hearts.
• Dudley’s attempts to de-escalate the situation with Harry are applaudable, but unsuccessful.
• Has Dudley already grown most of the way to a mature person?
• Are we laughing at Harry’s jokes?
• Lynx Line question: how could Dumbledore improve Harry’s protection?
• New segments: Where’s Dumbledore?! And Make the Personal Connection
• This week’s MVP award category is: Most Fake Character
• Quizzitch: In honor of the drought that’s happening in the beginning of Book 5, what is the hottest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom? Guesses within 3 degrees Fahrenheit will be accepted. You may answer in Fahrenheit or Celsius.
• Visit MuggleCast.com for episode transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and to contact us!

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The post Episode #675: Figg’s Bat Phone (OOTP Chapter 1, Dudley Demented) appeared first on MuggleCast.

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Before we start our Chapter by Chapter re-read of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, this week we’re watching the fifth Harry Potter movie together!

Bring your own copy of the Order of the Phoenix movie and watch the film with us in this commentary track. We offer commentary, behind-the-scenes info, wonder why there are so many montages, and fun facts about the production.

To sync up with us, pause the movie right after the camera fully sweeps through the ‘WB’ logo, about 20 seconds into the movie. In the commentary track, we then tell you when to hit Play. (This is also explained on the episode)

To listen to more of our Harry Potter movie commentaries, check out our Must Listens page.

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The post Episode #674: ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ Movie Commentary Track! appeared first on MuggleCast.

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It’s time to put Goblet of Fire in the rear-view mirror as we conduct our ceremonial book wrap episode, featuring our 7-Word Chapter Summary redo, 7 Word Book Summary, and more MuggleMail than you can shake a non-plot-holed Portkey at! Join Andrew, Eric, Laura and Micah for this fun-filled episode catching up with all that our listeners have had to say recently.

• Next week we will be hosting an Order of the Phoenix movie watch commentary and on the following show we’ll begin Book 5 chapter-by-chapter with new segments!
• Micah is back from a visit to Scotland! He tells us what he did over there.
• Andrew and Micah interview actor Joel Meyers, who currently plays Albus Severus Potter in Broadway’s Cursed Child!
• Revisiting our Goblet of Fire 7 Word Chapter Summaries.
• Book Four 7-Word Summary: Resurrection for Voldemort awakens old echoes past.
• Two listeners point out that the return Portkey mystery is not a plot-hole, but was part of Voldemort’s plan to stay hidden while alive.
• Is the Dark Mark on the arms of Death Eaters the best kept secret on the part of the dark side from the Ministry?
• A listener compares Voldemort’s return ritual with Barty Crouch Jr.’s specific method for his father’s end, and underscores BCJr’s daddy issues.
• Do the Death Eaters keep their D.E. robes nearby in case Voldemort returns? Do they ever wash them?
• A listener asks, which characters will be the hardest to replace on the HBO Max show, given their film adaptation counterparts?
• Shakespeare references, snakelike features, and low-security portraits are the topics of more Muggle Mail!
• Quizzitch: in the United States, Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix movie was the 5th highest grossing film of 2007 domestically. name at least 2 films that year which earned more money.
• Visit MuggleCast.com for episode transcripts, social media links, our full episode archive, our favorite episodes, and to contact us!
• Coming up on Bonus MuggleCast, we react to the release of Harry Potter: Quidditch World Champions after playing it this week!
• For twice-monthly Bonus MuggleCast, as well as other great benefits, including the chance to co-host the show, a new physical gift every year, and a video message from one of the four of us visit Patreon.com/MuggleCast!

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The post Episode #673: Listeners Share ‘Goblet of Fire’ Theories, ‘Cursed Child’ Star Joel Meyers Speaks With Us! appeared first on MuggleCast.

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Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #672, The MuggleCasters Reunite in Washington D.C.!

Show Intro

[Show music plays]

Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.

Eric Scull: I’m Eric.

Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.

Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.

Andrew: And we’re all together! Woo!

Eric: With our powers combined!

Andrew: No Riverside delay here.

Eric: Put your hands up! Let’s all hold hands! This is great!

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: When did you last wash your hands? So yeah, for the first time since we’re thinking 2010…

Eric: Wow.

Andrew: … the four of us are all together in one place, and it’s crazy. We got together on Monday; it’s currently Wednesday. We are in the DC area for a podcast industry conference, and we’ve gone to a couple of these, but we haven’t all gone to one together. Micah, Eric, and I went to one in what?

Eric: 2018? 2019?

Andrew: Oh, in Orlando, right? Yeah. So yeah, and we have Laura here for this one too. We had a MuggleCast patron meetup last night.

Eric: It was so lovely.

Laura: It was so good.

Andrew: Yeah, we didn’t even really try to push it too much.

Micah: Well, some of us did.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: What do you mean? Oh, you pushed it at the bar, that’s for sure. Micah may have had one drink too many. One butterbeer too many. But yeah, we didn’t promote it too heavily because we were busy at the conference, so we didn’t want to have too big a group. So we did announce on Patreon “We’ll be in the area; fill out this form if you’re interested,” and anybody who did was contacted. But yeah, everybody was so sweet, right? And we got a group picture.

Laura: What I loved about it is I felt like I got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with people, really getting to know them, and getting to catch up with some of them who I already did know. And got to have a lot of really good conversations with people about other fandoms that they’re into as well, which is really good inspiration for our other show What the Hype?!, so it was just really good all around to get to see people come out who, in a lot of cases, have been supporting the show for a long time.

Eric: Oh, so many. That was when everyone introduced themselves, and one of the parameters was, “How long have you been listening?” Absolutely not a competition, but I will swear there were people that were… it was for most of the history of the show.

Micah: Yeah, it was just great to see people coming from so many different places, near and far, to DC. People from North Carolina; somebody flew down from Boston, New York…

Eric: Connecticut, yeah. Virginia.

Andrew: Yeah, somebody… Ryan was also going to a concert last night, too.

Laura: That’s right, yeah.

Andrew: But that’s great, because it’s like, “Okay, you’re coming out for two things. It’s not just us.” We’re all like, “You’re coming out for us, y’all? That’s so amazing!”

[Laura laughs]

Eric: But I think the takeaway for all of us – and we’ve talked about it throughout today – is just we should figure out a way to do this more, but also that more.

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: Well, and this area, the DC area, is very central for a lot of people, so that helps. We had 20 people. Like I said, we only posted about it once, but I think we easily could have a much larger… we could easily get 100 people together in this area.

Eric: Oh, absolutely.

Laura: Yeah, that would be fun.

Andrew: So yeah, we’ll think about that.

Eric: But it’s always a wonderful and rewarding experience to get together. I remember doing a meetup at the last Podcast Movement with people.

Andrew: We did.

Eric: Yeah, and it’s just really wonderful to meet people.

Micah: Yeah, and we did one in Portland a couple months ago.

Eric: That’s right, yep.

Micah: We did one in Chicago last year.

Eric: Yeah, but it still feels like too few, especially for how good it feels just to get to talk to people.

Andrew: I said to these three, “We’ve still got it. We’ve still got it!”

Eric: We got it!

Andrew: People are coming out for us, woohoo! But no, really, it meant a lot. And we bought everybody a drink if they wanted a drink, and yeah, it was a good night. So thanks to everybody who came out. We have a picture; we posted it on our Instagram stories, but I’m sure we’ll get it on the grid, too, so it exists in perpetuity. But we thought for this episode we could take some questions from listeners. We went on Patreon, and we said, “We’re all together for the first time in 14-15 years, so what questions do you want us to ask each other face to face?”

Eric: Oh, no.

[Micah laughs]

Andrew: And so we’ll focus on those. But I mean, any other…

[sound of a can opening]

Andrew: That was the crack of Laura’s boyfriend’s Truly Unruly. The sponsor of this week’s episode of MuggleCast.

Eric: Speaking of sponsors…

Andrew: “Truly Unruly: When the MuggleCast meetup wasn’t enough for you.”

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: “Come to MuggleCast: After Dark.”

Andrew: But I guess before we get into the questions, we should probably say that, like I mentioned, we’ve been here learning about the podcast industry, and it’s been great, but it’s thanks to listener support that we were able to get here. And I always say this in my Bonjoro videos to listeners: I don’t know about y’all, but we use your support to buy new podcasting equipment. We’re wearing microphones right now that have been purchased through Patreon support. When we need a new mic at home, when we want to go to a podcast conference, we use your support for stuff like that, so it’s all really helpful in helping us run the show.

Eric: Yeah, exactly like that; we put it back into the podcast. And we are learning things here at this conference, too, that are going to go directly back into the show and make the experience – especially if you’re a patron – to make your experience that much better, even, because a lot of this is about that exact topic.

Andrew: We’ve got, like, 20 Google Docs at this point. [laughs]

Eric: That was just day one.

Andrew: Maybe 30 or 40 at this point.

Laura: Yeah, I was going to say, we were really effective at dividing and conquering on this because we were like, “We have four people; we can just divide up these panels,” and we each went and plugged in our notes into shared Google Docs, and it’s really impressive.

Eric: Every so often… it’s extremely impressive. And it’s really just wonderful walking by and seeing somebody in the distance, one of you guys.

Laura: Yeah, I know. That actually happened this morning; Andrew and I were in a session together, and then we looked over and we saw you and we were like, “Eric!”

Eric: That’s right! You were like, “Look to your left!”

Andrew: I texted Eric, “Look left,” and I was just staring. But one thing I should also call out is a couple of our listeners are here too, attending the conference. Kira, who I’ve met before, and for you three, it was your first time meeting her.

Eric: Yeah, she’s great.

Laura: Love her.

Andrew: She has her own podcast, “DNA Today.” She is so successful with that show; we’re so happy for her. And then I was leaving a NPR panel yesterday, and I’m walking out and somebody says, “Excuse me,” and she comes up, and she’s like, “Are you…?” And then she looks at my badge and sees “Andrew, MuggleCast,” and she was like, “Oh my gosh, this is crazy. I work at NPR podcast because of you. I heard about podcasts through MuggleCast back in the day!” And we saw her again today; her name is June, and she was just so excited to have met all of us. She said she hasn’t met Laura yet, but if/when she runs into you, she said she’s going to cry tears of joy because she loves you so much.

Laura: Aww.

Eric: The funniest thing she said, June did, was that she told her mom that she had met you, Andrew…

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Then she called her mom last night about it!

Eric: And her mom knew, and her mom was like, “Oh, that’s that podcast that you used to listen to when you were 13 and weren’t doing your homework and instead were listening to podcasts?”

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: The fact that her mom still carries a grudge toward – vaguely – MuggleCast? Oh, it’s so fun.

Laura: And it could have been so much worse. It was a literary analysis podcast that she was skipping her homework for.

Eric: Look, and now her daughter works for NPR. How cool is that?

Laura: Right.

Andrew: I think it all works out just fine. And I said to June, “And we weren’t doing homework; we were podcasting instead of doing our homework.”

Eric: That’s true.

Laura: Oh, trust me, I used to get in trouble for that all the time.

Andrew: [laughs] But yeah, so it was great meeting her.

Listener questions

Andrew: But anyway, let’s get into these questions from patrons. So we wanted to start with some questions about the hosts and the show itself. Eric, do you want to kick off the questions?

Eric: Yeah, this one’s from Hannele. She says, “Is it any different being in the same room together than when recording across the Internet? If so, what is different?”

Andrew: Well, first of all, there’s no delay. [laughs]

Laura: Yeah, that’s nice.

Andrew: That’s really helpful.

Laura: That’s really nice. I also feel like, I don’t know, it’s easier to pick up on mannerisms and body language too. There have been multiple times… because we just recorded something else right before this, and there have been multiple times where we’ve all kind of just started doubling over in laughter, and there wasn’t particularly anything that was said. It was just maybe the way that somebody… maybe somebody’s facial expression, or maybe a quick quip that would have been missed when we were recording on Riverside, for example.

Andrew: Oh, yeah, that’s a good call.

Laura: Think about the number of times somebody says something pithy, and you’re like, “What?” [laughs] We’re all like old people, like, “Say that again?” Here we don’t have that, so it’s definitely a lot more crisp, I think.

Micah: Not having to scream. And I can, to your point, look at Andrew and make him start laughing.

Andrew: [laughs] You just stared at me!

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Andrew: No, but yeah.

Eric: We high-fived during… we can just do any of it.

Andrew: It’s so much… it’s just easier to do these episodes, too, when we’re all sitting together in person. It doesn’t feel like work as much. And I mean, we rarely actually do this together, so I think that helps too. But if we really wanted to, we could spend an entire day just knocking out ten episodes if we wanted. [laughs]

Eric: Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is… and speaking of the screen not being there, too, it’s wild because when we moved to Riverside and started doing – or even on Zoom – doing video podcasting, we could see each other’s reaction. We could pivot when we knew somebody else had something to say, and all that other stuff is very organic. But now it’s like that in OmniMax; it’s literally like I have a 360 degree view of all of you guys. I know that Micah is barefoot right now, and…

Andrew: [laughs] Hopefully not.

Eric: … oh, wait, just kidding. He has his shoes on, and I do not. But yeah, it’s just a completely unbelievable experience. Is this what this is like for people who like each other and hang out in person?

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Eric: Honestly.

Laura: Well, I mean, I think about the number of podcasters who do generally record their episodes together in person and have studios, and I don’t know, I kind of like the idea of when we get together… obviously, this is a very short trip, pretty quick turnaround, but I don’t know; it could be fun in the future when we get together to say, “Hey, we’re going to knock out several episodes over the course of the time that we’re together,” because we don’t get to do this enough.

Eric: The thing is, too, just the comfort level. I am so comfortable with you guys; we’ve known each other 19 years. And part of it is, too, that I’m in the Micah Chair.

Andrew: I was just going to say that. [laughs]

Eric: I did move into the Micah Chair.

Andrew: Eric is in a high back chair.

Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew: So that’s what the experience is like.

Eric: It’s wild, and we got a couple more about being in person together. So who wants to take John’s question?

Laura: I can take John’s question. John asks, “Are any of you taller or shorter than the other hosts than you expected or remembered? Who is the tallest and who is the shortest?”

Andrew: That’s so funny.

Eric: Can we do a quick stand here real quick? Because I think…

Laura: I think I’m the shortest.

Andrew: I think so.

Eric: Maybe. Should we get up? I think Micah is taller than me, right? So you and I are the same height, Andrew, Micah is the tallest, and Laura is under? Yeah.

Andrew: But I expected all these heights, you know?

Laura: Yeah, there’s nothing surprising about it.

Andrew: No. Yeah, although one of our listeners who showed up at the hangout last night, Laura – another Laura – she’s pretty short, and I just say that because when we met, she was like, “Oh my gosh, you guys are taller than I thought!”

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: We’re not… I’m like, 5’10”.

Eric: That’s hilarious.

Micah: Next question comes from Xabrina, who says, “Would love to know how does it feel to record in real life with each other after a long time. I’m also curious to know how often you guys have creative differences, or any differences regarding podcast stuff, and how you manage it whilst being friends.”

Laura: That’s a good question.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, in terms of recording IRL, it felt weird at first, but I think it starts feeling organic.

Laura: I will say, for the first two minutes we were sitting here – because Andrew is beside me – you were making a lot of direct eye contact, and I was like, “It’s weird that there’s not a screen.”

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Where you can just run away from me whenever I’m being annoying.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: No, but I mean, it feels good.

Eric: Another thing I’ll add to that is I remember everyone’s general vibe and idiosyncrasies from however many years ago it’s been that we’ve been in the same room, and there’s something so comforting about coming back to that too. Just like, even if we’re not talking, even if we’re not looking at each other, just that we are a comforting presence in each other’s… just being in the same room together is very comforting.

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Eric: And to that end, this question about creative differences and stuff, we have grown together for so many years, and the ego is gone. The individual ego, I think, is largely gone from this group, and we know that if we’re making a suggestion that the others don’t like that it’s not a personal dislike, that it doesn’t reflect on us personally, and we have just this amazing rapport. And so that’s been a great just experience because of how we’ve matured, and how we’ve grown together.

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Laura: And I mean, creative differences, I feel like it’s pretty normal in a group like this, especially for something like this show that’s kind of been all of our baby for almost 20 years at this point. There have absolutely been times where we’ve had differences in opinion about how we should approach things or how we should structure an episode, or even how we want to think about the strategy for the show in the future. There have been differing opinions over time; that’s to be expected. It would be weird if we were all lockstep in our thinking all the time.

Eric: But see, and that makes the show better is having those different perspectives and opinions. We always hear each other out.

Laura: Yeah, for sure. And we have evolved a lot, because we all know that back in 2005, there were a lot of AOL instant messenger fights.

Andrew: Oh, yeah.

Laura: I definitely participated in some of those.

Eric: Followed by salty away messages.

Laura: Yeah, yeah.

[Micah laughs]

Laura: Usually, like, Green Day song lyrics.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: “I’m going to make them think that I’m leaving my house, but really, I’m just sitting in my room being… mad.” I was about to say another word.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: That’s the other thing, too, I think. I remember being just so insecure as a late teenager.

Laura: We all were.

Eric: But so the hard feelings and everything come from that state of feeling triggered, and it’s not… you don’t know what you don’t know. But it’s been a great pleasure to have grown up and still get to do this.

Laura: Yeah, 100%.

Micah: With, I mean, creative differences, we all seem to – especially now at this stage, because we’re adults – land in a place where even if we’re coming at it from differing perspectives, we’re able to get to some kind of agreement. Thinking about our upcoming Chapter by Chapter – Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince – we just did those books not that long ago, and so we’re trying to figure out, creatively, how can we make it interesting for you all the listeners, in case you listened to those episodes when we first did them?

Andrew: That’s something we still need to talk about while we’re here, so maybe tomorrow morning. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, listeners, check back with us in a month. If we’re doing Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince, it means we worked it out.

Andrew: We are going to be doing it.

Eric: Well, I’m not sure…

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Get out.

Eric: I’m just messing.

Andrew: We actually asked listeners on Patreon for feedback about that, and most of them said, “Stay the course. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Eric: Absolutely, absolutely.

Andrew: But we can explain that more later. Like I said, we still need to talk about a little bit because we want to shake it up in some way, so more to come on that front.

[Ad break]

Andrew: Christina said, “I have two questions: What piece of Harry Potter memorabilia/merch would you never sell/get rid of?” So let’s start with that question.

Eric: This is a funny one because I am jettisoning Harry Potter merchandise.

Andrew: Aw, yeah.

Eric: You guys know I brought two art prints with me that I just never had space for on my walls. One was this cool Niffler print I got at a convention, and the other was the wooden Hogwarts crest plaque from… Pottery Barn, maybe, it might have been? Not the cool version of Pottery Barn when it came out, but the ones before that. Maybe even Hot Topic. But the piece of merch I would never get rid of is my first boxset, which is how I read the books. It’s the paperback boxset of the first four books, and yeah, as long as I live… sorry, I may even request to be buried with it.

Andrew: Oh, yeah.

Laura: Aw, that’s really sweet.

Eric: I mean, because it’s small.

Andrew: [laughs] Because it’s small.

Eric: It would fit in my coffin next to the alto saxophone and the…

Laura: I definitely would get a lot of Harry Potter merch over the years, especially when I was in middle and high school, but it’s all notebooks and the kind of stuff that disintegrates over time, so I don’t have any of it anymore. Really, one of my most treasured possessions related to Harry Potter, very similar to you, Eric, is I still have my original hardbacks of the first three books, and they are falling apart. I don’t know if y’all remember when we were doing Chapter by Chapter for Sorcerer’s Stone, I sent you all pictures of mine, and it is literally in pieces. But I kind of felt like I have to pay homage to this thing that’s been such a big part of my life, and now that we’re restarting Chapter by Chapter, I need to read from the original book I read from when I was 11 years old, even though the pages are all falling out of it. [laughs] But I really do have a special place in my heart for those, and I think that I’ll keep them until they fully disintegrate.

Eric: Well, if the book is really messed up, it’s going to be a fun reread for you of not knowing what happens in any one chapter. [laughs]

Laura: Yeah, for sure. My later editions are okay because, of course, those were coming out when I was older, so I was more delicate with them. The first three I got when I was 11, so I was not kind to them. I abused them heavily. [laughs] Read them so many times. I think the first three books I have read over more times than I’ve read any of the other books, so they’re definitely tattered, but it’s all out of love for sure.

Micah: Yeah, I’m trying to think… because there are definitely things in my mind that I would have been reluctant to get rid of, that maybe now I’m a little bit more willing to, that may or may not be signed by somebody who wrote the series.

Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew: Can I jump in right there and say…

Micah: Yeah, go ahead.

Andrew: Cancel me, but that is my most prized possession. I have a signed UK Half-Blood Prince, and I value that a lot.

Eric: But did she sign it for you when you handed it…?

Andrew: No, so Emerson had it signed when he went over to interview her for the Half-Blood Prince release, so that’s why it’s special, too; she signed it in her house.

Eric: That’s a very special…

Andrew: I also had to beg Emerson for a signed copy. [laughs]

Eric: Also, the fact that that happened when MuggleNet was… that speaks to your time on MuggleNet; that speaks to…

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Eric: How you came by it is as important as the… yeah, I get that.

Andrew: So that would be my answer. But what was your other…?

Micah: Well, I was also thinking about the letter that she wrote to us.

Andrew: Oh, I forgot about that. I always forget about that.

Laura: Yeah, I was thinking about that, and I was like, “I won’t bring it up, but somebody else is probably going to bring it up.” Because it was honestly… I know it was a point of contention for a minute, because everyone was like, “Why aren’t we passing the letter around?” And I was selfishly like, “No!”

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: Here’s an admission!

Laura: I managed the PO Box. I dealt with it.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Wow.

Laura: And I was the one who handled all of the mailing and writing the letter, and we sent her a very nice little charm bracelet, by the way.

Andrew: That you paid for.

Laura: Yeah, 100%. And so I was like, “No, this is mine.”

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: That is so funny.

Laura: But obviously, I’m 35 now, but I think at the time there was part of me that was like, “I don’t have any signed memorabilia like that,” so I was being like, “You know what? I’m going to hang on to this, and if they ever want to come by and see it, they can.”

Andrew: “Come visit me if you want to take a look.” It’s like we’re visiting a museum.

Laura: But I mean, to be honest with you, I do feel conflicted about it now.

Andrew: Can I have the letter for a little bit?

Laura: Yeah, you can have it.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: I thought Micah had it. Micah, what letter do you have?

Micah: You sent copies, probably, or you scanned it and sent it to everybody.

Andrew: Ohh.

Eric: Because it was really meaningful to me the other… probably a month ago Micah said, “Hey, I just want to let you know I’m no longer displaying that letter.”

Micah: Oh, yeah. I’d had it framed.

Eric: “The person who wrote that to us is not the same as the person she is now,” and that meant a lot to me, Micah, specifically, just to receive that, because it is an acknowledgement that things have happened. But I am looking to unload my two signed copies of Casual Vacancy, actually.

Andrew: I would take one.

Eric: Okay.

Andrew: So do I suck for wanting the letter now?

Eric and Micah: No.

Andrew: Okay, I would just like to see… I don’t think I’ve actually seen the real copy IRL.

Eric: I’m not in the letter. Yeah, I was away in New Zealand at the time, so I’m not one of the names on it.

Laura: I don’t think any of y’all have seen it in person. But yeah, honestly, at this point, it’s sitting in a drawer, honestly. Again, very similar to Micah, I was like, “I don’t know how I feel about just having this out.”

Andrew: Yeah. Well, and for the record, I wouldn’t want it forever. I would just want it for, I don’t know, a couple weeks would be cool. Show Pat. Show some friends.

Eric: It’s a personal connection. All of our answers are that piece that were personal. It’s not… it’s our memorabilia as much as it is Harry Potter memorabilia. It’s an achievement.

Laura: Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I mean, we can do a custody agreement if you want. [laughs]

Micah: So two things come to mind. The first is I have a MinaLima print of the Daily Prophet “Mass breakout from Azkaban” that I have framed.

Andrew: That’s cool.

Micah: The other would be one of our Podcast Awards.

Eric: That’s another one, yeah.

Micah: From 2006.

Andrew: Yeah. Just to circle back on the “I don’t want to display J.K. Rowling stuff anymore,” I had a printed canvas of that tweet that she did about “Wormtaily, avoid Hypable.”

Eric: Oh, “Wormtaily,” yeah, yeah.

Andrew: And I had it hanging in my office at my current home for the longest time, and then just sitting at my desk, I’d see it there, and I was like, “You know what? That just annoys me every time I look at it now.”

Eric: Oh, yeah.

Andrew: Just because of her specifically. I think the whole ordeal was hilarious, but I was like, “I don’t want that hourly reminder of her,” so I took it down.

Eric: She has permanently spoiled her and Twitter for me.

Andrew: So let’s get to part two of Christina’s question. She said, “In another timeline, what US city do you think the four of you would enjoy all living in at the same time?” That’s a fun question.

Laura: Can you imagine how different life would be if we all lived in the same city? First of all, we would probably record together way more than we do.

Andrew: That would be amazing.

Eric: We would have a bunker and it would be…

Andrew: A total studio.

Laura: Yeah, that would be amazing.

Eric: There would be a Micah chair…

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Everyone would have a Micah chair.

Eric: We would all have a Micah chair.

Andrew: I would podcast from a Micah bed.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Micah: What is that like?

Andrew: I don’t know. It’s heart-shaped.

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Micah: Goat-shaped.

Eric: What city do we think we would enjoy? So look, there’s winter people; there’s beach people. Actually, I don’t think there’s any winter people. I don’t think they exist. But what city do we think? Because I’ve spent some time in Nevada; I think that the Vegas area…

Andrew: Oh. I was going to meet you guys in the middle. I was going to say Austin, Texas.

Laura: I love Austin.

Eric: I can’t vouch for it myself.

Andrew: It’s warm. It’s a trendy city.

Micah: I’ve been a couple times.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Micah: New Orleans.

Andrew: New Orleans would be fun.

Laura: Oh, God. Love New Orleans.

Micah: It’s one of my favorite cities to go to.

Laura: That would be fun. The only thing that is a knock against Austin and New Orleans is the humidity. But to be honest, where I live now is super humid, so it wouldn’t stop me. But there is part of… I really, personally, really like any kind of fall weather, or anywhere where it’s 70 degrees year round, and breezy and sunny.

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Micah: Like today.

Laura: Yeah, today is gorgeous.

Andrew: Oh, it was perfect today in DC. No humidity, mid 70s, a light wind. It was lovely.

Micah: Is nobody going to offer up London?

Andrew: Oh. [laughs] I think we want to stay in America, don’t we? I don’t think we can get all four of us…

Micah: Do we have to?

[Eric and Laura laugh]

Eric: That’s hilarious.

Andrew: Well, could we get all four of us to go to England? Or Europe?

Eric: Ask us again in a month. Christina says US city, so that was the question. We were just…

Andrew: Well, we’re in agreement about somewhere in the southern half of the US, it sounds like.

Eric: But maybe just. Again, Nevada, I think is…

Andrew: I mean, my dream… I love California to death, so I’d move back to California in a heartbeat if money were no object.

Eric: Got a question from Carly, who says, “I’m super curious, how do y’all take your coffee?” I don’t.

Andrew: That’s a fun question.

Laura: Oh.

Eric: I don’t.

Andrew: But Eric drinks Monster.

Eric: Monster is my coffee.

Andrew: Which I find a little… it’s unhealthy.

Eric: Well, it’s Monster Ultra. There’s zero… there’s maybe ten calories.

Andrew: [laughs] It’s Monster Ultra, okay.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: I drink my coffee black; I recently switched to this over the last year. And there was a time I would be that person putting sugar and cream in it, then I stopped putting Splenda in it. It was difficult for a few weeks, and I never looked back. And then within the last year, stopped putting oat milk in. Difficult for a few weeks, and never looked back. I love getting the notes of the coffee now, so yeah.

Micah: I’m with Andrew.

Andrew: Black coffee?

Eric: Black coffee!

Andrew: We’re so sophisticated.

Micah: Every now and then I’ll throw some creamer in it, but mostly black.

Andrew: Okay.

Laura: Yeah. I like a splash of coconut milk in mine, but that’s it. I don’t…

Andrew: Did you just fall out of a coconut tree?

Laura: Maybe. We’ll find out when we watch the DNC later.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Eric? Oh, and Eric doesn’t. Okay. All right, that’s easy enough.

Eric: I did have Earl Grey tea today, though. You know those tureens of the hot water?

Laura: Oh, yeah.

Andrew: Oh, yeah, I got some of those.

Eric: I made myself some Earl Grey. It was really delicious.

Laura: There you go.

Andrew: I like a chamomile or a decaf minty type of tea, peppermint.

Eric: Mint tea is delicious.

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Eric: Absolutely.

Laura: Eleanor wants to know, “I’d love to know more about the podcasting process. How do you all prep? Do you have any routines or superstitions you have to follow?”

Andrew: Oooh.

Laura: I love the way that question is worded.

Eric: It’s a great question for my unsatisfactory answer. Yeah, my superstition is I have to turn off the air conditioning.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Don’t feel like you have to do that, though.

Eric: My routine is… oh, I do, because I don’t want it to pick up on the audio recording. But yeah, I’m trying to think on that.

Andrew: Well, in terms of our planning process, so currently these three plan the Chapter by Chapter discussions, but we take turns with that. So it’ll be Laura’s week, Eric’s week, Micah’s week. And then once one of us gets the doc together for the chapter, whatever episode we’re doing, then the rest of us start adding our own notes, and we use Google Docs to collaborate so we can all edit it in real time. And yeah, so we turn the episodes around in 3-4 days, in terms of creation of Google Doc to actually recording, typically.

Eric: It’s a really well-honed…

Andrew: So that’s the bare bones. And then we have another Google Doc with our schedule; this is who’s doing this week, this is the chapter we’re doing, this is when the episode’s being recorded and when it’s coming out, if we’re going to have a guest on that episode. So yeah, those are the bare bones.

Laura: Yeah, for sure. And then just in terms of… I just love the question about superstitions. I don’t know if I have any superstitions, but I definitely have a bit of a pre-show ritual.

Andrew: Tell us about that.

Laura: I don’t know if y’all do. So first of all, I’ve talked about this before, but I am a beverage gremlin, so at all times, I usually have three beverages near me and at my desk when we’re doing the show. So it’s usually coffee, Diet Coke, and water, is usually the combination.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: So I have to make sure I have that, I have to make sure that I’ve eaten a little snacky right before we start, and I make sure that I get my lighting right. So I have hue lights set up in our office so that I can have my background be awash in color for the stream, and I usually try to theme the lights. I don’t know if y’all have ever noticed, but I do change up the color themes that I use week to week, and I usually try to associate it with something that we’re going to be talking about. But I always do a quick cam check before I hop on to make sure the lighting is right, because as you all know, sometimes on camera things might look better in person and might not pick up as well on the camera. So I usually have to do a cam check, and I usually do a mic check before I hop on too. So that’s my show prep.

Andrew: I have a little pre-show snack. I have a Celsius energy drink; that’s been a newer obsession of mine. Got to try to pee before the pod, because we do 90 minutes to two hours, especially if we have a bonus MuggleCast. So yeah, no superstitions, but just making… because we also record at 5:00 p.m. Pacific, I eat dinner early, so that’s basically my dinner time. Sometimes I’ll eat dinner before MuggleCast, depending on how hungry I am.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Andrew: So yeah, nothing crazy, just making sure I have water, some energy in me. Maybe a little snack, which I love pretzel crisps and powdered peanut butter. What’s that called again? PB Fit. Love that stuff.

Eric: Ohh.

Laura: That stuff is so good.

Micah: No real superstitions either. I would say one thing I do have to do most of the time is ever since we started doing video, and I have the bookcase as the backdrop, I do have to move a piece of furniture to be the desk, to have the microphone and the computer set up on. So there’s not normally that setup in my room; I have to set it up each week. So I’m trying to find a better solution, but I have to go through that. And then similar to you, Laura, making sure everything is framed properly and set up.

Eric: I actually… yeah, I have three light sources on me that I have to set up. It’s a special ring light, and then another desk lamp, and then the overhead light sometimes depending on the glare. Depending if there’s sunlight coming in, twist the blinds.

Micah: Yeah, it’s the AC thing for me, too, because it’s a window unit, so it’d make a sh…

Eric: Yeah, too much.

Micah: I was going to say something. A lot of noise. And I have to tell the birds to shut up too.

[Andrew laughs]

Micah: Although, you like them sometimes.

Andrew: Sometimes it’s peaceful.

Laura: They’re very peaceful.

Andrew: I’m mixed. I’m mixed on it. Sometimes I’m like, “Do people want to hear the birds?” Listeners, let us know. Do you want to hear Micah’s birds in the background?

Laura: Yeah, give us your feedback.

Andrew: Micah’s neighbors.

Micah: They’re not my birds.

[Eric and Micah laugh]

Andrew: Your bird neighbors.

Eric: You know they would stop coming by if you stopped feeding them, Micah.

[Andrew and Micah laugh]

Andrew: Ryan P. said, “Thanks for doing this. Looking back over your 19 years of doing MuggleCast, what’s one decision you wish you made differently, and why?”

Laura: Oooh.

Andrew: Honestly, I would just say I wish we started… sorry, this is going to be a business-y answer, but monetizing the show. The show was really, really big when we started; I was actually telling June this earlier today.

Eric: Oh, yeah.

Andrew: It was huge, and everybody knew MuggleCast. We were not making a dime off of it, but we also did not know how to make money off of it, so it just would have been nice to be monetizing it from the start, just to build that base.

Eric: Well, to be clear, I think people were making money off of our show, but it wasn’t us.

Andrew: [laughs] Yes.

Laura: Fair enough.

Eric: For the first many years, increased web traffic, increased everything traffic.

Andrew: Yeah, we got a little played, but…

Laura: We were young.

Andrew: Yeah, so maybe that’s what we would change.

Eric: Understanding time is value. This is along similar lines: I have very few regrets about any of this that we did on MuggleCast and the whole trajectory of everything, but if we had gotten on YouTube right when it started…

Andrew: Oh, that’s a good one.

Eric: … we really could have had an opportunity to be some of the biggest OG most YouTube accounts now. If we had figured it out, if we had our finger on the pulse of it, because I know that we would have brought the same production quality to that as we do to our show, and so I do wonder what could have been if there was also a YouTube component 15 years ago.

Andrew: Yeah, that’s a good one.

Laura: Well, we are trying to catch up on that now, so if you do follow us on YouTube, you should check us out there; we’re MuggleCast. And if you haven’t seen us on YouTube, you should look it up. We’re putting up full video episodes now.

Andrew: Yeah. But yeah, like Eric said, not really any regrets. We’re really proud. If you go back and listen to Episode 1, it doesn’t sound good. The first year or two don’t sound good, but that’s where podcasting was at the time, and especially for kids.

Eric: It’s amazing we pulled it off.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, it is.

Eric: You look at the tech we were using, the Internet connection…

Andrew: And we all had school at the same time.

Laura: Do you remember my first episode? I sounded like I was podcasting from the bottom of a trash can.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: The audio quality was so bad, and that was after you ran filters on it to make it a little bit better.

Andrew: Was I even running filters on it? I don’t know. [laughs]

Laura: I mean, I remember you said you did something, and you were like, “Yeah, it’ll be fine,” and then I heard the episode, and I was like, “Oh my God, I sound like I am literally inside of the Tin Man talking to everybody.” [laughs]

Andrew: Maybe I said that just to make you feel better.

Laura: You probably did.

Andrew: [in a high-pitched voice] “Don’t worry, Laura! It’s going to be okay!”

[Eric laughs]

Laura: Yeah, “It’s going to be great!”

Andrew: My parents are like, “Do your homework! Don’t work on that whatever you’re doing.”

[Laura laughs]

Eric: Oh my goodness.

[Ad break]

Micah: Next up, Melissa wants to know, “If you went karaoke-ing, who would go first and what song would be sung?”

Eric: I think I would go first for no other reason than I have songs prepared. I know which ones I like. I love karaoke. I would immediately go and do… I like to start things off with the Georgia Satellites’ “Keep Your Hands to Yourself.” It’s a bop. I usually wear a cowboy hat out when I go and do it, and it gets me in the mood. So I would just… you guys would be poring over the song list and thinking it over twice, and I’m telling you, that’s my go-to, so I’d just go be doing it.

Laura: Yeah. It’s funny you say that because when I saw this question, I also thought… I didn’t know what song you would pick, but I was like, “Oh, Eric, 100%.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Oh, yeah. Well, I’d like to get the audience roused up too, if it’s the start of the night. Andrew and I were walking to dinner, and we saw that there’s a place that has karaoke across the street.

Laura: Oh, okay.

Eric: But it’s only on Thursday evenings, and we all fly out or will not…

Laura: Oh, we’re not going to be here.

Eric: We’ll be otherwise indisposed.

Micah: Dang. [laughs]

Eric: What were you going to say, Micah?

Micah: You did cosplay karaoke in Portland.

Eric: That’s right! That’s right, yeah, there was a whole… it was a session for three days where fans would come in in various cosplay and sing a song that was related to whatever they were doing.

Andrew: Madeline said, “Are you planning another meetup anytime in the future?” I’m sure we will do another meetup.

Eric: You guys didn’t say what your karaoke songs were going to be.

Andrew: Oh, they just said the first. Who will go first and what songs, that’s why.

Eric: But what songs would you guys sing?

Micah: Bruuuuce…

Laura: I’m not really big into karaoke.

Andrew: No.

Eric: Wow. Okay, I guess I’m going to do them all. I’m going to do them all. It’s cool.

Andrew: Yeah, that’s fine.

Micah: This is such an easy one, but “Piano Man,” because I feel like everybody can sing along.

Laura: Yeah, that’s true.

Eric: I would love for you to sing that.

Andrew: Madeline said, “Are you planning another meetup anytime in the future?” I guaranteed yes. We don’t have details, but we will. And certainly this one and the others have went really, really well, so we’re definitely interested. Just a matter of the timing and getting us together and all that.

Eric: Yeah, and Madeline is somebody who said earlier that she had tried to actually make this one and couldn’t at the last minute.

Andrew: Oh, okay.

Eric: So we’re sorry, Madeline, but yes, we’ll be back.

Andrew: One thing the four of us are talking about doing, too, is maybe trying to get together once a year, not necessarily around a conference, but just to work on stuff together, work on our pods together IRL. So if/when we do that in the future, I’m sure that would come with a meetup in whatever city we’re in.

Laura: Yeah, for sure.

Eric: You guys are really good at letting us know that we are loved by showing up to these things.

Laura: Seriously.

Andrew: For a second I couldn’t tell if you were talking about the listeners or us sitting here.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Eric: Well, also, you let me know I’m loved. No, we have a state of flow that I think is really, really interesting to tap more into. Mayelin says, “If you guys could erase your memory and experience something from the HP era for the first time, what would it be?”

Andrew: When Rowling took Steve Vander Ark to court, that was a really weird story. Steve Vander Ark founded the Harry Potter Lexicon, and he tried to publish a book version, and Rowling showed up in court against Steve Vander Ark for that. I mean, he had an amazing site, still does, and the book was an excellent piece of work. He eventually released it as they jumped through the legal hurdles they needed, but just… Rowling was in court crying over this book, literally crying over this book being published, and then she had also said they have an encyclopedia ready to go, and the Harry Potter Lexicon impacts her encyclopedia. That book never got released, the Harry Potter encyclopedia. It just… the whole thing was slimy, taking a fansite to court over that type of book.

Laura: Yeah. What’s funny, though, is we took her side at the time.

Andrew: You know what? That is a good point.

Laura: We definitely did, and Eric, you were the only one who didn’t.

Eric: But at the same time, looking back and thinking, “Well, yeah, right,” what you’re saying; there was no encyclopedia then in the end, or we still don’t have it. The things that had to be proven… and there were quotes of J.K. Rowling herself saying that she used the Lexicon to help remember things while writing the books. And I did end up buying that book when it came out, after the legal hurdles, like you said. But yeah, that was a dark time to see that, because it divided the fans, because it was literally the creator versus the fans, and it was maybe the first moment of moments since where that was the dynamic, and that felt strange and it felt difficult for us.

Andrew: I’ve done a total 180 on that. I forgot – thanks for checking me – that I was Team Rowling at the time.

Eric: But I mean, she could do no wrong. She’d given us this world, etc., etc. I wouldn’t say we were super naive; I just think that… but so you’re saying you would just choose to forget that it happened?

Andrew: Yeah, well, and I wouldn’t be on Team Rowling in hindsight.

Micah: So if it happened again.

Andrew: Right, yeah.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, also, we have to remember what we knew at the time, and at least from what I recall, the way that the case was portrayed was you had someone who had an online lexicon that was just a work of love, and had even received a fansite award from J.K. Rowling herself, but I didn’t think she had a problem with that. I think what she had a problem with was him publishing that and making money off of it, because there was no original interpretation of the work, and I think that was really the crux of the argument.

Micah: Well, it wasn’t all that dissimilar – although she didn’t take legal action against Emerson for What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7 – because she has literally opened her doors of her home to have him come in, and then turn around and write a book about what potentially could happen in the seventh book, to her, at least from what we heard, felt like a betrayal of some on some level.

Eric: It’s an interesting dynamic, for sure.

Laura: But I do think there’s a difference in that the What Will Happen book was not just an encyclopedia; it was theories and predictions.

Micah: Correct.

Eric: Yeah, it was transformative, which is one of the things you have to prove.

Micah: And this is me playing devil’s advocate, but what’s the difference between that and what we do? Or what we were doing at the time; we were theorizing. Now, we weren’t making money off of those theories. The book was.

Eric: And that’s what matters. What I think is… the RDR books and J.K. Rowling trial was exactly… it happened… that’s exactly how copyright works, is you need to have legal precedent, and there just wasn’t legal precedent for something like that that had grown up online and was going to be published before. So they needed to do the crying on the stand, they needed to do the claims that may seem dubious in retrospect, because however that netted out then affected it – not just Harry Potter books, but every book being made since.

Laura: Exactly.

Eric: So the eventual version of the Lexicon that I have printed out is better for it, I think, in the end. It’s actually much more…

Micah: I mean, I love we’re having this debate again, because you could point to websites. Steve was making money off his website, and how much did fansites make?

Andrew: Well, it’s just a different medium. It comes down to the medium, though, too. If Rowling was doing a podcast and then we were just repurposing her podcast, she might try to sue us maybe? I’m not a legal expert by any stretch of the imagination.

Micah: Or was the issue that the website was free, anybody can go to it…?

Andrew: Exactly, yeah. The book… yeah, and what…? [sighs] I see your point about the… I just… this is maybe irrelevant, but I don’t seem to even remember the Harry Potter Lexicon having ads on the website.

Eric: No, it was a very dry, very clean…

Andrew: I remember it being a very clean website, yeah.

Eric: Everyone else was having the ads.

Andrew: And I think she was also thinking it was… she was trying to set that legal precedent so other people wouldn’t release books or encyclopedias.

Eric: Yeah, there was a very defense… yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with that. I would erase my memory of reading, but which book? The third one.

Andrew: Oh.

Laura: To experience that again?

Eric: That’s what I would do, to experience it again.

Andrew: Ohh, I see.

Eric: That’s the thing, if you could erase your experience from the HP era and do something again for the first time, it would be reading that book, wouldn’t it? And it would be the third one or the fourth one.

Andrew: I have to admit, I misread the question.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: I just thought it was erasing a memory from the fandom, and that’s it. [laughs]

Eric: Oh, God. Well, who wrote the series, maybe, would be great these days?

Laura: I’ve got to say Deathly Hallows release in London at Waterstones.

Andrew: Oh, that was amazing, yeah.

Laura: That was incredible. And I mean… I don’t know.

Eric: That whole thing.

Andrew: Any midnight release party was really special.

Laura: Yeah, it really was.

Micah: I would say maybe walking in through the brick walls into Diagon Alley.

Eric: Diagon Alley theme park?

Micah: In Orlando.

Laura: Yeah, that’s cool.

Eric: That hits so hard every time it happens. So here’s an interesting one: We’ve been in each other’s homes, sort of, probably not all in person, but Craig says, “For each of you: If you had to swap homes with one other MuggleCast host for a month…” So we’re moving in!

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: “Who would you choose, and why?” Listen, I’ve already let the cat out of the bag. I like Nevada.

Andrew: I got a party house, baby. Where am I going, though?

Micah: Do you get Pat?

Andrew: Yeah, you get Pat for a month.

Eric: You know Chicago. You’re familiar with Chicago. I got a nice place.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, I was going to say I haven’t been to any three of your current places, so I want to go to all three to experience.

Laura: Oh, I see.

Andrew: But I’ll pick Chicago because I want to…

Eric: Let’s rotate.

Andrew: [laughs] Everybody right now, just shift one seat and that’s the house you’re going to.

Eric: Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew: No, I would pick yours because I want to go back to Chicago.

Eric: And you’d go back to all the places you knew.

Andrew: I want to change your set around too. I would change your set around.

Eric: Oh, that would be really…

Andrew: I would add something to the set and see if you would notice.

Laura: I thought you were about to give Eric some feedback on their set.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Is something coming out now that we didn’t know you were unhappy about with the setup?

Andrew: No, no, I just think it’d be fun to mess.

Eric: Yeah, I agree.

Laura: Okay, Gabriella says, “Hi, we know Laura speaks Spanish.” Si. “Have you ever read books in other languages? Do the other hosts know any other languages?” Yeah, so I’ve actually read some of the Harry Potter books in Spanish, and that’s… I don’t know. I mainly was doing it at the time to just get practice, especially because it was two things that I loved, and so it felt like I can really kill two birds with one stone here. I did read To Kill a Mockingbird in Spanish, and that was really cool. But outside of that, I don’t have anything recent. But do any of y’all speak other languages for Gabriella?

Andrew: No.

Laura: Wow. Shame. [laughs] I’m kidding.

Andrew: I took Spanish classes in high school. I did really badly, I regret. I didn’t throw myself into it like I should have.

Laura: Porque?

Andrew: Huh?

Laura: Porque?

Andrew: What?

Eric: Isn’t that “Why?”

Andrew: I’m just kidding.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Andrew: Because… I don’t know, I was a bad student. That’s it.

Micah: I took seven years of French…

Laura: That’s right.

Micah: … so I do have a couple of the Harry Potter books in French. I have not tried to do that.

Eric: So you haven’t read about the… yeah.

Micah: I don’t think I’d be able to speak anywhere close to fluently, but I was in Paris earlier this year and I could understand certain things, pick up certain things.

Laura: That makes sense.

Eric: That’s cool. It’s a completely different experience. I regret not being fluent in a different language, just to have that experience, something that would be so familiar but in a new light, in a new way, the way the sentences are constructed is the way the world is built. So that’d be really cool.

Andrew: Okay, getting into the end of our questions here, Elizabeth said, “If you could switch lives with one of the Harry Potter characters, who would it be and why?” Not to pigeonhole myself too much, but Dumbledore! That would be so cool.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: Have that office, take care of the day to day needs of the school, everybody’s coming to you… McGonagall, Snape, the DADA teacher of the year…

Eric: You would be a great Headmaster of Hogwarts, but I love the idea – because the question is “Which of the HP characters would you switch lives with?” – that we would get Dumbledore as a cohost.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: That would actually be pretty cool.

Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “Welcome to MuggleCast.” I should try to do a whole episode as Dumbledore.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: That would be really difficult.

Eric: Oh my God, you guys, it finally happened. Elizabeth predicted this. Andrew and Dumbledore have switched lives.

Andrew: How about y’all?

Laura: It’s tough because some of these characters are out here having hard lives.

Eric: They’ve been through hell.

Laura: I don’t know if I want to switch with them. [laughs]

Eric: Well, my go-to would be Sirius; I’m like, “No, no, he suffered and then died.”

Laura: No, that doesn’t end well.

Andrew: Let’s say if it’s just for a day, though, maybe?

Laura: Okay.

Andrew: Elizabeth didn’t say that, but maybe just switch…

Eric: We get to pick a day?

Andrew: Take a walk in their shoes for a day. Experience…

Eric: Tonks. She’s freaking cool.

Laura: She is really cool. I think I would want to switch with… not necessarily Ron, but someone like Ron, who grew up in the wizarding world. I think it would be really cool to…

Eric: Like Ginny? [laughs]

Laura: Yeah, okay, Ginny. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like we get enough good on-page time with her in these books; it’s one of my big criticisms. But yeah, it would be cool to do that and to be able to recall memories from childhood of growing up in the wizarding world.

Eric: Oh, that would be… and at the Burrow? That would be so amazing.

Laura: Think about how magical being a kid is anyway. That would be cool. I would love that. What about you, Micah?

Micah: You said for one day?

Andrew: Yeah, let’s say for one day.

Micah: Arthur.

Eric: Yeah. He just has a really corporate government job. You’d go to work.

Micah: But he doesn’t, at the same time.

Andrew: It’s a fun one.

Micah: Yeah, he’s quirky. Good family man.

Andrew: Kelsey said, “Which one of you would make the best Headmaster of Hogwarts and why? Who would be the most fun professor?”

Eric: Well, we just established that Andrew would be a really awesome Dumbledore stand-in.

Andrew: No, I… would I really be? I’m voting Laura.

Laura: For Headmaster?

Andrew: Headmistress of Hogwarts, yeah.

Laura: I don’t know. I think I’d be a better professor, to be honest with you.

Andrew: Okay.

Laura: Think about it. You manage a podcasting business; you really do take the lead in a lot of regards, and you have to manage a lot of different people and personalities.

Andrew: It’s true, I do.

Laura: So I’m not trying to toot your horn too much here, but… [laughs]

Andrew: No, no, okay. Fine, I’ll take the gig.

Eric: It wouldn’t be hard to do Dumbledore’s job better than Dumbledore, too, in many key areas.

Andrew: Ouch.

Laura: Ooh!

Eric: What? What?

Laura: I love it. I would love to be McGonagall to your Dumbledore. That would be so cute.

Andrew: [in a high-pitched voice] Oh my God!

Eric: I would love to be a professor of something.

Laura: Honestly, the two of you would be great. I feel like we would all fit in as Hogwarts staff because of how quirky we are. [laughs]

Eric: Yes. 100%.

Andrew: Micah would be the teacher that you want to go to because he’s just screwing off in class all the time.

[Laura and Micah laugh]

Andrew: He’s the “We’re watching a video in class this week” teacher.

[Andrew and Eric laugh]

Micah: We have the four Heads of House right here.

Andrew: Oh, yeah, there we go.

Eric: Oh, I love that.

Laura: We’d have to duke it out over Ravenclaw, though.

Andrew: Yeah, which one of you is going to take Ravenclaw?

Eric: Well, that’s kind of cheap, though, in a good way, because both Flitwick and McGonagall were heavy Ravenclaw, heavy Gryffindor. They were both kind of a Hatstall, basically, so they’re interchangeable.

Laura: True.

Micah: I’ll take Gryffindor. It’s fine.

Andrew: Okay, there you go.

Laura: Thank you for your sacrifice.

Micah: Convert them all to Ravenclaw. [laughs]

Laura: There you go. No more Gryffindors. Let’s see… Eleanor wants to know, “If you had to pick a Harry Potter book to rewrite, which one would you rewrite, and why? You’re not allowed to nominate Cursed Child; only the core series.” So who’s going to say Goblet of Fire because it was rushed? [laughs]

Andrew: I was going to say, it’s too easy to say Goblet of Fire, but some areas needed to be rewritten and literally were. [laughs] When the Priori Incantatem…

Laura: So I have what is kind of an unpopular opinion here; I recognize this. I wouldn’t rewrite the entire book, but I really do think portions of Order of the Phoenix could have been tightened up. I have long felt that Order of the Phoenix was about 50 pages longer than it needed to be.

Eric: Only 50.

Laura: Yeah, and I mean, I’m being conservative, maybe, with that estimate, but it just felt like there… particularly with some of the areas of Harry’s angst, felt like the same point could have been driven across without seeing quite so much of it.

Eric: It is pretty extreme.

Laura: Yeah. I get it; he was going through a lot, but…

Micah: Deathly Hallows – similar to you, Laura – with the camping portion, so I’m thinking certain parts could have been tightened up. Honestly, I don’t even remember a whole lot about the book. [laughs]

Andrew and Eric: Yeah.

Andrew: I’m looking forward to rereading it. I feel the same way.

Micah: And that should say something in and of itself.

Andrew: When was the last time you read it? Maybe is that the problem?

Micah: Possibly.

Eric: No, Deathly Hallows was the one that I have for this. I would rewrite all of it. I had a few issues from day one on it. I didn’t think Voldemort was as compelling a villain as he had been set up to be, because Book 6 goes so hard on that, and in the end, he makes a lot of mistakes, but that’s what he also has to do, because Harry is such a bad student that it’s not like he’s actually going to prepare for Voldemort. This is such… it seems so arrogant to say I could write that book better.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: It hurts me how arrogant that sounds, but if I could rewrite it, I would write it. I would do it.

Andrew: I’m going to kind of take this a different direction and say I would rewrite either Book 1 or 2 just to make it longer. They’re so simple when you read them back now, and we were burning through three chapters at a time in Chapter by Chapter. What if these books got more dense, in a good way?

Eric: I love that idea, where it’s like, there’s so much room to play in.

Andrew and Laura: Yeah.

Micah: Catherine wants to know, “Are there any alternate plot lines you wish would have happened in the series? Like theories you had that didn’t pan out? I know Laura briefly mentioned the veil in a 2023 episode.”

Laura: Y’all, I’m still so salty that the Department of Mysteries never came back. I’ve talked about that ad nauseam; I don’t need to go into it anymore. It genuinely upsets me, [laughs] so I’ll let y’all fill this in.

Eric: I would have liked if James Potter was disguised as Remus Lupin, and that Remus had died. That would have been a hell of a twist. It would have happened a book before Mad-Eye Moody was revealed to be a different character the whole year, and so it would have been… there was energy of a DADA professor being somebody entirely different for the entire year and then being revealed otherwise. We’ve mentioned it; we’ve covered it on a crackpot theory episode, etc., etc., but the idea that James would have maybe still been alive somehow is still a very titillating one to me.

Andrew: I don’t really have an answer for this one. I know there’s moments on MuggleCast where we’re talking and exploring different plot points, and like, “Oh, it would have been nice if it went this way,” but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Eric: Any other shipping you would have done instead?

Andrew: Shipping?

Eric: Yeah, shipping. People who didn’t get together that you think should have.

Andrew: Honestly, sorry for the bland answer, but I never came to Harry Potter for the romance. [laughs]

Eric: I respect the hell out of you for that! I think that’s valid too.

Andrew: I never cared about the shipping, really.

Eric: Look, a lot of them are children.

Andrew: Well, there’s that, too, yeah.

Laura: But I mean, I will say I think it depends on when you were reading it, but I was 14 when Order of the Phoenix came out, and I was fully convinced that we were being set up for Harry/Luna as a ship. And at the time, I was really excited about that, because I was like, “Luna is a social outcast; I kind of feel like a social outcast…” She made me feel very…

Eric: Could you get the hero?

Laura: Yeah, exactly.

Eric: Yeah, absolutely, 100%.

Laura: Well, and then also the recognition that the hero in this book is not, I think, the strapping, devastatingly handsome representation of a hero that we would typically get in other series. Harry is flawed and imperfect too, so that’s what I liked about it. So it made me feel seen. It made me feel disappointed when we didn’t get that. So if I were to pick an alternate ship, it would definitely be Harry/Luna.

Micah: There were a couple of… these are random theories, but people were hot on Mark Evans for a while, if there was going to be any relation to Harry. And then… what was the…? Oh, I wanted more out of the gum wrappers that Neville’s mom gave to him.

Andrew: Yeah, that was a good one.

Laura: Oh, gosh, there were so many… talk about the plot point that went nowhere, that launched a thousand ships.

Eric: It should have. It should have gone somewhere.

Laura: It really should have. Didn’t we theorize that Neville’s parents were passing him coded messages via those gum wrappers, and that it was going to come out that yes, they were still driven to insanity by Bellatrix and co., but there was still some retention of who they were, and they were trying to communicate with Neville?

Eric: It was in The Ultimate Unofficial Guide, and it’s still my favorite of all those theories, that they were locked in and they couldn’t communicate correctly except through Neville, and that Neville would have to fix it or save them.

Andrew: I feel like MuggleNet used to have a page where they had some stuff like that, or maybe there’s a Reddit thread or something. Just old theories that went nowhere.

Micah: There’s the whole editorial section that used to explore theories.

Andrew: Right, explores that type of stuff. In terms of ships, just to circle back on that really quick, Dramione. I would get behind that one.

Eric: That would have been interesting, yeah, definitely. Draco did have a, I think, very satisfying redemptive arc. I think he’s unique in… or very few people really had that, what he had. But the Dramione thing really would have been an interesting angle, because again, they are academically similar.

Andrew: Exactly, and they’re both… there was that coffee shop fanfiction. I’m forgetting the name of it, but I read several chapters for that fanfiction episode that we did, and it was really compelling. I was into it.

Micah: Was there a deleted…? It wasn’t a deleted scene, but there was a scene that was shot where Draco tossed Harry his wand?

Laura: That’s right.

Andrew: Oh yeah, yep. Part 2.

Micah: In the… right after he jumps out of Hagrid’s arms.

Andrew: Yeah, and you see it in behind-the scenes footage, during one of the featurettes or the documentary making of series. Yeah. All right, two more questions here. Rachel said, “If you could resurrect one character from the series, who would it be?” Lavender Brown, baby.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: I’m assuming she was dead. I want her back.

Eric: Oh, never give up hope.

Andrew: I’ve lost so much sleep over Lavender.

Eric: Oh, man.

Micah: Dobby.

Andrew: Oh, that’s a good one.

Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Laura: I was going to say Dobby, but I don’t want us to be too much on the same page about it. I would say Tonks. I really regret that Tonks, she’s such a cool character, but she was ultimately set up to be another sacrificial mother figure.

Eric: To yeah, suffer and die.

Laura: Yeah, and there was clearly so much there with her character that could have been fleshed out, but it ultimately just got boiled down to motherhood and the mother’s sacrifice, which is obviously really important and a key full circle moment for the books, but I still think she could have been a more fleshed-out character.

Eric: If we got a Sirius Black resurrection – because there seemed to be that open-ended “Ooh, is there something to the veil? Can you hear the voices?” – we would have gotten the Department of Mysteries back, and so kind of hopping on what you were saying, Laura, about your ideal alternate time. Yeah, I would choose for Sirius to be back; I think that’s who I would go… or Hedwig, because Hedwig did not deserve…

Andrew: So I was going to say a more serious answer is Hedwig, and I remember Rowling at the time said it marked the end of Harry’s childhood, but I don’t think Hedwig needed to die to symbolize that. [laughs] Seems a little unnecessary.

Eric: I think she got a bit carried away, honestly.

[Andrew laughs]

Laura: Well, I mean, I understand the symbolism of what she was doing because Hagrid got Hedwig for Harry; Hagrid was transporting Harry when that whole sky battle happened that resulted in Harry losing Hedwig. I understand the significance of why she did it, but man, that was, what, five chapters into the book?

Andrew: Yeah, it was very early.

Laura: And I remember when we were reading it on launch night, we were just like, “Augh!” I think y’all got to it before I did, but I heard each one of you gasp, and I was like, “Oh no, already?”

Andrew: Uh-oh.

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: Who wants to take the final question?

Eric: Geoff has said to us, “If you were running for office in the wizarding world, who would be your ideal running mate?”

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: I guess besides each other, because that would be cool. That would be really cool.

Andrew: I think it’s cooler to run with a wizarding world character. No offense.

Eric: There’s been some love for Tonks, but I want to go all in on that by… but Book 5 Tonks, where she’s just like, “Wotcher, Harry.” She’s really quirky and stuff. I would make a campaign based around how weird Tonks would be, and I would be; we’d lean into all the wacky stuff in the wizarding world. Be like, “We need to fix the stuff that needs to be fixed, but we’re just going to have fun with it.” Even if we couldn’t win, we would have a heck of a campaign. So Tonks and me for Ministers of Magic.

Laura: Neville.

Andrew: I would go with… oh.

Micah: That’s a good one.

Laura: I would run with Neville.

Eric: That’s really sweet.

Andrew: Don’t you think he’d get nervous up on stage? I guess he comes into his own by the end, but…

Laura: Yeah, of course he would, but I think the whole point of Neville being in Gryffindor that we see at the end of the series is that he had it in him all along. And I think beheading Voldemort’s last Horcrux probably gave him a little bit of… a bump in confidence, so I think he’d be okay.

Andrew: I’m going to run with Umbridge.

Laura: Oh, God.

[Eric laughs]

Andrew: I really like what she stands for. I’m kidding.

Eric: And thank you for listening to MuggleCast…

[Laura laughs]

Andrew: No, I think I’d run… I think Hermione.

Eric and Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: She’s fun. She’s smart. She can turn on the humor when she wants or needs to. She’s got it all for a politician.

Eric: As a book reader, you know that she becomes the Minister for Magic, so you would win.