Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #384, Nobody Screams For Ice Cream (HBP Chapter 6, Draco’s Detour)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast 384. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: And I’m Micah.
Andrew: We’re joined by one of our listeners this week, Kamilah. Hi, Kamilah.
Kamilah: Hi, Andrew. Hi guys.
Eric: Hey.
Andrew: Hailing from San Francisco. Actually, we met you because you were featured in the Apple App Store; they asked you to share your favorite podcasts, and you included us. And we were like, “Oh my gosh, that is so nice,” so we had to return the favor by having you on the show. Can you tell us what you do?
Kamilah: Yeah, yeah, not a problem. And again, thanks for having me. And it’s really funny, because when they interviewed me, they were like, “So tell us about the tech podcasts that help you go,” and I was like, “Well, mostly I listen to this Harry Potter podcast,” and the guy laughed.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Kamilah: It was not what he expected. So yeah, I’m a software engineer. I build mobile apps, which explains the Apple connection there. Let’s see… currently, I’m working on my own app, actually, with a couple of friends…
Andrew: Nice.
Kamilah: … that’s focused on trying to be able to foster thoughtful conversation online, called Sway. And I also consult for apps; I’m consulting right now for this AR company, which is cool. And before that, I worked at LinkedIn for a long time, building a bunch of their mobile apps.
Andrew: Cool. That’s amazing. Good for you. That is so cool.
Kamilah: Aw, thanks.
Micah: So if we need an app for MuggleCast…
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, make us an app, please.
Kamilah: I’ll work on it. I’ll work on it in my spare time.
Andrew: Yeah, which I’m sure you don’t have much of. It sounds like you’re very busy.
Kamilah: Yeah. [laughs]
Andrew: That’s very cool, though, and we’re honored to have you on the show, especially after featuring us. That was really, really nice. But the timing of having you on this week was actually kind of funny, because when I asked you if you could make it this week, you said you were actually putting together some notes, because you were going to call in with some responses to last week’s episode. What did you want to tell us?
Kamilah: [laughs] Yeah, it was pretty funny. I was driving listening to it, and making voice notes because I was like, “No!” So I had a lot of thoughts after the last Chapter by Chapter, and two of them were just observations that I had never really thought of until you guys did the chapter, and one of them was in response to Fleur. But so the first one was that you guys were talking about unrequited love and Tonks and magic, and it occurred to me that in this book, you see two examples of that effect, and the second one is on Voldemort’s mom, and I’m wondering if J.K. Rowling did that on purpose. I thought it was super interesting to see Voldemort’s mother also, when she has unrequited love, also is bad at magic until her dad is away or something.
Andrew: So that’s kind of a theme of the book, you’re saying.
Kamilah: Yeah, it looks like an interesting story arc parallel, where you’re exploring that effect on a person’s magical abilities.
Andrew: Yeah, past and present. It happens. That’s a good point. And then Fleur, you had some feedback too?
Kamilah: Yeah, I had some… oh, wait, the second one was funny. It’s now my headcanon that the Weasley clock is a family heirloom, because generations of Weasleys have all just been like Arthur. Some grandfather Weasley made this clock or something, and that’s why it’s randomly there.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Kamilah: That’s my second one. And I also wanted to know if the hands are magically added when people marry into the family, so if Harry and Fleur and Hermione get added to it.
Andrew: Oh, that’s a good point.
Kamilah: But also, is there space for all those hands? I don’t know. It’s a little confusing.
Andrew: Probably not. It seems pretty crowded as is.
Kamilah: Yeah. [laughs]
Andrew: But that is a good question.
Kamilah: This is my open question; I really wish it had been answered in Cursed Child. Sadly, it was not.
[Andrew laughs]
Kamilah: And then finally… yeah, so Fleur, I had a bunch of thoughts around this. So I think J.K. Rowling wrote her speech like that because… I think a couple of things. One is that I think it’s supposed to be sexy because she’s French, and I think she’s probably drumming up that Fleur has this massive sex appeal, etc.; everybody just falls in love with her when she speaks in her French accent, and so that was my interpretation of that. And also, I think there’s a history of Europeans making fun of each other, because if you watch these British comedies, they’re always… they’ll have someone who speaks an exaggerated French accent or German accent or something, and so I feel like there’s probably just some weird humor going on there. And then my other thing was with the women’s attitude to Fleur, I think that they don’t like her because of her effect on men, and this super irritates them, and I think Ginny and Hermione and Molly’s responses are kind of rooted slightly differently. I think Molly doesn’t believe that Fleur actually loves Bill, or Bill actually loves Fleur; she thinks it’s just a physical attraction. And then you see that resolved in this book later on. And then Ginny and Hermione, I think they take offense to her, one, because she never paid any attention to them until she was into Bill, and two, because I think they think she doesn’t have any real aspirations in life besides marrying Bill, and I think they take some deep-seated offense to it, because they’re both kind of career girls in their heads. So yeah, anyway.
Andrew: Yeah, those are great points. And I think that those were the angles I was taking the first time I read it, but I don’t know what changed my mind this second time, this reread that we’re doing. What do you think, guys?
Eric: Yeah, I mean, the question… as to your very first point, Kamilah, on Fleur, whether or not J.K. Rowling is trying to drum up her sex appeal, I don’t know. Isn’t that kind of objectifying your character? Or are these other characters slut-shaming her? What exactly is going on? So I think as we go through this book… that’s the blessed thing; this isn’t the only chapter Fleur is in. So as we go through the book, I want to look for more evidence either way of what is uncomfortable about this, because the whole revelation that Fleur is not as shallow as Molly thought she is comes at the eleventh hour, and it’s like, “Oh, that’s where this was going in the book?” But as a standalone chapter last week, it’s just uncomfortable.
Kamilah: Yeah. No, I think Hermione and Ginny absolutely are a little bit slut-shaming her, but again, I think they don’t believe in her true… they don’t get her; they don’t understand her values, and they haven’t put in any effort to try and figure out who she is.
Eric: I mean, Molly Weasley is a great example of a character who is a stay-at-home mom; that is her career, and this idea that they would reject Fleur for not having a career aspiration is kind of silly.
Micah: I think it’s definitely good to have another perspective on this, particularly a female perspective. I know that was something that we were talking about when we weren’t recording, is that “We’re going to get a lot of blowback if you have three guys who are having this conversation.”
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Micah: And it seemed like, based upon some of the emails that we got, that was exactly what happened. But I think, though, as you go through this book, especially now that we’re older – and I think we touched on this a little bit in the last episode – you do have a different type of perspective towards the chapter, and I think maybe a lot of that is informed now by the overall political climate in this country, in particular looking at how Ginny, Hermione, and Molly are responding to Fleur. I’m not saying that that is 100% the reasoning behind how they act, but I wouldn’t be surprised if J.K. Rowling intentionally included a little bit of that into her writing. And for a reader who is a little bit older, they may interpret that scene differently than somebody who’s reading it as a teenager. Maybe the teenager is going to see it as, “Oh, it’s just they’re making fun of her, and maybe they’re a little bit jealous. Maybe there’s some misunderstanding going on there.”
Eric: Yeah. Also, these characters in this scene, in this book, in this chapter, in these chapters, can be sexist without that making J.K. Rowling sexist. I’m not saying J.K. Rowling is sexist.
Kamilah: Yeah, absolutely.
Eric: I’m saying the treatment of Fleur is this particular way, which is triggering or different or difficult as an adult, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect on J.K. Rowling’s views.
Kamilah: Yeah, I’d like to believe that if Ginny and Hermione went back in time and thought about this, they’d be like, “Yeah, we gave you a little bit of a raw deal in the beginning. We’re sorry.” [laughs]
Andrew: You know one day in the future they’re talking about, “Hey, look, I didn’t really like you in the beginning, but I did come around.” That happens in the real world, too. You don’t like people initially when you meet them, and then they grow on you. I’m finally coming around on Micah.
[Kamilah laughs]
Micah: Thanks, Andrew.
Andrew: After all this time.
Micah: It only it took 13 years.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: Yeah. So Kamilah, let’s get your fandom ID. First of all, how did you discover the Harry Potter series?
Kamilah: Yeah, so it was pretty random. So I’m from Jamaica, and I was back home. This is back… okay, I’ve moved back and forth between the US and Jamaica a bunch, and that kind of confuses people. But suffice it to say, at this point in time I was actually living in Atlanta, Georgia, the suburbs of Atlanta. And I was back home in Jamaica for Christmas, and my best friend, one of my oldest friends from Jamaica, started talking about this book that she was reading, Harry Potter. And at this point, I remember vaguely being aware that I’d heard it on TV, and I was a huge, huge bookworm, but for some reason I hadn’t picked up this book. And so she started talking about it and I was really shocked, because bless her heart – we’re still great friends – but she really wasn’t a huge reader. [laughs] So I remember being like, “Wow, this book must be really good if Alison is into this book.”
[Andrew laughs]
Kamilah: So she lent me the book, and I took it home to my aunt’s where we were staying. And we were all staying in the same room because we were there for vacation, and my mom was snoring really loudly; I couldn’t fall asleep. [laughs] So I snuck downstairs and started reading this book.
[Andrew laughs]
Kamilah: I just read it all night. I just finished it, cover to cover, that same night.
Andrew: That’s fantastic.
Kamilah: Yeah, so that’s how I got into it. And then when I got back, my parents were really not that into it. They were always weird about books about fantasy for some reason; I don’t know. But I had a friend who had the books, and so I borrowed all the books. And I think this must have been Christmas ’99, so I basically ended up reading all of the books, and then Goblet of Fire came out that year, 2000, and so I also read that. So yeah, that’s when I got into it. I was hooked, and I eventually badgered someone into buying me the paperbacks when they all came out in that paperback set, the first four.
Andrew: Nice. So let’s get in one breath now your favorite book, movie, Hogwarts House, Ilvermorny House, favorite character, and Bertie Bott Bean.
Kamilah: Yeah, so my favorite book is Half-Blood Prince, so really excited to be on here for this, actually.
Eric: Great.
Andrew: Perfect.
Kamilah: My Hogwarts House is Hufflepuff. My Ilvermorny House is Pukwudgie. My favorite character shifts between Ginny and Dumbledore, I think. Slightly, sometimes I’m a little bit protective over Ginny. And I forgot to do my favorite Bertie Bott Bean.
[Andrew laughs]
Kamilah: They’re kind of… but I always just grab five at a time and eat them all together… [laughs]
Andrew: Oh, so you actually eat them.
Kamilah: … so I feel like I can’t distinguish them.
Andrew: Did you say your favorite movie?
Kamilah: I did not say my favorite movie, sorry. My favorite movie is also Half-Blood Prince.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Eric: That’s cool.
Andrew: I kind of guessed that. Nice. Very good. And let me ask you, as a woman of color – we don’t have many people of color on the show very often at all, I’m sorry to say – how do you feel about J.K. Rowling’s work in terms of representation and diversity?
Kamilah: Yeah, I think it probably could have done more. I think it was definitely of its time. She does have a couple of incidental characters, but really, the only person of color that she has who’s a character in their own right, and not because of their relationship to someone, is Kingsley Shacklebelt, which I would have maybe wanted a little bit more in that. Everybody else, like Cho Chang and the Patils, and even Dean…
Eric: Lee Jordan.
Kamilah: Yeah, they’re all there because of their friendship or relationship to someone else, and so I think that’s a little bit unfortunate. But again, I think it’s very much of its time. I kind of suspect if this series were written two decades later, it would have probably been pretty different.
Andrew: Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I mean, now J.K. Rowling is writing Fantastic Beasts, and it does seem to be a little more diverse.
Kamilah: Yeah, especially the follow-ups, right? There’s definitely more characters who have meatier roles, etc.
Andrew: Right. How did you feel when a Black actress was cast as Hermione for Cursed Child?
Kamilah: Oh, I loved it. I really, really loved it. And there’s all this fan art with Hermione as a Black girl, and I mean, it’s gorgeous. It’s really amazing. My one little thing about it is that when it came out and there was backlash, and J.K. Rowling was like, “Oh, brown skin, bushy hair, whatever. There’s no canon that says Hermione can’t be a Black woman.” But it felt a little wishy-washy on her end; that’s my one little critique. Because the canon doesn’t refute this, but she also called out every other Black character; you knew they were Black. And so there is a little bit of a, “Yeah, but if you wanted to make Hermione Black, I feel like you would have told us.” So that was my only little thing, but I did appreciate that she backed it up. And of course, she probably was consulted before.
Andrew: Yeah, because even before Cursed Child… you mentioned that there was fan art of Hermione being Black, but that existed even before Cursed Child. People had that in their head. Some people did.
Kamilah: Yeah, there’s a lot of people who are like, “Hey, she could be Black,” I think for the same reason that J.K. Rowling said that, right? There’s no canon explicitly refuting that.
Andrew: Right, right. And this is a good time to plug Alanna Bennett’s BuzzFeed article on that subject; I’ll have to put a link in the show notes. She did a very good piece on that. Okay, well, now we know all about you. It was great to learn about you.
News
Andrew: Let’s talk about some news. We’re going to be learning more, you could say – haha, transition – about Evanna Lynch. She is going to be on Dancing with the Stars this season, Season 27! Oh my God. What?
Eric: [laughs] You know what they did? I heard this news and I’m like, “Wait, Season 27? Are you kidding me? Was this thing going since 1990?” No, they do two seasons a year, so I figured it out quickly.
[Kamilah laughs]
Eric: I’m learning so much, you guys. In the last week, since I’ve researched this to talk about it on the show, I’ve learned so much about Dancing with the Stars. It’s ridiculous. But Evanna Lynch is going to be paired with Keo Motsepe, who’s the professional. Dancing with the Stars, they pair a celebrity with a professional dancer, and then they compete in ballroom and swing and dancing competitions. So Keo is her partner. He’s actually been on the show eight… this will be his eighth time on the show. He actually gets eliminated in the first to third week most of the times, historically.
Andrew: Uh-oh.
Eric: I know; it doesn’t bode too well. He has gone the farthest with actress Jodie Sweetin, who played Stephanie Tanner on Full House and Fuller House. That was the sixth overall place ranking in Season 22. And he actually ranked fourth overall with Jennie Finch-Daigle, who’s a two-time All Star softball pitcher for the US in the Olympics, and that was Season 26.
Andrew: I think I can see her doing pretty well. She’s young, she’s hip, she seems to take care of herself. I could see her really putting a lot of effort into this and making it pretty far.
Eric: So I think the two of them are a great pair. Actually, Evanna did a live Instagram video yesterday where she Sorted Keo into… she made him take the Pottermore Sorting test, and he got Slytherin. And she was surprised, but also said that it was very fitting because apparently he is very competitive. So I think that the two of them make a great pair. They’re both happy to be together. And I think, hey, I’m going to… nothing short of this could have made me watch Dancing with the Stars.
Andrew: It sounds like you’re an expert on the show now. “I think they’re going to be a great pair.” You don’t know Keo.
[Kamilah laughs]
Micah: You sound like a sports analyst.
Eric: Oh, yeah. [speaking like a sports analyst] “Yes, historically, yes, the right fit with the right attitude.”
Andrew: Yeah, right. You’re talking like you watch every season or something. But hey, maybe you’re right.
Eric: We’ll see. But here’s the other thing…
Micah: Tell us.
Eric: What is that, Micah?
Micah: No, tell us. This is like a crash course in Dancing with the Stars. It’s great.
Andrew: Well, back to more of a Harry Potter topic. Well, I guess not; this is more of a spinoff. But we don’t get to say this very often: A new J.K. Rowling book is coming out this week. Lethal White, the fourth book in the Cormoran Strike series, is going to be published on Tuesday, September 18. Kamilah, have you been reading these books?
Kamilah: I have. I’m super excited.
Andrew: Yeah, me too. Me too. This is the longest one in the series. The fourth book in the series is the longest. Sound familiar? That’s what happened with Goblet of Fire.
Kamilah: [laughs] No, yeah. I’m super, super pumped to see it. I cannot imagine what’s going to make it this long.
Andrew: Yeah, well, a review came out last week. I don’t know if they had… who was it? It was some British publication, and they were saying that it’s the best book in the series.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: They were raving about Jo’s writing. So yeah, I’ve really enjoyed these books. They’re great whodunnits. It’s really wonderful. We love J.K. Rowling’s appreciation for detail in the Harry Potter series, and just her writing style. And then you read these Cormoran Strike books, and you get that same stuff, and you’re reminded, “Oh my God, this is so crazy, getting some fresh stuff from J.K. Rowling. Some fresh, brilliant writing from J.K. Rowling.”
Eric: Man, when she is on, she is on. She was writing film two of Fantastic Beasts and film three of Fantastic Beasts on either side of her writing the longest Cormoran Strike book, and the quality doesn’t suffer. It’s crazy.
Andrew: No. Yeah, this one took her about two years, I think, because we were getting one of these books each year, and then she needed more time for this because of what Eric, I think, is saying.
Micah: Well, don’t be surprised if the Niffler pops up in Lethal White just by accident.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: The editor failed to catch that little mistake. But yeah, I mean, I have my copy pre-ordered, ready to go. I think it’s… what is it, the 18th it comes out?
Eric: Yeah, Tuesday.
Micah: And especially with the way the last book ended, big cliffhanger. So we’ll see.
Eric: Oooh.
Micah: I wonder… you know a lot of times when you have those cliffhangers at the end of the book, what they’ll do is as soon as the next book starts, it’s already in the future, and you have to wait several chapters until you go back and find out exactly what happened?
Andrew: Right.
Kamilah: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: Maybe they’ll have to do that, or maybe that’s what will happen this time. They do that on TV shows too. An episode will end with a really great cliffhanger, then you’re like, “Oh my God, I’ve got to watch the next one,” and then you watch the next one; it doesn’t answer right at the beginning. Darn it.
[Eric laughs]
Kamilah: Yeah, like How to Get Away with Murder. That’s the entire show. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, yeah. I’ve got to say, I’m reading Career of Evil for the first time, you guys. I’m catching up. Somehow it got away from me all this… I read The Silkworm years ago. And I’m loving it; I’m 250 pages in or so, so I’m almost… I mean, a third of the way through the book. But it’s really good; I’m really liking it a lot. And I have no idea whodunnit, but I am reminded of how the Harry Potter series has mystery at its core, and how suited to this style of writing J.K. Rowling really is, so I’m loving it. And I’ll definitely be getting Lethal White when that comes out.
Andrew: That’s another reason to love this series. We loved Harry Potter because of the mystery angle, and you get more of that here.
Eric: I was going to make a joke of us never doing Chapter by Chapter or anything of Cormoran Strike, but it turns out we didn’t do half the books we thought we did for Chapter by Chapter.
[Eric and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, we’ve got to finish Potter first before.
Eric: I know we’d love to; we’ve talked about it before. We’d love to go through… maybe not Chapter by Chapter, because there’s very shorter chapters in the Strike books, but…
Andrew: Murder by murder.
Eric: Murder by murder!
Kamilah: Oh my God. [laughs]
Andrew: We just focus on the murders.
Eric: Yeah, I know we’d like to talk about them at length at some point in the future.
Andrew: Well, and I’m sure we will talk about Lethal White in the next couple weeks, depending on when we finish it. It sounds like Micah and I will be reading it this week, or starting, at least.
Eric: I’ll be catching up.
Andrew: Are you guys getting the physical or ebook? I’m getting the ebook.
Micah: Physical.
Kamilah: I’m getting the physical.
Eric: Wouldn’t you just…? I mean, is it proven that you get very bad headaches and seizures from staring at a screen for 30 hours? Because that would be me.
[Kamilah laughs]
Andrew: It’s E Ink. It’s not the same as a computer screen, so that’s why I can bear it.
Eric: Oh, right! You get one of those readers where it looks like the written page?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Eric: It’s not like a backlight… okay, cool. Yeah, I’ll be getting the physical because I like paging through and smelling the binding glue.
Andrew: I just hate holding books. This sounds so stupid, but with Chapter by Chapter, I’ve been reading the ebook versions of Harry Potter. It’s just more comfortable to hold a Kindle, in my opinion.
Kamilah: Oh, man. No, I love paperbacks. I have a whole J.K. Rowling shelf, so it will be going on. It’s starting to run out of space, but it’ll be going on there.
Andrew: That’s the thing; I actually do have the first three Cormoran Strike books physical because, for that same reason, I’ve got to buy the physical J.K. Rowling book. Guess I’ll buy both. Take all my money, Jo.
Kamilah: As always.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Micah: That’s a great point. If you had to do a estimate of how much money you’ve given J.K. Rowling over the years, what do you think it would be?
Kamilah: Oh, God.
Andrew: Oh my God. Are we just talking about books?
Micah: Sure.
Kamilah: Yeah, do we count Wizarding World as well?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: It’s hard without using percentages, yeah.
Andrew: If we’re talking just books, I probably have 20 J.K. Rowling-related books.
Eric: So like, $400?
Andrew: Yeah, something like that.
Eric: It’s impossible. I’m going to… I mean, trips to fan conventions… no idea. Yeah, no idea.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s true. Before we get to Chapter by Chapter, two things. First of all, we have decided to record the Half-Blood Prince movie commentary in the next couple of weeks. We are going to nail down the exact date and time very soon. We will be livestreaming it at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and then it will be released to everybody. This is the commentary that patrons decided they wanted us to do next, so we’re going to do it. So stay tuned for an announcement there. Also, this week’s episode is brought to you by Zip Recruiter.
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: And now it’s time for Chapter by Chapter: Half-Blood Prince Chapter 6, “Draco’s Detour.” So as we’ve been doing the past couple of weeks, we here at MuggleCast love to give everybody a great explanation of what we’re reading.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: We’ve been doing it forever, and now we’re making it simpler than ever with our group summary.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Eric: Let’s hope this isn’t as much of a dumpster fire as the last several have been.
Andrew: Oh, that’s why I love it. [laughs] So we have a different order this week; Eric is going to start. Seven words, and we’re going to each take turns.
Eric: All right. Ready? Diagon…
Andrew: I wonder what I have to do. [laughs] … Alley…
Micah: … looks…
Kamilah: … really…
Andrew: … sad…
Micah: … and…
Eric: … desolate.
Andrew: Okay!
Kamilah: Yay. [laughs]
Andrew: That one works.
Micah: That was good. We’re getting better.
Andrew: Diagon Alley looks sad and desolate. Oh, looks really sad? What was it? Looks really sad and desolate. Okay, I like that one.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Andrew: So it’s true; this chapter actually begins with some ominous signs. We have found out that the Death Eaters have kidnapped the ice cream guy.
Eric: Florean Fortescue. He has a name, Andrew.
[Kamilah laughs]
Andrew: Florean Fortescue. His name is hard for me to pronounce, so I just like to call him ice cream guy. And the wandmaker, Ollivander. And it’s an important… it’s a sad thing to read, because our childhoods, or the childhoods of these characters, are disappearing before our eyes. This is the precursor to losing Hedwig.
Kamilah: I was just thinking that. [laughs]
Eric: It’s all building up to Hedwig.
Kamilah: It’s all downhill from here.
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, Florean, he’s not… we didn’t really connect with him, and actually, we’ll touch on that in a second; J.K. Rowling shared some interesting information about him. But Ollivander, losing him, that’s a big deal. This guy has been a stalwart in the series. He is the wandmaker. He had that iconic moment with Harry Potter, and now he’s just gone.
Micah: True.
Kamilah: I was just going to say, it’s a really smart, tactical decision by the Death Eaters.
Andrew: To take him? Yeah.
Kamilah: Yeah, take away the best wand source.
Micah: And Lupin says as much.
Eric: Yeah, for sure. I always liked Florean more than I liked Ollivander. Because if you remember back to the scene with Harry and Ollivander, Ollivander seems to come away praising Voldemort, that whole “Terrible things, but great.” Really kind of… I think it even says Harry is not sure if he’s supposed to like this guy; he’s not sure if he does. Versus Florean Fortescue, my favorite book, Prisoner of Azkaban, features weeks of vacation that Harry spends in Diagon Alley because he blows up Aunt Marge and ends up getting to roam free in Diagon Alley for a couple weeks. Florean Fortescue helps him with his homework.
Andrew: Aww.
Eric: If you remember, he gives him free ice cream to boot.
Kamilah: He’s kind of the best.
Eric: Yeah, he’s the best. He’s just a nice old man with ice cream, with free ice cream, and he helps Harry with his… I think it’s history homework. But like you said, it actually turns out that Florean Fortescue… at the time J.K. Rowling was writing Book 6, she was expecting Florean Fortescue to pay off in a big way in Book 7, and unfortunately, when it got down to writing Book 7, it became clearer… actually, I’ll just read this from J.K. Rowling. “I originally planned Florean to be the conduit for clues that I needed to give Harry during his quest for the Hallows, which is why I established an acquaintance fairly early early on.” Book 3. “At this stage, I imagined the historically-minded Florean might have a smattering of information on matters as diverse as the Elder Wand and the diadem of Ravenclaw, the information having been passed down in the Fortescue family from their august ancestor. As I worked my way nearer to the point where such information would become necessary, I caused Florean to be kidnapped, intending him to be found or rescued by Harry and his friends. The problem was that when I came to write key parts of Deathly Hallows I decided that Phineas Nigellus Black was a much more satisfactory means of conveying clues. Florean’s information on the diadem also felt redundant, as I could give the reader everything he or she needed by interviewing the Grey Lady. All in all, I seemed to have had him kidnapped and killed for no reason. He is not the first wizard whom Voldemort murdered because he knew too much (or too little), but he is the only one I feel guilty about, because it was all my fault.”
Andrew: [laughs] I love that. And J.K. Rowling on Pottermore described this as a ghost plot, I believe?
Eric: Yeah, I think so. Ghost plot.
Andrew: Which I think is an interesting way to categorize these certain types of situations. Micah, does this make sense to you?
Micah: Yeah, it makes sense to me, if J.K. Rowling says that this is what she intended. But I would go back to what was said very early on, is that this all seems like a bit of a loss of innocence, especially when Harry is reflecting on the fact that both Fortescue and Ollivander have disappeared. His childhood, his early years, are now being compromised a bit in a way, especially once you get to Diagon Alley and you see just how sad and desolate it is. It just shows you that things are changing and getting darker. I know we’ve talked about that in the previous chapters, just how the landscape and the environment overall are shifting, and this just adds to it even more.
Andrew: I have a single reason why I genuinely like Florean Fortescue: I love the design of his ice cream parlor at the Diagon Alley theme park.
[Eric laughs]
Kamilah: Oh my God, it’s the best part. It’s so great.
Andrew: Yes! I’m so happy.
Eric: Is it the green lettering on the pink cupcake thing?
Andrew: And it’s got the ice cream swirl on the outside, and at night it glows in multiple colors. I just love it. It’s legitimately my favorite place to go in the theme park.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: Dunkin’ Donuts in the Muggle world makes me happy with their design and logo and all that; Florean Fortescue in the Wizarding World makes me equally happy.
Kamilah: It’s also usually 100 degrees there, so it’s a very happy place inside.
[Eric and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: The Butterbeer ice cream is pretty good as well. Sidebar.
Eric: The theme of loss of innocence is definitely a big one here, like you guys have all said. Just one other note here: Harry is at the Burrow for weeks. Again, it’s basically like the same deal he had in Book 3, when it was a lovely, relaxing downtime. He’s at the Burrow; he’s with Ron and Hermione and all these friends that he knows are coming in and leaving, having dinner. It’s a beautiful thing, but he can’t quite appreciate it because there’s all this news of people being kidnapped and killed. And he actually has his 16th birthday this way. It would be an ordinarily wonderful day, except during it, Remus comes in and is talking about who was killed. So the one we didn’t mention, Igor Karkaroff, everybody, from Goblet of Fire, the head of Durmstrang School, who I guess defected from the Death Eaters. I think we kind of saw that happen, though I often forget what the circumstances were. I think Igor Karkaroff just got… we see him with Snape, and he’s worried about the Dark Mark coming back, and then I guess he makes a run for it.
Kamilah: I guess because he had turned in so many people, so he thought that he would be executed on return because he betrayed so many.
Eric: Yeah, and it took Voldemort a year to find him, which Lupin says is a big deal, that Karkaroff survived almost a year before he was killed. And consequently, here’s where I get confused a little bit. He says that Sirius’s brother Regulus died after only a few days, and I think I get confused because we know what really happened with Regulus, that I tend to think that Voldemort killed him personally as a result of finding out his secret, but that, I have to remind myself, is not what happened, because Voldemort did not actually know. Despite the letter we have from RAB about “I’ve discovered your secret,” Voldemort doesn’t actually know that Regulus did that, and so this common knowledge that Remus is talking about is that Regulus defected, but we have to kind of go back to what Sirius said in the previous book, which was that Regulus got in over his head. So I think that everyone just… Remus and Sirius both think that Regulus got cold feet and then was killed a few days later. They don’t know the full extent, but even Voldemort, or the Death Eaters who may have killed him, know the full extent of why he left.
Micah: It’s also our second mention in this book of Regulus.
Andrew and Kamilah: Yeah.
Eric: When was the first?
Micah: Slughorn.
Eric: Oh, yes. Was that last…? Yeah, two chapters ago.
Kamilah: She’s definitely drumming up for us to be on top of remembering that Regulus exists.
Andrew: Yeah. So there is a bit of good news, despite losing Igor and Florean and Ollivander. Harry is now Quidditch captain! And what I find funny about this moment is that Hermione is like, “Oh my God, yes. This means you can have access to the prefect bathroom and everything.” And why is this the first benefit that Hermione mentions?
[Eric and Kamilah laugh]
Micah: Oh, you know.
Kamilah: The bathroom is kind of baller. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, so that’s the thing. I was trying to think back to my high school years, and thinking about why I guess it’d be cool to have access to, I don’t know, the faculty room. That’s the only thing I could think of. You don’t have to be around other students who you don’t enjoy. But I don’t know; that seems like a weird thing for Hermione to prioritize.
Eric: You know the showers in gym class, and how you had communal showers? If there was a private spa at high school, wouldn’t you be like, “Oh, cool”?
Andrew: But I do wonder what the other benefits are. Prefect bathroom and…?
Eric: And he gets to be captain of a sport that he loves for his school! Yay!
Andrew: That is cool.
Kamilah: Harry is officially the ultimate jock.
[Eric and Kamilah laugh]
Eric: Jock level: maximum.
Andrew: But despite this, there is talk of going back to Diagon Alley to get their school supplies, and Mrs. Weasley is concerned about going there because of the danger, and there’s speculation, “Oh, maybe Voldemort could be hiding.” There’s a joke made by one of the Weasley brothers, I think, or maybe it was Ron?
Micah: It was Ron.
Andrew: Ron, about “Oh yeah, Voldemort is going to be hiding in one of the shops. Sure, Mom.” Molly says, “If you think security’s a laughing matter, you can stay behind and I’ll get your things myself.” Now, to me, that is a bit strange, because just a chapter earlier, she was rolling her eyes at Arthur’s security test. So what’s the difference here between the two situations?
Kamilah: I guess Diagon Alley.
Micah: Yeah, the only thing I could think of is just the way that the chapter opened with Lupin coming in with all this really sad news. Maybe that changed her mind a little bit. She also may feel very comfortable within the confines of her own home, but going out of the Burrow, she may feel a little bit different.
Andrew: Yeah, and now she’s looking after her children, as opposed to her husband. [laughs] Slightly different.
Kamilah: I mean, if they’ll take the ice cream guy, right? She must be like, “Damn, they’ll take anyone.”
Eric: Nobody’s safe! Nobody’s safe!
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Micah: One other thing I wanted to mention, though, before we move off to Diagon Alley, though, is that Ginny is referenced as being very, very good at Quidditch during the downtime that Harry has at the Burrow, and I thought that was setting up her making the team.
Kamilah: Yeah. I also thought it was really funny that he called out Hermione’s being dreadful at Quidditch, that little giveaway where it’s like, “Hermione and Harry played against Ginny and Ron, but they were evenly matched because Hermione was so bad at Quidditch, and Ginny is actually really good.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Just another thing to love about her.
Micah: Hermione, though, really these last couple of chapters, and then especially as we move through this one, even with the bathroom comment, she just doesn’t seem to be herself. I don’t know what it is. The way that she reacts…
Eric: She just got punched in the eye.
Micah: What’s that?
[Kamilah laughs]
Eric: She just got punched in the eye.
Micah: That’s true. Maybe that’s what it is; the punch in the face threw her off of it.
Eric: Yeah, but even that was a cause of her not really being herself. Like you said last week, she would never touch that thing normally.
Andrew: Is it just the threat of Voldemort being back that’s kind of throwing her off? This rising threat that’s making her a little more desperate, a little more quick to act in the moment, as opposed to being more calculated? As we’ll see with this Vanishing Cabinet situation a little later.
Eric: Yeah, possibly.
Andrew: So here’s another thing… [laughs] I’m just being critical of this whole chapter, because I question these characters. So the trip to Diagon Alley does ultimately happen, and everybody’s coming along, and we learn that instead of a team of Aurors accompanying them for their own security, Dumbledore has asked Hagrid to be the group security. So instead of “a bunch o’ Aurors,” we’re just having Hagrid watch them. Why has Dumbledore decided that Hagrid can take the place of these Aurors?
[Eric and Kamilah laugh]
Kamilah: It’s questionable.
Andrew: Okay, I’m glad I’m not alone here. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Micah: [as Southern Hagrid] “Andrew, let me explain something to you. That’s because I’m the best bouncer this side of Diagon Alley.”
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: Now, I’m sure he is a great bouncer, and we see him standing outside the stores that they go into. But he can’t fight a bunch of Death Eaters and potentially Voldemort as well as a bunch of Aurors can.
Micah: True.
Eric: He’s not a proper wizard.
Kamilah: Maybe this is actually Dumbledore throwing shade at the Aurors; he thinks they’re also going to be useless against Voldemort. He’s like, “It doesn’t even make any difference. Just send Hagrid; it’ll be fine.” [laughs]
Andrew: Ahh. Wow, that would be pretty rough. So I was thinking that Dumbledore thought, I think for the family’s peace of mind, it’d be more comforting to have a familiar face with them, as opposed to these Aurors who they don’t know.
Eric and Kamilah: Yeah.
Micah: I like that idea because just in general, the amount of security that’s being placed on Harry you would think would draw more attention to him, right? He’s getting chauffeur service to the Leaky Cauldron, and then once he’s inside Diagon Alley, who knows? Maybe there are other people who are watching him; we just aren’t aware of it. And then maybe… Dumbledore trusts Hagrid, and we know he trusts Hagrid way more than he would trust any Auror, because we don’t know at this point. Think about everything that’s going on and who has been compromised. It could be a danger to just take a random Auror and put him or her on the security force that’s supposed to look over Harry.
Andrew: Yeah. I’m also thinking Dumbledore thought that there was actually not going to be a threat there; he felt pretty confident that there wouldn’t be. Because if he did think there was a chance of a threat, he might have just prevented them from going to Diagon Alley altogether.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, you can owl order all of your supplies. I think we see… I was going to say, I think, doesn’t Ron do that later when it turns out he’s taking Potions too? Something like that.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, by this point in the series, they do have the GrubHub app.
Kamilah: [laughs] Amazon Prime.
Andrew: Same day delivery. Two-hour delivery. Prime now. [laughs]
Micah: Isn’t there also a mention – I forget what book it’s in, or if it was just a movie-ism – but Dumbledore saying that he trusts Hagrid with his life?
Eric: Yeah, that’s in both.
Andrew: In the book.
Kamilah: I did think it was really cute, but also sad… so when Hagrid goes in… when they go into the Leaky Cauldron, and Tom the bartender is there, and he’s like, “Oh, just passing through. Hogwarts business.” And I thought it was a really sad callback to the first time that they went to Diagon Alley, except really depressing, as opposed that day when everything was happy and exciting.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Yeah, I love that connection between Book 6 and Book 1, because there’s another one in this chapter, too, when they get into Madam Malkin’s, which is that the same person that Harry runs into… if you remember in Book 1, he ran into Draco in Madam Malkin’s too. That was when they first meet.
Kamilah: Oh, yeah.
Eric: And I’m not 100% sure on whether Madam Malkin is accidentally sticking him with the pin in Book 1, but they have a not too happy conversation about Slytherin House and Hufflepuff. “I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” Something like that. But Tom the bartender, love that guy. It’s real sad to see his business has kind of died down.
Andrew: Oh yeah, nobody’s in there. Maybe Hagrid could have sat in there a couple hours after the operation has ended, and could drink a lot and pay Tom’s bills.
[Kamilah laughs]
Eric: It raises the question… Hagrid is not a proper wizard. The only reason he would be here is nostalgia. Dumbledore is bringing us on this trip for nostalgic purposes.
Micah: And as much is proven, isn’t it? I mean, we’ll talk about it a little bit later, but they sneak out, they get around him, and that’s dangerous.
Andrew: Everything’s fine, yeah. So speaking of the situation in Madam Malkin’s, they do go in there; they run into Draco and Narcissa, and the thing I wanted to talk about in this area is just how vicious Narcissa is. So things quickly get heated. At one point, Narcissa says, “It’s all right, Draco. I expect Potter will be reunited with dear Sirius before I am reunited with Lucius.” And then Harry raises his wand, and Hermione stops him from casting a spell. But that’s just a horrible thing to say. And then a few moments later, she says, “I see that being Dumbledore’s favorite has given you a false sense of security, Harry Potter. But Dumbledore won’t always be there to protect you.” I mean, she is saying that “There are people who are going to come and probably kill you.”
[Eric laughs]
Kamilah: And also Dumbledore. Spoiler alert, Narcissa. [laughs]
Eric: Let’s not excuse Harry from the things he says. He calls Lucius her idiot husband, and says that maybe Azkaban can find a double cell, a double wide cell for them.
Kamilah: “Your loser of a husband.”
Eric: The gloves are off on both sides here.
[Eric and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: But as a mother, shouldn’t you take the high road?
Eric: Yes, 100%.
Andrew: I know, she’s in a bad situation right now with her husband and what Voldemort has Draco doing, but still, it just seems so vicious for an adult to be saying to a child!
Kamilah: I know, Harry is 16. She’s definitely stooping to his level.
Eric: There’s a very crucial part of… it’s an adjective that I love or something, but it’s explained that Harry is the same height as Narcissa, and that means everything to me reading because I’m just like… they’re looking each other straight in the eye. They don’t need to look up or look down; they’re the same height. They’re on even playing field, right? They’re both potentially accomplished witches and wizards. And the animosity, the vitriol between them, is very palpable, and I love that. It’s not Draco that Harry is up against; it’s his mom.
Andrew: Yeah, and then the comic relief in the scene is Madam Malkin being there and just being like, “Oh my gosh, what on earth is happening in my shop right now?”
[Kamilah laughs]
Eric: She’s scandalized. Poor Madam Malkin.
Andrew: “Can we just take some measurements and move on, please? We’re in a clothing store.”
Eric: She’s so shaken. And the worst part of it is Draco throws off the robes that she was fitting him for, and Narcissa is like, “We can do just as well at Twilfitt and Tatting’s” or whatever, and they just leave. And Madam Malkin is so devastated that even when Harry and Hermione are getting fitted for their robes, and Ron, she’s distracted and is just happy to see them go. She just can’t… it ruins her day. Draco and Narcissa saying all those mean things just ruins her day.
Andrew: Well, and again, Narcissa, why do you have to throw shade about Madam Malkin’s place of business?
Eric: It’s bad. I mean, Draco starts it. If that’s any… Draco does have some agency in this chapter, which is he says, “In case you’re wondering what that smell is, Mother, a Mudblood just walked in.”
Kamilah: It’s true. He escalated the situation right at the beginning.
Eric: Man. It just kind of…
Micah: Do you feel like, though, there’s any fault on the part of Hagrid here, though, too? Because he just decides to wait outside. And Mrs. Weasley was already very concerned about them splitting up, and the first place that they go, Hagrid doesn’t even go in with them.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, he’s being the bouncer out front.
Eric: Maybe he has bad memories of being fitted for robes, and he doesn’t go in there anymore.
Micah: But if he was a good security guard, he would have went in there first and checked it out, and then came back out.
Eric: Check the room?
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a good point. Maybe he’s afraid of needles, or Madam Malkin herself. Or Narcissa.
Eric: No, you bring up a good point. I mean, and if they had seen Hagrid, the insults would have been even greater, because of Draco’s history with Hagrid.
Andrew: So on a lighter note, we get to step into Weasley Wizard Wheezes for the first time. And actually, I was kind of amused by how they have to search for the store, because Diagon Alley in the theme park, you can’t miss it.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Or in the movie. It really stands out. But Molly is like, “Oh, it’s at this address. It should be right around the corner.” No, you can’t miss it in the movie or in the theme park. But anyway, this is really great. I think it’s heartwarming for readers because we get to see Fred and George putting together a successful business, and we’re introduced to lots of their products, like U-No-Poo and Daydream Charms and love potions and ten-second pimple vanisher and Spell-Checking quills and objects for wizards to wear if they’re no good at Shield Charms – they’ve got the shield hat and, I think, a cloak – and it’s really amazing stuff.
Kamilah: I had a question to pose: Are Fred and George actually the smartest characters in this series? [laughs] Because the products that they’ve made are kind of ridiculous. They’re really amazing, they’re super inventive, and then they’re actually running a profitable business. They’re back funding their consumer-facing business, this enterprise thing, selling to the government, and all in a matter of months. It’s kind of insane.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. They’re definitely the people who are the most prosperous based on the existing established world order. They’re able to make it work for them capitalism-istically, whatever the word is there. And everyone who comes into… people who know them are examining their stuff, and they’re like, “Actually, this is incredible magic.” Even Hermione with the Daydream Charm is really surprised. She’s like, “That’s insanely complicated!” Everyone’s surprised, and they’re totally thrilled. And you know what? Above it all, to top it off, they’re so humble that they say that Harry doesn’t pay here.
Kamilah: I loved that.
Eric: When they turn to him and they say, “You don’t pay here.” Unbelievable. It blew my… he’s like, “Don’t think we’ve forgotten that you gave us our startup money. You don’t pay here.” I mean, augh, the heart.
Andrew: I think it’s also a good thing to read for a lot of people out there who might not be book smart necessarily, but street smart. J.K. Rowling is introducing a couple characters who are able to make it that didn’t do so hot in school, necessarily, who dropped out.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Eric: Just last chapter, Mrs. Weasley says that Ron had more OWLs than Fred and George together. Ron.
Kamilah: Yeah, they’re like rags to riches, and also high school dropouts, always in trouble…
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. And of course, we spoke about previously how Molly – this is something just a couple books ago – could never have imagined her children would be up to. They kept it a secret from her for a long time, and now she’s very proud of what they’ve created.
Kamilah: Got to give props to her too. She has at least come around to that, right?
Andrew: Yeah, and I think this is something that a lot of people in the real world can actually relate to as well. Sometimes you go a certain path that your parents might not want you to go, and it’s hard to deal with that, like, “Oh, my parents don’t want me to do this, but I really want to.” And it’s nice seeing that parents can come around, and as a lot of people learn, myself included, your parents can come around to it and then be proud of you.
Eric: Yeah, it’s definitely a… the moral of the story is follow your dreams. Follow your passions.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Fred and George have this school rep for being jokesters, but they’ve turned it into… their passion, through hard work and dedication of building this now veritable line, or an empire of joke stuff and really incredible products now, and it’s just because that was what they wanted to do. And for books, we were talking about Fred and George being locked up in their room at the Burrow, and explosions were heard, all this stuff. They worked hard and they just… they wanted to be jokesters. Andrew, you wanted to be broadcasting, a broadcaster. And you both did it. Congratulations.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: We all did it.
Eric: Yeah, we all did it. I have a question, though – this is for everybody – because I’m just confused endlessly. This is not the first time I’ve ever been confused in a Harry Potter book, but this is absolutely the biggest, most prevalent, pressing question that I have had about the series as a whole. What is U-No-Poo?
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Kamilah: Oh my God. This is my favorite thing that they did.
Andrew: Kamilah, can you explain it? U-No-Poo?
Kamilah: I think it’s because… I think it’s a kind of brilliant pun, because sometimes if you have a lot of anxiety and stress, you might actually be kind of constipated, etc., right? And so I think people are so stressed, they’re actually constipated over all of this, You-Know-Who, Voldemort being back. It’s sort of brilliant.
Eric: Well, wait, but it’s not a product, right? It’s not a product.
Andrew: No, it is.
Kamilah: Oh, I don’t know. Is it a product? It could be a product. [laughs]
Eric: Andrew, you called it a product. I don’t think it’s a… we never see anybody buying it, do we?
Andrew: No, but it’s the first thing that we see when they’re introduced. And I’m looking it up now, and it’s described online as a product.
Eric: Because that’s what confuses me.
Andrew: It’s a prank product, though. It’s one of their pranks. It causes constipation in the person who takes it.
Eric: It causes constipation. Okay, because I’m so confused, because I thought it was just a sign on the side of the building. It’s fun wordplay, right? And it plays off the idea that there’s this pressing fear of Voldemort returning, and they’re like, “Oh, don’t worry about You-Know-Who; you should be worried about U-No-Poo. The constipation sensation that’s gripping the nation.” But I never thought it was… you don’t see anybody buying it, right? I didn’t know if it was a product or what.
Kamilah: I feel like it’s probably both, which is actually even more brilliant. Not only is it this insane pun and sign to grab your attention, but also you could probably buy it to prank your friends.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: Yeah, I think that’s the brilliance of this part of the chapter, though, is just you see how good Fred and George are, and I’m thinking also about how they’re making stuff that the Ministry is using. That would never even cross our minds, probably, in the previous books when we’ve been reading about Fred and George. Just what they’ve been able to accomplish with this shop is, in my mind, extremely impressive and beyond anything we thought them capable of doing, especially you go back to just the last chapter, and Mrs. Weasley is talking about how Ron got more OWLs than the two of them combined. So for them to be doing this level of magic, I would say there’s multiple levels of magic that they’re able to do, and I just… yeah, kudos to them.
Kamilah: I do think that’s why she was so mad at them, though, when they didn’t get any OWLs in Book 4, because she knew that they’re actually super smart.
Andrew: I wonder if Fred and George had dreams of feeding Voldemort U-No-Poo. U-No-Poo for You-Know-Who.
[Kamilah laughs]
Andrew: Give him a 30-year constipation.
Eric: Does it cure constipation? Does it help? Does it cause constipation or cure constipation? I’m so confused.
Andrew: Cause.
Kamilah: I feel like it’s got to cause it, yeah. [laughs]
Andrew: U-No-Poo. No poo. You will not poo.
Eric: You will not poo. How do…?
Andrew: Does Voldemort poop?
[Kamilah laughs]
Andrew: After he was brought back.
Eric: So rarely do we talk about bathrooms and going to the bathroom. There are bathrooms in Hogwarts, but the last thing people do is actually go to the bathroom in there. Even in this one, Draco goes there to cry. Nobody’s using the bathrooms. But then in this chapter, Hermione is like, “You can use the prefects’ bathroom,” and now we’re talking about not pooping. So congratulations, J.K. Rowling. You brought it back in a big way.
[Kamilah laughs]
Eric: I’m just so confused. Thank you for explaining. I guess it’s a product, then? I thought it was just a window display.
Andrew: What does Voldemort eat? Does he eat?
Eric: He is what he eats.
Micah: He’s self-sustaining.
Kamilah: [laughs] There’s so many questions.
Andrew: Eats Horcruxes. Okay, so that’s light. We’re glad to see Fred and George are doing well. Then we enter another business. The trio find Draco going into Borgin and Burkes and asking Borgin to fix one of the two Vanishing Cabinets. We don’t know this at the time, though; there’s no mention of it in this chapter. And of course, we don’t know why he wants this Vanishing Cabinet fixed, but of course, this is how he plans to get Death Eaters into Hogwarts to help take down Dumbledore. This is what we were alluding to earlier with Hermione kind of being out of character. After Draco leaves, Hermione just runs in and tries to talk to Borgin, pretending that she’s Draco’s girlfriend, and she’s like, “Oh, I want to get Draco something that he doesn’t already have. What things in here does he already have?” And Borgin actually quickly catches on to it and tells her to scram. This was just…
[Kamilah laughs]
Eric: She had to try!
Andrew: This was a rare miscalculation by Hermione.
Eric: She had to try.
Andrew: Did she, though? It just… why didn’t she maybe think this through a little bit more? She didn’t clear it with Harry and Ron first; she just runs in there and tries to do anything. Why did it have to be done now? And why is Hermione rushing to do something like this? Like I said, it’s not like her to make a rash decision and for something to not go successfully.
Kamilah: It’s weird. [laughs]
Micah: Great question. It’s a huge risk, though, too, because who’s to say that Borgin is not going to relay this information immediately over to Draco, that there’s this young girl who runs into the shop not seconds after he departs, and is inquiring exactly about what he was just in there for? So I think it’s a terribly uncalculated risk that she takes.
Eric: Well, even if she had been more suave, here’s my argument that it wouldn’t have helped Ron and Harry, because the answer is actually right in front of them this whole time, and they still don’t see it. Harry talks about looking in through the window, and he wishes he could see what Draco is pointing at, but he can’t, because the Vanishing Cabinet’s in the way!
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Eric: That same Vanishing Cabinet that was in Book 2 that he hid in when he last saw Draco in that shop, and “This darn cabinet’s in the way; I can’t see what Draco is talking about or doing.” It’s like, “Dude, it is the cabinet. We know it is the cabinet is what he’s talking about.” And so no matter what, Hermione is at a disadvantage. We’re all at a disadvantage. No amount of prep could have fixed the idea that it’s not actually an object, because they’re going in with the wrong understanding, or false pretenses, or just a fundamentally flawed goal here.
Micah: They don’t even think, though, because Draco himself says, “How would that look with me carrying that down the street?” Think about what in that immediate vicinity would look odd for a 16-year-old kid to be carrying down the street.
Eric: But it works both ways, because any Dark object would be suspect, right? In these darkened times. If Draco is carrying the severed Hand of Glory, that would look pretty weird.
Micah: But he could put that in a bag. He could have a little plastic tote bag that he carries it in.
[Eric and Kamilah laugh]
Eric: Do you think Knockturn Alley is on reusable shopping bags? Do you think they are big eco…?
Andrew: No, probably not.
Micah: Like you have to pay extra if you don’t bring your own?
Kamilah: Ten cents, yeah.
Micah: One other thing worth mentioning, though, in this particular scene is that Hermione does come across the necklace that is used later on in this book, and also is referenced in that same chapter in Chamber of Secrets.
Kamilah: Also, it’s really expensive. One and a half thousand Galleons is kind of insane. [laughs]
Eric: I was going to say, Borgin is not really selling any of his… he’s not doing really… I don’t think he understands business. The same stuff he has in his shop in Book 2 are in his shop in Book 6, four years later. What exactly is he selling? What product is he moving?
Micah: And who pays for that necklace, by the way? Is it just stolen by Draco? Because, as you just said, that’s pretty expensive.
Kamilah: Maybe Fenrir Greyback? Since Draco name-drops him.
Eric: Oh, Fenrir could bust in and steal it, yeah.
Micah: Is that our first mention of him?
Andrew: I don’t know.
Eric: I’m going to look it up.
Andrew: Lauren, who’s listening live, says, “In Chamber of Secrets, Nearly Headless Nick says that Peeves knocked over a very old and valuable Vanishing Cabinet. I love that this Easter egg is in the second book and is insignificant at the time. I truly believe that this was the Vanishing Cabinet that is put into the Room of Requirement because it was broken.” Yep, absolutely.
Kamilah: I think it is. I think that’s backed up. Also, in Book 2 Harry hides in the Vanishing Cabinet in Borgin and Burkes when he accidentally ends up there.
Andrew: Right, yeah.
Eric: But the important thing is he doesn’t close the door all the way.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Kamilah: Yeah, because the other one would have been unbroken.
Eric: It’s really the coolest bit of J.K. Rowling’s writing that she’s ever done. This is the same cabinet that they shove Montague into; Fred and George shove that Slytherin Montague into the Vanishing Cabinet, and he disappears from Hogwarts for like, six months, and sometimes is between places, this, that, the other thing. Harry, when he gets in there, is hiding in there from Draco and Lucius, but he keeps the door cracked open just a tiny little bit so that he can see through and watch what it is that Lucius is doing, and that apparently makes all the difference, because Harry would have been catapulted to Lord knows where.
Andrew: It looks like Fenrir’s first appearance was in Half-Blood Prince, Micah. So unless we heard about him in the past few chapters and just forgot, then that was the first mention of him.
Eric: I know Remus talks about him. I thought it was in Book 5 when he’s explaining that he’s going with the werewolves.
Kamilah: No, that’s in this book. Later in Book 6.
Eric: Okay, yeah, gotcha. Yeah, Half-Blood Prince is his first appearance.
Andrew: So I’ll complain about this later in our Chapter by Chapter series, but this is another example of Dumbledore leaving this giant hole in Hogwarts. He doesn’t know that the Vanishing Cabinet is in there, and that’s a big security loophole? Like, come on. I know Hogwarts is a big school, but you’re a brilliant guy.
Eric: Well, I was going to just argue that Dumbledore doesn’t know about the Room of Requirement, but he did talk about using it as a bathroom the other book.
Andrew: Right.
Kamilah: But someone must have put the broken Vanishing Cabinet somewhere. Well, I guess maybe Draco put it in the Room of Requirement. I don’t know.
Andrew: Maybe.
Kamilah: That’s interesting. How did it get there?
Andrew: Right, where did Peeves run into it, exactly? Anyway, before we get to MVP of the Week and Rename the Chapter, it’s time for a word from another one of our sponsors, Casper Mattresses.
[Ad break]
Andrew: Eric, did you want to…? Is this you? Connecting the Threads?
Eric: Yeah, before we get into MVP, actually, our patrons are writing in more info about the Vanishing Cabinet. Lauren L. writes, “In Chamber of Secrets, Nearly Headless Nick says that Peeves knocked over…”
Andrew: I read that earlier.
Eric: Oh, you did? Really?
Andrew: Yeah, five minutes ago.
Micah: Eric fell asleep on his Casper mattress.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Wait, so this was the cabinet that… Nick is to blame, actually, because Nick…
Micah: Well, Peeves is to blame.
Eric: No, no, but Nick persuades Peeves to drop it to get Harry out of detention with Gilderoy Lockhart, so he sets up that distraction. So Nearly Headless Nick broke the cabinet, which now Draco has to fix the whole… so this will not improve relations between Draco and Nearly Headless Nick, I’m sure.
Micah: One thing we should do is… I’m almost certain we had several episodes years ago on the threads between different books, and Chamber of Secrets and Half-Blood Prince have tons of common themes that run throughout and are connected in so many different ways, so it may be worth us revisiting that down the line. I know we’ll do it as we go through each of these chapters where we can, but maybe even doing an episode on how those two books connect so closely together.
Eric: So Nolan writes, “At the point in Chamber of Secrets, if Harry got in, if he had closed the door all the way, he just would have ended up at Hogwarts, because the other one wasn’t broken by Peeves yet.” So I don’t know. It’s just so funny, such a crucial plot point as to how all the Death Eaters get into Hogwarts in Book 6. We have the full history. We have it being found, discovered, broken, and then mended, and then used to infiltrate Hogwarts. And furthermore, somebody else wrote that Filch actually takes the cabinet up into, I guess where it is, the room? I don’t know if he knows about the room, but somebody says Filch brings it up there. So it’s just this crazy, long history of this Vanishing cabinet.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: Okay, MVP of the Week. Kamilah, let’s hear from you first. Who was your most valuable Potter player?
Kamilah: Yeah, so mine is Harry, because if he did not follow Draco, we would have had no plot until the necklace incident at Hogwarts. We would have had no drama; they would have just been coasting at school.
Andrew: [laughs] Good point. My MVP is the ten-second pimple vanisher, because Voldemort might be back, but at least our faces will be clean when we take him down.
[Eric and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: I need some of that real bad.
Micah: My MVP goes to Bill Weasley for just being a cool guy and helping Harry out.
Eric: Yeah!
Micah: Saving him five hours of having to go through security protocols at Gringotts. He just brings his gold straight to him. And I thought it was funny when Ron was like, “Oh, where’s mine?”
[Everyone laughs]
Kamilah: Also, the reference to the Probity Probe.
Eric: So unfortunate.
Micah: Though I do like yours, Eric. Actually, I had picked Fred for the very reason that you’re about to.
Kamilah: Yeah, same.
Eric: Well, I would have just picked Bill because I think… I like yours a lot. But yeah, Fred and George, there’s a small corner in their shop that doesn’t sell as well as all the rest of this stuff, and it’s their Muggle magic tricks, their Muggle magic rope tricks. Basically, I gave them the MVP because they’re doing right by their dad and showcasing, “Oh, Muggles. Bless them; they try, don’t they?” Muggle magic tricks. They just wouldn’t be Weasleys if they didn’t have something Muggle-related in their shop.
Andrew: It speaks to Arthur’s influence over them over the years, despite being rebels.
Micah: You left out the best part, though, Eric, because Fred straight up says that they created the section “for freaks like Dad.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Ouch.
Eric: Oh, so maybe they aren’t as close with their dad as they… I mean, but we saw them picking locks, right? In Book 2, they pick the lock for Harry’s trunk from the cupboard under the stairs to get his stuff, and they’ve always been apt at Muggle objects. So I’m just thrilled that… it’s funny, because of all the items in Fred and George’s shop, the Muggle ones are the ones that the wizards will have to spend the most time learning how to do, because it’s not as simple as waving a wand. You’ve actually got to learn how to move your hand in such a way that nobody sees what you’re doing.
Andrew: This is grim, but J.K. Rowling was going to kill Arthur in Order of the Phoenix, right? She was considering that. If that had happened, I bet all these products would have been named after him.
Kamilah: Oh, in memoriam? Aww.
Andrew: Yeah, little Arthur Weasley line of items.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: And he could be buried under the store.
Eric: That was really dark.
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t know why I thought of that, but just because the products were inspired by their dad. If they had lost their dad, then they probably would have named some of the products after him.
Eric: Yep.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: Anyway, time to rename the chapter. Kamilah?
Kamilah: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, “Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: I love Verity. She’s great. “Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley, there’s somebody up front trying to buy a trick cauldron.”
Andrew: Half-Blood Prince Chapter 6, “Dramione is Real, Baby!” Confirmed. Hermione is dating Draco.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 6, “When Narcissa Attacks.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Oooh.
Eric: And Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Chapter 6, “Nobody Screams for Ice Cream.”
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Micah: Wow.
Andrew: I think that’s my favorite this week.
Kamilah: Bleak.
Micah: I like that one. Or “Everybody Screams for Ice Cream” now, depending on…
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: No, but nobody screams because he’s not there.
Micah: I know, but he screams probably.
Andrew: [laughs] He’s screaming for other reasons.
Eric: He’s probably kidnapped somewhere screaming right now, yeah.
Quizzitch
Andrew: All right, so to wrap things up today, let’s play some Quizzitch.
Eric: Yeah, we got… just as a reminder, last week’s question: What famous children’s game gets a magical upgrade in this chapter of Half-Blood Prince? The correct answer is Hangman. Actually, this is my favorite object that’s inside Fred and George’s shop – with the exception of that Daydream powder, because that stuff looks great – but the “Reusable Hangman – spell it or he’ll swing!” It’s a wooden figure that, I guess, you can teach it what word you’ve chosen? You guys remember playing Hangman, don’t you? On notebook paper?
Andrew: Of course.
Eric: I mean, what a cool thing for J.K. Rowling to make magified or magic-ified. Really, really, really good stuff.
Micah: It was also something that was on her website. I know we talked about her old website last week; it was one of the games that you had to play. I think… was it not to reveal the name of this chapter? I could be completely making that up. We should check on that.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Eric: I actually… you know what? You might be completely right. That would be insane if that was true, but it was the name of this, wasn’t it? The answer to the Hangman was “Draco’s Detour.”
Micah: Because this chapter name was one of the chapter titles that was revealed on her site.
Eric: So the chapter in which she mentions Hangman, she provides a Hangman on her website for us to virtually interact with to get the name of this chapter where there’s magical Hangman.
Andrew: Pretty cool.
Eric: Oh my God. You guys, I might think that…
Micah: Isn’t The Hangman also the name of a bar? Or no…
Eric: Oh yeah, The Hanged Man. Yeah, in Little Wingleton.
Micah: Hangleton.
Eric: [laughs] Hangleton. Or it might be Upper Hangleton.
Andrew: Okay, so who won?
Eric: Okay, the winners of last week’s Quizzitch are Andrea, Joe, Nik, Michelle, Hayley, Charlie, Justin, and Sean.
Andrew: Okay. And this week’s question?
Eric: This week’s question: Who is in the first train compartment that Harry, Ron, and Hermione reach on the Hogwarts Express?
Andrew: Okay. If you have any feedback about today’s episode, just hop over to MuggleCast.com; we’ve got the contact form there. You can also just email us directly; MuggleCast@gmail.com. But while you’re on the website, you can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, listen to old episodes of MuggleCast, we’ve got the wall of fame, we’ve got the Chapter by Chapter archive. We’ve also got a link to our Patreon, Patreon.com/MuggleCast. We couldn’t do this weekly without your support, and we return the favor by offering lots of great benefits. Our Fantastic Beasts poster giveaway just wrapped up. We are going to select a winner this week, so early congrats to whichever Slug Club member won that excellent poster designed by MinaLima that I want to keep for myself, but I guess we’ll give it away.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Andrew: Micah smartly purchased his own, didn’t you, Micah?
Micah: I did. Well, “purchased”; I made a donation, okay?
Andrew: That’s right. I apologize.
Eric: And you won. You’re a big winner.
Micah: Yes. I looked it up, though, too, by the way; the Hangman game was actually for the Deathly Hallows title.
Eric: Oh, damn.
Micah: It was a good guess.
Andrew: Okay. Well, she was feeling inspired after Book 6, the Book 6 Hangman reference.
Eric: This is seriously the one artifact I really want. Wizard’s Chess is cool, but wouldn’t it be even cooler if you could have a magical Hangman?
[Andrew laughs]
Kamilah: It does look like “Draco’s Detour” was one of the revealed chapter titles, though. I found an SnitchSeeker post. So it was “Spinner’s End,” “Draco’s Detour,” and “Felix Felicis.”
Andrew: Huh. Can you imagine if the show was rolling before Half-Blood Prince came out, and we were like, “What does Draco’s Detour mean?!”
[Kamilah laughs]
Eric: That Draco is now working road construction in a American Pacific northwestern city, like all the fanfics.
Andrew: Voldemort has banished him from the Muggle world after his father’s big mistake in Order of the Phoenix. Anyway, that’s what we have for everybody this week. Stay tuned, patrons, for information on when we’re recording our Half-Blood Prince commentary. We’ll post that on social media and on Patreon, and then we will release that to the public after recording it, pretty soon after we record it. Also, send in your questions now for Half-Blood Prince Chapter 8. Kamilah, it was great having you on. Thank you so much.
Kamilah: I had a blast, so thank you so much for having me. And it’s a little… it’s great. You guys are the first podcast I ever listened to, back in ’05 or ’06.
Andrew: That’s awesome.
Kamilah: So it’s super, super exciting to be here.
Eric: We’re honored. Oh, and we’ll be in touch about that MuggleCast app as well.
[Andrew laughs]
Kamilah: Yeah, I’ll get right on it. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, no, good luck with your app that you’re developing with your friends, and let us…
Kamilah: Thank you.
Andrew: You have a name for it already, right?
Kamilah: Yeah, it’s called Sway.
Andrew: Sway, okay. Let us know when it’s out; we’ll let our listeners know. And of course, we’ll check it out. I want to see your work.
Kamilah: Yeah, absolutely.
Micah: And don’t forget to turn in to… [laughs] Turn in. Forget it. I was going to say, tune in to Dancing with the Stars.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Eric: Yeah! Monday, September 24 at 8:00/7:00 central on ABC.
Micah: You still have a whole ‘nother week before that debuts. You’re going to talk about it on the next episode.
Eric: Oh, yeah, you bet I am.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I’m going to go into a deep dive now. I’m going to research all the other stats.
Andrew: Yeah, he’s going to come back with more info. He’s going to be wired on coffee, because he’s going to have binged all 28,000 seasons of Dancing with the Stars.
Eric: To be honest, there’s over 400 episodes. Isn’t that ridiculous? They actually have more episodes of Dancing with the Stars than there are MuggleCast, and we’ve been doing this 13 years.
Micah: Well, that’s like Survivor. That’s been around for 35 or 36 seasons, because they do twice a year.
Andrew: Maybe while Evanna is hanging around all these Hollywood studios, she could be like, “Hey, has anybody tried to get J.K. Rowling to do a Harry Potter TV series yet? Why aren’t any of you on that?” [laughs]
Kamilah: Please. [laughs]
Micah: The question I have, though: Will they do the dance from the wedding that they did in the movie?
[Eric and Kamilah laugh]
Eric: That would be awesome.
Kamilah: Or if she wore the outfit that she wore. That would also be great. [laughs]
Andrew: Or a Harry Potter week, because they do those themed weeks. They do Disney Week.
Eric: Everybody else has to dance to “Neville’s Waltz” and stuff.
[Andrew and Kamilah laugh]
Eric: Pretty cool, pretty cool.
Andrew: All right. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Kamilah: And I’m Kamilah.
Andrew: Bye, everybody.
Micah: Bye.