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.