Episode #756: Dumbledoubt (HBP Chapter 29, ‘The Phoenix Lament’)

Has everyone got their tissues handy? Our chapter-by-chapter segment at last reaches the penultimate chapter of Half-Blood Prince, wherein the recent actions of a certain “Prince” are discovered by Harry and friends. Also, there’s a new headmistress in town and she intends to rule by committee?! Andrew, Eric, Micah and Laura discuss all of that and more on episode 756 of MuggleCast.

  • Chapter by Chapter: Half-Blood Prince Chapter 29, “The Phoenix Lament”
  • Harry retraces Snape’s final steps. And they involve knocking out Flitwick! Is this protective or adversarial behavior from Snape?
  • Could Snape have helped the Order when they were pinned in the corridor? Did he, and we just don’t know it?
  • Harry refuses to tell McGonagall about his and Dumbledore’s mission. He thinks he’s being faithful, but is this smart?
  • Is Harry’s decision partly to protect Minerva?
  • Andrew has a HUGE foreshadow alert
  • Micah blows Eric’s mind with a comparison between Hogwarts founders and the current heads of house
  • Harry forces a funeral to happen for Dumbledore before the students leave. Is this safe?
  • Odds and Ends: what does Horace mean that he thought he knew Severus Snape?
  • You, like Bill Weasley, are bitten by a magically cursed beast, but not during the beast’s “time of the month.” What’s the beast you wanna be bit by and why?
  • In this chapter, Harry feels the healing power of Fawkes’s song. In a 1984 study done by Roger Ulrich, he examined the healing properties of bird song in real life. Ulrich’s research, done between 1972 and 1981, took place in a hospital in which US State?

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