Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #555, ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Reveals Huge Sneak Peek, ’98-’99 Hogwarts School Year Deep Dive
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: On this week’s episode, we’re going to be discussing what happened in the 1998-1999 school year at Hogwarts. It’s actually a question that came up in Muggle Mail a few months ago, and it was such a good question that we were like, “We need to do a whole episode around this.” Because it’s a pretty big question and pretty interesting question, too, so we’ll talk about that in a little bit. Should also note, this is Episode 555; that is kind of cool.
Eric: It’s a bit generic. It’s the movie safe episode.
Micah: Well, you know what that means? The next episode that we have triple digits on? 666.
Andrew: Oh, yes.
Laura: Ohh.
Eric: It’s a big, big Nicholas Flamel birthday episode, because that’s how old he is in the first Harry Potter book.
Andrew: [laughs] We should just skip that episode like hotels skip the 13th floor, which I always find so stupid because if you look at an elevator and all the numbers, you see 12 then 14. If I’m on floor 14, I know I’m actually on 13, so what’s the point?
Eric: The point is not inviting that energy into the universe, Andrew. Just don’t do it.
Andrew: Right.
Laura: No, we should make a bad episode for that one.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: You know what we should do? We should do another 12-hour livestream. We’re going to do another 12-hour livestream and then release it after the fact, so we’ll have episodes 660 to 672 just there.
Hogwarts Legacy trailer discussion
Andrew: There was a pretty big news item this week that we wanted to discuss. And by the way, we are aware there have been a lot of Fantastic Beasts clips and behind-the-scenes looks over the past couple days, and we will get to those next week. In our news segment this week, we wanted to focus on this big new preview that was released of Hogwarts Legacy. We’ve mentioned this game from time to time; this is a new game coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox, and a couple others, I guess. It’s an open world wizarding world game. It’s set in the 1800s; it was confirmed today. I don’t know if we knew this previously. It had leaked, but it was confirmed today that you are going to be playing as a late blooming – so to speak – wizard. You join Hogwarts in your fifth year, which is pretty interesting. Everybody here saw the teaser; it was 15 minutes long. There were some interviews with the development team after. What’d y’all think?
Laura: I was super impressed. To be honest, I was a little bit worried because we hadn’t heard much about this game in quite some time, and it made me concerned about sort of… usually when movies or games are really getting pushed out like that, it’s sometimes not a great sign, but I was really impressed with this. It looks beautiful. The combat looked really amazing. I was watching it with my boyfriend, who is in game design, and he was like, “This is the best combat I’ve ever seen in a wizarding world property, period. Forget the movies; the combat that we saw in this trailer, in this teaser, was way better than anything we’ve ever seen before.” And there’s so much customization involved; you get to get Sorted into your Hogwarts House, you can customize what your character looks like, and it seems like there are a couple of different paths that you can choose to pursue as well. You can choose to, it seems, go good or go bad, and that’s just really appealing to me. I love games like that. I love getting a game like that that I can play both paths on, basically, to see what the different outcomes are. This actually got me really excited for Hogwarts Legacy. I was not very excited before; I am now.
Micah: One of the things I thought about was that when you take time to develop something and maybe even delay things a bit, this is what it should look like.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: If you get what I’m saying.
Eric: Come out the gate being like, “Ahh, here we are.”
Micah: And I agree, Laura. I thought the graphics looked phenomenal, the world amazing. I can’t wait to jump into it, not just to explore Hogwarts and its grounds, but everything else that you can do. I mean, I was blown away, honestly. I’m really looking forward to this. Huge fan – I know, Andrew, you are as well – of Breath of the Wild…
Andrew: Zelda.
Micah: … and reminded me of this a bit in terms of just how expansive everything is and how much you seem to be able to do. It’s definitely a game that I can’t wait to play.
Eric: The bar these days is real high for story adventure games, I think; there’s a lot of really good ones out there. I know at least three of us are playing Horizon Forbidden West right now. Andrew, that’s your first PS5 game, right?
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, the detail in the game is absolutely incredible. And so yeah, it’s going to be like that in that it is open world-ish, and you can level up your skills, and you can be crafting. There are a lot of similar elements, but this is very common for these types of video games, so I’m very glad that it has all those elements.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And I mean to say, the story narrative woman in the interview that they did after the initial 15 minute… there’s five minutes of interviews with people. She even used the term “side quests.” So there are your active missions, there are your side missions, you can go around the countryside. You can leave Hogwarts and help people, like townspeople. Not just Hogsmeade townspeople, but hermits in the middle of nowhere, they said, with things using your magic. So I’m pretty excited for just how open world it is. But I find myself being drawn… I think they’re right when they say “When you think of the wizarding world, what anchors people to it, what excites people, is Hogwarts.” So the idea of these mysteries, this ancient magic that your character can tap into, seems like they got a really good idea, a good kernel of a story in the plot and are just exploring that to its fruition.
Micah: That’s one thing that I really like about it, is the fact that it’s not tied to Harry Potter in any way.
Laura: Same.
Micah: So I think it removes any kind of expectations that people have coming in in terms of seeing certain storylines play out, or certain characters show up. Although, we did get a bit of a tease that we may see some familiar faces along the way. Who? They would have to be old enough, obviously, to show up…
Eric: Or dead.
Micah: Or dead.
Andrew: Yeah, they showed some of the ghosts.
Micah: They did.
Andrew: They showed Nearly Headless Nick, for example.
Laura: Or poltergeists.
Eric: And I’m pretty sure I saw Peeves, yeah.
Andrew: Yes, Peeves!
Laura: I got so excited when we were watching it. Marc was like, “Who the heck is that?” And I was like, “Oh my God, it’s Peeves! They actually put Peeves in something!”
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Some of the things I noticed – I took some random notes while I was watching – you do get to attend classes. The professors seem very colorful and unique, I mean, personality-wise, and I thought that was great because we see a lot of unique personalities at Hogwarts in the core series, so I’m glad they kept that in mind when creating new professors. They mentioned iconic locations you haven’t been able to explore before; you see the Hogwarts kitchens and you can go down in there and you see house-elves. And you saw, I don’t know, Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom or something like that, the original version of it or something. Did you guys see that very fancy bathroom?
Eric: Oh, the prefects’ bathroom, yeah.
Andrew: Prefects’ bathroom. That’s the prefects’ bathroom? How do you know that? [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I think so, with its grandiose kind of… the way that it was designed.
Andrew: Wow. That is hilarious, because few video games actually create bathrooms. Goldeneye maybe created bathrooms, but how many video games have bathrooms? [laughs]
Eric: You’re right, there’s not a very… yeah, there’s not a huge… but it’s possibly part of the plot, or it’s one of those things where you read about it and you want to see it.
Andrew: But that’s good news that they’re adding all these different rooms, because then you can only imagine how many rooms they actually created at Hogwarts. It truly feels like, so far, that you will be able to explore every nook and cranny at Hogwarts. I’m sure some doors might be locked, but there’s going to be a ton to explore at the school alone.
Eric: That seems really well done. I mean, games have just been able to accommodate more and more space lately as the technology improves, as the systems improve. This is not the world’s first open world Hogwarts. It’s probably… they’ve had sort of free-roaming Hogwartses back in the Chamber of Secrets PC game, that era of gaming, and those were all very good too. There were secret passages, there were portraits that you had to shoot a certain spell to get behind them… really cool stuff. To see that brought into the next generation of gaming is exciting, though, because it still has that level of playfulness that… what it felt like to be 14 and playing a Harry Potter video game? That kind of mood feels like parts of this trailer.
Andrew: Yeah. And by the way, now that they have this whole game engine built, we could see a sequel sooner rather than later. It might not take ten years; it might only take a few years, and they’ll just use that castle as a starting point and just build from there, so that’s exciting to think about. But some other things I noticed: You can fly brooms and you can fly on the back of hippogriffs. The world seems very expansive. Eric, you mentioned small villages, but there’s a point where it looks like you get near the ocean, the English coast, so it looks like you could travel pretty far. It makes you wonder how close Hogwarts is, but whatever. [laughs]
Micah: Yeah, there was a scene, right, where they do Reparo and it repairs this bridge or pathway that goes out to something that appeared to be sitting out in the water, so that was pretty cool.
Eric: At first I thought it was Azkaban and I was like, “Oh, wait, there’s nobody in it, so it can’t be Azkaban.” [laughs]
Micah: Your point about expansiveness, though, Andrew, and expanding on the actual original video game, I would love to see them do this to other parts of the globe, being able to go to the US, to Ilvermorny and the surrounding areas, or to many of the other wizarding schools that we’ve talked about on the show before. I think that would be really, really cool.
Laura: Yeah, and that could also be the answer for how we get more expanded details on these schools and on these other wizarding communities, because as we all know, we were supposed to get that with the Fantastic Beasts franchise, and it’s falling kind of flat. But having a whole game studio focused with all of those people bringing their diverse backgrounds and experiences to the table, I think that’s the right way to do it, so I’m hopeful. Again, Marc was sitting there like, “This is how they save the Wizarding World! This is how WB saves the expansion of the franchise.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: And I feel the same way. I think that it’s stuff like this; it’s again, opening the sandbox and letting other creators in to make something new and fresh.
Eric: Well, and what did Marc say about the beasts in this trailer?
Laura: [laughs] Oh, yeah, he was like, “There are more fantastic beasts in this trailer than there have been in the whole franchise, or in the whole series.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: He’s not wrong!
Andrew: Yeah, you see some beasts that are recognizable from Fantastic Beasts, so that’s some synergy.
Laura: Yeah, but also just a lot of beasts in general. There’re all kinds of animals.
Andrew: So we’ll include a link to the… I don’t even want to call it a trailer; it’s an extended look at Hogwarts Legacy, if anybody wants to watch it for themself. I think the TLDR from us is that it lives up to expectations so far. We can’t wait to play it. By the way, they did announce it’ll be available holiday 2022, so they’re not committing to a specific date yet, but holiday usually means Thanksgiving, obviously before Christmas, so I would expect it late November, early December. One thing I didn’t see was Quidditch. There was a cut scene where you see Quidditch in the background, but there’s a big question around “Will you be able to play Quidditch?” I’m wondering if they’re going to have a DLC at some point, basically an expansion of this game where you do get to play Quidditch and maybe compete, and maybe it’ll be like Quidditch World Cup, which Eric and I have spoken about, or everybody’s spoken about over the years. So there’s a lot of flying, but Quidditch was suspiciously absent. Maybe they just want to save that surprise for later, because obviously that would be a very popular feature.
Eric: Maybe. I did see there was a moment where you’re moving blocks and balls around what looks like I guess what I would call a bocce court kind of a thing.
Andrew: Kind of, yeah, it was some sort of puzzle.
Eric: So that struck me as being… maybe they’ll invent a few popular pastimes, or we’ll see Gobstones, or we’ll see other wizarding games besides the three that were shouted out in the books.
Laura: They could also be leaning on Quidditch Through the Ages to draw some inspiration for what Quidditch at Hogwarts would have looked like in the late 1800s…
Andrew: 100%.
Laura: … so there’s just a ton… there’s a wealth of detail that’s just awaiting this game, so I’m excited.
Eric: Yeah, definitely worth a further look.
Main Discussion: The ’98-’99 Hogwarts year
Micah: We really should have some nostalgic late ’90s music for this episode. Maybe we try and figure out what the graduation song will be at the end.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: We all grew up in the ’90s, and so I feel like…
Laura: You know what it would be. It’d be the Vitamin C graduation song. [laughs]
Micah: I know.
Andrew: Yes. [hums the graduation song]
Eric: Let’s see, Billboard Hot 100 singles of 1999: Cher’s “Believe,” TLC’s “No Scrubs,” Britney Spears’s “Baby One More Time,” Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me.” That’s the prom song for sure.
Micah: All right, we have some options here. So as Andrew mentioned earlier on in the episode, we got an email a while back from one of our listeners, Anette, who wanted us to dive deep on what it would be like in that 1998-’99 school year, post-Battle of Hogwarts, the year that Ginny and Luna would graduate; we know Hermione went back for her final year, so she would have attended with them. And so this is really going to be a discussion about what that year looked like, at least according to us.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: And we got a bunch of questions…
Andrew: We make the rules now.
Micah: We might as well just write it; it’s our own fanfiction. We got a lot of great questions submitted by our patrons that we’re going to get to. So Anette asked us a few questions in that email, which we actually did address on the episode. A couple of questions that she had asked us were, “We know that Hermione did go back for her final year after the Battle of Hogwarts and finished her education, which means that she would have graduated with Ginny and Luna. Do we think that the three of them would have been really tight in their final year?” And we actually discussed that back on Episode 539. She wanted to know, “What would it be like for students whose families ended up siding with Voldemort?” That might be a little bit awkward when they walk back in for their first day of classes – if they walk back in for their first day of classes. [laughs] “Any new traditions that the school would have had? Would Snape end up with a remembrance plaque in the Entrance Hall?” Big question that came from a lot of patrons; I think it was probably the most asked question – I know Eric, we’re going to dive deep into this – but, “Would there finally be grief counselors at the school, given everything that happened?” To set the stage, this would have been September of ’98, four months after the battle.
Andrew: Not long at all.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: A lot of PTSD to deal with.
Andrew: Those wounds are still open.
Micah: Filch is probably… yeah, he’s still cleaning it up with his broom.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yikes.
Andrew: Cleaning up what, exactly?
Micah: Mrs. Norris helping the best she can. All the… well, the leftovers.
Andrew: [laughs] That’s a good way to put it.
Micah: So we’re going to get to all of Anette’s questions, but a really good one to start out here is start of term: Would the Sorting Hat have had a special song, given everything that had transpired just four months earlier? Or was he destroyed?
Andrew: No! Maybe some beat poetry, the Hat would’ve had instead.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Just like… I don’t know. Maybe a song would be too dreary. It’d have to be something somber.
Eric: The Hogwarts staff is just like, “In lieu of grief counselors, here’s a really moving beat poetry song or poem from the Sorting Hat.”
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I mean, sometimes we rely on music as therapy. [laughs]
Eric: That’s true.
Laura: I like this.
Eric: Maybe the Sorting Hat would sing Vitamin C.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: I like the idea of the Sorting Hat’s song – beat poetry, maybe even a rap – basically going somewhat along the lines of, “I warned you guys, remember? I told you this was going to happen.” Yeah, I could see the Sorting Hat being a little petty.
Micah: One thing I actually just thought of, though, is given everything that just happened, would we still Sort? Does it make sense?
Eric: That’s an interesting question.
Andrew: I think so. I think so.
Micah: Would Slytherin still be a House?
Eric: I think…
Andrew: Yeah.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: It has to be, right?
Eric: Yeah, because there’s still upperclassmen. That’s the thing. That’s the thing, is there’s people from all seven years that are… unless you’re… it would be weird to take the people from years one through six previously, and say, “You can’t be in your House anymore” if they’re returning. Even if they didn’t Sort anybody new into Slytherin, there are still those Slytherins from before.
Andrew: I think it’s important from a unity standpoint, too, just to have everything go on as normal. Everybody would want to welcome Slytherin, hopefully, with open arms.
Laura: Also, Harry’s son is Sorted into Slytherin 19 years later, so presumably they keep it.
Micah: That’s a fair point.
Eric: In 19 years they get over the prejudice.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: It’s the first year back, and he’s like, “Dang it, my first year at Hogwarts, I get put in Slytherin. I’m Harry Potter’s son.”
Eric: [laughs] I feel like we have to suspect that a lot of what we’re going to be talking about and discussing is hopeful, but I think realistically, a lot of what we see at Hogwarts during the school year will be the same, will be exactly the same, because we are all creatures of habit. I think that the mechanics that are put in place, like school Sorting and everything, are just going to be that way, not because they’re right, not because they’ve been assessed. Nobody’s going to have time to really think immediately, especially with a four month turnaround. People are still going to memorial services and really trying to figure out how to emotionally process everything that just happened. I feel like they’re just going to… if Hogwarts does come back, which I guess we heard that it did, they’re going to be keeping it as familiar as possible, and dealing with those other issues on the fly, I think.
Micah: That’s a good point. I just wonder, is four months enough time to even get things back to a state of normalcy? Certainly, magic can help with the rebuilding of the castle grounds and making everything there look as if nothing had happened, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the right way to handle the situation either. I think there needs to be some sort of recognition of what’s happened, some tribute in some way, given that a majority of these students went through an extremely traumatic event, and also would be curious how many parents would be willing to send first years off to the school after everything that has just transpired.
Laura: It would be interesting… I could see the new incoming class of students being much smaller, so first year classes might be a bit odd because there’s maybe five kids per House, or something like that, coming in.
Eric: Just like in the Harry Potter books.
Laura: Well, yeah, no, that is just like in Harry Potter, actually.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yes. I mean, it could be even less than that.
Eric: I can see people looking to do homeschooling or looking to do other alternative means of education after finding out that a huge war was fought. I think the world at large is… they’re no longer to be able to conceal the fact that Hogwarts is a security nightmare from people.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Like, really? The Dark Lord showed up and killed a bunch of students? Dozens of people died?
Andrew: Or maybe they vowed to start securing things down.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, what kind of promises would you need to make the parents that are sending their kids here? What kind of procedures would you need to put into place? Maybe it’s the buddy system, walking to classes, escorting to classes, things like this that don’t really do anything, but they make you feel safer.
Micah: It is a school of magic, though, at the end of the day, so things happen or can happen just naturally. [laughs]
Eric: I can see that on the Hogwarts letterhead. “Dear ladies and gentlemen, things happen.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “We are a school of magic, and it’s 1999, so we’re going to party.”
Micah: And we may get to talking about this a little bit later on when we get into the whole grief counselor aspect of it, but I think if we were to take it and make any kind of comparison to modern day, it’s not all that different from some sort of traumatic event taking place at a school. And unfortunately, we’ve seen more than our fair share of that happen here in the United States over the last 20 years or so, and I think that probably a lot of what we’re going to talk about will be informed by what we’ve seen happen after those events. But I think the most important thing is that we don’t just forget it, like we have a tendency to do here in the United States, at least from a mainstream standpoint.
Eric: I can see them leaving a part of Hogwarts destroyed; maybe it’s the courtyard or something like that, where it’s a space for commemoration. A lot of people lost their lives, I’m pretty sure, in the courtyard, so that would be something where they’d just be like, “Yeah, this is us. This is part of our history.” So right in the front, right when you’re walking into the school, and then people can go and hang out there afterwards to think back, but then the rest of the school when you get in, the functional parts of the school are pristine and up and running.
Laura: Yeah, I think that tracks, because they do the same thing with Lily and James’s House in Godric’s Hollow, right? It’s preserved as it was the night it was destroyed when Voldemort killed Lily and James. That makes sense that there would be some sort of place that’s frozen in time. But I do have to say, I’ve been thinking about this “Hogwarts: Things happen,” and I’m imagining kids getting to school for the opening feast and being given swag bags that have water bottles in them that just say, “Hogwarts: Things happen.”
Andrew: [laughs] School’s new tagline.
Laura: And they’re like, “It’s okay, guys. We hear you.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: “Drink water. You’ll feel better.” And I feel like we need to make this water bottle now. Needs to have an image of Hogwarts on fire on it, and it can say, “Hogwarts: Things happen.”
Andrew: Sure. [laughs]
Eric: Swag bags. I mean, who’s the headmaster? Gilderoy Lockhart?
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: WB would probably sue us if we included Hogwarts, so we’d have to…
Eric: Oh, right.
Laura: Oh, it would just have to say “Things happen.”
Andrew: We just have to put, “Wizard school.” Well, “Wizard school: Things happen,” or “Things totally happen at wizard school.” I don’t know. We’ll workshop it.
Eric: We’ll workshop it.
Micah: Eric, though, you raise a really interesting question in that, who would be the headmaster or headmistress of the school for this year? I think that, given what we’re talking about, one of the things that can lend itself to at least feeling a level of comfort is having familiar faces from a professor standpoint, and so I was wondering what professors would still teach at Hogwarts after what transpired? We naturally identify with the students and wondering who would come back, would they end up even going to school in the first place if they’re first years? But let’s not forget, there’s also the professors, and they’ve been through a lot themselves as well. And do we think that maybe some of them would just say, “You know what, I’ve had enough. Hanging it up. That was too much for me.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, they all deserve a retirement with full benefits and many, many, many Orders of Merlin first class, but I think that the pressure would be on to show some strength, and I think they would all be asked to stay on for one more year at least, so that they can get Hogwarts back under its ground. A year not run by Death Eaters, and with no Voldemort trying to get in the castle, the first time in seven years that that hasn’t happened. To reset, basically.
Andrew: Yeah. And I think what normally happens after tragedies is there’s an effort to try and continue whatever they can, whether it’s at a school or anywhere else, like having the same teachers there from the before times would be helpful for the students because they can see the teachers have confidence and they still believe in the school. If all the teachers just bailed on Hogwarts, I think I as a student might be afraid to go back too, because it’s like, “If they’re bailing, why am I going back?” [laughs]
Eric: That’s a great point, actually. I was wondering whether Slughorn would stick on because you know he was hesitant to return to begin with, but he did stand his ground and fight in the battle. I think he might just gain some kind of peace with himself. I think he would probably stay, but it wouldn’t be an easy choice for him.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: I mean, he fought Voldemort, I believe, in a three-on-one confrontation.
Eric: I’m pretty sure that’s right.
Laura: He did, yeah.
Micah: He also was part… I mean, he didn’t really do a whole lot, but in that scene where McGonagall ends up confronting Snape to save Harry, it’s the other three Heads of House that show up, so there was a unified front, at least on the surface, amongst them. But yeah, I do wonder if some of the teachers would have just said, “I’m good. I’m taking my Hogwarts pension, my five Sickles and three Knuts, and hanging it up.”
Eric: Teacher salaries in the ’90s.
Laura: You think Professor Binns is done? He’s like, “You know what?”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: No, he just taught through the whole thing.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: He didn’t know what was going on.
Laura: He’s like, “Why is nobody turning up for History of Magic?”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: “The most important class of them all!”
Micah: Well, he’s got a whole new couple chapters to add to his class now.
Laura: Right. I was going to say, history is literally happening right now, Professor Binns. Where’re you at?
Eric: I think McGonagall is the obvious shoe-in for headmaster. I mean, I would have said after Dumbledore died that she would have been the headmaster, and obviously, we had to do the Snape thing for a very good reason. But she was deputy headmistress forever, and only through a bizarre twist of Umbridge and Snape usurping that power in their own respective years… she would be the person that I would go to to become the new head person at Hogwarts.
Andrew: Yeah, I think she’s the heir apparent.
Micah: I do find it interesting, though, that none of the Heads of House were killed in the battle.
Andrew: Are you saying there’s a conspiracy here?
Micah: Well, actually, none of the professors were killed in the battle, on the current staff.
Eric: Huh. Yeah, unless you… because Lupin was but he was previous staff.
Andrew: They received security nightmare training at the school, so they knew how to survive. Survival training at Hogwarts. [laughs]
Eric: They did the drills. Yeah, they did the Battle of Hogwarts drills, where it’s like, “Okay, if it really comes down to it…”
Andrew: [laughs] How to survive Hogwarts. The teachers got the class; the students didn’t.
Micah: They all hid in the Chamber.
Eric: Maybe being a Head of House gives you special protection. I don’t know.
Micah: Maybe. But there’s a good question here, though: Assuming McGonagall does become headmistress, who takes over Gryffindor House in this school year?
Eric: I love this question.
Laura: Me too. I was thinking about it, and I feel like the most fun possibility is that it’s maybe a recently graduated Gryffindor, not someone who just graduated, but maybe someone on the younger side. And I was like, what’s Oliver Wood up to? Could he come be the Gryffindor Head of House and teach flying lessons?
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah!
Eric: I love that.
Andrew: That’s a good pick. Yeah, I didn’t really have any other ideas, but I like the general idea of a recently graduated Hogwarts student. You actually see this happen in the Muggle world, too; I’ve seen people who I went to school with through middle school or high school go back to those schools just a few years later to become a teacher. I always think that’s super cool.
Eric: Well, and so McGonagall not only is leaving behind the Head of Gryffindor position, but she’d be leaving behind Transfiguration class, so you’d need somebody to teach that. Maybe not the same person that’s also Head of Gryffindor House, but somebody who we know that’s also been good at Transfiguration?
Micah: That’s a good point.
Laura: Yeah. The only other person I can think of is Hagrid could be Head of Gryffindor.
Andrew: Is that role for him?
Laura: Here’s the thing: Is he a great teacher? Eh, but I think that you could make an argument for him being an amazing Head of House. He would be so caring with those students, especially with first years. Remember how he was with the trio when they were young? He would show up at the common room with his not-so-great cooking, but people would like him so much that they would at least try to eat those rock hard cakes he makes. I think that it would be a good match, potentially.
Andrew: I just… the reason I asked that is because I figure he’s more of an outdoorsy type, and would he have to spend more time in the castle? I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe he could get away with not spending more time in the castle.
Eric: Right.
Micah: That’s a lot of stairs for him to climb.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Maybe Gryffindors could do more outdoor activities.
Andrew: He’ll bring the common room outside.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Yeah! Maybe everyone could do more exercise this year, more walking.
Laura: The Gryffindor common room is now in the Forbidden Forest.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: That’d be cool.
Andrew: Right along the edge.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: All of a sudden, people are sitting on the Sorting stool being like, “Not Gryffindor, not Gryffindor…”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “I don’t care if Harry was in it.”
Micah: I thought about Percy as an option.
Eric: Yeah, I’m wondering if he’s too wet behind the ears; I’m wondering if he graduated too recently. But it’s just that we don’t know those sorts of people, right? Bill Weasley graduated a few years before Harry starts; I’m thinking, “Oh, maybe Bill,” but we don’t really know many people who would fit that niche of they’re old enough to be a competent and confident teacher, but Harry wouldn’t know them, necessarily.
Micah: Right. Well, if we had Lupin, he would have been a good choice for that, I think.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: And we can pluck from former retirees, the ones that didn’t die. I guess most of the DADA people are gone. [laughs] But any of the teachers… like Grubbly-Plank could get promoted to a full-time position somewhere. There’s definitely people that we could reach out to. As well as… it wasn’t just Hogwarts that was attacked. It was the Ministry was infiltrated; it was a horrible place to work for a year. I can see some more government types being like, “You know, if I want some peace and quiet, I’m going to get into teaching to try and do something for the people, for the future generations.”
Micah: Earlier, we were talking about the fact that this would be graduation time for Ginny and Luna, and also Hermione, who made the choice to come back for her final year. And I’m just curious what we think a Hogwarts graduation would look like, and as a follow-up to that, do we feel as if we were robbed as readers for…? We spend seven years at school with these students, but then never, ever do we see a graduation ceremony.
Eric: I just assumed it was like the leaving feast, where they throw their hats up at the end and it’s “Hooray.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, because the seventh years are at the end of year term feast, and it does… there’s never anything said about them having a separate ceremony, is there?
Andrew: I don’t think so.
Eric: It’s interesting the way that the seventh year of Hogwarts was proposed as optional sort of late in the game, because everybody turns of age before they go to that year, so I think it’s just… it was one of those things you would expect to see, but then it’s like, “Oh, wait, but the law means you don’t even have to go to that year, so why would they graduate?”
Laura: I do wonder, assuming there is some kind of graduation ceremony or acknowledgement, if we would see each student killed in the Battle of Hogwarts being posthumously honored during the year that would have been their graduation.
Eric: I can see a big funeral for everybody, or a big memorial service, start of term so everyone’s back kind of a thing. And yeah, it’d be a little bit of a downer, but I think that the only way to move forward is to commemorate what happened. And to that end, I think the Sorting Hat would definitely have a song about it, and there would probably be a mandatory meeting of the entire school.
Micah: I mean, I could see some fun stuff going on at graduation. You know how there’s always that tendency for people to do crazy stuff when they go up on stage to accept their diploma?
Andrew: Shoot some spells off. I would just ride out on a broom.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Or maybe summon a Hippogriff and fly out on that. I’d have to make a grand exit, I think.
Micah: Who would hand out the diplomas? Do you think it would be McGonagall? Would it be maybe the Minister, which is Kingsley at the time?
Andrew: No, I think it’d have to be the Headmaster or the Heads of House. But I feel like you would shake the hands of the headmaster and all four Heads of House, then maybe try to high five the ghosts or something.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Awkward.
Micah: Who do we think might be a good commencement speaker for this particular year?
Eric: Harry Potter.
Micah: I knew somebody was going to say that.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: I mean, maybe.
Andrew: It seems most appropriate.
Eric: Harry would give the worst commencement speech. [laughs]
Laura: He also wouldn’t want to, I don’t think.
Eric: Well, Hermione would have her valedictorian speech.
Micah: But I don’t know if… well, maybe by the time May or June rolls around, people will be in more of a spirited mood and willing to celebrate.
Andrew: Well, unfortunately, though, by around that time…
Micah: It’s the anniversary, right?
Andrew: … you’d hit the one year anniversary, yeah, exactly.
Eric: Oh, no.
Andrew: So it’s like, can you even have a…? Yeah, I think you… it’d be complicated. They’d have to be a month apart.
Laura: Although there’s something strong, wouldn’t there be, in having a celebration on the one-year anniversary? Like, “We have overcome, look how far we’ve come, we’re moving on with our lives. We’ve reclaimed Hogwarts; it’s ours. We won, and we’re not letting what happened deter us from our goal of educating the people of our community.”
Andrew: Right. “We’re stronger together. We’re united. We’ll never let this happen again.”
Eric: Yeah, maybe there’s a year-long project to develop something that helps commemorate or help celebrate… like if they build the memorial, if the year is spent turning around the space in, say, the courtyard or something, into something where every student has a hand in creating the magic for it.
Micah: So I know we talked a lot about the grief aspect of the fallout of the Battle of Hogwarts, and a lot of patrons posted questions about whether or not there would be the appropriate support in place. And I know we also have a section here in the discussion for that as well, so Eric, I don’t know if you want to lead us through this?
Eric: Sure. I feel like this is the year Hogwarts has to have grief counselors, or somebody who knows something about what mentally is going on with these students and is addressing it. Right out the gate… although I said things would be mostly similar, as similar as possible – because human beings do not handle change well, period – I think there are certain little things that the school could do right out the gate that would help. So more break times in student schedules. More downtime. Maybe there’s not this huge push towards exams, because we’ve actually seen in the Harry Potter books, sometimes exams get canceled. Maybe there’s just sort of refocusing; not trying to squeeze the meat out the hole, get these students out of school. Just be like, “We’re here. We’re working on our identity.” Downtime, downtime, downtime.
Andrew: Yeah, or maybe just less classes you need to take each term, just so you have less of a workload.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, there’s just chaos everywhere. And to that point, every student that goes to Hogwarts, their parents are facing that same chaos. The government was infiltrated. The government was actively sending harmful propaganda, which you just don’t forget, you just don’t back down from. So I think everyone who lives in the wizarding world during this year – and the years immediately to follow – have to really cope with what happened, and so they’re all going to be doing this work. They’re all going to be doing this… take a step back, grieve, process, that kind of a thing. So Hogwarts should get the first pick of mental anguish counselors, for sure.
Micah: It is truly amazing, though, that they weren’t put in place before.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I know we spend a lot of time talking about how this school is a security nightmare, but just thinking of all the things that transpired during Harry’s time at Hogwarts, if you were to single out any one of the events that are the main events of each of the books, in and of themselves they’re enough for grief counselors, right? Chamber of Secrets, students are being turned into stone.
Eric: You could be next!
Micah: Who knows what is going through their mind, if anything?
Andrew: It toughens them up. Builds some character.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Yeah, moral fiber.
Eric: Speaking of that incident, they were going to close Hogwarts for that. I mean, there was… if a student… if another… if those attacks kept happening… they removed Dumbledore, but if one or two more students got Petrified or killed, the school was going to be closed, and then what would people do? If that was a real concern… Hogwarts is governed by the Board of Governors; they would have shut the school down, and then people would have had to have done homeschooling or something. There seems to be all these other alternatives for schooling than Hogwarts, but Hogwarts needs grief counselors, because all of this is happening to these students. The threat was so real that Hogwarts could close. Now that the threat has passed, fill the vacuum that was left by not talking about it, not dealing with it when it was happening, by now talking about it.
Micah: Dumbledore really is the primary reason why this school is in desperate need of grief counselors.
Laura: Yep.
Micah: He was willing to put the school in this position through the decisions that he made in the lead-up to Deathly Hallows, and I’m just shocked that as a headmaster, he had such disregard for his students that he would basically allow to happen what happened, so that an entire battle came to the doorstep of the school. And not even thinking enough of himself to be around to defend that school.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: He definitely noped out there.
Micah: Sorry, I’m being tough on Albus tonight.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: He was like, “Good luck, y’all. Deuces.” Just yeet. [laughs]
Andrew: “I set you all up for this. You’re all ready.”
Eric: So for the ’98-’99 year, I think that Hermione, Luna, Ginny, the Dumbledore’s Army members would assume kind of a de facto prefect rule. I think maybe McGonagall as headmistress might rely on them the way that you normally would during a normal year on the prefects to keep order, check in with students about their mental health. You actually know that Ginny, Luna, and Hermione would be really good at doing that, checking in with students.
Andrew: Yeah, I was going to say, what if there was sort of group counseling, in a way? Like, kids got together, part of the Gryffindors got together for… maybe group therapy is the wrong way to put it, but just these designated times where everyone could get together and maybe just reflect on their friends who passed. And it wouldn’t always be a downbeat discussion, but there would be times where it did get serious, but then other times it would be lighthearted and more fun, so they can all remind each other that they still have each other and there is a life after Battle of Hogwarts. Life goes on after Battle of Hogwarts.
Eric: I think there would definitely be a huge pull away from tribalist sports where it’s like, “This House is against this House.” The call for unity goes beyond just still putting up with “We’ve got to win the House Cup.” If anything, if they want to create peace, they should cancel the House Cup and House points, more so than exams, because that was driving people into this toxic, again, tribalism. I think having multi-House group therapy sessions – or group hangouts, whatever you want to call them – in the Room of Requirement with comfy chairs would go a long way.
Laura: I was going to say, maybe the Room of Requirement will come in real clutch and procure counselors.
Eric: Oh!
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: People go there and all of a sudden there’s just built-in counselors.
Eric: Well, or there’ll be those practice training dummies that you get in the movies, like, “Tell me about your feelings.”
Laura: [laughs] “How does that make you feel?”
Eric: Yeah, and it’s just… you pull the string and then they say, “How does that make you feel?”
[Andrew laugh]
Eric: Well, one thing I wanted to touch on… so growing up in both middle school and high school, unfortunately, there were students in my school that died, and in high school, it was a devastating car accident; in middle school, it was a different tragedy altogether. But I wanted to talk about, if you guys share this experience, what the school might have done to commemorate those students? In particular, I know at the end of the year definitely something in the yearbook was written about commemorating these students. I know their locker, if you walked by their locker throughout the year, it was not given to another student. It was like… that student’s locker is basically like a memorial shrine sort of thing. Were there any other things that happened to your guys’ school that might apply to Hogwarts?
Andrew: I definitely remember… because we lost a couple of students and teachers in my high school years, and I definitely remember them really emphasizing that we have brought in extra counselors to talk through things, and if you need to leave class and take a minute or maybe meet with a counselor immediately, it’s perfectly fine, or if you need to take some time off, some extra days off, it’s okay. They were just extra welcoming in those ways. But I think your list kind of covered it; the tribute in the yearbook and the grief counselors, the locker tribute, I assume we did something similar. It’s a nice touch.
Laura: I remember that. I feel like outside of those items, though – the locker tribute, the yearbook tribute, maybe a letter home to parents – there wasn’t really much else done. They were like, “Yeah, feel free to go to the counselor if you need it,” but they didn’t bring in extra grief counselors as backup. And there was also… and it’s probably something that we’ve gotten better at in our schools – at least, I would hope – at the time, it always felt like there was this assumption that if you weren’t friends with the person, that you wouldn’t be affected by it, which we know is not true. So my hope is that schools have gotten better at that now, and that Hogwarts would be recognizing of the collective trauma that all these kids went through. Even if you did not fight in the Battle of Hogwarts yourself, certainly you had friends who did.
Micah: Yeah, very similar to what’s been shared already, and I just think, too, that at the time, given that… if we’re talking about middle or even high school years, you’re not able to fully process what’s happened in many cases, too, so I also think that again… I was in middle school and high school in the mid to late ’90s when these types of things happened. You don’t know if, by taking the time that Andrew mentioned, or going to see a counselor if it’s available to you, there’s that perception of you potentially being weak or not strong, and it’s looking around at your peers, too, and seeing, “How are they coping with it? How are they managing the situation?” And so you may actually feel pressured, in a way, to not take advantage of those resources that are available to you, so I think…
Andrew: Yeah, “Don’t talk about your feelings, don’t show your feelings,” stuff like that.
Micah: Exactly. But for Hogwarts, I would hope they would do some kind of hall of remembrance, whether those are with maybe portraits or statues… a way to properly recognize…
Andrew: Oooh, yeah. I think statues for teachers, though we did say that no teachers died at the Battle of Hogwarts. I mean, there could be a statue of Dumbledore, even though he wasn’t directly killed in the Battle of Hogwarts. Yeah. I like the portraits idea too.
Micah: But Lavender would never be in her portrait, so you wouldn’t know…
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Lavender, there’d be a question mark next to her portrait. Maybe, unless she shows up for school this year? We’ll find out soon. So we have this thriving community on Patreon, and from time to time we ask for answers from our patrons about certain topics. We did get some answers from patrons pertaining to this question, some really good ones.
Eric: This one is from Courtney, who says, “When they fixed the castle, did they take the opportunity to update things? Did they get better security? How about open and clean out the Chamber of Secrets? Do we get elevators and unisex bathrooms?”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Hey, listen, one thing at a time, okay? That Chamber is going nowhere. It’s not hurting anybody. Nobody’s priority.
Micah: I thought the prefects’ bathroom is unisex.
Laura: It is.
Eric: Yes, but very exclusive.
Andrew: We’re going to get so many answers to so many questions in Hogwarts Legacy.
Laura: I know.
Andrew: Whether they call it canon or not, we should just call it all canon. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, it’ll save us some some headaches; I agree. Why build back? Why not do something totally new and fix what was broken to begin with? I like the idea of a lift.
Andrew: I do think there would be improvements security-wise, because they have to make the students and teachers feel safe there. Even if there is no threat, there needs to be some theatrics. Like here in America, we added the TSA after 9/11, and there’s a pretty general consensus that the TSA – God bless them, love all the people who work for them – does it actually help? Does it actually make our planes and our airports more secure? I think the jury is very much out on that. So there needs to be a little more security theater, I think, going on at Hogwarts, starting in the ’98-’99 school year.
Micah: With McGonagall, though, as headmistress, I don’t think she’s taking crap from anybody. So while Dumbledore was very lenient – for lack of a better word – in his policies, I don’t think McGonagall would allow anywhere close to the amount of security nightmares that went on. But that’s not to say there shouldn’t be new policies.
Eric: Yeah, I think that’s right on. I mean, like you were saying, Dumbledore pretty much put a target on Hogwarts every year by his actions – his actions, his inactions, his choice of appointments of staff, everything – and so it’s crazy to think about how much safer Hogwarts will be with Dumbledore not at the helm.
Micah: Yeah, I mean, he should never have let Harry come to Hogwarts in the first place; that would have made…
Andrew: [laughs] “No, you shall not pass!”
[Laura laughs]
Micah: He should have sent him off somewhere else. Homeschool.
Eric: Private tutoring. Yeah, pretty much.
Laura: I mean, who was going to home school Harry Potter? [laughs]
Eric: Well…
Andrew: Yeah, did he want to be at home for a second longer? He was ready to get the heck out of there.
Eric: Send him to Figg’s.
Micah: I’m still trying to figure out the elevator part of this question. [laughs] Because of the moving staircases?
Eric: It’s an accessibility thing. It’s just in general thinking about a smarter layout, because they built these things a thousand years ago. I mean, the bathrooms are newer, we know.
Andrew: Well, and think of how tall the castle is. It’s probably ten floors of stairs just to get up to top, minimum.
Micah: Well, I think…
Eric: Yeah, so if you think about what percentage of the castle is rubble, there’s no reason not to switch some things around, make it a little bit better, make it a little smarter, a little bit more accessible and inclusive.
Andrew: How about a nice single-story floor plan for Hogwarts? No stairs at all. Single story. [laughs]
Micah: ADA accessible.
Laura: I was going to say, open floor plan. Those are very in now.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Nice stainless steel refrigerators.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: And as far as the unisex bathrooms go, I think it depends who’s continuing to write the story.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: There you go.
Andrew: Nice three-car garage. Nice LED lighting throughout. Okay, I’ll stop with my wish list.
Eric: You’re just discussing your dream house. [laughs]
Andrew: Nice pool in the backyard, jacuzzi…
Micah: No, he’s discussing what he has right now.
Andrew: [laughs] It’s not single story, and no pool.
Eric: But how many car garage?
Andrew: [laughs] Two. Only two.
Eric: Okay, okay.
Andrew: Steph says, “Did Harry finally take a damn break? Or more likely, was he caught up in 12 months of trials and hearings at the Ministry? Also, where did he stay? Was he living with the Weasleys at the Burrow? Or did he rent a flat somewhere?” Those are good questions. I hope Harry took a break.
Laura: Yeah. I could see him staying at the Burrow for that year.
Andrew: Yeah, be good to be close, living very close with friends and family.
Laura: And he and Ron probably visit Hogwarts fairly regularly to see Hermione and Ginny.
Eric: Oh, their SO’s are there. So then what’s that like when Harry comes back? What’s it like for him? What’s it like for the students? Does McGonagall have to ask him not to do that?
Andrew: See, yeah, I was going to say I would think Ginny…
Laura: It’s like that SNL sketch.
Andrew: I would think Ginny would go home for the weekends just to escape Hogwarts. Harry doesn’t want to go there; there’s going to be a lot of attention on him. Hogwarts is still probably triggering to him. So I would say Ginny would go home. When I was in college, I would always go home to record MuggleCast, no joke, and do my laundry. And because I didn’t like my roommate.
Eric: They could just go to… Ron and Harry could go to Hogsmeade and stay above the Hog’s Head, and Ginny and Hermione could hang out with them there.
Andrew: I could see Harry and Ron splitting a bachelor pad, a two-bedroom bachelor pad. And of course, Harry and Ron aren’t bachelors, but you know what I mean. Just two bros living together.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: They’re bachelors. They’re not engaged yet.
Eric: As far as whether there would be hearings for Harry, I think that’s accurate based on what we know of the wizarding world, but I don’t think he would be victimized… or I don’t think he would be oppressed the way that he… he wouldn’t be in the same position that he was placed in at the hearings that he’s been to before. This is the “Everyone, let’s kiss Harry’s ass right now” kind of hearing where we’re moving forward, especially because the Ministry… I’m sure the public won’t know everything bad that happened, but the people where it counts do, and knowing that Kingsley is going to be promoted to Minister for Magic, I feel like, inevitably, you know they’re going to be having those talks about “How do we shape the future of the government? What oversights did we have that we can…? What security breaches can we sure up?”
Laura: True.
Micah: Yeah, I mean, we know he ends up working for the Ministry, which to me still is a shocker. I’m stunned that he ended up going to do that. But yeah, I agree.
Eric: I think you’ve got to create a world that you believe in, though, right? So it’s a mark if Harry is working for the government, it must be a government that he believes in.
Micah: I don’t know; he just fought so hard against them in the series, it’s just wild that he would end up working for them.
Laura: Yeah. Well, and I have to think, with the idea of Harry potentially going through hearings and trials and things like that, I don’t see him having very much patience for that after everything he’s been through with the Ministry, so I could see him going to Kingsley and being like, “We’ve got to keep this short. I’m not going through weeks and months of this crap. One hearing, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but that’s it.” And I think Kingsley would go for it.
Eric: And at the end he’s going to go, “I am Iron Man.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Next question is from Sean: “How badly do y’all think Hermione smoked everyone on exam scores, since she didn’t have to save Harry or Ron’s skin and do half of their homework anymore?” [laughs] That must have been great.
Laura: Must have really ticked off whoever the top student in the sixth year was in Ginny and Luna’s year. They were poised to be valedictorian, and then Hermione stays back an extra year.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, that’s amazing.
Laura: I’d be so mad.
Micah: I just had read it initially like, “Do you think Hermione smoked?” And I was like, “Wait, what?”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: “Huh?”
Laura: You know what? You gotta have that stress relief.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: That’s true.
Andrew: That’s how they’re getting kids to come back to Hogwarts. They’re going to be like, “Hey, we know you need a way to relax. We’ve got some ideas, okay?”
Laura: We don’t have grief counselors, but…
Micah: Geoff Hutton wants to know, “Do you think the Room of Requirement would be used more often, since so many people had to use it over the past year and awareness is probably more widespread?”
Laura: Probably.
Eric: Yeah, I think so too. I think that the Room of Requirement… because we saw this in the Hogwarts Legacy trailer, too, that it’s maybe like a hub of operations. It clearly comes and goes in fashion; people know about it or they don’t. But there are probably a few years where it’s a lot more active, and I think that the ’98-’99 Hogwarts year would be another year where it’s active, while those students… like you’re saying, the students that either used it to escape from the Carrows, or any other reason, would now seek new ways of using it. And I think… can it be used by multiple people at once, or can it only be…?
Andrew: That’s what I was just going to ask. I don’t know.
Eric: Because Harry can’t get in there when Draco is using it, right?
Laura: Right.
Andrew: So no. Could the room split itself up into six separate rooms if demand gets so high? That’s my only guess for how.
Eric: I think that seems…
Micah: The multi-purpose Room of Requirement?
Laura: It’s like Zoom waiting rooms. Zoom breakouts.
Andrew: [laughs] “All right, everybody, break out into separate rooms,” yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: But no, doesn’t Draco show up there, though, when Harry is going after the diadem?
Eric: Yeah, he gets in because… yeah.
Laura: Well, because doesn’t he figure out – and this might have actually been in Book 5 – he figures out how to get into the Room of Requirement when Harry is there? He figures out he needs to be like, “I need to know what Harry Potter is doing,” or “I need to see what he’s doing.”
Andrew: Ohh.
Laura: So maybe that’s how he got in in Book 7?
Eric: And I think maybe that one time Harry wasn’t doing the backfill thing where you have to be like, “And you cannot let Draco in here.” Interesting there. Cameron Kelly says, “We know Hermione went back for her seventh year, so I gotta know, what were the sleeping arrangements like? Did they just shove a sixth bed into Ginny’s dorm?” Yeah, maybe.
Laura: I don’t want to get too dark here, but we don’t necessarily know that five female students would be coming back in Ginny’s year, right?
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: Hermione probably deserves her own room. Maybe they can remodel one of the old classrooms into a private bedroom for Hermione. Feel like she’s earned that.
Micah: She could just stay in Hogsmeade, too, if she really wanted to.
Andrew: There you go.
Laura: True.
Micah: Commute. Take that short walk.
Andrew: Nice little walk. [laughs]
Laura: All right, Jennifer wants to know, “Was there still a very strong stigma against Slytherin House the following year? After the initial Sorting, do you think the students would mix (like sitting at each other’s tables during meals) more and be given more opportunities to have shared spaces?”
Andrew: I’m hopeful at the start of term there was a very powerful speech from, let’s say, McGonagall about how we need to welcome all students in all Houses, and maybe specifically calling out Slytherin. But I think there would be a real opportunity there to convince the students to treat Slytherins no different than anybody else.
Eric: That’s a bit ironic, because wasn’t it McGonagall that put all the Slytherins in the dungeons?
Andrew: She could be like, “Everybody makes mistakes. I have evolved on this matter.”
Laura: [laughs] Everybody has those days. Is the dungeons thing a movie-ism, though?
Micah: I thought it was more of just letting them go if they wanted to, right? Telling them that… yeah, Chloé is pointing out that they can just leave if they want to. I think the dungeons was done in the movies for effect.
Andrew: And it does make sense why McGonagall would say, “Leave if you want to,” because things are a little awkward in terms of the people who are fighting Hogwarts and the students. [laughs]
Micah: We talked about grief counseling, but I think they need to do more to promote inner-House unity throughout the year. If they’re really going to try and acclimate Slytherin into the fold here, I think they need to do more student bonding or breaking down barriers.
Eric: They also need more PR. They need better ways of communicating each House’s traits to their own members, even, and saying, “Look, if you’re ambitious, that’s not a bad thing.” They need to basically take our MuggleCast episodes that we did on each of the Houses and blast them, or have somewhere you can listen to them in the library or something. Because I feel like growing up, even if you get Sorted into Slytherin and you’re like, “Ooh, I don’t know how I feel about this because my friends say that it’s the bad House,” to have somebody who’s probably supposed to be your Head of House… but we never see McGonagall having to answer for toxic athleticism that Wood has, but I feel like you really need a lot more understanding of how to value those traits within yourself, instead of going with whatever the common conception is of that particular trait in the moment, or in the school, in your student body.
Micah: Totally. I think you should have to take a class on the other Houses.
Eric: That’s a great idea.
Andrew: That would be great, yeah. House history.
Laura: Hogwarts studies.
Micah: Merlin was a Slytherin, right?
Eric and Laura: Right.
Andrew: All right, next question. HufflepuffleKittFluffle said, “What happened to the knight statues after Piertotem Locomotor?” That was my McGonagall.
Eric: Very good.
Andrew: Well, hopefully they returned to their positions.
Eric: [laughs] They went to the pub.
Laura: I don’t know. If you were granted sentience for the first time, would you go back willingly?
Eric: Listen, it fades. It fades.
Andrew: Well, maybe McGonagall was like, “Edit, undo” after the job was done.
Laura: That’s tragic.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Some of them got smashed, so yeah, they would need a Reparo spell.
Eric: You said, they went to the pub – oh, you mean a different smashed, yeah.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Remember those giants with the big billy clubs that came in and destroyed them?
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: I like the going to the pub idea. That’s fun. Or going to the local…
Eric: That would just be fun to see. You’re waiting in line for butterbeer, and who’s in front of you? You can’t see; it’s these giant gray things, and you’re like, “Oh, it’s the Hogwarts statues.” Yeah, I mean, if their whole purpose… McGonagall in the movie is like, “Do your duty to our school,” so if it was a duty thing, then they are just going to return to their stations and lose their sentience until the next time that they are called upon to defend the school, and they’re going to feel like it’s their purpose.
Laura: It’s messed up.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I mean, there’s a lot of stuff at Hogwarts that’s messed up. You can summon food from nowhere, apparently, but they make house-elves prepare food in the kitchens.
Andrew: Good point.
Laura: I don’t know.
Andrew: Well, Laura, maybe in Hogwarts Legacy you’ll be able to free the house-elves from the kitchen.
Laura: Apparently not, because they’re still there during Harry’s time.
Micah: Good point.
Andrew: But remember the tagline of Hogwarts Legacy? “Write your own story.” Or no, “Live the unwritten.” [laughs]
Laura: There we go.
Micah: “Holiday 2022.” Next question comes from Emily, who wanted to know, “We’ve obviously talked about Hermione returning to Hogwarts for her final year, but any other students we think would have followed suit there and finished up their education?”
Eric: Well, who do we often talk about about being in league with Hermione academic-wise? Draco would definitely go back to Hogwarts, I think.
Andrew: [sighs] Would he?
Laura: But would he need to? He was there for his seventh year, mostly, wasn’t he?
Eric: You know what? You’re right. Never mind.
Andrew: But also, I feel like it’d just be awkward for him.
Eric: I feel like people who… it would definitely… he would be the textbook example of somebody who is made very uncomfortable by the association that he has, especially because he carries the Dark Mark. Yeah, he wouldn’t go back. I take that back. But there should be people… honestly, anyone who was at Hogwarts during Harry’s years should just get a do-over, should be able to come back. There was so much going on, like, “This year we didn’t even have this class with this teacher, because the teacher was…” I just feel like…
Andrew: Or even just a shortened school year. Just be offered a shortened school year by Hogwarts. Or maybe they can teach those students on the weekends in Hogsmeade or something. I don’t know. You should give them some nice alternative situations, since they did go through hell that year.
Laura: Or summer classes. Not that year, but the following year.
Andrew: Yeah. Okay, and our final question comes from Julia Paradis, or Paradise. I’m going to pretend it’s Paradise, because that sounds nice. “How Harry and Ginny got back together. I’ve definitely read a hundred fanfics about it.” Eric, I wanted to include this, since you are a Ginny fan.
Eric: Thank you, I appreciate it.
Andrew: How did they get back together? How much time passed?
Eric: Here’s my headcanon… oh, how much time passed? It would be pretty quick, because all of his stated reasons for going away are kaput and he would know that it was a mistake. Harry would have a line, something that was prepared in advance, like a speech, like “I was wrong, I’m sorry…”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: And he would get maybe the first three words out, “I was wrong,” and then she would put her finger on his mouth and be like, “It’s okay,” and then kiss him.
Andrew: Aww.
Laura: Very wholesome. Yeah, I feel like there would be a degree of understanding, like “We just went through hell,” so nobody really has to sit here and explain why they felt the need to go hunt down Horcruxes. Because honestly, that’s the… Harry saved the world at the end of the day, so is she going to be mad at him for that?
Eric: So he gets a mulligan on the whole relationship thing.
Laura: Yeah, I think so.
Andrew: Clearly, whatever happens, it worked out. And that concludes this week’s discussion. Hope everybody enjoyed that. Hopefully we answered some of your questions and maybe gave you some material to chew on. If you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by writing or sending a voice message to MuggleCast@gmail.com. If you’re sending a voice message, just record a message using the Voice Memo app on your phone. You can also use the contact form on MuggleCast.com, or you can call us the old fashioned way. We are 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. Next week, we’re going to review some of the official Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore material that has been released over the past week or so, some very – capital V – very interesting clips have surfaced. These have been officially released by Warner Bros., so it’s not like we’re spoiling, per se; we hope they’re keeping lots of other secrets for the actual movie. But we’ll talk about what they’ve released so far, and there is some exciting stuff to talk about. So stay tuned for Episode 556. By the way, one of our listeners, Justin, while we’ve been talking, did the math: MuggleCast Episode 666, if we were to do an episode every week between now and if we were to take no more weeks off until we hit 666, Episode 666 would fall on May 2, 2024.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: Battle of Hogwarts anniversary! 666!
Laura: That’s… oof.
Quizzitch
Andrew: All right, it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Yes, we’re back by popular demand. Also, now we’re in the chronological way of recording these episodes, so Quizzitch from last week’s question was: What is Yusuf Kama’s mother’s name?
Micah: Bunty. Oh, sorry.
Eric: That’s a secret. That’s a spoiler. Shh. Okay, the correct answer is Laurena Kama, in the story that he tells. And congratulations to the following folks who got that right: I missed Laura last week, says somebody…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … Mad-Eye is a Hufflepuf, Micah; Snapes on a Plate; Inosia B.; SlytherinPrincess97; Bubotuber Pus; Sir King of Kings; Legalize Gillyweed; Jess is Slytherin; Mila; Snape Is Our King; Remus John Lupin; The Jessly Hallows; Buff Daddy; Yusuf’s Mama; and Tommy Haddad.
Laura: [laughs] Yusuf’s mama.
Eric: Yeah. I feel reinvigorated, like there’s an energy that I didn’t know was depleted, and now it’s back after reading those names.
Andrew: Nothing like a good break.
Eric: Yeah, so in spirit of a new direction for Quizzitch, the following question is multiple choice. Okay, this week’s Quizzitch question: Finish this line of dialogue. “Minister, the evidence of the Dark Lord’s return is _____.” Is it A) incomparable, B) inconvenient, C) inconceivable, or D) incontrovertible? Submit your answer to us on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or click “Quizzitch” from the menu on the top.
Andrew: We’re sure everybody’s missed Quizzitch, but if you’re missing Quizzitch Live, we’ll have some news about that in another week or two, so stay tuned. A couple of reminders before we wrap up: Make sure you’re following the show for free in your favorite podcast app so you get every episode when we release it on Tuesday mornings. You’ll get it Monday mornings if you’re a patron at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You’ll also get bonus MuggleCast installments – we’re recording a new one this week about spring break in the wizarding world – and you get access to our livestreams and our planning docs, the new MuggleCast Collectors Club, and so much more. Patreon.com/MuggleCast. We couldn’t do it without you, so thanks, everybody, for your support there. And also, follow us on social media; we’re @MuggleCast on Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, and Twitter. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Live the unwritten.