Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #712, No Honor Among Snakes (OOTP Chapter 32, ‘Out of the Fire’)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the world of Harry Potter. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Andrew: We are your Harry Potter friends, talking about the books, the movies, and the upcoming TV show, so make sure you press that follow button in your favorite podcast app, and that way you’ll never miss a week with your Potter people. And this week, we really want to ask Kreacher what happened to his hands, because we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 32, “Out of the Fire.” And joining us for this week’s episode is friend of the show and fellow podcaster, Pam! Welcome back, Pam!
Pam Gocobachi: Hey, everyone. It’s nice to be back.
Andrew: It’s always nice having you on. Thank you for filling in here.
Pam: It’s nice to be here. I’m always down to try and fill the very big shoes that Laura leaves behind whenever she’s off. [laughs]
Andrew: The Laura seat. Well, we appreciate that you’re willing to step in when Laura can’t make it.
Pam: It’s a big responsibility, man. [laughs]
Eric: You have to be all voice-y and reason-y. It’s garbage, utter garbage.
Pam: Yeah, I’ve got to keep you boys in check.
Andrew: [laughs] Mainly Micah; he’s the troublemaker. But this week, Micah is going to stay in check because he’s coming to visit me tomorrow, so he knows that he’s going to be in trouble with me.
Eric: Ahh.
Pam: So he knows you’re going to put him on a timeout if he doesn’t behave.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. If he wants a free ride from dinner back to his hotel tomorrow night, he has to be good.
[Andrew and Pam laugh]
Micah: Oh. I was going to say, embarrass me in front of my colleagues or something along those lines.
Andrew: Oh, I can do that too. It’s Vegas. I can make a fool of myself on the Strip, sure. That sounds pretty easy to do.
[Pam laughs]
Micah: Don’t you want access to the pool or something like that?
Andrew: I do, yeah.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: So we both have an interest in being good to each other today. [laughs]
Pam: That’s so funny.
Eric: Devious. Very devious.
Andrew: Pam is also a cohost of Millennial and What the Hype?!, which we plug at the end of every MuggleCast episode, so make sure to check those out. I thought also we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that we are recording on July 10, and the Order of the Phoenix movie was released 18 years ago this week! July 11, 2007.
Pam: Wow.
Andrew: 18 years!
Eric: It came up recently that I do not remember exactly the circumstances which had me seeing this movie. I don’t remember what country I was in at the time…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … because July of 2007 was real messed up; I was everywhere. And I don’t have a memory… I don’t know exactly where… I’m going to have to dig through some old stuff.
Pam: That’s insane.
Andrew: Did you put it in a Pensieve? Maybe that’s why you can’t recall.
Eric: That explains it. That explains it.
Pam: Could you ask some friends? Somebody must have seen it with you.
Eric: If you’ve seen Order of the Phoenix with me, in theaters, please…
[Andrew and Pam laugh]
Andrew: Oh my God.
Eric: … listeners of the show, write in. Let me know. It’s funny, because we talk about it… this was the summer of Potter, right? We had Book 7 come out just two weeks after Movie 5.
Andrew: The month of Potter, yeah.
Eric: And Episode 100, at the Waterstones live London show for the seventh book, we talk largely about the fifth movie, because we’d all just seen it. And I’ve seen it at that time, but I don’t remember where. I don’t remember how. Unbelievable.
Micah: And I actually think it was a running joke when we did the live show in Philadelphia that I had not seen Order of the Phoenix yet.
Andrew: I do remember that.
Micah: I think I was the only one that was on the panel.
Eric: The last person on the whole site.
Andrew: Aww.
Micah: I think so. I still haven’t seen it, actually.
Eric: We had that campaign. We had that campaign to get Micah to see the movie.
Andrew: And now there’s a new campaign: Who saw Order of the Phoenix with Eric?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Please let me know.
Pam: We have to find out, yeah. [laughs]
Eric: I know I have photos of me… usually I take a photo outside the theater next to the poster.
Pam: Oh, cute.
Eric: I’ve got to figure it out, you guys. This is eating me…
Micah: Were you on that panel in Philadelphia?
Eric: No, I was in New Zealand at the time.
Andrew: I’m glad you bring that up, Eric, because next week we’re going to record a bonus MuggleCast in which we relive those glorious two weeks in Harry Potter history where the fifth movie and the seventh book came out within… I think you said a couple weeks; I think it was within 10 days of each other, which is just nuts. So we’ll talk about that. We’ve got some stories to share from those crazy couple of weeks.
Eric: And hopefully I have a story to share by the time we record that bonus. [laughs]
Pam: Yeah, hopefully by that point, someone’s written in and said, “Actually, Eric, we saw it together.
Eric: I’m a detective. I have to figure this out.
[Pam laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. Well, jumping back to present day, we’ll discuss Order of the Phoenix in a moment, but first, we just want to remind our listeners of a couple of things. If you love this show and want to help us keep it running as reliably as a pair of Stealth Sensoring Spells outside of Umbridge’s office, we invite you to become a member of our community at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and by supporting us for as little as $5 a month, you can get instant access to two bonus MuggleCast episodes every month, plus ad-free episodes, access to our recording studio, a personal video “Thank you” message from one of the MuggleCasters, and a lot more. And if you’re looking for other ways to support us, visit MuggleCastMerch.com to buy official gear. You can also leave us a review in your favorite podcast app, and tell a friend about the show. And speaking of gear, we received this nice message from Kirstyn, who, when she recently placed an order, told us, “Hey, my son is 20 years old, and I’ve been listening since the days I was pacing back and forth with him as a newborn. Thank y’all.” Well, thank you, Kirstyn.
Eric: Oh, love that.
Andrew: That’s really sweet. And we turn 20 next month, so we’ve been around for as long as that kid, and hopefully he turned out better than we did.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: How do you measure a thing like that?
Andrew: [laughs] I don’t know. Bring him on the show; we’ll figure it out. You can visit MuggleCast.com for quick access to all of these places that I’ve been mentioning. You can also find our contact form there.
Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner
Andrew: Okay, now it’s time for Chapter by Chapter, and we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 32, “Out of the Fire.”
Eric: We last discussed this chapter on Episode 470 of MuggleCast. It was titled “Silky Smooth Snape,” which is one of my favorite titles. It’s a milestone moment. You guys ready?
Andrew: Oh.
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.
Ron: What the…?
[Bell dings]
[Whooshing sound]
Robotic voice: Episode 470.
Micah: Calling Ron a buffoon; that puts us at 99 times that Umbridge sucked in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Andrew: Is there one more?
Micah: I think it’s possible.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I think there might be at least one more in this chapter. And how appropriate, given the conversation we’ve been having about her bias: She calls Hagrid a half-breed.
Eric: Augh!
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Andrew: That’s 100!
Micah: That is 100 times that Umbridge has sucked in this book.
Andrew: Oh my gosh!
Laura: We did it.
[“The Bitch Is Back” by Elton John plays]
Andrew: Well, congratulations, Umbridge. You suck a lot.
Micah: Yeah, you do.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: We still have a couple more chapters.
Andrew: And more to go in this chapter.
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.
[Bell dings]
Andrew: I can’t believe we counted 99 times, and then we played “The Bitch Is Back.” [laughs] I totally forgot all of that.
Eric: It was a milestone. Yeah, so this is a reminder: Every week in the show notes, we do put a link to the previous Chapter by Chapter that we did only five years ago for this book, and we had some segments there – oh, boy, did we – including the Umbridge Suck Count, that are worth revisiting if you do want to listen. It’s basically like getting a whole extra discussion about this chapter by listening to those old episodes. But they are fun to go through and pull these clips from.
Andrew: Love it.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Eric: So all right, let’s get into this chapter once more, and we’re going to be talking about the whole jig, the whole situation that’s happening here, which is that Harry is rushing frantically after his vision during his History of Magic OWL where he envisioned that Voldemort had and was torturing Sirius and was going to kill him, his rush to get to London, and the kind of holdup in having to convince Ron and Hermione that what he saw was real. And there are signs that what he saw was not real; we’re going to talk about those for this first part of this chapter discussion. And Hermione in this chapter kind of rubs Harry the wrong way at times, but looking at the chapter from a slightly removed point of view, she has some good points here, namely, her first point here we’re going to discuss is how Voldemort and Sirius Black, the two most wanted men in the wizarding world, would have gotten into the Ministry. It’s a work day. People are still there. These are people that, if they just waltz in the front door, Eric Munch is going to spot you and be like, “Hey, you! Stop!”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: The wand security guy, he’s going to see it. Everybody else is going to look in the atrium; “What’s that?”
Andrew: I may be playing devil’s advocate through a lot of this discussion, because I wouldn’t be surprised to know that Voldemort did somehow get in, maybe by himself, maybe through some of his associates. I don’t think it would be that surprising in hindsight to learn that he did somehow sneak in. He could have maybe transformed into someone else; he was working with people on the inside to help him get in. So I’m very split on who’s right between Harry and Hermione, but with a question like this, at least, I do feel like Harry has legit reason to assume that Voldemort really did break into the Ministry.
Pam: I’m kind of with you there. I think that the one thing, the one big thing Hermione is really forgetting is that at this point in the story, nobody believes Voldemort is back. That’s been the message that the Ministry has been pedaling. And so if they don’t believe that he’s really back, why would they be expecting him to pop up? And in that regard, I would assume that security was much more lax before the point in which they had to concede that he was back for real.
Eric: Oh.
Pam: So it’s probably… I mean, and not to jump super far ahead, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione don’t have a problem sneaking into the Ministry later on.
[Eric and Pam laugh]
Pam: You know what I mean?
Eric: Well, yeah, we don’t really get a fair assessment of any wizarding building security until Harry, Ron, and Hermione have to break into it, and every single time, it’s really easy. Even in Cursed Child.
Pam: Right, so what we’ve learned is that the entire wizarding world is a security nightmare, not just Hogwarts. Some flaws in their plans.
Eric: Yeah, it’s bad. I really like your point about they’re not on the lookout for Voldemort, because they’ve actively been hobbled by the government stance on him.
Micah: Right, and that’s where I would say it’s not two of the most wanted; it’s just one of the most wanted in Sirius because, as Pam said, Voldemort really isn’t on the Ministry’s radar at this point. But still, the fact that Sirius could get in undetected… and I would even say, presumably, Voldemort didn’t lure Sirius there. How’d he get him in? And here’s another piece that the trio don’t consider: Sirius would never be on guard duty. So there’s a lot that they’re not thinking through here. And I do think, though, that Hermione makes really great points; she’s spot on. But the one sticking point is that Harry experienced something very similar to this with Arthur just a few months prior, and if Harry hadn’t experienced it, Arthur would likely have died.
Eric: Right.
Micah: And the author actually considered killing Arthur in Order of the Phoenix and opted instead for Sirius, so this is something that is fresh inside of Harry’s mind.
Eric: Well, it’s a good point about guard duty, too, because Arthur was… basically Voldemort has been dreaming about this door all year, because Harry has been dreaming about it, and so it makes sense, after a year of thinking about it, he would have found a way to get in, right? And get to the weapon that everyone’s talking about, and find a way to get Sirius there too. It seems reasonable, even though to Hermione, it’s a work day. How would he do this?
Andrew: Yeah. Well, and to the point about the very real attack that happened on Arthur, Harry is keeping that in mind, and that vision was real; it wasn’t just a dream, it was a vision. But since then, he has also lost Dumbledore, Hagrid, and now McGonagall. Now all three of them are out of Hogwarts. These three parental figures are out of Hogwarts, and now he’s potentially about to lose Sirius too? Forget it! There’s no time to dilly-dally! We’ve got to go to the Ministry and not lose Sirius next!
Eric: Here’s a question, then – and Hermione also raises this one; bless her – why Sirius specifically? It’s kind of random, isn’t it? He’s a member of the Order, but he’s not been routinely here. There’s not really a chance for Voldemort to have, I don’t know, stumbled on Sirius accidentally. It’s kind of unlikely that, if this was the day that Sirius was like, “I’m going to take a walk; I can’t handle being at home with Kreacher,” that Sirius would have run into Voldemort. So why does it just happen to be that surrogate father figure that Harry would most want to save, and most break all of the rules and put himself and his friends all at risk to rescue? Why is it Sirius specifically? I guess Hermione’s point is it’s too good to be true: “You should consider that this is fake on the merit of it’s really unlikely.”
Andrew: It’s too big of a lure. It’s too obvious of a choice, yeah. I think it goes back to the point I was just making: Voldemort, by picking Sirius, is going straight at Harry’s heart to the point where he doesn’t even want to really take time to think about if this is a real vision or not. He’s lost quite a few people in this book already – at least, they’re no longer at Hogwarts – so he doesn’t want something similar to what happened to Arthur happen to Sirius. I’m really on Harry’s side through all of this. He might not be thinking clearly, but I understand why. I don’t blame him for it.
Pam: I would also argue, too, that they all know that Sirius is getting restless and stir-crazy, and even Hermione knows that he’s really reckless. They cover a lot of that in the context of the book, up until this point, even. So I just don’t think that… yes, would it be weird for him to be out on a walk? Probably. But also, it’s not anything that you can’t imagine Sirius doing, sneaking out just to get a bit of fresh air.
Eric: Fair.
Pam: So I don’t even think they question that.
Eric: Yeah, it works on multiple levels, I think, because of – like you’re saying, Pam – the buildup of Sirius’s sort of suffering. I think that also propels Harry to want to save him, because it wouldn’t be right for Sirius to go out this way after spending a year all cooped up, and all of a sudden, his first day out, he’s being tortured and killed by Voldemort.
Micah: And Harry is just overwhelmed at this moment. He’s borderline irrational in his thinking, and you can just feel the emotion that’s building in him throughout the course of the chapter when Ron and Hermione are not telling him what he wants to hear, which is, “Hey, let’s get out of here and go to the Ministry.” But there are other options; Harry just doesn’t consider them in the moment. The biggest one, which Harry finally clicks in his head a little bit later on in this chapter, is Snape.
Eric: Right.
Micah: Regardless of the fallout between the two of them, he’s still a member of the Order of the Phoenix that is at Hogwarts. But there are other members of the Order. He could go to Molly, Arthur, Lupin… but in the moment, of course, you’re not thinking rationally, right? So I can see where he’s coming from, too.
Pam: Yeah, he just wants it done so fast. That’s the big thing, right? He doesn’t trust any adult to be like, “Yeah, let’s go right now.” They’re all going to pull a Hermione and be like, “Well, let’s think about this logically. Let’s make sure he’s not anywhere else before we go traipsing down to the Department of Mysteries.”
Eric: Well, I’m so glad Hermione does this too. I am, because I don’t think it’s the equivalent of just having us be disappointed later; I think that this due diligence is necessary. I think that can be a lesson that we all can learn, because even though it doesn’t necessarily change the outcome, we do ultimately make sure that all the people we’re lugging along to this are all equally interested, I guess, because they all… their buy-in comes as they see that we did take these extra steps. It would be wrong for Harry – and I know he’d probably go on his own – but it would be wrong for these people to get all caught up if they didn’t do that due diligence and then go and risk their lives in the Department of Mysteries, so at least they tried an alternative, a single alternative, before doing it.
Micah: Again, part of the reason why Harry does want to act so quickly is because of his prior experience. Think about how quickly McGonagall reacted, and then Dumbledore reacted, and they were able to get to the Ministry in time to save Arthur. He’s probably thinking, “If we don’t act literally within these next couple of minutes, Sirius is as good as dead.”
Eric: Well, I mean, Voldemort actually, in his vision, said, “We have hours! Don’t worry about it!”
[Andrew and Pam laugh]
Micah: That should’ve been the tipoff.
Eric: “I’ll take all night to kill you!”
Andrew: [imitating Voldemort] “No rush, Harry boy! Take your time!”
[Pam laughs]
Eric: Here’s the interesting thing, and I love this detail: There’s a point in this chapter where it says that Harry’s scar was hurting or throbbing, but Harry notes – and this is sort of an unconscious thought – that his scar is not hurting as much as when Voldemort was torturing Avery, which happened earlier in the book. Avery, of course, gave bad intel as to a way to get the prophecy. And Harry is noting of this just, “Ah, damn, my scar, at least it’s not as bad as that other time.” The other time was real, and this vision of Sirius being tortured is not. If Voldemort were actually torturing Sirius, it would probably feel exactly the same to Harry as it did when Voldemort was torturing Avery. It’s cool that Harry’s scar is that super sensitive, and if Harry had somehow been more attuned to his scar and what it means and how often he feels, or if he didn’t have a million other things going on right now, he could probably suss out based on this fact alone that this was a fake planted vision, even if he hadn’t taken a day of Occlumency lessons. I think Harry really could have maybe guessed, because when Voldemort is casting an Unforgivable Curse and is mirthful and is causing so much pain, Harry feels pain too because of the connection between them. And this is more of an echo of pain. This is fake.
Andrew: Fake pain. You’ve got me on this one; I agree with this. It’s almost like an extension of Occlumency and the lessons he could have been taking. Dumbledore, Snape, could have been teaching him on how to read the pain and decipher pain coming from Voldemort because of a real vision or feeling from Voldemort, or pain that’s coming, or mild headache that’s coming from Voldemort because of he’s making up a vision for Harry to see.
Eric: Right. And there have been years where Harry’s scar has hurt all year, like all last year, I think, it was throbbing, or all this year. You’ve still got school work to do; you’ve got to kind of push it away. But had Harry had a mentor to say, “Actually, pay attention to this, because it’s telling you something. Yeah, it’s annoying and it hurts, and you want to pretend it’s not there, but you could learn something from this.” And I just think it’s a cool bit of the writing that shows that there is actually a method, because this was a forced vision, that Harry’s scar hurt when it was happening, but is not continuing to throb the way that it would if Voldemort were actually torturing Avery. And we’re getting up to Umbridge’s office now; we finally break in with our team, aided by Ginny and Luna – hey, girls – and we finally get to Grimmauld Place via the Floo Network, and we see Kreacher. The one thing that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive Harry for is pursuing this line of questioning with Kreacher, because when he finds Kreacher, Kreacher has these pleased looks on his face and triumphant glances that he’s making and his hands have recently sustained injury and are bandaged. We know house-elf language. We know how house-elves work. If anybody knows how house-elves work, if any wizard knows, it’s Harry, because the bandaged hands come from self-inflicted injuries when you’ve betrayed your master. We’ve seen Dobby do this for two, three separate books now, and it’s a problem Harry doesn’t connect the dots here.
Micah: Yeah, and Harry, I think, also forgets that Kreacher has zero loyalty to him. Kreacher can say whatever Kreacher wants in this moment, and truthfully, the only person he needs to have loyalty to – even though we know that he hasn’t been loyal to Sirius for a while now – is Sirius, right?
Eric: Right.
Micah: And so the fact that Harry is so willing to believe what Kreacher has to say surprises me a bit, and it’s almost like Harry dangled the carrot out in front of him by using the words “Department of Mysteries.”
Andrew: [laughs] “Is he at the Department of Mysteries?”
Micah: Right, otherwise Kreacher would have just left, and then Harry wouldn’t have had that piece of information. So I’m disappointed in Harry in this moment. He’s definitely letting his emotions get the best of him.
Andrew: But I guess… again, to play devil’s advocate here, I think Harry… evidently, it’s the only person at Grimmauld Place. Nobody else is coming towards the fireplace; that’s all he’s got. He really has no choice but to believe Kreacher, so I don’t blame him.
Eric: Harry didn’t even want to do this. Yeah, no, Harry didn’t even want to be here. [laughs] And so he’s doing the thing, he makes contact with somebody, somebody says, “No, Sirius is…” Because we know Sirius is actually just upstairs. I think it transpires that moments later, Sirius goes, “Did I hear something go down?”
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I guess if you want to criticize Harry here for something, it’s just, like, scream a couple times to see if Sirius actually does hear you from further upstairs.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: But time is of the essence here, too, so Harry doesn’t really have time to decide whether or not Kreacher is lying.
Eric: Well, this is the problem. And again, it’s clever writing, because they know that Umbridge is suspicious. She’s likely to not spend as much time away from her office as she did the last time. Time is of the essence. Harry doesn’t even want to do this; he’s only doing this to please Hermione, and so when he gets the “confirmation” from Kreacher that Sirius isn’t there, he’s heard everything he needs to hear. But the signs are there, unfortunately. The signs are there that… I mean, Harry has no reason to trust Kreacher to begin with – it’s a great point, Micah – but when you look at the bandaged hands, too, something is definitely off. Something is just very definitely off.
Micah: And his just overall demeanor. Kreacher is never happy.
[Eric laughs]
Pam: Well, I think that’s why he believes him, because he is happy.
Andrew: Because Sirius might actually be in danger?
Pam: Right, exactly. He knows there’s no love lost there; he’s really upset that he has to answer to Sirius all the time. So I’m honestly surprised Harry doesn’t just chuck himself into the fire, because he would already have been in London at that point.
Eric: It gets him to London faster!
Pam: Right, exactly. He leads so much with his heart versus his head that, yeah, it’s actually very surprising to me, reading back, that he wouldn’t have just jumped in.
Eric: They all could have followed.
Pam: Yeah, unless… does Floo Powder…? Does it have memory? Could Umbridge have traced it back to Grimmauld Place?
Eric: Oh, maybe. And then it would be revealed to her through the Fidelius Charm.
Pam: Right.
Andrew: But if that’s the case, then she’d be able to…
Pam: She would know anyway.
Andrew: Right, because his head was there.
Pam: Yeah, that’s true, so maybe it doesn’t.
Micah: And if I’m not mistaken, isn’t Sirius tending to Buckbeak?
Pam: I think you’re right.
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Yeah, he’s just upstairs.
Micah: Kreacher attacked Buckbeak, I want to say? This was all part of his plan, wasn’t it?
Eric: I don’t remember. He’s definitely in cahoots with Bellatrix.
Andrew: Yeah, and Narcissa.
Eric: And there’s an instance of double talk, too, because Kreacher mentions his mistress, and you think he’s talking about Walburga Black, but actually he’s talking about Bellatrix.
Andrew: One theory I saw online, Micah, was that Kreacher’s hands are bruised because he was dealing with Buckbeak, but then that doesn’t really make sense. His hands are bruised because he was lying, right? Or gearing himself up to lie?
Eric: Yeah, well, I think it’s… all the time that he spent with Bellatrix planning or plotting or working out what they’re going to do to entrap Harry, because I think it’s later confirmed that Bellatrix or somebody tells Kreacher, “You may see the Potter boy, and he may ask where Sirius is. Lie to him.” Something like that.
Micah: Yeah, Hedwig’s Theme in the Discord is saying Kreacher did injure Buckbeak. So that could be where he got the injuries to his hands, in part, because Buckbeak isn’t just going to lie down for Kreacher.
Andrew: Right, right. Did Kreacher bow? I doubt it.
Eric: The sad thing is, honestly, these… [laughs] I was going to say these men. Kreacher and Sirius have been locked up all year. They share this connection through Regulus that they will never learn about while each other are still alive. They could really repair their relationship; Sirius could gain an appreciation for his brother if Kreacher were to ever tell him what happened to Regulus. And I don’t know, I see this great emotional catharsis that could have happened had they just talked to each other, because the Kreacher reveal that Harry finds out about, and the reason that Kreacher comes around on the trio, is because of this love that he has for Master Regulus. And that’s something that Sirius, really, and Kreacher could have buried the hatchet on, had they had a little bit more willingness, I think, to communicate about why they don’t like each other. And there is a moment in this chapter where Hermione errs and stumbles a little bit. One of her… in her attempt to disprove why Harry should not be going to London right now, she suggests that Harry has a “saving-people thing.” This goes poorly, pisses Harry off, and kind of pisses me off as a reader. But what does she hope to accomplish by pointing this out, I wonder?
Andrew: Yeah, because it can’t be, “Oh, you know what, Hermione? You’re right. Let me change who I instinctively am and let my godfather die.”
Eric: “My bad.”
Andrew: “Great idea.” Having a saving-people thing isn’t inherently a bad thing, and it gives Harry a purpose. So I don’t get why Hermione is saying this, other than to slow him down and try to make him think a little more clearly. Ultimately, Hermione is right, so we have to voice that, but you also understand why Harry does have this saving-people thing. He lost his parents right in front of him. Sure, he was a baby, but he lost his parents. I do wonder if he’s trying to return the courage that his parents held for him when they saved him.
Pam: It also just feels like she says this in a way to explain… it feels displaced almost, just because I think that the implication is that Harry likes being the hero.
Eric: Right.
Pam: And I don’t think Harry likes being the hero. I think he just feels like, “Somebody’s got to do it, so might as well be me.” And she plays into this, too, when it’s helpful to her. I mean, it’s not really the same thing, but when they start the DA, she’s like, “Harry, it has to be you. You have to be the leader.”
Eric: Ohh.
Pam: So it’s like, leader and hero are kind of synonymous in my head. But yeah, I think that the implication is displaced here, because I think that she kind of means it as like, he enjoys the attention, and then when he connects it to what Ron said after the lake task in Goblet of Fire, it kind of riles him up even more, because Ron was also hinting that he just likes being the hero for the sake of being the hero.
Eric: Augh, you’re right. That just incenses him. And the lake thing is below the belt.
Pam: It is.
Eric: We just went through Goblet of Fire, and there is no indication at all… we even polled people, and they disagree with me, but…
Pam: Yeah, I just think he’s doing the right thing.
Eric: It seems like everyone was going to let those kids drown. It really did seem that way.
Pam: They put it into the riddle! They’re like, “What was lost won’t come back if you run out of time…”
[Andrew laughs]
Pam: … so he genuinely believed adults.
Eric: Yeah, the fact Hermione is like, “You shouldn’t want to save somebody” goes against everything that even she would want, I think, to communicate, really. Here’s the other thing, and this is where I’m going to blame Dumbledore a little bit. But there are so many instances in which Harry has been forced, has been set up to be the only person who can save these folks. Thinking about Ginny in the Chamber, that whole entire year that the Chamber of Secrets is open, the school was going to close, Muggle-born kids were going to die… Dumbledore put them all with the least competent DADA teacher we’ve ever seen or heard from. This would have been a year to get a competent teacher in, or backup, who could have found the Chamber, closed it, prevented Ginny from ever getting trapped down there, destroyed or captured the diary Horcrux – three years ago now, at this point in the book – and because they didn’t do that, it had to be Harry going and rescuing her at the last minute. So I don’t see this as a fault of Harry’s at all, that he is the kid who steps up. More often than not, he will lose something dear to him if he doesn’t, and so I think this serves only to embolden him to actually go through with the rescue.
Andrew: Yeah. Maybe Hermione just doesn’t want to go to the Ministry of Magic and go into the Department of Mysteries.
Eric: She has a real problem with her future workforce. She’s not interested.
Andrew: [laughs] Right. “Being friends with Harry sucks. I have to keep helping him save people? This is a lot of effort. I just want to study and wrap up the school year and start thinking about year six.”
Eric: It is helpful that all their exams are done, though, because it’s like, what are you going to do now? You’re just waiting around.
Pam: That’s probably why she’s like, “Yeah, I’ll go with you if it checks out.”
[Andrew and Pam laugh]
Pam: She doesn’t have to worry about missing any OWLs.
Eric: Yeah, you’re just waiting a week or two for the Hogwarts Express. Nothing’s happening after this. This is the Senior Week, crazy parties and stuff.
Pam: No, Hermione is very loyal. I know we’re kind of joking around here, but I do think that it’s a show of loyalty that even though she wants to make sure somebody’s doing their due diligence, she has no problem with tagging along if it all checks out.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, and Harry did compromise with her by checking in on Grimmauld Place, so there’s that.
Eric and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: I do like the fact, though, that all of these examples are mentioned, because it made me think specifically of Prisoner of Azkaban. And I know we try and connect the threads from time to time between Books 3 and Book 5, and Harry does run off to save Sirius in Prisoner of Azkaban as well. He uses the Time-Turner to go back and save him from the Dementors and then free him from the tower, so getting a little bit of a repeat here between Harry needing to save Sirius.
Eric: Love that. So let’s talk about Umbridge now.
Andrew: You mean, “Hem-hem”?
Eric: [laughs] And we were talking about Hermione in a “Why did she do this?” sort of way, but in the back half, Hermione is solid, impressive, completely flawless in, I think, her execution in hoodwinking Umbridge into basically freeing her and Harry to go into the forest. And I mean, she plays her like a fiddle. And I’m interested in catching up on Umbridge, because this is one of the last chapters we’ll have her.
Andrew: Nooo!
Eric: She has sucked 100 times in this book. Yeah, we’re not going to miss her, but it’s one of the final chapters, so let’s talk.
Micah: She’ll be back.
Eric: Yeah, she’ll be back, even worse.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But let’s talk about her dynamic with some of these other characters. So the big thing that sticks out to me in this chapter is Draco Malfoy. He’s this kiss-ass sycophant who still only has eyes for Umbridge here, but he’s an important part of her enforcement team. I think she feeds off of his loyalty and his overstated, overdramatic allegiance to her. And yeah, I think that Draco really is perfect for Umbridge as to be her student deputy.
Andrew: Yeah, and she’s everything he currently wants to be when he grows up, I think.
Eric: Powerful! Yeah. And mean.
Andrew: Powerful, bossy, breaking the rules to get ahead, willing to torture a child… that’s the stuff Draco currently looks up to. He matured; I don’t think he would want to be this in his adult years. But right now, he really admires Umbridge.
Eric: And that’s an interesting thing that you said, Andrew, too, because we’re getting into Book 6 next, and Book 6 is when he really gets in over his head, starts to regret, etc. This chapter is a really great checkin to show that Draco is, however, currently still super power-hungry. He hasn’t yet been burned by power or seeking it. He’s still a jerk. He’s just still completely a jerk.
Micah: Part of it, too, is who is feeling the wrath of Umbridge here. I think that Draco has gone through most of the first few books feeling like Harry is the superstar of Hogwarts, and that in seeing him knocked down a few pegs here by Umbridge, along with the rest that were caught, right? He has no love lost for Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville… Luna, I’m not really sure, but I presume he doesn’t like her either.
Eric: I don’t think he has an opinion on Luna. [laughs] I don’t think he knows what to make of her.
Micah: Yeah. But there is something to be said for that, right? You’re mentioning how he’s just kind of nonchalantly in the corner, hanging out, taking it all in, enjoying every minute of what’s happening. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact of just how Harry has been treated in front of him over the course of the last several years at Hogwarts. It’s like, Gryffindor always triumphs. And if I were him, I’d probably be sick of that too, a little bit.
Eric: Well, but he does hard work! Nobody works harder than Harry – actually, no, that’s not true.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I feel like, though, Harry has rightly been given the credit that he’s been given. Not in Draco’s eyes, surely.
Micah: He came in on a pedestal, even if he didn’t put himself on that pedestal.
Eric: “Famous Harry Potter.”
[Andrew laughs]
Pam: It’s kind of rich of him to be upset about that, because Draco Malfoy is the ultimate nepo baby, right?
[Eric and Pam laugh]
Pam: And I think that he wants to be on the pedestal, and it kills him that he’s not there, but he would have no problem being in Harry’s position. And the proof of that is in this book when he signs on to be part of this Inquisitorial Squad, and suddenly he does have all this power that he thinks Harry has always had, to your point, Eric.
Eric: Yeah. It just shows that getting all that power that he’s got doesn’t make him happier.
Pam: No, of course not.
Eric: Because he’s still, ultimately, a miserable kid, which is interesting. But the other aspect of Draco and Umbridge, and this comes in with their relationship in this chapter, is that Draco is not quite quick enough on the uptake to disguise this look of, I guess, greed when the weapon gets mentioned, when Hermione mentions the weapon. And Umbridge is like, “Take me to it,” and Hermione is like, “You’ve got to shed some of these kids,” and she’s like, “Hell no, they’re my deputies,” and then Hermione says, “Well, it’s this huge weapon, and I hope that everyone uses it on you.” And Umbridge looks over, and Draco is looking greedily about it, and Umbridge thinks twice, and is like, “You know what? Okay, maybe I don’t trust my own Inquisitorial Squad enough to be around a weapon that is volatile and uncertain.” And this is – this alone – Hermione’s master stroke here, but Draco’s own obvious power-hungryness works against him and works against Umbridge, because she ultimately does decide to go it alone. And this shows how, despite having perfect power now – Umbridge is the strongest, most powerful person, bureaucratically – she doesn’t trust her supporters, her nearest supporters at all, because what they have isn’t real. What they have is a shared desire for cruelty. They don’t really have the bond that’s going to… Draco, if given a chance to get a weapon, would he give it to Umbridge without using it himself, if there was such one? Maybe not. She can’t take that chance.
Pam: Yeah. I think this is where stereotypical House traits really come into play, because it’s helpful to her that she has all the Slytherins behind her, because she can create this little troop of cronies to do her bidding, because she can’t be everywhere, right? But then she also knows exactly how Slytherins work, because that was her House at Hogwarts, too. So she kind of knows that it’s at their core. Stereotypically, they’re out for number one, just like she would be.
Eric: There’s no honor among snakes.
[Andrew laughs]
Pam: There you go.
Eric: Let’s talk now about Umbridge’s relationship to Snape, because here’s another Slytherin. This is a Slytherin that does a solid in this chapter by completely, and again, masterfully… silky smooth Snape, we should call him, comes in, and Umbridge is so helpless. She is reliant on him. She knows that Snape, too, is cruel. Snape has no love for these children, especially for Harry Potter. And she needs Snape to get more truth serum, because she needs more information from them. And it’s fun to see that not only does Snape not help Umbridge, but he, I want to say, berates her, but he makes her feel foolish for her actions in the past. She used the whole vial of what he gave her.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Even though we do know that what he gave her wasn’t real truth potion, he’s like, “You don’t have the stuff? I gave you this whole stuff.” And, “Oh yes, I’ll get this for you. It’s going to take a month.”
Andrew: Yeah. And that part must be true, right?
Eric: Oh, yeah. I’m sure.
Andrew: That it would take a month. So it does surprise me that Umbridge is getting so mad at him, because what he is saying to her is very valid. “It would take too long to generate new stuff, and you used up all of my old stuff.” And I think she’s just mad at herself about thinking a little more ahead, about having more Veritaserum on hand that she could have acquired outside of Snape. You would think she’d have her own Veritaserum suppliers outside of Hogwarts, and I think she’s just mad that she didn’t think about this. But I also wonder what else…
Pam: She also could have told him to keep brewing it.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. “Keep those coming. Hem-hem!”
Pam: She could’ve said, “Brew more.” [laughs]
Andrew: “More, more!”
Eric: Yeah. The thing is, if only three drops will have you pouring your heart out, and he gives her a whole vial…
Andrew: Right. So I guess that’s…
Eric: She absolutely shouldn’t have used the whole thing, but she was short-sighted and desperate.
Andrew: And maybe that’s one part that rubbed Umbridge the wrong way. But what else could he have said here that would have satisfied her? Other than, “Sure, here’s more I just happened to have on hand because you used up my full supply.”
Eric: Well, and this is the cleverness of Snape, too, because he even in order to sell his position to her even further, he starts talking about poisons, and he’s like, “Well, you could poison Potter if you got rid of all the Veritaserum, but come to think of it, you might kill him before you get any answers.” [laughs] She literally buys the whole thing because she’s desperate. She doesn’t have any way of making this work. And Snape is not objecting to her morally; he’s not saying, “You can’t poison him. You can’t.”
Pam: No, he’s just calling her stupid in 20 different ways, basically.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Right. It’s a flex on the part of Snape, because really, this conversation shouldn’t be happening in front of students. He shouldn’t be sharing that she used Veritaserum on students in front of those students, right? And so that’s why I think he’s utilizing the moment to maybe get back at her a little bit for the way she’s probably been evaluating him throughout the course of the year. But I did want to point… I thought that this would have been an ideal moment for Snape to pull a “Dumbledore’s got style” moment, because he is the most gifted wizard in the room at this time. What he should have done, following Harry’s cryptic message about Sirius, is dismiss the Inquisitorial Squad – they’re all Slytherins; they all should listen to him at the end of the day – and then take out Umbridge himself.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Then he could go and relay a message to Dumbledore about what just happened. I mean, there’s so many other ways this could have played out where Snape could have been a bit more heroic, but he just chooses to walk out.
Eric: That’s a good point. I didn’t really think about that.
Andrew: Yeah, I guess that’s a knock on Snape.
Eric: I’ll tell you what, to his credit, though, he does get Crabbe – is it? – to release Neville a little bit, because Neville is turning blue, and he blames it on paperwork.
Andrew: Yeah, that was very thoughtful of Snape. [laughs]
Eric: This is extremely thoughtful!
Andrew: “Don’t choke him.”
Micah: Because he doesn’t want to do the paperwork.
[Pam laughs]
Eric: No, that’s his excuse.
Andrew: Yeah, I’m with Eric here.
Eric: I have to believe that somewhere deep down he also doesn’t want…
Andrew: Neville to die?
Eric: No, you’re right. It’s just about the paperwork. It’s just about the paperwork.
[Andrew and Pam laugh]
Andrew: But one other knock against Snape, I want to add, is that when Harry says, “He’s got Padfoot in the place where they’re keeping the weapon,” and then Snape claims to Umbridge that Harry is just speaking gibberish, this should have been very clear to Umbridge that Harry was relaying a very real and very cryptic message to Snape that Snape understood. As much as Umbridge despises Harry, I think she should be smart enough to realize that Harry is capable of relaying something to Snape or any professor. That should have been a major red flag for her. Maybe it was; it’s not really said in the moment. She’s definitely suspicious, but that would have been a moment where, if I were Umbridge, I’d be putting the Cruciatus Curse on Snape and trying to get the answers out of him about what Harry just said to him.
Eric: Yeah, makes sense to me.
Andrew: Come on, Umbridge.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, she’s not thinking clearly either in this chapter at this moment. So let’s talk again about her relationship now with Hermione, because there is some women hating women moment. There is some superiority complex. Umbridge really gets a ride or a thrill out of Little Miss Question-It-All suddenly being the one who has to give her answers. She’s on a power kick and, I don’t know, she doesn’t recognize Hermione’s fake tears because it thrills her to think that she has reduced this powerful little feminist to tears. You get that? It’s like Umbridge is just so thrilled to be on top that she doesn’t see the very-obvious-to-everyone-else deception going on here.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I can see that. Yeah, she’s so excited for any information, because she’s not getting it from Harry; she’s not getting it from Snape. Finally, Harry is about to be tortured, and she’s so excited that Hermione is breaking. I can see why she’s buying it.
Eric: Because that’s her only card, really, is to threaten more pain or more discomfort. Umbridge is all talk and not a great deal of bite. She does have the might of the Ministry behind her, and she could get the Inquisitorial Squad to make their lives sort of miserable, but at the end of the day, she’s hoping that applying pressure will cause somebody to break. That’s what happened with Marietta.
Andrew: And it “works.” Air quotes.
Eric: That’s just her MO, is essentially to threaten until somebody breaks and gives up.
Andrew: I assume the answer is yes, but would she have actually gone through with the Cruciatus Curse?
Eric, Micah, and Pam: Yeah.
Andrew: Okay, just checking.
Eric: I think so because the only thing that needs to happen for that to go forward is for no one in the room to stop her. And the Slytherins don’t care; the Slytherins are ready and probably equally interested in seeing the Cruciatus Curse performed on somebody they hate.
Andrew: I’d be interested to see how Harry or Hermione respond to it. Do they…? What spell do they cast to defend against?
Micah: Well, they’re all restrained.
Pam: Wandless.
Eric: Yeah, they don’t even have their wands.
Andrew: Oh, they’re all wandless. I forgot about that. All right, never mind. All right, who’s going to physically attack Umbridge?
[Andrew and Pam laugh]
Micah: Well, Harry has shown an ability to resist the Cruciatus Curse, right? Or was it the Imperius?
Pam: Imperio.
Eric: No, I was just thinking that too. I was just thinking it too. But yeah, it’s Imperio.
Andrew: It’s another Unforgivable Curse.
Micah: We talked about this… well, I mean, it’s the buildup, right?
Eric: Well, and he resisted the Death Curse too.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Collect all three!
Pam: Right.
Eric: You know what? We haven’t yet seen this, but I wonder if Harry would have a resistance, a darn inborn resistance to Crucio.
Pam: Well, I think it would take more than one hit for him to actually give it up, and that would frustrate her even more. So it could have turned brutally ugly really fast if Hermione hadn’t stepped in.
Andrew: That’s an interesting point.
Eric: Well, Harry doesn’t have a plan either.
Pam: No, no, no.
Eric: Which is why it’s so brilliant that Hermione is able to come up with this lie, because Harry, yeah, after a few rounds of Crucio might be starting to let the whole thing slip.
Micah: Well, I mean, if he can even talk. I don’t know what kind of state he would be in after that. And we talked about this the last time we discussed this chapter, but I do think it’s important to mention the only other person who has used the Cruciatus Curse on Harry is Voldemort; he did it in Goblet of Fire.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Micah: And so now you have Umbridge. And so we got into this whole debate, who’s the worst villain? Voldemort or Umbridge? And for Harry, too, it’s building up, right? Because imposter Moody tries the Imperius Curse on him, right? Now Voldemort does the Cruciatus Curse. And then, of course, Avada Kedavra comes in Deathly Hallows. So Harry has felt the brunt of all three Unforgivable Curses and has survived.
Eric: He’s the Master of Unforgivable.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: He’s the Master of Death.
Eric: Well, that too.
Andrew: The Master of Curses and Death.
Eric: Oh, man.
Micah: Anyway.
Eric: Yeah, so I think… are we aligned that pretty much Umbridge’s ambition and her own greed for the answer, especially for a weapon, blinds her to…? She doesn’t realize that Hermione isn’t actually crying tears.
Micah: She just wants information at this point. She’s been clamoring for something that Dumbledore has been doing under her nose the entire year, and now Hermione has finally given it to her, and that’s what I think this is about.
Eric: I guess joke’s on her, because Dumbledore hasn’t actually been doing anything all year.
[Everyone laughs]
Pam: Right.
Eric: If you really think about it.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “Yes, I have. I’ve been very busy.”
Pam: Just keeping Harry in the dark,
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “Very busy ignoring Harry.”
Micah: I love how she notes, though, that Dumbledore is not just at some bar.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: When they try…
Pam: But the thing is she doesn’t even question it further than that, because she’s like, “These are stupid children; of course they’d just be trying anything blindly.”
[Andrew laughs]
Pam: That’s why it works so well.
Eric: But I bet he is at a bar! I bet he’s at the Hog’s Head.
Micah: I wouldn’t be surprised.
Pam: Just chillin’?
Eric: Chillin’ with his bro. Or maybe a nephew or something. We don’t know. So here’s a question regarding something else in the chapter before we wrap: We mentioned that Harry has very few people to go to. He can’t go to McGonagall; he doesn’t think about Snape. This raised the question for me about why there are other teachers at Hogwarts who aren’t in the Order at all, and I’m thinking particularly of Flitwick. Professor Flitwick, we know even as recently as when Fred and George left and they left their swamp there… we know that Flitwick, politically, is anti-Umbridge, and we know that he is a strong wizard. He’s one of the wizards that fights… he defends Hogwarts in the final battle. But he’s not in the Order. And my question to you, the panel, is why? Why is Flitwick actually not an Order member?
Andrew: I feel like it might be a little dangerous for Dumbledore to recruit every professor, or many professors at Hogwarts. I think you kind of want to cover your bases? Is that the phrase I’m looking for? Just like, “Well, what if the whole…”
Eric: Not [censored] where you eat?
Andrew: Yeah, well, and if God forbid the Order of the Phoenix falls apart, all of them die, what good people are still left at Hogwarts? If you recruited everyone from Hogwarts.
Eric: My God, it’d be a hiring nightmare. You’d need Indeed.
Andrew: [laughs] Indeed.com/MuggleCast. They used to be a sponsor, right? So I think that might be at play here. He just doesn’t want to pull too many people away from staying focused on the school.
Eric: Well, just because Harry doesn’t have anybody he can go to, but if Flitwick were in the Order, he would have easily thought of… I mean, he’s the Head of his House, and hell, Snape is in the Order. The other… two of the House Heads are in the Order. Why not Flitwick and why not Sprout? But I’m focusing on Flitwick particularly because he’s always been just standup and ready to cast a defensive charm.
Andrew: Maybe he said no. Maybe he doesn’t have a saving-people thing. [laughs]
Micah: Maybe he’s busy.
Eric: Yeah, I like this idea, though, that Dumbledore would be… not choosy, because I don’t think you can afford to be choosy yet, but for some reason, deciding not to get all the teachers in on it, just in case something goes wrong.
Pam: I wonder if it has to do with keeping Sirius concealed maybe, in part, because that is need to know information. And as much as you have other good professors that would be staunchly against a second Voldemort uprising, I think without seeing proof, it would be hard to convince even every good person that this person you’re vouching for didn’t do this thing that there was so much proof pointing towards that he did.
Eric: I can’t believe we found something else to pin on Sirius before he dies.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: He’s the reason Dumbledore wasn’t recruiting more people to the Order? Yeah, no.
Pam: No, not in a bad way. I just think… but in general, need to know for a lot of stuff, including making sure Sirius was kept safe.
Micah: Right.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think Flitwick has done anything to make Dumbledore not trust him, is I guess what I want to say. He could be in the Order.
Micah: I think there’s also something to be said for just having allies. You don’t need everybody to officially be in the Order of the Phoenix.
Pam: Right. And it’s dangerous.
Micah: And as you said, Eric, we see that… yeah, it definitely is. And I think you mentioned he was a dueling champion, so he would definitely be somebody that would make sense for the Order on top of his ability to perform charms. I mean, he does duel directly with Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts. I think he’s part of that threesome of him, Kingsley, and Slughorn, who do duel Voldemort at the same time. So I don’t know.
Eric: Yeah, and the protection…
Micah: Just because he’s not in the Order; does it mean that Harry can’t go to Flitwick? That’s the question I wanted to ask. Why can’t he go to him anyway? He can hide the Sirius thing.
Pam: Yeah, but then it’s like, would Flitwick even know who to contact to pass the message along? I guess he would have to give him more information than he might have time to give him, because he would have to be like, “Hey, this is going on. I need to get this message to Dumbledore. I don’t know where he is, but maybe you should talk to XYZ.” [laughs] That’s a tall order.
Andrew: I would think, whether or not you’re a member of the Order, if you are a teacher at Hogwarts, you probably have easy access to Dumbledore. You can call the Bat Phone and get in touch with him somehow.
Eric: [laughs] Bat Phone.
Andrew: So I think, yes, Flitwick would be able to get in touch with him, even if he is not an official member of the Order. Or get in touch with… I don’t know, somebody who can get a message to McGonagall at St. Mungo’s. He would have options.
Micah: What about Sprout? I mean, we keep talking about Flitwick, but there’s another Head of House here, too, right?
Andrew: Yeah, but Hufflepuff.
[Pam laughs]
Andrew: Kidding.
Eric: It needs to be somebody who’s known and in the Order because they need to get a message to the rest of the Order, but yeah. I do wonder, though, because Dumbledore is trying to raise awareness and building up the Order, I don’t think he’d stop short of recruiting some of the most talented witches and wizards he knows, but by the end of the year, Flitwick and Sprout are not in the Order, and so Harry doesn’t have them to go to. It’s an interesting question.
Andrew: Maybe they were like, “Yo, Dumbledore, I’m trying to maintain a work/life balance. I don’t got time for this. Thanks, but no thanks.”
[Eric laughs]
Pam: No extracurriculars. [laughs]
Andrew: “I don’t want to get in the middle of your tussle with Tom Riddle.”
Pam: Flitwick is like, “I’m already Head of House. Does this come with a raise?” [laughs]
Eric: “I already run the choir; it’s a whole thing…”
Pam: Right, that’s his extracurricular.
Andrew: “I’ve got plants to maintain…”
Eric: But the protection of Lily and James Potter came down to a charm, the Fidelius Charm, and so I think everyone appreciates and respects the work that Flitwick could do for the Order, but Dumbledore is just doing it for now. So interesting discussion. I believe that wraps Chapter 32, “Out of the Fire.”
Superlative of the Week
Eric: So I have a question for y’all. Little bit of an MVP segment. Who is the…? We got a lot of Inquisitorial Squad moments, and they’re not pleasant folk, unfortunately. But who’s the baddest mofo in this chapter? And I won’t define mofo. Particularly nasty piece of work that we want to shout out to.
Andrew: Yeah, you just mentioned the Inquisitorial Squad, but I want to go a different direction with this question and I just want to say Snape for toeing that line between Harry and Umbridge so masterfully. I mean, that was a fluid, tense, risky situation that I thought he navigated really well. It was nasty good.
Eric: All right, well, I’m going to give mine to Millicent Bulstrode. We took a few books off from her, and she’s back, and I’m not impressed with what I see.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: She’s repulsed by the idea that Hermione would show emotion and cry, and she’s just using her size to keep these Gryffindors in line, and I’m just not into it. Sad.
Micah: I went with Warrington just because he seems like the biggest bully in the room.
Andrew: Aww.
Micah: Isn’t he the one that has Neville? Or no, that’s Crabbe.
Pam: I thought it was Goyle or Crabbe.
Eric: Screw Warrington anyway. Stand by it.
Pam: Honestly, Eric, I read your question wrong. [laughs] I didn’t realize you meant Inquisitorial Squad members. But I guess I would give it to Crabbe for his insane chokehold on Neville. That seems pretty intense.
Eric: Yeah, a teacher has to stop him from going further on that. But originally, Pam…
Pam: Yeah, doesn’t know his own strength, clearly.
Eric: When you read this originally, you put somebody else as the baddest mofo. [laughs]
Pam: I did! I thought you just meant in the room, and I was like, “Well, Hermione is pretty badass for her Oscar-worthy performance.”
Eric: Okay! I can get behind it.
Pam: She really saves the day.
Eric: These things are open to interpretation; all we need is for you to submit somebody, so there’s that.
[Pam laughs]
Andrew: Yay, I didn’t get it wrong, then.
Eric: No, no, I could have been clearer.
Andrew: It’s okay.
Lynx Line
Andrew: And then over on the Lynx Line, we asked everybody: In this chapter, Hermione, under great pressure, comes up with a convincing story to tell Umbridge as to what Harry was doing in her fireplace. So what’s the best thinking on your feet you have ever done? And let’s go in host order. Zachary said,
“I’ve never really fabricated any story with my family. I’ve always been truthful for the most part, with the exception of leaving bits and pieces out of the story.”
Good move.
“The closest I have is one night I came home after enjoying some Gigglewater with my friends. I told my family I was at one friend’s house who happened to have an abundance of cats. I have a mild allergy to cats. I walked in through the front door and my Pop stopped me dead in my tracks and asked why I reeked of cologne and why are my eyes so red. I told him it was because of Matt’s cats causing me to rub my eyes. He smirked and said, ‘Well, just remember if those cats cause you to get in trouble with the law and you happen to call me to pick you up from the kennel, you’d be better off staying there.’ That was the one and only time he told me that, and to this day it has been enough to keep me out of all sorts of trouble.”
Andrew: [laughs] That’s a good story. “Don’t get yourself in trouble, because Dad’s not coming to save you” was the implication there, it sounds like. Zachary’s dad does not have a saving-people thing.
Eric: Oh. Well, we heard also from Sonia, who said,
“I facilitated my mom buying her dream condo. She was living in a townhouse on the north side of the railroad tracks while watching these slick new condos being built on the south side. She kept saying how she wanted to live there but was sure they were all sold by now. I said go to the leasing office and talk with someone to be sure. I called our local credit union that was across the street and asked them to get an earnest money check written to her from my account and she would pick it up. Sure enough, she meets with the leasing agent and gets the last unit that was allocated for fixed income buyers. She said while she was signing the contract, the agent got a call and told the caller that the last unit was just sold. My mom never failed to credit me for achieving her dream home where she lived for her remaining years. Well done, Draco.”
Eric: [laughs] Well done, Sonia! I love the ability to see an opportunity that’s within your power to kind of handle it, much the way Hermione does in this chapter, I think.
Micah: Emily said,
“When I was in high school I competed in Reading Olympics… if you’re not as much of a nerd as me, it was a contest between the districts in the county. A list was published each year and as a team you would be quizzed on the books. There were 30ish books on the list and inevitably there would be one or two that no one read. A question came up on our turn – I don’t even remember the book but I confidently said, ‘Magic!’ and won the round for my team.”
[Andrew and Pam laugh]
Eric: Oh my God.
Pam: Barry says,
“One time my friends and I were joking around, and I almost said a joke that was probably a little too mean about one of my friends, so mid-joke I pivoted and delivered a punchline that made NO sense. Everyone thought I was an idiot, but I’d rather be the idiot than the jerk.”
Eric: Oh, that feels real. That hits home.
Andrew: Yeah. And finally, Rachel said,
“I’m not sure if this was the ‘best’ quick thinking I’ve done, but I was dropping off a gift at a friend’s house as a surprise. No one was there, but her roommate had told me the lock code to get into the garage to put the gift inside. I must have misread the message or pressed the wrong number because I couldn’t get in. I tried again, got in, and put the gift by the car and a note on the windshield. Then she came outside as I was closing the garage! She wasn’t supposed to be there! I should have just said I was there to drop off the gift and ruin the surprise. Instead I said I was out for a walk and saw her door was open so I went up to close it. Not sure if she bought it or not, but she definitely figured it out the next day when she left for work.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: That’s funny. That’s pretty good thinking on your feet. Thanks for those contributions, y’all. The Lynx Line is a great way to have your voice heard on the show, whether or not you are listening live. We ask a new question every week, and we invite you to participate by becoming a member of our community at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and you can pledge for as little as $5 a month. If you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo that you record on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com, and next week we will discuss Order of the Phoenix Chapter 33, “Fight and Flight.” If you’re looking for more podcasting from the four of us, listen to our other shows. In this week’s Millennial, we’re talking about a San Francisco bookstore that removed the Harry Potter books, and we got into a debate over that. Believe it or not, you might be surprised the stance we took. And over on What the Hype?!, we’re getting you ready for the upcoming releases of Marvel’s Fantastic Four and Netflix’s Wednesday Season 2.
Eric: I found those details about that bookstore to be very interesting, Andrew.
Andrew: Oh, did you listen?
Eric: Yep.
Micah: I’m not that far along yet.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Micah: So I’ll listen tomorrow on my flight.
Eric: Oh, I skipped right to it.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: 43 minutes in.
Micah: I’m giving our friends at Millennial the full metric or whatever the hell you want to call it of listening…
Eric: Listening all the way through, okay.
Andrew: So he can talk to me about the episode when we get dinner tomorrow. [laughs]
Micah: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: I’m a bad stat.
Micah: Well, no, so I contribute to your stats.
Andrew: Oh, I appreciate that.
Quizzitch
Andrew: All right, and now it’s time for everybody’s favorite Harry Potter trivia show, Quizzitch!
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s Quizzitch question was: Harry struggles to name all the moons of Jupiter for his astronomy OWL. Which of the following is not one of Jupiter’s moons? Is it Io, Metis, Europa, Ganymede, Calypso, Themisto, Pandia, or S/2003 J2? Well, it turns out that Calypso is not a moon of Jupiter. Jupiter’s moon is named Callisto, not Calypso.
Micah: Calypso makes me think of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Eric: Ah, yeah. So 42% of folks with the correct answer did not look that one up. There are 92 moons, so I don’t blame anybody who did. And this week’s winners were A healthy breeze; Amelia Loves MuggleCast; AstroBort; Buckbeak’s annoyance with the traitorous Kreacher; Calypso777; GrawPower; Hagrid’s missing secret filter; I chime in with haven’t you people ever heard of using the two-way mirror…
Andrew: [singing] “Closing the dah, dah, dah…”
Eric: [singing] “Much better to talk to your godfather.” … I didn’t know, but my Jupiter-obsessed 10-year-old says this is the correct answer… that’s fun. I’m a nerd; Lumos Knox; Magic School Bus solar system; OWLs stand for officially wasted life; QuidWitch; Voldemort and Snape Defying Gravity; and of course, our dear friend Tofu Tom. And here is next week’s Quizzitch question: In this chapter, Umbridge placed Stealth Sensor Spells around her office door. Founded by Edward Calahan over 150 years ago, the company which currently holds at least 15% of the market share for home security systems is called ADT. What does ADT – ADT Security – what does ADT stand for?
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: “We’re home, even when you’re not.” Isn’t that their slogan?
Andrew: Ring has something like that. I think their slogan is “Always home”?
Micah: Something Rachel’s friend could have used when she broke into her house.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Well, submit your answer to us on the MuggleCast website using the Quizzitch form. Go to MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or if you’re already on our site, checking out transcripts, or must listens, or some other fun stuff we have on there, click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav.
Micah: You know, I was thinking. When you were reading those names, this thought came to me. I don’t know if we’ve ever mentioned this on the show, and I’m sure some of us on the panel know this, but Lumos and Nox. You know that you can say this to Siri? Have you done this before?
Andrew: [laughs] Yes.
Pam: Yeah.
Micah: Okay. All right, I’m just making sure.
Andrew: Okay.
[Pam laughs]
Eric: That’s old news, Micah.
Micah: I know it is, but I don’t know if we’ve ever mentioned it on the show.
Eric: No, no, I’ve only seen it done once. I still think it’s really cool. The novelty is not worn out for me.
Andrew: For a second I thought this was setup for Micah to squeeze in a dad joke at the last minute, but it looks like that wasn’t the case here.
Micah: No.
Andrew: All right. That’s all right.
Eric: We have a clean episode of MuggleCast, y’all. We did it.
Andrew: [laughs] Thank you, everyone, for listening. Don’t forget to visit Patreon.com/MuggleCast to support us; we really appreciate your support there. We’d also appreciate if you leave us a review in your favorite podcast app, and if you tell a friend about the show. Friend of the show, Pam, thanks for joining us today.
Pam: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was so much fun.
Andrew: Thanks again, everyone, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Pam: And I’m Pamela.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Micah and Pam: Bye.