Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #458, Portrait Party (OOTP 22, St. Mungo’s, Part 1)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And we’re in some weird times right now, and we hosted a livestream earlier this week just to check in on all of our lovely listeners and that was a lot of fun, so if you haven’t checked that out yet, please do; you will find it linked in our social media channels and in the show notes of today’s episode. I hope everybody’s doing okay, and hope everybody’s enjoying the podcast right now as we get through this stressful time. I think… well, at least three of us are working from home now, right, Laura and Micah?
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: How’s that like for you guys?
Laura: I think it’s going to get old.
Micah: Yeah.
Laura: It’s been okay.
Micah: Andrew, I will say, I have a deeper appreciation for you now, too.
Laura: Yep.
Andrew: Aww, in what way?
Micah: Well, you work from home on the regular. This is not easy.
Andrew: Yeah. But now everybody knows how much it sucks.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: It’s a challenge, though, because I mean, depending on what your situation is – whether you’re in a house, you’re in an apartment, how many people live with you – it’s hard to not blur the line between your work and your personal. And yeah, it’s tough.
Andrew: Exactly. Yeah, I completely agree with that. So for that reason, for all of you who are now working from home, hopefully you are dealing with it okay. If you need any tips, maybe hit us up on social media. We can try to provide some.
Micah: I noticed at the top of the show you said, “J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World.” I haven’t heard you say that in quite some time. Is she back in your good graces now?
Andrew: She never left my good graces. I know one thing that is soothing the four of us right now: We received some candles from one of our listeners, Devin. Devin really came through for us, because a couple months ago now, we were talking about the Hog’s Head and what it smells like. And Devin, as it turns out, is a candle-maker, and he can make any type of candle, any type of scent, so he sent Micah a candle that smells like goats.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: And it smells fantastic, by the way. I just want to let you know.
Andrew: Really?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Describe the smell for us.
Micah: Well… let’s do this right now. I have it right here. It’s not lit. It’s almost like a minty type of smell? Maybe I got it wrong. Devin probably would be able to tell you exactly what’s in it, but on the outside it does have a picture of Aberforth…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … and a screaming goat.
Andrew: Really!
Micah: It has a goat that is looking like it’s in some sort of distress, and there’s a lot of effects around its head.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Wow.
Micah: But Aberforth is at least six feet away from the goat…
Andrew: Oh!
Micah: … so he is practicing social distancing.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Perfect. Please take a picture and send that to us immediately, because I really need to see this label. So thank you…
Micah: Do you want me to light the candle? I’ll light the candle.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, please.
Eric: We all got candles from Devin.
Andrew: Yeah, mine smells like butterbeer, and it smells great.
Laura: Yeah, mine smells like pumpkin juice. It smells really, really good.
Eric: And I got one that has Harry’s birthday cake on it from Hagrid.
Andrew: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So thank you, Devin; it was really nice receiving those.
News
Andrew: So yeah, a lot of things are changing in light of the Coronavirus pandemic, and last week, we spoke about Fantastic Beasts 3 still planning on filming. Well, the day after we recorded, they decided that they were not going to proceed with shooting, so the film has been delayed again. Of course, it was delayed last year when they decided to work on the script longer, so now this is the second time it’s been delayed. Who knows when Fantastic Beasts 3 and every other Hollywood production will resume shooting? It could be a long time from now. It could be a month from now. We don’t know. If production is paused for a few more months, they could very well push that November ’21 release date for the movie, because they’re going to have to spend a lot of time on special effects and, of course, shooting the movie.
Eric: Yep.
Micah: The other thing that you had brought up when we did the live show that I thought was really smart was the fact that there are all these other movies right now that are being delayed, and that could also have an impact on when the third film is released.
Andrew: Yeah, there could be this domino effect where if some movies get delayed now, they’ll push other movies down the line, and the movies down the line will be pushed even further. So yeah, there could be this ricochet effect, so we will see.
Eric: Man, I just want all the movies to come out at once. Wouldn’t that be cool? Not all the Fantastic Beasts, but all the ones that kept getting pushed back, just released on one weekend. Say, “The theaters are safe now. The crisis is over. Go watch movies all weekend!” And then…
Andrew: “Come on out.”
Eric: Yeah!
Andrew: Yeah, that’d be nice, as long as everybody’s paying for each movie and not movie-hopping.
Eric: Or maybe like a film festival type pass, where you go and then it’s all weekend. But yeah, they pushed James Bond back. I was real upset about.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Ugh, I was so ready for that.
Andrew: That moved to November! Fast and Furious moved to next year! It’s crazy.
Micah: If they were smart, they would release these digitally and just put them behind a paywall.
Andrew: A couple of studios have done that so far, actually. In fact, Disney just released Onward, their brand new Pixar movie, and that’s available for rent for 20 bucks, which isn’t too bad if you think about how much movie tickets cost when you’re buying for a family of four. But it will also be on Disney+ on April 3. And Universal released a few movies already, also rentable for $20. So yeah, some studios are taking that advice, Micah.
Micah: As they should.
Andrew: So go ahead and watch Emma this weekend, the latest Jane Austen adaptation. I know you’re a huge Jane Austen fan.
Micah: Huge.
Andrew: J.K. Rowling is trying to do her part as well. She announced that she is granting an open license for teachers during the COVID-19 outbreak. “Teachers can now post videos of themselves reading aloud from the Harry Potter books to children prevented from attending school because of the virus. Teachers anywhere in the world are permitted to post videos of themselves reading from Harry Potter Books 1-7 onto schools’ secure networks or closed educational platforms. The open license for teachers is the first of several initiatives being planned to help bring Harry Potter to children at home, which will be announced shortly. Hashtag #HarryPotterAtHome.” So they’ve got some plans in the works in light of this outbreak. I didn’t even realize you needed permission from J.K. Rowling to read the Harry Potter books to your kids over the Internet, even on a closed network that nobody else has access to.
Laura: Yeah, I do think that’s a little odd, but I think the intention is good here, so I’m going to take that. But I’m really excited to see what the next initiative is.
Andrew: Right, like, are they going to make the ebooks readily accessible to the public? Or…
Laura: Maybe the movies?
Andrew: Maybe the movies. It all seems targeted towards children, though, at least for the time being. So yeah, we’ll see.
Micah: Yeah. But to Laura’s point, I think it’s just a formality so that there aren’t any issues that arise. She’s just putting it out there that it’s okay for teachers to be able to do this. But we actually have our own version of some of these books, right?
Eric: No.
Andrew: No, we don’t.
Micah: We started it on Patreon.
Andrew: What are you talking about?
Micah: Oh, come on.
Andrew: No, we don’t. J.K. Rowling, don’t listen to Micah. We don’t have our chapter readings on Patreon.
Micah: J.K. Rowling doesn’t even listen to this show.
Andrew: Team J.K. Rowling.
Micah: But J.K. Rowling should read. She should get on Twitter… I mean, I’m sure she has other things that she’s doing…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … but I’ve seen this; a lot of celebrities, right? Somebody told me the actor who played… is it Olaf in Frozen?
Andrew: Yeah, Josh Gad.
Micah: This is a great idea. Why not? I mean, people aren’t doing a whole lot of anything right now because they’re locked in and they can’t go out. But I think that would be a great opportunity for J.K. Rowling to show us all that she’s doing well, number one, but number two, to read from Sorcerer’s Stone or any of the other books.
Andrew: Yeah, that’d be cool.
Micah: Kids would love it.
Eric: Yeah. There’s actually a YouTube channel now where these stars are going; it’s Storyline Online, it’s called. But Kristen Bell… David Harbour of Stranger Things is reading a book called Snappsy the Alligator over online, and it’s just on YouTube. So there’s a lot of really cool… celebrities are pitching in. There’s a lot of really cool things that people are doing to ease this isolation.
Andrew: So stay safe, everybody. Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and keep listening to MuggleCast. You won’t get Coronavirus from us, because this is all digital.
Sporcle game
Andrew: So we’re going to do two things today that are a little different, as if your world isn’t changing enough right now.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Nice intro.
Andrew: First of all, we’re going to play a game to lighten the mood. And second of all, for the first time, I think, in Chapter by Chapter history, we are only going to do a half of a chapter, and that’s because there is a lot packed into Chapter 22 of Order of the Phoenix. So we didn’t want to try and cram it all into one episode, plus with us…
Micah: This is how it all starts, though, by the way.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: I’m just throwing it out there. This is how the whole Horcrux thing started. “Oh, let’s just do one.” Before you know it, we’re going to be cutting chapters into seven pieces.
Andrew: Well, that’s okay. We’ve got some time to fill. And now Fantastic Beasts 3 isn’t coming out till, like, November 2025, so…
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: We’re all stuck at home. We’re going to launch Page by Page here on MuggleCast, each episode dedicated to a page of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World.
Eric: [laughs] “We’re talking about paragraph seven today.”
Laura: Sentence by Sentence.
Micah: Laura, you’re going to need to connect the threads between words that show up on each of those pages in respective books.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Oh my God, please no.
Micah: No “the,” “a,” “it.” It has to be “Harry” or something like that.
Laura: Gotcha. No definite or indefinite articles.
Andrew: Actually, for April Fool’s, we should do a Page by Page segment…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: … where we just spend an entire episode on a page of the book. [laughs]
Micah: But you just spoiled it.
Andrew: That’d be so fun, though, just trying to vamp for a half hour on a single page of a Harry Potter book. Anyway, so let’s start with this game.
Micah: All right.
Andrew: Many of you are probably familiar with Sporcle; this is a website where you can play all kinds of quizzes and unique games that you can’t find elsewhere, I don’t think. So we’re going to play a Harry Potter name chain game. “Can you name the Harry Potter fact based on the previous answer?” There’s 55 of these.
Eric: Whoa.
Andrew: This is an eight minute timer, but we’re going to try to do seven minutes, because seven, and we’re Harry Potter experts. So let’s see how we do. Is everybody ready? You can see my screen?
Eric: So how is this…? The answer is based on the previous answer? Do you know how…?
Andrew: Exactly. Yeah, as soon as you see this, you’ll know how it works. You’ll get it.
Micah: All right. This is not like Heads Up, by the way. That was a lot of fun, that we played on Wednesday?
Andrew: Yes. We all did terrible in our first round.
Micah: No, the last one… oh, I was going to say, you did really well in the last round, but that’s because Laura and I, as Ravenclaws, were delivering such amazing hints.
Andrew: Yeah, I’ll give you guys credit. Sure. Takes two to tango.
Laura: I feel like when playing Heads Up, I am far better as a hint giver than a hint receiver. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. You were giving some great hints.
Eric: It’s definitely two different muscles.
Andrew: Everybody be sure to watch that. That’s a lot of fun, and that’s available to everybody. All right, so here we go. Play quiz. The Boy Who Lived.
Eric: Harry Potter.
Andrew: Good. Is best friends with…
Laura: Ron Weasley.
Micah: Ron.
Andrew: Who ends up marrying…
Eric: Ginny.
Andrew: Hermione.
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: Ginny. No, Hermione. Oh my God, you scared me.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Oh, wow. What kind of…? Wow, Ron and Ginny?
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Game of Thrones style.
Andrew: Who goes to the Yule Ball with Viktor, whose headmaster is…
Laura: Karkaroff.
Andrew: Karkaroff, who is interrogated in prison by…
Laura: Barty Crouch.
Andrew: Barty.
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: Whose son impersonates…
Micah: Moody.
Andrew: Mad-Eye, who dies while flying with…
Laura: Mundungus.
Andrew: Mundungus, who steals from the House of Black…
Eric: Black.
Andrew: Who helped create this secret document… uh, Marauder’s.
Eric: Yeah, map.
Andrew: Which fell into the hands of…
Micah: Fred and George.
Andrew: Whose sister is…
Eric: Ginny! [laughs]
Andrew: There’s the Ginny.
Laura: There’s Ginny.
Micah: Finally. Eric couldn’t wait for that.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Whose friend in Ravenclaw is…
Eric: Michael Corner.
Laura: Luna.
Eric: Oh. Well, I think…
Andrew: Luna? Luna.
Eric: Oh, darn, it was Luna.
Andrew: Whose father is the editor of…
Micah: Quibbler.
Andrew: Which featured a Harry Potter article written by Rita.
Laura: Rita Skeeter.
Andrew: Who was a reporter at this event.
Eric: Triwizard Tournament.
Andrew: Triwizard Tournament, which was hosted by… Hogwarts?
Micah: Hogwarts.
Andrew: Whose headmaster is…
Micah: Dumbledore.
Andrew: Who is killed by…
Laura: Snape!
Micah: Spoiler alert.
Andrew: Who pretends he works for…
Laura: Voldemort.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Whose loyal Animagus follower is…
Eric: Peter Pettigrew.
Andrew: Oh. I was… [laughs]
Eric: You said Nagini?
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Who was discovered to be alive by this professor… the answer was Wormtail.
Eric: Remus Lupin?
Micah: Quirrell.
Andrew: Quirrell.
Eric: Why would it…?
Andrew: Nope.
Micah: No, no, sorry.
Laura: Yeah, it was Wormtail. Lupin.
Andrew: Okay, Lupin was bitten by…
Eric: Greyback.
Andrew: Who also attacked this Weasley…
Laura: Bill.
Andrew: Who is married to Fleur, whose wedding is interrupted by the Patronus of…
Eric: Kingsley Shacklebolt.
Andrew: Who at the time worked for this man…
Micah: Fudge? Or no, Scrimgeour?
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: Good one. Who is the successor of…
Laura: Fudge.
Andrew: Who instituted himself at Hogwarts by means of this person…
Laura: Oooh.
Eric: Dolores Umbridge.
Laura: Boo.
Andrew: Umbridge, who elects this person as head of her Inquisitorial Squad…
Eric: Draco Malfoy.
Andrew: Whose Mother is…
Laura: Narcissa.
Andrew: Whose Death Eater sister is…
Eric: Bellatrix.
Andrew: Bellatrix, who tortures this student’s parents…
Eric: Neville.
Andrew: Who gets tortured by this professor…
Eric: Snape.
Andrew: Again? I think it’s somebody else.
Laura: It’s only once.
Micah: No.
Laura: Shoot, what are the brother and sister?
Eric: Oh, Alecto and Amycus Carrow.
Laura: The Carrows, maybe? Yeah, okay.
Andrew: There we go. Amycus Carrow.
Micah: There you go.
Andrew: Who teaches this subject…
Micah: Defense Against…
Eric: Dark Arts.
Andrew: Which was taught by this professor in Harry’s first year…
Eric: Quirrell!
Andrew: Thought I already had him.
Laura: No.
Micah: No, I missed that. That was my fault.
Andrew: Who meets Harry for the first time in this place… oh, the…
Laura: Three Broomsticks?
Eric: Leaky Cauldron.
Laura: Leaky Cauldron, yeah.
Andrew: The Leaky Cauldron.
Eric: [imitating Stan Shunpike] “That’s in London.”
Andrew: Which lies at the entrance to…
Eric: Diagon Alley.
Andrew: Diagonally. In which lies this wand’s… uh, this…
Micah: Ollivander.
Andrew: This wand man’s wand shop.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Tongue-twister. Who gets rescued from Malfoy Manor by this house-elf…
Eric: Dobby!
Andrew: Whose master was Lucius, who secretly gives Ginny this in…
Laura: Tom Riddle’s diary.
Andrew: Maybe just “the diary”? Yeah. Which hits this character on the head in the bathroom…
Eric: [laughs] Moaning Myrtle.
Andrew: Oh my God. Can I spell it right?
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Oh, I hope this…
Andrew: Help me!
Eric: M-Y-R-T-L-E.
Andrew: Thank you.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Whose bathroom lies at the…
Micah: Chamber of Secrets.
Andrew: We have about two minutes left. Which contains this creature…
Laura: Basilisk.
Andrew: Who Petrifies this Hufflepuff student…
Micah: Is it Ernie?
Eric: No, Justin Finch-Fletchley.
Andrew: That’s it. Who joins this secret organization…
Laura: Dumbledore’s Army.
Andrew: Whose meeting takes place in…
Laura: Room of Requirement.
Micah: Good thing we’re reading Order of the Phoenix.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Which is the home of this Horcrux… Diadem?
Laura: Diadem.
Andrew: Whose location was revealed to Tom Riddle by…
Eric: Grey Lady.
Andrew: Oh, ooh. Who was killed by…
Eric: Bloody Baron.
Andrew: Who is the ghost of this House…
Laura: Ravenclaw.
Eric: Slytherin.
Laura: Oh, [censored].
Eric: Because it’s the most recent answer.
Andrew: Slytherin, whose Head in the seventh book is…
Eric: Slughorn!
Andrew: Aw, good times. Whose favorite Muggle-born student was…
Laura: Lily.
Andrew: All right, and here comes the final one. Whose son is…
Eric: Harry.
Laura: Harry Potter.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Ah, tough one.
Laura: That’s the only one you get twice.
Andrew: All right, so we did that in about a little under six minutes.
Laura: Good job, guys.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: We got 100%. Average score on Sporcle for this quiz, 49%. Ha, ha, ha.
Laura: Sporcle wasn’t ready for us.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Sporcle is like, “Wow, did some Harry Potter podcasters just play? They sure know their stuff.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: All right, that was fun, and we’ll put a link to that quiz in the show notes if anybody else wants to try that themselves.
Laura: All right, well, before we move on to Chapter by Chapter, we do have a quick word from one of my favorite sponsors, Third Love.
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: Okay, it’s time for Chapter by Chapter, and this week we are discussing the first half of Order of the Phoenix Chapter 22, and we will start, as always, with our seven-word summary.
Eric: Here’s a question: Do we do four-word summary because it’s half a chapter? [laughs]
Andrew: I guess so.
Micah: No.
Eric: And then next week… because we’re going to collect these at the end, right? And have the chapter art with the seven-word summary? So unless we want to have two seven-word summaries, we should split this in half.
Micah: No.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Are you going to give half an MVP and half a rename the chapter?
Eric: Well, okay, so then let’s say in advance, is this seven-word summary a summary for the whole chapter, or just for the part that we’re covering?
Andrew: I think just part one.
Laura: Yes.
Micah: Just part one, because I didn’t read the rest of the chapter.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Yeah, I also stopped halfway through the chapter.
Micah: Yeah. Eric, you’re the one that gave direction.
Eric: No, it’s true. I really felt like there was a lot of stuff in the first half, and the second half has all those departments at the hospital, all crazy stuff going on. So it was me. I was like, “Hey, this is…” so I caused this mess. Apologies to everybody.
Micah: Yep.
Andrew: Or we can screw with them, Eric, and we can make this about the entire chapter, and we can watch them screw up and get lost. That’s their fault.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Well, I think Laura and I have a pretty good idea what happens.
Andrew: All right, fine.
Laura: I have read this book at least once.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: All right, part one. Go ahead whenever you’re ready.
Eric: Arthur…
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Laura: … survives…
Micah: … by…
Andrew: … receiving…
Eric: … care…
Laura: … from…
Micah: … portraits.
Laura: Yay!
Andrew: That was a quick one.
Laura: We did good.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Andrew: All right, so yeah, there is a lot that happens in the first half of this chapter.
Eric: Definitely, and it’s no surprise, I guess, that the chapter starts with Harry panicking after what he has seen or encountered or done. But we’ll remember at the end of the previous chapter, it was Neville that went and ran and got Professor McGonagall, and thankfully, Professor McGonagall is ready for action. She says, “We are going to see the headmaster.” But when they go to Dumbledore’s office, and the password is “Fizzing Whizbee,” I’m going to take issue with the complexity requirements of Dumbledore’s password. Does he want everybody to guess it? And that’s not really secure, is it?
Andrew: It does seem a little surprising. And just a password, just a verbal password, is very antiquated anyway.
Eric: Ooh, he should be doing two-factor authentication.
Laura: Yep, that’s right.
Andrew: Yeah, fingerprint, face ID… two-factor…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Andrew, you know what that sounds like to me?
Andrew: A security nightmare.
[“It’s starting to sound like a security nightmare!” sound effect plays with sirens]
Andrew: Get two-factor, Dumbledore!
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: There should be additional layers of security. This is a scary time right now.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Even if somebody gave the password and then Dumbledore’s wand lit up and projected on the wall and showed a video of who was downstairs, so he could be like, “Ah, yes, let Minerva up.”
Eric: Yes.
Andrew: Where’s his Nest Cam?
Laura: Or “Oh, no, not Umbridge.”
Andrew: Or maybe it’s simply that Dumbledore knows he could kick anybody’s butt.
Eric: Well, that’s… he’s got quite an…
Andrew: So they can just try. They can just try to come up to his office and see how that goes for you.
Eric: His ego, man. He’s just like, “Yeah, come what may.” Or maybe it’s that the gargoyle is so loud when it turns that he’ll hear them coming a mile away. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, get a little warning.
Micah: Although… I don’t think so, because… well, maybe they do. Because it’s only when McGonagall knocks on the door that they quiet down, so I don’t think they can hear the gargoyle.
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: Oh, that’s true. They were partying so loudly up in there.
Micah: I know. Dumbledore clearly has a portrait party every night with all those former headmasters and headmistresses.
Eric: Yeah, there’s definitely a commotion going on. But sweeping back to just passwords real quick: We’ve seen so many ways of protecting areas, especially the Tom Riddle way, which is, like, wound yourself. But it just seems funny and silly to me that there isn’t a stronger password, or that it’s guessable because it’s… if Draco, for instance, wanted to kill Dumbledore, all he really needs to do is come with a list of Honeydukes items, and eventually he’d get in and be able to do it.
Micah: But is it that simple? In the sense that, to me, simplicity… most people would assume a password to be far more complex, right? And that goes to Dumbledore’s character, right? Not only is it kind of witty, but it’s also not exactly what you would expect it to be. You would expect it to be something more difficult.
Eric: Ahh.
Andrew: Yeah, you’d expect it to be, like, capital A, ampersand, percentage sign…
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Can you imagine verbally dictating that?
Andrew: … asterisk, lowercase E, uppercase W, number two… [laughs]
Micah: And I kind of think that the gargoyle would attack or do something if somebody was trying to break in who wasn’t supposed to be there.
Andrew: Or we saw earlier in this book, the girls’ dormitory staircase turns into a slide. Maybe his staircase turns into a slide if Death Eaters try to walk up those stairs.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, so I looked it up and the previous list of passwords that Dumbledore has used… just for fun, because there’s been six of them that we’re privy to. Acid Pops, Cockroach Cluster, Fizzing Whizbee, Lemon Drop, Sherbet Lemon, and Toffee Eclairs.
Andrew: Cockroach Cluster. That’s a candy?
Eric: Yeah, it’s…
Andrew: Ew.
Eric: They sell them at Honeydukes in the park, too.
Andrew: He just wanted one particular part of that candy in a password.
Eric: [laughs] Wow. Wow.
Micah: The Cluster, right?
Andrew: Cluster, yeah.
Eric: But yeah, the portraits, they are having a grand old time, aren’t they?
Andrew: Yeah, it seems like we learn in this scene that Harry does walk in on a party of sorts, and Dumbledore hangs out with all these portraits every night, perhaps. I mean, they’re all sitting there anyway, and he’s there every night, so why shouldn’t they all converse? And if you think about it, these are the headmasters of Hogwarts over hundreds of years; they must all have an incredible amount of knowledge that they can share with one another, so maybe these parties are just them exchanging information.
Eric: Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s a good way of… I think Dumbledore uses them as an extension of his thoughts, to converse, to say things out in the open with these former headmasters.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: But I think that’ll be something that we talk about through the rest of this discussion, too, is how much knowledge do those portraits have? Are they able to retain the knowledge of conversation, and how much do they give in return? Is somebody from the 1700s able to say to Dumbledore, “Well, we had this problem at Hogwarts when I was headmaster, and here’s how we fixed it,” or is it a little bit more of a surface level kind of thing?
Andrew: I think the impression that we’ve been given from J.K. Rowling is it is their personality. I don’t know if she’s ever addressed the knowledge. I would think they’re able to share most of their memories, because their memories do in part to find their personality.
Eric: Yeah. I think that she has definitely revealed in an interview or called them imprints or shadows. They’re merely,… she kind of downplayed how much of their actual person was in it, specifically when talking about Dumbledore, because somebody said to her, “Oh, but now Dumbledore’s portrait is up there, you can just go ask him anything and it’d be just like talking to Dumbledore.” And I think in Cursed Child, she wrote… she kind of solves that a little bit, or maybe goes back on it a little bit with how Harry is able to talk to Dumbledore.
Andrew: She does say on Potter-No-More that these portraits would not “be capable of having a particularly in-depth discussion about more complex aspects of their lives; they are literally and metaphorically two dimensional. They are only representations of the living subjects as seen by the artist.”
Eric: Ahh.
Andrew: I don’t know, though. What could they be talking about every night in Dumbledore’s office if they don’t have much depth to them? “Did you see what Fawkes did today? Ha, ha, ha!”
Laura: It does seem like throughout this chapter – I mean, or at least this portion of the chapter – they’re all very interested in the hot goss. They’re all pretending to sleep, but they’re really listening and peeking through their eyelids a little bit, so I could see it very much being surface-level conversation or bickering with each other. Because they all seem really…. they seem to have a propensity for doing that, too. It’s like one of them says or does something, and the rest of them erupt in response to that thing.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Yeah. That’s got to be really annoying, though, by the way, if you’re trying to work. Think of all the important things Dumbledore is trying to solve for, and he’s got 50 different people just yelling at each other. I wonder if he can just put them on silent or do something. Mute, maybe?
Eric: [laughs] Do Not Disturb mode. But I do think that after becoming portraits, these individuals that are inside the portraits can probably retain memory, right? I mean, we see as much from the Fat Lady. She knows who the students are. She’s constantly tracking what… because only Gryffindors can get in, so she kind of is keeping an eye on who’s who; she’s learning the new students every year. I feel like by now, surely the oldest of the portraits would be basically a real person in so far as just experiences would build them up. So I think that even if they were just an artist rendering at first, they’re more now, and there’s more to that in just a moment.
Micah: Yeah. But one thing, though, too – and I apologize, Laura, if you have this later on in connecting the threads – but if you go back to Prisoner of Azkaban, that’s really where I felt we were introduced to portraits’ importance in terms… and the ability to shift between, right? We see it with the Fat Lady when she’s attacked at Gryffindor tower by Sirius, and then Sir Cadogan.
Laura: Yeah, and I love that connection because when we see it in Prisoner of Azkaban, a lot of the portrait moments that we get are more comical, whereas here we actually see the portraits being very useful, and really the only reason that Arthur Weasley lives.
Eric: Right, definitely. So we’ll talk more on the portraits in just a sec, but I had to ask… as soon as McGonagall and Harry come into Dumbledore’s office, Dumbledore says, “Oh, it’s you, Professor… and… ah.” He doesn’t really say, “Oh, Harry is here,” or, “Oh, hello, Harry.” And it really reminded me of the barrier that Dumbledore has had to put up to really ignore Harry’s pain all year. It seems like he’s gone so far that he’s not even going to say, “Oh, hello, Harry,” or acknowledge his… he’s gone the other end of the extreme of ignoring him, that he really won’t call him out. And we see this… Harry is telling his whole story, and Dumbledore is really not even looking at him, not once.
Andrew: Well, Dumbledore is having a party with the portraits and McGonagall comes in, and it’s like, “Oh, McGonagall, come on, join the fun! You’re going to be headmaster one day anyway, so you should be a part of this.” And then, “Oh, there’s the buzzkill, Harry Potter.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “My scar hurts. Umbridge hates me.”
Micah: He doesn’t even… how about Ron? Poor Ron doesn’t even get acknowledged.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Poor Ron.
Micah: He doesn’t even get a “Ah.”
Eric: Dumbledore is pretty far gone.
Micah: But I think this whole… this goes to the point of what is wrong with Dumbledore right now, from the standpoint of not wanting to interact with Harry at all. It’s just beyond a level of disrespect. It’s just… from a reader standpoint, I think there’s a growing frustration that we all have now, from Harry’s standpoint, with Dumbledore, because he’s not even acknowledging him. He’s not talking to him.
Eric: It just doesn’t seem like the level of hustle that you would expect when a member of the Order of the Phoenix has been murdered. I mean, is there this need for a security check? Wouldn’t you originally…? I mean, wouldn’t you really…? If you know that Arthur Weasley is on tonight at the shift of watching the door that’s not supposed to be known about…
Andrew: That’s true.
Eric: Do you really then need to go through 50 questions? He asks Harry how he sees it, or how he saw the message; he chastises Harry for misunderstanding him, that it was actually a direct question, meant exactly as he asked it. Silly Harry, of course. And then from there on, he then goes and plays with some of his gizmos and does this other stuff before calling on Everard and Dilys, the portraits.
Micah: Well, I mean, I know I just really kind of gave it to Dumbledore, but at the same time, I think he’s trying to figure out – because we know what happens later on in this book – whether or not what Harry is seeing is actually real.
Andrew: Because maybe Voldemort is manipulating what Harry is seeing.
Micah: Exactly.
Eric: But if he suspects that, it’s kind of past the point where he should be clueing Harry in, right? Harry, in this moment, can only feel hurt by the fact that Dumbledore is behaving this way, when in fact, if he had just come clean earlier and say, “I heavily suspect there’s a connection between you and Voldemort that he will manipulate,” then Harry could at least have a part of the puzzle as to why he’s being ignored.
Micah: No, I agree, and he ends up tasking the worst possible person for Harry to go through this whole process with, in Snape.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: But I do think he is trying to figure a lot of things out in his mind right now, and there’s still something about him not wanting to interact with Harry that just doesn’t sit right with me as a reader.
Andrew: But the problem is Dumbledore doesn’t want Voldemort to think that Dumbledore and Harry are close.
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: That’s why he’s keeping the distance between the two of them.
Eric: So he won’t even say his name, “Oh, Harry’s here,” let alone…
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, don’t want to trigger any bells in Voldemort’s brain. “Did I hear Dumbledore say ‘Harry’? It’s time to tune in!”
Laura: Voldemort has that keyword set up in his Horcruxes.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Keyword alert.
Laura: Anytime anyone says “Harry,” they come to life.
Andrew: The Google news alert.
Laura: “Breaking news!”
Andrew: “Somebody wrote about Harry.”
Eric: So let’s get back to the portraits. So Dumbledore calls upon two portraits in his office, Everard and Dilys, and he says to Everard, “Make sure he is found by the right people.” And Dilys, we’ll talk about – actually, she shows up in the back half of this chapter, too – but he sends her… so presumably Everard… actually, not presumably; it’s described. Everard has a painting of himself hanging at the Ministry, and so he is able to raise the alarm among a group of people who would be helpful towards Arthur, who probably shouldn’t be down there.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: They’re going to go find him. They’re going to pull him up. And then Dilys has another painting, we’ll find out, at St. Mungo’s, so she is able to just…
Andrew: Perfect!
Eric: Yeah, it’s absolutely perfect. And it makes me wonder… the rest of these headmasters, they were such important people, Dumbledore says, that many of them have multiple portraits of themselves of the same person that they can just… now they’re visiting that way instead of just going into each other’s portraits in the same room where they’re hanged; they’re going to their other selves. And it makes me wonder where everyone else is, all the other headmasters might have… it’s essentially a great spy network.
Andrew: Yeah, it is. Well, and it’s also making me wonder if this was Dumbledore’s plan all along? This was one of his backup plans the whole time? He had a portrait at the Ministry, so if, God forbid, anything ever happened to a member of the Order, he would be able to quickly relay a message to somebody at the Ministry. “Hey, go check in on the Hall of Prophecies. Go check in down at the Department of Mysteries, because I think I’ve heard an attack.”
Eric: Yeah, and it is said that there are no portraits down there, in the lower levels.
Andrew: Right, he’s a floor up or something.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, so he had to scream until people came, which, that would be…
Andrew: “I heard something all the way down there.” “You heard something all the way down there?” “Yes, just go look!”
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Eric: Which, here’s another thing: It’s not really the most expedient way to save somebody’s life. Arthur is bleeding out! The fact that this…
Andrew: But that’s the best he can do. And I mean, it’s a pretty good system. It works.
Eric: Well, but I know that Micah asked the question, too, a little later on, but is this Dumbledore’s plan, then? Is this really the best way to protect members of the Order of the Phoenix? Arthur really was on his own completely down there. It’s just kind of shocking that there wasn’t a more direct way of protecting, or at least having a buddy… do a buddy system kind of thing.
Micah: Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was wondering, is it seems like the Order really has no other security measures in place should one of their own be found and attacked. And we know that what they’re guarding is extremely important, and that not only is their side trying to protect it, but it’s clear that the other side is trying to retrieve it. And Sturgis gets mentioned a little bit later on when we’re at Grimmauld Place about… or maybe it’s even in Dumbledore’s office, but I can’t remember. So we know that there’s already been attempts by Voldemort’s side to try and infiltrate, so given that one of their own has already fallen, now this is the second member that has been attacked, seems like there’d be a little bit better security in place, or something that’s there… to your point, a buddy system. I don’t know what it is, but it just seems really poor planning on the part of Dumbledore, and risky too. I mean, the Order is not in huge numbers right now, right? They don’t have a ton of people on their side, and they have the Ministry working against them. They’re trying to guard something in the place where their head person is totally in opposition to what Dumbledore stands for, so it just… there’s a lot of flaws here. That’s my point.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: I just think it’s hard because Order members are really limited as it is, and we’ve already seen it established that if they get caught doing this, the repercussions are pretty severe, and it also risks outing the Order. So say if we had Arthur and Kingsley down chilling in front of the Department of Mysteries. And first of all, that raises questions about, like, “Wait, you guys are friends?”
Andrew: Right.
Laura: Because they pretend not to know each other at work. And then it’s like, “Well, what were you both doing here? What’s the connection between the two of you that had you both posted here?” So I get it. It does suck, because it’s really not an ideal system for people’s safety, but then Sirius does point out a little bit later in the chapter that Arthur did know what he signed up for.
Micah: My problem with all of this is that you’re relying on the off chance that Harry has a dream that he’s inside of a snake that’s attacking Arthur for them to know that Arthur has been attacked.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Micah: There’s no alarm that gets sounded? Think about the coins that they’re using for Dumbledore’s Army. They couldn’t do something like that? Where Arthur, despite the fact that he’s been attacked, he was, I’m sure, still able maybe to reach in his pocket and touch a coin or do something that would alert the rest of the Order that he’s in trouble. It just seems very, very… it’s coincidental that Harry has this. I mean, it’s obviously written that way, but you know what I’m saying.
Eric: Yeah, you can’t reverse engineer this kind of a problem and expect it to be solved. It wouldn’t be if it were anywhere other than Harry. You’re exactly right.
Laura: Well, maybe Order members do have some kind of emergency system, but if I recall correctly, Arthur was falling asleep when he got attacked.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Right.
Micah: Damn, that kills the whole argument.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: He couldn’t go and rub his coin quick enough to alert Dumbledore.
Micah: Sleepy Arthur.
Eric: This is Arthur’s fault, damn it. [laughs] But I was thinking of something that constantly monitors his vital signs or something, but then I remembered that Dumbledore, at some point, says to McGonagall that maybe Molly already knows that this has happened because of the Weasley clock, right? The Weasley clock has a spot for “Mortal peril,” and somehow it’s constantly monitoring the existential status of the whole family members, and why couldn’t they do this on an Order level as well?
Andrew: Right.
Micah: In Deathly Hallows, aren’t they all pointing to “Mortal peril” just because of the nature of the situation?
Eric: [laughs] Yeah, that’s right.
Micah: So it’s not like it’s a clear indication of exactly what is happening.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: But if just one of them is pointing to “Mortal peril” in the middle of the night, that’s probably something to grow concern about.
Micah: That’s true. That’s fair.
Andrew: And maybe it’s brought up in your notes here, Eric, that does it chime ominously for “Mortal peril”? Because this is in the middle of the night; Molly is not sitting there watching this. Or maybe she is staying up watching the clock, because her husband is down at the Department of Mysteries during an uncertain time like this in the middle of the night, protecting something for the Order.
Micah: I just wanted to go back a second, because I feel like there could have been the chance that Everard’s portrait was just passed by earlier on in this book when Harry was at the Ministry. I don’t remember for sure, but I just feel like given… like you’re saying later on in this chapter, Eric, that Dilys, we come in contact with her again, I wonder if that’s just a J.K. Rowling thing to just mention it in passing, and then obviously comes full circle in this chapter.
Eric: That’s a pretty cool idea. Yeah, Dilys winks at Harry from across the rotunda.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: And I think with Phineas, he’s tasked with going and talking with Sirius and making sure that it’s okay for Harry, Ron, and Fred, George, Ginny to be able to go to Grimmauld Place. And one thing that he says, though, that just piqued my interest, was he said that Sirius “has always had odd taste in houseguests.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And that got me thinking, who? Who else has been to Grimmauld Place that Phineas would consider to be odd? I mean, James is a pure-blood wizard, so I don’t think that the Black family would have any issue with him showing up.
Eric: Right.
Micah: I’m wondering, did Remus come over? Did he transform one time, maybe? Run around the house, chase Kreacher…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: He’s definitely referring to the Marauders.
Laura: Yeah, I think so.
Micah: But Pettigrew, maybe? Maybe some lady friend?
Andrew: [laughs] Maybe, maybe. Phineas gets peer pressured into going to relay the message to Sirius, and Dumbledore starts reviewing an instrument. Nobody really understands what it’s doing. It’s spinning, it’s making noises, and he pulls up a snake. He’s talking to himself out loud, and he says, “But in essence divided?” And we didn’t really know what this meant, but J.K. Rowling did say later post-Deathly Hallows in a webchat that in this moment, Dumbledore learned of Nagini being a Horcrux, and Harry’s connection to Voldemort via Horcruxes. So this is just some classic writing from J.K. Rowling, where we see Dumbledore have this major revelation, but it just gets kind of glossed over. It’s kind of like Dumbledore’s twinkle in his eye moment, and there’s just this major realization, and none of us know the significance of it. Obviously, Dumbledore, as usual, isn’t announcing what he just discovered. But in bonus MuggleCast today, we will talk more about this instrument. It sounds like it’s a Pensieve, according to J.K. Rowling herself?
[Eric makes a confused noise]
Andrew: Yeah, so we’ll talk about that over on Patreon. But yeah, Dumbledore does have a big realization here.
Micah: But this is all following his interrogation of Harry, right? He’s asking him all these questions, and Harry is a bit dumbfounded because he doesn’t understand how Dumbledore could possibly know really what it is that he’s experienced. But he does, because that’s Dumbledore.
Eric: The other aspect of this is when he’s grilling Harry, or once he’s just finished, he leans over to Fawkes and is having Fawkes, I guess, kind of stand guard for them? It’s a really interesting thing. He says to Fawkes that they need a warning.
Andrew: This made me think of the song “Calling All Angels” by Train. [singing] “I need a sign to let me know she’s here.”
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: You know, people don’t like it when you sing, Andrew. I don’t know if you saw that review.
Andrew: But this was a brilliant connection, so I had to bring it up.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I love it. I think it’s great.
Andrew: Make the Music Connection in reverse.
Micah: It’s well done.
Eric: Oh my gosh. Yeah, and so this feather… basically a feather appears in the middle of the office, and then Dumbledore says, in explanation, “It is Fawkes’s warning. She must know you’re out of your beds… Minerva, go and head her off – tell her any story.” So Fawkes is, I guess, clearly spying on Umbridge at this point.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Micah: I can imagine Fawkes being like, “Oh, crap. I get Umbridge duty out of all this?”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: “I’m this legendary bird, I work with Dumbledore, and I’m stuck following this toad? No, thank you.”
Micah: Yeah, exactly. But it made me think, though, too, how is it that Umbridge knows that they’re out of bed? Because…
Eric: Right.
Andrew: What the hell?
Laura: I think it’s Mrs. Norris, because they pass her.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: Darn it, J.K. Rowling is so clever sometimes.
Micah: McGonagall tells Mrs. Norris basically to go F off, who probably goes to Filch, who goes to Umbridge. But if it is… I still think that this is McGonagall’s situation to worry about, right? She’s the Head of Gryffindor, so if a couple of her students are out of bed, then it’s her responsibility to deal with it, not Umbridge’s.
Eric: Right.
Micah: So I was a little surprised, though, that Dumbledore sends McGonagall in this moment. Maybe that’s the reason why. But why not have Fawkes try and derail her? Could you imagine what would happen if Umbridge came face-to-face with this big flaming bird in the middle of the Hogwarts hallway?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: She’d probably crap her pants and run the other way, or she’d go… I don’t know, but you know what I’m saying?
Andrew: Yeah.
Micah: I also thought initially when Dumbledore said that he needed a warning – and this is because it’s been a while since I’ve read this chapter – I thought Fawkes was basically going to go from member to member of the Order and let them know what has happened; maybe that’s the sign that something was wrong. But no, it’s Umbridge duty.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, if Fawkes can Apparate and Disapparate, which we’re just saying is what’s happening here now, he could presumably warn the other members of the Order right away. Dumbledore could give him a letter to carry or something. But it definitely… I think the problem is if Fawkes were to confront Umbridge directly, she would know that it was Dumbledore who was confronting her, right?
Andrew: That’s true.
Eric: It’s such a… it’s the calling card. It’s a telltale sign. It’s like, “Dumbledore sent his bird, so…”
Micah: But how does Fawkes know? That’s my question. Or how to… Umbridge is just in her office and Fawkes is lurking outside the window, and all the little kittens are running inside because they’re scared that there’s this big-ass flaming bird outside of the window? I don’t know. How is Fawkes able to essentially tail Umbridge?
Eric: Well, maybe, like Dumbledore, Fawkes has other means of making himself invisible [laughs] than wearing a cloak. He can just… in this chapter, Fawkes Apparates and Disapparates and also goes invisible.
Andrew: Yeah, and transfers this feather across Hogwarts. So if Fawkes can do all these things, then I think he can easily track Umbridge.
Eric: So is this something that a regular phoenix could do? Or is it because, like we’re learning in Fantastic Beasts… I mean, here’s the thing that is the real joy of reading these types of things in Order of the Phoenix, is because it could play a part in future Fantastic Beasts films with the Dumbledore and phoenix connection. They’re real tight in this chapter, and they can do weird, crazy magic.
Micah: Yeah, and I would say “beasts,” quote, unquote, right? They factor in a lot to this chapter, whether you’re talking about Nagini, you’re talking about Fawkes, Mrs. Norris… not a beast, necessarily, but still…
Andrew: [in an intense voice] A beast.
Micah: And then even Kreacher, right? So in terms of means of communication, they all kind of play a role in this chapter as it relates to that.
Eric: Absolutely.
Andrew: So through all of this – and we mentioned this a few minutes ago, so we don’t have to dive into it too much – but Dumbledore is shying away from looking at Harry, and decides to send Harry, Ron, and the rest of the Weasleys back to Grimmauld Place as a precaution. Right before they Portkey back to Grimmauld Place, Harry suddenly has this fit of rage; he feels like a snake again, and he wants to attack Dumbledore. And Harry, in this moment, does not understand why he’s feeling this way, and he reports this to Sirius, and he’s trying to figure it out, but we know now in hindsight this is the Horcrux talking.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Do we think Dumbledore allowed his eyes to meet Harry’s so that Harry would have some clue what was going on?
Andrew: I don’t think so. I think it would just be by accident.
Eric: Yeah, they’re all about to grab the Portkey, and then Dumbledore’s eyes kind of casually look over and that’s when Harry feels it. But it does have that effect of giving Harry something to… I wanted to say gnaw on. To think about.
Andrew: “Chew on this, Harry, while you’re at Grimmauld Place for a little while.”
Micah: Yeah, as if he doesn’t have enough to be anxious about, he gets to think about the fact that he wanted to rip Dumbledore’s face off in that moment.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: But I wonder, though, too, we talked Horcrux, but I do think there’s part of him that enhances this moment because he is so frustrated and pissed off with how Dumbledore has been treating him since the end of last term, right? There’s been no communication, no eye-to-eye contact, minus this moment. It’s just been complete isolation for Harry. And this is somebody that he’s normally very close with, and so I think that it just escalates the situation for him.
Laura: Well, and we definitely see in Deathly Hallows that being in close proximity to a Horcrux for an extended period of time will exacerbate your emotional reactions to things, so that makes total sense here. But it does make me wonder, at any other point in the series where Harry has had an overreaction to something, is that the Horcrux?
Andrew: It’s possible. I mean, but Harry has overreactions to Snape being a you-know-what, or Umbridge or Draco, and those are all deserved, whether or not Harry is a Horcrux. But Sirius tries to downplay Harry’s feelings in that moment before entering the Portkey, and nobody does bring up to him, “Hey, maybe it could just be that you’re mad at Dumbledore. You’re mad that you haven’t been able to see him, spend time with him, and you’re mad that Dumbledore is ignoring you.”
Eric: Right.
Andrew: I completely agree with your point, Micah, but he doesn’t consider that.
Eric: Yeah. Who considers how Harry is feeling? And Harry hates Portkeys so much, [laughs] because they’re so uncomfortable, that feeling of being pulled behind your navel? Just… ugh, your core.
Andrew: Harry didn’t consider that either. Maybe that’s why he wanted to kill Dumbledore in that moment.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “Not a Portkey, no, no! I just got to see you. I wanted to party with you and the portraits.”
Eric: Portrait party. I feel like when they land at Grimmauld Place, this is so easy to miss, but it’s kind of a crucial moment. The book says, “His feet hit the ground so hard that his knees buckled, the kettle clattered to the ground and somewhere close at hand a voice said, ‘Back again, the blood trader brats, is it true their father’s dying…?’ ‘OUT!’ roared a second voice.” So Sirius has commanded Kreacher to go away.
Micah: Yeah. How do we feel about this? For me, right, this is what sets him free, or sort of begins the process of him informing on the other side. In my mind, he’s just telling him to get the bleep out of the room, right? Which I’m sure Kreacher has heard many times from Sirius over the years, right?
Eric: Yeah, this is meant to be the linchpin. This is somehow meant to be more powerful, and this is what allows Kreacher to go visit Auntie Bellatrix. But you’re right, it is kind of similar; it doesn’t necessarily hold up under scrutiny, as far as it being something so distinctive that Sirius says, unless I’m misremembering. But they try and call on Kreacher later for breakfast, and he’s nowhere to be found.
Laura: Right, he won’t come. And what I thought was interesting was the description of Kreacher after Sirius tells him to get out. It says, “Kreacher was disappearing through the door to the hall, looking back at them malevolently.” And I just feel like that’s a very specific description there. I can see Kreacher being like, “All right, caught you now.”
Eric: Yeah, it’s definitely… this is the point where Kreacher takes himself to be free. Or not free-free, but… he’s still bound to the Blacks.
Micah: He pauses on the landing, though, too, from what I remember, and he listens in to Harry’s story, so he’s clearly spying and going to take that information, and that’s really the information that ends up being the most useful, I think, for Voldemort, when it comes to the end of this book, with giving him the fake – I don’t know what you’d call it – memory, or just what’s happening with Sirius inside the Department of Mysteries.
Eric: And we know that Kreacher was eavesdropping on Phineas Black as well, because he said, “Is it true their father’s dying?” He knows about the Weasleys and about what is happening with Arthur. Kind of a really interesting late night powwow with Sirius, as it turns out, and he really… we’ve talked at length, and even this book has brought up Sirius’s parenting skills, and whether or not he is a good guardian for Harry or anything, but Sirius really is able to successfully advocate for Fred and George in particular to stay and lay low. They want to go see their dad, and it makes perfect sense, right? They want to go to St. Mungo’s; they want to make sure he’s okay. But Sirius really has to – I mean, at times it seems like physically – hold them back, and he tries to explain, “No, what would it look like if you showed up basically before the rest of the world knows, and you know that there is something wrong with your dad?”
Andrew: It’s refreshing to see him be so responsible. We’re used to him being mischievous; we’re used to him being flippant, but in this moment, he’s acting like the adult, so good job.
Micah: And he restrains himself, right? There’s a moment where he looks like he’s going to hit one of the twins because of a comment that’s made about basically him being useless to the Order, sitting around Grimmauld Place all day, and he just… he’s able to almost internalize it, calm himself, and present these rational statements back. And I think it does show a mature moment, something we rarely see from Sirius.
Eric: Yeah, I’m quite proud of Sirius in this moment. [laughs] Sirius is my guy. But it’s really… the interesting thing… so they just have no news at this point; their ability to act is out of their hands, and I feel like I’m getting flashbacks to childhood. Have we ever had these just moments where we have…? It’s the long, hard, cold waiting.
Laura: I’m sure we’ve all been there at some point. Waiting on a relative in the hospital, waiting to hear the news, it’s so tense. And actually, reading over this section, it gave me flashbacks to my own memory of having to sit through something like this.
Andrew: Yeah, this is one of those things that you look at differently when you’re reading it as an adult. When we’re kids, many of us hadn’t been in this situation yet, so the perspective changes as you get older.
Eric: Yeah, real appreciation for the way that J.K. Rowling is writing it. But eventually, Molly arrives. The first thing she says is, “He’s alive,” which is good. That’s the news they wanted. But it’s so tense because the owl network is being watched; the Floo Network is being watched. The means of communication are so strict and limited at this point that she has to come there physically, and after several hours, that’s the news that they get.
Andrew: Yeah, maybe after this they should have a better method of communication to relay messages. Something like a cell phone?
Eric: Why don’t they just ask Hermione what she’s been doing with Dumbledore’s Army?
Micah: [laughs] Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
Andrew: Well, they try to black out Hermione from these Order meetings, and so Hermione is probably like, “Well, they don’t deserve my brilliance.”
Micah: Why isn’t she coming to Grimmauld Place, right? She didn’t get the invite. Nobody woke her up.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, that too, so she shouldn’t share any of this information.
Laura: Well, also, they’re keeping Dumbledore’s Army secret, or they’re trying to keep it as secret as they can, because there’s a mixed reception to it among Order members. Look at how Mrs. Weasley responded to it, for example.
Andrew: Right. Well, Hermione could have just been like, “We use these coins just to talk with each other during class, not for any secret organizations that you wouldn’t approve of.”
Eric: Yeah, exactly. And then just kind of to wrap things up for now, what do we think McGonagall told Umbridge about why the Gryffindors were out?
Andrew: They were just being bad kids, and McGonagall gave them detention. You don’t have to worry about it, Umbridge.
Eric: But Umbridge now gets to oversee all punishments, right? So she gets to weigh in?
Andrew: Well, McGonagall said that she is going to leave scars on the kids’ booties.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: And Umbridge really liked that. She didn’t need to be convinced any further.
Eric: She was like, “Oh, Minerva, you fiend.”
Andrew: “I only went for the hands; you went for their rears?”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: “That’s fantastic. Goodnight.”
Micah: [laughs] What is happening?
Laura: This is devolving very quickly.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, do you guys know what McGonagall told Umbridge?
Micah: No, I’m wondering how close this is, though, to the actual holiday, though, because in the previous chapter, they’re talking about what they’re going to do over Christmas, right? And they’re obviously now home early; they’ve gone home early before the end of term. So I wonder how that all gets explained away, at least from Harry’s standpoint. Because you could understand the Weasleys going to see their dad because of what’s happened, right? They exit early. But what about Harry? How does that get explained away? Do we know?
Eric: I mean, nothing’s ringing a bell on my end.
Laura: No.
Micah: I honestly…
Andrew: If you went on the HP Lexicon, you can probably find out. They have a timeline there.
Micah: I think McGonagall just Stunned Umbridge, threw her in a broom closet, and then just went to bed.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Oh, you said I was crazy. So this leads into our Umbridge Suck count; it currently stands at 47. Umbridge obviously doesn’t have a major role in this entire chapter, actually, but I think we can give her one point for not just sleeping through the night without creeping on the kids.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Eric: Yep.
Micah: I’m going to give her another one for wasting a Fawkes feather.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Oh, dang.
Eric: It’s not like those things just grow back.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Micah: No, it takes a little bit of time, Eric. And how about for wasting McGonagall’s time?
Andrew: Poor Fawkes has to deal with Umbridge on a Saturday, I presume, night.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Well, I don’t know that we’re going to get to do any more Umbridge Sucks in the next half of the chapter, so we should at least take advantage of this.
Andrew: I think you have to be kind of fair to Umbridge. I hate to say that, but I think the nice thing about the Umbridge Suck count is we are genuinely trying to figure out how many times she did suck, so I don’t want to go too crazy.
Eric: I think it’s good at two.
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: Yeah, I think that’s fair.
Connecting the Threads
Laura: All right, well, we have some threads to connect. One of the first ones that I thought was really interesting between Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix is that at this point in Order of the Phoenix, as well as the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, Dumbledore is including Harry and his friends in purposefully undermining the Ministry to save a key Order member. So we’ll all remember at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, Fudge is already at Hogwarts, the events at the Shrieking Shack have transpired, Sirius is locked up in a tower, the Dementors are preparing to administer the Kiss, and Dumbledore just hears Harry and Hermione’s recounting of the events, acknowledges that there is little to no evidence to support them, but he’s like, “Eh, I believe you anyway.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: And sends them back in time to save Sirius and Buckbeak. Here, the evidence is obviously far more believable, I would say; however, we’re still relying on a dream that Harry had. But Dumbledore deliberately circumvents Umbridge as she’s trying to figure out what’s happening in order to get Harry and the Weasleys away from Hogwarts and her in order to ultimately save Arthur, and also create a cover story for him so that he doesn’t get in trouble for being where he was at the time.
Micah: Nice.
Laura: Then I thought this was really interesting, because I get that Harry is frustrated with Dumbledore here. Dumbledore has a history throughout the series of not being terribly clear with his intentions. So at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, when he’s explaining to Hermione what she needs to do with the Time-Turner and Harry is like, “What are you talking about?” Dumbledore says, “Thirteenth window from the right of the West Tower. If all goes well, you will be able to save more than one innocent life tonight.”
Andrew: Oh, I love that.
Laura: Why not just say, “Save Buckbeak and Sirius”?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: What if…? Or here’s an alternate reading: What if he was talking about a different life entirely? What if somebody else…?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: What if one of Sprout’s assistants got attacked by a Venomous Tentacula, and Dumbledore was like, “I meant for you to save them!”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: “There’s as a world of possibilities. Go out there and see how many people you can save.”
Laura: But then literally after this, he’s just like, “Good luck!” and leaves.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: And Harry seems to be okay with this lack of clarity, as long as he feels like he has an in with Dumbledore.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah.
Laura: So it’s really the fact that he doesn’t have an in with Dumbledore anymore that’s so frustrating to him. And we already talked about the portion earlier in the chapter where he’s like, “But in essence divided?” He’s doing this in front of everybody while they’re all being like, “Yeah, my dad’s bleeding out somewhere. What are you doing, man?”
Andrew: “Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh, but in essence divided? Hmm, mhmm, huh…”
Laura: [laughs] Right. So actually, I would argue that Dumbledore has been doing this for a very long time, and Harry is only frustrated now because Dumbledore won’t acknowledge his existence. And then this was a cool one: So there’s a really interesting parallel, I think, between Snape and Kreacher. So at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, Snape is really beside himself about Dumbledore seemingly taking Harry and Hermione’s side. Dumbledore communicates that he wants to speak to Harry and Hermione alone to hear their recounting of the events; Snape goes off and is like, “Oh, come on, this is completely ridiculous. Sirius Black was showing that he was capable of being a killer when he was in school. Do you not remember when he tried to kill me, Dumbledore?” And Dumbledore still pushes Snape out of the room so that Snape cannot be involved in this conversation. At the end of the book, following the events that allowed Sirius to escape, Snape is so frustrated by how everything played out that he just lets slip that Remus Lupin is a werewolf, and this results in Lupin having to resign his post at Hogwarts, and also creates further employment difficulties for him down the road. So Snape, in this way, has betrayed a Marauder. While Kreacher is, I would argue, more rudely banished from a dramatic interaction of everybody arriving at Grimmauld Place, and he’s probably kind of wanting to be in on the action, Sirius yells at him to get out, and we know now that this is the moment where Kreacher interprets that he’s been banished, right? And this is what opens up the opportunity for him to set into play the sequence of events that directly lead to Sirius’s death. So he also betrays a Marauder.
Andrew: Wow.
Eric: Nice.
Andrew: Yeah, very interesting.
MVP of the Week
Andrew: All right, it’s time for MVP of the Week.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m going to give it to the portraits for this fascinating network of portraits that they can jump between. They saved Arthur Weasley.
Micah: Nice. Going to give it to Sirius, just because I felt like despite everything that was going on, and his treatment of Kreacher aside, in that moment where he needed to come through as a mature adult, he did.
Laura: I’m going to give it to Arthur because even though we haven’t actually seen him in this chapter yet, we do learn that he pulls through. And I’ve just got to give it to him for recognizing that there are some things that are just more important, and that he’s willing to put his life on the line for what’s right.
Eric: And I gave my MVP of the Week to Sirius also, for maintaining a cool head and really, for once, just handling Fred and George’s criticism. First of all for handling them, and then for handling their criticism really responsibly.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: All right, let’s rename the chapter. Order of the Phoenix Chapter 22, “Portraits to the Rescue!”
Micah: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 22, “The Godfather.”
Eric: [laughs] Oh, nice.
Laura: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 22, “Imposter Syndrome.”
Eric: Nice. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 22, “Redhead Rescue Mission.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: I don’t know where I came up with… I was failing to come up with a title until I wasn’t.
Andrew: No, I like that.
Laura: I like it too.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: If you have any feedback about today’s discussion, send it on in, MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com. We would also love your feedback about the second half of this chapter; we might incorporate it into next week’s episode of MuggleCast.
Quizzitch
Andrew: It’s time now for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: It’s all St. Mungo’s, baby, this time and next time. But last week’s question was: What is the name of the department storefront which hides St. Mungo’s to the Muggles? The correct answer is Purge and Dowse Ltd., which was awesome. We had eight winners this week, including Becca, ReeseWithoutHerSpoon, Caleb McReynolds, HallowWolf13, Erika, I Miss Sports, Jenny Beez, and CountRavioli.
Andrew: Stay safe, CountRavioli! Thinking of you!
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: And all the other seven people that sent in their answers.
Eric: Yes.
Andrew: Of course, of course.
Micah: You know, Eric, I’m wondering: You proposed three Quizzitch questions last week. Is this the reason why you wanted to split the chapter, so that you could use two of the three questions?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Maybe. I don’t know. It all happened so organically, Micah; I can’t really pinpoint any one occurrence. But next week’s question will also have to do with St. Mungo’s chapter, the one we just read part one of: What color robes do the Healers of St. Mungo’s wear? And submit your answer to us over on Twitter at MuggleCast, with hashtag Quizzitch. Happy playing.
Andrew: We would also love if you joined us over on Patreon. Patreon.com/MuggleCast is where you can support the show. By doing so, you will have access to our livestreams so you can join us as we are recording each episode. If you pledge at the $5 level or higher, you will be eligible for this year’s physical gift, which we hope to announce in the weeks ahead. You will also get access to bonus MuggleCast and so much more, so thank you, everybody, for supporting us. We appreciate it extra right now, because in these uncertain times, we’re also losing a couple of advertisers because they’re uncertain about advertising as well, so we could really use your support in keeping the show funded. And we have so many benefits there; we just really love this community of listeners and patrons. One of our newer benefits has been recording a personalized “Thank you” message to each new person who pledges, and that has been so much fun, and I know everybody’s been liking those as well. So if you do pledge today, you will get a video message from one of the four of us in about a week’s time. And I mentioned bonus MuggleCast coming up today; like I mentioned, over on Patreon we will be discussing the instrument in Dumbledore’s office, and what the hell that was, and J.K. Rowling’s comments on it, so stay tuned for that. Again, that will be available at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody who supports us and everybody who listens, and like I said at the top of the show, we hope you’re all doing well, and we hope that MuggleCast has been a source of comfort for you. And if you’re looking for some extra comfort, do check out that live show that we did. It’s available to everybody; check it out on our social media channels. We think you’ll enjoy it a lot. Like Micah mentioned, we played Heads Up, and that was a lot of fun. [laughs] It’s like the game Password, but with a modern twist.
Micah: And we also shared a bunch of Harry Potter items that all of us have accumulated over the years, and that was fun.
Andrew: Yeah, we did a show and tell.
Micah: Yeah, show and tell. Live show and tell.
Andrew: It was fun. All right, thank you, everybody, so much for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Goodbye.
Laura and Micah: Bye.