Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #461, Snape’s Secrets (OOTP 24, Occlumency)
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: On today’s episode, we are discussing Chapter 24 of Order of the Phoenix, “Occlumency.” And I was thinking this morning, it’s crazy that we never got this far in Order of the Phoenix, because this is such a critical chapter.
Micah: It’s huge.
Andrew: And I assume we had some discussion at some point about Legilimency and Occlumency, but we’ve never actually discussed the chapter, so that’s cool.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: And we also have some Muggle Mail this week, but first, a couple news items.
News
Andrew: Just want to say thank you to everybody who attended our second Quizzitch Live: The Fandom of Secrets. Congratulations to Danny, our first place winner. Runner-ups were Gavin, Snail Bump, Janeth, Gina, Josie, Adrine, Jeff, Lauren, Jamie, EJ, and many others. So congratulations; it was a lot of fun. We had around 600 people playing, and this game, I think, went smoother technically than the first, so that’s good.
Eric: Definitely, definitely. It was a lot of fun seeing how many people came out for it while hosting it. And I gotta say, Andrew and Laura, nice job on those questions.
Andrew: Aww, thanks.
Laura: Thank you. It was a lot of fun. It was like a trip down memory lane.
Andrew: If you want to watch the trivia game, you can watch the replay; we have it on MuggleCast.com, so feel free to watch it at your leisure. That’ll help you kill about 90 minutes of quarantine time. And we hope to do another Quizzitch Live in the weeks ahead. And I think this is a new thing we’re going to keep doing, because they’re just so much fun and everybody seems to really like them. And whether or not Quarantine is happening, I think it’s just a new feature of MuggleCast.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: Yeah. I did hear, though, that the next one may move to the weekend. Is that true? Can you confirm or deny that?
Andrew: Yes, the rumor mill is suggesting that the next Quizzitch Live may be over the weekend to accommodate more people, and we would do it earlier in the day so some of our international listeners can participate. I know these have been late for the international people, so yeah, we will try to do that earlier in the day on a weekend.
Micah: I did see one person in the comments very early on when we started; they were saying, “Oh, it’s 1:28 a.m. in South Africa.” So whoever that person was, kudos to you for staying up and doing Quizzitch.
Andrew: Absolutely.
Micah: As Eric said, you guys did an amazing job with those questions. I thought when I had the first one and I got it right, I was like, “Oh, you know what? I’m going to do great on this.” But then those questions started coming, and I was like, “Wow, I really need to brush up on my fandom trivia.”
Andrew: [laughs] I’m a big fan.
Laura: Yeah, we had some obscure information in there for sure.
Andrew: But it just feels so good to do our own trivia game, because we go to these ones at the bars in Chicago, Eric and I go to them, and they’re just… they’re fine, but they’re not done by fans.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: We’re fans. We know our stuff, so we’re doing these right, I feel. We’re taking over.
Eric: That’s right.
Andrew: How about some good news? We all need some good news right now, right?
Micah: Totally.
Andrew: Rupert Grint is expecting his first child!
Eric: What!
Laura: Aww.
Andrew: With his longtime girlfriend, Georgia Groome.
Laura: Oh, that’s wonderful.
Andrew: That’s so sweet. Congratulations to these two. I bet a lot of girls who grew up watching the Harry Potter films are jealous.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: I’ve seen posts like, crying face, “My husband!”
Andrew: Yeah. Just wanted to mention it because this is the first of the trio to have a child, so they’re having a little wizard baby.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Now, who do you think is going to be the godfather of this child? Do you think Dan Radcliffe is up to the task?
Andrew: Hmm, good question.
Eric: Do you think Rupert will ask him? I mean, because that’s what… let’s just get all obsessed, talking baby stuff…
Andrew: [laughs] Talking gossip.
Eric: This kid’s going to grow up with an Auntie Emma and Uncle Dan, right? That’s just… we know already.
Andrew: I guess it depends on how close Dan, Rupert, and Emma still are these days. Do they keep in touch? If they don’t, then he might not be the godfather.
Eric: Maybe it’d be Tom Felton, because don’t Rupert and Tom hang out?
Andrew: Oh, that’s true. Yeah.
Micah: Yeah, I was going to say a lot of times the relationships that form, the friendships, they may not always be between the characters that spend the most time together on screen.
Andrew and Eric: Right.
Andrew: True, they’re just playing other people. Apparently, Rupert and his girlfriend Georgia have been together since 2011. I didn’t know they had been together for so long, so good for them. Not that it was any of our business, but…
Eric: He told the Guardian in 2018… he said, “I’d like to settle down and have kids soon,” and he said, “If I had a son, would I call him Ron? It’s quite a good name, but probably not. And Grint’s a tough name to pair a one-syllable first name with.” We could probably guess, but I think he’s thinking that his kid, boy or girl, will have a more-than-one-syllable name.
Micah: Ron Grint.
Andrew: George Grint.
Laura: Oof.
Eric: James Grint.
Laura: I hope…
Andrew: How about Fred? Little grim?
Eric: Fred Grint.
Andrew: Fred lives on. Fred Weasley lives on. [laughs]
Laura: Geez. You know, I think it’s possible he might want to give his child a non-Harry Potter name.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Right, yes.
Eric: But it’s fun because we all have those sort of hesitations about our own last names. My last name, I have problems with. [laughs]
Andrew: Scull? Yeah, that’s…
Laura: Why? Your last name is cool.
Eric: I mean, it’s cool one month out of the year, okay?
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Nah. Halloween year round, baby.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, Laura is goth. She would love the name Scull.
Micah: It’s a badass last name, Eric. You should be proud of it.
Eric: Let’s trade last names, Laura.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Oh, okay. Mine’s real boring; you can have it.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: If Laura said, “I love your last name, Eric” back ten years ago, everybody would have started shipping Laura and Eric, I think. [laughs]
Laura: Yep. Oh, Jesus, people… listen, I got shipped with all of y’all at some point.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, there’s fanfic.
Laura: I almost… yes.
Eric: Or real fic? What do they call that when it’s real life?
Laura: Ooh, I don’t know.
Andrew: Nonfiction.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: No, there’s a name for fanfic with real people, but yeah.
Micah: Very good, very good.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: On to Muggle Mail now. This is from Emily.
“I decided to get out and take a walk while listening to the latest episode. I live near a huge cemetery and was walking through during the part where you mentioned that J.K. Rowling got Lockhart’s name from a war memorial. Just after that, I passed a mausoleum with the name Lockhart on it! :O I thought this was a creepy coincidence and wanted to share it with you all. I think I’ll just pretend from now on that this cemetery in Pennsylvania is where she got the idea.”
Eric: Whoa.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s creepy.
Micah: That is. It’s very meta.
Eric: She included a photo.
Andrew: Yeah, and this is huge.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Wow. I wonder if Gilderoy is actually in there.
Micah: What are the chances that that happens the moment you’re listening to the podcast? You’re out on a walk, and you just happen to see something very similar to what J.K. Rowling happened upon, except you’re in Pennsylvania; not in Scotland.
Eric: It’s got to be a million and one.
[Andrew hums The Twilight Zone theme song]
Laura: Maybe it’s a Confoundable.
Andrew: Oh.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Laura: Disappeared out of nowhere.
Micah: Catch it.
Andrew: Our next piece of feedback is a voicemail.
[Voicemail plays]
“Hello, MuggleCast. Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe. My name is Yasmin, and I just wanted to respond to something Andrew said at the beginning of Episode 460 when discussing what the quiz questions would be like for the Quizzitch Live: Fandom of Secrets event. Andrew said that an example of a question may be ‘Where did J.K. Rowling reveal that Dumbledore is gay?’ Though I understand that the answer to this question would be Carnegie Hall, I would like to posit that technically, there is a different answer. On YouTube it’s possible to watch the documentary J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life, which followed J.K. Rowling through the year prior to finishing Deathly Hallows. At just after the 32 minute mark, the interviewer asks if Charlie is gay, to which Rowling says no, but that Dumbledore is gay. Though this documentary was not really released until December of 2007 after the Carnegie event happened in October, I believe the interview in question happened prior to the Carnegie event. I often use this documentary as a response to those who say that Rowling retconned Dumbledore as gay after the books were published to get woke points. Though Rowling has been problematic with issues within the queer community, I think this documentary is definitive proof that she had always viewed Dumbledore as gay and that that informed her writing of him. Thanks for all you guys do, and I look forward to your next podcast. Bye.”
[Voicemail ends]
Andrew: That is a really interesting observation. Thank you, Yasmin, for sharing.
Eric: What a strong reporter for not leaking that immediately to everybody everywhere, because that was a scoop then.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, I have the clip. Let’s listen to this moment from J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life.
[Audio clip plays]
J.K. Rowling: … born on the anniversary of the battle that finished it all, which is the second of May, if anyone’s been paying attention. And then Charlie had no children or married.
Interviewer: Is he gay?
J.K. Rowling: Dumbledore is gay. I told a reader that once, and I thought she was going to slap me. But I always saw Dumbledore as gay. No, I don’t think Charlie is gay, just more interested in dragons than women.
[Audio clip ends]
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Is the initial reveal here to that reader that she told all those years ago?
Andrew: That would be the very first time, I guess, yeah. And I wonder, did she see this person out on the street and she was like, “Oh, by the way, Dumbledore is gay”? How did that come up in conversation? Maybe the person was asking if Dumbledore ever fell in love or something like that.
Laura: Let’s interview that person.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: “Why did you not like what J.K. Rowling had to say to you?” Anyway, in Quizzitch Live, we recommended watching A Year in the Life, and again, I want to recommend that. This A Year in the Life documentary, it follows J.K. Rowling around the release of Deathly Hallows, and it’s really, really good, including when she finished writing the book. And you can watch this on YouTube, and we’ll include a link in this week’s show notes. Please, Micah.
Micah: Absolutely. Soon as you send it to me, it’ll go in the show notes.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Before we get started with Chapter by Chapter, this week’s episode of MuggleCast is sponsored by Wondery’s Imagined Life podcast.
[Ad break]
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary
Andrew: All right, let’s move on now to Chapter by Chapter, and this week we are discussing Chapter 24, “Occlumency” in Order of the Phoenix, and we’ll start with our seven-word summary. Ready when you are, Laura.
Laura: Yep. Harry’s…
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Andrew: … journey…
Micah: … back…
Eric: … into…
Laura: … his…
Andrew: … mind…
Micah: … fails.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: I mean, it’s actually that.
Andrew: Actually, that works. Yeah, that’s good.
Micah: I was trying to beat the music…
Andrew: Yes.
Micah: … because I thought we were getting very close on time there.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: We were.
Andrew: Yeah, we had seconds left.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: All right, so Andrew, you touched on this at the top of the episode, but I don’t think we’ve ever ventured into Occlumency really all that much in the course of this show, and that’s saying something, considering we’ve been around for 15 years. And we’ll get to that, but the chapter starts out with Harry really not wanting to go back to Hogwarts, and he goes through a list in his mind of all the things that are awaiting him there. He obviously can’t play Quizzitch – or Quidditch, sorry.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: See what’s happening now? Quizzitch is taking over. But really the only thing he is looking forward to is the meetings for Dumbledore’s Army. And I was just thinking, have we ever been in this situation ourselves before, where we’re going back to school? Maybe it’s going back to college, and there’s only one or two things that we’re really looking forward to.
Laura: Nope. I loved school.
Eric: Oh, wow.
Micah: All right, Hermione.
Laura: I was always very excited to go back. [laughs]
Eric: Lucky you.
Andrew: Hermione indeed.
Eric: There were bad years where I didn’t want to go back for sure after break, or really had nothing except some friends that I see the most at school, that kind of thing.
Andrew: Yeah. There were some elements of school I enjoyed, but mainly I think it was more about summer ending. It was just always sad when summer was ending. It was more that than dreading going back to school.
Laura: You’re telling me that y’all weren’t excited about going school supply shopping? That was fun.
Andrew: No, that was so sad!
Laura: [laughs] I love getting all of my stuff together for the first day of school.
Andrew: I didn’t realize Hermione was guest hosting today’s podcast.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: How was your latest ski trip, Hermione?
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: I was a lot less prone to abide by the rules than she was, but I did enjoy school.
Micah: Do we think there could be a little bit of PTSD going on here for Harry going back to school? Obviously, a lot of bad things have happened with Umbridge, but I’m thinking of the last thing that happened when he was at Hogwarts was he attacked Mr. Weasley.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s true. I mean, it’s been a bad first half of the year, so I can see why he doesn’t want to go back.
Laura: Well, and he’s also thinking about the fact that he’s going to be back under Umbridge’s tyrannical thumb, right? So she’s made the first half of his fifth year pretty miserable.
Andrew: And he doesn’t want to leave Sirius either, right?
Eric: Yeah, he has a bad feeling about that, in fact.
Micah: Yeah, he does. But somebody who is actually quite happy at the beginning of this chapter – and I think it’s worth mentioning – is Kreacher. Kreacher has been found.
Andrew: Yeah, and in a better mood, right? A slightly better mood.
Micah: Oh, he’s like… house-elf high for him.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, and Sirius doesn’t think anything of it now that Kreacher is back, but Harry actually has his suspicions. And of course, Harry’s suspicions will be right, as we learn later.
Micah: Absolutely. And Harry is just trying to relax before he goes back to Hogwarts, and what could put him in a better mood than to find out that Professor Snape is down in the kitchen waiting to speak with him? And Harry does a double take on this.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Because he’s first of all just, I think, shocked that Snape is even at Grimmauld Place, much less wanting to speak with him. And Harry comes downstairs, and the way that I always envisioned this was – and I think it’s actually described this way – is that Snape is at one end of the table, Sirius is at the other, and Harry sits down next to his godfather. And it’s a pretty nasty exchange between the two of them, not surprising. What gives here?
Andrew: Yeah, this was a good fight. They both have some jabs that really land, and I did find it immature overall. We get why there’s this animosity between the two; Sirius had almost killed Snape, so we can see why there’s some anger there. [laughs] But the insults are really good. I just wish… reading the scene, I’m just thinking to myself, did you have to do this in front of the kid in a home filled with lots of other people right now? Take this out on the street. Do it somewhere in private.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, definitely in regards to Sirius, he never really got to grow beyond this, because in his very young adult life he was carted off to Azkaban, so he never got those maturing years that he would have gotten otherwise. And I think Snape also lost that time to serving Voldemort, so I would say both of them are probably pretty emotionally stunted.
Eric: Yeah, it’s just this meeting goes off the rails pretty quickly. Snape says to Harry, “Sit down, Potter,” and Sirius is like, “Don’t give my godson orders! This is my house!” And Snape is like, “But I’m here on Dumbledore’s orders, which supersedes everything else.” And it really should, but the two of them were just never meant to like one another, it seems.
Micah: Right. I think, Andrew, when you were talking about the bad blood that exists between the two of them, it’s really just an opportunity for Snape to one-up Sirius in front of Harry in his own home, where Sirius has grown up. And I also think it’s a bit of showmanship on the part that Dumbledore is entrusting Snape with this major responsibility of teaching Harry Occlumency, and Sirius is just kind of sitting at home, twiddling his thumbs. And I think a lot of what happens here drives Sirius to do things later on in this book, because there is this feeling… not just with Snape in this moment; we’ve seen it throughout the course of this book where Sirius just feels as if there’s nothing that he can do that’s helpful to Harry, or maybe even to the Order.
Eric: Yeah, Snape definitely calls that out, and I think that’s really the fatal blow here, is he’s goading Sirius about wanting to feel involved and feeling like he’s important or can do something, anything, to help. And it might be that Snape is reading this right off of Sirius’s face; it might be that he’s reading his mind subtly, but he absolutely nails what the problem is. And if this occurrence had not happened, if this interaction had not occurred between the two of them, I don’t think that it would even be in Harry’s mind that something like what Voldemort sends him could happen, that Sirius would just venture out and get himself in trouble. But this scene definitely sets that up, I think.
Laura: Should Dumbledore have foreseen something like this, potentially goading Sirius into dangerous behavior, and therefore said, “You know what? Harry is going to be back at Hogwarts tomorrow. Why doesn’t Snape just let him know about this tomorrow?” Why does he need to go visit Grimmauld Place on the last Sunday that Harry is going to be there? Or the last Saturday.
Micah: It’s a great question.
Andrew: Well, setting aside the fact that this is just great from a reader perspective, maybe Dumbledore wanted a fight. Maybe he wanted them to duke it out. Or maybe he was hopeful they would set their differences aside and maybe smooth things over between them. Maybe he envisioned Snape coming to Grimmauld Place, and Snape would say what he had to say to Harry, and then Sirius or Snape would say, “Hey, let’s have some tea and…” What are those things called?
Eric: Crumpets?
Micah: Biscuits?
Andrew: Biscuits! Yeah, crumpets, biscuits… let’s sit down and let’s patch things up.
Micah: We sound so cultured, by the way.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: What do they eat over there? [laughs]
Eric: The other thing is that Hogwarts is no longer his own, strictly. I think they’re going to have to do this… if they do it at Hogwarts, they have to do it under Umbridge’s watchful eye, right? Doesn’t even Snape say, “You cannot tell anyone, especially Umbridge, about this”?
Andrew: Right, so that could be a good reason to do it off grounds.
Eric: Yeah, they’ve invented this cover story.
Micah: That’s where your Quizzitch question comes in, Eric, about remedial potions.
Eric: Ah, yes, yes. We’ll get to that later. So I think that’s why he does it. But I think Dumbledore, for the most part, has completely mishandled his treatment of Harry, we’ve talked about, but also his treatment of Sirius. People are going to lash out if they’re cooped up, if they have nothing to do, if they’re bored. They’re going to try and pass this time. And Dumbledore has not given Sirius… I mean, you can give him a little research mission that can be done at the house, or give him some of your crossword puzzles or something. Just keep the mind active. Sirius, I think, is probably feeling the same level of neglect from Dumbledore that Harry is, and it’s actually a remarkable testament to his strength that it took him all year to actually leave.
Micah: Yeah, agreed.
Eric: There’s your counter point.
Micah: And I also think it’s to set up Harry for going back to Hogwarts. We already talked about how he is really not looking forward to it; this just adds another layer to the fact that he needs to be taking these lessons with Snape, of all people. And we’ll get into it in a little bit, but the fact that Snape is penetrating his mind is just… to me, it’s next level, and I don’t understand why Dumbledore allows it to happen, but he does. Two other points here that you had, Andrew, about Snape referring to Sirius as a coward: We all know how important that one word is in the next book as it relates to Snape, so funny that he would feel empowered to refer to Sirius in that way. And he also… or actually, Sirius refers to Snape as Lucius’s lap dog…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: … and that brings up the conversation about how Sirius was found out on the platform earlier this semester this year. Big mistake.
Andrew: Right, that was really clever. That’s why I love this fight; there’s so many good jabs back and forth. “Well, speaking of dogs, Lucius saw you as a dog, you dummy!”
[Eric laugh]
Micah: Right. Well, the Weasleys show up and that puts a stop to the fight, and I just thought it was really odd that Snape gets that one line in right before he leaves, telling Harry, “Remember to show up at this time on Monday.” It’s just very Snape. He’s got… no, like, “Hey, I’ve got information that probably the rest of the people who just walked in here have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.” But we get to the point where Harry and the rest of the kids are getting ready to go get on the Knight Bus and head back to Hogwarts, and there’s a great quote here about Harry and how he’s feeling saying goodbye to Sirius. It says, “Harry had an unpleasant constricted sensation in his chest; he did not want to say goodbye to Sirius. He had a bad feeling about this parting; he did not know when they would next see each other and felt that it was incumbent upon him to say something to Sirius to stop him doing anything stupid.” Should we have known?
Andrew: Well, you have to read between the lines of every little thing that J.K. Rowling says. And yeah, I think we should have known. Maybe we did. I can’t remember if I thought that reading this for the first time. But what also stood out to me was that in their last moments here, J.K. Rowling says that Sirius smiled “grimly,” and of course, the grim is a death omen. And so he smiles grimly at Harry, and then he says, “Take care of yourself.” And it’s a good goodbye; we just didn’t know it was a goodbye.
Micah: Right.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, you could argue that J.K. Rowling has been setting Sirius up to die ever since she introduced him. I mean, his Animagus form looks like a grim.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Yeah. He was born to die. Isn’t that a Lana Del Rey song? “Born to Die.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Doesn’t make it right, though. I just wish that there had been more to Sirius than… she essentially puts him through the ringer of J.K. Rowling, making him suffer all year before finally killing him, and it’s just… I feel like she done my man dirty.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Well, he’s your favorite character, right?
Eric: He is my favorite character, and I think that probably still holds up. I mean, he was my AOL screen name forever ago.
Micah: That’s right.
Eric: I like that he doesn’t actually leave the house; Harry only thinks that he does. But all of this worrying that Harry is doing no doubt feeds into Voldemort, and probably gives Voldemort the plan on a silver platter.
Micah: Absolutely. And that ties into the fact that Harry makes the decision… Sirius gifts him something that he doesn’t open at this time, but Harry says in his mind he’s never going to utilize it because he doesn’t want to put Sirius in danger. However, if he had only used it, Sirius never would have died, probably not in this way.
Eric: This is J.K. Rowling kicking all of us while we’re down. [laughs]
Micah: Totally.
Eric: The mirror that could have solved so many things all along, and would immediately get around all of Umbridge’s defenses, doesn’t get used? Ahh, it just hurts.
Andrew: But that’s also classic J.K. Rowling. She’s leaving this groundwork that comes into play later. This is something that you might gloss over when you’re reading it the first time, or maybe even the second time. Then you find out how it comes into play, and it’s like, “Whoa, she dropped that early.”
Laura: Well, and you can’t really blame Harry, can you? I mean, Sirius has shown time and again that if the door to irresponsibility is cracked open, he’ll come bursting through it every single time.
Andrew and Micah: Right.
Laura: So actually, I think Harry is being really responsible here and doing what any of us would do if we had the same prior knowledge that he did.
Andrew: For sure.
Micah: Yeah, that’s a great point.
Andrew: And you think about just how Umbridge almost nabbed Sirius. I mean, yeah, there’s no way he should risk that type of thing happening again.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: So they leave the house; Sirius has seen Harry for the last time outside of the Department of Mysteries. And they decided to take the Knight Bus. Do you guys know on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver he does this segment from time to time, “How is this still a thing?”
Eric: Oh.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I was thinking that when reading about the Knight Bus. How is the Knight Bus still a thing? The seats and the personal belongings are flying all over because the vehicle is being driven really fast and it’s coming to these screeching halts and accelerating really rapidly. Everybody’s getting sick. Ron was all excited to ride it for the first time, and then by the… not even a few minutes into the ride, he was over it and wishing he could get off.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Why does the Knight Bus exist? This doesn’t sound helpful. This sounds like a miserable trip.
Laura: Andrew, when I was reading this I thought of you, and I imagined I heard your voice in my head saying, “The Knight Bus is a transportation nightmare.”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: It is!
Laura: But also, it is stated in Prisoner of Azkaban that it’s emergency transportation for the lost or stranded wizard.
Andrew: Okay.
Laura: So I think it’s intentionally a bit off-kilter because of some of the situations it might be recovering people out of.
Andrew: Okay, so there’s an urgency, so they have to speed up and slow down really fast, maybe. But I don’t know; I feel like this could still be a more pleasant ride.
Eric: Yeah, I think that they absolutely could probably do something to soften around the edges, but I just always see the Knight Bus as a strict takedown of all public transit. In major cities especially, you get on the bus and there’s always something going wrong on the bus, either it’s too loud, or it’s too crowded, there’s too many people, or it’s too slow. You always have these problems, right? And sudden stops and sudden starts is pretty much the game.
Andrew: And Muggle buses have the seats drilled into the floor. Maybe the Knight Bus should at least do that.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Laura: I mean, that doesn’t matter. I had an experience on a New York City bus one time where the bus driver came to such an abrupt halt that it threw all of us from our seats – I mean, multiple people fell to the floor – so actually, I agree with Eric here that I think this is sort of an exaggerated version of what we all deal with anyway.
Micah: Yeah, or the subway. I mean, the subway is like that too, especially in New York, if you get a conductor who doesn’t really know what he or she is doing, and they realize in a split second that they need to stop the train and it’s in the middle of actually moving. I have had a very similar experience to what Laura just said on the bus, where everybody literally goes flying, even if they’re sitting down or holding onto a pole, because they’re just not expecting it. But I just think it’s part of the magical world. Though I do wonder why magic is not utilized to at least make it a little bit smoother of a ride for most people.
Andrew: Right. I just want to see everybody have a comfortable ride, or at least a little more comfortable.
Eric: Also, apparently you can bump up yourself on the queue as far as destination by just bribing the driver.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Which is… that’s something I want to see implemented in actual public transit. If I can just jump down the train line for an extra hundred pounds or whatever.
Micah: Yeah, why not?
Andrew: Right. Or if you’re on a school bus, because sometimes you’re, unfortunately, one of the last people to be dropped off – your school bus ride is an hour – I would love to bribe my school bus driver to drop me off first.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Do you still ride the school bus, Andrew?
Andrew: Yes?
Micah: No judgment on this show.
Andrew: You know what I mean. Back in the day.
Micah: It’s okay, Andrew. But yeah, I mean, it was very cool to see it come to life in Prisoner of Azkaban the movie, but I do agree it’s a really questionable form of transportation. But I guess really the magic is in the fact that it can get you really quickly from one place to another.
Eric: Yeah, and it’s not as monitored as the… this whole book is about who’s watching who and all that kind of a thing. But the thing that came to my mind was that I had forgotten that they ride the Knight Bus in Book 5, and Book 5 actually also came out before the third movie, so I was thinking, wow, J.K. Rowling either provided or probably knew about the fact that they were bringing the Knight Bus to life right around the same time she was writing this. And I’m imagining that both scenes – the ones in Book 3 and the ones in Book 5 – were probably utilized to really bring the Knight Bus to life, because I don’t know that the original scene is as hectic or frantic, specifically, as it is in this chapter. So I figured maybe they both had influence on how it showed up in the third film.
Micah: And Stan Shunpike is not a Death Eater yet.
Eric: Yet.
Micah: As far as we know. And there’s no shrunken heads on this version of the Knight Bus either.
Eric: Interesting.
Micah: Think that was just a movie-ism.
Andrew: Right, well, that was, as we know, an Alfonso Cuarón touch.
Laura: Yep.
Micah: Because why not?
Andrew: [imitating shrunken head] “Take it away, Ern!”
Eric: [imitating shrunken head] “Yeah, take it away, Ern.”
[Laura laughs]
Micah: So we make our way to Hogwarts finally. The Knight Bus is able to pull into Hogsmeade. They get off and walk up to the castle, and things start up as normal as they can, and there’s this very brief moment between Cho and Harry, and they’re trying to make some plans. At least, Cho is trying to drop some hints to Harry about Valentine’s Day.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And Harry, I think, is just… and Laura, look, I’m not trying to give him a mulligan here, but I think he’s so distracted with everything that’s been going on – particularly focused on his lessons with Snape – that he’s not really picking up on what she’s throwing out there. But he does come through in the end, doesn’t he?
Laura: Yeah, no. And actually, I agree here. I think that for a teenage boy, Harry actually caught on really quickly here. Having had the experience of being a teenage girl and trying to drop these kinds of hints to boys that I liked, it never went this way.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: It was usually straight over their head. And that moment where Cho was walking away all disappointed does not get interrupted by the guy suddenly realizing what it is you want, so he did good here.
Andrew: Good job, Harry.
Eric: Well, Harry just didn’t have time to check the notice board with being so distracted. But isn’t it the most Ravenclaw thing ever that Cho is back one day and has already checked and caught up on her notice board that she knows about the Hogsmeade weekend? Very Ravenclaw.
Laura: Well, of course.
Micah: Yeah, very well done on Harry’s part, and it is, like you said, Laura, typical teenage awkwardness happening here. But good on Harry; at least he’s able to get something positive out of this chapter, because it’s about to go to hell from this point forward.
Eric: I just want to shout out to J.K. Rowling, though, because she really does a good job at this awkwardness, right? And it’s just a misunderstanding or a failure of communication, and I think that this happens between… I mean, it’s happened to me much more recently than my teenage years, of trying to communicate with somebody that you like, and it’s just… it’s never easy. It’s never as easy as it should be.
Micah: Absolutely.
Laura: No, you’ve got to find somebody who understands and appreciates your own personal level of awkwardness.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: And that’s why dating is hard.
Micah: Right. Like the four of us, we all appreciate each other’s awkwardness.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yes, exactly.
Andrew: I’m not awkward.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: Oh, Andrew.
Andrew: No? Yes?
Laura: We’re all a little awkward.
Andrew: Yeah, fine.
Micah: We are.
[pause]
Micah: All right, so let’s talk about Occlumency.
Andrew: [laughs] Yep.
Micah: Speaking of awkwardness, speaking of penetrating people’s minds. And one thing I wanted to start out talking about is that Snape is really the one to give Harry the information that Dumbledore and the rest of the Order have chose not to. Whether directly or indirectly, he is giving Harry more than what Harry has learned probably in the last several months, and I found this really interesting that it’s Snape that’s doing it.
Eric: Yep. I mean, after reading this chapter for this show, again, I’ve concluded that I’m pro-Snape this chapter.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: It’s difficult. It’s really difficult because he goads Sirius and he goads Harry, and he does not make it easy, but Snape is the most forthcoming with all of this information, like you’re saying, and he tells it to Harry. If Harry is not listening, or if Harry is not ready to interpret the information, that’s kind of on Harry. There are things he could do to be softening the blows, but Snape is ultimately laying on the line why it’s important to be having these lessons, and sort of even a timeline of events as such that nobody else is giving him.
Micah: Right. And we learn that Voldemort was possessing Nagini, and therefore so was Harry. And I thought that was a big reveal because for this last couple of weeks for Harry, he’s been thinking that he was directly possessing Nagini.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: But in fact it was Voldemort, and Harry was inside of Voldemort’s mind. So Harry was basically two minds removed from Nagini? I don’t know how that works. But that was a big piece of information. And then also, after the first, let’s call it penetration, by Snape, Harry deduces that the door, the corridor that he’s been seeing all year, is in fact the Department of Mysteries. And he throws this information out to Snape, and Snape kind of does a bit of a double take.
Andrew: Yeah, I was actually surprised how Snape reacted in this moment, like he actually cared about something that Harry was feeling? Normally you don’t see him care so much.
Eric: Right. It’s so interesting when you get into his head, or the fact that Snape sees when it’s happening, when Harry’s brain makes the connection, he lets go of the spell. He’s like, “Wait, what was that?” Because you can kind of feel the emotions as they’re happening, and both characters are forced to witness the memories spilling out, or Snape is only getting flashes or something. But it all feels different. I mean, we’re just experiencing a man in his prime here with Snape. You’re never going to get a better teacher than Snape to teach you this. One does not exist.
Micah: Right. But let’s talk about that, because I have a bit of a problem with a 30-something-year-old teacher penetrating the mind of a 15-year-old teenager…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: … who, by the way, just has the utmost disdain for Harry’s dad, for Harry, for anybody in Harry’s circle. So I want to know what in the world is Dumbledore thinking here?
Andrew: Well…
Eric: Dumbledore is thinking Snape is the best.
Andrew: Yeah, I agree with that. But who else to do it? Dumbledore? Because Dumbledore is even older than Snape.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: That’s a 110-year-old penetrating a 15-year-old’s mind. There’s no good answer here, I think, is the problem. But this is just the cards that they’ve been dealt, and this is just what has to be done.
Laura: I also wonder if Dumbledore is viewing these lessons as sort of a conduit for giving Harry this information, because we know Harry has a lot of questions; we know that he wants to ask Dumbledore these questions. I could very much see him telling Snape, “Yo, please make sure that he understands that he was not possessing the snake; Voldemort was, and ergo, he was also in the snake with Voldemort,” and really helping to establish that connection between the two of them, because Dumbledore probably doesn’t want to be the one telling Harry these things and potentially risk Voldemort seeing that Dumbledore knows.
Eric: Right.
Micah: That’s a great point, and we’ll get to something that Snape says later, I think, that makes him the perfect teacher for this. And I’m not arguing that; I do believe that he is the best equipped to do this. However, the fact that he’s not approaching this with probably the practiced hand, from a compassionate standpoint… somebody like Dumbledore probably would be a little bit more… or a little less aggressive than Snape is. And look at the fact that Snape does this three times to Harry, right? We see it three times in this chapter where he’s penetrating his mind, and we know the effects that this has from later on in the chapter. To me, this would be the equivalent of taking a novice boxer, right, who has very little to no experience, and you’re putting them in the ring three times against a pro, and you’re expecting him or her to be able to defend themselves appropriately. It’s just not going to happen.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Yeah. I think the better question is – because it seems like Snape was the only person who could do this – why didn’t Dumbledore say, “Hey, Snape, approach this calmly”? “Teach him the right way. Don’t let your feelings towards Harry and his father get in the way of teaching a good lesson here.” Because half the problem with this first lesson is that Snape is telling Harry to calm down and control his mind, and Snape is aggravating Harry. So Dumbledore should have given him a warning here about how to approach this, because apparently Snape can’t figure this out for himself.
Eric: I agree, Snape absolutely is using this opportunity to take his teaching style to the extreme, because he has long known Harry sucks at Potions; he has no attention to detail, and Snape feels vindicated now that this is something that Harry is going to really need to focus on if he wants to save his own self, his own sanity. He takes this to be justified in terms of Snape’s sense of urgency. He’s just like, “Okay, now you’re going to pay attention. You’re going to get this.” And it just… he’s not giving Harry enough recovery time.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: And he’s not giving Harry enough examples of what it looks like to clear one’s mind before immediately probing it again.
Andrew: Yeah. All Snape is saying is, “Calm your mind, clear your head,” and Harry doesn’t have time to do that. And he wants more information on how to do this, and Snape is just not giving it to him. And it’s also frustrating from a reader standpoint, because we want to know how to practice Occlumency, but we can’t. And I compare this to meditating, because anyone who’s meditated knows that that is not easy to do, and certainly not quickly. And if you have one of these apps like Headspace, they have self-guided meditations available, and they’re ten minutes long, and they’ll be like, in the meditation, “Calm your head. Close your mind. Just relax. Feel the weight of your body. If your mind wanders…”
Micah: Bring the attention back to the body.
Andrew: Yeah, “Bring your attention to the body, to the breath. If your mind wanders, that’s okay. That’s fine. Just refocus again.” Snape is like, “Focus, focus, focus! Ahhh!” He would be obviously a terrible person to teach meditation.
[Eric laughs]
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: I will say, to play a little bit of devil’s advocate here, Harry is going to have to become adept at practicing this under situations of pressure. There’s never going to be a real life scenario in which Voldemort is like, “Okay, do you need a minute?”
Andrew: [laughs] “Do you need a minute to focus?”
Laura: “It’s totally cool, totally cool. Take a couple of minutes, take some deep breaths, and then we’ll come back to this.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: And I think that’s where Snape is taking this. He’s like, “Listen, kid, when you get out in the real world, there’s going to be none of this mamby-pamby, ‘Sit down and take a few breaths and really center yourself.'”
Andrew: You’re right, you’re right, but for the first time? For the first time, cut him some slack.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. I compare this to… I know we wanted to start connecting threads in the middle of the chapter discussion, but if you look back at Book 3 when Lupin was teaching Harry how to do the Patronus Charm. The Patronus Charm is this incredibly special and experienced charm that no teenager can be really expected to do, and certainly not well. And Harry doesn’t do it completely at first, and it even takes him a while. Eventually he does master it, but it’s taxing on Harry’s resources, right? With the Patronus, he’s got to come up with a happy memory that’s powerful enough that’s going to endure, and with Occlumency, he’s got to really clear his mind and also understand what it feels like and witness what it feels like. I think this is what Snape is going for here. Harry has to get used to – kind of like he did with the Imperius Curse, which is brought up – he has to get used to the feeling of somebody actively penetrating his mind so that he can push back. He even produces, I think, a Stinging Jinx or something unexpectedly, because he’s telling Snape to get out, or “You can’t see this.” It’s just he’s got to get used to it so that he can guard against it. It’s the same way with pretty much everything skilled.
Micah: Yeah, totally.
Laura: Yep. Stakes are much higher.
Micah: And it makes me wonder, too, when we were talking about Snape and whether or not he really relishes this opportunity, early on we see him taking memories from his own mind and putting them in the Pensieve, and I wonder why isn’t Harry allowed to do that if there are things that he doesn’t want Snape to see?
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: And I also wonder if Snape is removing maybe some happy memories. I think somebody had this a little bit later on, potentially about Lily, and yet he keeps in his own mind his own worst memory and doesn’t remove that. And I wonder if that is fueling him internally, in a way. Does that make him even angrier? He moves whatever happy memories he has in his mind and leaves the negative ones, and that is part of what he’s channeling on Harry.
Andrew: We don’t know if he’s pulling the happy memories. I think he could be pulling a variety of things – possibly the pact that he made with Dumbledore, his memories of Lily – because he’s afraid Harry might actually be able to penetrate his mind, which is interesting because Snape is acting like there’s no way he’s going to be able to do this. I think he does believe in Harry a little bit. And I also find it rich that Snape is insulting Harry for being weak. There was this quote here: “Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily – weak people, in other words – they stand no chance against his powers!” Yet Snape is removing his own memories from his mind, just in case Harry breaks through any of Snape’s weaknesses.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: It’s like, dude. Hypocrite.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: I think actually now it’s more to do with Voldemort being able to see, should Harry get through, what Snape has truly done.
Eric: Ohh.
Micah: So to Eric’s point about the bond that he has formed between himself and Dumbledore, all backhanded stuff that he’s done in lying to Voldemort. And that comes up later, I think, when Snape is talking about those that are practiced Legilimens.
Andrew: I think that’s right, but I think… I think that’s absolutely right, but I also think it’s because Snape is afraid of Harry seeing his love for Lily.
Micah: Possibly.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, Harry is the guy who – again, about the Imperius Curse – is telling Barty Crouch Moody, “No, you know, I don’t think I will dance on the desk. That doesn’t seem right.” He resists the Imperius Charm with next to no skill at all whatsoever, and knowing this – and Snape brings this up – I think he’s expecting to be completely floored and wowed by Harry and his ability to master this. And he’s very disappointed, I think, and that allows him to be a little bit more provoked, too.
Micah: If he can resist Avada Kedavra, I would hope he can resist the Imperius Curse.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Different circumstances.
Micah: That’s, like, one level down.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: But the one other thing I just wanted to talk about with Snape and Occlumency is, do we feel that it can be viewed as a form of mental rape? Because you’re penetrating somebody’s mind and you’re getting to see all of their feelings, all of their memories, that maybe they otherwise don’t want you to know about.
Laura: I definitely think that if used improperly this is absolutely a form of violation, and I think that the way Voldemort uses it is violation.
Eric: Oh, absolutely. He’s trying to suss out people who are going to betray him or are not being truthful, and he… I mean, look at what he did with Bertha Jorkins last year. He uncovers – even breaks through – a Memory Charm. And I don’t even want to know how he really did that, but it was through torturous means, no doubt. And yeah, this is a huge violation.
Andrew: Yeah. I also want to include this email from Yesh; they wrote in about this week’s discussion.
“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Snape is not wrong when he berates Harry for not being able to control his feelings. As we saw in the last chapter, Harry’s mood vanishes instantly when his friends are able to talk sense into him. Once he sees things rationally, he thinks more clearly, he makes better decisions, even his mood improves. Although Snape treats Harry unfairly, he has a point calling Harry weak, because he can’t control his emotions or thoughts. In earlier chapters, Harry behaves almost inhumanly to his friends, and the same way to others in later chapters. It makes him irrational, stupid, and sometimes (in my opinion) thoroughly unlikable. But then, I also think it’s unfair on Harry’s part because he literally has no one to parent him, to treat him honestly as a teenager, or even understand his psychological position. It makes one realize how badly Hogwarts needs a school counselor. I mean, what about Ginny in Chamber of Secrets? Surely just some hot chocolate can’t beat away that trauma? I also find it interesting what Snape says: ‘Fools who wear…’ because it sounds a lot like Snape talking about himself, especially in his time at Hogwarts with the Marauders, or his feelings for Lily. It’s probably the reason why Snape is so good at Occlumency. Just a thought.”
Laura: I like the idea that Snape is referring to himself, at least his younger self, in terms of weakness, because I mean, of course he had feelings for Lily, but he believed that Dumbledore would be able to protect her. He placed all of his faith in other people, in Voldemort maybe not going after her because he asked him not to, in Dumbledore being able to protect her, etc., etc. And I think Snape saw what the effect of that was, and maybe he’s talking a bit about himself when he mentions people wearing their heart on their sleeve.
Eric: Wow, that’s such introspection on Snape’s part. I just assumed he was making a crack at Gryffindors because they’re very outwardly bold and action-y and they have all their emotions upfront, as opposed to the more calm, calculating Slytherin/Ravenclaw type stuff.
Laura: Yeah, I think that’s part of it, too, but I think there could be some subtextual reading here.
Eric: Yeah, I like that.
Micah: Well, speaking of Snape referring to himself, there’s a great quote here where he’s talking about Voldemort, and he says, “The Dark Lord […] almost always knows when somebody is lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and so utter falsehoods in his presence without detection.” So this, to me, is a massive reveal that’s just spoken in passing by Snape, because Snape is talking about himself.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Why is Snape teaching this lesson, Harry?
Micah: He just told you he can lie to Voldemort’s face and get away with it.
Eric: Yep.
Andrew: “This is why I’m good, yo.” I guess if Harry thought about this – which he clearly didn’t – but if Harry thought about this, maybe he was like, “Ooh, maybe he’s lying to Dumbledore. Oh my gosh. I figured it out.”
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: Harry would have argued that he was using these skills against Dumbledore.
Eric: That’s a really good point.
Andrew: But yeah, this is a really big reveal, and it’s a shame that Harry doesn’t think on it at all.
Micah: I’m trying to remember if this really empowered the “Snape is good” camp when Order of the Phoenix was published.
Eric: Maybe or maybe not, because we know that Snape eventually does stop teaching Harry; he refuses to teach him after the umpteenth outburst. But it is a shame that the two of these were never meant to see eye to eye, right? Snape is there telling him “Empty your emotions,” and Harry, in return, glares at him. It just was never really meant to work out, unfortunately.
Micah: Right.
Eric: But it’s thrilling to see the master at work.
Micah: I’ve often wondered, too, if that was part of Dumbledore’s intention to try and at least calm the waters between these two and bring them into a setting where basically Snape is teaching Harry how to survive, and Harry just does not want to really hear any of it. He’s the typical angsty teenager here. But Snape also throws some more information Harry’s way, and it reminded me a lot of Hermione when he’s talking about Voldemort being really able to penetrate Hogwarts and get inside and be able to transport Harry from Hogwarts to the Ministry, and he says that, “The Dark Lord is at a considerable distance and the walls and grounds of Hogwarts are guarded by many ancient spells and charms to ensure the bodily and mental safety of those who dwell within them. Time and space matter in magic, Potter. Eye contact is often essential to Legilimency.” And this, just to me, speaks to Harry’s inattention to detail. This is why Snape comes up with remedial potions. It reminds me, like I said, of Hermione talking so often about how you can’t Apparate within Hogwarts.
Andrew: Well, that’s all fine, but Harry still did see through the snake, so he has reason to ask this question to Snape.
Micah: But I think Snape is telling him to be practical, and I know that’s hard, given what Harry has experienced. And again, he’s only 15 years old, but he’s saying, “Be a little bit more…”
Andrew: Nuanced.
Eric: Open-minded?
Micah: Yeah, exactly.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I think reason, right? It’s about understanding what’s happening, and Harry just doesn’t want to pay attention to detail.
Eric: It is such a shame because Lupin, again, with a different teaching style, a slightly different approach… Harry is no less traumatized by having to see or hear his parents’ death when he sees and hears a Dementor, but he has the motivation to get better because he’s got Lupin, who genuinely cares about his past. And I guess with Harry, it’s all a violation to Harry when Snape is able to see even the dog chasing him up the tree. These are still memories that feel stolen. These are still moments that Snape really shouldn’t have access to. And I think Harry bristles at the very idea that something a little bit more private that he cares about, like him and Cho, would be seen so clearly by this spectator, by this person.
Micah: Yeah. It seems like Snape really likes Aunt Marge.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: Or really likes Ripper. One of the two.
Andrew: That was kind of weird that Snape asked that.
Eric: Well, just… it shows what he’s seeing. It’s super clear. Like, “Oh my God, Snape saw a dog.”
Andrew: Yeah, but why does Snape care?
Eric: He just is making conversation. I think he’s being a good teacher in that moment. He’s like, “Yeah, I saw it all. I saw flashes of it. Who’s the dog?”
Andrew: “And who’s the girl?”
Micah: “Who’s the lady?” Yeah, that’s also another connecting the threads to Prisoner of Azkaban. So wanted to talk a little bit about what does Voldemort know about Harry at this point?
Eric: Yeah, it’s a good question because Snape tells Harry that up until now, Voldemort was unaware of this particular connection, but now I’m thinking the only way that this connection can exist, especially given that Voldemort was possessing Nagini, and Harry saw into his mind when he was possessing Nagini – Nagini, who is a known Horcrux of Voldemort’s – I have no choice but to believe that Voldemort should at this point know that Harry himself is a Horcrux. Unintended, maybe, but it’s the same magic at play here, and I think that it should be very obvious to Voldemort right now. What do you guys think?
Laura: I think Voldemort has too much hubris to believe in this, to believe that he unintentionally created a Horcrux.
Andrew: I agree with that. He couldn’t have made a mistake; there’s no way. And his plan has come together exactly as he intended. Harry is not a Horcrux.
Eric: But didn’t Voldemort…? I mean, talking about what J.K. Rowling has said afterwards, didn’t Voldemort go to Godric’s Hollow that night with the intention of killing this child that was prophesied and making a Horcrux out of him? He had already done the prep work of whatever that entails to make Harry a Horcrux, which is why, when it backfired and Harry ends up inadvertently becoming a Horcrux, why is anybody surprised by this? At least I think so.
Micah: Yeah. I mean, I tend to agree with what Laura said, because Voldemort continues to try and kill Harry. He doesn’t back off of it. And if that were the case, and he knew Harry was a Horcrux, he doesn’t need to go after him. He doesn’t need to touch him.
Eric: Right.
Micah: As long as Harry lives, he lives, so everything that happens in the Forbidden Forest in Deathly Hallows didn’t even need to happen, right? Why hit him with Avada Kedavra? It destroyed the Horcrux. So yeah, I just think right now, Voldemort is still very much in search of answers. He clearly is taking full advantage of the fact that they’re connected, but I don’t necessarily know if he realizes that they’re connected via this Horcrux. It may just be other magic, or could even be the prophecy, right? That’s why he’s after the prophecy in this book; he wants to better understand what Harry means to him.
Eric: Good point.
Andrew: You could say it was a flaw in the plan.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: You could say that if it were Harry’s birthday right now, it would be the worst birthday.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: And Laura, you had a great point here about maybe Voldemort is just hoping to possess Harry.
Laura: Yeah, at this point in the story Harry even wonders this, like, “Am I the weapon?” But I could very much see Voldemort hoping to possess Harry in order to get him to… because he’s so trusted on the good side of things, in order to get him to participate in nefarious activities, similar to what he did to Ginny Weasley.
Andrew: If I was Voldemort, I would just be very excited by this connection to Harry, so I could always check in on what Harry is doing. Snape holding this lesson with Harry was still a huge risk.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: I don’t know if Voldemort would be very happy if he saw Snape teaching this, even if Voldemort thinks that Snape is secretly working against Dumbledore.
Micah: That’s a fair point too.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, having this connection is like picking up the phone and listening to somebody’s conversation.
Micah: [laughs] Andrew.
Andrew: Yeah, people who do that are definitely Dark Lords.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Andrew the Dark Lord.
Andrew: Don’t say my name!
Micah: Don’t tweet me and ask me questions about that video game.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: We talked a little bit earlier, though, about how this is really the equivalent of putting a novice boxer in the ring against a pro, and what I don’t really think Snape or Dumbledore – particularly Dumbledore – considered was the effect this was going to have on Harry after each lesson, right?
Andrew: Yeah, his poor brain.
Micah: Think about what Lupin did. Lupin provided Harry with chocolate, right? Every time they had these lessons. Because it’s very similar to Prisoner of Azkaban, right? Harry would be drained after fighting the Dementor. He’s drained after this encounter with Snape, and Snape doesn’t do anything. Snape probably had could whip up a cocktail potion for him.
Eric: Oooh.
Micah: He’d be feeling really good afterwards, and he chooses not to. I wonder if Dumbledore instructed Snape to do this and Snape just chose not to.
Andrew: Yeah, I guess you could say that… oh, you’re saying Dumbledore instructed him to give him some sort of cocktail after?
Micah: A pick-me-up, yeah.
Eric: A potion for mental fortitude.
Andrew: Maybe, or Dumbledore could have said, “Don’t do that, and let Harry…”
Micah: “Let Harry suffer.”
Andrew: “… feel the effects of this so he’s more prepared.” I know, let Harry suffer. Let Harry suffer more. Snape should have at least given him a head massage. That could have been a little helpful.
Eric: [laughs] “Come here, Potter.”
Andrew: You know when you’re getting your hair cut and they wash your hair for you, and then they give you a head massage while they wash your hair? That’s what Snape should have done for Harry.
Laura: [laughs] Can you imagine walking in on that scene and being like, “Ooo-kay.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: But so I have a question here: Should Dumbledore have anticipated this and stated that Harry needed to spend the night in the hospital wing for observation, or something along those lines?
Micah: Yes.
Andrew: You have to think that if Dumbledore did stipulate something, Snape would have followed through with it. He wouldn’t not listen to Dumbledore, right?
Micah: That’s true.
Eric: Right, I think there’s a line there. But Dumbledore still thinks he can treat Harry like any other teenager and let him in the general population of other students, right? I mean, if Dumbledore ever tried to isolate Harry even further than he’s already isolated him by not talking with him, Harry would flip.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: Totally. I think that it’s just oversight on the part of Dumbledore. We see at the end of this chapter just how pale Harry is; it’s noted by all of his friends. He can’t even do his homework. He tries to get up to bed and passes out on the staircase. Again, think about something, some sort of physical activity that you do for the first time, and you get tasked with it three times over. Like I said, boxing; you get your head knocked off, and you’re not going to go and get proper treatment afterwards? It’s just really cruel. I put more of the blame on Dumbledore than I do on Snape, for not thinking through this particular situation. So we’re almost at the end of the chapter here; just a couple more things to touch on. Andrew, I think you had in here Snape asking Harry not to say Voldemort’s name. Why?
Andrew: Yeah, why? And Snape rubs his arm where his Dark Mark is, and I’m wondering, was Snape afraid that this was going to alert Voldemort to their meeting?
Micah: Possibly.
Andrew: He’d be able to check in on Harry and then see Snape and be like, “WTF?”
Micah: Yeah, that’s a great point.
Andrew: [imitating Voldemort] “What are you doing with Harry?!”
Laura: Giving him a scalp massage.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Just giving him a head massage. [laughs] Any ideas for why he rubbed his arm? Did it hurt to hear Voldemort’s name?
Eric: I think it does. I think that there might be a part of Snape that really actually hates being a Death Eater…
Andrew: Mm, that’s interesting.
Eric: … and Snape is very much, I think, not to overuse the word, but triggered, right? By Voldemort. And he also, when Harry asks, “Why not? Dumbledore says the name,” Snape is like, “But Dumbledore is, like, the best wizard that ever lived.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: “Because I love him! Because I made a deal with him! He can do whatever he wants.”
Eric: “You’re just a piss-ant 15-year-old. You can’t say his name.”
Andrew: Does Snape hate Harry’s courage?
Micah: That’s a great question.
Eric: That’s a good question. I think Snape hates everything that he sees that reminds him of James.
Micah: Right.
Eric: Courage probably included.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: I do think there’s a part of Snape that really dislikes Voldemort, particularly for what he did to Lily. And I also just think there’s this inherent fear amongst everyone in saying Voldemort’s name. It surprises me that Snape is one of those people. But yeah, I do think there’s something to the fact that you just raised, Andrew, about Harry having this courage that Snape… I also just think it’s like a kid thing in some way, right? Kids, a lot of times they just don’t have that same kind of fear. It just rolls off them. There’s a lack of understanding, and so the fear isn’t as real.
Andrew: I would agree with that, but obviously the kids in Hogwarts don’t like saying his name.
Micah: But they were raised that way. Harry wasn’t raised that way. Harry didn’t even know about Voldemort until his 11th birthday.
Eric: Right.
Laura: Yeah. I think also, Snape for a very long time was a legitimate Death Eater, and now he’s having to play the part of one. Death Eaters also don’t say Voldemort’s name; they call him the Dark Lord, and this could just be a conditioning thing on that side of the war as well.
Micah: Totally. The chapter wraps up in Harry having a full mental breakdown after his sessions with Snape, and Voldemort is extremely, extremely happy, and Harry’s scar is burning at a level that we probably haven’t seen before. It’s completely debilitating him. And I know we’re going to find out, probably in the next chapter, why Voldemort is so happy, but it’s very scary for Harry, and this is probably happening at this level because his defenses are so low because of everything he’s just been through, and he’s not sure how to respond to it.
Andrew: And because his defenses are so low, he’s laughing. He’s smiling, right?
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: Voldemort’s hysterical laughter is being emitted through Harry, and I really wish this was something we saw in the movie.
Andrew: Did Snape and Dumbledore anticipate this? I don’t think so.
Micah: Now, in the movie, it’s because of the mass breakout from Azkaban. Is that what’s coming in the book too?
Andrew: Yeah, literally the next chapter.
Eric: Yep, the very…
Micah: Got it. I didn’t read ahead, so…
Andrew: You should cheat and flip ahead from time to time. It can be helpful. [laughs]
Eric: But in terms of Harry being possessed, Laura, like what you said, I think they do enough of that towards the end of the Ministry, Harry looking very deathly sick.
Laura: Yeah, I just feel like this was such a good scene that really set that up, and in the movie it was sort of like, “Oh, Harry looks sick, and he’s talking but Voldemort’s voice is coming out of his mouth.”
Micah: Right.
Andrew: When you read that part about Harry just giving the Voldemort laugh, I think of that really awful smile that Voldemort gives during the Deathly Hallows movie. I would not want to see Harry grin and smile and laugh like that. That would freak me out.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: When he hugs Draco.
Andrew: Exactly.
Laura: Oh no. [laughs] “Well done, Draco.”
Andrew: So crazy.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: One other thing I wanted to call out – which is very small and unrelated to any of this – but when Harry gets back to the Gryffindor common room, the Weasley twins are at it again with what are to become Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes products, and Hermione notes the fact of how smart they must be to be able to get some of these things to work. And Fred actually… I forget what the name of it is; it’s some sort of invisibility hat, right? Does anybody remember?
Andrew: Yes. Well, that’s what it does.
Micah: Yeah, I just thought it was interesting that Fred is the one who’s demonstrating it and his head disappears, and we all know what happens to Fred in Deathly Hallows.
Laura: Aww.
Andrew: Another omen.
Micah: More foreshadowing on the part of J.K. Rowling.
Andrew: Does he get hit in the head in Deathly Hallows?
Micah: Well, no, he just makes his head disappear.
Andrew: No, no, I mean…
Micah: Oh, no, I mean, I don’t know exactly what happens to him. We just know that he’s killed.
Eric: They’re called Headless Hats.
Micah: Headless Hats, there you go. But anyway, that wraps up the chapter, and it was a pretty intense one.
Andrew: Yeah, for sure.
Micah: A lot of stuff happening.
Andrew: And there’s other elements I’d like to talk about later on. This doesn’t really relate to Occlumency exactly, but Snape removing those memories from his head. Can he no longer think about them when you remove them? I wonder about things like that. I was wondering while reading this chapter, but we could talk about that later. Before we check in on the Umbridge Suck count, I want to tell you about our second sponsor this week.
[Ad break]
Andrew: It’s time for the Umbridge Suck count.
Micah: First one up is giving the students a ream of homework when they get back to Hogwarts. Come on, Professor. Let them ease into the new term.
Eric: Yeah. It’s the only time Umbridge is mentioned in this chapter, is she she gave them a ream of homework.
Laura: Ehh…
Andrew: Laura, you disagree?
Laura: No, I think that’s actually not a great practice for the beginning of a term.
Andrew: Oh.
Eric: So you agree she sucks for it.
Laura: Yes, I do agree.
Andrew: Okay.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Eric: Okay, so what’s the wisdom behind not…? Because I think where Umbridge… or any teacher, because I’ve had teachers that do this, too; they want you to be like, “Okay, your break is over. Bring your mind back.” And they give you a huge assignment to re-fire all the neurons. You’re saying that’s not a good practice?
Laura: I never agreed when I was teaching. Not to say that you shouldn’t give people homework, but you can ease people in.
Micah: Yeah. Look, there are levels of sucking, right?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I mean, we can’t be discriminatory here. You can suck for giving a lot of homework, and you can suck for Educational Decrees and for physically abusing people, right? All which Umbridge does. I mean, it’s just a matter of perspective, but I think they’re all reasons for her to suck.
Laura: Agreed.
Andrew: How about this other one?
Laura: I said for causing Harry to have to say he’s taking remedial potions. He has to say this just so that she will not catch on to what he’s doing.
Andrew: And now he’s the laughing stock of the school!
Laura: Yep.
Andrew: He sucks so much at potions, he’s got to take extra potion lessons.
[“Hem-hem!” Umbridge Suck count sound effect plays]
Micah: Who was it? Ernie Macmillan, who was an ass-hat to him? Or Justin?
Laura: Oh, I thought it was Zacharias.
Micah: Oh, him too. Yeah.
Eric: Zacharias Smith, yeah.
Micah: All those Hufflepuffs.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yeah, y’all are supposed to be nice. What happened?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, you rub a… they’ll cut you if you cross them.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: You poke a badger.
Eric: Yeah, like the honey badger.
Laura: And it’ll cut you?
Eric: Yeah. Cross a badger, it’ll cut you.
Micah: Like a Tiger King.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: I don’t know.
Laura: Almost made it a full episode. Almost did it. [laughs]
Connecting the Threads
Laura: All right, now it’s time for Connecting the Threads. I wanted to kick this off with a thread that is not specific to this chapter, but just something that is a generic connection between Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix that I just noticed when I was paging through the end of Prisoner of Azkaban while preparing for this. After Buckbeak escapes and Sirius also escapes, Percy Weasley is outraged, and he’s in the Great Hall telling his girlfriend, Penelope Clearwater, “If I manage to get into the Ministry, I’ll have a lot of proposals to make about Magical Law Enforcement!” And we see in this book, and even more so in the next book, that he is living up to these earlier promises. So actually, this is another example of why we shouldn’t really be surprised about Percy ending up where he’s ended up. This foreshadowing has been going on for quite a while.
Micah: Wow.
Laura: Then of course, there are a lot of connections to make with the Knight Bus, and we’ll start with Madam Marsh. So we know in Order of the Phoenix they let her off before dropping the trio and the rest of the Weasley siblings at Hogwarts because Madam Marsh was sick; she just wasn’t feeling her best. Well, she was actually in Prisoner of Azkaban as well. Ern says, “Best go wake up Madam Marsh, Stan. We’ll be in Abergavenny in a minute.” So she apparently rides the Knight Bus a lot.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Frequent user. Give me more bumps. Give me more sudden stops.
Laura: But also, I’m like, if it’s emergency transport for the stranded or lost wizard, what’s she doing?
Andrew: Yeah, right. [laughs]
Micah: She just likes… she’s a regular… well, I guess that’s true, then. She’s not technically a commuter, right? Unless she’s taking it to work every day or something.
Laura: Yeah, but I looked up Abergavenny – and I hope I’m saying this correctly – it’s in Wales.
Andrew: Huh.
Laura: So that’s quite a commute.
Micah: You’re just saying she’s a freeloader, huh?
Laura: [laughs] She’s paying her 11 Sickles just like everyone else, presumably.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: And then we have this nice little connection with Stan and his acceptance of what the Daily Prophet publishes. So in Prisoner of Azkaban, he’s talking about Sirius Black and saying, “‘Cos he’s mad, inee, Ern? Inee mad?” And then in Order of the Phoenix, talking about Harry and how Harry has been portrayed in the Daily Prophet, he says, “I said to Ern, I said, ‘e didn’t seem like a nutter when we met ‘im, just goes to show, dunnit?'” And I thought this was a really interesting comparison between the ways that Harry and Sirius are perceived in the wizarding world between these two books. Then Sirius has these secret gifts that he’s giving Harry. In Prisoner of Azkaban it’s the Firebolt, and in Order of the Phoenix, it’s the two-way mirror, both of which… well, both of which would come in handy, were they both used.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: I made my own Firebolt as a kid. I used to love the Firebolt.
Micah: Did you?
Andrew: Like a class project? I don’t know what the prompt was but I decided to make a Firebolt for that assignment, and I spray painted it gold, and I had a carrying case for it. It rocked.
Eric: Oh, man.
Andrew: Yeah, I wish I still had that.
Laura: Did you run around with it? Did you ride it?
Andrew: Of course I did. Yeah, and I made it vibrate. It did everything.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: You still do.
[Andrew laughs]
MVP of the Week
Andrew: All right, time for MVP of the Week.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m going to give mine to Sirius for that two-way mirror Laura just mentioned, since it comes in handy later.
Eric: I’m going to give mine to Snape for telling Harry amazingly useful things, if only he’d listen to them all.
Micah: Mine goes to Mr. Weasley for effectively breaking up that skirmish between Sirius and Snape.
Laura: Mine goes to Hermione for naturally filling a role that Dumbledore and Snape should have foreseen a need for, by asking Ron to go and check on Harry after he goes up to his dormitory.
Rename the Chapter
Andrew: And now let’s rename the chapter. Order of the Phoenix Chapter 24, “Relax, [censored]!”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 24, “I’m a Legilimens, Not a Mind-Reader!”
Micah: Well, that sets up mine. Order of the Phoenix Chapter 24, “You Read My Mind.”
Eric: Aww.
Laura: And mine is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter 24, “Worst Meditation Class Ever.”
Andrew: If you have any feedback about today’s discussion or you have a question about Chapter 25, send it on in to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the contact form on MuggleCast.com. You can also record a voice memo and send that to MuggleCast@gmail.com. By the way, we’re not done discussing this chapter yet. In bonus MuggleCast today, which is available over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, we will discuss why Occlumency, why Legilimency, is not mind reading. Right, Eric?
Eric: That’s right; we’re going even deeper in depth into what Snape is talking about. Other examples that we’ve seen, whether Dumbledore, Voldemort are reading minds… all that stuff. Deep dive over in bonus MuggleCast.
Andrew: And J.K. Rowling actually addressed why what Queenie is doing is different than what Snape was saying is not possible. We’ll try to parse that and figure out what that tweet really meant from J.K. Rowling a few years ago.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Cool.
Quizzitch
Andrew: It’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s question: Who teases Harry first about taking remedial potions? The answer was, of course – who else? – that Hufflepuff, Zacharias Smith. Ugh. Anyway, correct answers were submitted by Caleb, Samwise Potter Skywalker, Sara a.k.a. Weensie; Megos, Stacy, Count Ravioli, William Walton, and Jenny Beez.
Laura: Always good to see Count Ravioli there.
Eric: Always good. [laughs] Next week’s question: What does Hagrid instruct Harry to put on the salamanders of Hogwarts? Send in your answers to us over on Twitter at MuggleCast, hashtag Quizzitch.
Andrew: Another salamander appearance. J.K. Rowling loves those salamanders. All right, thank you, everybody, for listening to today’s episode. Don’t forget to follow us on social media; we are MuggleCast on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. By following us, you will stay up to date on the latest developments concerning MuggleCast, and you’ll probably be one of the first to hear about our next round of Quizzitch Live. So again, that’s username MuggleCast on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And again, we would love your support on Patreon, Patreon.com/MuggleCast. We really appreciate your support; it keeps the show running, rocking, and rolling, and we’re able to invest in really cool things, like this whole trivia system that we have for Quizzitch Live. So thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody who is pledging. And you get lots of benefits like bonus MuggleCast. You’ll be able to sit in on our recordings; we livestream every episode as we are recording it, and you can tune in on Saturday or Sunday morning. And you will get a personalized “Thank you” message from one of the four MuggleCasters. All right, thank you, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura. See ya.
Andrew and Micah: Bye.